TERMS STARTING WITH
main bhukha hun [Hind.] ::: [I am hungry].
main diagonal: Also known as the leading diagonal of a matrix.
main droite (French): [played with the] right hand (abbreviation: MD or m.d.)
maine ::: n. --> One of the New England States.
mainframe "computer" A term originally referring to the cabinet containing the central processor unit or "main frame" of a room-filling {Stone Age} batch machine. After the emergence of smaller "{minicomputer}" designs in the early 1970s, the traditional {big iron} machines were described as "mainframe computers" and eventually just as mainframes. The term carries the connotation of a machine designed for batch rather than interactive use, though possibly with an interactive {time-sharing} operating system retrofitted onto it; it is especially used of machines built by {IBM}, {Unisys} and the other great {dinosaurs} surviving from computing's {Stone Age}. It has been common wisdom among hackers since the late 1980s that the mainframe architectural tradition is essentially dead (outside of the tiny market for {number crunching} {supercomputers} (see {Cray})), having been swamped by the recent huge advances in {integrated circuit} technology and low-cost personal computing. As of 1993, corporate America is just beginning to figure this out - the wave of failures, takeovers, and mergers among traditional mainframe makers have certainly provided sufficient omens (see {dinosaurs mating}). Supporters claim that mainframes still house 90% of the data major businesses rely on for mission-critical applications, attributing this to their superior performance, reliability, scalability, and security compared to microprocessors. [{Jargon File}] (1996-07-22)
mainframe ::: (computer) A term originally referring to the cabinet containing the central processor unit or main frame of a room-filling Stone Age batch used of machines built by IBM, Unisys and the other great dinosaurs surviving from computing's Stone Age.It has been common wisdom among hackers since the late 1980s that the mainframe architectural tradition is essentially dead (outside of the tiny market for failures, takeovers, and mergers among traditional mainframe makers have certainly provided sufficient omens (see dinosaurs mating).Supporters claim that mainframes still house 90% of the data major businesses rely on for mission-critical applications, attributing this to their superior performance, reliability, scalability, and security compared to microprocessors.[Jargon File] (1996-07-22)
mainframe programmer/analyst "job" A peson who writes and maintains business applications. He develops and supports large-scale batch or high-volume transaction environments that require {IBM/MVS} {mainframe} processing power or equivalent. He programs in business-oriented languages such as {COBOL}, {CICS}, or {fourth-generation languages}. (2004-03-12)
mainframe programmer/analyst ::: (job) A peson who writes and maintains business applications. He develops and supports large-scale batch or high-volume transaction environments that require IBM/MVS mainframe processing power or equivalent. He programs in business-oriented languages such as COBOL, CICS, or fourth-generation languages.(2004-03-12)
main gauche (French): [played with the] left hand (abbreviation: MG or m.g.)
main-gauche ::: n. --> The dagger held in the left hand, while the rapier is held in the right; -- used to parry thrusts of the adversary&
main-hamper ::: n. --> A hamper to be carried in the hand; a hand basket used in carrying grapes to the press.
mainland ::: n. --> The continent; the principal land; -- opposed to island, or peninsula.
main loop "programming" The top-level {control flow} construct in an input- or {event-driven} program, the one which receives and acts or dispatches on the program's input {events}. See also {driver}. [{Jargon File}] (2004-03-12)
main loop ::: (programming) The top-level control flow construct in an input- or event-driven program, the one which receives and acts or dispatches on the program's input events.See also driver.[Jargon File](2004-03-12)
mainly ::: adv. --> Very strongly; mightily; to a great degree.
Principally; chiefly.
mainmast ::: n. --> The principal mast in a ship or other vessel.
main memory ::: (storage, architecture) The storage device used by a computer to hold the currently executing program and its working data. A modern computer's main ferrite core memory was one popular form of main memory, leading to the use of the term core for main memory.Computers have several other sorts of memory, distinguished by their access time, storage capicity, cost, and the typical lifetime or rate of change of the change every few machine instructions. Other kinds are cache, PROM, magnetic disk (which may be used for virtual memory) and magnetic tape. (1996-11-04)
main memory "storage, architecture" The {storage device} used by a {computer} to hold the currently executing {program} and its {working data}. A modern computer's main memory is built from {random-access memory} {integrated circuits}. In the old days {ferrite core memory} was one popular form of main memory, leading to the use of the term "{core}" for main memory. Computers have several other sorts of memory, distinguished by their access time, storage capicity, cost, and the typical lifetime or rate of change of the data they hold. {Registers} in the {CPU} are fast, few, expensive and typically change every few {machine instructions}. Other kinds are {cache}, {PROM}, {magnetic disk} (which may be used for {virtual memory}) and {magnetic tape}. (1996-11-04)
main ::: n. --> A hand or match at dice.
A stake played for at dice.
The largest throw in a match at dice; a throw at dice within given limits, as in the game of hazard.
A match at cockfighting.
A main-hamper. ::: v.
mainor ::: n. --> A thing stolen found on the person of the thief.
mainpernable ::: a. --> Capable of being admitted to give surety by mainpernors; able to be mainprised.
mainpernor ::: n. --> A surety, under the old writ of mainprise, for a prisoner&
mainpin ::: n. --> A kingbolt.
mainprised ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Mainprise
mainprise ::: n. --> A writ directed to the sheriff, commanding him to take sureties, called mainpernors, for the prisoner&
mainprising ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Mainprise
main "programming" The name of the {subroutine} called by the {run-time system} (RTS) when it executes a {C} program. The RTS passes the program's {command-line arguments} to main as a count and an {array} of {pointers} to strings. If the main subroutine returns then the program exits. {Java} has inheritted the name "main" from C but in Java it's more complicated of course. The main routine must have a signature of exactly public static void main(String []) And it must be inside a public class with the same name as the {source} file where it is defined. (2008-11-12)
mainsail ::: n. --> The principal sail in a ship or other vessel.
mainsheet ::: n. --> One of the ropes by which the mainsail is hauled aft and trimmed.
mains ::: n. --> The farm attached to a mansion house.
mains, p. 106.
mainspring ::: n. --> The principal or most important spring in a piece of mechanism, especially the moving spring of a watch or clock or the spring in a gunlock which impels the hammer. Hence: The chief or most powerful motive; the efficient cause of action.
mainstay ::: n. --> The stay extending from the foot of the foremast to the maintop.
Main support; principal dependence.
main store {main memory}
mainstream Buddhist schools. A neologism coined by modern scholars to refer to the non-MAHĀYĀNA traditions of Indian Buddhism, including DHARMAGUPTA, MAHĀSĀMGHIKA, MAHĪsĀSAKA, SARVĀSTIVĀDA, SAUTRĀNTIKA, STHAVIRANIKĀYA, etc., which traditionally number eighteen (although over thirty different schools are named in the literature). These are also sometimes referred to as the NIKĀYA or sRĀVAKAYĀNA schools. The locution "mainstream Buddhist school" is to be preferred to the pejorative HĪNAYĀNA, or "lesser vehicle," a polemical term that the MAHĀYĀNA coined to refer to these schools, which (from their perspective) taught narrow and discredited perspectives on Buddhist practice. See List of Lists, "eighteen mainstream Buddhist schools," and individual entries for these schools.
mainstream Buddhist schools
mainstream: In a literary sense, this term refers to texts and authors which abide by conventional writing structures and techniques. These are generally aimed at the everyday, dominant reader.
mainswear ::: v. i. --> To swear falsely.
maintainable ::: a. --> That maybe maintained.
maintained ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Maintain
maintainer ::: n. --> One who maintains.
maintainer script ::: (Debian) One of the scripts (preinst, prerm, postinst, postrm) that may be included in a Debian binary package. These scripts may create and/or remove by dpkg. Maintainer scripts frequently create or update the symlinks in the /etc/rc?.d directories and start, stop, or restart daemons.(2000-05-31)
maintainer script "Debian" One of the scripts (preinst, prerm, postinst, postrm) that may be included in a {Debian} {binary package}. These scripts may create and/or remove {symlinks}, files or directories that, for some reason, could not be done directly by {dpkg}. Maintainer scripts frequently create or update the symlinks in the /etc/rc?.d directories and start, stop, or restart {daemons}. (2000-05-31)
maintainer "software" The person responsible for coordinating changes to a package of {software} and arranging the distribution of updates. The term usually applies only to {free software} where the maintainer (often the author) is doing it as a free public service. (2001-01-27)
maintainer ::: (software) The person responsible for coordinating changes to a package of software and arranging the distribution of updates. The term usually applies only to free software where the maintainer (often the author) is doing it as a free public service.(2001-01-27)
maintaining ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Maintain
maintainor ::: n. --> One who, not being interested, maintains a cause depending between others, by furnishing money, etc., to either party.
maintains ::: 1. Keeps in an existing state; preserves or retains. 2. Defends against contradiction; upholds. maintained.
maintain ::: v. t. --> To hold or keep in any particular state or condition; to support; to sustain; to uphold; to keep up; not to suffer to fail or decline; as, to maintain a certain degree of heat in a furnace; to maintain a fence or a railroad; to maintain the digestive process or powers of the stomach; to maintain the fertility of soil; to maintain present reputation.
To keep possession of; to hold and defend; not to surrender or relinquish.
maintenance ::: n. --> The act of maintaining; sustenance; support; defense; vindication.
That which maintains or supports; means of sustenance; supply of necessaries and conveniences.
An officious or unlawful intermeddling in a cause depending between others, by assisting either party with money or means to carry it on. See Champerty.
maintenance "programming" The modification of a software product, after delivery, to correct faults, to improve performance or other attributes, or to adapt the product to a changed environment. Maintenance is an important part of the {software life-cycle}. It is expensive in manpower and resources, and one of the aims of {software engineering} is to reduce its cost. (1996-12-27)
maintenance ::: (programming) The modification of a software product, after delivery, to correct faults, to improve performance or other attributes, or to adapt the product to a changed environment.Maintenance is an important part of the software life-cycle. It is expensive in manpower and resources, and one of the aims of software engineering is to reduce its cost. (1996-12-27)
main ::: the open ocean.
maintop ::: n. --> The platform about the head of the mainmast in square-rigged vessels.
main yard ::: --> The yard on which the mainsail is extended, supported by the mainmast.
Maināmati-Lalmai Range. A low series of hills situated between the towns of Maināmati and Lalmai in the Comilla district of modern-day Bangladesh, where the ruins of a significant number of Buddhist monasteries have been discovered. The earliest ruins date from the sixth century CE, the latest, the thirteenth century CE. Among the more important sites are the Salban Vihāra with 115 monastic cells, the Kotila Mura, which has three STuPAs, and the Charpatra Mura.
Maināmati-Lalmai Range
MAINBOL "language" MAcro ImplementatioN of {SNOBOL4}. (1997-09-14)
MAINBOL ::: (language) MAcro ImplementatioN of SNOBOL4. (1997-09-14)
Main Distribution Frame "networking" (MDF) The {network closet} containing the main {hub}. (1995-05-05)
Main Distribution Frame ::: (networking) (MDF) The network closet containing the main hub. (1995-05-05)
Maine de Biran, F. P. Gonthier: (1766-1824) French philosopher and psychologist, who revolted against the dominant sensationalistic and materialistic psychology of Condlllac and Cabanis and developed, under the influence of Kant and Fichte, an idealistic and voluntaristic psychology. The mind directly experiences the activity of its will and at the same time the resistance offered to it by the "non-moi." Upon this basis, Maine de Biran erected his metaphysics which interprets the conceptions of force, substance, cause, etc. in terms of the directly experienced activity of the will. This system of psychology and metaphysics, which came to be known as French spiritualism, exerted considerable influence on Cousin, Ravaisson and Renouvier. His writings include: De la Decomposition de la Pensee (1805); Les Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme (1834); Essai sur les Fondements de la Psychologie (1812); Oeuvres Philosophiques, ed. by V. Cousin (1841). -- L.W.
Main Effect ::: The effect of one variable on another without any other variables or subgroups involvement.
Main: H. Sheffler [I960],
MAINSAIL ::: MAchine INdependent SAIL. From XIDAK, Palo Alto CA, (415) 855-9271.
MAINSAIL {MAchine INdependent SAIL}.
Mainstream_economics ::: is a term used to describe schools of economic thought considered to be orthodox. Many of the underlying categories within and concepts central to mainstream economics are readily taught at universities. Many of the underpinning models and beliefs are based on concepts that involve economic scarcity, the role of governmental regulation or other action in effecting an actor's decision, the concept of utility and the idea that people are purely rational actors who will make decisions that are based purely on available information and not emotion.
Main support of all habitual movements, especially the physi- cal and lower vital movements.
Maintenance of accounts - Accounting, means to ensure that all the transactions and other accounting records are kept or recorded in accordance with the GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) and any other applicable laws. Further to this the records must be in sufficient detail to allow an effective annual audit to be conducted.
Maintenance - Periodic expenditures undertaken to preserve or retain an asset's operational status for its originally intended use.
Main work: Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, 1829. -- L.E.D.
Main work: L'Industrie on discussions politiques, morales, et philosophiques, dans l'interet de tous les hommes livres a des travaux utiles et independants, 1817. Cf. Oeuvres de Saint-Simon, 46 vols., 1865-77.
Main works: Allgem. Psychopath., 1913; Psych, d. Weltan., 1919; Die geistige Situation d. Zeit, 1931; Vernunft u. Existenz, 1935; Nietzsche, 1936; Descartes, 1937; Existenzphilosophie, 1938.
Main works: Briefe aus England, 1776-8; editor of Göttingisches Mag. d. Literatur u. Wissensch., 1780-2; Ausführlkhe Erklärung d. Hogarthschen Kupferstiche, 1794-9.
Main works: Commentaries on Aristotle's De Caelo, Physica, De Anima, and Categoriae.
Main works: De arte combinatoria, 1666 ; Theoria motus concreti et abstracti, 1671 ; Discours de la metaphysique, 1686; Systeme nouveau de la nature, 1695; Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain, 1701 (publ. 1765, criticism of Locke's Essay); Theodicee, 1710; Monadologie, 1714 (letter to Prince Eugene of Savoy). No complete edition of L. exists, but the Prussian Academy of Sciences began one and issued 4 vols. to date. Cf. Gerhardt's edition of L's philosophical works (7 vols., 1875-90) and mathematical works (1849-63), Foucher de Careil's edition, 7 vols. (1859-75), O. Klopp's edition of L.'s historico-political works, 10 vols. (1864-77), L. Couturat's Opuscules et fragments inedits de L., 1903. -- K.F.L.
Main works: De corpore (On bodies); De homine (On Man), De cive (On the state) . The Elements of Law, 1640; Leviathan, 1650. -- B.A.G.F.
Main works: Denken u. Wirklichkeit, 1873; Moralität u. Religion, 1874; Empiric u. Philosophie, 1876.
Main works: Die Crenzen d. naturwiss. Begriffsbildung, 1896; Kultur u. Naturtwissenchaften, 1899; Philos. d. Lebens, 1920. -- K.F.L.
Main works: Die Philosophie Herakleitos d. Dunklen, 1858; System d. Eruorbenen Rechte, 1861; and political speeches and pamphlets in Collected Works (Leipzig, 1899-1901). -- R.B.W.
Main works: Erfahrung u. Denken, 1886; System d. Aesthetik, 1905-14, Phänomenologie u. Metaphysik d. Zeit, 1925; Problem d. Individualität, 1928.
Main works: Exposition more geometrico of Descartes' Principles, 1663; Tract. Theol.-Politicus, 1670 (only two books published during Spinoza's lifetime); Ethics, demonstrated in geometrical order, 1677; Political Treatise, 1677; De intellectus. emendatione, 1677 (On the Improvement of the Human Mind). Cf. Vloten and Land, 2 vol. edition of Spinoza's works. Spir, African: (1837-1890) A native of Russia, whose philosophy was influenced by Spinoristic and Kantian traditions. The main thesis of his philosophy is that sensory experience and reasoning are basically contradictory, insofar as the former informs us of constant change, whereas the latter is characterized by the a priori principle of identity. -- R.B.W.
Main works: Geschichte u. Naturwissenschaft, 1894; Präludien, 1924 (9th ed. ); History of Modem Philosophy (Eng. tr.).
Main works: Grundl. d. Geschichtswiss., 1905; Lebensformen, 1914; Die Geisteswiss. u. d. Schule, 1920; Die wissensch. Grundl. d. Schulverfassungslehre u. d. Schulpolitik, 1925; Das deutsche Bildungsideal, 1928; Volk, Staat, Erziehung, 1930. Ssu: Partiality, selfishness. A private name. "Only a particular substance bears the name." (Neo-Mohism).
Main works: Histoire naturelle de l'ame, 1745; L'homme-machine, 1747; L'homme-plante, 1748; Discours sur le bonheur, 1748; Le systeme d' Epicure, 1750. --R.B.W. Lange, Friedrich Albert: (1828-1875) Celebrated for his History of Materialism, based upon a qualified Kantian point of view, he demonstrated the philosophical limitations of metaphysical materialism, and his appreciation of the value of materialism as a stimulus to critical thinking. He worked for a greater understanding of Kant's work and anticipated fictionalism. -- H.H.
Main works: Kategorien --u. Bedentungslehre d. Duns Scotus, 1916; Sein u. Zeit, 1927; Was ist Metaphysik?; Kant u. d. Probl. d. Meta., 1929; Vom Wesen des Grundes, 1929. See J. Kraft, Von Husserl zu H., 1932. -- H.H.
Main works: Le fondemcnt de l'induction, 187; Psychologie et metaphysique, 1885; Etudes sur le syllogisme, 1907; Note sur le pari de Pascal. --L.W. Lamaism: (from Tibetan b La-ma, honorable title of a monk) The religious beliefs and institutions of Tibet, derived from Mahayana Buddhism (q.v.) which was first introduced in the 7th century by the chieftain Sron-tsan-gampo, superimposed on the native Shamaistic Bon religion, resuscitated and mixed with Tantric (q.v.) elements by the mythic Hindu Padmasambhava, and reformed by the Bengalese Atisa in the 11th and Tsong-kha-pa at the turn of the 14th century. The strong admixture of elements of the exorcismal, highly magically charged and priest-ridden original Bon, has given Buddhism a turn away from its philosophic orientation and produced in Lamaism a form that places great emphasis on mantras (q.v.) -- the most famous one being om mani padme hum) -- elaborate ritual, and the worship of subsidiary tutelary deities, high dignitaries, and living incarnations of the Buddha. This worship is institutionalized, with a semblance of the papacy, in the double incarnation of the Bodhisattva (q.v.) in the Dalai-Lama who resides with political powers at the capital Lhasa, and the more spiritual head Tashi-Lama who rules at Tashi-Ihum-po. Contacts with Indian and Chinese traditions have been maintained for centuries and the two canons of Lamaism, the Kan-jur of 108 books and the Tan-jur of 225 books represent many translations as well as original works, some of great philosophical value. -- K.F.L.
Main works: Lettres philosophiques, 1734; Elements de la philos. de Newton, 1738; Essai sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations (Philosophie de Christoire), 1756; Traite de tolerance, 1763; Dict. philosophique, 1764.
Main works: Logische Untersuchungen, 1840; Die sittliche Idee des Rechts, 1849; Naturrecht auf dem Grunde der Ethik, 1860.
Main works: Method of Ethics 1875; Outlines of the History of Ethics (5th ed. 1902); Scope and Method of Economic Science, 1885; Lect. on Philosophy of Kant, 1905. Sign: (Lat. signum, sign) Logic has been called the science of signs. In psychology that which represents anything to the cognitive faculty. That which signifies or has significance, a symbol. Semasiology or sematology is the science of signs. See Logic, symbolic; Symbolism.
Main works: Naturalium quaestionum libri septem; Dialogorum libri duodecim.
Main works of Husserl: Philosophie der Anthmetik, 1891; Logische Untersuchungen, 1900; Ideen z. e. reinen Phänomenologie u. Phenomologische Philos., 1913; Vorlesungen z. Phanom. d. inneren Bewusstseine, 1928; Formale u. transz. Logik, 1929; Meditations Cartesiennes Introd. a la Phenomenologie, 1931; Die Krisis der europäischen Wissensch u.d. transz. Phanomenologie, I, 1936; Erfahrung u. Urteil. Untersuch. u. Genealogie der Logik, 1939. Hussism: The Reformatory views of John Hus (1370-1415). A popular agitator and finally martyr, Hus stood between Wycliffe and Luther in the line of continental Protestant Reformers. He rested authority upon Scripture and defied ecclesiastical bans. The Hussite wars (1419-1432) following his death epitomized the growing nationalism and desire for religious reform. -- V.F.
Main works: Philosophy of Religion, 1901; Kierkegaard; Rousseau; History of Modern Phtlosophy. -- V.F.
Main works: Philosophy of the Present, 1932; Mind, Self, and Society, 1934; Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, 1936; Philosophy of the Act, 1938.
Main works: Problem d. Geschichtsphilosophie, 1892; Philosophie des Geldes, 1900; Soziologie, 1908; Goethe, 1913; Lebensanschauung, 1918. Simple Enumeration: (Bacon) The name given by F. Bacon to the Aristotelian and the Scholastic process of induction which advances to the knowledge of laws from the knowledge of facts established by observation and experiment and clearly arranged. This type of induction treats instances by noting the number of observed coincident happenings of the antecedent and the consequent under investigation, and then formulating a causal connection between them. Bacon considers that Simple Enumeration lacks the methodological characteristics which he conceived (rather than determined and applied) for the process of induction. It may be added that the ancient and medieval logicians were fully aware of this type of induction. -- T.G.
Main works: Psychol.-ethische Untersuch. z. Werttheorie, 1894; Ueber Annahmen, 1907; Ueber d. Stellung d. Gegenstandstheorie im Syst. d. Wissensch., 1907; Ueber Möglichkeit u. Wahrscheinlichkeit, 1915. Cf. Gesammelte Abh. 3 vols., 1914. Meliorism: (Lat. melior, better) View that the world is neither completely evil nor completely good, but that the relative amounts of good and evil are changeable, that good is capable of increase. Human effort to improve the world can be effective in making the world better and probably the trend of biological and social evolution tends in that direction. Opposed to Optimism and Pessimism. The term was coined by George Eliot. -- A.J.B.
Main works: Recherche de la verite, 1674-5; Conversations Chretiennes, 1676; Traits de la Nature et de la Grace, 1680; Traite de Morale, 1683; Entretiens sur la metaphysique et la religion, 1688; Traite de l'Amour de Dieu, 1697; Reflexions sur la premotion physique, 1714. Malevolence: Ill or evil will or disposition -- the will or disposition to do wrong or to harm others. The vice opposed to the virtue of benevolence or good will. -- W.K.F.
Main works: Sense and Beauty, 1896; Interpret. of Poetry and Religion, 1900; Life of Reason, 5 vols , 1905-6 (Reason in Common Sense, Reason in Society, Reason in Religion, Reason in Art, Reason in Science); Winds of Doctrine, 1913; Egotism in German Philosophy, 1915; Character and Opinion in the U. S., 1920; Skepticism and Animal Faith, 1923; Realms of Being, 4 vols., 1927-40 (Realm of Essence, Realm of Matter, Realm of Truth, Realm of Spirit). -- B.A.G.F. Sarva-darsana-sangraha: (Skr.) A work by Madhvavacarya, professing to be a collection (sangraha) of all (sarva) philosophic views (darsana) or schools. It includes systems which acknowledge and others which reject Vedic (s.v.) authority, such as the Carvaka, Buddhist and Jaina schools (which see). -- K.F.L.
Main works:
Main works: System d. Logtk u. Gesch. d. logischen Lehre, 1857; Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Philosophie, 1863-66.
Main works: System of Synthttic Philosophy (First Principles of Biology, Psychology, Sociology, Ethics), 1862-92; On Moral and Physical Education, 1861.
Main works: Teoria della sovranaturale, 1838; Del bello, 1841; Del buono, 1842; Della filosofia della rivelazione, 1856 (posth.); Della protologia, 1857 (posth.). See B. Spaventa, La filosofia di G., 1863. -- L.V.
Main works: The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, 1885; The Spirit of Modem Philosophy, 1892; The World and the Indidvidual, 1900; Lectures on Modem Idealism, 1919. Rule, ethical or moral: Any general ethical proposition enjoining a certain kind of action in a certain kind of situation, e.g., one who has made a promise should keep it. Rules figure especially in "dogmatic" types of deontological or intuitionstic ethics, and teleological ethics is often described as emphasizing ends rather than rules. Even a teleologist may, however, recommend certain rules, such as the above, as describing kinds of action which are generally conducive to good ends. -- W.K.F.
Main works: Tonpsychologie, 2 vols., 1883-90; Die Anfange der Musik, 1911; Empfindung u. Vorstellung, 1918; Gefühl u. Gefühlsempfindung, 1928; Erkenntnislehre, I, 1939. Sturm und Drang: (German, "Storm and Stress"), a period sweeping the German countries about 1770-1785, in which men like Hamann, Herder, the young Goethe, Schiller, Wagner, Christian Schubart, and Friedrich Maximilian Klinger (from whose play the movement got its name) advocated, in a flush of creative enthusiasm, the forces of native talent, the value of emotion, and the power of genius as a conscious reaction against the enlightenment which had spread from France. -- K.F.L.
Main works: Uchronie, 1857, Philos. analytique de l'histoire, 4 vols., 1896-98; La nouvelle monadologie, 1899; Le Personnalisme, 1903; Essais de critique generale, 1851-64.
Mainyus, etc.)—the Persian prince of evil, proto¬
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. Consistently reliable. 2. Steady in allegiance; loyal; constant. 3. Having faith; remaining true, constant, or loyal. 4. Accurate in detail.
1. Not affected in mind or feeling; not moved by excitement or emotion; undisturbed, calm. 2. Not approached, crossed, traversed, explored, or visited. 3. Remaining in a pristine state; unchanged.
1. Not moved by emotion or excitement; unaffected, undisturbed; collected, calm. 2. Not moved in position; unstirred; remaining fixed or steady.
1. Not stable; not firm or firmly fixed; unsteady. 2. Not remaining steadily in the same place; apt to move or be moved about. 3. Of movement: Unsteady; irregular.
1. The expenditure of something, such as time or labour, necessary for the attainment of a goal. Also fig. **2. The price paid or required for acquiring, producing, or maintaining something, usually measured in money, time, or energy; expense or expenditure; outlay. 3. **Suffering or sacrifice; loss; penalty.
1. To endure, outlast, or live through (an affliction, adversity, etc.). 2. To remain or continue in existence. 3. To continue to live; to remain alive, live on. survives, survived, surviving.
1. To support or defend, as against opposition or criticism. 2. To support, sustain, maintain, by aid or assistance; to preserve unimpaired or intact. upholds, upheld.
(4) Not to mind at all if others are heated and dispute, but remain quiet and undisturbed and yourself speak only what can help things to be smooth agam.
abandonment ::: n. --> The act of abandoning, or the state of being abandoned; total desertion; relinquishment.
The relinquishment by the insured to the underwriters of what may remain of the property insured after a loss or damage by a peril insured against.
The relinquishment of a right, claim, or privilege, as to mill site, etc.
The voluntary leaving of a person to whom one is bound
abdomen ::: n. --> The belly, or that part of the body between the thorax and the pelvis. Also, the cavity of the belly, which is lined by the peritoneum, and contains the stomach, bowels, and other viscera. In man, often restricted to the part between the diaphragm and the commencement of the pelvis, the remainder being called the pelvic cavity.
The posterior section of the body, behind the thorax, in insects, crustaceans, and other Arthropoda.
abet ::: v. t. --> To instigate or encourage by aid or countenance; -- used in a bad sense of persons and acts; as, to abet an ill-doer; to abet one in his wicked courses; to abet vice; to abet an insurrection.
To support, uphold, or aid; to maintain; -- in a good sense.
To contribute, as an assistant or instigator, to the commission of an offense.
abide ::: 1. To wait, stay, remain. 2. To remain in residence; to sojourn, reside, dwell. 3. To remain with; to stand firm by, to hold to, remain true to. 4. To continue in existence, endure, stand firm or sure. abides, abode, abiding.
abide ::: v. i. --> To wait; to pause; to delay.
To stay; to continue in a place; to have one&
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.
abortion ::: n. --> The act of giving premature birth; particularly, the expulsion of the human fetus prematurely, or before it is capable of sustaining life; miscarriage.
The immature product of an untimely birth.
Arrest of development of any organ, so that it remains an imperfect formation or is absorbed.
Any fruit or produce that does not come to maturity, or anything which in its progress, before it is matured or perfect; a
abort ::: v. i. --> To miscarry; to bring forth young prematurely.
To become checked in normal development, so as either to remain rudimentary or shrink away wholly; to become sterile. ::: n. --> An untimely birth.
An aborted offspring.
Absolute ::: Sri Aurobindo: “We mean by the Absolute something greater than ourselves, greater than the cosmos which we live in, the supreme reality of that transcendent Being which we call God, something without which all that we see or are conscious of as existing, could not have been, could not for a moment remain in existence. Indian thought calls it Brahman, European thought the Absolute because it is a self-existent which is absolved of all bondage to relativities . . . The Absolute is for us the Ineffable.” The Life Divine
ACCIDENT. ::: There is no such thing as a mere accident. There is some - perhaps a slight - unconsciousness in the physical and it is taken advantage of by these small beings of the vital physical plane, who are more mischievous than consciously hostile.
It has often been seen that when an accident takes place at a particular spot, there is a tendency for some time for other accidents to happen there. There is the same tendency with suicides at a particular place. It is a sort of powerful formation that remains there with or without a vital being (spirit) in charge of the’ formation.
across ihc border s\hcrc the espcricncc of spiritualised mind ceases and the unmodified divine Consciousness begins the domain of the supreme Nature, Para PraJcriti. It is that Light of which the Vedte mj-slics got a glimpse and it is the opposite of the intervening darkness of the Christian mystics, for the
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.
ad- ::: --> As a prefix ad- assumes the forms ac-, af-, ag-, al-, an-, ap-, ar-, as-, at-, assimilating the d with the first letter of the word to which ad- is prefixed. It remains unchanged before vowels, and before d, h, j, m, v. Examples: adduce, adhere, adjacent, admit, advent, accord, affect, aggregate, allude, annex, appear, etc. It becomes ac- before qu, as in acquiesce.
adhere ::: v. i. --> To stick fast or cleave, as a glutinous substance does; to become joined or united; as, wax to the finger; the lungs sometimes adhere to the pleura.
To hold, be attached, or devoted; to remain fixed, either by personal union or conformity of faith, principle, or opinion; as, men adhere to a party, a cause, a leader, a church.
To be consistent or coherent; to be in accordance; to agree.
adhesiveness ::: n. --> The quality of sticking or adhering; stickiness; tenacity of union.
Propensity to form and maintain attachments to persons, and to promote social intercourse.
admortization ::: n. --> The reducing or lands or tenements to mortmain. See Mortmain.
adonist ::: n. --> One who maintains that points of the Hebrew word translated "Jehovah" are really the vowel points of the word "Adonai." See Jehovist.
adoptionist ::: n. --> One of a sect which maintained that Christ was the Son of God not by nature but by adoption.
affirmed ::: maintained as true; positively asserted; upheld, supported. affirming.
affirm ::: v. t. --> to assert or confirm, as a judgment, decree, or order, brought before an appellate court for review.
To assert positively; to tell with confidence; to aver; to maintain as true; -- opposed to deny.
To declare, as a fact, solemnly, under judicial sanction. See Affirmation, 4. ::: v. i.
After a certain stage of preparation one must stress more on the positive side of the sadhana than on the negative side of rejection, — though this of course must remain to help the other.
after damp ::: --> An irrespirable gas, remaining after an explosion of fire damp in mines; choke damp. See Carbonic acid.
Aftermath of descent: Whenever there .is a descent of the higher consciousness in the adhara: (1) Part of it is stored up in the frontal consdousness and remains there. (2) Part of it goes behind and remains as a support to the active part of the being. (3) Part flows out into the universal Nature. (4) Part is" absorbed by the inconsdent and lost to the individual cons- dousness and its action.
after-sails ::: n. --> The sails on the mizzenmast, or on the stays between the mainmast and mizzenmast.
aftertaste ::: n. --> A taste which remains in the mouth after eating or drinking.
agnus dei ::: --> A figure of a lamb bearing a cross or flag.
A cake of wax stamped with such a figure. It is made from the remains of the paschal candles and blessed by the Pope.
A triple prayer in the sacrifice of the Mass, beginning with the words "Agnus Dei."
aisle ::: a longitudinal division of an interior area, as in a church, separated from the main area by an arcade or divided by a row of pillars. aisles.
almain ::: n. --> Alt. of Alman
albuminoid ::: a. --> Resembling albumin. ::: n. --> One of a class of organic principles (called also proteids) which form the main part of organized tissues.
alchemy ::: n. --> An imaginary art which aimed to transmute the baser metals into gold, to find the panacea, or universal remedy for diseases, etc. It led the way to modern chemistry.
A mixed metal composed mainly of brass, formerly used for various utensils; hence, a trumpet.
Miraculous power of transmuting something common into something precious.
aliment ::: n. --> That which nourishes; food; nutriment; anything which feeds or adds to a substance in natural growth. Hence: The necessaries of life generally: sustenance; means of support.
An allowance for maintenance. ::: v. t. --> To nourish; to support.
alimony ::: n. --> Maintenance; means of living.
An allowance made to a wife out of her husband&
aliquant ::: a. --> An aliquant part of a number or quantity is one which does not divide it without leaving a remainder; thus, 5 is an aliquant part of 16. Opposed to aliquot.
aliquot ::: a. --> An aliquot part of a number or quantity is one which will divide it without a remainder; thus, 5 is an aliquot part of 15. Opposed to aliquant.
::: ". . . all our spiritual and psychic experience bears affirmative witness, brings us always a constant and, in its main principles, an invariable evidence of the existence of higher worlds, freer planes of existence. Not having bound ourselves down, like so much of modern thought, to the dogma that only physical experience or experience based upon the physical sense is true, the analysis of physical experience by the reason alone verifiable, and all else only result of physical experience and physical existence and anything beyond this an error, self-delusion and hallucination, we are free to accept this evidence and to admit the reality of these planes. We see that they are, practically, different harmonies from the harmony of the physical universe; they occupy, as the word ‘plane" suggests, a different level in the scale of being and adopt a different system and ordering of its principles.” The Life Divine
“… all our spiritual and psychic experience bears affirmative witness, brings us always a constant and, in its main principles, an invariable evidence of the existence of higher worlds, freer planes of existence. Not having bound ourselves down, like so much of modern thought, to the dogma that only physical experience or experience based upon the physical sense is true, the analysis of physical experience by the reason alone verifiable, and all else only result of physical experience and physical existence and anything beyond this an error, self-delusion and hallucination, we are free to accept this evidence and to admit the reality of these planes. We see that they are, practically, different harmonies from the harmony of the physical universe; they occupy, as the word ‘plane’ suggests, a different level in the scale of being and adopt a different system and ordering of its principles.” The Life Divine
Amal: “‘The garden of the Spouse’ is the psychic domain of love.
Amal: “‘The garden of the Spouse’ is the psychic domain of love.”
amortization ::: n. --> The act or right of alienating lands to a corporation, which was considered formerly as transferring them to dead hands, or in mortmain.
The extinction of a debt, usually by means of a sinking fund; also, the money thus paid.
amortize ::: v. t. --> To make as if dead; to destroy.
To alienate in mortmain, that is, to convey to a corporation. See Mortmain.
To clear off or extinguish, as a debt, usually by means of a sinking fund.
amphictyony ::: n. --> A league of states of ancient Greece; esp. the celebrated confederation known as the Amphictyonic Council. Its object was to maintain the common interests of Greece.
ANANDA. ::: Delight; essential principle of delight; bliss; spiritual ecstasy; the bliss of the Spirit which is the secret source· and support of all existence.
Ānanda is the secret delight from which all things are born, by which all is sustained in existence and to which all can rise in the spiritual culmination.
It is the Divine Bliss which comes from above. It is not joy or pleasure, but something self-existent, pure and quite beyond what any joy or pleasure can be.
Something greater than peace or joy, something that, like Truth and Light, is the very nature of the supramental Divine. It can come by frequent inrushes or descents, partially or for a time, but it cannot -remain in the system so long as the system has not been prepared for it.
It can come not only with its fullest intensity but with a more enduring persistence when the mind is at peace and the heart delivered from ordinary joy and sorrow. If the mind and heart are restless, changeful, unquiet, Ānanda of a kind may come, but it is mixed with vital excitement and cannot abide. One must get peace and calm fixed in the consciousness first, then there is a solid basis on which Ānanda can spread itself and in its turn become an enduring part of the consciousness and the nature.
Ānanda (ascension into) ::: It is quite impossible to ascend to the real Ānanda plane (except in a profound trance), until after the supramental consciousness has been entered, realised and possessed; but it is quite possible and normal to feel some form of Ānanda consciousness on any level. This consciousness, wherever it is felt, is a derivation from the Ānanda plane, but it is very much diminished in power and modified to suit the lesser power of receptivity of the inferior levels.
Ānanda (divine) in the physical ::: self-existent in its essence, its manifestation is dependent only on an inner union with the Divine.
Ānanda (of the Brahman) ::: there is an absoluteness of immutable ecstasy in it, a concentrated intensity of silent and inalienable rapture.
anchor ::: 1. Any of various devices dropped by a chain, cable, or rope to the bottom of a body of water for preventing or restricting the motion of a vessel or other floating object, typically having broad, hooklike arms that bury themselves in the bottom to provide a firm hold. 2. A person or thing that can be relied on for support, stability, or security; mainstay.
And still we can recognise at once in the Overmind the original cosmic Maya, not a Maya of Ignorance but a Maya of Knowledge, yet a Power which has made the Ignorance possible, even inevitable. For if each principle loosed into action must follow its independent line and carry out its complete consequences, the principle of separation must also be allowed its complete course and arrive at its absolute consequence; this is Overmind in its descent reaches a line which divides the cosmic Truth from the cosmic Ignorance; it is the line at which it becomes possible for Consciousness-Force, emphasising the separateness of each independent movement created by Overmind and hiding or darkening their unity, to divide Mind by an exclusive concentration from the overmental source. There has already been a similar separation of Overmind from its supramental source, but with a transparency in the veil which allows a conscious transmission and maintains a certain luminous kinship; but here the veil is opaque and the transmission of the Overmind motives to the Mind is occult and obscure. Mind separated acts as if it were an independent principle, and each mental being, each basic mental idea, power, force stands similarly on its separate self; if it communicates with or combines or contacts others, it is not with the catholic universality of the overmind movement, on a basis of underlying oneness, but as independent units joining to form a separate constructed whole. It is by this movement that we pass from the cosmic Truth into the cosmic Ignorance. The cosmic Mind on this level, no doubt, comprehends its own unity, but it is not aware of its own source and foundation in the Spirit or can only comprehend it by the intelligence, not in any enduring experience; it acts in itself as if by its own right and works out what it receives as material without direct communication with the source from which it receives it. Its units also act in ignorance of each other and of the cosmic whole except for the knowledge that they can get by contact and communication,—the basic sense of identity and the mutual penetration and understanding that comes from it are no longer there. All the actions of this Mind Energy proceed on the opposite basis of the Ignorance and its divisions and, although they are the results of a certain conscious knowledge, it is a partial knowledge, not a true and integral self-knowledge, nor a true and integral world-knowledge. This character persists in Life and in subtle Matter and reappears in the gross material universe which arises from the final lapse into the Inconscience. …
anglo-saxondom ::: n. --> The Anglo-Saxon domain (i. e., Great Britain and the United States, etc.); the Anglo-Saxon race.
animist ::: n. --> One who maintains the doctrine of animism.
antinomian ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the Antinomians; opposed to the doctrine that the moral law is obligatory. ::: n. --> One who maintains that, under the gospel dispensation, the moral law is of no use or obligation, but that faith alone is necessary to salvation. The sect of Antinomians originated with John
antiquary ::: a. --> Pertaining to antiquity. ::: n. --> One devoted to the study of ancient times through their relics, as inscriptions, monuments, remains of ancient habitations, statues, coins, manuscripts, etc.; one who searches for and studies the relics of antiquity.
aorta ::: n. --> The great artery which carries the blood from the heart to all parts of the body except the lungs; the main trunk of the arterial system.
aphasy ::: n. --> Loss of the power of speech, or of the appropriate use of words, the vocal organs remaining intact, and the intelligence being preserved. It is dependent on injury or disease of the brain.
apotome ::: n. --> The difference between two quantities commensurable only in power, as between Ã2 and 1, or between the diagonal and side of a square.
The remaining part of a whole tone after a smaller semitone has been deducted from it; a major semitone.
archaeology ::: n. --> The science or study of antiquities, esp. prehistoric antiquities, such as the remains of buildings or monuments of an early epoch, inscriptions, implements, and other relics, written manuscripts, etc.
armorican ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the northwestern part of France (formerly called Armorica, now Bretagne or Brittany), or to its people. ::: n. --> The language of the Armoricans, a Celtic dialect which has remained to the present times.
A native of Armorica.
arrear ::: adv. --> To or in the rear; behind; backwards. ::: n. --> That which is behind in payment, or which remains unpaid, though due; esp. a remainder, or balance which remains due when some part has been paid; arrearage; -- commonly used in the plural, as, arrears of rent, wages, or taxes.
arrearage ::: n. --> That which remains unpaid and overdue, after payment of a part; arrears.
arterial ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to an artery, or the arteries; as, arterial action; the arterial system.
Of or pertaining to a main channel (resembling an artery), as a river, canal, or railroad.
artiad ::: a. --> Even; not odd; -- said of elementary substances and of radicals the valence of which is divisible by two without a remainder.
ashes ::: 1. Bodily remains, especially after cremation or decay. 2. Fig. Ruins; esp. the residue of something destroyed; remains.
ashes ::: n. pl. --> The earthy or mineral particles of combustible substances remaining after combustion, as of wood or coal.
Specifically: The remains of the human body when burnt, or when "returned to dust" by natural decay.
The color of ashes; deathlike paleness.
ASPIRATION. ::: The call in the being for the Divine or for the higher things that belong to the Divine Consciousness.
A call to the Divine; aspiration for the discovery and embodiment of the Divine Truth and to nothing else whatever.
An aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing- the mind’s will, the heart’s seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature.
There is no need of words in aspiration. It can be expressed or unexpressed in words.
Aspiration need not be in the form of thought; it can be a feeling within that remains even when the mind is attending to the work.
Aspiration is to call the forces. When the forces have answered, there is a natural state of quiet receptivity concentrated but spontaneous.
In aspiration there is a self-giving for the higher consciousness to descend and take possession ; the more intense the call, the greater the self-giving.
Aspiration keeps the consciousness open, prevents an inert state of acquiescence in all that comes and exercises a sort of pull on the sources of the higher consciousness.
The intensity of aspiration brings the intensity of the experience and by repeated intensity of the experience, the change. It is the psychic that gives the true aspiration; if the vital is purified and subjected to the psychic, then the vital gives intensity.
Aspiration in the physical consciousness ::: the physical consciousness is always in everybody in its own nature a little inert and in it a constant strong aspiration is not natural, it has to be created. But first there must be the opening, a purification, a fixed quietude, otherwise the physical vital will turn the strong aspiration into over-eagerness and impatience or rather it will try to give it that turn.
asserter ::: n. --> One who asserts; one who avers pr maintains; an assertor.
assertion ::: n. --> The act of asserting, or that which is asserted; positive declaration or averment; affirmation; statement asserted; position advanced.
Maintenance; vindication; as, the assertion of one&
assertor ::: n. --> One who asserts or avers; one who maintains or vindicates a claim or a right; an affirmer, supporter, or vindicator; a defender; an asserter.
assertory ::: a. --> Affirming; maintaining.
assert ::: v. t. --> To affirm; to declare with assurance, or plainly and strongly; to state positively; to aver; to asseverate.
To maintain; to defend.
To maintain or defend, as a cause or a claim, by words or measures; to vindicate a claim or title to; as, to assert our rights and liberties.
ASSIMILATION. ::: There has to be a period of assimilation. When the being is unconscious, the assimilation goes on behind the veil or below the surface and meanwhile the surface consciousness sees only dullness and the loss of what it had got; but when one is conscious, then one can see the assimilation going on and one sees that nothing is lost, it is only a quiet settling in of what has come down.
To remain quiet for a time after the descent of Force is the best way of assimilating it.
There are always pauses of preparation and assimilation between two movements.
The periods of assimilation continue till all that has to be done is fundamentally done. Only they have a different character in the later stages of sadhana. If they cease altogether at an early stage, it is because all that the nature was capable of has been done and that would mean it was not capable of much.
ASURA. ::: Titan; a being of ignorant egoism as opposed to the Deva or god, who is a being of Light; sons of Darkness and Division.
Asuras are really the dark side of the mental, or more strictly, of the vital mind plane. This mind is the very field of the Asuras. Their main characteristic is egoistic strength and struggle, which refuse the higher law. The Asura has self-control, tapas, and intelligence, but all that for the sake of his ego.
There are no Asuras on the higher planes where the Truth prevails, except in the Vedic sense -“ the Divine in its strength “. The mental and vital Asuras are only a deviation of that power.
There are two kinds of Asuras - one kind were divine in their origin but have fallen from their divinity by self-will and opposition to the intention of the Divine; they are spoken in the Hindu scriptures as the former or earlier gods; these can be converted and their conversion is indeed necessary for the ultimate purpose of the universe. But the ordinary Asura is not of this character, is not an evolutionary but a typal being and represents a fixed principle of the creation which does not evolve or change and is not intended to do so. These Asuras, as also the other hostile beings, Rakshasas, Pishachas and others resemble the devils of the Christian tradition and oppose the divine intention and the evolutionary purpose in the human being; they don’t change the purpose in them for which they exist which is evil, but have to be destroyed like the evil. The Asura has no soul, no psychic being which has to evolve to a higher state; he has only an ego and usually a very powerful ego; he has a mind, sometimes even a highly intellectual mind; but the basis of his thinking and feeling is vital and not mental, at the service of his desire and not truth. He is a formation assumed by the life-principle for a particular kind of work and not a divine formation or soul.
Some kinds of Asuras are very religious, very fanatical about their religion, very strict about rules of ethical conduct. There are others who use spiritual ideas without believing in them to give them a perverted twist and delude the sadhaka.
athanor ::: n. --> A digesting furnace, formerly used by alchemists. It was so constructed as to maintain uniform and durable heat.
ATMAN. ::: The Ātman is the Self or Spirit that remains above, pure and stainless, unaffected by the stains of life, by desire and ego and ignorance. It is realised as the true being of the individual, but also more widely as the same being in all and as the Self in the cosmos; it his also a self-existence above the individual and cosmos and it is then called the Paramatma, the supreme Divine Being.
atrium ::: n. --> A square hall lighted from above, into which rooms open at one or more levels.
An open court with a porch or gallery around three or more sides; especially at the entrance of a basilica or other church. The name was extended in the Middle Ages to the open churchyard or cemetery.
The main part of either auricle of the heart as distinct from the auricular appendix. Also, the whole articular portion of the
::: ". . . a true occultism means no more than a research into supraphysical realities and an unveiling of the hidden laws of being and Nature, of all that is not obvious on the surface. It attempts the discovery of the secret laws of mind and mental energy, the secret laws of life and life-energy, the secret laws of the subtle-physical and its energies, — all that Nature has not put into visible operation on the surface; it pursues also the application of these hidden truths and powers of Nature so as to extend the mastery of the human spirit beyond the ordinary operations of mind, the ordinary operations of life, the ordinary operations of our physical existence. In the spiritual domain which is occult to the surface mind in so far as it passes beyond normal and enters into supernormal experience, there is possible not only the discovery of the self and spirit, but the discovery of the uplifting, informing and guiding light of spiritual consciousness and the power of the spirit, the spiritual way of knowledge, the spiritual way of action. To know these things and to bring their truths and forces into the life of humanity is a necessary part of its evolution. Science itself is in its own way an occultism; for it brings to light the formulas which Nature has hidden and it uses its knowledge to set free operations of her energies which she has not included in her ordinary operations and to organise and place at the service of man her occult powers and processes, a vast system of physical magic, — for there is and can be no other magic than the utilisation of secret truths of being, secret powers and processes of Nature. It may even be found that a supraphysical knowledge is necessary for the completion of physical knowledge, because the processes of physical Nature have behind them a supraphysical factor, a power and action mental, vital or spiritual which is not tangible to any outer means of knowledge.” The Life Divine
“… a true occultism means no more than a research into supraphysical realities and an unveiling of the hidden laws of being and Nature, of all that is not obvious on the surface. It attempts the discovery of the secret laws of mind and mental energy, the secret laws of life and life-energy, the secret laws of the subtle-physical and its energies,—all that Nature has not put into visible operation on the surface; it pursues also the application of these hidden truths and powers of Nature so as to extend the mastery of the human spirit beyond the ordinary operations of mind, the ordinary operations of life, the ordinary operations of our physical existence. In the spiritual domain which is occult to the surface mind in so far as it passes beyond normal and enters into supernormal experience, there is possible not only the discovery of the self and spirit, but the discovery of the uplifting, informing and guiding light of spiritual consciousness and the power of the spirit, the spiritual way of knowledge, the spiritual way of action. To know these things and to bring their truths and forces into the life of humanity is a necessary part of its evolution. Science itself is in its own way an occultism; for it brings to light the formulas which Nature has hidden and it uses its knowledge to set free operations of her energies which she has not included in her ordinary operations and to organise and place at the service of man her occult powers and processes, a vast system of physical magic,—for there is and can be no other magic than the utilisation of secret truths of being, secret powers and processes of Nature. It may even be found that a supraphysical knowledge is necessary for the completion of physical knowledge, because the processes of physical Nature have behind them a supraphysical factor, a power and action mental, vital or spiritual which is not tangible to any outer means of knowledge.” The Life Divine
at Swarajya, self-rule or sul>jcctive empire, the entire control by the subjective consciousness of all the states and activities proper to its own domain, but included Samrajya as well, outward empire, the control by the subjective consciousness of its outer activities and environment.
ATTACHMENT. ::: All attachment is a hindrance to sadhana. Goodwāl you should have for all, psychic kindness for all, but no vital attachment.
To become indifferent to the attraction of outer objects is one of the first rules of yoga, for this non-attachment liberates the inner being into peace and the true consciousness.
Even after the liberation, one has to remain vigilant, for often these things go out and remain at a far distance, waiting to see if under any circumstances in any condition they can make a rush and recover their kingdom. If there has been an entire purification down to the depths and nothing is there to open the gate, then they cannot do it.
Attachment to things ::: the physical rejection of them is not the best way to get rid of it. Accept what is given you, ask for what is needed and think no more of it - attaching no importance, using them when you have, not troubled if you have not. That is the best way of getting rid of the attachment.
Attacks of illnesses ::: These forces, when thronm out, retreat into the environmental consciousness and remain there concealed and at any opportunity make an attack on the centres accustomed to receive them (external mind and the external emotional) and get in. This happens with most sadbakas. Two things are neces- sary — (1) to open fully the physical to the higher forces, (2) to reach the stage when even if the forces attack they cannot come fully in, the inner being remaining calm and free. Then even if there is still a surface dIfiBcuIty, there will not be these overpowerings.
attic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Attica, in Greece, or to Athens, its principal city; marked by such qualities as were characteristic of the Athenians; classical; refined.
A low story above the main order or orders of a facade, in the classical styles; -- a term introduced in the 17th century. Hence:
A room or rooms behind that part of the exterior; all the rooms immediately below the roof.
An Athenian; an Athenian author.
Attitude in work: What is of first importance is not the character of the work done, but the inner attitude in which it is done. If the attitude is vital and not psychic, then one throsys oneself out in the work and loses the inner contact. If it is psychic, the inner contact remains, the Force is felt supporting or doing the work and (be sadhana progresses.
augustinian ::: n. --> A member of one of the religious orders called after St. Augustine; an Austin friar.
One of a class of divines, who, following St. Augustine, maintain that grace by its nature is effectual absolutely and creatively, not relatively and conditionally. ::: a.
avouch ::: v. t. --> To appeal to; to cite or claim as authority.
To maintain a just or true; to vouch for.
To declare or assert positively and as matter of fact; to affirm openly.
To acknowledge deliberately; to admit; to confess; to sanction. ::: n.
backhouse ::: n. --> A building behind the main building. Specifically: A privy; a necessary.
baisemains ::: n. pl. --> Respects; compliments.
baptist ::: n. --> One who administers baptism; -- specifically applied to John, the forerunner of Christ.
One of a denomination of Christians who deny the validity of infant baptism and of sprinkling, and maintain that baptism should be administered to believers alone, and should be by immersion. See Anabaptist.
barony ::: n. --> The fee or domain of a baron; the lordship, dignity, or rank of a baron.
In Ireland, a territorial division, corresponding nearly to the English hundred, and supposed to have been originally the district of a native chief. There are 252 of these baronies. In Scotland, an extensive freehold. It may be held by a commoner.
barque ::: n. --> Formerly, any small sailing vessel, as a pinnace, fishing smack, etc.; also, a rowing boat; a barge. Now applied poetically to a sailing vessel or boat of any kind.
A three-masted vessel, having her foremast and mainmast square-rigged, and her mizzenmast schooner-rigged.
Same as 3d Bark, n.
barrow ::: n. --> A support having handles, and with or without a wheel, on which heavy or bulky things can be transported by hand. See Handbarrow, and Wheelbarrow.
A wicker case, in which salt is put to drain.
A hog, esp. a male hog castrated.
A large mound of earth or stones over the remains of the dead; a tumulus.
A heap of rubbish, attle, etc.
bastion ::: n. --> A work projecting outward from the main inclosure of a fortification, consisting of two faces and two flanks, and so constructed that it is able to defend by a flanking fire the adjacent curtain, or wall which extends from one bastion to another. Two adjacent bastions are connected by the curtain, which joins the flank of one with the adjacent flank of the other. The distance between the flanks of a bastion is called the gorge. A lunette is a detached bastion. See Ravelin.
battalia ::: n. --> Order of battle; disposition or arrangement of troops (brigades, regiments, battalions, etc.), or of a naval force, for action.
An army in battle array; also, the main battalia or body.
bay ::: a. --> Reddish brown; of the color of a chestnut; -- applied to the color of horses. ::: n. --> An inlet of the sea, usually smaller than a gulf, but of the same general character.
A small body of water set off from the main body; as a
beaconage ::: n. --> Money paid for the maintenance of a beacon; also, beacons, collectively.
bead proof ::: --> Among distillers, a certain degree of strength in alcoholic liquor, as formerly ascertained by the floating or sinking of glass globules of different specific gravities thrown into it; now ascertained by more accurate meters.
A degree of strength in alcoholic liquor as shown by beads or small bubbles remaining on its surface, or at the side of the glass, when shaken.
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.
benefice ::: n. --> A favor or benefit.
An estate in lands; a fief.
An ecclesiastical living and church preferment, as in the Church of England; a church endowed with a revenue for the maintenance of divine service. See Advowson. ::: v. t.
benzine ::: n. --> A liquid consisting mainly of the lighter and more volatile hydrocarbons of petroleum or kerosene oil, used as a solvent and for cleansing soiled fabrics; -- called also petroleum spirit, petroleum benzine. Varieties or similar products are gasoline, naphtha, rhigolene, ligroin, etc.
Same as Benzene.
bide ::: v. t. --> To dwell; to inhabit; to abide; to stay.
To remain; to continue or be permanent in a place or state; to continue to be.
To encounter; to remain firm under (a hardship); to endure; to suffer; to undergo.
To wait for; as, I bide my time. See Abide.
bipartient ::: p. pr. --> Dividing into two parts. ::: n. --> A number that divides another into two equal parts without a remainder.
bittern ::: n. --> A wading bird of the genus Botaurus, allied to the herons, of various species. ::: a. --> The brine which remains in salt works after the salt is concreted, having a bitter taste from the chloride of magnesium which it contains.
blueback ::: n. --> A trout (Salmo oquassa) inhabiting some of the lakes of Maine.
A salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) of the Columbia River and northward.
An American river herring (Clupea aestivalis), closely allied to the alewife.
maintains ::: 1. Keeps in an existing state; preserves or retains. 2. Defends against contradiction; upholds. maintained.
main ::: the open ocean.
body ::: 1. The entire material or physical structure of an organism, especially of a human or animal as differentiated from the soul. 2. The entire physical structure of a human being. 3. A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses. 4. Substance. 5. An agent or entity. 6. The mass of a thing. 7. A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses. 8. The largest or main part of anything; the foundation; central part. body"s, bodies.
BODY. ::: Body is the means of the sadhana and should be maintained in good order. There should be no attachment to
body ::: n. --> The material organized substance of an animal, whether living or dead, as distinguished from the spirit, or vital principle; the physical person.
The trunk, or main part, of a person or animal, as distinguished from the limbs and head; the main, central, or principal part, as of a tree, army, country, etc.
The real, as opposed to the symbolical; the substance, as opposed to the shadow.
bordland ::: n. --> Either land held by a bordar, or the land which a lord kept for the maintenance of his board, or table.
bough ::: a main branch on a tree. boughs.
bough ::: n. --> An arm or branch of a tree, esp. a large arm or main branch.
A gallows.
brace ::: n. --> That which holds anything tightly or supports it firmly; a bandage or a prop.
A cord, ligament, or rod, for producing or maintaining tension, as a cord on the side of a drum.
The state of being braced or tight; tension.
A piece of material used to transmit, or change the direction of, weight or pressure; any one of the pieces, in a frame or truss, which divide the structure into triangular parts. It may act as
bractlet ::: n. --> A bract on the stalk of a single flower, which is itself on a main stalk that support several flowers.
Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane.
branch ::: n. --> A shoot or secondary stem growing from the main stem, or from a principal limb or bough of a tree or other plant.
Any division extending like a branch; any arm or part connected with the main body of thing; ramification; as, the branch of an antler; the branch of a chandelier; a branch of a river; a branch of a railway.
Any member or part of a body or system; a distinct article; a section or subdivision; a department.
breeds ::: a group of organisms within a species, esp. a group of domestic animals, originated and maintained by man and having a clearly defined set of characteristics.
brigantine ::: n. --> A practical vessel.
A two-masted, square-rigged vessel, differing from a brig in that she does not carry a square mainsail.
See Brigandine.
budding ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Bud ::: n. --> The act or process of producing buds.
A process of asexual reproduction, in which a new organism or cell is formed by a protrusion of a portion of the animal or vegetable organism, the bud thus formed sometimes remaining attached to
bufonite ::: n. --> An old name for a fossil consisting of the petrified teeth and palatal bones of fishes belonging to the family of Pycnodonts (thick teeth), whose remains occur in the oolite and chalk formations; toadstone; -- so named from a notion that it was originally formed in the head of a toad.
bulk ::: n. --> Magnitude of material substance; dimensions; mass; size; as, an ox or ship of great bulk.
The main mass or body; the largest or principal portion; the majority; as, the bulk of a debt.
The cargo of a vessel when stowed.
The body. ::: v. i.
bumkin ::: n. --> A projecting beam or boom; as: (a) One projecting from each bow of a vessel, to haul the fore tack to, called a tack bumpkin. (b) One from each quarter, for the main-brace blocks, and called brace bumpkin. (c) A small outrigger over the stern of a boat, to extend the mizzen.
burggrave ::: n. --> Originally, one appointed to the command of a burg (fortress or castle); but the title afterward became hereditary, with a domain attached.
burse ::: n. --> A purse; also, a vesicle; a pod; a hull.
A fund or foundation for the maintenance of needy scholars in their studies; also, the sum given to the beneficiaries.
An ornamental case of hold the corporal when not in use.
An exchange, for merchants and bankers, in the cities of continental Europe. Same as Bourse.
A kind of bazaar.
But she remains herself and infinite.
buttermilk ::: n. --> The milk that remains after the butter is separated from the cream.
butter ::: n. --> An oily, unctuous substance obtained from cream or milk by churning.
Any substance resembling butter in degree of consistence, or other qualities, especially, in old chemistry, the chlorides, as butter of antimony, sesquichloride of antimony; also, certain concrete fat oils remaining nearly solid at ordinary temperatures, as butter of cacao, vegetable butter, shea butter.
One who, or that which, butts.
butter-scotch ::: n. --> A kind of candy, mainly composed of sugar and butter.
by-dependence ::: n. --> An appendage; that which depends on something else, or is distinct from the main dependence; an accessory.
byplay ::: n. --> Action carried on aside, and commonly in dumb show, while the main action proceeds.
by-turning ::: n. --> An obscure road; a way turning from the main road.
byway ::: n. --> A secluded, private, or obscure way; a path or road aside from the main one.
caducibranchiate ::: a. --> With temporary gills: -- applied to those Amphibia in which the gills do not remain in adult life.
calx ::: n. --> Quicklime.
The substance which remains when a metal or mineral has been subjected to calcination or combustion by heat, and which is, or may be, reduced to a fine powder.
Broken and refuse glass, returned to the post.
campus ::: n. --> The principal grounds of a college or school, between the buildings or within the main inclosure; as, the college campus.
carcass ::: n. --> A dead body, whether of man or beast; a corpse; now commonly the dead body of a beast.
The living body; -- now commonly used in contempt or ridicule.
The abandoned and decaying remains of some bulky and once comely thing, as a ship; the skeleton, or the uncovered or unfinished frame, of a thing.
A hollow case or shell, filled with combustibles, to be
carotid ::: n. --> One of the two main arteries of the neck, by which blood is conveyed from the aorta to the head. [See Illust. of Aorta.] ::: a. --> Alt. of Carotidal
casein ::: n. --> A proteid substance present in both the animal and the vegetable kingdom. In the animal kingdom it is chiefly found in milk, and constitutes the main part of the curd separated by rennet; in the vegetable kingdom it is found more or less abundantly in the seeds of leguminous plants. Its reactions resemble those of alkali albumin.
castle-guard ::: n. --> The guard or defense of a castle.
A tax or imposition an a dwelling within a certain distance of a castle, for the purpose of maintaining watch and ward in it; castle-ward.
A feudal tenure, obliging the tenant to perform service within the realm, without limitation of time.
catafalque ::: n. --> A temporary structure sometimes used in the funeral solemnities of eminent persons, for the public exhibition of the remains, or their conveyance to the place of burial.
causidical ::: a. --> Pertaining to an advocate, or to the maintenance and defense of suits.
cenotaphs ::: monuments erected in honour of dead persons whose remains lie elsewhere.
chalaza ::: n. --> The place on an ovule, or seed, where its outer coats cohere with each other and the nucleus.
A spiral band of thickened albuminous substance which exists in the white of the bird&
chalkstone ::: n. --> A mass of chalk.
A chalklike concretion, consisting mainly of urate of sodium, found in and about the small joints, in the external ear, and in other situations, in those affected with gout; a tophus.
champerty ::: n. --> Partnership in power; equal share of authority.
The prosecution or defense of a suit, whether by furnishing money or personal services, by one who has no legitimate concern therein, in consideration of an agreement that he shall receive, in the event of success, a share of the matter in suit; maintenance with the addition of an agreement to divide the thing in suit. See Maintenance.
champion ::: v. t. --> To furnish with a champion; to attend or defend as champion; to support or maintain; to protect.
chancel ::: v. t. --> That part of a church, reserved for the use of the clergy, where the altar, or communion table, is placed.
All that part of a cruciform church which is beyond the line of the transept farthest from the main front.
changelessness ::: the quality of being unchangeable; having a marked tendency to remain unchanged.
channel ::: n. --> The hollow bed where a stream of water runs or may run.
The deeper part of a river, harbor, strait, etc., where the main current flows, or which affords the best and safest passage for vessels.
A strait, or narrow sea, between two portions of lands; as, the British Channel.
That through which anything passes; means of passing, conveying, or transmitting; as, the news was conveyed to us by
chapeau ::: n. --> A hat or covering for the head.
A cap of maintenance. See Maintenance.
charbon ::: n. --> A small black spot or mark remaining in the cavity of the corner tooth of a horse after the large spot or mark has become obliterated.
A very contagious and fatal disease of sheep, horses, and cattle. See Maligmant pustule.
chesstree ::: n. --> A piece of oak bolted perpendicularly on the side of a vessel, to aid in drawing down and securing the clew of the mainsail.
chigre ::: n. --> A species of flea (Pulex penetrans), common in the West Indies and South America, which often attacks the feet or any exposed part of the human body, and burrowing beneath the skin produces great irritation. When the female is allowed to remain and breed, troublesome sores result, which are sometimes dangerous. See Jigger.
Chronic or repealed illnesses are indeed mainly due to the subconscient and its obstinate memory and habit of repetition of whatever has impressed itself upon the body consciousness.
claim ::: n. 1. A demand for something as rightful or due. 2. Something claimed in a formal or legal manner as a right or title. claims. *v. *3. To demand, ask for, assert, or take as one"s own or one"s due. 4. To state to be true, especially when open to question; assert or maintain. claims, claimed, claiming, claimest, claimst, death-claimed, trance-claimed.
claim ::: v./. --> To ask for, or seek to obtain, by virtue of authority, right, or supposed right; to challenge as a right; to demand as due.
To proclaim.
To call or name.
To assert; to maintain. ::: v. i.
cleche ::: a. --> Charged with another bearing of the same figure, and of the color of the field, so large that only a narrow border of the first bearing remains visible; -- said of any heraldic bearing. Compare Voided.
cling ::: 1. To come or be in close contact with; stick or hold together and resist separation 2. To hold fast or adhere to as if by embracing. 3. To be emotionally or intellectually attached or remain close to. 4. To hold on tightly or tenaciously to. 5. To remain attached as to an idea, hope, memory, etc. clings, clung, clinging.
coal ::: n. --> A thoroughly charred, and extinguished or still ignited, fragment from wood or other combustible substance; charcoal.
A black, or brownish black, solid, combustible substance, dug from beds or veins in the earth to be used for fuel, and consisting, like charcoal, mainly of carbon, but more compact, and often affording, when heated, a large amount of volatile matter. ::: v. t.
cohobate ::: v. t. --> To repeat the distillation of, pouring the liquor back upon the matter remaining in the vessel.
collateral ::: a. --> Coming from, being on, or directed toward, the side; as, collateral pressure.
Acting in an indirect way.
Related to, but not strictly a part of, the main thing or matter under consideration; hence, subordinate; not chief or principal; as, collateral interest; collateral issues.
Tending toward the same conclusion or result as something else; additional; as, collateral evidence.
colony ::: a group of emigrants or their descendants who settle in a distant territory but remain subject to or closely associated with the parent country. colonies.
colony ::: n. --> A company of people transplanted from their mother country to a remote province or country, and remaining subject to the jurisdiction of the parent state; as, the British colonies in America.
The district or country colonized; a settlement.
A company of persons from the same country sojourning in a foreign city or land; as, the American colony in Paris.
A number of animals or plants living or growing together, beyond their usual range.
concentration ::: “Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it.” Letters on Yoga
CONCENTRATION ::: Fixing the consciousness in one place or on one object and in a single condition.
A gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g. the Divine; there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point.
Concentration is necessary, first to turn the whole will and mind from the discursive divagation natural to them, following a dispersed movement of the thoughts, running after many-branching desires, led away in the track of the senses and the outward mental response to phenomena; we have to fix the will and the thought on the eternal and real behind all, and this demands an immense effort, a one-pointed concentration. Secondly, it is necessary in order to break down the veil which is erected by our ordinary mentality between ourselves and the truth; for outer knowledge can be picked up by the way, by ordinary attention and reception, but the inner, hidden and higher truth can only be seized by an absolute concentration of the mind on its object, an absolute concentration of the will to attain it and, once attained, to hold it habitually and securely unite oneself with it.
Centre of Concentration: The two main places where one can centre the consciousness for yoga are in the head and in the heart - the mind-centre and the soul-centre.
Brain concentration is always a tapasyā and necessarily brings a strain. It is only if one is lifted out of the brain mind altogether that the strain of mental concentration disappears.
At the top of the head or above it is the right place for yogic concentration in reading or thinking.
In whatever centre the concentration takes place, the yoga force generated extends to the others and produces concentration or workings there.
Modes of Concentration: There is no harm in concentrating sometimes in the heart and sometimes above the head. But concentration in either place does not mean keeping the attention fixed on a particular spot; you have to take your station of consciousness in either place and concentrate there not on the place, but on the Divine. This can be done with eyes shut or with eyes open, according as it best suits.
If one concentrates on a thought or a word, one has to dwell on the essential idea contained in the word with the aspiration to feel the thing which it expresses.
There is no method in this yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force to transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be.
Powers (three) of Concentration ::: By concentration on anything whatsoever we are able to know that thing, to make it deliver up its concealed secrets; we must use this power to know not things, but the one Thing-in-itself. By concentration again the whole will can be gathered up for the acquisition of that which is still ungrasped, still beyond us; this power, if it is sufficiently trained, sufficiently single-minded, sufficiently sincere, sure of itself, faithful to itself alone, absolute in faith, we can use for the acquisition of any object whatsoever; but we ought to use it not for the acquisition of the many objects which the world offers to us, but to grasp spiritually that one object worthy of pursuit which is also the one subject worthy of knowledge. By concentration of our whole being on one status of itself we can become whatever we choose ; we can become, for instance, even if we were before a mass of weaknesses and fears, a mass instead of strength and courage, or we can become all a great purity, holiness and peace or a single universal soul of Love ; but we ought, it is said, to use this power to become not even these things, high as they may be in comparison with what we now are, but rather to become that which is above all things and free from all action and attributes, the pure and absolute Being. All else, all other concentration can only be valuable for preparation, for previous steps, for a gradual training of the dissolute and self-dissipating thought, will and being towards their grand and unique object.
Stages in Concentration (Rajayogic) ::: that in which the object is seized, that in which it is held, that in which the mind is lost in the status which the object represents or to which the concentration leads.
Concentration and Meditation ::: Concentration means fixing the consciousness in one place or one object and in a single condition Meditation can be diffusive,e.g. thinking about the Divine, receiving impressions and discriminating, watching what goes on in the nature and acting upon it etc. Meditation is when the inner mind is looking at things to get the right knowledge.
vide Dhyāna.
conceptualist ::: n. --> One who maintains the theory of conceptualism.
conjurer ::: n. --> One who conjures; one who calls, entreats, or charges in a solemn manner.
One who practices magic arts; one who pretends to act by the aid super natural power; also, one who performs feats of legerdemain or sleight of hand.
One who conjectures shrewdly or judges wisely; a man of sagacity.
conservative ::: a. --> Having power to preserve in a safe of entire state, or from loss, waste, or injury; preservative.
Tending or disposed to maintain existing institutions; opposed to change or innovation.
Of or pertaining to a political party which favors the conservation of existing institutions and forms of government, as the Conservative party in England; -- contradistinguished from Liberal and Radical.
consist ::: v. i. --> To stand firm; to be in a fixed or permanent state, as a body composed of parts in union or connection; to hold together; to be; to exist; to subsist; to be supported and maintained.
To be composed or made up; -- followed by of.
To have as its substance or character, or as its foundation; to be; -- followed by in.
To be consistent or harmonious; to be in accordance; -- formerly used absolutely, now followed by with.
constant ::: v. t. --> Firm; solid; fixed; immovable; -- opposed to fluid.
Not liable, or given, to change; permanent; regular; continuous; continually recurring; steadfast; faithful; not fickle.
Remaining unchanged or invariable, as a quantity, force, law, etc.
Consistent; logical. ::: n.
contention ::: n. --> A violent effort or struggle to obtain, or to resist, something; contest; strife.
Strife in words; controversy; altercation; quarrel; dispute; as, a bone of contention.
Vehemence of endeavor; eagerness; ardor; zeal.
A point maintained in an argument, or a line of argument taken in its support; the subject matter of discussion or strife; a position taken or contended for.
contest ::: v. t. --> To make a subject of dispute, contention, litigation, or emulation; to contend for; to call in question; to controvert; to oppose; to dispute.
To strive earnestly to hold or maintain; to struggle to defend; as, the troops contested every inch of ground.
To make a subject of litigation; to defend, as a suit; to dispute or resist; as a claim, by course of law; to controvert.
continent ::: 1. Mainland as opposed to islands. 2. A continuous extent of land. Also fig. continents.
continental ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a continent.
Of or pertaining to the main land of Europe, in distinction from the adjacent islands, especially England; as, a continental tour; a continental coalition.
Of or pertaining to the confederated colonies collectively, in the time of the Revolutionary War; as, Continental money.
continuance ::: n. --> A holding on, or remaining in a particular state; permanence, as of condition, habits, abode, etc.; perseverance; constancy; duration; stay.
Uninterrupted succession; continuation; constant renewal; perpetuation; propagation.
A holding together; continuity.
The adjournment of the proceedings in a cause from one day, or from one stated term of a court, to another.
continue ::: v. i. --> To remain in a given place or condition; to remain in connection with; to abide; to stay.
To be permanent or durable; to endure; to last.
To be steadfast or constant in any course; to persevere; to abide; to endure; to persist; to keep up or maintain a particular condition, course, or series of actions; as, the army continued to advance.
cormus ::: n. --> See Corm.
A vegetable or animal made up of a number of individuals, such as, for example, would be formed by a process of budding from a parent stalk wherre the buds remain attached.
Cosmic Divine to get some work done, but the self within remains calm and free and united with the Divine.
counter brace ::: --> The brace of the fore-topsail on the leeward side of a vessel.
A brace, in a framed structure, which resists a strain of a character opposite to that which a main brace is designed to receive.
countercurrent ::: a. --> Running in an opposite direction. ::: n. --> A current running in an opposite direction to the main current.
counterfoil ::: n. --> That part of a tally, formerly in the exchequer, which was kept by an officer in that court, the other, called the stock, being delivered to the person who had lent the king money on the account; -- called also counterstock.
The part of a writing (as the stub of a bank check) in which are noted the main particulars contained in the corresponding part, which has been issued.
county ::: n. --> An earldom; the domain of a count or earl.
A circuit or particular portion of a state or kingdom, separated from the rest of the territory, for certain purposes in the administration of justice and public affairs; -- called also a shire. See Shire.
A count; an earl or lord.
crosscut ::: v. t. --> To cut across or through; to intersect. ::: n. --> A short cut across; a path shorter than by the high road.
A level driven across the course of a vein, or across the main workings, as from one gangway to another.
crossroad ::: n. --> A road that crosses another; an obscure road intersecting or avoiding the main road.
crownwork ::: n. --> A work consisting of two or more bastioned fronts, with their outworks, covering an enceinte, a bridgehead, etc., and connected by wings with the main work or the river bank.
danegelt ::: n. --> An annual tax formerly laid on the English nation to buy off the ravages of Danish invaders, or to maintain forces to oppose them. It afterward became a permanent tax, raised by an assessment, at first of one shilling, afterward of two shillings, upon every hide of land throughout the realm.
"Death has no reality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and renewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of life; death is merely a rapid disintegration subservient to life"s necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Even in the death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for other forms of life.” The Life Divine
“Death has no reality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and renewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of life; death is merely a rapid disintegration subservient to life’s necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Even in the death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for other forms of life.” The Life Divine
debate ::: v. t. --> To engage in combat for; to strive for.
To contend for in words or arguments; to strive to maintain by reasoning; to dispute; to contest; to discuss; to argue for and against.
A fight or fighting; contest; strife.
Contention in words or arguments; discussion for the purpose of elucidating truth or influencing action; strife in argument; controversy; as, the debates in Parliament or in Congress.
demain ::: n. --> Rule; management.
See Demesne.
debris ::: n. --> Broken and detached fragments, taken collectively; especially, fragments detached from a rock or mountain, and piled up at the base.
Rubbish, especially such as results from the destruction of anything; remains; ruins.
debris ::: the scattered remains of something broken or destroyed; rubble or wreckage.
defence ::: n. & v. t. --> See Defense. ::: n. --> The act of defending, or the state of being defended; protection, as from violence or danger.
That which defends or protects; anything employed to oppose attack, ward off violence or danger, or maintain security; a
defender ::: n. --> One who defends; one who maintains, supports, protects, or vindicates; a champion; an advocate; a vindicator.
defend ::: v. t. --> To ward or fend off; to drive back or away; to repel.
To prohibit; to forbid.
To repel danger or harm from; to protect; to secure against; attack; to maintain against force or argument; to uphold; to guard; as, to defend a town; to defend a cause; to defend character; to defend the absent; -- sometimes followed by from or against; as, to defend one&
dehors ::: prep. --> Out of; without; foreign to; out of the agreement, record, will, or other instrument. ::: n. --> All sorts of outworks in general, at a distance from the main works; any advanced works for protection or cover.
delight ::: “… the divine Ananda, the principle of Bliss [is that] from which, in the Vedic conception, the existence of Man, this mental being, is drawn. A secret Delight is the base of existence, its sustaining atmosphere and almost its substance. This Ananda is spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the ethereal atmosphere of bliss without which nothing could remain in being. In the Aitareya Upanishad Soma, as the lunar deity, is born from the sense-mind in the universal Purusha and, when man is produced, expresses himself again as sense-mentality in the human being. For delight is the raison d’être of sensation, or, we may say, sensation is an attempt to translate the secret delight of existence into the terms of physical consciousness.” The Secret of the Veda
demilune ::: n. --> A work constructed beyond the main ditch of a fortress, and in front of the curtain between two bastions, intended to defend the curtain; a ravelin. See Ravelin.
A crescentic mass of granular protoplasm present in the salivary glands.
demoniac ::: a. --> Alt. of Demoniacal ::: n. --> A human being possessed by a demon or evil spirit; one whose faculties are directly controlled by a demon.
One of a sect of Anabaptists who maintain that the demons or devils will finally be saved.
denial ::: n. --> The act of gainsaying, refusing, or disowning; negation; -- the contrary of affirmation.
A refusal to admit the truth of a statement, charge, imputation, etc.; assertion of the untruth of a thing stated or maintained; a contradiction.
A refusal to grant; rejection of a request.
A refusal to acknowledge; disclaimer of connection with; disavowal; -- the contrary of confession; as, the denial of a fault
descant ::: v. i. --> Originally, a double song; a melody or counterpoint sung above the plain song of the tenor; a variation of an air; a variation by ornament of the main subject or plain song.
The upper voice in part music.
The canto, cantus, or soprano voice; the treble.
A discourse formed on its theme, like variations on a musical air; a comment or comments.
To sing a variation or accomplishment.
design ::: n. --> To draw preliminary outline or main features of; to sketch for a pattern or model; to delineate; to trace out; to draw.
To mark out and exhibit; to designate; to indicate; to show; to point out; to appoint.
To create or produce, as a work of art; to form a plan or scheme of; to form in idea; to invent; to project; to lay out in the mind; as, a man designs an essay, a poem, a statue, or a cathedral.
To intend or purpose; -- usually with for before the remote
despotat ::: n. --> The station or government of a despot; also, the domain of a despot.
destroy ::: 1. To reduce anything to useless fragments, a useless form, or remains, as by rending, burning, or dissolving; injuring beyond repair or renewal; demolish; ruin; annihilate. 2. To subdue or defeat completely; crush. 3. To slay, to kill. destroys, destroyed, destroying, world-destroying.
"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
detachment ::: n. --> The act of detaching or separating, or the state of being detached.
That which is detached; especially, a body of troops or part of a fleet sent from the main body on special service.
Abstraction from worldly objects; renunciation.
diaphysis ::: n. --> An abnormal prolongation of the axis of inflorescence.
The shaft, or main part, of a bone, which is first ossified.
dicynodont ::: n. --> One of a group of extinct reptiles having the jaws armed with a horny beak, as in turtles, and in the genus Dicynodon, supporting also a pair of powerful tusks. Their remains are found in triassic strata of South Africa and India.
Difference in the Descent in old Yogas and this Yoga ::: I explain the absence of the descent experiences by the old yogas having been mainly confined to the psj'cho-spiritual-occult range of experience in which the higher experiences come into the still mind or the conceniraied heart by a sort of filtration or reflection — the field of this experience being from the
digressional ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or having the character of, a digression; departing from the main purpose or subject.
digression ::: n. --> The act of digressing or deviating, esp. from the main subject of a discourse; hence, a part of a discourse deviating from its main design or subject.
A turning aside from the right path; transgression; offense.
The elongation, or angular distance from the sun; -- said chiefly of the inferior planets.
digressive ::: a. --> Departing from the main subject; partaking of the nature of digression.
digress ::: v. i. --> To step or turn aside; to deviate; to swerve; especially, to turn aside from the main subject of attention, or course of argument, in writing or speaking.
To turn aside from the right path; to transgress; to offend. ::: n.
dinichthys ::: n. --> A genus of large extinct Devonian ganoid fishes. In some parts of Ohio remains of the Dinichthys are abundant, indicating animals twenty feet in length.
dispute ::: v. i. --> To contend in argument; to argue against something maintained, upheld, or claimed, by another; to discuss; to reason; to debate; to altercate; to wrangle.
Verbal controversy; contest by opposing argument or expression of opposing views or claims; controversial discussion; altercation; debate.
Contest; struggle; quarrel.
ditheism ::: n. --> The doctrine of those who maintain the existence of two gods or of two original principles (as in Manicheism), one good and one evil; dualism.
domain ::: 1. A sphere of activity, concern, or function; a field. 2. A region characterized by a specific feature, type of growth or wildlife, etc. domains.
domain ::: n. --> Dominion; empire; authority.
The territory over which dominion or authority is exerted; the possessions of a sovereign or commonwealth, or the like. Also used figuratively.
Landed property; estate; especially, the land about the mansion house of a lord, and in his immediate occupancy; demesne.
Ownership of land; an estate or patrimony which one has in his own right; absolute proprietorship; paramount or sovereign
dole ::: n. **1. A portion or allotment of money, food, etc., esp. as given at regular intervals by a charity or for maintenance. v. 2. To give out sparingly or in small quantities (usually followed by out). doled, doles.**
domanial ::: a. --> Of or relating to a domain or to domains.
domestic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to one&
domicile ::: n. --> An abode or mansion; a place of permanent residence, either of an individual or a family.
A residence at a particular place accompanied with an intention to remain there for an unlimited time; a residence accepted as a final abode. ::: v. t.
doryphoros ::: n. --> A spear bearer; a statue of a man holding a spear or in the attitude of a spear bearer. Several important sculptures of this subject existed in antiquity, copies of which remain to us.
drag ::: n. --> A confection; a comfit; a drug. ::: v. t. --> To draw slowly or heavily onward; to pull along the ground by main force; to haul; to trail; -- applied to drawing heavy or resisting bodies or those inapt for drawing, with labor, along the ground or other surface; as, to drag stone or timber; to drag a net in
dropper ::: n. --> One who, or that which, drops. Specif.: (Fishing) A fly that drops from the leaden above the bob or end fly.
A dropping tube.
A branch vein which drops off from, or leaves, the main lode.
A dog which suddenly drops upon the ground when it sights game, -- formerly a common, and still an occasional, habit of the setter.
DRY PERIOD. ::: There is a long stage of preparation neces- sary in order to arrive at the moer psychologic^ condition in which the doors of experience can open and one can walk from vista to vista — though even then new gates may present them- selves and refuse to open until all is ready. This period can be dry and desert-like unless one has the ardour of self-introspec- tion and self-conquest and finds every step of the effort and struggle interesting or unless one has or gets the secret of trust and self-giving which secs the hand of the Divine in every step of the path and even in the difficulty the grace or the guidance.
Such interval periods come to all and cannot be avoided.
The main thing is to meet them with quietude and not become restless, depressed or despondent. A constant fire can be there only when a certain stage has been reached, that is when one is always inside consciously living in the psychic being, but for that all this preparation of the mind, vital, physical is necessary.
For this fire belongs to the psychic and one cannot command it always merely by the mind's effort. The psychic has to be fully liberated and that is what the Force is working to make fully possible.
The difficulty comes when either the vital with its desires or the physical with its past habitual movements comes in — as they do with almost everyone. It is then that the dryness and difficulty of spontaneous aspiration come. This dryness is a well- known obstacle in all sadhana. But one has to persist and not be discouraged. If one keep? the will fixed even in these barren periods, they pass and after their passage a greater force of aspiration and experience becomes possible.
Dryness comes usually when the vital dislikes a movement or' condition or the refusal of its desires and starts non-co-operation.
But sometimes it is a condition that has to be crossed through, e.g. the neutral or dry quietude which sometimes comes when the ordinary movements have been thrown out but nothing positive has yet come to take their place, i.e, peace, joy, a higher know- ledge or force or action.
duncedom ::: n. --> The realm or domain of dunces.
dunker ::: n. --> One of a religious denomination whose tenets and practices are mainly those of the Baptists, but partly those of the Quakers; -- called also Tunkers, Dunkards, Dippers, and, by themselves, Brethren, and German Baptists.
dust ::: n. --> Fine, dry particles of earth or other matter, so comminuted that they may be raised and wafted by the wind; that which is crumbled too minute portions; fine powder; as, clouds of dust; bone dust.
A single particle of earth or other matter.
The earth, as the resting place of the dead.
The earthy remains of bodies once alive; the remains of the human body.
Figuratively, a worthless thing.
dwelling ::: 1. A place to live in; an abode. 2. The act or action of living, staying, remaining in a place for a period of time. dwellings, dwelling-place.
dwell ::: v. i. --> To delay; to linger.
To abide; to remain; to continue.
To abide as a permanent resident, or for a time; to live in a place; to reside. ::: v. t. --> To inhabit.
ectobronchium ::: n. --> One of the dorsal branches of the main bronchi in the lungs of birds.
eddy ::: 1. A current at variance with the main current in a stream of liquid or gas, esp. one having a rotary or whirling motion. 2. A small whirlpool. eddies, eddying.
eddy ::: n. --> A current of air or water running back, or in a direction contrary to the main current.
A current of water or air moving in a circular direction; a whirlpool. ::: v. i. --> To move as an eddy, or as in an eddy; to move in a circle.
Egocentriclty ::: The main idea in it is always one’s own sadhana, one’s own endeavour, one’s own development, perfec- tion, siddhi. It is inevitable for most, for without that personal endeavour there would not be sufficient will or push to bring about the first necessary changes. But none of these things — development, perfection or siddhi — can really come in any degree of completeness or unmixed finality until this egocentric attitude changes into the God-centric, until it becomes the deve- lopment, perfection, siddhi of the Divine Consciousness, its will and its instrumentarion in this body — and that can only be when these things become secondary, and bhakti for the Divine,
elasmobranchii ::: n. pl. --> A subclass of fishes, comprising the sharks, the rays, and the Chimaera. The skeleton is mainly cartilaginous.
electrotonic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to electrical tension; -- said of a supposed peculiar condition of a conducting circuit during its exposure to the action of another conducting circuit traversed by a uniform electric current when both circuits remain stationary.
Relating to electrotonus; as, the electrotonic condition of a nerve.
ember ::: n. --> A lighted coal, smoldering amid ashes; -- used chiefly in the plural, to signify mingled coals and ashes; the smoldering remains of a fire. ::: a. --> Making a circuit of the year of the seasons; recurring in each quarter of the year; as, ember fasts.
encamp ::: v. i. --> To form and occupy a camp; to prepare and settle in temporary habitations, as tents or huts; to halt on a march, pitch tents, or form huts, and remain for the night or for a longer time, as an army or a company traveling. ::: v. t. --> To form into a camp; to place in a temporary habitation,
enceinte ::: n. --> The line of works which forms the main inclosure of a fortress or place; -- called also body of the place.
The area or town inclosed by a line of fortification. ::: a. --> Pregnant; with child.
endure ::: v. i. --> To continue in the same state without perishing; to last; to remain.
To remain firm, as under trial or suffering; to suffer patiently or without yielding; to bear up under adversity; to hold out. ::: v. t. --> To remain firm under; to sustain; to undergo; to support
entertain ::: v. t. --> To be at the charges of; to take or keep in one&
Entire physical retirement is seWom heafthy,' aMougft a tempo- rary retirement is often helpfuL But the main thing is the inner detachment and complete tnniing to the Divine. ‘
entobronchium ::: n. --> One of the main bronchi in the lungs of birds.
entropy ::: n. --> A certain property of a body, expressed as a measurable quantity, such that when there is no communication of heat the quantity remains constant, but when heat enters or leaves the body the quantity increases or diminishes. If a small amount, h, of heat enters the body when its temperature is t in the thermodynamic scale the entropy of the body is increased by h / t. The entropy is regarded as measured from some standard temperature and pressure. Sometimes called the thermodynamic function.
epiornis ::: n. --> One of the gigantic ostrichlike birds of the genus Aepiornis, only recently extinct. Its remains have been found in Madagascar.
epiphany ::: n. --> An appearance, or a becoming manifest.
A church festival celebrated on the 6th of January, the twelfth day after Christmas, in commemoration of the visit of the Magi of the East to Bethlehem, to see and worship the child Jesus; or, as others maintain, to commemorate the appearance of the star to the Magi, symbolizing the manifestation of Christ to the Gentles; Twelfthtide.
episode ::: n. --> A separate incident, story, or action, introduced for the purpose of giving a greater variety to the events related; an incidental narrative, or digression, separable from the main subject, but naturally arising from it.
epitasis ::: n. --> That part which embraces the main action of a play, poem, and the like, and leads on to the catastrophe; -- opposed to protasis.
The period of violence in a fever or disease; paroxysm.
epizootic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to an epizoon.
Containing fossil remains; -- said of rocks, formations, mountains, and the like.
Of the nature of a disease which attacks many animals at the same time; -- corresponding to epidemic diseases among men. ::: n.
equality ::: “Equality is to remain unmoved within in all conditions.” Letters on Yoga
equilibrium ::: n. --> Equality of weight or force; an equipoise or a state of rest produced by the mutual counteraction of two or more forces.
A level position; a just poise or balance in respect to an object, so that it remains firm; equipoise; as, to preserve the equilibrium of the body.
A balancing of the mind between motives or reasons, with consequent indecision and doubt.
escot ::: n. --> See Scot, a tax. ::: v. t. --> To pay the reckoning for; to support; to maintain.
espousal ::: n. --> The act of espousing or betrothing; especially, in the plural, betrothal; plighting of the troths; a contract of marriage; sometimes, the marriage ceremony.
The uniting or allying one&
espouse ::: v. t. --> To betroth; to promise in marriage; to give as spouse.
To take as spouse; to take to wife; to marry.
To take to one&
establishment ::: n. --> The act of establishing; a ratifying or ordaining; settlement; confirmation.
The state of being established, founded, and the like; fixed state.
That which is established; as: (a) A form of government, civil or ecclesiastical; especially, a system of religion maintained by the civil power; as, the Episcopal establishment of England. (b) A permanent civil, military, or commercial, force or
evergreen ::: a. --> Remaining unwithered through the winter, or retaining unwithered leaves until the leaves of the next year are expanded, as pines cedars, hemlocks, and the like. ::: n. --> An evergreen plant.
Twigs and branches of evergreen plants used for
Every sadbaka Is faced with two elements in him, the inner being which wants the Divine and the sadhana and the outer mainly vital and physical being which does not want them but remains attached to the things of the ordinary life. The mind is sometimes led by one, someUoves by the other. One of the most important things he has to do, therefore, is to decide fundamentally the quarrel between these two parts and to persuade or compel by psychic aspiration, by steadiness of the mind’s thought and will, by the choice of the higher vital in his emotional being, the opposing elements to be first quiescent and then consenting. So long as he is not able to do that his progress must be either very slow or fluctuating and chequered as the aspiration within cannot have a continuous action or a continuous result. Besides so long as thb is so, there are likely to be periodical revolts of the vita! repining at the slow progress, des- pairing, desponding, declaring the Adhar unfit ; calls from old life will come ; circumstances will be attracted which seem to justify it, suggestions will come from men and unseen powers pressing the sadhaka away from the sadhana and pointing back- ward to the former life. And yet in that life he is not likely to get any real satisfaction.
"Evolution takes place on the earth and therefore the earth is the proper field for progression. The beings of the other worlds do not progress from one world to another. They remain fixed to their own type.” Letters on Yoga
“Evolution takes place on the earth and therefore the earth is the proper field for progression. The beings of the other worlds do not progress from one world to another. They remain fixed to their own type.” Letters on Yoga
excess ::: n. --> The state of surpassing or going beyond limits; the being of a measure beyond sufficiency, necessity, or duty; that which exceeds what is usual or prover; immoderateness; superfluity; superabundance; extravagance; as, an excess of provisions or of light.
An undue indulgence of the appetite; transgression of proper moderation in natural gratifications; intemperance; dissipation.
The degree or amount by which one thing or number exceeds another; remainder; as, the difference between two numbers is the
exclave ::: n. --> A portion of a country which is separated from the main part and surrounded by politically alien territory.
exhibition ::: n. --> The act of exhibiting for inspection, or of holding forth to view; manifestation; display.
That which is exhibited, held forth, or displayed; also, any public show; a display of works of art, or of feats of skill, or of oratorical or dramatic ability; as, an exhibition of animals; an exhibition of pictures, statues, etc.; an industrial exhibition.
Sustenance; maintenance; allowance, esp. for meat and drink; pension. Specifically: (Eng. Univ.) Private benefaction for the
existing or remaining within; inherent.
exordium ::: n. --> A beginning; an introduction; especially, the introductory part of a discourse or written composition, which prepares the audience for the main subject; the opening part of an oration.
Feeling and vbion are the main forms of spiritual experience.
fief ::: territory, domain or estate (esp. of a feudal lord).
float ::: 1. To remain suspended within or on the surface of a fluid without sinking. 2. To move or progress smoothly as on a stream. 3. To move or cause to move buoyantly, lightly, or freely across a surface or through air, water, etc.; drift. 4. To move lightly and gracefully. 5. Fig. To move or seem to move lightly and faintly before the eyes. floats, floated, floating.
forced marches ::: marches that are longer than troops are accustomed to and maintained at a faster pace than usual, generally undertaken for a particular objective under emergency conditions.
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 doubt is the mind"s persistent assailant.” Letters on Yoga ::: "The enemy of faith is doubt, and yet doubt too is a utility and necessity, because man in his ignorance and in his progressive labour towards knowledge needs to be visited by doubt, otherwise he would remain obstinate in an ignorant belief and limited knowledge and unable to escape from his errors.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
::: "For in reality, no man works, but Nature works through him for the self-expression of a Power within that proceeds from the Infinite. To know that and live in the presence and in the being of the Master of Nature, free from desire and the illusion of personal impulsion, is the one thing needful. That and not the bodily cessation of action is the true release; for the bondage of works at once ceases. A man might sit still and motionless for ever and yet be as much bound to the Ignorance as the animal or the insect. But if he can make this greater consciousness dynamic within him, then all the work of all the worlds could pass through him and yet he would remain at rest, absolute in calm and peace, free from all bondage.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
“For in reality, no man works, but Nature works through him for the self-expression of a Power within that proceeds from the Infinite. To know that and live in the presence and in the being of the Master of Nature, free from desire and the illusion of personal impulsion, is the one thing needful. That and not the bodily cessation of action is the true release; for the bondage of works at once ceases. A man might sit still and motionless for ever and yet be as much bound to the Ignorance as the animal or the insect. But if he can make this greater consciousness dynamic within him, then all the work of all the worlds could pass through him and yet he would remain at rest, absolute in calm and peace, free from all bondage.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"For the main business of the heart, its true function is love. It is our destined instrument of complete union and oneness; for to see oneness in the world by the understanding is not enough unless we also feel it with the heart and in the psychic being, and this means a delight in the One and in all existences in the world in him, a love of God and all beings. The heart"s faith and will in good are founded on a perception of the one Divine immanent in all things and leading the world.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
“For the main business of the heart, its true function is love. It is our destined instrument of complete union and oneness; for to see oneness in the world by the understanding is not enough unless we also feel it with the heart and in the psychic being, and this means a delight in the One and in all existences in the world in him, a love of God and all beings. The heart’s faith and will in good are founded on a perception of the one Divine immanent in all things and leading the world.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.” The Synthesis of Yoga
FOUNDATION IN YOGA. ::: The things that have to be established are . brahmacarya, complete sex-purity ; samah, quiet and harmony in the being, its forces maintained but con- trolled, harmonised, disciplined ; satyam, truth and sincerity in the whole nature ; prasanfUj, a general state of peace and calm ; atmasanyaina, the power and habit to control whatever needs control in the movements of the nature. When these are fairly established, one has laid the foundation on which one can deve- lop the yoga consciousness and with the yoga consciousness there comes an easy opening to realisation and experience.
fuel ::: 1. A substance that can be consumed to produce energy. 2. Fig. Something that maintains or stimulates a passionate activity or an emotion. fuel"s.
godhead ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe. The Gita lays stress first on his supracosmic existence. For otherwise the mind would miss its highest goal and remain turned towards the cosmic only or else attached to some partial experience of the Divine in the cosmos. It lays stress next on his universal existence in which all moves and acts. For that is the justification of the cosmic effort and that is the vast spiritual self-awareness in which the Godhead self-seen as the Time-Spirit does his universal works. Next it insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic. Finally, it insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one Godhead.” *Essays on the Gita
Godhead ::: “… the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe. The Gita lays stress first on his supracosmic existence. For otherwise the mind would miss its highest goal and remain turned towards the cosmic only or else attached to some partial experience of the Divine in the cosmos. It lays stress next on his universal existence in which all moves and acts. For that is the justification of the cosmic effort and that is the vast spiritual self-awareness in which the Godhead self-seen as the Time-Spirit does his universal works. Next it insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic. Finally, it insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one Godhead.” Essays on the Gita
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.
hardly ::: “Your ‘barely enough’, instead of the finer and more suggestive ‘hardly’, falls flat upon my ear; one cannot substitute one word for another in this kind of poetry merely because it means intellectually the same thing; ‘hardly’ is the mot juste in this context and, repetition or not, it must remain unless a word not only juste but inevitable comes to replace it… . On this point I may add that in certain contexts ‘barely’ would be the right word, as for instance, ‘There is barely enough food left for two or three meals’, where ‘hardly’ would be adequate but much less forceful. It is the other way about in this line. Letters on Savitri
haunting ::: remaining in the consciousness; not quickly forgotten.
haunt ::: n. 1. A place frequently visited. haunts. v. 2. To recur persistently to the consciousness of; remain with. 3. To visit often; frequent. 4. To inhabit, visit, or appear to in the form of a ghost or other supernatural being. haunts, haunted.
HEADACHE. ::: Sometimes when one has pulled or strained, there is a headache or a sensation as if of headache, or if one pulls down too much Force then there may be a giddiness, but one has only to remain quiet and that sets itself right by an assimilation of what has come down or otherwise.
heaven ::: 1. Any of the places in or beyond the sky conceived of as domains of divine beings in various religions. 2. The sky or universe as seen from the earth; the firmament. 3.* Fig. A condition or place of great happiness, delight, or pleasure. *Heaven, heaven"s, Heaven"s, heavens, heaven-air, heaven-bare, heaven-bliss, heaven-born, heaven-bound, heaven-fire, heaven-hints, heaven-leap, Heaven-light, heaven-lights, Heaven-nature"s, heaven-nymphs, heaven-pillaring, heaven-pleased, heaven-rapture"s, heaven-sent, heaven-sentience, heaven-surrounded, heaven-truth, heaven-use, heaven-worlds.
“Hell and heaven are often imaginary states of the soul or rather of the vital which it constructs about it after its passing. What is meant by hell is a painful passage through the vital or lingering there, as for instance, in many cases of suicide where one remains surrounded by the forces of suffering and turmoil created by this unnatural and violent exit. There are, of course, also worlds of mind and vital worlds which are penetrated with joyful or dark experiences. One may pass through these as the result of things formed in the nature which create the necessary affinities, but the idea of reward or retribution is a crude and vulgar conception which is a mere popular error.” Letters on Yoga
HELL AND HEAVEN. ::: They arc often imaginary states of the soul or rather of the vital which it constructs about It after its passing. What is meant by hell is a painful passage through the vital or lingering there, as for instance, in many cases of suicide where one remains surrounded by the forces of suffering and turmoil created by this unnatural and violent exit. There are, of course, also worlds of mind and vital worlds which are penetrated with Joyful or dark experiences. One may pass through these as the result of things formed in the nature which create the necessary affimties, but the Idea of reward or retri- bution is a crude and vulgar conception which is a mere popular error.
hell ::: “What is meant by hell is a painful passage through the vital or lingering there, as for instance, in many cases of suicide where one remains surrounded by the forces of suffering and turmoil created by this unnatural and violent exit.” Letters on Yoga
If some reactions of a slight character remain, it is not a thing to get disturbed about — only it must not be permitted to increase so as to disturb (he sadhana or get too strong for the restraining will of the mental and higher vital being.
If you want to remain' conscious at night, train yourself to make your sleep conscious — not to eliminate sleep altogether , but to transform it.
I know by wWch the taking up of sadbaoa by the Dmne becomes a sensible fact before the preparation of the nature is done. In other methods the Divine action may be felt from time to time, but it remains mostly behind the veil till all is ready. In some the ditioe action Is not recognised ; all must be done by (apioya. In most there is a mixing of the two ::: the iapas>3 finally calling the direct help and intervention. The idea and experience of the Divine doing all belong to the Yoga based on surrender. But whatever way is followed, the one thing to be done is to be faithful and go on to the end.
"Immortality is one of the possible results of supramentalisation, but it is not an obligatory result and it does not mean that there will be an eternal or indefinite prolongation of life as it is. That is what many think it will be, that they will remain what they are with all their human desires and the only difference will be that they will satisfy them endlessly; but such an immortality would not be worth having and it would not be long before people are tired of it. To live in the Divine and have the divine Consciousness is itself immortality and to be able to divinise the body also and make it a fit instrument for divine works and divine life would be its material expression only.” *Letters on Yoga
“Immortality is one of the possible results of supramentalisation, but it is not an obligatory result and it does not mean that there will be an eternal or indefinite prolongation of life as it is. That is what many think it will be, that they will remain what they are with all their human desires and the only difference will be that they will satisfy them endlessly; but such an immortality would not be worth having and it would not be long before people are tired of it. To live in the Divine and have the divine Consciousness is itself immortality and to be able to divinise the body also and make it a fit instrument for divine works and divine life would be its material expression only.” 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. Even, it is by the projection of this luminous Overmind corona that the diffusion of a diminished light in the Ignorance and the throwing of that contrary shadow which swallows up in itself all light, the Inconscience, became at all possible. For Supermind transmits to Overmind all its realities, but leaves it to formulate them in a movement and according to an awareness of things which is still a vision of Truth and yet at the same time a first parent of the Ignorance. A line divides Supermind and Overmind which permits a free transmission, allows the lower Power to derive from the higher Power all it holds or sees, but automatically compels a transitional change in the passage. The integrality of the Supermind keeps always the essential truth of things, the total truth and the truth of its individual self-determinations clearly knit together; it maintains in them an inseparable unity and between them a close interpenetration and a free and full consciousness of each other: but in Overmind this integrality is no longer there. And yet the Overmind is well aware of the essential Truth of things; it embraces the totality; it uses the individual self-determinations without being limited by them: but although it knows their oneness, can realise it in a spiritual cognition, yet its dynamic movement, even while relying on that for its security, is not directly determined by it. Overmind Energy proceeds through an illimitable capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral and indivisible all-comprehending Unity. It takes each Aspect or Power and gives to it an independent action in which it acquires a full separate importance and is able to work out, we might say, its own world of creation. Purusha and Prakriti, Conscious Soul and executive Force of Nature, are in the supramental harmony a two-aspected single truth, being and dynamis of the Reality; there can be no disequilibrium or predominance of one over the other. In Overmind we have the origin of the cleavage, the trenchant distinction made by the philosophy of the Sankhyas in which they appear as two independent entities, Prakriti able to dominate Purusha and cloud its freedom and power, reducing it to a witness and recipient of her forms and actions, Purusha able to return to its separate existence and abide in a free self-sovereignty by rejection of her original overclouding material principle. So with the other aspects or powers of the Divine Reality, One and Many, Divine Personality and Divine Impersonality, and the rest; each is still an aspect and power of the one Reality, but each is empowered to act as an independent entity in the whole, arrive at the fullness of the possibilities of its separate expression and develop the dynamic consequences of that separateness. At the same time in Overmind this separateness is still founded on the basis of an implicit underlying unity; all possibilities of combination and relation between the separated Powers and Aspects, all interchanges and mutualities of their energies are freely organised and their actuality always possible.
INNER CONSCIOUSNESS (Divisions) ::: There are five main divisions. At the top above the head arc layers (or as we call them planes) of which we arc not conscious and which become conscious to us only by sadhana — those above the human mind — that is the higher consciousness. Below from the crown of the head to the throat are the layers (there are many of them) of the mind, the three principal being one at the top of the head communicating with the higher consciousness, another between the eye-brows where is the thought, sight and will, a third in the throat which is the externalising mind. A second division is from the shoulders to the navel ; these are the layers of the higher vital presided over by the heart centre where is the emotional being with the psychic behind it. From the navel downwards is the rest of the vital being containing several layers. From the bottom of the spine downward are the layers of the physical consciousness proper, the material, and below the feet is the sub- conscient which has also many levels.
In orthodox Buddhism it does mean a disintegration, not of the soul — for that does not exist — but of a mental compound or stream of associations or samskaras which we mistake for our self. In illusionist Vedanta it means not a disintegration but a disappearance of a false and unreal individual self into the one real Self or Brahman j it is the idea and experience of indivi- duality that so disappears and ceases — we may say a false light that is extinguished {nirvana) in the true Light. In spiritual experience it is sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic consciousness ; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel for the flow of a cosmic consciousness and cosmic force and action. Or it may be the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and consciousness in which the sense of the cosmos as well as the individual disappears. Or again, it may be in a transcend- ence which is aware of and supports the cosmic action. But what do we mean by the individual ? What we usually call by that name is a natural ego, a device of nature which holds together her action in the mind and body. This ego has to be extinguished, otherwise there is no complete liberation possible ; but the individual self is not this ego. The individual soul Is a spiritual being which is sometimes described as an eternal por- tion of the Divine but can also be described as the Divine him- self supporting his manifestation as the Many. This is the true spiritual individual which appears in its complete truth when we get rid of the ego and our false separative sense of individuality, realise our oneness with the transcendent and cosmic Divine and with all beings. It is this which makes possible the Divine Life.
insistent ::: earnest or emphatic in dwelling upon, maintaining, or demanding something; persistent. insistence, insistency.
insist ::: to assert or maintain firmly. insisting.
"In spiritual experience it [nirvana]is sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic consciousness; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel for the flow of a cosmic consciousness and a cosmic force and action. Or it may be the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and consciousness in which the sense of cosmos as well as the individual disappears. Or again, it may be in a transcendence which is aware of and supports the cosmic action. . . Nirvana is a step towards it; the disappearance of the false separative individuality is a necessary condition for our realising and living in our true eternal being, living divinely in the Divine. But this we can do in the world and in life.” Letters on Yoga
“In spiritual experience it [nirvana]is sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic consciousness; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel for the flow of a cosmic consciousness and a cosmic force and action. Or it may be the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and consciousness in which the sense of cosmos as well as the individual disappears. Or again, it may be in a transcendence which is aware of and supports the cosmic action. . . Nirvana is a step towards it; the disappearance of the false separative individuality is a necessary condition for our realising and living in our true eternal being, living divinely in the Divine. But this we can do in the world and in life.” Letters on Yoga
intact ::: not altered, broken, or impaired; remaining uninjured, sound, or whole; untouched; unblemished.
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.
::: ". . . in the language of the Upanishad, the life-force is the food of the body and the body the food of the life-force; in other words, the life-energy in us both supplies the material by which the form is built up and constantly maintained and renewed and is at the same time constantly using up the substantial form of itself which it thus creates and keeps in existence.” *The Life Divine
“… in the language of the Upanishad, the life-force is the food of the body and the body the food of the life-force; in other words, the life-energy in us both supplies the material by which the form is built up and constantly maintained and renewed and is at the same time constantly using up the substantial form of itself which it thus creates and keeps in existence.” The Life Divine
In the liberated stale it is not the inner Purusha only that remains detached ; the inner Purusha is always detached, only one is not conscious of it in the ordinary state. It is the Prakrit! also that is not disturbed by the action of the Gunas or attached to it ; the mind, the vital, (he physical (whatever Prakriti) begin to get the same quietude, unperturbed peace and detachment as the Purusha, but it is quietude, not a cessation of all action. It is quietude in action itself. TTic whole being, Purusha, Prakriit, becomes detached (having no desire or attachment) even in the actions of the gunas. The outer being Is also detached ; the whole being is without desire or attachment and still action is possible, action without desire is possible, action without attach- ment is possible, action without ego is possible.
In this simultaneous development of multitudinous independent or combined Powers or Potentials there is yet—or there is as yet—no chaos, no conflict, no fall from Truth or Knowledge. The Overmind is a creator of truths, not of illusions or falsehoods: what is worked out in any given overmental energism or movement is the truth of the Aspect, Power, Idea, Force, Delight which is liberated into independent action, the truth of the consequences of its reality in that independence. There is no exclusiveness asserting each as the sole truth of being or the others as inferior truths: each God knows all the Gods and their place in existence; each Idea admits all other ideas and their right to be; each Force concedes a place to all other forces and their truth and consequences; no delight of separate fulfilled existence or separate experience denies or condemns the delight of other existence or other experience. 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….
In this yoga heart should be the main centre of concentration until the consciousness rises above.
INTRUSIONS. ::: To acimll or cal! the Invasion of others into one’s own being is to remain always in the confusions of the intermediate zone. Only the Divine should be called into one’s person.il QdUara. One can feel them (others) in one’s uni-
In yoga friendship can remain but attachment has to fail away or any such engrossing affectioD as would keep one tied to the ordinary life and consciousness.
IS a valuable power helpful in the s5t£an5 and shfu"' discouraged. But one must see and observe i J ”« <» keeping always the main object in front, realisS' ft"’’™™!.
“It could be affirmed as a consequence that there is one all-pervading Life or dynamic energy—the material aspect being only its outermost movement—that creates all these forms of the physical universe, Life imperishable and eternal which, even if the whole figure of the universe were quite abolished, would itself still go on existing and be capable of producing a new universe in its place, must indeed, unless it be held back in a state of rest by some higher Power or hold itself back, inevitably go on creating. In that case Life is nothing else than the Force that builds and maintains and destroys forms in the world; it is Life that manifests itself in the form of the earth as much as in the plant that grows upon the earth and the animals that support their existence by devouring the life-force of the plant or of each other. All existence here is a universal Life that takes form of Matter. It might for that purpose hide life-process in physical process before it emerges as submental sensitivity and mentalised vitality, but still it would be throughout the same creative Life-principle.” The Life Divine
"It is not possible for the individual mind, so long as it remains shut up in its personality, to understand the workings of the Cosmic Will, for the standards made by the personal consciousness are not applicable to them. A cell in the body, if conscious, might also think that the human being and its actions are only the resultant of the relations and workings of a number of cells like itself and not the action of a unified self. It is only if one enters into the Cosmic Consciousness that one begins to see the forces at work and the lines on which they work and get a glimpse of the Cosmic Self and the Cosmic Mind and Will.” Letters on Yoga
“It is not possible for the individual mind, so long as it remains shut up in its personality, to understand the workings of the Cosmic Will, for the standards made by the personal consciousness are not applicable to them. A cell in the body, if conscious, might also think that the human being and its actions are only the resultant of the relations and workings of a number of cells like itself and not the action of a unified self. It is only if one enters into the Cosmic Consciousness that one begins to see the forces at work and the lines on which they work and get a glimpse of the Cosmic Self and the Cosmic Mind and Will.” Letters on Yoga
It is this expectation in the mind that helps most to maintain
::: "It may be said that perfection is attained, though it remains progressive, when the receptivity from below is equal to the force from above which wants to manifest.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
“It may be said that perfection is attained, though it remains progressive, when the receptivity from below is equal to the force from above which wants to manifest.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
Its thoughts or run about among the objects it pursues, remaining at the back of the mind quiet and separate ; (2) to practise quietude and concentration in this separateness, until the habit of quiet takes hold of the physical mind and replaces the habit of these activities.
jealous ::: solicitous or vigilant in maintaining or guarding something.
Jhumur: “This Grandeur is the craftsman who labours at his high and difficult plan and then he begins to outline his dreamed magnificence of things to be. He remains hidden in the magic stuff of self so he is masked, he is hidden. In himself, in his essence he is the Supreme, therefore he is the Grandeur.”
Jhumur: “Throughout Savitri I have noticed all the different times of the day and the position of the sun in relation to the earth. It runs through the book, the symbol dawn, night, not only that but there are different states of illumination, awakening of the consciousness progressively. Sometimes it falls into the darkness, sometimes twilight when one is caught between two states, and at the end it is the everlasting day. So the kingdoms of the rising sun represent states of being where the light is the most important. Mother always says that the sun is the symbol of the supreme truth, the supreme, the supreme wisdom. It is the world where the supreme truth and supreme wisdom rule, govern. Whereas In many other worlds this light gets covered, it gets clouded over but here there are the kingdoms of the rising sun because they are the godheads of the mind and the mind is an instrument of light. But it is a small early instrument, little mind, so it is just rising, it hasn’t come to its full glory. The kingdoms are the planes of consciousness where you have a little light, a little clarity, a little illumination. That is how I understand the main function of the mind, to seek for light. It is an instrument for seeking light although it often dodges light where the perversity comes in.”
Jower as weJJ as outer consdousness so that you have afterwards to recover the realisation ; (2) in which the work brings you out, but the realisation remains behind (or above), not felt while you work, but as soon as tbe svotk ceases you find it there just as it was ; (3) in which the work makes no difference, for the realisation or spiritual condition remains through the work itself.
jutted ::: extended outward or upward beyond the limits of the main body; projected; protruded.
KEYS OF YOGA. ::: There Is above us, above the conscious- ness in the physical body, a great supporting extension as it were ot peace, light, power, joy — we can become aware of it, and bring It down into the physical consciousness ; and that, at first for a time, afterwards more frequently and for a longer time, in the end for good, can remain and change the whole basis of our daily consciousness. Even before we are aware ' of it above, »‘c can feel it coming down and entering into us.
lapis lazuli ::: a deep blue mineral composed mainly of lazarite with smaller quantities of other minerals, used mainly as a gem or as a pigment.
leave ::: 1. To go away from, depart from permanently, quit (a place, person, or thing). 2. To let remain or have remaining behind after going, disappearing, ceasing, etc. 3. To go without taking. 4. To permit, allow. 5. To let (someone) remain in a position to do something without interference. 6. To give in charge; entrust. 7. Have as a result or residue. leaves. (All other references to leaves are as pl. of leaf.)
"Life is universal Force working so as to create, energise, maintain and modify, even to the extent of dissolving and reconstructing, substantial forms with mutual play and interchange of an overtly or secretly conscious energy as its fundamental character.” The Life Divine
“Life is universal Force working so as to create, energise, maintain and modify, even to the extent of dissolving and reconstructing, substantial forms with mutual play and interchange of an overtly or secretly conscious energy as its fundamental character.” The Life Divine
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.
linger ::: 1. To be slow in leaving, especially out of reluctance; tarry. 2. To be tardy in acting; procrastinate. 3. To remain present although waning or gradually dying. 4. To dwell in contemplation, thought, or enjoyment. lingers, lingered, lingering.
Madhav: “The wheel of determinism in material Nature turns mechanically without any saving sensation, it moves under the pressure of a gathered momentum without questioning; it is immaterial in its operations without the slightest breath of the warmth of life. All circumstances are cogs in this wheel of Fate that revolves relentlessly. It is only a force of will from an existence beyond the domain of this mechanism that can hold the movement, change its direction and displace the instrumental condition.” Readings in Savitri, Vol. I.
Madhav: “This creation is an ordered manifestation of the Divine. There is a central Will, expressing the originating Truth-vision, impelling the whole movement. But also there are special emanations from the Divine charged with specific tasks in the organisation and maintenance of the emerging creation. These are the gods and goddesses, deities, Powers and Personalities that are in charge of their respective domains, on different levels of existence. Each world has its own guardians entrusted by the Supreme Creative Spirit with the work of building and furthering the manifestation of the particular Truth-principle that pushes for expression in that world-formula.” Readings in Savitri Vol. I.
Madhav: “When Aswapathy lifts the curtain of the flesh i.e. when he gets through the barrier of his physical existence, he comes to the threshold of another domain, subtle and occult. He sees a serpent watching, guarding the entrance. In all traditions, especially the ancient, at the doors of every subtle kingdom there is a sentinel and that sentinel is imaged as a serpent. In spiritual symbolism the serpent stands for Energy. Depending on the colour of the serpent, it is physical energy or vital energy, mental energy, spiritual energy. Unless this serpent allows one to pass one cannot enter. The serpent, in this context, is the guard whose consent is necessary before one can pass. The Book of the Divine Mother
Main support of all habitual movements, especially the physi- cal and lower vital movements.
march ::: n. 1. The steady forward movement of a body of troops. 2. Steady forward movement or progression. Also fig. marches, marchings, sun-march. v. 3. To walk steadily and rhythmically forward in step with others, as soldiers on parade; advance in step in an organized body. 4. To proceed directly and purposefully; to go forward; advance; proceed. 5. To progress steadily onward; advance. Also fig. marches, marched, marching. ::: forced marches. Marches that are longer than troops are accustomed to and maintained at a faster pace than usual, generally undertaken for a particular objective under emergency conditions.
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.
master-spring ::: 1. A compound word denoting the mainspring or principal spring in a piece of equipment. 2. Fig. The prevailing power or motive to use or control something.
MECHANICAL REPETITION. ::: The principle of mechani- cal repetition is very strong in the material nature, so strong that it makes one easily think that it is incurable. That, however, is only a trick of the forces of (his material inconscicnce ; it is fay creating this impression that they try to endure. If on the contrary, you remain firm, refuse to be depressed or discouraged and, even in the moment of attack, a^irm the certainty of cventuar victory, the victory itself will come much more easily and sooner.
Mental transformation ::: All the works of the mind and intellect must first be heightened and widened, then illumined, lifted into the domains of a higher Intelligence, afterwards translated into workings of a greater non-mental Intuition, then again trans- formed into the dynamic outpourings of the Overmind radiance, and these transfigured into the full light and sovereignty of the supramental Gnosis.
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.
native ::: 1. Natural; originating naturally; naturally resulting. 2. Belonging to a person by birth or to a thing by nature; inherent. 3. Of indigenous origin, growth, or production. 4. Remaining or growing in a natural state; real, genuine, original. 5. Being the place or environment in which a person was born or a thing came into being.
Nature, of all that is not obvious on the surface. An integral knowledge demands an exploration, an unveiling of all the possible domains of consciousness and experience. For there are subjective domains of our being which lie behind the obvious surface; these have to be fathomed and whatever is ascertained must be admitted within the scope of the total reality. An inner range of spiritual experience is one very great domain of human consciousness ; it has to be entered into up to its deepest depths and its vastest reaches. The supraphysical is as real as the physical ; to know it is part of a complete knowledge. The knowledge of the supraph>'sical has been associated with mysti- efsm and occultism, and occultism has been banned as a super- stition and fantastic error. But the occult Is a part of existence ; a true occultism means no more than a research into supraphysical realities and an unveiling of the hidden Jaws of being and
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).
nebula ::: an immense cloud of gas (mainly hydrogen) and dust in interstellar space. nebula"s, nebulae.
Nervous envelope ::: there is a sort of protection round the body which we call the nervous envelope ; if this remains strong and refuses entrance to the illness force, then one can remain well even in the midst of plague or other epidemics ; if the envelope is pierced or weak then the illness can come in.
Next, as a consequence, it follows that only a limited part of the action of the vital or other higher plane is concerned with the earth-existence. But even this creates a mass of possibilities which is far greater than the earth can at one time mainfest or contain in its own less plastic formulas. All these possibilities do not realise themselves ; some fail altogether and leave at the most an idea that comes to nothing ; some try seriously and are repelled and defeated and, even if in action for a time, come to nothing. Others effectuate a half manifestation, and this is the most usual result, the more so as these vital or other supraphysical forces come Into conflict and have not only to overcome the resistance of the physical consciousness and of matter, but their own internecine resistance to each other. A certain number succeed in precipitating their results in a more complete and successful creation, so that if you compare this creation with its original in the higher plane, there is something
"Nothing can be more remarkable and suggestive than the extent to which modern Science confirms in the domain of Matter the conceptions and even the very formulae of language which were arrived at, by a very different method, in the Vedanta, — the original Vedanta, not of the schools of metaphysical philosophy, but of the Upanishads. And these, on the other hand, often reveal their full significance, their richer contents only when they are viewed in the new light shed by the discoveries of modern Science, — for instance, that Vedantic expression which describes things in the Cosmos as one seed arranged by the universal Energy in multitudinous forms.(1) Significant, especially, is the drive of Science towards a Monism which is consistent with multiplicity, towards the Vedic idea of the one essence with its many becomings.” The Life Divine
“Nothing can be more remarkable and suggestive than the extent to which modern Science confirms in the domain of Matter the conceptions and even the very formulae of language which were arrived at, by a very different method, in the Vedanta,—the original Vedanta, not of the schools of metaphysical philosophy, but of the Upanishads. And these, on the other hand, often reveal their full significance, their richer contents only when they are viewed in the new light shed by the discoveries of modern Science,—for instance, that Vedantic expression which describes things in the Cosmos as one seed arranged by the universal Energy in multitudinous forms.(1) Significant, especially, is the drive of Science towards a Monism which is consistent with multiplicity, towards the Vedic idea of the one essence with its many becomings.” The Life Divine
occupy ::: 1. To seize possession of and maintain control over by or as if by conquest. 2. To fill up (time or space). 3. To engage or employ the mind, energy, or attention of. occupies, occupied.
of extercalisation ■ — in speech, expression, the power to deal mentally with physical things etc. Its opening brings the power to open the physical mind to the light of the divine conscious- ness instead of remaining in the outward-going mentality.
of one form, character, or kind; having, maintaining, occurring in or under, the same form always; that is or remains the same in different places, at different times, or under varying circumstances; exhibiting no difference, diversity, or variation.
::: "OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.” *Letters on Yoga
“OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.” Letters on Yoga
“OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in itsfour domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.” Letters on Yoga
"One must go deep and find the soul, the self, the Divine Reality within us and only then can life become a true expression of what we can be instead of a blind and always repeated confused blur of the inadequate and imperfect thing we were. The choice is between remaining in the old jumble and groping about in the hope of stumbling on some discovery or standing back and seeking the Light within till we discover and can build the Godhead within and without us. "Letters on Yoga
“One must go deep and find the soul, the self, the Divine Reality within us and only then can life become a true expression of what we can be instead of a blind and always repeated confused blur of the inadequate and imperfect thing we were. The choice is between remaining in the old jumble and groping about in the hope of stumbling on some discovery or standing back and seeking the Light within till we discover and can build the Godhead within and without us.”Letters on Yoga
Openness is not always complete from the first ; a part of the being opens, other parts of the consciousness remain still closed or half open only ; one has to aspire till all is open. The full opening takes time.
outline ::: n. 1. A line marking the outer contours or boundaries of an object or figure. 2. A style of drawing in which objects are delineated in contours without shading. 3. A general description covering the main points of a subject outlines, world-outline. v. 4. To give the main features or various aspects of; summarize. Also fig. outlined.
Overmind ::: Above the mind there are several levels of conscious of the Truth. But in between is what he has distinguished as the Overmind, the world of the cosmic Gods. Now it is this Overmind that has up to the present governed our world: it is the highest that man has been able to attain in illumined consciousness. It has been taken for the Supreme Divine and all those who have reached it have never for a moment doubted that they have touched the true Spirit. For, its splendours are so great to the ordinary human consciousness that it is absolutely dazzled into believing that here at last is the crowning reality. And yet the fact is that the Overmind is far below the true Divine. It is not the authentic home of the Truth. It is only the domain of the formateurs , all those creative powers and deities to whom men have bowed down since the beginning of history. And the reason why the true Divine has not manifested and transformed the earth-nature is precisely that the Overmind has been mistaken for the Supermind.being, among which the really divine world is what Sri Aurobindo has called the Supermind, the world. The cosmic Gods do not wholly live in the Truth-Consciousness: they are only in touch with it and represent, each of them, an aspect of its glories.
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.
Passive silence is that in which the inner consciousness remains void and at rest, makes no reaction to outer things and forces.
persevered ::: persisted in or remained constant to a purpose, idea, or task in the face of obstacles or discouragement.
persistent ::: 1. Insistently repetitive or continuous. 2. Existing or remaining in the same state for an indefinitely long time; enduring.
physical and its energies, — all that Nature has not put into visi- ble operation on the surface ; It pursues also the application of these hidden truths and powers of Nature so as to extend the mastery of the human spirit beyond the ordinary operations of mind, the ordinary operations of life, the ordinary operations of our physical existence. In the spiritual domain, which is occult to the surface mind in so far as it passes beyond normal and enters into supernormal experience, there is possible not only the discovery of the self and spirit, but the discovery of the uplift- ing, informing and guiding light of spiritual consciousness and the power of the spirit, the spiritual way of knowledge, the spiri- tual way of action. To know these things and to bring their truths and forces into the life of humanity is a necessary part of its evolution. Science itself is in Its own way an occultism ; for it brings to light the formulas which Nature has hidden and it uses its knowledge to set free operations of her energies which she has not included in her ordinary operations and to organise and place at the service of man her occult powers and processes, a vast system of physical magic, — for there is and can be no other magic than the utilisation of secret truths of being, secret powers and processes of Nature. It may even be found that a supra- physical knowledge Is necessary for the completion of physical knowledge, because the processes of physical Nature have behind them a supraphysical factor, a power and action mental, vital or spiritual which is not tangible to any outer means of knowledge.
physical ::: The Mother: “The physical is the concrete domain that crystallises and defines the thoughts, the movements of the vital, etc. It is a solid foundation for action.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
physical ::: the Mother: "The physical is the concrete domain that crystallises and defines the thoughts, the movements of the vital, etc. It is a solid foundation for action.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
pillar ::: 1. A slender, freestanding, vertical support; a column. 2. *Fig. A supporter; one who sustains or supports; a mainstay. *pillars, pillar-posts, pillar-rocks.
pit ::: 1. A natural or artificial hole or cavity in the ground. 2. Hell; the domain of fallen souls. Pit, pits.
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.
plead ::: 1. To maintain (a cause) by argument before a court. 2. To appeal or entreat earnestly; beg or implore. pleads, pleaded, pleading.
plot ::: 1. The pattern of events or main story in a narrative or drama. 2. A secret plan to accomplish a purpose (often hostile or illegal); a scheme. 3. A small piece of ground, generally used for a specific purpose. plots.
POSSIBILITIES. ::: Three main possibilities for the sadhaka . to wait on the Grace and rely on the Divine ; to do everything himself like the Advaitin and the Buddhist ; to take the middle path, go forward by aspiration and rejection etc , helped by the
POWERS AND APPEARANCES. ::: There are forces and beings that are interested in maintaining the falsehoods they have created in the world of Ignorance and in putting them for\vard as the Truth which men must follow. In India they are termed
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
PRAYER. ::: The life of man is a life of wants and needs and therefore of desires, not only in his physical and vital, but in his mental and spiritual being. When he becomes conscious of a greater Power governing the world, he approaches it through prayer for the fulfilment of his needs, for help in his rough journey, for protection and aid in his struggle. Whatever crudi- ties there may be in the ordinary religious approach to God by prayer, and there are many, especially that attitude which ima- gines the Divine as if capable of being propitiated, bribed, flat- tered into acquiescence or indulgence by praise, entreaty and gifts and has often little te^td to the spirit in which he is approached, still this way of turning to the Divine is an essen- tial movement of our religious being and reposes on a universal truth.
The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and prayer itself supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. It is true that the universal will executes always its aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic propitiation and entreaty, it is true of the Transcendent who expresses himself in the universal order that, being omniscient, his larger knowledge must foresee the thing to be done and it does not need direction or stimulation by human thought and that the individual's desires are not and cannot be in any world-order the true determining factor. But neither is that order or the execution of the universal will altogether effected by mechanical Law, but by powers and forces of which for human life at least, human will, aspiration and faith are not among the least important. Prayer is only a particular form given to that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are very often crude and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but childish; but still it has a real power and significance. Its power and sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of man into touch with the divine Will as that of a conscious Being with whom we can enter into conscious and living relations. For our will and aspiration can act either by our own strength and endeavour, which can no doubt be made a thing great and effective whether for lower or higher purposes, -and there are plenty of disciplines which put it forward as the one force to be used, -- or it can act in dependence upon and with subordination to the divine or the universal Will. And this latter way, again, may either look upon that Will as responsive indeed to our aspiration, but almost mechanically, by a sort of law of energy, or at any rate quite impersonally, or else it may look upon it as responding consciously to the divine aspiration and faith of the human soul and consciously bringing to it the help, the guidance, the protection and fruition demanded, yogaksemam vahamyaham. ~ TSOY, SYN
Prayer helps to prepare this relation for us at first on the lower plane even while it is (here consistent with much that is mere egoism and self-delusion; but afterwards we can draw towards the spiritual truth which is behind it. It is not then the givinc of the thing asked for that matters, but the relation itself, the contact of man’s life with God, the conscious interchange.
In spiritual matters and in the seeking of spiritual gains, this conscious relation is a great power; it is a much greater power than our own entirely self-reliant struggle and effort and it brings a fuller spiritual growth and experience. Necessarily, in the end prayer either ceases in the greater thing for which it prepared us, -- in fact the form we call prayer is not itself essential so long as the faith, the will, the aspiration are there, -- or remains only for the joy of the relation. Also its objects, the artha or interest it seeks to realise, become higher and higher until we reach the highest motiveless devotion, which is that of divine love pure and simple without any other demand or longing.
Prayer for others ::: The fact of praying and the attitude it brings, especially unselfish prayer for others, itself opens you to the higher Power, even if there is no corresponding result in the person prayed for. 'Nothing can be positively said about that, for the result must necessarily depend on the persons, whe- ther they arc open or receptive or something in them can res- pond to any Force the prayer brings down.
Prayer must well up from the heart on a crest of emotion or aspiration.
Prayer {Ideal)'. Not prayer insisting on immediate fulfilment, but prayer that is itself a communion of the mind and heart with the Divine*and can have the joy and satisfaction of itself, trusting for fulfilment by the Divine in his own time.
presence ::: 1. The state or fact of being present; current existence or occurrence. 2. A divine, spiritual, or supernatural spirit or influence felt or conceived as present. 3. The immediate proximity of someone or something.
Sri Aurobindo: "It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one"s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any further qualification or description. Thus, of the ‘ineffable Presence" it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance, — the essential perception of the essential Presence supporting everything else.” *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.” Essays Divine and Human
"But if we learn to live within, we infallibly awaken to this presence within us which is our more real self, a presence profound, calm, joyous and puissant of which the world is not the master — a presence which, if it is not the Lord Himself, is the radiation of the Lord within.” *The Life Divine
"The true soul secret in us, — subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, — this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” *The Life Divine
"If we need any personal and inner witness to this indivisible All-Consciousness behind the ignorance, — all Nature is its external proof, — we can get it with any completeness only in our deeper inner being or larger and higher spiritual state when we draw back behind the veil of our own surface ignorance and come into contact with the divine Idea and Will behind it. Then we see clearly enough that what we have done by ourselves in our ignorance was yet overseen and guided in its result by the invisible Omniscience; we discover a greater working behind our ignorant working and begin to glimpse its purpose in us: then only can we see and know what now we worship in faith, recognise wholly the pure and universal Presence, meet the Lord of all being and all Nature.” *The Life Divine
"The presence of the Spirit is there in every living being, on every level, in all things, and because it is there, the experience of Sachchidananda, of the pure spiritual existence and consciousness, of the delight of a divine presence, closeness, contact can be acquired through the mind or the heart or the life-sense or even through the physical consciousness; if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the farthest chambers of the outer being.” *The Life Divine
"There is a secret divine Will, eternal and infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, that expresses itself in the universality and in each particular of all these apparently temporal and finite inconscient or half-conscient things. This is the Power or Presence meant by the Gita when it speaks of the Lord within the heart of all existences who turns all creatures as if mounted on a machine by the illusion of Nature.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time He conceals Himself, and then in His own right time He will reveal His Presence.” *Letters on Yoga
"They [the psychic being and the Divine Presence in the heart] are quite different things. The psychic being is one"s own individual soul-being. It is not the Divine, though it has come from the Divine and develops towards the Divine.” *Letters on Yoga
"For it is quietness and inwardness that enable one to feel the Presence.” *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.” *Essays Divine and Human
The Mother: "For, in human beings, here is a presence, the most marvellous Presence on earth, and except in a few very rare cases which I need not mention here, this presence lies asleep in the heart — not in the physical heart but the psychic centre — of all beings. And when this Splendour is manifested with enough purity, it will awaken in all beings the echo of his Presence.” Words of the Mother, MCW, Vol. 15.
preserve ::: to maintain in safety from injury, peril, or harm; protect.
protagonist ::: the main character in a drama or other literary work.
.‘.Psychic mind ::: ^Vhen the mind is turned towards the Divine and the Truth and feels and responds to that only or mainly, it can be called a psychic mind — it is something formed by the influence of the psychic being on the mental pLnnc.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND YOGA. ::: There are many things in the ordinary man of which he is not conscious, because the vital hides them from the mind and gratifies them without the mind realising what is the force that is moving the action — thus things that are done under the plea of altruism, philanthropy, service etc. are largely moved by ego which hides itself behind these justifications ; in yoga the secret motive has to be pulled out from behind the veil, exposed and got rid of. Secondly, some things are suppressed in the ordinary life and remain lying in the nature, suppressed but not eliminated ; they may rise up any day or they may express themselves in various nervous forms or other disorders of the mind or vital or body without it being evident what is the real cause. This has l«cn recently dis- covered by European psychologists and much emphasised, even exaggerated in a new science called psycho-analysis. Here again, tti sadhana one has to become conscious of these suppressed impulses and eliminate them ; that does not mean that they have to be raised up into action but only raised up before the con- sciousness so as to be cleared out of the being.
Quietude, peace and silence in the heart and therefore in the vital of the being are necessary to reach the psychic, to plunge in it, for the perturbations of the vital nature, desire, emotion turned ego-wards or world-wards are the main part of the screen that bides the bdu\ iiom tlw watorc.
rails ::: 1. Naut. Horizontal members capping a bulwark (a solid wall enclosing the perimeter of a weather or main deck of a ship). 2. Steel bars used, usually in pairs, as tracks for railroad cars or other wheeled vehicles.
Rajayoga must cod. For its action is the stilling of the waves of consciousness, its manifold activities, cinovfUl, first, through a habitual replacing of the turbid rajaslc activities by the quiet and luminous sattwic, then, by the stilling of all activities, and its object is to enter into silent communion of soul and unity with the Divine. As a matter of fact we find that the system of Raja- yoga includes other objects, — such as the practice and use of occult powers, — some of which seem to be unconnected with and even inconsistent with its main purpose. These powers or siddhis arc indeed frequently condemned as dangers and dis- tractions wWch draw away the Yogin from his sole legitimate aim of divine union. On the way, therefore, it would naturally seem as if they ought to bfe* avoided; and once the goal is reached, it would seem that they are then frivolous and super- fluous. But Rajayoga is a psychic science and it includes the attainment of all the higher slates of consciousness and their powers by which the mental being rises towards the super- conscient as well as its ultimate and supreme possibility of union wnth the Highest. Moreover, the Yo^n, while in the body, is not always mentally inactive and sunk in Samadhi and an account of the powers and states which arc possible to him on the higher planes of his being is necessary to the completeness of the science.
realm ::: 1. A kingdom. 2. The region, sphere, or domain within which anything occurs, prevails, or dominates. 3. The special province or field of someone or something. **realms.
Remembering dreams ::: There I's a change or reversal of the consciousness that takes place and the dream* consciousness in disappearing takes away its scences' and experiences with it. This can sometimes be avoided by not coming out abruptly into the waking state or getting up quickly, but remaining quiet for a time to see if the memory lemains or comes back: Otherwise the physical memory has to be taught to remember.
If the waking is composed or it the impression is very strong, then the memory remains at least of the last dream. Those who want to remember their dreams sometimes make a practice of lying quiet and tracing backwards, recovering the dreams one by one. When the dream-state is very light, one can remember more dreams than when it is heavy.
rent regard for the other members of the great series. Thus, if we regard the vital or the subtle physical plane, we see great ranges of it, (most of it), existing in themselves, without any relation with the material world and with no movement to affect or influence it, still less to precipitate a corresponding manifes- tation in the physical formula. At most we can say that the existence of anything in the vital, subtle physical or any other plane creates a possibility for a corresponding movement of manifestation in the physical world. But something more is needed to turn that static or latent possibility into a dynamic potentiality or an actual urge towards a material creation. That something may be a call from the material plane, e.g., some force or some one on the physical existence entering into touch with a supraphysical power or world or part of it and moved to bring it down into the earth-life. Or it may be an impulse in the vital or other plane itself, e.g., a vital being moved to extend his action towards the earth and establish there a kingdom for himself or the play of the forces for which he stands in his own domain.
residue ::: the remainder of something after removal of parts or a part.
resist ::: 1. To strive to fend off or offset the actions, effects, or force of. 2. To remain firm against the actions, effects, or force of; withstand. 3. To stand firm (against); not yield (to); fight (against). resists, resisted, resisting.
rest ::: 1. That or those remaining. 2. The part that is left or remains; remainder; residue. 3. With complement. To continue to be, remain, or be left in a specified condition.
rest ::: n. 1. A state of repose, quiescence, or inactivity. 2. Relief or freedom, esp. from anything that wearies, troubles, or disturbs. 3. Mental or emotional or spiritual tranquillity. 4. Termination or absence of motion. 5. The repose of death. v. 6. To cease motion, work, or activity. 7. To be, become, or remain temporarily still, quiet, or inactive. 8. To be present; dwell; linger (usually followed by on or upon). 9. To depend or rely on. rests, rested, resting.
retain ::: 1. To maintain possession of. 2. To keep or hold in a particular place, condition, or position. retaining.
RETIREMENT, It may be necessary for the seeker at any period to withdraw into himself, to remain plunged in his inner being, to shut out from himself the noise and turmoil of the life of the Ignorance until a certain inner change has been accom- plished or something achieved without which a further effective action on life has become difficult or impossible. But this can only be a period or an episode, a- temporary necessity or a pre- paratory spiritual manoeuvre.
Samadbi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths accord* lag as it dran^ farther and farther away from the nonnal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or calf back the soul that has receded into them ; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the sj'stem owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a lime cannot return ; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had rnhahifed it. finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary pheno- mena of death, by an act of will, or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current
SAMANA. ::: Life-current which regulates interchange of prdtia and apana, equalises them and is the most important agent in maintaining the equilibrium of the vital forces and their func- tions.
SECLUSION. ::: U is not advisable to cut oneself ol! from mixing with people altogether. You must remain in the higher consciousness even when with people.
Self. But there is another, a hidden consciousness within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger, deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of concentration. Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The con- centration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psy- chic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it and all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the conscious- ness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and
Self-surrender to the divine and infinite Mother, however dilD- cult, remains our only effective means and our sole abiding refuge,
settled ::: v. 1. Rendered or made stable or permanent; fixed in a certain condition; established. 2. Sank down gradually and remained. 3. Sank deeply into (the mind, heart). 4. Discontinued moving and came to rest in one place. adj. 5. Established on a permanent basis; stabilized.
Sex and the subconscient ::: The subconscient acts of itself on its own store of impressions or habitual past movements. When one drives sex from the mind and conscious vital and physical, it remains in the subconscient and rises from there in sleep.
Shiva ::: “The ‘auspicious one’; a name of the third deity of the Hindu Trinity; . . . represented mostly as ‘the pure and white, the ascetic, the still, contemplative Yogin’. The name Shiva is not found in the Vedas; however, the name Rudra occurs both in the singular and the plural. This Rudra of the Vedas developed in the course of time into Shiva, considered in the Puranic tradition mainly as the destroying or dissolving Power. He has a third eye in the middle of the forehead, a fiery glance from which once reduced Kamadeva to ashes. In his creative aspect he is represented as a Linga (phallus), symbolising the male procreative energy in nature. It is under the form of the Linga that Shiva is mostly worshipped. His abode is on Mt. Kailash, Parvati is his spouse and the Trisula (the trident) his weapon.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
shiva ::: "The ‘auspicious one"; a name of the third deity of the Hindu Trinity; . . . represented mostly as ‘the pure and white, the ascetic, the still, contemplative Yogin". The name Shiva is not found in the Vedas; however, the name Rudra occurs both in the singular and the plural. This Rudra of the Vedas developed in the course of time into Shiva, considered in the Puranic tradition mainly as the destroying or dissolving Power. He has a third eye in the middle of the forehead, a fiery glance from which once reduced Kamadeva to ashes. In his creative aspect he is represented as a Linga (phallus), symbolising the male procreative energy in nature. It is under the form of the Linga that Shiva is mostly worshipped. His abode is on Mt. Kailash, Parvati is his spouse and the Trisula (the trident) his weapon.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
SHOCK. ::: If one comes out too'suddenly out of a condition of deep inwardness and quiet into the ordinary consciousness, then there may be a slight nervous shock or a beating of the heart for a short time. It b always best to remain quiet for a few moments before opening the eyes and coming out of this inwardness.
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
“… some things are suppressed in the ordinary life and remain lying in the nature, suppressed but not eliminated; they may rise up any day or they may express themselves in various nervous forms or other disorders of the mind or vital or body without it being evident what is their real cause. This has been recently discovered by European psychologists and much emphasised, even exaggerated in a new science called psycho-analysis.” Letters on Yoga
Sometimes it comes of itself with the deepening of the conscious- ness by bhakti or otherwise, sometimes it comes by practice — a sort of referring the matter and listening for the answer. It does not mean that the answer comes necessarily in the shape of words, spoken or unspoken, though it does sometimes or for some it can take any shape. The main difficulty for many is to be sure of the right answer. For that it is necessary to be able to contact the consciousness of the Guru inwardly — that comes best by bhakti. Otherwise, the attempt to get the feeling from within by practice may become a delicate and ticklish job.
sphere ::: 1. The sky considered as a vaulted roof; firmament. 2. The place or environment within which a person or thing exists; a field of activity or operation; orbit, province, realm, domain. 3. A celestial abode. 4. A field of something specified. 5. The orbit of a celestial body, such as that of a planet. Also fig. **spheres.**
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: "Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Equality is to remain unmoved within in all conditions.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Hell and heaven are often imaginary states of the soul or rather of the vital which it constructs about it after its passing. What is meant by hell is a painful passage through the vital or lingering there, as for instance, in many cases of suicide where one remains surrounded by the forces of suffering and turmoil created by this unnatural and violent exit. There are, of course, also worlds of mind and vital worlds which are penetrated with joyful or dark experiences. One may pass through these as the result of things formed in the nature which create the necessary affinities, but the idea of reward or retribution is a crude and vulgar conception which is a mere popular error.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "It could be affirmed as a consequence that there is one all-pervading Life or dynamic energy — the material aspect being only its outermost movement — that creates all these forms of the physical universe, Life imperishable and eternal which, even if the whole figure of the universe were quite abolished, would itself still go on existing and be capable of producing a new universe in its place, must indeed, unless it be held back in a state of rest by some higher Power or hold itself back, inevitably go on creating. In that case Life is nothing else than the Force that builds and maintains and destroys forms in the world; it is Life that manifests itself in the form of the earth as much as in the plant that grows upon the earth and the animals that support their existence by devouring the life-force of the plant or of each other. All existence here is a universal Life that takes form of Matter. It might for that purpose hide life-process in physical process before it emerges as submental sensitivity and mentalised vitality, but still it would be throughout the same creative Life-principle.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . some things are suppressed in the ordinary life and remain lying in the nature, suppressed but not eliminated; they may rise up any day or they may express themselves in various nervous forms or other disorders of the mind or vital or body without it being evident what is their real cause. This has been recently discovered by European psychologists and much emphasised, even exaggerated in a new science called psycho-analysis.” *Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the divine Ananda, the principle of Bliss [is that] from which, in the Vedic conception, the existence of Man, this mental being, is drawn. A secret Delight is the base of existence, its sustaining atmosphere and almost its substance. This Ananda is spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the ethereal atmosphere of bliss without which nothing could remain in being. In the Aitareya Upanishad Soma, as the lunar deity, is born from the sense-mind in the universal Purusha and, when man is produced, expresses himself again as sense-mentality in the human being. For delight is the raison d"être of sensation, or, we may say, sensation is an attempt to translate the secret delight of existence into the terms of physical consciousness.” The Secret of the Veda
Sri Aurobindo: "The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Trance or samadhi is a way of escape — the body is made quiet, the physical mind is in a state of torpor, the inner consciousness is left free to go on with its experiences. The disadvantage is that trance becomes indispensable and the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved; it remains imperfect.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "We mean by the Absolute something greater than ourselves, greater than the cosmos which we live in, the supreme reality of that transcendent Being which we call God, something without which all that we see or are conscious of as existing, could not have been, could not for a moment remain in existence. Indian thought calls it Brahman, European thought the Absolute because it is a self-existent which is absolved of all bondage to relativities . . . The Absolute is for us the Ineffable.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "What is meant by hell is a painful passage through the vital or lingering there, as for instance, in many cases of suicide where one remains surrounded by the forces of suffering and turmoil created by this unnatural and violent exit.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Your ‘barely enough", instead of the finer and more suggestive ‘hardly", falls flat upon my ear; one cannot substitute one word for another in this kind of poetry merely because it means intellectually the same thing; ‘hardly" is the mot juste in this context and, repetition or not, it must remain unless a word not only juste but inevitable comes to replace it… . On this point I may add that in certain contexts ‘barely" would be the right word, as for instance, ‘There is barely enough food left for two or three meals", where ‘hardly" would be adequate but much less forceful. It is the other way about in this line. Letters on Savitri
stand ::: 1. To remain erect on one"s feet in a specified place, occupation, position, condition, etc. 2. To be, to continue or remain in a specified state, position, relation, etc. 3. To be set, placed, located, fixed or situated. 4. To take a position or place as indicated. 5. To have or adopt a certain policy, course, or attitude, as of adherence, support, opposition, or resistance. 6. To remain erect and firm under (a crushing weight, or the like), often with up. 7. To remain firm or steadfast, as in a cause. stands, stood, standing.
stay ::: 1. To continue or remain in a certain place, or in the company of others. 2. To hold back or restrain. 3. To delay or hinder an action or a process. stays, stayed.
STRENGTH. ::: The feeling of being able to break a stone with the hand or for that matter break the world without anything at all except the force itself is one that comes especially when the mind and vital have not assimilated the Power. It is the feeling of something extraordinary to them and omnipotent ; the idea of breaking or crushing is suggested by the rajas in the vital. After- wards when quietly assimilated this sensation disappears and only the feeling of calm strength and immovable firmness remains.
Subconsclent is universal as well as individual like all the other main parts of the nature.
Suffering in yoga ::: There are two ways to meet ::: first that of the Self, calm, equality, a spint, 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 charmel of the Divine Consciousness and
Suggestions of ambition, etc. arc always born in the vital mind or, as it might be called, the mind of the vital and from there they rush up to the thinking mind and claim its assent and the sanction of the mental will. When the thinking mind gets clouded by the uprush, it Is carried away and gives its assent. The think- ing mind (reason) has always to remain unmoved above and judge what is right without being caught and carried away by the vital.
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.
Surrender is the main power of the yoga, but the surrender is bound to be progressive ; a complete surrender is not possible in the beginning, but only a will in the being for that complete- ness. — in fact it takes time ; yet it is only when the surrender h retpjfieSe ibn} Ihc /uU -Orxsd of ibc jsadhana is possible.
sustain ::: 1. To support, uphold or bear up. 2. To affirm the validity of. 3. To maintain or prolong. 4. To hold up under; withstand. sustains, sustained, sustaining, all-sustaining.
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
Take it in the right quantity (neither too much nor too little), without greed or repulsion, as the means given you by the Mother for the maintenance of the body, in the right spirit, offering it to the Divine in you.
Tehmi: “This is a reference to the story of Hercules who married Deianeira, the daughter of King Oeneus. One day he and his wife had to cross a stream swollen by rains. As his wife could not swim Hercules asked the centaur boatman to ferry her across. Midway across the centaur began to molest Deianeira. Hercules then shot him with a poison arrow that had been dipped in the Hydra’s blood. As the centaur was dying he told the naïve Deianeira to dip a shirt in his blood and whenever she felt Hercules was betraying her to send him the shirt and he would remain faithful to her. Long afterward Hercules went on a journey and Deianeira suspected him of being unfaithful and sent him the blood-glued shirt. Hercules put on the shirt which burned his flesh to the bone, killing him.”**
The awakening of the Kundalini Power is felt as a descending and an ascending current. There ore two main nerve-channels for the currents, one on each side of the central channel In the spine. The descending coirem Is the energy from the above coming down to touch the sleeping Power io the lowest nerve- centre at the bottom of (he spine ::: (he ascending current is the release of the energy going up from the awakened Kundalini.
the main body of various other large vehicles, such as a tank, ship, or flying boat.
the condition of existing or remaining within.
“The enemy of faith is doubt, and yet doubt too is a utility and necessity, because man in his ignorance and in his progressive labour towards knowledge needs to be visited by doubt, otherwise he would remain obstinate in an ignorant belief and limited knowledge and unable to escape from his errors.” The Synthesis of Yoga
::: "The heart spoken of by the Upanishads corresponds with the physical cardiac centre; it is the hrdpadma of the Tantriks. As a subtle centre, cakra , it is supposed to have its apex on the spine and to broaden out in front. Exactly where in this area one or another feels it does not matter much; to feel it there and be guided by it is the main thing.” *Letters on Yoga
“The heart spoken of by the Upanishads corresponds with the physical cardiac centre; it is the hrdpadma of the Tantriks. As a subtle centre, cakra , it is supposed to have its apex on the spine and to broaden out in front. Exactly where in this area one or another feels it does not matter much; to feel it there and be guided by it is the main thing.” Letters on Yoga
The hostile forces are there in the world to maintain the
::: ". . . the modern man, even the modern cultured man, is or tends to be to a degree quite unprecedented politikon zôon, a political, economic and social being valuing above all things the efficiency of the outward existence and the things of the mind and spirit mainly, when not exclusively, for their aid to humanity"s vital and mechanical progress: he has not that regard of the ancients which looked up towards the highest heights and regarded an achievement in the things of the mind and the spirit with an unquestioning admiration or a deep veneration for its own sake as the greatest possible contribution to human culture and progress. And although this modern tendency is exaggerated and ugly and degrading in its exaggeration, inimical to humanity"s spiritual evolution, it has this much of truth behind it that while the first value of a culture is its power to raise and enlarge the internal man, the mind, the soul, the spirit, its soundness is not complete unless it has shaped also his external existence and made of it a rhythm of advance towards high and great ideals. This is the true sense of progress and there must be as part of it a sound political, economic and social life, a power and efficiency enabling a people to survive, to grow and to move securely towards a collective perfection, and a vital elasticity and responsiveness that will give room for a constant advance in the outward expression of the mind and the spirit.” The Renaissance in India
“… the modern man, even the modern cultured man, is or tends to be to a degree quite unprecedented politikon zôon, a political, economic and social being valuing above all things the efficiency of the outward existence and the things of the mind and spirit mainly, when not exclusively, for their aid to humanity’s vital and mechanical progress: he has not that regard of the ancients which looked up towards the highest heights and regarded an achievement in the things of the mind and the spirit with an unquestioning admiration or a deep veneration for its own sake as the greatest possible contribution to human culture and progress. And although this modern tendency is exaggerated and ugly and degrading in its exaggeration, inimical to humanity’s spiritual evolution, it has this much of truth behind it that while the first value of a culture is its power to raise and enlarge the internal man, the mind, the soul, the spirit, its soundness is not complete unless it has shaped also his external existence and made of it a rhythm of advance towards high and great ideals. This is the true sense of progress and there must be as part of it a sound political, economic and social life, a power and efficiency enabling a people to survive, to grow and to move securely towards a collective perfection, and a vital elasticity and responsiveness that will give room for a constant advance in the outward expression of the mind and the spirit.” The Renaissance in India
The need is to have an aspiration towards it, make the mind quiet so that what we call the opening is rendered possible. A quieted mind (not necessarily motionless or silent, though it is good if one can have that at will) and a persistent aspiration in the heart are the two main keys of the yoga.
“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 is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis which is not limited by rules and canons, it sees a universal and an eternal beauty while it takes up and transforms all that is limited and particular. It is besides concerned with things other than beauty or aesthetics. It is concerned especially with truth and knowledge or rather with a wisdom that exceeds what we call knowledge; its truth goes beyond truth of fact and truth of thought, even the higher thought which is the first spiritual range of the thinker. It has the truth of spiritual thought, spiritual feeling, spiritual sense and at its highest the truth that comes by the most intimate spiritual touch or by identity. Ultimately, truth and beauty come together and coincide, but in between there is a difference. Overmind in all its dealings puts truth first; it brings out the essential truth (and truths) in things and also its infinite possibilities; it brings out even the truth that lies behind falsehood and error; it brings out the truth of the Inconscient and the truth of the Superconscient and all that lies in between. When it speaks through poetry, this remains its first essential quality; a limited aesthetical artistic aim is not its purpose.” Letters on Savitri
"The physical is not the only world; there are others that we become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through influences and contacts, through imagination, intuition and vision. There are worlds of a larger subtler life than ours, vital worlds; worlds in which Mind builds its own forms and figures, mental worlds; psychic worlds which are the soul"s home; others above with which we have little contact. In each of us there is a mental plane of consciousness, a psychic, a vital, a subtle physical as well as the gross physical and material plane. The same planes are repeated in the consciousness of general Nature. It is when we enter or contact these other planes that we come into connection with the worlds above the physical. In sleep we leave the physical body, only a subconscient residue remaining, and enter all planes and all sorts of worlds.” Letters on Yoga
“The physical is not the only world; there are others that we become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through influences and contacts, through imagination, intuition and vision. There are worlds of a larger subtler life than ours, vital worlds; worlds in which Mind builds its own forms and figures, mental worlds; psychic worlds which are the soul’s home; others above with which we have little contact. In each of us there is a mental plane of consciousness, a psychic, a vital, a subtle physical as well as the gross physical and material plane. The same planes are repeated in the consciousness of general Nature. It is when we enter or contact these other planes that we come into connection with the worlds above the physical. In sleep we leave the physical body, only a subconscient residue remaining, and enter all planes and all sorts of worlds.” Letters on Yoga
The process of the Kundalini awakened rising through the centres as also the purification of the centres is a Taniric know- ledge. In our yoga there is no willed process of the punfication and opening of the centres, no raising up of the Kundalini by a set process either. Another method is used, but stiff there is the ascent of the consciousness from and through the different fc\cls to join the higher consciousness above ; there is the open- ing of the centres and of the planes (mental, vital, physical) which these centres command ; there is also the descent which is the main key of the spiritual transformation.
The psychic has indeed the quality of peace— -but that is not its main character as it is of the &If or Atman. The psychic is the Divine element in the individual being and its characteristic power Is to turn everything towards the Divine, to bring a fire of purification, aspiration, devotion, true light of discernment, feeling, will, action, which transforms by degrees the whole nature.
The Rajayogic Pranayama purifies and clears- theaiervous system ; it enables us to circulate the vital energy equally through the body and direct it also where we will nccarding to need, and thus maintain a perfect health and soundness of the body and the vital being ; it gives us control of all the five habitual opera- tions of the vital energy in the system and at the same time breaks down the habitual divisions by which only the ordinary mechanical processes of the vitality arc possible (o the norma! life. It opens entirely the six centres of the psycho-physical system and brings Into (he waking consciousness the power of the awakened Shakti and the light of the unveiled Furusba on each of the as^nding planes. Cbupled with (be use of the mantra it brings the ^vine energy into the body and prepares for and facilitates that concentration in Samadbi which is the crown of the Rajayogic method.
There intervenes, third, uplifting our knowledge and effort into the domain of spiritual experience, the direct suggestion, example and influence of the Teacher — guru. Last comes the instru- mentality of Time — kala ; for in all things there is a cycle of thtit action and a period of the dWine movement.
There is after death a period In which one passes through the vital world and lives there for a time, it is only the first part of this transit that can be dangerous or painful ; in the rest one vsorks out, under certain surroundings, the remnant of the vital desires which one had in the body. As soon as one is tired of these and able to go beyond, the vital sheath is dropped and the soul, after a time needed to get rid of some mental survivals, passes into a state of rest in the psychic world and remains there till the next life on earth.
There must be a desceat of the light not merely into the mind or part of it but into all the being down to the physical and below before a real Iransformatioo can take place. A-ligbt in the mind may spiritualise or otherwise change .the mind or part of it in one way or another, but it need not change the vital nature ; a light in the vital may purify and enlarge the vital movements or else silence and immobilise the vital being, but leave the body and the physical consciousness as it was, or even leave it inert or shake its balance. And the descent of Light is not enough, it must be the descent of the whole higher conscious- ness, its Peace, Power, Knowledge, Love, Ananda. Moreover the descent may be enough to liberate, but not to perfect, or it may be enough to make a great change in the inner being, while the outer remains an imperfect instrument, clumsy, sick or inexpressive. Finaliy, transfonnation eflected by the sadhana cannot be complete unless it is a supramenfalisafion of the being.
The seeds of the old relations, their impressions, their memories remain suppressed in the subconscient and rise up whenever they can. It is only when these seeds arc pulled out and disappear
The silence remains behind and there is the necessary action on
"The sun in the yoga is the symbol of the supermind and the supermind is the first power of the Supreme which one meets across the border where the experience of spiritualised mind ceases and the unmodified divine Consciousness begins the domain of the supreme Nature, para prakrti . It is that Light of which the Vedic mystics got a glimpse and it is the opposite of the intervening darkness of the Christian mystics, for the supermind is all light and no darkness.” Letters on Yoga
“The sun in the yoga is the symbol of the supermind and the supermind is the first power of the Supreme which one meets across the border where the experience of spiritualised mind ceases and the unmodified divine Consciousness begins the domain of the supreme Nature, para prakrti . It is that Light of which the Vedic mystics got a glimpse and it is the opposite of the intervening darkness of the Christian mystics, for the supermind is all light and no darkness.” Letters on Yoga
"The text of the Veda which we possess has remained uncorrupted for over two thousand years. It dates, so far as we know, from that great period of Indian intellectual activity, contemporaneous with the Greek efflorescence, but earlier in its beginnings, which founded the culture and civilisation recorded in the classical literature of the land.” The Secret of the Veda
“The text of the Veda which we possess has remained uncorrupted for over two thousand years. It dates, so far as we know, from that great period of Indian intellectual activity, contemporaneous with the Greek efflorescence, but earlier in its beginnings, which founded the culture and civilisation recorded in the classical literature of the land.” The Secret of the Veda
The vital beings (possessing men) take a delight In struggle and suffering and disorder; it is their natural atmosphere. They want besides to get the taste of the physical world without being under the obligation of taking on birth and developing the psychic being and evolving towards the Divine. They wish to remain what they are and yet amuse themselves svith the physical world and physical body,
The vital part of us normally exists after the dissolution of the body for some time and passes away into the vital piano where it remains til! the vital sheath dissolves. Afterwards it passes, if it is mentally evolved, in the mental sheath to some mental world and finally the psychic leaves its mental sheath also and goes to its place of rest. If the mental is strongly developed, then the mental part of us can remain ; so also can the vital, provided they are organised by and centred round the true psychic being — for they then share the immortality of the psychic. Otherwise the psychic draws mind and life into itself and enters into^an intematal quiescence.
The waking consciousness is no longer there, for all has been withdrawn within into the inner realms of which we are not aware when we are awake, though they exist ; for then all that is put behind a veil by the waking mind and nothing remains except the surface self and the outward world — much as the veil of the sunlight hides from us the vast worlds ^of the stars
The way to do this and the way to call down the higher powers is the same. It is to remain quiet at the time of meditation, not fighting with the mind or making mental efforts to pall down the Power or the Silence, but keeping only a .silent will and aspiration for them. If the mind is active, one has to learn to look at it, drawn back and not giving any sanction from within, until its habitual or mechanical activities begin to fall quiet for want of support from within. If it is too persistent, a steady rejection without strain or st/uggJe is the one thing to be done.
::: "This conception of the Person and Personality, if accepted, must modify at the same time our current ideas about the immortality of the soul; for, normally, when we insist on the soul"s undying existence, what is meant is the survival after death of a definite unchanging personality which was and will always remain the same throughout eternity. It is the very imperfect superficial I'' of the moment, evidently regarded by Nature as a temporary form and not worth preservation, for which we demand this stupendous right to survival and immortality. But the demand is extravagant and cannot be conceded; theI"" of the moment can only merit survival if it consents to change, to be no longer itself but something else, greater, better, more luminous in knowledge, more moulded in the image of the eternal inner beauty, more and more progressive towards the divinity of the secret Spirit. It is that secret Spirit or divinity of Self in us which is imperishable, because it is unborn and eternal. The psychic entity within, its representative, the spiritual individual in us, is the Person that we are; but the I'' of this moment, theI"" of this life is only a formation, a temporary personality of this inner Person: it is one step of the many steps of our evolutionary change, and it serves its true purpose only when we pass beyond it to a farther step leading nearer to a higher degree of consciousness and being. It is the inner Person that survives death, even as it pre-exists before birth; for this constant survival is a rendering of the eternity of our timeless Spirit into the terms of Time.” The Life Divine
“This conception of the Person and Personality, if accepted, must modify at the same time our current ideas about the immortality of the soul; for, normally, when we insist on the soul’s undying existence, what is meant is the survival after death of a definite unchanging personality which was and will always remain the same throughout eternity. It is the very imperfect superficial I’’ of the moment, evidently regarded by Nature as a temporary form and not worth preservation, for which we demand this stupendous right to survival and immortality. But the demand is extravagant and cannot be conceded; theI’’ of the moment can only merit survival if it consents to change, to be no longer itself but something else, greater, better, more luminous in knowledge, more moulded in the image of the eternal inner beauty, more and more progressive towards the divinity of the secret Spirit. It is that secret Spirit or divinity of Self in us which is imperishable, because it is unborn and eternal. The psychic entity within, its representative, the spiritual individual in us, is the Person that we are; but the I’’ of this moment, theI’’ of this life is only a formation, a temporary personality of this inner Person: it is one step of the many steps of our evolutionary change, and it serves its true purpose only when we pass beyond it to a farther step leading nearer to a higher degree of consciousness and being. It is the inner Person that survives death, even as it pre-exists before birth; for this constant survival is a rendering of the eternity of our timeless Spirit into the terms of Time.” The Life Divine
This decisive touch comes most easily to the baby cat ” people, those who have at some point between the psychic and the emotional vital a quick and decisive movement of surrender to the Guru or the Divine. I have seen that when that is there and there is the conscious central dependence compelling the mind also and the rest of the vital, then the fundamental diffi- culty disappears. If others remain they are not felt as difficulties, but simply as things that have just to be done and need cause no worry. Sometimes no tapasya is necessary — one just refers things to the Power that one feels guiding or doing the sadhana and assents to its action, rejecting all that is contrary to it, and the Power removes what has to be removed or changes what
This preliminary is of supreme importance ; without it the course of the rest of the Rajayoga is likely to be troubled, marred and full of unexpected mental, moral and physical perils. This moral purification is divided in the established system under two heads, five yamas and five niyamas. The first are rules of moral self- control in conduct such as truth-speaking, abstinence from injury or killing, from theft, etc., but in reality these must be regarded as merely certain main indications of the general need of moral self-control and purity, Ywna Is, more largely, any self-discipline by which the rajasic egoism and its passions and desires in the human being are conquered and quieted into perfect cessation.
tions; but here there comes in the Overmind law of each Force working out its own possibilities. The natural possibilities of a world in which an original Inconscience and a division of consciousness are the main principles, would be the emergence of Forces of Darkness impelled to maintain the Ignorance by which they live, an ignorant struggle to know originative of falsehood and error, an ignorant struggle to live engendering wrong and evil, an egoistic struggle to enjoy, parent of fragmentary joys and pains and sufferings; these are therefore the inevitable first-imprinted characters, though not the sole possibilities of our evolutionary existence. Still, because the Non-Existence is a concealed Existence, the Inconscience a concealed Consciousness, the insensibility a masked and dormant Ananda, these secret realities must emerge; the hidden Overmind and Supermind too must in the end fulfil themselves in this apparently opposite organisation from a dark Infinite. …
To spend all the energy in japa or meditation is a strain which even those who arc accustomed to successful meditation find it difficult to maintain — unless in periods when there is an uninterrupted flow of experiences from above.
TRANCE. ::: The body is made quiet, the physical mind is in a state of torpor, the inner consciousness is left free to go on with its experiences. The disadvantage is that trance becomes indispensable and the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved ; it remains imperfect.
Transcendent ::: “A Transcendent who is beyond all world and all Nature and yet possesses the world and its nature, who has descended with something of himself into it and is shaping it into that which as yet it is not, is the Source of our being, the Source of our works and their Master. But the seat of the Transcendent Consciousness is above in an absoluteness of divine Existence—and there too is the absolute Power, Truth, Bliss of the Eternal—of which our mentality can form no conception and of which even our greatest spiritual experience is only a diminished reflection in the spiritualised mind and heart, a faint shadow, a thin derivate. Yet proceeding from it there is a sort of golden corona of Light, Power, Bliss and Truth—a divine Truth-Consciousness as the ancient mystics called it, a Supermind, a Gnosis, with which this world of a lesser consciousness proceeding by Ignorance is in secret relation and which alone maintains it and prevents it from falling into a disintegrated chaos.” The Synthesis of Yoga
transcendent ::: Sri Aurobindo: "A Transcendent who is beyond all world and all Nature and yet possesses the world and its nature, who has descended with something of himself into it and is shaping it into that which as yet it is not, is the Source of our being, the Source of our works and their Master. But the seat of the Transcendent Consciousness is above in an absoluteness of divine Existence — and there too is the absolute Power, Truth, Bliss of the Eternal — of which our mentality can form no conception and of which even our greatest spiritual experience is only a diminished reflection in the spiritualised mind and heart, a faint shadow, a thin derivate. Yet proceeding from it there is a sort of golden corona of Light, Power, Bliss and Truth — a divine Truth-Consciousness as the ancient mystics called it, a Supermind, a Gnosis, with which this world of a lesser consciousness proceeding by Ignorance is in secret relation and which alone maintains it and prevents it from falling into a disintegrated chaos.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"The Transcendent, the Universal, the Individual are three powers overarching, underlying and penetrating the whole manifestation; this is the first of the Trinities. In the unfolding of consciousness also, these are the three fundamental terms and none of them can be neglected if we would have the experience of the whole Truth of existence. Out of the individual we wake into a vaster freer cosmic consciousness; but out of the universal too with its complex of forms and powers we must emerge by a still greater self-exceeding into a consciousness without limits that is founded on the Absolute.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"We see then that there are three terms of the one existence, transcendent, universal and individual, and that each of these always contains secretly or overtly the two others. The Transcendent possesses itself always and controls the other two as the basis of its own temporal possibilities; that is the Divine, the eternal all-possessing God-consciousness, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, which informs, embraces, governs all existences. The human being is here on earth the highest power of the third term, the individual, for he alone can work out at its critical turning-point that movement of self-manifestation which appears to us as the involution and evolution of the divine consciousness between the two terms of the Ignorance and the Knowledge.” The Life Divine
The Transcendent
This is what is termed the Adya Shakti; she is the Supreme Consciousness and Power above the universe and it is by her that all the Gods are manifested, and even the supramental Ishwara comes into manifestation through her — the supramental Purushottama of whom the Gods are Powers and Personalities.” Letters on Yoga
**Transcendent"s.**
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
transient ::: 1. Passing with time; transitory. 2. Remaining in a place only a brief time.
trespass ::: n. 1. A passing beyond (limits or boundaries). v. 2. To enter wrongfully, infringe upon a domain, right, etc.
trunk ::: the main stem of a tree, usually thick and upright, covered with bark and having branches at some distance from the ground. trunks.
TYPAL WORLDS. ::: The other worlds are typal worlds, each fixed in its own kind and type and law. Evolution takes place on the earth and therefore the earth is the proper field for progression. The beings of the other worlds do not progress from one world to another. They remain fixed to their own type.
uncertain ::: 1. Not determinate or fixed in point of time or occurrence. 2. About which one cannot be certain or assured; subject to doubt. 3. Not fully confident or assured of something. 4. Having no clear knowledge; in a state of doubt. 5. Not clearly identified, located, or determined. 6. Not clearly defined or outlined; vague; indistinct. 7. Not certain to remain in one state or condition; unsteady, variable, fitful. 8. Dependent on chance or unpredictable factors; doubtful; of unforeseeable outcome or effect. 9. Ambiguous.
unknown ::: “The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity.” The Life Divine
verge ::: 1. The extreme edge or margin; a border. 2. An enclosing limit, line, belt, or strip. 3. The edge of something as the horizon, mainly poetic. 4. The limit beyond which something happens or changes. verge"s, verges.
Virat ::: “(Purusha) The universal or cosmic Soul; ‘God practical’; Lord of Waking-Life, who governs, preserves and maintains the sensible creation which Hiranyagarbha has shaped.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
virat ::: "(Purusha) The universal or cosmic Soul; ‘God practical"; Lord of Waking-Life, who governs, preserves and maintains the sensible creation which Hiranyagarbha has shaped.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
Vital insincerity ::: The thing which enjoys the suffering and wants it is part of the human vital — it is these things that \se describe as the insincerity and pcrs'crsc nrist of the vital, it cries out against sorrow and trouble and accuses the Dirine and life and everybody else of torturing it, but for the most pan the sorrow and the trouble come and remain because the perverse something in the vital wants them ! That element in the vital has lo be got rid of altogether.
waking ::: n. 1. The state of becoming awake, remaining awake or being conscious. waking"s. adj. 2. Marked by full consciousness, awareness, and alertness.
watch-fires ::: fires maintained during the night as signals and for providing light and warmth to sentinels.
watching over ::: Keeping awake, especially for a purpose; remaining vigilant, as for protection or safekeeping of someone or something.
"What we have called specifically the Mind of Light is indeed the last of a series of descending planes of consciousness in which the Supermind veils itself by a self-chosen limitation or modification of its self-manifesting activities, but its essential character remains the same: there is in it an action of light, of truth, of knowledge in which inconscience, ignorance and error claim no place.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga*
“What we have called specifically the Mind of Light is indeed the last of a series of descending planes of consciousness in which the Supermind veils itself by a self-chosen limitation or modification of its self-manifesting activities, but its essential character remains the same: there is in it an action of light, of truth, of knowledge in which inconscience, ignorance and error claim no place.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
When one enters the spiritual life, the family ties which belong to the ordinary nature fall away ; one becomes indifi'erent to old things. This indifference is a release. There need be no harshness in it at all. To remain tied to the old physical affec- tions would mean to remain tied to the ordinary nature and that would prevent spiritual progress.
When the physical consciousness is being changed,' the chkl resistance comes from the subconscient. It is constantly main- taining or bringing back the inertia, weakness, obscurity, lack of intelligence which afflict the physical mind and vitd or' the obscure fears, desires, angers, Jiisis of the physical vital, or the illnesses, dullnesses, pains, incapabilUies to which the body- nature is prone.
"When we study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth with Matter as its basis, we observe that essentially it is a form of the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance. This would tend to show that the natural opposition we make between death and life is an error of our mentality, one of those false oppositions — false to inner truth though valid in surface practical experience — which, deceived by appearances, it is constantly bringing into the universal unity.” The Life Divine ::: *life"s, life-born, life-curve, life-delight"s, life-drift, life-foam, life-giving, life-impulse, life-impulse"s, life-motives, life-nature"s, life-pain, life-plan, life-power, life-room, life-scene, life-self, life-thought, life-wants, all-life, sense-life.
“When we study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth with Matter as its basis, we observe that essentially it is a form of the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance. This would tend to show that the natural opposition we make between death and life is an error of our mentality, one of those false oppositions—false to inner truth though valid in surface practical experience—which, deceived by appearances, it is constantly bringing into the universal unity.” The Life Divine
wood ::: 1. A dense growth of trees or underbrush covering a relatively small or confined area. Often used in the plural. 2. The trunks or main stems of trees as suitable for architectural and other purposes; timber or lumber. wood"s, woods.
world ::: 1. Everything that exists; the universe; the macrocosm. 2. The earth with its inhabitants. 3. Any sphere, realm, or domain, with all pertaining to it. 4. Any period, state, or sphere of existence. world"s, worlds, wonder-world, wonder-worlds, world-adventure, world-adventure"s, world-being"s, World-Bliss, world-cloak, world-conjecture"s, world-creating, world-creators, world-delight, World-Delight, world-destiny, world-destroying, world-disillusion"s, world-dream, world-drowse, world-egos, world-energies, world-energy, World-Energy, world-force, world-experience, world-fact, world-failure"s, world-fate, World-Force, world-forces, World-free, World-Geometer"s, world-heart, world-idea, world-ignorance, World-Ignorance, World-maker"s, world-indifference, world-interpreting, world-kindergarten, world-knowledge, world-law, world-laws, world-libido"s, world-making"s, World-Matter"s, World-naked, world-need, world-ocean"s, world-outline, world-pain, world-passion, World-personality, world-pile, world-plan, world-power, World-Power, World-Power"s, World-Puissance, world-rapture, world-redeemer"s, world-rhyme, world-rhythms, world-scene, world-scheme, world-sea, World-Self, world-shape, world-shapes, world-space, world-stuff, world-symbol, World-symbols, World-task, world-time, World-Time‘s, world-tree, world-ways, world-whim, dream-world, heaven-world, mid-world.
WORLDS. ::: The physical is not the only world ; there are others that we become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through influences and contacts, through imagination, Intuition and vision. There are worlds of a larger subtler life than ours, vital worlds ; worlds in which Mind builds its own forms and figures, mental worlds ; psychic worlds which are the soul’s home ; others above with which we have littfe contact. In each of us there is a mental plane of consciousness, a psychic, a vital, a subtle physical as w’cll as the gross physical and material plane. The same planes are repeated in the cons- ciousness of general Nature. It is when we enter or contact these other planes that we come into conoeciion with the worlds above the physical. In sleep we leave the physical body, only a sub- conscient residue remaining, and enter all planes and all sorts of worlds. In each we see scenes, meet beings, share in happen- ings, come across formations, influences, suggestions which belong to these planes. Even when we are awake, part of us moves in these planes, but their activity goes on behind the veil ; our waking minds are not aware of it. Dreams are often only incoherent constructions of our subcooscient, but others are records (often much mixed and distorted) or transcripts of experiences in these supraphystcal planes. When we do sadbana, this kind of dream becomes very common ; then subconscious dreams cease to predominate.
You have only to remain quiet and firm in your following of the path and your will to go to the end. If you do that circum- stances will in the end be obliged to shape themselves to your will, because it will be the Dirine Will in you.
KEYS (10k)
16 Sri Ramana Maharshi
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1 Yoga Vasistha
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1 Saint Alphonsus Liguori
1 Rene Guenon
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1 Mark Twain
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1 Francis Bacon
1 E. W. Dijkstra
1 Erik Erikson
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1 Chamtrul Rinpoche
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1 Saint Teresa of Avila
1 1 John 2:16-17
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47 Albert Samain
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38 Germaine Greer
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6 Friedrich Nietzsche
6 Coco Chanel
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1:Whatever you do, think of the Glory of God as your main goal. ~ Saint John Bosco, #KEYS
2:No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
~ John Donne,#KEYS
3:The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making. ~ E. W. Dijkstra, #KEYS
4:Distraction is the main problem for us all - what the Buddha called the monkey mind. We need to tame this monkey mind." ~ Tenzin Palmo, #KEYS
5:You must not be greatly troubled about many things, but you should care for the main thing — preparing yourself for death. ~ Saint Ambrose of Optina, #KEYS
6:The main business of the heart, its true function is love. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Power of the Instruments, #KEYS
7:[What is the main reason that humans are not making more spiritual progress?] "The sense of beauty is being sacrificed to commercialism…" ~ Hazrat Inayat K, #KEYS
8:The vain main of intellect is busy finding out the why and wherefore of creation, while the humble man acquaints himself with the creator. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
9:Renunciation is always in the mind, not in going to forests or solitary places or giving up one's duties. The main thing is to see that the mind does not turn outward but inward. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
10:The main factor in meditation is to keep the mind active in its own pursuit without taking in external impressions or thinking of other matters. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
11:The kind of work that should be the main part of life is the kind of work you would want to do if you weren't being paid for it. It's work that comes out of your own internal needs, interests and concerns. ~ Noam Chomsky, #KEYS
12:Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty — that is all you know on earth, and all you need to know." ~ John Keats, (1795 - 1821), English Romantic poet, one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, Wikipedia., #KEYS
13:There are three main parts to the actual practice of Guru Yoga: first there is the visualization, next the fervent prayer to the guru, and lastly the receiving of the four empowerments.
~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Guru Yoga, [T2],#KEYS
14:Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do. ~ Donald Knuth, #KEYS
15:To discover the spiritual being in himself is the main business of the spiritual man and to help others towards the same evolution is his real service to the race. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Evolution of the Spiritual Man, #KEYS
16:The main point to grasp is that you have projected onto yourself a world of your own imagination, based on memories, on desires and fears, and that you have imprisoned yourself in it. Break the spell and be free. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
17:Tapasya lies in three things:1) You must be very truthful. Truth is the pillar, to which you must always hold. Every inch of you must be truthful. 2) You must get rid of lust. 3) You must gain control over your Vasanas. These are the main things to be observed. ~ Swami Brahmananda, #KEYS
18:How then is the will to be trained? All these wishes, whims, caprices, inclinations, tendencies, appetites, must be detected, examined, judged by the standard of whether they help or hinder the main purpose, and treated accordingly.
~ Aleister Crowley, [T5],#KEYS
19:You are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizens like all the saints, and part of God's household. You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets for its foundations, and Christ Jesus himself for its main cornerstone ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, 2:19-20)., #KEYS
20:There is a single main definition of the object of all magical Ritual. It is the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; or, in the language of Mysticism, Union with God. ~ Aleister Crowley, #KEYS
21:The occult priest should be capable of instructing anyone in the procedures of emotional engineering. The main methods are the gnostic ones of casting oneself into a frenzied ecstacy, stilling the mind to a point of absolute quiescence, and evoking the laughter of the gods by combining laughter with the contemplation of paradox.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,#KEYS
22:There is a myth about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we're down the next day. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
23:The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless." ~ Alan Moor, #KEYS
24: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
25:The principle of Yoga is the turning of one or of all powers of our human existence into a means of reaching the divine Being. In an ordinary Yoga one main power of being or one group of its powers is made the means, vehicle, path. In a synthetic Yoga all powers will be combined and included in the transmuting instrumentation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609 [yoga is:],#KEYS
26:the four standards of spiritual conduct :::
There are four main standards of human conduct that make an ascending scale. The first is personal need, preference and desire; the second is the law and good of the collectivity; the third is an ideal ethic; the last is the highest divine law of the nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom [193],#KEYS
27:The object of the theoretical (as separate from the practical) Qabalah, insofar as this thesis is concerned, is to enable the student to do three main things: First, to analyze every idea in terms of the Tree of Life. Second, to trace a necessary connection and relation between every and any class of ideas by referring them to this standard of comparison. Third, to translate any unknown system of symbolism into terms of any known one by its means.
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On The Tree Of Life,#KEYS
28:I was in Nashville, Tennesee last year. After the show I went to a Waffle House. I'm not proud of it, I was hungry. And I'm alone, I'm eating and I'm reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me: 'Hey, whatcha readin' for?' Isn't that the weirdest fuckin' question you've ever heard? Not what am I reading, but what am I reading FOR? Well, godammit, ya stumped me! Why do I read? Well . . . hmmm . . . I dunno . . . I guess I read for a lot of reasons and the main one is so I don't end up being a fuckin' waffle waitress. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
29:The fundamental realisations of this yoga are: 1. The psychic change so that a compete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of the thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. 2. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light, etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. 3. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
30:If the magician wishes to put himself into or out of any emotional state, then he should be provided with the techniques to accomplish this. The process requires no justification
- that he wills it is sufficient. One cannot escape emotional experience in a human incarnation, and it is preferable to adopt a master rather than a slave relationship to it. The occult priest should be capable of instructing anyone in the procedures of emotional engineering. The main methods are the gnostic ones of casting oneself into a frenzied ecstacy, stilling the mind to a point of absolute quiescence, and evoking the laughter of the gods by combining laughter with the contemplation of paradox. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,#KEYS
31:The truth is that Tolstoy, with his immense genius, with his colossal faith, with his vast fearlessness and vast knowledge of life, is deficient in one faculty and one faculty alone. He is not a mystic; and therefore he has a tendency to go mad. Men talk of the extravagances and frenzies that have been produced by mysticism; they are a mere drop in the bucket. In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic. ...The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism - the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem. ~ G K Chesterton, Tolstoy, #KEYS
32:The art of using it consists principally in referring all our ideas to it, discovering thus the common nature of certain things and the essential differences between others, so that ultimately one obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast complexity of the Universe.
The whole subject must be studied in the Book 777, and the main attributions committed to memory: then when by constant use the system is at last understood—as opposed to being merely memorised—the student will find fresh light break in on him at every turn as he continues to measure every item of new knowledge that he attains by this Standard. For to him the Universe will then begin to appear as a coherent and a necessary Whole. ~ Aleister Crowley, Little Essays Towards Truth, "Man",#KEYS
33:With many people custom and habit of which ethics is but the social expression are the things most difficult to give up: and it is a useful practice to break any habit just to get into the way of being free from that form of slavery. Hence we have practices for breaking up sleep, for putting our bodies into strained and unnatural positions, for doing difficult exercises of breathing -- all these, apart from any special merit they may have in themselves for any particular purpose, have the main merit that the man forces himself todo them despite any conditions that may exist. Having conquered internal resistance one may conquer external resistance more easily. In a steam boat the engine must first overcome its own inertia before it can attack the resistance of the water.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part 2, The Wand,#KEYS
34:Therefore, we can attain the overmental consciousness in many different ways: through religious passion, through poetic, intellectual, artistic, or heroic zeal, or through anything that helps man to exceed himself. - Sri Aurobindo assigned a special place to art, which he considered one of the major means of spiritual progress. Unfortunately, artists and creators too often have a considerable ego standing in the way, which is their main difficulty. The religious man, who has worked to dissolve his ego, finds it easier, but he rarely attains universality through his own individual efforts, leaping instead beyond the individual without bothering to develop all the intermediate rungs of the personal consciousness, and when he reaches the top he no longer has a ladder to come down, or he does not want to come down, or there is no individual self left to express what he sees, or else his old individual self tries its best to express his new consciousness, provided he feels the need to express anything at all.
~ Satprem,#KEYS
35:fruits of the release :::
For even before complete purification, if the strings of the egoistic heart and mind are already sufficiently frayed and loosened, the Jiva can by a sudden snapping of the main cords escape, ascending like a bird freed into the spaces or widening like a liberated flood into the One and Infinite. There is first a sudden sense of a cosmic consciousness, a casting of oneself into the universal; from that universality one can aspire more easily to the Transcendent. There is a pushing back and rending or a rushing down of the walls that imprisoned our conscious being; there is a loss of all sense of individuality and personality, of all placement in ego, a person definite and definable, but only consciousness, only existence, only peace or bliss; one becomes immortatlity, becomes eternity, becomes infinity. All that is left of the personal soul is a hymn of peace and freedom and bliss vibrating somewhere in the Eternal.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, 363,#KEYS
36:You must make up your mind what you want. There is no harm in drawing back from all vital and physical relations and wanting only the true relation that is in fact what happens to everybody who wants the true relation the only thing kept is the universal goodwill (not vital affection) to all. But if you swing about from one mood to another then of course they will not understand and have some ground to say that they are perplexed by your variations. This matter of touching and caressing is one on which you ought to take a firm and unvarying stand. If you dont want it, you should repel it always with the utmost firmness, otherwise there will necessarily be clash and disturbance. All depends upon your inner will and establishing a unity of will in yourself turned exclusively towards the Divine.
I think I have told you that an entire physical retirement is seldom healthy, although a comparative retirement is often helpful. But the main thing is the inner detachment and complete turning to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga IV, 2.4.2,#KEYS
37:Four Powers Of The Mother
In talking about the four powers of the Mother, it helps to know that in India, traditionally, the evolutionary principle of creation is approached, and adored, as the great Mother. Sri Aurobindo distinguishes four main powers and personalities through which this evolutionary force manifests.
Maheshwari - One is her personality of calm wideness and comprehending wisdom and tranquil benignity and inexhaustible compassion and sovereign and surpassing majesty and all-ruling greatness.
Mahakali - Another embodies her power of splendid strength and irresistible passion, her warrior mood, her overwhelming will, her impetuous swiftness and world-shaking force.
Mahalakshmi - A third is vivid and sweet and wonderful with her deep secret of beauty and harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle opulence, her compelling attraction and captivating grace.
Mahasaraswati - The fourth is equipped with her close and profound capacity of intimate knowledge and careful flawless work and quiet and exact perfection in all things.
~ ?, https://www.auroville.com/silver-ring-mother-s-symbol.html,#KEYS
38:The triple way takes for its chosen instruments the three main powers of the mental soul-life of the human being. Knowledge selects the reason and the mental vision and it makes them by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of a Goddirected seeking its means for the greatest knowledge and the greatest vision of all, God-knowledge and God-vision. Its aim is to see, know and be the Divine. Works, action selects for its instrument the will of the doer of works; it makes life an offering of sacrifice to the Godhead and by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of subjection to the divine Will a means for contact and increasing unity of the soul of man with the divine Master of the universe. Devotion selects the emotional and aesthetic powers of the soul and by turning them all Godward in a perfect purity, intensity, infinite passion of seeking makes them a means of God-possession in one or many relations of unity with the Divine Being. All aim in their own way at a union or unity of the human soul with the supreme Spirit.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 610 [T3],#KEYS
39:Why Ubuntu: If I were you I'd just install Ubuntu into a dual-boot partition (the Ubuntu website has instructions for this) and learn as you go. Ubuntu is similar enough to Windows that you should be able to start using it right away without much difficulty.
For running your Python scripts you'll want to drop into the shell (Ctrl + Alt + T If memory serves me right). As you become more comfortable with Ubuntu, you can start using the shell more and more. The shell is what gives you access to the power of Unix; every time you need to do something tedious and repetitive, try to find out how to do it through the shell.
Eventually you will find yourself using the shell constantly. You'll wonder how you ever managed without it, and deride other operating systems for their lack of sensible programming tools. One day you'll realise that desktop window managers are a needless distraction. You start using xmonad or awesomewm. Eventually you realise that this, too, is a bastardisaton of the Unix vision and start using tmux exclusively. Then suddenly it hits you - every computer, every operating system, no matter how insignificant or user-friendly, has the Unix nature. All of them are merely streams from where you can ssh back into the ocean of Unix. Having achieved enlightenment you are equally content using an iPad as your main work computer, using powershell in Windows or SSH into a Digital Ocean droplet from your parent's computer. This is the Zen of Unix.
~ JohnyTex, https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/38zytg/is_it_worth_my_time_to_learn_linux_while_learning,#KEYS
40: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
41:... 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
42: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
43:The Godhead, the spirit manifested in Nature appears in a sea of infinite quality, Ananta-guna. But the executive or mechanical prakriti is of the threefold Guna, Sattwa, Rajas, Tamas, and the Ananta-guna, the spiritual play of infinite quality, modifies itself in this mechanical nature into the type of these three gunas. And in the soul-force in man this Godhead in Nature represents itself as a fourfold effective Power, caturvyuha , a Power for knowledge, a Power for strength, a Power for mutuality and active and productive relation and interchange, a Power for works and labour and service, and its presence casts all human life into a nexus and inner and outer operation of these four things. The ancient thought of India conscious of this fourfold type of active human personality and nature, built out of it the four types of the Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra, each with its spiritual turn, ethical ideal, suitable upbringing, fixed function in society and place in the evolutionary scale of the spirit. As always tends to be the case when we too much externalise and mechanise the more subtle truths of our nature, this became a hard and fast system inconsistent with the freedom and variability and complexity of the finer developing spirit in man. Nevertheless the truth behind it exists and is one of some considerable importance in the perfection of our power of nature; but we have to take it in its inner aspects, first, personality, character, temperament, soul-type, then the soul-force which lies behind them and wears these forms, and lastly the play of the free spiritual shakti in which they find their culmination and unity beyond all modes. For the crude external idea that a man is born as a Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya or Sudra and that alone, is not a psychological truth of our being. The psychological fact is that there are these four active powers and tendencies of the Spirit and its executive shakti within us and the predominance of one or the other in the more well-formed part of our personality gives us our main tendencies, dominant qualities and capacities, effective turn in action and life. But they are more or less present in an men, here manifest, there latent, here developed, there subdued and depressed or subordinate, and in the perfect man will be raised up to a fullness and harmony which in the spiritual freedom will burst out into the free play of the infinite quality of the spirit in the inner and outer life and in the self-enjoying creative play of the Purusha with his and the world's Nature-Power. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 4:15 - Soul-Force and the Fourfold Personality, #KEYS
44: Ekajaṭī or Ekajaṭā, (Sanskrit: "One Plait Woman"; Wylie: ral gcig ma: one who has one knot of hair),[1] also known as Māhacīnatārā,[2] is one of the 21 Taras. Ekajati is, along with Palden Lhamo deity, one of the most powerful and fierce goddesses of Vajrayana Buddhist mythology.[1][3] According to Tibetan legends, her right eye was pierced by the tantric master Padmasambhava so that she could much more effectively help him subjugate Tibetan demons.
Ekajati is also known as "Blue Tara", Vajra Tara or "Ugra Tara".[1][3] She is generally considered one of the three principal protectors of the Nyingma school along with Rāhula and Vajrasādhu (Wylie: rdo rje legs pa).
Often Ekajati appears as liberator in the mandala of the Green Tara. Along with that, her ascribed powers are removing the fear of enemies, spreading joy, and removing personal hindrances on the path to enlightenment.
Ekajati is the protector of secret mantras and "as the mother of the mothers of all the Buddhas" represents the ultimate unity. As such, her own mantra is also secret. She is the most important protector of the Vajrayana teachings, especially the Inner Tantras and termas. As the protector of mantra, she supports the practitioner in deciphering symbolic dakini codes and properly determines appropriate times and circumstances for revealing tantric teachings. Because she completely realizes the texts and mantras under her care, she reminds the practitioner of their preciousness and secrecy.[4] Düsum Khyenpa, 1st Karmapa Lama meditated upon her in early childhood.
According to Namkhai Norbu, Ekajati is the principal guardian of the Dzogchen teachings and is "a personification of the essentially non-dual nature of primordial energy."[5]
Dzogchen is the most closely guarded teaching in Tibetan Buddhism, of which Ekajati is a main guardian as mentioned above. It is said that Sri Singha (Sanskrit: Śrī Siṃha) himself entrusted the "Heart Essence" (Wylie: snying thig) teachings to her care. To the great master Longchenpa, who initiated the dissemination of certain Dzogchen teachings, Ekajati offered uncharacteristically personal guidance. In his thirty-second year, Ekajati appeared to Longchenpa, supervising every ritual detail of the Heart Essence of the Dakinis empowerment, insisting on the use of a peacock feather and removing unnecessary basin. When Longchenpa performed the ritual, she nodded her head in approval but corrected his pronunciation. When he recited the mantra, Ekajati admonished him, saying, "Imitate me," and sang it in a strange, harmonious melody in the dakini's language. Later she appeared at the gathering and joyously danced, proclaiming the approval of Padmasambhava and the dakinis.[6] ~ Wikipedia,#KEYS
45:Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can be also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it. ... Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it and all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other ways.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward and in the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it begins to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head in only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental concentration is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the most desirable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
46:SLEIGHT OF MIND IN ILLUMINATION
Only those forms of illumination which lead to useful behaviour changes deserve to be known as such. When I hear the word "spirituality", I tend to reach for a loaded wand. Most professionally spiritual people are vile and untrustworthy when off duty, simply because their beliefs conflict with basic drives and only manage to distort their natural behaviour temporarily. The demons then come screaming up out of the cellar at unexpected moments.
When selecting objectives for illumination, the magician should choose forms of self improvement which can be precisely specified and measured and which effect changes of behaviour in his entire existence. Invocation is the main tool in illumination, although enchantment where spells are cast upon oneselves and divination to seek objectives for illumination may also find some application.
Evocation can sometimes be used with care, but there is no point in simply creating an entity that is the repository of what one wishes were true for oneself in general. This is a frequent mistake in religion. Forms of worship which create only entities in the subconscious are inferior to more wholehearted worship, which, at its best, is pure invocation. The Jesuits "Imitation of Christ" is more effective than merely praying to Jesus for example.
Illumination proceeds in the same general manner as invocation, except that the magician is striving to effect specific changes to his everyday behaviour, rather than to create enhanced facilities that can be drawn upon for particular purposes. The basic technique remains the same, the required beliefs are identified and then implanted in the subconscious by ritual or other acts. Such acts force the subconscious acquisition of the beliefs they imply.
Modest and realistic objectives are preferable to grandiose schemes in illumination.
One modifies the behaviour and beliefs of others by beginning with only the most trivial demands. The same applies to oneselves. The magician should beware of implanting beliefs whose expression cannot be sustained by the human body or the environment. For example it is possible to implant the belief that flight can be achieved without an aircraft. However it has rarely proved possible to implant this belief deeply enough to ensure that such flights were not of exceedingly short duration. Nevertheless such feats as fire-walking and obliviousness to extreme pain are sometimes achieved by this mechanism.
The sleight of mind which implants belief through ritual action is more powerful than any other weapon that humanity possesses, yet its influence is so pervasive that we seldom notice it. It makes religions, wars, cults and cultures possible. It has killed countless millions and created our personal and social realities. Those who understand how to use it on others can be messiahs or dictators, depending on their degree of personal myopia. Those who understand how to apply it to themselves have a jewel beyond price if they use it wisely; otherwise they tend to rapidly invoke their own Nemesis with it. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Kaos,#KEYS
47:THE WAND
THE Magical Will is in its essence twofold, for it presupposes a beginning and an end; to will to be a thing is to admit that you are not that thing.
Hence to will anything but the supreme thing, is to wander still further from it - any will but that to give up the self to the Beloved is Black Magick - yet this surrender is so simple an act that to our complex minds it is the most difficult of all acts; and hence training is necessary. Further, the Self surrendered must not be less than the All-Self; one must not come before the altar of the Most High with an impure or an imperfect offering. As it is written in Liber LXV, "To await Thee is the end, not the beginning."
This training may lead through all sorts of complications, varying according to the nature of the student, and hence it may be necessary for him at any moment to will all sorts of things which to others might seem unconnected with the goal. Thus it is not "a priori" obvious why a billiard player should need a file.
Since, then, we may want "anything," let us see to it that our will is strong enough to obtain anything we want without loss of time.
It is therefore necessary to develop the will to its highest point, even though the last task but one is the total surrender of this will. Partial surrender of an imperfect will is of no account in Magick.
The will being a lever, a fulcrum is necessary; this fulcrum is the main aspiration of the student to attain. All wills which are not dependent upon this principal will are so many leakages; they are like fat to the athlete.
The majority of the people in this world are ataxic; they cannot coordinate their mental muscles to make a purposed movement. They have no real will, only a set of wishes, many of which contradict others. The victim wobbles from one to the other (and it is no less wobbling because the movements may occasionally be very violent) and at the end of life the movements cancel each other out. Nothing has been achieved; except the one thing of which the victim is not conscious: the destruction of his own character, the confirming of indecision. Such an one is torn limb from limb by Choronzon.
How then is the will to be trained? All these wishes, whims, caprices, inclinations, tendencies, appetites, must be detected, examined, judged by the standard of whether they help or hinder the main purpose, and treated accordingly.
Vigilance and courage are obviously required. I was about to add self-denial, in deference to conventional speech; but how could I call that self-denial which is merely denial of those things which hamper the self? It is not suicide to kill the germs of malaria in one's blood.
Now there are very great difficulties to be overcome in the training of the mind. Perhaps the greatest is forgetfulness, which is probably the worst form of what the Buddhists call ignorance. Special practices for training the memory may be of some use as a preliminary for persons whose memory is naturally poor. In any case the Magical Record prescribed for Probationers of the A.'.A.'. is useful and necessary.
Above all the practices of Liber III must be done again and again, for these practices develop not only vigilance but those inhibiting centres in the brain which are, according to some psychologists, the mainspring of the mechanism by which civilized man has raised himself above the savage.
So far it has been spoken, as it were, in the negative. Aaron's rod has become a serpent, and swallowed the serpents of the other Magicians; it is now necessary to turn it once more into a rod.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, The Wand,#KEYS
48:The principle of Yoga is the turning of one or of all powers of our human existence into a means of reaching the divine Being. In an ordinary Yoga one main power of being or one group of its powers is made the means, vehicle, path. In a synthetic Yoga all powers will be combined and included in the transmuting instrumentation.
In Hathayoga the instrument is the body and life. All the power of the body is stilled, collected, purified, heightened, concentrated to its utmost limits or beyond any limits by Asana and other physical processes; the power of the life too is similarly purified, heightened, concentrated by Asana and Pranayama. This concentration of powers is then directed towards that physical centre in which the divine consciousness sits concealed in the human body. The power of Life, Nature-power, coiled up with all its secret forces asleep in the lowest nervous plexus of the earth-being,-for only so much escapes into waking action in our normal operations as is sufficient for the limited uses of human life,-rises awakened through centre after centre and awakens, too, in its ascent and passage the forces of each successive nodus of our being, the nervous life, the heart of emotion and ordinary mentality, the speech, sight, will, the higher knowledge, till through and above the brain it meets with and it becomes one with the divine consciousness.
In Rajayoga the chosen instrument is the mind. our ordinary mentality is first disciplined, purified and directed towards the divine Being, then by a summary process of Asana and Pranayama the physical force of our being is stilled and concentrated, the life-force released into a rhythmic movement capable of cessation and concentrated into a higher power of its upward action, the mind, supported and strengthened by this greater action and concentration of the body and life upon which it rests, is itself purified of all its unrest and emotion and its habitual thought-waves, liberated from distraction and dispersion, given its highest force of concentration, gathered up into a trance of absorption. Two objects, the one temporal, the other eternal,are gained by this discipline. Mind-power develops in another concentrated action abnormal capacities of knowledge, effective will, deep light of reception, powerful light of thought-radiation which are altogether beyond the narrow range of our normal mentality; it arrives at the Yogic or occult powers around which there has been woven so much quite dispensable and yet perhaps salutary mystery. But the one final end and the one all-important gain is that the mind, stilled and cast into a concentrated trance, can lose itself in the divine consciousness and the soul be made free to unite with the divine Being.
The triple way takes for its chosen instruments the three main powers of the mental soul-life of the human being. Knowledge selects the reason and the mental vision and it makes them by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of a Goddirected seeking its means for the greatest knowledge and the greatest vision of all, God-knowledge and God-vision. Its aim is to see, know and be the Divine. Works, action selects for its instrument the will of the doer of works; it makes life an offering of sacrifice to the Godhead and by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of subjection to the divine Will a means for contact and increasing unity of the soul of man with the divine Master of the universe. Devotion selects the emotional and aesthetic powers of the soul and by turning them all Godward in a perfect purity, intensity, infinite passion of seeking makes them a means of God-possession in one or many relations of unity with the Divine Being. All aim in their own way at a union or unity of the human soul with the supreme Spirit.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609,#KEYS
49:PRATYAHARA
PRATYAHARA is the first process in the mental part of our task. The previous practices, Asana, Pranayama, Yama, and Niyama, are all acts of the body, while mantra is connected with speech: Pratyahara is purely mental.
And what is Pratyahara? This word is used by different authors in different senses. The same word is employed to designate both the practice and the result. It means for our present purpose a process rather strategical than practical; it is introspection, a sort of general examination of the contents of the mind which we wish to control: Asana having been mastered, all immediate exciting causes have been removed, and we are free to think what we are thinking about.
A very similar experience to that of Asana is in store for us. At first we shall very likely flatter ourselves that our minds are pretty calm; this is a defect of observation. Just as the European standing for the first time on the edge of the desert will see nothing there, while his Arab can tell him the family history of each of the fifty persons in view, because he has learnt how to look, so with practice the thoughts will become more numerous and more insistent.
As soon as the body was accurately observed it was found to be terribly restless and painful; now that we observe the mind it is seen to be more restless and painful still. (See diagram opposite.)
A similar curve might be plotted for the real and apparent painfulness of Asana. Conscious of this fact, we begin to try to control it: "Not quite so many thoughts, please!" "Don't think quite so fast, please!" "No more of that kind of thought, please!" It is only then that we discover that what we thought was a school of playful porpoises is really the convolutions of the sea-serpent. The attempt to repress has the effect of exciting.
When the unsuspecting pupil first approaches his holy but wily Guru, and demands magical powers, that Wise One replies that he will confer them, points out with much caution and secrecy some particular spot on the pupil's body which has never previously attracted his attention, and says: "In order to obtain this magical power which you seek, all that is necessary is to wash seven times in the Ganges during seven days, being particularly careful to avoid thinking of that one spot." Of course the unhappy youth spends a disgusted week in thinking of little else.
It is positively amazing with what persistence a thought, even a whole train of thoughts, returns again and again to the charge. It becomes a positive nightmare. It is intensely annoying, too, to find that one does not become conscious that one has got on to the forbidden subject until one has gone right through with it. However, one continues day after day investigating thoughts and trying to check them; and sooner or later one proceeds to the next stage, Dharana, the attempt to restrain the mind to a single object.
Before we go on to this, however, we must consider what is meant by success in Pratyahara. This is a very extensive subject, and different authors take widely divergent views. One writer means an analysis so acute that every thought is resolved into a number of elements (see "The Psychology of Hashish," Section V, in Equinox II).
Others take the view that success in the practice is something like the experience which Sir Humphrey Davy had as a result of taking nitrous oxide, in which he exclaimed: "The universe is composed exclusively of ideas."
Others say that it gives Hamlet's feeling: "There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so," interpreted as literally as was done by Mrs. Eddy.
However, the main point is to acquire some sort of inhibitory power over the thoughts. Fortunately there is an unfailing method of acquiring this power. It is given in Liber III. If Sections 1 and 2 are practised (if necessary with the assistance of another person to aid your vigilance) you will soon be able to master the final section. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#KEYS
50:CHAPTER XIII
OF THE BANISHINGS: AND OF THE PURIFICATIONS.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and had better come first. Purity means singleness. God is one. The wand is not a wand if it has something sticking to it which is not an essential part of itself. If you wish to invoke Venus, you do not succeed if there are traces of Saturn mixed up with it.
That is a mere logical commonplace: in magick one must go much farther than this. One finds one's analogy in electricity. If insulation is imperfect, the whole current goes back to earth. It is useless to plead that in all those miles of wire there is only one-hundredth of an inch unprotected. It is no good building a ship if the water can enter, through however small a hole.
That first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable.
If one littlest thought intrude upon the mind of the Mystic, his concentration is absolutely destroyed; and his consciousness remains on exactly the same level as the Stockbroker's. Even the smallest baby is incompatible with the virginity of its mother. If you leave even a single spirit within the circle, the effect of the conjuration will be entirely absorbed by it.> {101}
The Magician must therefore take the utmost care in the matter of purification, "firstly", of himself, "secondly", of his instruments, "thirdly", of the place of working. Ancient Magicians recommended a preliminary purification of from three days to many months. During this period of training they took the utmost pains with diet. They avoided animal food, lest the elemental spirit of the animal should get into their atmosphere. They practised sexual abstinence, lest they should be influenced in any way by the spirit of the wife. Even in regard to the excrements of the body they were equally careful; in trimming the hair and nails, they ceremonially destroyed> the severed portion. They fasted, so that the body itself might destroy anything extraneous to the bare necessity of its existence. They purified the mind by special prayers and conservations. They avoided the contamination of social intercourse, especially the conjugal kind; and their servitors were disciples specially chosen and consecrated for the work.
In modern times our superior understanding of the essentials of this process enables us to dispense to some extent with its external rigours; but the internal purification must be even more carefully performed. We may eat meat, provided that in doing so we affirm that we eat it in order to strengthen us for the special purpose of our proposed invocation.> {102}
By thus avoiding those actions which might excite the comment of our neighbours we avoid the graver dangers of falling into spiritual pride.
We have understood the saying: "To the pure all things are pure", and we have learnt how to act up to it. We can analyse the mind far more acutely than could the ancients, and we can therefore distinguish the real and right feeling from its imitations. A man may eat meat from self-indulgence, or in order to avoid the dangers of asceticism. We must constantly examine ourselves, and assure ourselves that every action is really subservient to the One Purpose.
It is ceremonially desirable to seal and affirm this mental purity by Ritual, and accordingly the first operation in any actual ceremony is bathing and robing, with appropriate words. The bath signifies the removal of all things extraneous to antagonistic to the one thought. The putting on of the robe is the positive side of the same operation. It is the assumption of the fame of mind suitable to that one thought.
A similar operation takes place in the preparation of every instrument, as has been seen in the Chapter devoted to that subject. In the preparation of theplace of working, the same considerations apply. We first remove from that place all objects; and we then put into it those objects, and only those {103} objects, which are necessary. During many days we occupy ourselves in this process of cleansing and consecration; and this again is confirmed in the actual ceremony.
The cleansed and consecrated Magician takes his cleansed and consecrated instruments into that cleansed and consecrated place, and there proceeds to repeat that double ceremony in the ceremony itself, which has these same two main parts. The first part of every ceremony is the banishing; the second, the invoking. The same formula is repeated even in the ceremony of banishing itself, for in the banishing ritual of the pentagram we not only command the demons to depart, but invoke the Archangels and their hosts to act as guardians of the Circle during our pre-occupation with the ceremony proper.
In more elaborate ceremonies it is usual to banish everything by name. Each element, each planet, and each sign, perhaps even the Sephiroth themselves; all are removed, including the very one which we wished to invoke, for that force ... ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#KEYS
51:Chapter LXXXII: Epistola Penultima: The Two Ways to Reality
Cara Soror,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
How very sensible of you, though I admit somewhat exacting!
You write-Will you tell me exactly why I should devote so much of my valuable time to subjects like Magick and Yoga.
That is all very well. But you ask me to put it in syllogistic form. I have no doubt this can be done, though the task seems somewhat complicated. I think I will leave it to you to construct your series of syllogisms yourself from the arguments of this letter.
In your main question the operative word is "valuable. Why, I ask, in my turn, should you consider your time valuable? It certainly is not valuable unless the universe has a meaning, and what is more, unless you know what that meaning is-at least roughly-it is millions to one that you will find yourself barking up the wrong tree.
First of all let us consider this question of the meaning of the universe. It is its own evidence to design, and that design intelligent design. There is no question of any moral significance-"one man's meat is another man's poison" and so on. But there can be no possible doubt about the existence of some kind of intelligence, and that kind is far superior to anything of which we know as human.
How then are we to explore, and finally to interpret this intelligence?
It seems to me that there are two ways and only two. Imagine for a moment that you are an orphan in charge of a guardian, inconceivably learned from your point of view.
Suppose therefore that you are puzzled by some problem suitable to your childish nature, your obvious and most simple way is to approach your guardian and ask him to enlighten you. It is clearly part of his function as guardian to do his best to help you. Very good, that is the first method, and close parallel with what we understand by the word Magick.
We are bothered by some difficulty about one of the elements-say Fire-it is therefore natural to evoke a Salamander to instruct you on the difficult point. But you must remember that your Holy Guardian Angel is not only far more fully instructed than yourself on every point that you can conceive, but you may go so far as to say that it is definitely his work, or part of his work; remembering always that he inhabits a sphere or plane which is entirely different from anything of which you are normally aware.
To attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is consequently without doubt by far the simplest way by which you can yourself approach that higher order of being.
That, then, is a clearly intelligible method of procedure. We call it Magick.
It is of course possible to strengthen the link between him and yourself so that in course of time you became capable of moving and, generally speaking, operating on that plane which is his natural habitat.
There is however one other way, and one only, as far as I can see, of reaching this state.
It is at least theoretically possible to exalt the whole of your own consciousness until it becomes as free to move on that exalted plane as it is for him. You should note, by the way, that in this case the postulation of another being is not necessary. There is no way of refuting the solipsism if you feel like that. Personally I cannot accede to its axiom. The evidence for an external universe appears to me perfectly adequate.
Still there is no extra charge for thinking on those lines if you so wish.
I have paid a great deal of attention in the course of my life to the method of exalting the human consciousness in this way; and it is really quite legitimate to identify my teaching with that of the Yogis.
I must however point out that in the course of my instruction I have given continual warnings as to the dangers of this line of research. For one thing there is no means of checking your results in the ordinary scientific sense. It is always perfectly easy to find a subjective explanation of any phenomenon; and when one considers that the greatest of all the dangers in any line of research arise from egocentric vanity, I do not think I have exceeded my duty in anything that I have said to deter students from undertaking so dangerous a course as Yoga.
It is, of course, much safer if you are in a position to pursue in the Indian Jungles, provided that your health will stand the climate and also, I must say, unless you have a really sound teacher on whom you can safely rely. But then, if we once introduce a teacher, why not go to the Fountain-head and press towards the Knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel?
In any case your Indian teacher will ultimately direct you to seek guidance from that source, so it seems to me that you have gone to a great deal of extra trouble and incurred a great deal of unnecessary danger by not leaving yourself in the first place in the hands of the Holy Guardian Angel.
In any case there are the two methods which stand as alternatives. I do not know of any third one which can be of any use whatever. Logically, since you have asked me to be logical, there is certainly no third way; there is the external way of Magick, and the internal way of Yoga: there you have your alternatives, and there they cease.
Love is the law, love under will.
Fraternally,
666 ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears,#KEYS
52:summary of the entire process of psychic awakening :::
You have asked what is the discipline to be followed in order to convert the mental seeking into a living spiritual experience. The first necessity is the practice of concentration of your consciousness within yourself. The ordinary human mind has an activity on the surface which veils the real Self. But there is another, a hidden consciousness within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other then the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it an d all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward to all that is above mind. After a time one feels the consciousness rising upward and it the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it behind to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head is only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental consciousness is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable.
The other side of the discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is to offer all the activities to the Divine and call for the inner guidance and the taking up of one's nature by a Higher Power. If there is the inward soul-opening, if the psychic being comes forward, then there is no great difficulty - there comes with it a psychic discrimination, a constant intimation, finally a governance which discloses and quietly and patiently removes all imperfections, bring the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in this, becomes detached, sees mind and its activities as not oneself, life and its activities as not oneself, the body and its activities as not oneself, one becomes aware of an inner Being within us - inner mental, inner vital, inner physical - silent, calm, unbound, unattached which reflects the true Self above and can be its direct representative; from this inner silent Being proceeds a rejection of all that is to be rejected, an acceptance only of what can be kept and transformed, an inmost Will to perfection or a call to the Divine Power to do at each step what is necessary for the change of the Nature. It can also open mind, life and body to the inmost psychic entity and its guiding influence or its direct guidance. In most cases these two methods emerge and work together and finally fuse into one. But one can being with either, the one that one feels most natural and easy to follow.
Finally, in all difficulties where personal effort is hampered, the help of the Teacher can intervene and bring above what is needed for the realisation or for the immediate step that is necessary.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 6, {871},#KEYS
53:How to Meditate
Deep meditation is a mental procedure that utilizes the nature of the mind to systematically bring the mind to rest. If the mind is given the opportunity, it will go to rest with no effort. That is how the mind works.
Indeed, effort is opposed to the natural process of deep meditation. The mind always seeks the path of least resistance to express itself. Most of the time this is by making more and more thoughts. But it is also possible to create a situation in the mind that turns the path of least resistance into one leading to fewer and fewer thoughts. And, very soon, no thoughts at all. This is done by using a particular thought in a particular way. The thought is called a mantra.
For our practice of deep meditation, we will use the thought - I AM. This will be our mantra.
It is for the sound that we will use I AM, not for the meaning of it.
The meaning has an obvious significance in English, and I AM has a religious meaning in the English Bible as well. But we will not use I AM for the meaning - only for the sound. We can also spell it AYAM. No meaning there, is there? Only the sound. That is what we want. If your first language is not English, you may spell the sound phonetically in your own language if you wish. No matter how we spell it, it will be the same sound. The power of the sound ...I AM... is great when thought inside. But only if we use a particular procedure. Knowing this procedure is the key to successful meditation. It is very simple. So simple that we will devote many pages here to discussing how to keep it simple, because we all have a tendency to make things more complicated. Maintaining simplicity is the key to right meditation.
Here is the procedure of deep meditation: While sitting comfortably with eyes closed, we'll just relax. We will notice thoughts, streams of thoughts. That is fine. We just let them go by without minding them. After about a minute, we gently introduce the mantra, ...I AM...
We think the mantra in a repetition very easily inside. The speed of repetition may vary, and we do not mind it. We do not intone the mantra out loud. We do not deliberately locate the mantra in any particular part of the body. Whenever we realize we are not thinking the mantra inside anymore, we come back to it easily. This may happen many times in a sitting, or only once or twice. It doesn't matter. We follow this procedure of easily coming back to the mantra when we realize we are off it for the predetermined time of our meditation session. That's it.
Very simple.
Typically, the way we will find ourselves off the mantra will be in a stream of other thoughts. This is normal. The mind is a thought machine, remember? Making thoughts is what it does. But, if we are meditating, as soon as we realize we are off into a stream of thoughts, no matter how mundane or profound, we just easily go back to the mantra.
Like that. We don't make a struggle of it. The idea is not that we have to be on the mantra all the time. That is not the objective. The objective is to easily go back to it when we realize we are off it. We just favor the mantra with our attention when we notice we are not thinking it. If we are back into a stream of other thoughts five seconds later, we don't try and force the thoughts out. Thoughts are a normal part of the deep meditation process. We just ease back to the mantra again. We favor it.
Deep meditation is a going toward, not a pushing away from. We do that every single time with the mantra when we realize we are off it - just easily favoring it. It is a gentle persuasion. No struggle. No fuss. No iron willpower or mental heroics are necessary for this practice. All such efforts are away from the simplicity of deep meditation and will reduce its effectiveness.
As we do this simple process of deep meditation, we will at some point notice a change in the character of our inner experience. The mantra may become very refined and fuzzy. This is normal. It is perfectly all right to think the mantra in a very refined and fuzzy way if this is the easiest. It should always be easy - never a struggle. Other times, we may lose track of where we are for a while, having no mantra, or stream of thoughts either. This is fine too. When we realize we have been off somewhere, we just ease back to the mantra again. If we have been very settled with the mantra being barely recognizable, we can go back to that fuzzy level of it, if it is the easiest. As the mantra refines, we are riding it inward with our attention to progressively deeper levels of inner silence in the mind. So it is normal for the mantra to become very faint and fuzzy. We cannot force this to happen. It will happen naturally as our nervous system goes through its many cycles ofinner purification stimulated by deep meditation. When the mantra refines, we just go with it. And when the mantra does not refine, we just be with it at whatever level is easy. No struggle. There is no objective to attain, except to continue the simple procedure we are describing here.
When and Where to Meditate
How long and how often do we meditate? For most people, twenty minutes is the best duration for a meditation session. It is done twice per day, once before the morning meal and day's activity, and then again before the evening meal and evening's activity.
Try to avoid meditating right after eating or right before bed.
Before meal and activity is the ideal time. It will be most effective and refreshing then. Deep meditation is a preparation for activity, and our results over time will be best if we are active between our meditation sessions. Also, meditation is not a substitute for sleep. The ideal situation is a good balance between meditation, daily activity and normal sleep at night. If we do this, our inner experience will grow naturally over time, and our outer life will become enriched by our growing inner silence.
A word on how to sit in meditation: The first priority is comfort. It is not desirable to sit in a way that distracts us from the easy procedure of meditation. So sitting in a comfortable chair with back support is a good way to meditate. Later on, or if we are already familiar, there can be an advantage to sitting with legs crossed, also with back support. But always with comfort and least distraction being the priority. If, for whatever reason, crossed legs are not feasible for us, we will do just fine meditating in our comfortable chair. There will be no loss of the benefits.
Due to commitments we may have, the ideal routine of meditation sessions will not always be possible. That is okay. Do the best you can and do not stress over it. Due to circumstances beyond our control, sometimes the only time we will have to meditate will be right after a meal, or even later in the evening near bedtime. If meditating at these times causes a little disruption in our system, we will know it soon enough and make the necessary adjustments. The main thing is that we do our best to do two meditations every day, even if it is only a short session between our commitments. Later on, we will look at the options we have to make adjustments to address varying outer circumstances, as well as inner experiences that can come up.
Before we go on, you should try a meditation. Find a comfortable place to sit where you are not likely to be interrupted and do a short meditation, say ten minutes, and see how it goes. It is a toe in the water.
Make sure to take a couple of minutes at the end sitting easily without doing the procedure of meditation. Then open your eyes slowly. Then read on here.
As you will see, the simple procedure of deep meditation and it's resulting experiences will raise some questions. We will cover many of them here.
So, now we will move into the practical aspects of deep meditation - your own experiences and initial symptoms of the growth of your own inner silence. ~ Yogani, Deep Meditation,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Victory is the main object in war. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 2:Self-command is the main elegance. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 3:Truthfulness is the main element of character. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 4:Colors express the main psychic functions of man. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 5:The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 6:The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. ~ stephen-r-covey, @wisdomtrove 7:Why resist change when it's the main source of your growth? ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 8:My main object in life is to see what will happen next. ~ ashleigh-brilliant, @wisdomtrove 9:Tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 10:My main concern is with the anxiety that has settled upon America. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 11:One of the main faults of a fool is that he never changes his mind. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 12:Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life. ~ viktor-frankl, @wisdomtrove 13:Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 14:It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 15:I know what's what, and have always taken care of the main chance. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 16:The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 17:This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to it is to know when to die. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 18:Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 19:Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 20:The main requirement for spiritual growth: A yearning to know who you really are. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 21:Freedom is to be free of attachments, and the main attachment is to the & 22:The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 23:Whatever happens, do not lose hold of the two main ropes of life - hope and faith. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 24:The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. ~ george-carlin, @wisdomtrove 25:Get hold of the main thing that the world and the self are one and perfect. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 26:Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 27:I guess when you turn off the main road, you have to be prepared to see some funny houses. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 28:The main quality of leadership... ... ... .is courage ! If you can dream it, you can do it! ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 29:I suppose that the main drive is to find the edge of something and then throw myself over it. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove 30:My main purpose in life is to make money so I can afford to go on creating more inventions. ~ thomas-edison, @wisdomtrove 31:Every human is an artist. And this is the main art that we have: the creation of our story. ~ don-miguel-ruiz, @wisdomtrove 32:The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 33:A lot of people don't enjoy their jobs, and it's one of the main things we like to complain about. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 34:The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 35:Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 36:Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. ~ viktor-frankl, @wisdomtrove 37:One of the main functions of organized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 38: What makes us progress? M. Silence is the main factor. In peace and silence, you grow. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 39:In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 40:The main object of teaching is not to give explanations, but to knock at the doors of the mind. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 41:In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support [salary] is a power over his will. ~ alexander-hamilton, @wisdomtrove 42:This is what I am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 43:A good artist ought never to allow impatience to overcome his sense of the main end of art – perfection. ~ michelangelo, @wisdomtrove 44:Propriety of manners, and consideration for others, are the two main characteristics of a gentleman. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 45:The main conclusion here arrived at ... is that man is descended from some less highly organized form. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 46:Physics has in the main contented itself with studying the abridged edition of the book of nature. ~ sir-arthur-eddington, @wisdomtrove 47:Adults need more complex narratives. They have their own narratives. The main characters are themselves. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 48:The main object of conciliation lies in reaching a solution to a case based upon morals and with a warm heart. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 49:Self-approval and self-acceptance in the now are the main keys to positive changes in every area of our lives. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 50:The main feature should be the teaching of principles through stories. Don't make it metaphysical at all. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 51:Don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens - The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 52:In general she had found that the main drawback in being a man was that conversations were less interesting. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 53:The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds... but how can we put our woundedness in service to others. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 54:The main message of it is to not get stagnant and that God wants us to continue to grow and become a better person. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 55:With me, my main vision for life was to avoid as many people as possible. The less people I saw the better I felt. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 56:Soul-winning is the chief business of the Christian minister; it should be the main pursuit of every true believer. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 57:In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 58:The same way that you are the main character of your story, you are only a secondary character in everybody else's story. ~ don-miguel-ruiz, @wisdomtrove 59:Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 60:Thanks to their decreased brainpower, people aren't diverted from the main business of life by the hobgoblins of opinion anymore. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 61:My core message is that God has got a good plan for your lives, and we must trust Him, and let go of the past. That's my main message. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 62:Our enemy, the devil, wants to control us, and his target is our will. The main way he tries to influence our will is through lying to us. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 63:Poe was the first writer to write about main characters who were bad guys or who were mad guys, and those are some of my favorite stories. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 64:Each nation has a main current in life; in India it is religion. Make it strong and the waters on either side must move along with it. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 65:I read annual reports of the company I'm looking at and I read the annual reports of the competitors - that is the main source of material. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 66:Today the main source of wealth is knowledge. And whereas you can conquer oil fields through war, you cannot acquire knowledge that way. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 67:Here’s all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.” ~ george-carlin, @wisdomtrove 68:I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 69:Information is the manager's main tool, indeed the manager's capital, and it is he who must decide what information he needs and how to use it. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 70:Over the years, people I've met have often asked me what I'm working on, and I've usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 71:The main event has never been the manifestation, the main event has always been the way you feel, moment by moment, because that's what life is. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 72:One of the main tasks of theology is to find words that do not divide but unite, that do not create conflict but unity, that do not hurt but heal. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 73:I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 74:The main motive for nonattachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 75:When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story, he said. ‚When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 76:An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life becoming a better person. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 77:But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 78:When a study was made a few years ago on runaway wives, what do you think was discovered to be the main reason wives ran away? It was lack of appreciation. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 79:Words are but the bannerets of a great army, a few bits of waving color here and there; thoughts are the main body of the footman that march unseen below. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 80:The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences; of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 81:Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, ... I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 82:Creativity has a lot to do with the main idea. Inspiration is what comes when you are dealing with the idea. But inspiration won't invite what's not there to begin with. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 83:Religion has nothing to do with compassion; it is our love for God that is the main thing because we have all been created for the sole purpose to love and be loved. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 84:All for each, and each for all, is a good motto; but only on condition that each works with might and main to so maintain himself as not to be a burden to others. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 85:The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 86:I hope the people on Wall Street will pay attention to the people on Main Street. If they do, they will see there is a rising tide of confidence in the future of America. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 87:The main rule to me is to honor God with your life. To live a life of integrity. Not be selfish. You know, help others. But that's really the essence of the Christian faith. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 88:Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason [Zaphood] had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 89:It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic and significant to his own imagination as he can. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 90:The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 91:Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of Good in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 92:To wisely live your life, you don't need to know much Just rememeber two main rules for the beginning: You better starve, than eat whatever And better be alone, than with whoever. ~ omar-khayyam, @wisdomtrove 93:Most songs have bridges in them, to distract listeners from the main verses of a song so they don't get bored. My songs don't have a lot of bridges because lyric poetry never had them. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 94:You know, I think the main purpose of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps is to get poor Americans into clean, pressed, unpatched clothes, so rich Americans can stand to look at them. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 95:We're important, but not essential; valuable, but not indispensable. We have a part in the play, but we are not the main act. A song to sing, but we are not the featured voice. God is. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 96:The main reason people fail is they become attached to others who hold them back. Letting go of others and going forward may seem like a lonely and impossible task, but I assure you it is not. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 97:Begin with bodhicitta, do the main practice without concepts, Conclude by dedicating the merit. These, together and complete, Are the three vital supports for progressing on the path to liberation. ~ longchenpa, @wisdomtrove 98:What we called love down there was mostly the craving to be loved. In the main I loved you for my own sake: because I needed you... We shall have no need for one another now: we can begin to love truly. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 99:Now this brings me to my main topic - our military strength - more specifically, how to stay strong against threat from outside, without undermining the economic health that supports our security. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 100:Logotherapy . . . considers man as a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning and in actualizing values, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts. ~ viktor-frankl, @wisdomtrove 101:One of the main reasons that we lose our enthusiasm in life is because we become ungrateful..we let what was once a miracle become common to us. We get so accustomed to his goodness it becomes a routine. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 102:The idea of lying on a beach as my main thing just sounds like the worst. It sounds horrible to me. I would go bonkers. I would have to be on serious drugs. I'd be super-duper bored. I like high intensity. ~ elon-musk, @wisdomtrove 103:I don't know what it means to manage the human imagination, but I do know that imagination is the main source of value in the new economy. And I know we'd better figure out the answer to my question-quick. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 104:Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 105:I just want to continue to grow and be open to what God wants to do. I guess my main goal is just to continue to reach people the best I can, hopefully help impact their lives and just change culture for better. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 106:There are in Europe many good generals, but they see too many things at once. I see one thing, namely the enemy's main body. I try to crush it, confident that secondary matters will then settle themselves. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 107:Most people say their main fault is a lack of discipline. On deeper thought, I believe that is not the case. The basic problem is that their priorities have not become deeply planted in their hearts and minds. ~ stephen-r-covey, @wisdomtrove 108:I believe that the main thing in beginning a novel is to feel, not that you can write it, but that it exists on the far side of a gulf, which words can't cross: that it's to be pulled through only in a breathless anguish. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 109:Main Street, U.S.A. is America at the turn of the century& 110:Don't you think that's the main reason people find [writing] so difficult? If they can write complete sentences and can use a dictionary, isn't that the only reason they find writing hard: they don't know or care about anything? ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 111:The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power or goodness. ~ martin-seligman, @wisdomtrove 112:If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 113:In our production-oriented society, being busy, having an occupation, has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic security but our very identity is endangered. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 114:& 115:I am actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce [direct] evidence of one species changing into another, but I believe that this view is in the main correct, because so many phenomena can thus be grouped end explained. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 116:The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly-organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 117:The main mark of modern governments is that we do not know who governs, de facto any more than de jure. We see the politician and not his backer; still less the backer of the backer; or, what is most important of all, the banker of the backer. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 118:The main thing is this: we should never blame anyone or anything for our defeats. No matter how evil their intentions may be, they are altogether unable to harm us until we begin to blame them and use them as excuses for our own unbelief. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 119:The American people aren't overtaxed. The government in Washington is overfed. The main difference between ourselves and the other side is: we see an America where every day is the Fourth of July. They see an America where every day is April 15. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 120:I don't care for the applause one gets by saying what others are thinking; I want actually to change people's thoughts. Power over people's minds is the main personal desire of my life; and this sort of power is not acquired by saying popular things. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 121:The things you need in life are those that will help you to fulfill your dominant purpose. Things you may want but not need may lead you aside from that purpose. It is only by making everything serve your main objective that success is attained. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 122:I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 123:My main point about films is that I don't like the adaptation process, and I particularly don't like the modern way of comic book-film adaptations, where, essentially, the central characters are just franchises that can be worked endlessly to no apparent point. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove 124:When you allow yourself to begin to dream big dreams, creatively abandon the activities that are taking up too much of your time, and focus your inward energies on alleviating your main constraints, you start to feel an incredible sense of power and confidence. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 125:The main trouble with despair is that it is self-fulfilling. People who fear the worst tend to invite it. Heads that are down can't scan the horizon for new openings. Bursts of energy do not spring from a spirit of defeat. Ultimately, helplessness leads to hopelessness. ~ norman-cousins, @wisdomtrove 126:Young people want to learn, they are thirsty for knowledge, they want to understand and remember. The main thing is to teach them where not to go. Oppression, not to go; dictatorship, not to go; racism and prejudice, absolutely not to go. This is a moral plan [for society]. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 127:Knowledge is the raw material of production and value in this age. It used to be that the main difference between people in our society was between those who have more and those who have less. Today, however, the difference is between those who know more and those who know less. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 128:It's true that at the time I was fond of Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and it was from them that I learned about this kind of simple, swift-paced style, but the main reason for the style of my first novel is that I simply did not have the time to write sustained prose. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 129:There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 130:False hope is clung to with all one's might and main, till a day comes when it has sucked the heart dry and it forcibly breaks through its bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of awakening, and then once again the longing to get back into the maze of the same mistakes. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 131:But why,... if you have a serious comment to make on the real life of men, must you do it by talking about a phantasmagoric never-never land of your own? Because, I take it, one of the main things the author wants to say is that the real life of men is of that mythical and heroic quality. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 132:It is selfishness, due to a self-identification with the body, that is the main problem and the cause of all other problems. And selfishness cannot be removed by effort, only by clear insight into its causes and effects. Effort is a sign of conflict between incompatible desires. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 133:What we will be seeking ... for the rest of our lives will be large, stable communities of like-minded people, which is to say relatives. They no longer exist. The lack of them is not only the main cause, but probably the only cause of our shapeless discontent in the midst of such prosperity. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 134:I believe the main goal of time management is to give you the power to make your life as juicy as you want it to be. By getting clear about what you want and then developing a collection of habits that allow you to efficiently achieve your goals, you'll enjoy a much richer, more fulfilling life. ~ steve-pavlina, @wisdomtrove 135:That was the trouble with being a writer, that was the main trouble‚Äîleisure time, excessive leisure time. You had to wait around for the buildup until you could write and while you were waiting you went crazy, and while you were going crazy you drank and the more you drank the crazier you got. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 136:As for me, my literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one main idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in brief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety, and know of no human right that is one-tenth as valuable as the simple right to utter what seems (at the moment) to be the truth ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 137:Well, I think the main message is there is more to your story. There is more than what happens between the crib and the grave, and that is what I am really trying to speak to, this idea that all of life is this life and that there is nothing more than what we see and experience right here on this earth. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 138:Emotions are classes in the Earth school. Some classes are about fear, and some are about love. The Universe is your tutor, and your classroom is your life. The main course in the Earth school, Authentic Power, is the same for everyone, but different students need different courses in order to complete it. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 139:In order to be successful in any undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in this way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work. ~ booker-t-washington, @wisdomtrove 140:The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 141:If I look at my own experience Tim is clearly the hero of the life story. He’s the star of the show. Other people come and go, but Tim is in every scene. His wife, Debbie, plays romantic love interest. His best mate, Pete, plays comic sidekick. There’s a whole load of extras who figure now and then. But Tim’s the main man. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 142:The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or goodness. A life that does this is pregnant with meaning, and if God comes at the end, such a life is sacred. ~ martin-seligman, @wisdomtrove 143:It's all about finding and hiring people smarter than you. Getting them to join your business. And giving them good work. Then getting out of their way. And trusting them. You have to get out of the way so YOU can focus on the bigger vision. That's important. And here's the main thing... .you must make them see their work as a MISSION. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 144:A stiff letter galls one like a stiff shirt collar - whilst a sheet garnished here and there with a careless blot - and here and there a dash - but in the main full of excellent matter, is like a clever fellow in a dirty shirt whom we value for the good humour he brings with him and not for the garb he wears. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 145:There are two main human sins from which all the others derive: impatience and indolence. It was because of impatience that they were expelled from Paradise; it is because of indolence that they do not return. Yet perhaps there is only one major sin: impatience. Because of impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they do not return. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 146:Be the first to seize intersecting ground, that is ground which lies the intersections of borders or intersections of main thoroughfares of commerce and travel. Your occupation of it gives you access to all who border it and all who would covet it. On intersecting ground, if you establish alliances you are safe, if you lose alliances you are in peril. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 147:Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. Very soon this traditional model will become utterly obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives, and to reinvent themselves repeatedly. Many if not most humans may be unable to do so. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 148:Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. The power that connection holds in our lives was confirmed when the main concern about connection emerged as the fear of disconnection; the fear that something we have done or failed to do, something about who we are or where we come from, has made us unlovable and unworthy of connection. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 149:By God and upon my conscience, said the devil, I never observed it, for my mind is occupied with so many different things that I was forgetting the main thing I came about. This demon must be an honest fellow and a good Christian, said Sancho; for if he wasn't he wouldn't swear by God and his conscience; I feel sure now there must be good souls even in hell itself. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 150:The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 151:Let's start with Jesus' answer: "Look for the kingdom first and all else will come together." Life is fragmenting, fragmented. I have a thousands things to do, others do too. We can live our life as if the main question is, "How can keep it together? How do I juggle all the balls? But the real question is, "How can I stay home - interiorly home - while I do these many things? ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 152:The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove 153:Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind, which is to say as long as you are unconscious, physically speaking. I am talking here primarily of emotional pain, which is also the main cause of physical pain and physical disease. Resentment, hatred, self-pity, guilt, anger, depression, jealousy, and so on, even the slightest irritation, are all forms of pain. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 154:I know different ways of looking at things. I have my stockholders, and I feel a very keen responsibility to the shareholders, but I feel that the main responsibility I have to them is to have the stock appreciate. And you only have it appreciate by reinvesting as much as you can back in the business. And that's what we've done... and that has been my philosophy on running the business. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 155:I've no objection to the term & 156:Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not, & 157:If you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious reading and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 158:If I had my way, I would build a lethal chamber as big as the Crystal Palace, with a military band playing softly, and a Cinematograph working brightly; then I'd go out in the back streets and main streets and bring them in, all the sick, the halt, and the maimed; I would lead them gently, and they would smile me a weary thanks; and the band would softly bubble out the & 159:Life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments. The greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease, as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruption. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 160:Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 161:The main thing that every political campaign in the United States demonstrates is that the politicians of all parties, despite their superficial enmities, are really members of one great brotherhood. Their principal, and indeed their sole, object is to collar public office, with all the privileges and profits that go therewith. They achieve this collaring by buying votes with other people's money. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 162:I am a wicked man... But do you know, gentlemen, what was the main point about my wickedness? The whole thing, precisely was, the greatest nastiness precisely lay in my being shamefully conscious every moment, even in moments of the greatest bile, that I was not only not a wicked man but was not even an embittered man, that I was simply frightening sparrows in vain, and pleasing myself with it. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 163:I don't think he was knowable. I mean, when most people talk about knowing somebody a lot or a little, they're talking about the secrets they've been told or haven't been told. They're talking about intimate things, family things, love things," that nice old lady said to me. "Mr. Hoenikker had all those things in his life, the way every living person has to, but they weren't the main things with him. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 164:I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which & 165:To do Mohammed justice, his main attack was against the idolatries of Asia. Only he thought, just as the Arians did and just as the Unitarians do, that he could attack them better with a greater approximation to plain theism. What distinguishes his heresy from anything like an Arian or Albigensian heresy is that, as it sprang up on the borders of Christendom, it could spread outwards to a barbaric world. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 166:One of George Washington's main concerns was to make sure that his soldiers had adequate supplies of meat: A part of the army has been a week without any kind of flesh, and the rest three or four days. Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery, that they have not been ere this excited by their suffering to a general mutiny and dispersion. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 167:There are two cardinal human sins out of which all others derive, deviate, and dissipate: impatience and lassitude (or perhaps nonchalance). On account of impatience they are driven out of paradise; on account of lassitude or nonchalance they do not return. Perhaps, however, only one main sense of sin is given: impatience. On account of impatience they are driven out, on account of impatience they do not turn back. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 168:Expulsion from Paradise is in its main aspect eternal: that is to say, although expulsion from Paradise is final, and life in theworld unavoidable, the eternity of the process (or, expressed in temporal terms, the eternal repetition of the process) nevertheless makes it possible not only that we might remain in Paradise permanently, but that we may in fact be there permanently, no matter whether we know it here or not. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 169:It's not about you, it's about the next person. The single best use of a business book is to help someone else. Sharing what you read, handing the book to a person who needs it... pushing those around you to get in sync and to take action-that's the main reason it's a book, not a video or a seminar. A book is a souvenir and a container and a motivator and an easily leveraged tool. Hoarding books makes them worth less, not more. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 170:The main thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbours it where he finds it. And another thing: truth requires constant repetition, because error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated individuals but by the masses. In the newspapers and encyclopaedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness of having the majority on its side. ~ johann-wolfgang-von-goethe, @wisdomtrove 171:I think a lot of people believe that they have to be poor to serve God, that they can't have anything. They don't really even know how to give. And one of the main principles in the Bible is you'll reap what you sew, and that if you give into the lives of others, that it shall be given back to you, good measure, pressed down and shaken together. If you go plant one tomato seed, you don't get back one tomato; you get a vine of tomatoes. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 172:Each nation has a main current in life; in India it is religion. Make it strong and the waters on either side must move along with it. This is one phase of my line of thought. In time, I hope to bring them all out, but at present I find I have a mission in this country also. Moreover, I expect help in this country and from here alone. But up to date I could not do anything except spreading my ideas. Now I want that a similar attempt be made in India. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 173:We have two main instruments: the mind and the heart. The mind finds it difficult to be happy, precisely because the mind consciously enjoys the sense of separativity. It is always judging and doubting the reality in others. This is the human mind, the ordinary physical mind, the earth-bound mind. But we also have the aspiring heart, the loving heart. This loving heart is free from insecurity, for it has already established its oneness with the rest of the world. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 174:One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence. Ostensibly, their aim is to penalize anti-social acts; actually their aim is to penalize heretical opinions. At least ninety-five Americans out of every 100 believe that this process is honest and even laudable; it is practically impossible to convince them that there is anything evil in it. In other words, they cannot grasp the concept of liberty. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 175:Compassion- which means, literally, "to suffer with"- is the way to the truth that we are most ourselves, not when we differ from others, but when we are the same. Indeed the main spiritual question is not, "What difference do you make?" but "What do you have in common?" It is not "excelling" but "serving" that makes us most human. It is not proving ourselves to be better than others but confessing to be just like others that is the way to healing and reconciliation. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 176:To many of us now, computers, silicon chips, data processing, cybernetics, and all the other innovations of the dawning high technology age are as mystifying as the workings of the combustion engine must have been when that first Model T rattled down Main Street, U.S.A. But as surely as America's pioneer spirit made us the industrial giant of the 20th century, the same pioneer spirit today is opening up on another vast front of opportunity, the frontier of high technology. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 177:One hundred and fifty years ago the vacant lands of the West were opened to private use. One hundred years ago the Congress passed the Homestead Act, probably the single greatest stimulus to national development ever enacted. Under the impetus of that Act and other laws, more than 1.1 billion acres of the original public main have been transferred to private and non-federal public ownership. The 768 million acres remaining in federal ownership are a valuable national asset. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 178:Sinclair Lewis is the perfect example of the false sense of time of the newspaper world... . [ellipsis in source] He was always dominated by an artificial time when he wrote Main Street... . He did not create actual human beings at any time. That is what makes it newspaper. Sinclair Lewis is the typical newspaperman and everything he says is newspaper. The difference between a thinker and a newspaperman is that a thinker enters right into things, a newspaperman is superficial. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 179:The prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore the irresistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differences, whether between individuals, races, or sexes are such as not only might but naturally would be produced by differences in circumstances, is one of the chief hinderances to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove 180:Seeking approval is one of the main way people lose the awareness of it. Seeking is always stressful. It puts your happiness in other people's hands. When you question the thoughts that cause your seeking, like "My mother doesn't love me." or "I should be thinner," you begin to find your own approval. It just appears. And when you have that awareness, it's easy to approve of other people. This is the way to be truly happy. We are 100% responsible for our own happiness. This is very good news! ~ byron-katie, @wisdomtrove 181:A sentence begins quite simply, then it undulates and expands, parentheses intervene like quick-set hedges, the flowers of comparison bloom, and three fields off, like a wounded partridge, crouches the principal verb, making one wonder as one picks it up, poor little thing, whether after all it was worth such a tramp, so many guns, and such expensive dogs, and what, after all, is its relation to the main subject, potted so gaily half a page back, and proving finally to have been in the accusative case. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 182:My main professional interest during the 1970s has been in the dramatic change of concepts and ideas that has occurred in physics during the first three decades of the century, and that is still being elaborated in our current theories of matter. The new concepts in physics have brought about a profound change in our world view; from the mechanistic conception of Descartes and Newton to a holistic and ecological view, a view which I have found to be similar to the views of mystics of all ages and traditions. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 183:We were to found a University magazine. A pair of little, active brothers-Livingstone by name, great skippers on the foot, great rubbers of the hands, who kept a book-shop over against the University building-had been debauched to play the part of publishers. We four were to be conjuct editors and, what was the main point of the concern, to print our own works; while, by every rule of arithmetic-that flatterer of credulity-the adventure must succeed and bring great profit. Well, well: it was a bright vision. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 184:Gaia's main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, overpopulation, or resource depletion. Gaia's main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement in the noosphere about how to proceed with those problems. We cannot rein in industry if we cannot reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement based on a worldcentric moral perspective concerning the global commons. And we reach the worldcentric moral perspective through a difficult and laborious process of interior growth and transcendence. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 185:The difference between [socialism and fascism] is superficial and purely formal, but it is significant psychologically: it brings the authoritarian nature of a planned economy crudely into the open. The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 186:The main qualities that had earned him this universal respect in the service were, first, an extreme indulgence towards people, based on his awareness of his own shortcomings; second, a perfect liberalism, not the sort he read about in the newspapers, but the sort he had in his blood, which made him treat all people, whatever their rank or status, in a perfectly equal and identical way; and, third - most important - a perfect indifference to the business he was occupied with, owing to which he never got carried away and never made mistakes. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 187:Another thing I noticed was that I do not need to make an effort; the deed follows the thought, without delay and friction. I have also found that thoughts become self-fulfilling; things would fall in place smoothly and rightly. The main change was in the mind; it became motionless and silent, responding quickly, but not perpetuating the response. Spontaneity became a way of life, the real became natural and the natural became real. And above all, infinite affection, love, dark and quiet, radiating in all directions, embracing all, making all interesting and beautiful, significant and auspicious. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 188:At the moment you become angry, you tend to believe that your misery has been created by another person. You blame him or her for all your suffering. But by looking deeply, you may realize that the seed of anger in you is the main cause of your suffering. Many other people, confronted with the same situation, would not get angry like you. They hear the same words, they see the same situation, and yet they are able to stay calm and not be carried away. Why do you get angry so easily? You may get angry very easily because your seed of anger is too strong. And because you have not practiced the methods for taking good care of your anger, the seed of anger has been watered too often in the past. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 189:By equating the human experience with data patterns, Dataism undermines our main source of authority and meaning, and heralds a tremendous religious revolution, the like of which has not been seen since the eighteenth century. In the days of Locke, Hume and Voltaire humanists argued that ‘God is a product of the human imagination’. Dataism now gives humanists a taste of their own medicine, and tells them: ‘Yes, God is a product of the human imagination, but human imagination in turn is the product of biochemical algorithms.’ In the eighteenth century, humanism sidelined God by shifting from a deo-centric to a homo-centric world view. In the twenty-first century, Dataism may sideline humans by shifting from a homo-centric to a data-centric view. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:EntrepreneurYogi.com ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
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5:Sun To Sahi Jahan Main
~ Anwar Masood,#NFDB
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7:Victory is the main object in war. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
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~ Agha Hashar Kashmiri,#NFDB
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20:Chanting is the main thing in my life. ~ Krishna Das, #NFDB
21:Confusion is the main cause of worry ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
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~ Amjad Islam Amjad,#NFDB
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32:Everybody is a main character to someone. ~ Amy Harmon, #NFDB
33:For gold the merchant ploughs the main, ~ Robert Burns, #NFDB
34:husband’s main account was virtually ~ Dinah Jefferies, #NFDB
35:Kanupriyaa Itihas: Setu - Main
~ Dharamvir Bharati,#NFDB
36:My main concern is with the world order ~ George Soros, #NFDB
37:Work, work, work, is the main thing. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
38:Love is one of my main inspirations. ~ Enrique Iglesias, #NFDB
39:Sirf Ashq-O-Tabassum Main Uljhe Rahe
~ Ehsan Danish,#NFDB
40:The main thing I believe in is freedom. ~ Charles Evers, #NFDB
41:Everybody is a main character to someone... ~ Amy Harmon, #NFDB
42:Lorsque Ta Main Confie, Un Soir...
~ Emile Verhaeren,#NFDB
43:Self-command is the main elegance. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
44:The main obligation is to amuse yourself. ~ S J Perelman, #NFDB
45:And the live show is still our main thing. ~ Jerry Garcia, #NFDB
46:A novel is a mirror carried along a main road. ~ Stendhal, #NFDB
47:A novel is a mirror walking along a main road. ~ Stendhal, #NFDB
48:My main fight is for freedom and equality. ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
49:The will was the main target of bitterness ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
50:Un doigt coupé afin de sauver une main. ~ Khaled Hosseini, #NFDB
51:Character is the main object for education, ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
52:Man’s main task is to give birth to himself. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
53:As a pastor our main ministry is exhortation. ~ Johnny Hunt, #NFDB
54:Ibadaton Ki Tarah Main Ye Kaam Kart A Hun
~ Bashir Badr,#NFDB
55:Man’s main task is to give birth to himself. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
56:My main thing is not eating processed food. ~ Marisa Miller, #NFDB
57:The showstopper! The icon! The main event! ~ Shawn Michaels, #NFDB
58:Abhi Is Taraf Na Nigaah Kar Main Ghazal Ki
~ Bashir Badr,#NFDB
59:Dayar-E-Gair Main Koi Jahan Na Apana Ho
~ Akhtar ul Iman,#NFDB
60:kin, not ancestors. Our main difference from ~ Ronald Wright, #NFDB
61:Truthfulness is the main element of character. ~ Brian Tracy, #NFDB
62:Colors express the main psychic functions of man. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
63:The leader's main job is to make themselves obsolete. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
64:the main road? Beyond the narrow break in the ~ Melinda Leigh, #NFDB
65:The main thing in a cup tie is to get through. ~ Walter Smith, #NFDB
66:Time isn't the main thing. It's the only thing. ~ Miles Davis, #NFDB
67:My main hope for myself is to be where I am. ~ Woody Harrelson, #NFDB
68:That's the main thing you have to have... trust. ~ Elle Fanning, #NFDB
69:The main thing I need to know about God is I'm not. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
70:The main thing in life is to know your own mind. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
71:Tumhare Lahaje Main Jo Garmi-O-Halavat Hai
~ Akhtar ul Iman,#NFDB
72:Aggression, the writer's main source of energy. ~ Ted Solotaroff, #NFDB
73:Books, books and more books. Her main indulgence. ~ Cherrie Lynn, #NFDB
74:Les "cœurs sur la main" n'ont pas d'histoire; ~ Fran ois Mauriac, #NFDB
75:And the main fight will be over water, not oil. ~ William Shatner, #NFDB
76:God had become the new rulers’ main enemy. ~ Armando Lucas Correa, #NFDB
77:Jab Usay Chaha To Chaha Her Tarah Ke Haal Main
~ Adeem Hashmi,#NFDB
78:Texas’s main exports are cotton, oil, and preachers. ~ Sam Torode, #NFDB
79:you're just a side dish not the main course! ~ Eric Jerome Dickey, #NFDB
80:glanced back out to the mall's main section. I saw ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
81:Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
82:My main success was an attitude. Always an attitude. ~ Don Rickles, #NFDB
83:A sense of humor is the main measure of sanity. ~ Hunter S Thompson, #NFDB
84:Exercise is the main thing that helped me lose weight. ~ Drew Carey, #NFDB
85:I like a girl who laughs a lot. That's my main thing. ~ Cody Linley, #NFDB
86:strongly recommend folding as the main storage method. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
87:The main boy—the one who was calling the shots—pushed ~ Susan Wiggs, #NFDB
88:hundred yards from the north end of Main Street. Further ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
89:I am not an encore, not a pudding, I am the main dish. ~ Joseph Roth, #NFDB
90:My main income came from failed movie and TV options. ~ W P Kinsella, #NFDB
91:My main memories of my father are of his illness. ~ Daniel Day Lewis, #NFDB
92:The main social responsibility for a company is to win. ~ Jack Welch, #NFDB
93:The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. ~ Pam Grout, #NFDB
94:The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
95:Twitter is my main tool for ensuring news balance. ~ Ethan Zuckerman, #NFDB
96:As an actor, your main goal is to tell the truth. ~ Johnathon Schaech, #NFDB
97:i find people confusing.
this is for 2 main reasons. ~ Mark Haddon,#NFDB
98:Texas’s main exports are cotton, oil, and preachers. Why ~ Sam Torode, #NFDB
99:The main character of any living system is openness. ~ Ilya Prigogine, #NFDB
100:The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team. ~ John Wooden, #NFDB
101:the main thing is to make history not to write it ~ Otto von Bismarck, #NFDB
102:We lost, and that's the main thing that went wrong. ~ Mike Krzyzewski, #NFDB
103:The main thing is to make history, not to write it ~ Otto von Bismarck, #NFDB
104:You get what you concentrate upon. There is no other main rule. ~ Seth, #NFDB
105:A main cause of employee disengagement is poor leadership, ~ W Chan Kim, #NFDB
106:and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
107:By 2026, Google’s main product will not be search but AI. ~ Kevin Kelly, #NFDB
108:Ek Lamhe Ko Thehar, Main Tujhe Pathar Laa Doon
~ Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi,#NFDB
109:Get the few main lines and see what lines they call out. ~ Robert Henri, #NFDB
110:The main thing is to make history, not to write it. ~ Otto von Bismarck, #NFDB
111:As you get to thirty, the main thing is to not be sensible. ~ Mark Steel, #NFDB
112:I think, for me, the main thing is feeling comfortable. ~ Sophie Cookson, #NFDB
113:Jab Bayaan Karo Ge Tum Hum Bayaan Main Niklain
Ge
~ Adeem Hashmi,#NFDB
114:The main reason women are crazy, is that men are stupid. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
115:The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
116:thumbnail sketch of his life would include two main facts: ~ Clive James, #NFDB
117:Child-rearing is my main interest now. I'm a hands-on father. ~ Sean Penn, #NFDB
118:Let God Himself be the main attraction at church again. ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
119:My country's main exports are stolen cars and sadness. ~ Aleksandar Hemon, #NFDB
120:The engine of the tank is a weapon just as the main-gun. ~ Heinz Guderian, #NFDB
121:The main thing in life is not to be afraid of being human. ~ Aaron Carter, #NFDB
122:The main thing we were made for is to work with others. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
123:If truth is the main casualty in war, ambiguity is another. ~ Paul Fussell, #NFDB
124:My main concern is to protect people from detriment. ~ Jean Claude Juncker, #NFDB
125:One has to choose. The main thing is to know what one wants... ~ Andr Gide, #NFDB
126:Save the Trees? Trees are the main cause of Forest Fires! ~ Billy Connolly, #NFDB
127:The language of the heart is mankind's main common language. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
128:The main task of the spirit is to free man from his ego. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
129:The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
130:The wind-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous main, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
131:Why resist change when it's the main source of your growth? ~ Robin Sharma, #NFDB
132:A prison cell, however tastefully decorated, is still a cage. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
133:Figure 6 The science of secret writing and its main branches. ~ Simon Singh, #NFDB
134:Fortunately, for me, my main asset is speed. Plain and simple. ~ David Haye, #NFDB
135:For when all else is done, only words remain. Words endure. ~ Kate Mosse, #NFDB
136:His main problem, he knew, would be controlling the press. ~ Sidney Sheldon, #NFDB
137:In essence, life is a buffet and love is the main course. ~ Felix Alexander, #NFDB
138:My other Main Man is Muhamed Ali, for the obvious reasons. ~ Randy Castillo, #NFDB
139:My people,” she began formally. “Main Jhansi nahin doongi! ~ Michelle Moran, #NFDB
140:Stand-up comedy and poverty. Those were my two main endeavors. ~ Dave Foley, #NFDB
141:the main lesson of history is: humans don’t learn from history. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
142:The main thing is to have a gutsy approach and use your head. ~ Julia Child, #NFDB
143:The main thing needed to make men happy is intelligence. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
144:With any job the main thing that makes the job is the people. ~ Nell Hudson, #NFDB
145:And 5:25 when the screaming started outside the main gate. ~ William Goldman, #NFDB
146:I'm one of the blind alleys off the main road of procreation. ~ Evelyn Waugh, #NFDB
147:I think the main thing that has to end is men's defensiveness. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
148:My main teachers were my father and my mother and my brother. ~ Jeff Bridges, #NFDB
149:…mysticism –perhaps the main aberration of the human mind. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
150:Never make someone else the main character in your own story. ~ J M Darhower, #NFDB
151:Our own happiness ought not to be our main objective in life. ~ John Lubbock, #NFDB
152:Suffering is the main condition of the artistic experience. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
153:The hardest part of any yoga practice is rolling out your mat. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
154:The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes. ~ John Ford, #NFDB
155:Well, I just want him to grow up happy. That's the main thing. ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
156:I'll always do the guitar parts since it's my main instrument. ~ Trevor Rabin, #NFDB
157:In the works of Nature, purpose, not accident, is the main thing. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
158:Tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
159:The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth ~ Erasmus, #NFDB
160:...the main lesson of history is humans don't learn from history. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
161:The main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun. ~ Van Jones, #NFDB
162:The main thing was being alive. That was the main thing. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
163:The main trouble with despair is that it is self-fulfilling. ~ Norman Cousins, #NFDB
164:you just had to be still and have faith, that was the main thing. ~ Jim Dodge, #NFDB
165:I'm going to the main event of Wrestlemania! Where're you going? ~ Randy Orton, #NFDB
166:My main objective was finding my individuality as a vocalist. ~ Juliette Lewis, #NFDB
167:The main obstacle is the entrenched power of the legacy polluters. ~ Van Jones, #NFDB
168:The main thing was to be living. That was the main thing. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
169:When one felt like a wasp, one’s main inclination was to sting. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
170:You get what you concentrate on…there is no other main rule. ~ Trish MacGregor, #NFDB
171:Gunners, shift to APs but hold your fire. Main lasers, defocus and ~ B V Larson, #NFDB
172:In the end, the actor's main power is the power to say, 'No.' ~ Viggo Mortensen, #NFDB
173:My main concern is with the anxiety that has settled upon America. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
174:Yeah, one of the main ways is for songs that make me want to move. ~ Joe Cocker, #NFDB
175:Don’t settle for anything you don’t want. That’s the main thing. ~ Maddie Dawson, #NFDB
176:Look at your life as your main career and your divine classroom. ~ Judith Orloff, #NFDB
177:Most of the places I've been, I've been a main piece of the puzzle. ~ Eric Davis, #NFDB
178:My main focus in sobriety has been to replace fear with faith or love. ~ Steve O, #NFDB
179:My main purpose is to pray five times a day. And that's not easy. ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
180:The main riff for 'SandMan' was just something I wrote one night. ~ Kirk Hammett, #NFDB
181:The main thing I am interested in is my experience as a teacher. ~ Frank McCourt, #NFDB
182:The main thing to do is relax and let your talent do the work. ~ Charles Barkley, #NFDB
183:Whatever you do, think of the Glory of God as your main goal. ~ Saint John Bosco, #NFDB
184:Fun can be the dessert of our lives but never its main course. ~ Harold S Kushner, #NFDB
185:Government today, far from protecting property, is its main threat. ~ Roger Pilon, #NFDB
186:In all education the main cause of failure is staleness. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
187:It is no use running; to set out betimes is the main point. ~ Jean de La Fontaine, #NFDB
188:My main recollection is of the work I had to do in order to eat ~ Clifton Fadiman, #NFDB
189:Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing. ~ Seneca the Younger, #NFDB
190:One of the main faults of a fool is that he never changes his mind. ~ Sri Chinmoy, #NFDB
191:The main cause of poverty is self-inflicted fear and ignorance. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
192:To me the interesting main character is never the one without flaws. ~ J J Abrams, #NFDB
193:Whatever you do, think of the Glory of God as your main goal. ~ Saint John Bosco, #NFDB
194:A lot can be told from what happens in between the main moments. ~ Annie Leibovitz, #NFDB
195:Books are still the main yardstick by which I measure true wealth. ~ Tamora Pierce, #NFDB
196:I am the showstopper. The main event. The Icon that can still go. ~ Shawn Michaels, #NFDB
197:In a way, the main fault of all books is that they are too long. ~ Luc de Clapiers, #NFDB
198:Most pleasures are best as a seasoning, not the main course. p. 374 ~ Brandon Mull, #NFDB
199:Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies. ~ Sam Altman, #NFDB
200:The main thing is, believe in yourself. Reach out and go after it. ~ Joanna Garcia, #NFDB
201:The main thing on film is you want to be innocent to the moment. ~ Richard Jenkins, #NFDB
202:The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
203:Thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
204:Acting is my first love, and that's my main career, it really is. ~ Danica McKellar, #NFDB
205:Awards, they come and go. The main thing is it's all about team. ~ Seimone Augustus, #NFDB
206:Intolerance of mediocrity has been the main prop of my independence. ~ Elsa Maxwell, #NFDB
207:No particular reason for anything. I'm free - that's the main thing. ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
208:The main thing was that I didn’t want to feel the way I was feeling. ~ Tayari Jones, #NFDB
209:Writers are the main landmarks of the past. ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton 1st Baron Lytton, #NFDB
210:All people live in a fantasy in which they are the main character. ~ Keiichi Sigsawa, #NFDB
211:I have no plans to use the Internet as the main subject of a novel. ~ Nelson DeMille, #NFDB
212:I think with chess as with everything, marketing is the main issue. ~ Magnus Carlsen, #NFDB
213:Palm Strike's main superpower is the stupidity of his enemies. ~ Charlie Jane Anders, #NFDB
214:The main benefit of optimism is resilience in the face of setback. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
215:The main thing is to know something and to say it. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, #NFDB
216:three main mental poisons, which are ignorance, desire, and hatred. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
217:To see and know the worst is to take from Fear her main advantage. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
218:Enemy images are the main reason conflicts don't get resolved. ~ Marshall B Rosenberg, #NFDB
219:Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB
220:I think the main thing, don't you, is to keep the show on the road. ~ Elizabeth Bowen, #NFDB
221:My main goal is to be a self-made man and have control over what's mine. ~ Kevin Hart, #NFDB
222:My main place is in Switzerland, but I live on a plane, really. ~ Christopher Lambert, #NFDB
223:Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
224:People bullshit and fakeness are the main reasons why I like to be alone. ~ Megan Fox, #NFDB
225:The aphorism wants to be at the same time both main line and off beat. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
226:The main benefit of optimism is resilience in the face of setbacks. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
227:The main target for the next years should be growth and job creation. ~ Mariano Rajoy, #NFDB
228:There are two main drivers of asset class returns - inflation and growth. ~ Ray Dalio, #NFDB
229:To see and know the worst is to take from Fear her main advantage. ~ Charlotte Bronte, #NFDB
230:Writing is one of the main ways that I process the experience. ~ Jennifer Pharr Davis, #NFDB
231:any identity, any label, should not be before my main identity in Christ. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
232:Ground the main character in stupidity. Hire a good cast and a good crew. ~ Jon Glaser, #NFDB
233:Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB
234:My main ambition in life is to be on the Devil's most wanted list. ~ Leonard Ravenhill, #NFDB
235:My prediction: By 2026, Google’s main product will not be search but AI. ~ Kevin Kelly, #NFDB
236:Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate for India's main opposition ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
237:Tak ada satupun permainan yang bisa dimenangkan dengan main-main, kan? ~ Fahd Pahdepie, #NFDB
238:That's one of the main thing with the lyrics - not giving any answers. ~ Mark Tremonti, #NFDB
239:The main priority of the Socialist Party is education". ~ Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, #NFDB
240:The main thing I despise about America now is driving on the freeways. ~ Jesse Ventura, #NFDB
241:Your main character not only needs a goal, she need an inner desire. ~ Jill Williamson, #NFDB
242:Ia sebenarnya waras bukan main, yang gila adalah dunia yang dihadapinya ~ Eka Kurniawan, #NFDB
243:I guess the main source of stress for me is the stress I put on myself. ~ Thomas Keller, #NFDB
244:It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. ~ Ren Descartes, #NFDB
245:It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
246:The main aim is to up my game at every possible turn without compromise. ~ Nicky Romero, #NFDB
247:The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States. ~ George Soros, #NFDB
248:The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
249:You know, my main goal in life is trying not to end up in a straightjacket. ~ Tom Upton, #NFDB
250:Err Houston, we've had a problem. [pause] We've had a main B bus undervolt. ~ Jim Lovell, #NFDB
251:I know what's what, and have always taken care of the main chance. ~ Miguel de Cervantes, #NFDB
252:In low-income countries, the main problems you have is infectious diseases. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
253:It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. ~ Rene Descartes, #NFDB
254:My main goal now is waking up healthy every day and going on with life. ~ Prince Fielder, #NFDB
255:Of all wit's uses, the main one is to live well with who has none. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
256:The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings, ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
257:The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
258:The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth ~ Desiderius Erasmus, #NFDB
259:The main thing in my life...is that I really need to go home and practice. ~ Pat Metheny, #NFDB
260:Freedom is to be free of attachments, and the main attachment is to the 'I'-self. ~ Mooji, #NFDB
261:I don't have any intention to stop. Rock 'n' roll is my main concern. ~ John Britt Daniel, #NFDB
262:I'm a sensualist. My two main indulgences are dark chocolate and massages. ~ Carla Gugino, #NFDB
263:It was like he’d just discovered fire, and she was the main ingredient. ~ Debra Anastasia, #NFDB
264:My main goal in life is to be as good of a person my dogs already think I am. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
265:Spiritual practice lives at the corner of self-respect and self-discipline. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
266:The main professional responsibility of a person in business is business. ~ Lee R Raymond, #NFDB
267:the movie of life was always fascinating when you were the main character. ~ Perrin Briar, #NFDB
268:The music is the main thing and it's just as easy to write acceptable words. ~ Bill Haley, #NFDB
269:Humankind’s main motivation is to seek and experience Personal Freedom. ~ Brendon Burchard, #NFDB
270:I love to laugh, it's my main thing. I love to abuse the English language. ~ Dan Fogelberg, #NFDB
271:My main reader was my wife Sheila, and I haven't written a lot since she died. ~ Dan Chaon, #NFDB
272:Singing is my main goal, and I think philosophy will help me write songs. ~ Jackie Evancho, #NFDB
273:Spirituality was the main issue. Connection with God was the main issue. ~ Daniel Berrigan, #NFDB
274:Sports are one of the main cultural activities on the face of the earth. ~ Jack Kent Cooke, #NFDB
275:The coach's main job is 20 percent technical and 80 percent inspirational. ~ Franz Stampfl, #NFDB
276:The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it. ~ Bill Cosby, #NFDB
277:Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt; ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne, #NFDB
278:The fire is the main comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
279:the main character saying things like “In my world, chocolate is a vegetable. ~ Susan Wiggs, #NFDB
280:Got through it without fluffing, that's the main thing any actor can hope for. ~ John Leeson, #NFDB
281:I guess my main influences are Jesus, rock n roll and ex-wives. In that order. ~ Sam Kinison, #NFDB
282:Recognizing who you are is not the subtext of a life. It's the main point. ~ Kiana Davenport, #NFDB
283:The main problem in a person's life is never his suffering; it's his sin. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
284:The main thing I want to do is make people feel more connected and more active. ~ Dan Deacon, #NFDB
285:The main thing you got to remember is that everything in the world is a hustle. ~ Alex Haley, #NFDB
286:The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson's on the main drag into maturity. ~ Paul Theroux, #NFDB
287:The study of the past is the main portal through which culture is acquired. ~ Joseph Epstein, #NFDB
288:Whatever you do in dangerous situations, the main thing is to do it quickly. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
289:A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
290:RBG’s main concession to hitting her late seventies was to give up waterskiing. ~ Irin Carmon, #NFDB
291:Songwriting is my main thing. I know that I'll do that for the rest of my life. ~ Emeli Sande, #NFDB
292:Surprise, unpredictability: these are the main materials of creativity. ~ Gueorgui Pinkhassov, #NFDB
293:The main problem in a person's life is never his suffering; it's his sin.. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
294:The main problem with medicating your grief with drugs is that it doesn’t help. ~ Liam Pieper, #NFDB
295:The main way to reduce stress in the workplace is by picking the right people. ~ Jesse Schell, #NFDB
296:The nature of our two main political parties has changed in the United States. ~ Roger Mahony, #NFDB
297:Tobacco, UV rays, viruses, heredity, and age are the main causes of cancer. ~ Harold E Varmus, #NFDB
298:Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. ~ Albert Schweitzer, #NFDB
299:Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
300:The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings,” said ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
301:The main requirement for spiritual growth: A yearning to know who you really are. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
302:With any character, the main objective is to bring authenticity to the role. ~ Jesse McCartney, #NFDB
303:Hugh Grant is the main man. He's the number one romantic comedy man in the world. ~ Sam Elliott, #NFDB
304:I just love making music. I always stay in the studio. Making music is my main focus. ~ Juicy J, #NFDB
305:I think leadership's always been about two main things: imagination and courage. ~ Paul Keating, #NFDB
306:My main concern when travelling around the world is finding a place to skateboard! ~ Ben Harper, #NFDB
307:My main form of exercise is my bike. I dont have a car, so I cycle everywhere. ~ Sophie Okonedo, #NFDB
308:The main health hazard in the world today is people who don't love themselves. ~ Kinky Friedman, #NFDB
309:The main symptom of falling in love is that you lose your intellectual prowess. ~ Fran Lebowitz, #NFDB
310:The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
311:Example is not the main thing in influencing others . . . it is the only thing. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
312:If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
313:Maybe I could. Maybe I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to, and that was the main thing. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
314:Such things were just details, and details came long after the main body of a plan. ~ R J Ellory, #NFDB
315:The main cause of suffering is egoistic desire for one's own comfort and happiness. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
316:The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time. ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
317:The main reason nerds are unpopular is that they have other things to think about. ~ Paul Graham, #NFDB
318:The main trouble with being an honest man was that it lost you all your illusions. ~ James Jones, #NFDB
319:As far as I can tell, most actors' main motivation is self-doubt and neuroses. ~ Daniel Radcliffe, #NFDB
320:Attachment is the main thing that is blocking your path towards enlightenment. ~ Garchen Rinpoche, #NFDB
321:But it is the main question at the moment: which side one’s on—obscurantism or Order. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
322:Don't teach too many postures; just the main ones, and hold them for a long time. ~ Dharma Mittra, #NFDB
323:J'ai en main les avirons.
Je ne puis revenir en arrière.
Je suis déjà en avant. ~ Anonymous,#NFDB
324:One of my main goals is to become a sports broadcaster. That is the ultimate for me. ~ Phife Dawg, #NFDB
325:One of the main purveyors of violence in this world has been this country America. ~ Danny Glover, #NFDB
326:The main thing I say on war is that we need to obey the law and formally declare war. ~ Rand Paul, #NFDB
327:A good painter is to paint two main things, men and the working of man's mind. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
328:Life is more than sunglasses and hit movies. Reality - that's the main event. ~ Sylvester Stallone, #NFDB
329:Shakespeare's work is like a good song: you never really forget the main lines. ~ Michelle Dockery, #NFDB
330:Simplicity helps you keep the main thing the main thing and "things" unimportant. ~ Hayley DiMarco, #NFDB
331:The main thing in our design is that we have to make things intuitively obvious. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
332:The main trouble with women is that they will just not put the seat back up again. ~ Martin Clunes, #NFDB
333:I consider myself to be respectful, and I believe this is a main value for sports. ~ Tommy Hilfiger, #NFDB
334:Man is about the same, in the main, whether with despotism, or whether with freedom. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
335:The bottom line is a by-product of taking care of your main product - your customers. ~ Ron Kaufman, #NFDB
336:The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
337:A good painter has two main objects to paint, man and the intention of his soul. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
338:Eventually, alas, I realized the main purpose of buying cocaine is to run out of it. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
339:Getting distracted by trifles is the easiest thing in the world… Focus on your main duty ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
340:I only want to be associated with music that is high quality. That's my main criteria. ~ John Legend, #NFDB
341:One of my main regrets in life is giving considerable thought to inconsiderate people. ~ Jarod Kintz, #NFDB
342:Preaching is the pastor's main work, and preaching is heart work, not just mental work. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
343:Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark. ~ Walter Lippmann, #NFDB
344:the construction of a communist society would be completed 'in the main' by 1980 ~ Nikita Khrushchev, #NFDB
345:The fit is my main focus, I want the fit to be great and that's the focal point for me. ~ Beth Ditto, #NFDB
346:The great paradox of life is that to fully live, we must let a piece of ourselves die. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
347:The main problem of living in the city that never sleeps that neither did I. ~ Maria Dahvana Headley, #NFDB
348:The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible. ~ Bernard M Baruch, #NFDB
349:The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don't want to do. ~ Hal Holbrook, #NFDB
350:The main thing known about secrets is that keeping them is unhealthy for the brain. ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
351:We don't see many films in which someone with schizophrenia is the main character. ~ Brian Lindstrom, #NFDB
352:You have good days, you have bad days. But the main thing is to grow mentally. ~ Floyd Mayweather Jr, #NFDB
353:A camera is a camera, a shot is a shot, how you tell the story is the main thing. ~ Christopher Nolan, #NFDB
354:Chess is a sport. The main object in the game of chess remains the achievement of victory. ~ Max Euwe, #NFDB
355:in mortal war anger must be subordinated to defeating the main immediate enemy. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
356:Streets and their sidewalks-the main public places of a city-are its most vital organs. ~ Jane Jacobs, #NFDB
357:The loss of the culture is one of the main reasons Ciro Guerra wanted to tell their story. ~ Tom Cole, #NFDB
358:The main division in the world is between democratic and undemocratic countries. ~ Michael Mandelbaum, #NFDB
359:The main thing I worry about in public is maybe people can tell I’m a survivor. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
360:The main thing to understand is that we are imprisoned in some kind of work of art. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
361:To me, one of the main things that a director does is create the tone of his movie. ~ Peter Sarsgaard, #NFDB
362:Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life. ~ Hunter S Thompson, #NFDB
363:The extras are a nice bonus feature, but the main incentive is the musical experience. ~ Aaron Neville, #NFDB
364:The main objection to killing people as a punishment...is that killing people is wrong ~ Auberon Waugh, #NFDB
365:The main quality of leadership..........is courage ! If you can dream it, you can do it! ~ Walt Disney, #NFDB
366:The main thing I learned doing love scenes with a woman was, if it's there, it's there. ~ Laura Prepon, #NFDB
367:The main thing is that everything become simple, easy enough for a child to understand. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
368:Yoga gives you the freedom to choose, but it does not guarantee you will choose freedom. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
369:You can't talk about peace nor agreement while terror is used as the main argument. ~ Alberto Fujimori, #NFDB
370:You never truly need what you want. That is the main and thoroughgoing key to serenity. ~ Albert Ellis, #NFDB
371:Easter is the main even; if you don't believe in the resurrection, you're not a believer. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
372:how to structure a speech: introduction, three main points, peroration, and conclusion. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
373:I learned that one of the main reasons we’re here on Earth is simple: to love. That’s it. ~ Nancy Rynes, #NFDB
374:It is easy to forget that in the main we die only seven times more slowly than our dogs. ~ Jim Harrison, #NFDB
375:Meditation alone cannot heal the world, but it can and does speed up the healing process. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
376:Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others, it is the only means. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
377:She was snatched back from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street. ~ Sinclair Lewis, #NFDB
378:The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything... or nothing. ~ Nancy Astor, #NFDB
379:The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots. ~ Rebecca West, #NFDB
380:The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
381:The main questions of everyday life are too enormous to answer in any definitive sense. ~ Joshua Ferris, #NFDB
382:Human behavior, says Plato, flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
383:I have done almost every human activity inside a taxi which does not require main drainage. ~ Alan Brien, #NFDB
384:I view my own body as a petting zoo. I am the main attraction... And the only customer. ~ Craig Ferguson, #NFDB
385:Let's begin to cover the main street of America... just to see what the heck occurs on it. ~ Roy Stryker, #NFDB
386:Main purpose of PowerPoint is to slow communication down so the ideas are easier to catch. ~ Scott Meyer, #NFDB
387:Oakley and Burton have been my main sponsors since '87. I've been riding for both of them. ~ Craig Kelly, #NFDB
388:One of the main reasons and excuses behind every religious failure is a” FALSE PROMISE”. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
389:Russia's main weaknesses are inflexibility and dependence on energy resources ~ Christopher A Pissarides, #NFDB
390:The main insight learned from interdisciplinary studies is the return to specialization ~ George Stigler, #NFDB
391:The main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it is only a game you are playing. ~ Billie Jean King, #NFDB
392:He lied with a smile that paralyzed reason." [Abby Chandlis - main character of The List] ~ Steve Martini, #NFDB
393:I guess when you turn off the main road, you have to be prepared to see some funny houses. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
394:I mean if politics was my main motivation I would be doing politics. But I'm a filmmaker. ~ Michael Moore, #NFDB
395:Sex is the main way we exist on the planet. It's an essential part of life. ~ Gilberto Hernandez Guerrero, #NFDB
396:Sometimes when I make a movie, my main goal is to show the movie to one particular director. ~ Gaspar Noe, #NFDB
397:The main function of consciousness is to maximize flexibility and context sensitivity. ~ Thomas Metzinger, #NFDB
398:The main thing that I learned from my horrible job experiences was how horrible they were. ~ Adam Carolla, #NFDB
399:There's no great movie where you haven't been emotionally connected to the main character. ~ Harald Zwart, #NFDB
400:When Life comes to feed, make sure you are not the main course. - Metaphysical Minute ~ Dannye Williamsen, #NFDB
401:You need to control the country, and the main thing is not to ruin people's lives. ~ Alexander Lukashenko, #NFDB
402:Ads represent the main channel of intellectual and artistic effort in the modern world. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
403:America has but one main problem -- the character of the men and women it shall produce. ~ Calvin Coolidge, #NFDB
404:As a Christian, my main concern is not to downgrade others’ beliefs but to examine my own. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
405:Avec ma main brûlée j'ai le droit maintenant d'écrire des phrases sur la nature du feu. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
406:Basketball was not my main sport in grade school, or even the first year of high school. ~ Mike Krzyzewski, #NFDB
407:Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. —ALBERT SCHWEITZER ~ Alan Cohen, #NFDB
408:I am absolutely convinced that religion is the main source of hatred in this world. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
409:I like food, like any other guy, but it is not the main thing in my life. I can do without it. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
410:I suppose that the main drive is to find the edge of something and then throw myself over it. ~ Alan Moore, #NFDB
411:My main source of reading is scripts, which doesn't leave a whole lot of room for books. ~ Josh Hutcherson, #NFDB
412:One of the big things in television these days is there's no main title sequence anymore. ~ Peter M Lenkov, #NFDB
413:Sometimes we win; sometimes we lose. The main thing is that we always, we always go on. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
414:The lack of fiscal responsibility is one of the main reasons I finally left my old Party. ~ Lincoln Chafee, #NFDB
415:The main reception foyer was almost empty but Ford nevertheless weaved his way through it. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
416:The main thing those Americans who really knew about Vietnam knew was how little they knew. ~ Max Hastings, #NFDB
417:Without finding out the little right paths, you cannot reach to your main right path! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
418:A lot of things inspire me, but I would have to say the main thing that drives me is music. ~ Witney Carson, #NFDB
419:and the main reason he was so easily forgotten is that a Gestapo officer blew his brains out. ~ Clive James, #NFDB
420:I think the main reason my marriages failed is that I always loved too well but never wisely. ~ Ava Gardner, #NFDB
421:I've done illustration on the side. But other than that, comics have been my main things. ~ Jaime Hernandez, #NFDB
422:My main job is to go and have fun. When I do that, everything just seems to fall into place. ~ Rashad Evans, #NFDB
423:Raisin cookies that look like chocolate chip cookies are the main reason I have trust issues. ~ Woody Paige, #NFDB
424:The first thing, the main thing, about how I work is I need to understand the character. ~ Marion Cotillard, #NFDB
425:The main thing between you and God is not so much your sins; it's your damnable good works. ~ John Gerstner, #NFDB
426:"The main thing is to play your heart out and whatever helps you to do that is the right way". ~ Mike Stern, #NFDB
427:Unteachable from infancy to tomb — There is the first & main characteristic of mankind. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
428:from natural selection’s point of view, status assistance is the main purpose of friendship. ~ Robert Wright, #NFDB
429:I never listened to the people who said I should give it up, which is the main advice I got. ~ Michael Caine, #NFDB
430:I think the main thing to remember when writing a novel is to stay true to the characters. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
431:Just like in Greece, the main topic of Finland’s national election, in April, will be austerity. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
432:Let's make math fun and sexy and glamorous. Smart is sexy, that's one of my main messages. ~ Danica McKellar, #NFDB
433:One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
434:The main advantage of working at home is that you get to find out what cats really do all day. ~ Lynne Truss, #NFDB
435:The main measure of your devotion to God is not your devotional life. It is simply your life. ~ John Ortberg, #NFDB
436:The main thing is not a matter of wanting to win; the main thing is being scared to lose. ~ Billie Jean King, #NFDB
437:The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear. ~ E B White, #NFDB
438:The need to raise itself above humanity is humanity's main characteristic. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, #NFDB
439:There's always someone telling you not to do something. The main thing is just to ignore them. ~ Tim Robbins, #NFDB
440:To succeed, always remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. ~ Brendon Burchard, #NFDB
441:What's the main thing that makes magic magic? The fact that no one believes that it's possible. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
442:1: something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
443:I don't relax. My main relaxation is meeting illustrators and publishers in restaurants and bars. ~ Tony Ross, #NFDB
444:I think the fact that we allow guns in our country is the main problem with school shootings. ~ Josh Hartnett, #NFDB
445:It takes a huge amount of culture to normalize "crazy", and of course that's its main focus ~ Stefan Molyneux, #NFDB
446:Lack of rule of law is the main reason Pakistan could not join the ranks of progressive nations. ~ Imran Khan, #NFDB
447:My main purpose in life is to make money so I can afford to go on creating more inventions. ~ Thomas A Edison, #NFDB
448:The Holy Spirit's main ministry is not to give thrills but to create in us Christlike character. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
449:The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
450:Unteachable from infancy to tomb—There is the first and main characteristic of mankind. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
451:We used to have a main female vocalist. But she had a baby. Now we do the singing ourselves. ~ Bernie Worrell, #NFDB
452:and I passed an Arby’s and The Store before my GPS told me to turn right off the main street. ~ Bentley Little, #NFDB
453:As a main ingredient to the show, it has to have truth, represent truth, or else it won't last. ~ Adolph Green, #NFDB
454:I came from a very poor family and my main dream in life was to break out of this poverty. ~ Viktor Yanukovych, #NFDB
455:I'd done about 10 movies before I decided I wanted to make acting the main thrust of my career. ~ Jeff Bridges, #NFDB
456:I'm at peace with myself. The main thing is not letting people dictate what I do or what I am. ~ Magic Johnson, #NFDB
457:No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. ~ John Donne, #NFDB
458:The main fun of being an actor is that you get to bounce around to a lot of different worlds. ~ Gillian Jacobs, #NFDB
459:The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
460:the main source of profitableness of established banking is the smallness of requisite capital.”4 ~ Vivek Kaul, #NFDB
461:The main thing was not the speed or distance so much as running every day, without taking a break. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
462:The truth is that every invention leads men to say: can I use it to kill, to main, to terrify? ~ David Gemmell, #NFDB
463:The US’s main clandestine objective in Mexico was to keep tabs on the country’s drug cartels. A ~ Luke Harding, #NFDB
464:They say that adultery is the main thing that can damage a marriage, but it's not. It's boredom. ~ Barry Cryer, #NFDB
465:Two main definitions of a true leader; His presence is noticed and his absence is felt...! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
466:A coach's main job is to reawaken a spirit in which the players can blend together effortlessly. ~ Phil Jackson, #NFDB
467:Empathy is the main thing, putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and trying not to judge. ~ Keira Knightley, #NFDB
468:Every human is an artist. And this is the main art that we have: the creation of our story. ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz, #NFDB
469:In fact, if our kids are successful in every normal way, they can still miss God's main mark. ~ Craig Groeschel, #NFDB
470:I think the main message is that world rugby needs New Zealand and New Zealand needs world rugby. ~ Mike Miller, #NFDB
471:It's funny because my main awkwardness around writing the song had little to do with the method. ~ Erin McKeown, #NFDB
472:La porte claqua derrière lui avec le bruit d’une main nue sur une fesse nue… Ça le fit tressaillir… ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
473:No compromise with the main purpose; no peace till victory; no pact with unrepentant wrong. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
474:The narrow edge between comfort and discomfort is to a yogi what a grain of sand is to an oyster. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
475:The structure of your practice is the main reason for your success or lack of success as a coach ~ Bobby Knight, #NFDB
476:Usually, the main problem with life conundrums is that we don't bring to them enough imagination ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
477:A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
478:Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education and education. ~ Tony Blair, #NFDB
479:Castle Face Records, run by The Oh Sees main man, Johnny Dwyer is always worth checking in with. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
480:His main principles were indeed as follows: everything it is possible to imagine can also exist. ~ Angela Carter, #NFDB
481:I'm sure some cynical people would point to that as the main reason for doing it for a lot of people. ~ Jo Brand, #NFDB
482:I think our main priority is to make people happy and try to take them out of all that for a second. ~ Joe Jonas, #NFDB
483:Multipotentialites tend to struggle with three main areas: work, productivity, and self-esteem. ~ Emilie Wapnick, #NFDB
484:My main concern is quality and I think there is quality to be found in all categories of filmmaking. ~ Brad Pitt, #NFDB
485:My main message to folks who love animals is that you can do something every day to help them. ~ Alison Eastwood, #NFDB
486:One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
487:One of the main secrets of success is the ability to foresee the situation a few steps forward. ~ Sahara Sanders, #NFDB
488:That is the conviction we must come to in our meditation, that the darkness cannot quench the light. ~ John Main, #NFDB
489:The main thing on Caleb Walker’s mind as he sat at the table in the kitchen that morning was tits. ~ Bryan Smith, #NFDB
490:The public doesn't want new music; the main thing it demands of a composer is that he be dead. ~ Arthur Honegger, #NFDB
491:The welfare of our children is our main concern, and their best interests are our first priority. ~ Eddie Murphy, #NFDB
492:writing is not only for proclaiming opinions, but the main tool to achieve insight worth sharing. ~ S nke Ahrens, #NFDB
493:I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
494:In those days, the main requirement to be on the Food Network was being able to get there by subway. ~ Bobby Flay, #NFDB
495:Jesus seems to make it clear that the god of money is often God’s main competition for our hearts. ~ Kyle Idleman, #NFDB
496:Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
497:Main thing is just to remember that hard work got me here and only hard work will keep me here. ~ Brandon Stanton, #NFDB
498:No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
~ John Donne,#NFDB
499:One of the main weaknesses of mankind is the average man's familiarity with the word 'impossible. ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB
500:Some people prefer eating dessert to the main course. These people have never been really hungry. ~ Vera Nazarian, #NFDB
501:The main benefit of memory for past events may be that it allows us to imagine future events. ~ Thomas Suddendorf, #NFDB
502:... the main concern of the fiction writer is with mystery as it is incarnated in human life. ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
503:The third aspect was that Hindu society has always been divided into four main castes—the varnas. ~ Romila Thapar, #NFDB
504:According to the mate, there were three main jobs that needed to be done to ensure their survival. ~ Gordon Korman, #NFDB
505:Fear of living without a map is the main reason people are so insistent that we tell them what to do. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
506:I think the main thing I would say is, don't settle. Don't settle for something that's not great. ~ Michael Franti, #NFDB
507:My main skills are talking and cooking biscuits,' Augustus said. 'And getting drunk on the porch. ~ Larry McMurtry, #NFDB
508:My main skills are talking and cooking biscuits,” Augustus said. “And getting drunk on the porch. ~ Larry McMurtry, #NFDB
509:My performances may have elements that some may find entertaining, but that's not my main purpose. ~ Vaginal Davis, #NFDB
510:The main difference between a fighter pilot and God is that God doesn’t think he is a fighter pilot, ~ Evan Currie, #NFDB
511:The main force used in the evolving world of humanity has hitherto been applied in the form of war. ~ Arthur Keith, #NFDB
512:The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. ~ Michel Foucault, #NFDB
513:The main message of this movie [Let It Shine] that everyone will take away is to believe in yourself. ~ Coco Jones, #NFDB
514:The main obstacle to further progress on the resource curse is China, and to a lesser extent India. ~ George Soros, #NFDB
515:Yes he was, M-O-O-N, that spells my main man. I miss him awful. But I’m going to see him in heaven. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
516:Add some dhania and hari mirch. That's the main reason I buy vegetable from you,' the man said. ~ Minakshi Chaudhry, #NFDB
517:Donnez-moi la main! I see we worship the same God, in the same spirit, though by different rites. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
518:I feel that working environmentalists are, in the main, happier than armchair environmentalists. ~ Jonathan Franzen, #NFDB
519:I walked into the main entrance of the White House, and I said to myself, "This is sort of amazing." ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
520:Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
521:People who are tired of K Street corruption and Wall Street greed are ready for Main Street Values. ~ Mike Huckabee, #NFDB
522:probably end up reduce your risk of diabetes because blood sugar fluctuations are its main cause. ~ Mary Anderson, #NFDB
523:The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
524:The industry should take comfort in knowing that WinStar is my main focus after my faith and family. ~ Kenny Troutt, #NFDB
525:The main difference between a fighter pilot and God is that God doesn't think he was a fighter pilot. ~ Evan Currie, #NFDB
526:The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat. ~ George Soros, #NFDB
527:The main purpose of prayer is not to make life easier, nor to gain magical powers, but to know God. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
528:The main task of Socialism - the organization of Socialist production - remains still in the future. ~ Leon Trotsky, #NFDB
529:The useful type of successful teacher is one whose main interest is the children, not the subject. ~ Walter Raleigh, #NFDB
530:Well, my main instrument is violin, but I think of myself as a songwriter who happens to play violin. ~ Andrew Bird, #NFDB
531:We wanted to make sure that the film covered the main issues of his life. Musicianship, appearance. ~ Martin Bashir, #NFDB
532:Abraham Lincoln said, “Example is not the main thing in influencing other people; it’s the only thing. ~ Chris Brady, #NFDB
533:A good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is without a doubt, hard work. ~ Mario Vargas Llosa, #NFDB
534:Au final, le musée s'en tire avec une facture de 120 000 euros de réparation, hors main-d'œuvre interne. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
535:I'm not an evangelical, because that means that I exclude the Catholics and main-liners, and Orthodox. ~ Bill Bright, #NFDB
536:It is a sign of a medium's immaturity when one of the main topics of discussion is the medium itself. ~ Tom Standage, #NFDB
537:My main focus is on becoming a new mom and giving the best of myself to my husband and growing baby. ~ Stacy Keibler, #NFDB
538:Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
539:Several people have told me that my inability to suffer fools gladly is one of my main weaknesses. ~ Edsger Dijkstra, #NFDB
540:the main difference between twenty-one and fifty-one, he decided, the sheer volume of regret. ~ Emily St John Mandel, #NFDB
541:The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
542:The main thing was not the speed or distance so much as running every day, without taking a break. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
543:Undoubtedly the desire for food has been and still is one of the main causes of political events. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
544:Emotions infuse everything with meaning and are the main inspiration of cognition, also in our lives. ~ Frans de Waal, #NFDB
545:In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
546:I played baseball up until my freshman year of high school. That was my main sport. I played third base. ~ Macklemore, #NFDB
547:J’aime les gens qui prennent leur vie en main, moi ! Je n’aime pas les feignants qui se font plaindre. ~ Anna Gavalda, #NFDB
548:Joy. That is one of the main blessings of the All-Powerful. If we are happy, we are on the right road. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
549:My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
550:One of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
551:Question for God every morning: What is the main event today? What do you want me to focus on today? ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
552:Sculpting the future and healing the past can only happen through mindful action in the present moment. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
553:So many missionaries, intent on doing something, forget that His main work is to make something of them. ~ Jim Elliot, #NFDB
554:The main lesson Rollan had learned in training was that Meilin was dangerous with a handkerchief. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
555:The main object of teaching is not to give explanations, but to knock at the doors of the mind. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #NFDB
556:...the main point of parental authority is to authorize children to do things, not to block them. ~ Pamela Druckerman, #NFDB
557:Yes, I do feel the world revolves around me. After all, I am the main character of my own life. ~ Stefanie Schneider, #NFDB
558:A good artist ought never to allow impatience to overcome his sense of the main end of art - perfection ~ Michelangelo, #NFDB
559:[Bashar] Assad is one of the main reasons why ISIS even exists to begin with. Assad is a puppet of Iran. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
560:Education reform has as its main purpose to make sure that the education delivered is of quality. ~ Enrique Pena Nieto, #NFDB
561:I am often reminded that the wellspring of Vermont liberty flows from Main Street, not State Street. ~ James H Douglas, #NFDB
562:I'd love to do theater. I've done so many plays in my life. I still think of that as my main thing. ~ Taylor Schilling, #NFDB
563:If poor people can vote, one of the main things they vote for is to redistribute money to themselves. ~ Scott Aaronson, #NFDB
564:I grew up in San Francisco and moved to L.A. about 20 years ago, and now my main home is in Hollywood. ~ Roman Coppola, #NFDB
565:In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support [salary] is a power over his will. ~ Alexander Hamilton, #NFDB
566:In the world of art, as in the whole of creation, freedom and progress are the main objectives. ~ Ludwig van Beethoven, #NFDB
567:Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
568:man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
569:My main area of activism is the death penalty, and it will continue to be once this crisis is over with. ~ Steve Earle, #NFDB
570:My main interest in being a director, and the most important thing to me, is that world with the actors. ~ Matt Reeves, #NFDB
571:One of the main causes of our artistic decline lies beyond doubt in the separation of art and science. ~ Gino Severini, #NFDB
572:“One of the main functions of organized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.” ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
573:Talent isn't the main requisite for capable writing - discipline is. And a little good luck. ~ William Least Heat Moon, #NFDB
574:That's the main thing that attracts me - characters who have big journeys. I like playing those people. ~ James McAvoy, #NFDB
575:The faculty of being acquainted with things other than itself is the main characteristic of a mind. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
576:The main forces for convergence are the diffusion of knowledge and investment in training and skills. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
577:The main thing I do now is I coach kids, and all of these stories along the way are based in reality. ~ Craig Johnston, #NFDB
578:The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist! ~ Auguste Rodin, #NFDB
579:This is what I am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
580:With everything else that would swirl around me when I got involved in it, tennis was my main concern. ~ Jimmy Connors, #NFDB
581:And as was often the case during those first months in office, his main job was to clean up a mess, in ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
582:Baseball was my main sport, but I peaked when I reached high school and so my baseball career stopped. ~ George Winston, #NFDB
583:God uniquely highlights marriage as one of the main ways we know who he is and how he relates to us. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
584:I'm often criticised for what I wear. That's my main label in the press now: disastrous dresser! ~ Helena Bonham Carter, #NFDB
585:Larry wants his dick to see some action tonight and I'm apparently the main attraction in that circus. ~ Deborah Bladon, #NFDB
586:The main conclusion here arrived at ... is that man is descended from some less highly organized form. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
587:The main purpose of a significance test is to inhibit the natural enthusiasm of the investigator. ~ Frederick Mosteller, #NFDB
588:The wolf never kills for fun, which is probably one of the main differences distinguishing him from man. ~ Farley Mowat, #NFDB
589:Books don't need to be published," Lars Högström said. "The main thing is that they should be written. ~ Torgny Lindgren, #NFDB
590:Drawing general conclusions about your main weaknesses can provide a great stimulus to further growth. ~ Alexander Kotov, #NFDB
591:I was always the one in the background or the donkey. I was never a star, I never got to be the main part. ~ Joanna Page, #NFDB
592:Love is the main generator of all good writing... Love, passion, compassion, are all welded together. ~ Carson McCullers, #NFDB
593:Markus came back on the air. “Jiro and Dinah, you must be ready to fire the main propulsion at apogee— ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
594:Propriety of manners, and consideration for others, are the two main characteristics of a gentleman. ~ Benjamin Disraeli, #NFDB
595:Storming was one of her main modes of transportation." In reference to teenager Heather in "Carry The One ~ Carol Anshaw, #NFDB
596:The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making. ~ Edsger Dijkstra, #NFDB
597:The false self lives mainly through memory and anticipation. Past and future are its main preoccupation. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
598:The main thing is to remain oneself, under any circumstances; that was and is our common purpose. ~ Madeleine K Albright, #NFDB
599:Writing is still my main career, but I would love, for instance, to serve in the New York State Assembly. ~ Mark Helprin, #NFDB
600:Yes, I love to play drums and bass and guitar and piano. Those are the main instruments I play. That is it. ~ Jeff Lynne, #NFDB
601:I can resist anything except temptation." Ren, main character in Sherrilyn Kenyon's novel Time Untime. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
602:If you're making a movie about the effects of time, you kind of have to engage time as the main character. ~ Ryan Gosling, #NFDB
603:One of the main functions of a push-up bra is to lower the number of mothers who seem like mothers. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
604:Remember, the main job of the leader is thinking. And the best preparation for leadership is thinking. ~ David J Schwartz, #NFDB
605:Adults need more complex narratives. They have their own narratives. The main characters are themselves. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
606:I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev, #NFDB
607:No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength, ~ Philip E Tetlock, #NFDB
608:The computing scientist’s main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making. ~ Edsger W Dijkstra, #NFDB
609:The Internet feeds off the main press, and the main press feeds off the Internet. They're working in tandem. ~ Matt Drudge, #NFDB
610:The main object of conciliation lies in reaching a solution to a case based upon morals and with a warm heart. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
611:Chasing the sensation. Whether it was drugs or sex or whatever. Those things had become my main focus in life. ~ Rick Allen, #NFDB
612:If I have even just a little sense, I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it. ~ Alan Cohen, #NFDB
613:Imtihaan yeh kaisa humari zindagani mein,
Woh bheeg rahi hai aag mein
Aur main jal raha hun paani mein. ~ Faraaz Kazi,#NFDB
614:In the history of battles and wars, the massacres of civilians were the main reason of revolutions success. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
615:Mets la main sure mon coeur, Et vois comme il se trouble au nom de son vainqueur, Comme il le reconnait. ~ Pierre Corneille, #NFDB
616:Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi. ~ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, #NFDB
617:People are too durable, that's their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves, they last too long. ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB
618:Self-approval and self-acceptance in the now are the main keys to positive changes in every area of our lives. ~ Louise Hay, #NFDB
619:Serbia will neither allow a revision of history, nor will it forget who are the main culprits in World War I. ~ Ivica Dacic, #NFDB
620:Skybright was left alone on the empty main street with only the sound of Zhen Ni’s screams ringing in her ears. ~ Cindy Pon, #NFDB
621:Social media's greatest assets - anonymity, 'virality,' interconnectedness - are also its main weaknesses. ~ Evgeny Morozov, #NFDB
622:The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler. ~ Edward Teller, #NFDB
623:The main subject in the Bible from the beginning of Genesis through Revelation is none other than Jesus. ~ Charles E Fuller, #NFDB
624:The main way I start to allocate color is that it comes from the comics. That's where it all starts from. ~ Alexandra Byrne, #NFDB
625:Whining about your own, others', or the world's failings is a main element in what we usually call neurosis. ~ Albert Ellis, #NFDB
626:Zionism offered itself as the solution to anti-Semitism, but became the main reason for its continued presence. ~ Ilan Papp, #NFDB
627:Esso has been the main one in America spreading the disinformation that there is no global warming problem. ~ James Lovelock, #NFDB
628:I know it's simple, but my main inspiration is just my love of music. I know that sounds overly naive. But it's true. ~ Moby, #NFDB
629:I write any sort of rubbish which will cover the main outlines of the story, then I can begin to see it. ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
630:Let us remember that the main purpose of American aid is not to help other nations, but to help ourselves. ~ Richard M Nixon, #NFDB
631:Question for God every morning:
What is the main event today? What do you want me to focus on today? ~ John C Maxwell,#NFDB
632:The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
633:The main battlefield of good is not the open ground of the publis arena, but the small clearing of each heart. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
634:This, it would turn out, is the main thing we had in common: a susceptibility to the brassy escapism of myth. ~ Steve Almond, #NFDB
635:Alone among businesses, the fossil-fuel industry is allowed to dump its main waste, carbon dioxide, for free. ~ Bill McKibben, #NFDB
636:A ship is a bit of terra firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself; and the captain is its king. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
637:Available energy is the main object at stake in the struggle for existence and the evolution of the world. ~ Ludwig Boltzmann, #NFDB
638:Fear is the main factor in Arab politics... There is no Arab who is not harmed by Jews' entry into Palestine. ~ Moshe Sharett, #NFDB
639:Happiness and suffering are states of mind, and so their main causes cannot be found outside the mind. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, #NFDB
640:Hearing the faraway sounds of children at recess makes me understand that I am no longer life's main character. ~ Alec Sulkin, #NFDB
641:If you don't care about the main character in a novel, then you probably won't care about the story either. ~ Giuseppe Bianco, #NFDB
642:My job driving the ambulance was not very severe, you did what you were supposed to do. That was my main job. ~ Frank Buckles, #NFDB
643:My main graduate training was received at the University of Chicago from which I received the Ph.D. in 1938. ~ George Stigler, #NFDB
644:My main thing is constantly looking forward and trying to make music that I couldn't have made at any other time. ~ DJ Shadow, #NFDB
645:Self-approval and self-acceptance in the now are the main keys to positive changes in every area of our lives. ~ Louise L Hay, #NFDB
646:The main feature should be the teaching of principles through stories. Don't make it metaphysical at all. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
647:The main message we want to get out there is that climate change is caused by the rotten economic system. ~ Vivienne Westwood, #NFDB
648:The man ignorant of mathematics will be increasingly limited in his grasp of the main forces of civilization. ~ John G Kemeny, #NFDB
649:The Mona Lisa is a great piece of art, but you would view it as a weapon if you were hit over the head with it. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
650:These are all elements, but the main thing we can do in the Middle East is encourage the reformist elements. ~ Frank Carlucci, #NFDB
651:The Zionists'...main preoccupation is not to save Jews alive out of Europe but to get Jews into Palestine. ~ Richard Crossman, #NFDB
652:You know what they say about Southern cooking—butter’s the main course—everything else is just a side dish. Why ~ Amy Patrick, #NFDB
653:But the main things about a man are his eyes and his feet. He should be able to see the world and go after it. ~ Alfred Doblin, #NFDB
654:Earl turned off Main Street in Verona onto Carson Street and followed Frank’s order to park close to the corner. ~ S W Hubbard, #NFDB
655:History is simply a piece of paper covered with print: the main thing is to make history, not to write it. ~ Otto von Bismarck, #NFDB
656:Honestly, I haven't the time to read contemporary writers. I know this is awful, but in the main it is true. ~ William Golding, #NFDB
657:It is often possible to decide the issue of a battle merely by making an unexpected shift of one's main weight. ~ Erwin Rommel, #NFDB
658:Jesus called fishermen, not graduates of rabbinical schools. The main requirement was to be natural and sincere. ~ Jim Cymbala, #NFDB
659:One of the main reasons people fail to reach their full potential is because they are unwilling to risk anything. ~ Zig Ziglar, #NFDB
660:One of the main things about Cockney is, you speak at twice the speed as Americans. Americans speak very slow. ~ Michael Caine, #NFDB
661:Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” Forty-two ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
662:Some men never master anything other than the details of a job. Others master the main idea back of the job. ~ William Feather, #NFDB
663:The earth becomes heaven when you release your fear. The main thing in life is not to be afraid of being human. ~ Pablo Casals, #NFDB
664:The main fuel to speed the world’s progress is our stock of knowledge, and the brake is our lack of imagination.”8 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
665:The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds...but how can we put our woundedness in service to others. ~ Henri Nouwen, #NFDB
666:The main thing I need to do is create, hopefully, exquisitely beautiful, desirable objects for my customer. ~ Stella McCartney, #NFDB
667:Don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens - The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
668:I always have a lot of personal goals, but primarily my main goal each year is to obviously win a Super Bowl. ~ Michael Strahan, #NFDB
669:I endeavor to keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, the freedom & happiness of man. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
670:If your main goal is to show that your heart is in the right place, then your heart is not in the right place. ~ David Schmidtz, #NFDB
671:In general she had found that the main drawback in being a man was that conversations were less interesting. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
672:I realize every specific thing I worry about is nothing compared to the main worry I have which never has an object. ~ Sam Pink, #NFDB
673:I spent an important part of my life participating in conflicts. But for me, conflict was not the main principle. ~ Donald Tusk, #NFDB
674:It’s just funny, isn’t it? How the main characters never know about the adventures they’re about to go on. ~ Brittainy C Cherry, #NFDB
675:One of the main functions of System 2 is to monitor and control thoughts and actions “suggested” by System 1, ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
676:One of the main reasons people are not rich is that they worry too much about things that might never happen. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
677:One of the main strategies of the successful is that they constantly seek guidance from experts in their field. ~ Jack Canfield, #NFDB
678:Sometimes I’m afraid the main reason I spend half of my life outdoors is simply because there aren’t any mirrors. ~ Pam Houston, #NFDB
679:that I realized that the blind old man who played the accordion on Main Street wasn’t there anymore. He was gone. ~ R J Palacio, #NFDB
680:The main fuel to speed the world's progress is our stock of knowledge, and the brake is our lack of imagination. ~ Julian Simon, #NFDB
681:The main problem is that the Hollywood system has already made the film before the director shoots a single frame. ~ Mike Leigh, #NFDB
682:The main thing experience has taught me is that one has to sort of hone their relationship to time, you know. ~ John Frusciante, #NFDB
683:The main thing is winning. Stats aren't that important, but I think in the end things will work themselves out. ~ John Harbaugh, #NFDB
684:Valence passa une main sur ses yeux et quitta la fenêtre.
-L'alcool est là, lui dit Néron en tendant les bras. ~ Fred Vargas,#NFDB
685:With men, as with women, the main struggle is between vanity and comfort; but with men, comfort often wins. ~ Mignon McLaughlin, #NFDB
686:Writers ever since writing began have had problems, and the main problem narrows down to just one word - life. ~ William Styron, #NFDB
687:Aft here, ye sons of bachelors," he cried, as the sailors lingered at the main-mast. "Mr. Starbuck, drive aft. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
688:If you are self-published, can you adapt your outliers to fit with the main thrust of your new and improved brand? ~ Emlyn Chand, #NFDB
689:I'm a really, really optimistic and really, really positive person. My main thing is, 'Enjoy life. Celebrate life.' ~ Luke Bryan, #NFDB
690:In the main, it counsels yielding to celibacy, which is exactly as sensible as advising a dog to forget its fleas. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
691:It is important to see that the main point of any spiritual practice is to step out of the bureaucracy of ego. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
692:People who praise a leader even when he is doing the wrong things are the main reasons why his fall is near. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
693:Presidents come and go, and even parties come to and away from power. But the main policy tack does not change. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
694:Reality can be entered through the main door or it can be slipped into through a window, which is much more fun. ~ Gianni Rodari, #NFDB
695:Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan. ~ Tom Landry, #NFDB
696:The main business of the heart, its true function is love. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Power of the Instruments, #NFDB
697:the main difference between introverts and extroverts is how often they need time alone to recharge their batteries. ~ S J Scott, #NFDB
698:The meditation session divides into three—preparatory practices, the main practice, and the concluding practice. ~ Thupten Jinpa, #NFDB
699:There are no perfectly honorable men; but every true man has one main point of honor and a few minor ones. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
700:And don't worry about losing. If i is right, it happens - the main thing is not to hurry.Nothing good gets away. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
701:Be a vegetarian. That was the best advice I ever took. It means I'm not involved in killing, that's the main thing. ~ Martin Shaw, #NFDB
702:But I think the main reason tidying has this effect is because through this process people come to know contentment. ~ Marie Kond, #NFDB
703:But the main problem was that we failed to allow for what Donald Rumsfeld famously called the “unknown unknowns ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
704:Is this the main thing that painters of portraits care about? The person on the verge of becoming someone else? ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
705:Nature is my main source of inspiration - I will never stop taking hints from what I call 'the greatest artist' ~ Roberto Cavalli, #NFDB
706:one of the main features of human existence is the capacity to rise above such conditions, to grow beyond them. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
707:Poor villager comes and throws a plastic bag; that’s not the main issue now. The issue is with the affluent, isn’t it? ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
708:The main failure of education is that it has not prepared people to comprehend matters concerning human destiny. ~ Norman Cousins, #NFDB
709:The main thing going on around intimacy is that we've developed a lot of strategies so we'll be a desirable package. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
710:There are 2 main things I've learned about following the Holy Spirit: It will never be easy. It will never be boring. ~ Mark Hart, #NFDB
711:The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
712:The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
713:Back in the day, a pair of tight jeans was enough to earn a girl a bad reputation. Now slutty has gone Main Street. ~ Linda Chavez, #NFDB
714:Civilian notions about unreasonable search and seizure and warrants and probable cause stop at an army post main gate. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
715:Flourishing is properly the main human end, and flourishing is activity of soul that succeeds in accord with virtue. ~ Ernest Sosa, #NFDB
716:French philosopher Voltaire once famously pointed out, the main problem with common sense is that it is not so common. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
717:Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course. ~ Bobby Flay, #NFDB
718:It takes both spouses to say, "My self-centeredness is the main problem in my marriage" to have a great marriage. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
719:I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double. ~ Lee Konitz, #NFDB
720:One of the main reasons I don't like leaving the house is because I might find myself face to face with a Canadian. ~ Maria Semple, #NFDB
721:Our main problem is a lack of understanding of what it means to be human and that we are not separate from nature. ~ Jacque Fresco, #NFDB
722:The main idea behind complex systems is that the ensemble behaves in ways not predicted by its components. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
723:The main reason why great leaders are rare is because books on leadership far outsell those on followership. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
724:to become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic problem of life. ~ Ernest Becker, #NFDB
725:A heart full of love and compassion is the main source of inner strength, willpower, happiness, and mental tranquility ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
726:Faith was a gift of God whose main function was to create in man a certain knowledge of God’s goodness toward us. The ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
727:Harmy is a class bowler and I think he's one of the main reasons why England have improved over the last 18 months. ~ Glenn McGrath, #NFDB
728:If your main character has a secret to hide, your novel will get more tension, and possibly more drama and depth, too. ~ Rayne Hall, #NFDB
729:In any case, you must remember, my dearest, that the main strength of innocence is innocence itself. farewell. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
730:It is generally useless to carry out details without having seen the main connection, or having made a sort of plan. ~ George P lya, #NFDB
731:Many a death was precipitated by the food, the job, or the medication whose main function was to postpone it. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
732:Most people I work with are older than me and the main thing I've learnt is that everyone is a dumb as an 18-year-old. ~ Seth Rogen, #NFDB
733:The main character and the most important character are not always the same person - you have to know the difference. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
734:The main effect of turning a partnership into a corporation was to transfer the financial risk to the shareholders. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
735:The main point of enlightenment is man's release from his self-caused immaturity, primarily in matters of religion. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
736:The main reason for rewriting is not to achieve a smooth surface, but to discover the inner truth of your characters. ~ Saul Bellow, #NFDB
737:The main thing (about the organization) is to enjoy motorcycles, ..and have a good relationship with the community. ~ Brian Johnson, #NFDB
738:The maybe-groupie put her hands in the air. She wore, God help her, a T-shirt that read, “Ten-A-Fly’s Main Ho!” Pops ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
739:The two men shook hands, then the cowboy walked through the main gate to an anonymous Buick and drove away. Watching ~ Robert Crais, #NFDB
740:They argued that women of the prophet’s era had ridden camels, the main mode of transportation of their day. The ~ Geraldine Brooks, #NFDB
741:Today the main, over-riding purpose of the European Union is different: not to win peace, but to secure prosperity. ~ David Cameron, #NFDB
742:You're the main character of your life," Jacie said. "You're too important to die. That's how everybody feels. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson, #NFDB
743:After all, that was a main purpose of science: to make things of all kinds happen sooner than they otherwise would. ~ Robert Aickman, #NFDB
744:All the pundits and D.C. insiders thought I'd never be standing on the main stage. I am and I'm going to stay there. ~ Carly Fiorina, #NFDB
745:I think the main thing over time is that you gain confidence and are able to tell your story better and stronger. ~ Roksanda Ilincic, #NFDB
746:I think your main draws are instinct, intuition and empathy... those things that you can't really practice. ~ Scarlett Alice Johnson, #NFDB
747:No gangster is ever happy when he's at peace. The main reason he's in the business is to eliminate his enemies. ~ Lorenzo Carcaterra, #NFDB
748:The dirty little secret, folks, is Obama is not only for occupying Wall Street. He also wants to occupy Main Street. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
749:The main fuel to speed the world’s progress is our stock of knowledge, and the brake is our lack of imagination. ~ Erik Brynjolfsson, #NFDB
750:The main reason I wanted to be successful was to get out of the ghetto. My parents helped direct my path. ~ Florence Griffith Joyner, #NFDB
751:the main source of competition in society may not be among individuals but rather among cooperating groups of peers. ~ Alex Pentland, #NFDB
752:The main substantive achievement of neoliberalism has been to redistribute rather than to generate wealth and income. ~ David Harvey, #NFDB
753:The main thing that prevents us from understanding the Bible aright is not a lack of hermeneutical skills but our sin. ~ Tim Chester, #NFDB
754:The main trouble with this civilized world isn't that we adventure too much, but that we fail to adventure enough. ~ Cornelia Parker, #NFDB
755:Where are we going?" I asked. "The main road leads to all of the major kingdoms."
"Not all of them," said Amar. ~ Roshani Chokshi,#NFDB
756:Cette force irrésistible de la main du sort qui nous porte toujours malgré nous où ses loix veulent que nous soyons ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
757:Distraction is the main problem for us all - what the Buddha called the monkey mind. We need to tame this monkey mind. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
758:Energies expended on sideshows, never on the main event. Where the hell was the main event? Was there a main event? ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
759:Haven't got a girl, but I can wish. So I'll take me down to Main Street and that's where I'll select my imaginary dish. ~ Dean Martin, #NFDB
760:I just think it's sad that the main places in our culture that we designate to meet new people are bars and nightclubs. ~ Aziz Ansari, #NFDB
761:il a participé à des soirées libertines où les partenaires passent de main en main comme du guacamole pendant l’apéritif. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
762:I think I should be on the main stage. I don't think I'm an undercard candidate. I think the others should drop out. ~ Renee Montagne, #NFDB
763:Make sure your main characters are likeable. They can be flawed, but your readers need to be able to root for them. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
764:Meditation simplifies us, simplifies us to the point where we can receive the fullness of truth and the fullness of love. ~ John Main, #NFDB
765:My main goal, when I started acting, was to show as much versatility as possible because I like playing diverse roles. ~ Daniela Ruah, #NFDB
766:No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force. ~ Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, #NFDB
767:Once there the main man, the bearded preacher, bridles and jabs, spasms and gurns like a pre-ejaculatory James Brown. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
768:out·li·er \-,l()r\ noun 1: something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
769:Professor Osterweis taught us how to structure a speech: introduction, three main points, peroration, and conclusion. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
770:The main dividing line is still race. This is the issue that must be focused upon in all working class organizations. ~ Michael Yates, #NFDB
771:The main part of the tree is the root, and the root is always beneath the ground. It never is brought out into the light. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
772:The main source of my income is through the commissions of the large-scale works and big sculptures, the projects. ~ Andy Goldsworthy, #NFDB
773:"The purely biological or scientific standpoint falls short in psychology because it is, in the main, intellectual only." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
774:Troubadours travelled from town to town. They didn't really sing too good, which is the main reason they kept going. ~ Art Linkletter, #NFDB
775:With me, my main vision for life was to avoid as many people as possible. The less people I saw the better I felt. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
776:Aggressiveness is not the main trouble with the human species, but rather an excess capacity for fanatical devotion. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
777:I climbed on my bike and headed down Main Street, noticing that puddles were already starting to form on the pavement. ~ Morgan Matson, #NFDB
778:In the main, ghosts are said to be forlorn and generally miserable, if not downright depressed. The jolly ghost is rare. ~ Dick Cavett, #NFDB
779:Most people will leave you with the impression that the main function of our emotions is to cloud our judgement. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
780:My goal was for acting to become my main income. I would say to myself, 'I'm good enough'. That became my mantra. ~ Michael Fassbender, #NFDB
781:No matter how compelling or beautiful they may be, words appeal in the main to the linear, thinking mind that thinks in words. ~ D gen, #NFDB
782:Soul-winning is the chief business of the Christian minister; it should be the main pursuit of every true believer. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
783:That ability to stay focused in the midst of a crisis stands as one of Musk’s main advantages over other executives and ~ Ashlee Vance, #NFDB
784:The day wears on. The light fades. It snows harder with each passing hour. Up and down Main, Christmas lights wink on. ~ Blake Crouch, #NFDB
785:This was actually the main difference between twenty-one and fifty-one, he decided, the sheer volume of regret. ~ Emily St John Mandel, #NFDB
786:When infused with compassion, even the most useless snake oils have the power to heal broken hearts and shattered souls. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
787:Whiskeyjack’s eyes widened as a crowd of excited guests poured out from the main chamber and gathered on the terrace. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
788:A merciful God must surely close his eyes in anguish against the barbaric will of man to main and butcher one another ~ Linda Goodnight, #NFDB
789:And the main thing was that I wanted to live in south Florida. That's why I left the Cowboys; to live in south Florida. ~ Jimmy Johnson, #NFDB
790:Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children. ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB
791:Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for? ~ J M Coetzee, #NFDB
792:Boundaries are actually the main factor in space, just as the present, another boundary, is the main factor in time. ~ Eduardo Chillida, #NFDB
793:can remember when a dog could go to sleep all day in the middle of Main Street and nothing come along to disturb him. ~ Thornton Wilder, #NFDB
794:Generally I wouldn't accept work on projects where I didn't agree with the sensibilities behind the main character. ~ Rhianna Pratchett, #NFDB
795:Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, become decent people. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
796:In order to see him it is necessary to meet him in seclusion, far from the main activity of the business scene. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, #NFDB
797:La main du temps s’était appesantie sur cet homme autrefois si énergique. Il ne parut plus à Julien que l’ombre de lui-même. ~ Stendhal, #NFDB
798:One of the main reasons for the conflict in Syria, and the terrorism that it's spawned, is climate change and drought. ~ Prince Charles, #NFDB
799:The main cause of poverty or financial struggle is fear and ignorance, not the economy or the government or the rich. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
800:The main discomfort in being a middle-of-the-roader is that you get sideswiped by partisans going in both directions. ~ Sydney J Harris, #NFDB
801:The main market share is once again children; 1 in 8 of whom are now consuming 22 cans of cola each week – yes 22 cans! As ~ Jason Vale, #NFDB
802:The main point is that it’s the speaker’s responsibility to bring energy to the audience and to work to activate them. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
803:The main problem with solar on the Earth's surface is that it is so intermittent, and we don't have decent storage yet. ~ Stewart Brand, #NFDB
804:The main reason people want to pay for Spotify is really portability. People are saying, 'I want to have my music with me.' ~ Daniel Ek, #NFDB
805:The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It's useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy. ~ Aaron Copland, #NFDB
806:The main thing I’ve noticed, however, is how unreasonable, self-absorbed and permanently outraged caffeine has made me. ~ Caitlin Moran, #NFDB
807:And, since birds are a main predator of forest insects, their dwindling is already affecting the health of our forests. ~ The New Yorker, #NFDB
808:Being alone, out somewhere in a remote or semiremote spot on Mother Earth, is the main ingredient of a Vision Quest Ceremony. ~ Ed McGaa, #NFDB
809:Drosophila has long been our main workhorse in genetics, yielding insight in the relation between chromosomes and genes. ~ Frans de Waal, #NFDB
810:In the courtyard before them grew a clump of bright green bamboo, while by the main doorway stood a row of dark pine-trees. ~ Cao Xueqin, #NFDB
811:It is my inner conviction that the development of science seeks in the main to satisfy the longing for pure knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
812:Marx's main interest was in economic relationships since in his view they shape everything that we are and can become. ~ Nigel Warburton, #NFDB
813:Maybe the grand gestures don’t matter nearly as much as all the inconsequential things between the two main characters. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
814:Moral progress has consisted in the main of protest against cruel customs, and of attempts to enlarge human sympathy. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
815:My main problem with cops is that they do what they're told. They say 'Sorry mate, I'm just doing my job' all the fucking time. ~ Banksy, #NFDB
816:Over a long period of time, the main force in favor of greater equality has been the diffusion of knowledge and skills. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
817:So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable. ~ Walter Bagehot, #NFDB
818:That which is within a man, not that which lies beyond his vision, is the main factor in what is about to befall him: ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
819:the eight main “dialects” of Chinese are so vastly different that they are, under any analysis, separate languages. The ~ John McWhorter, #NFDB
820:The main purpose of my work is to provoke people into using their imagination and make their surroundings more exciting. ~ Verner Panton, #NFDB
821:The main thing is that the 'C' is silent, so it kind of starts with a 'Z.' Z-O-O-K-RIE. It's Ukrainian, on my dad's side. ~ Matt Czuchry, #NFDB
822:The main thing I've learned is that we're better together and that our society needs inclusion - right? - not exclusion. ~ Keith Ellison, #NFDB
823:The main thing that prevents us from understanding the Bible aright is not a lack of hermeneutical skills but our sin. Our ~ Tim Chester, #NFDB
824:The music that filled the House of Seven was eerie, full of haunting notes as Liv descended the stairs to the main floor. ~ Sarah Noffke, #NFDB
825:If I were to be asked: What now constitutes the main and fundamental feature of your existence? I would answer: Insomnia. ~ Anton Chekhov, #NFDB
826:Intellectual capital is the main determining factor and the base for economic and social development to any country. ~ Talal Abu Ghazaleh, #NFDB
827:I think that that the main problem with a lot of social media stuff in terms of ratings is it's a very skewed motivation. ~ Michael Schur, #NFDB
828:My father treated them with respect and kindness, his main philosophical and spiritual position being: Don’t be an asshole. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
829:Objective journalism is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long. ~ Hunter S Thompson, #NFDB
830:The main difference between service and manufacturing is the service department doesn't know that they have a product. ~ W Edwards Deming, #NFDB
831:The main emotion of the adult American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment. ~ John Cheever, #NFDB
832:The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer; it's possessed by the reader. ~ Jane Smiley, #NFDB
833:Je reste des heures entières debout au même endroit, presque sans bouger (j’ai même vu le vent s’arrêter dans ma main) ~ Richard Brautigan, #NFDB
834:la vérité déchira le voile qu'étendait la main de l'erreur sur le miroir de la vie, et je m'y vis enfin tel que j'étais. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
835:My main ambition as a gardener is to water my orange trees with gin, then all I have to do is squeeze the juice into a glass. ~ W C Fields, #NFDB
836:My relationship with my readers is somewhat theatrical. One of the main things I try to do in my work is delight my readers. ~ Mark Leyner, #NFDB
837:Only after about 20 years did Edison reluctantly concede that the main use of his phonograph was to record and play music. ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
838:The main hall of the palace was an intimidating place when empty, because it had been designed for exactly that purpose. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
839:WESTON, COLORADO, was a small ranch town with dusty streets, too many cowboy hats, and a main drag that had been built to ~ Melissa Foster, #NFDB
840:[…] what haunts the heart will, when it is found, leap foremost, blinding the eye and leaving the main of Life in darkness. ~ Mervyn Peake, #NFDB
841:You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning and you're excited for the day? That's one of my main goals in life. ~ Kirsten Dunst, #NFDB
842:Almost every band has somebody who's the main songwriter and who has a vision, a very clear idea of how a song should be. ~ Stephen Malkmus, #NFDB
843:A main cause of philosophical disease-an unbalanced diet: one nourishes one's thinking with only one kind of example. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #NFDB
844:Beauty is the main positive form of the aesthetic assimilation of reality, in which aesthetic ideal finds it direct expression. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
845:I think Delhiites know how to party, but Kolkata has people who know how to celebrate. I think that's the main difference. ~ Gautam Gambhir, #NFDB
846:J'étais dans la mort; tu m'as remise dans la vie. Toi là, c'est le ciel à côté de moi. Donne-moi ta main, que je touche Dieu! ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
847:main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won’t last. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
848:My main focus is to try to give myself time to heal...Forgiveness takes time. It is the last step of the grieving process. ~ Elin Nordegren, #NFDB
849:One of the main things we have been looking at is, how can we get a robot to think about situations it's never seen before? ~ Judy Woodruff, #NFDB
850:Secular conservatism is like trying to use your pocket handkerchief to slow you down after the main chute has failed. This ~ Douglas Wilson, #NFDB
851:The main advantage of books over life is that they can be redrafted and redrafted, whereas life, alas, is always a first draft. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
852:To most people in a bureaucracy, the main thing is that they've got a steady paycheck, because who ever lays off a bureaucrat? ~ John Ringo, #NFDB
853:Welbeck will be the main man and I have no doubt he will flourish. Imagine the pace Arsenal will have when everyone is fit. ~ Rio Ferdinand, #NFDB
854:If there is a rotten government in a democracy, the main reason for this is that there is a rotten majority over there! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
855:One of Buddhism’s main practices is understanding and experiencing compassion, and how that ultimately is a road to happiness. ~ Goldie Hawn, #NFDB
856:The main reason I did 'Captain America' was because I wanted to get out of my own head and stop taking my work so seriously. ~ Hayley Atwell, #NFDB
857:The main thing is not to be afraid of that, to get to a place where you'll go gracefully, not screaming and kicking up a fuss. ~ Ringo Starr, #NFDB
858:The main way people waste time is by complaining of their past wasted time. Leaders respond even if it seems to be late. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
859:There are three main types of cyberattacks today: attacks on a network’s confidentiality, availability, and integrity. Attacks ~ Alec J Ross, #NFDB
860:A piece of art really works when you see yourself in the main characters and you see a glimpse of yourself in the villains ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
861:Colour can be the true main thing in art that is widely valued – even valued by the maker of the art – for other meanings. ~ Matthew Collings, #NFDB
862:Ek Main Aur Ek Tu was a very special film for me. Imran and we complement each other very well. He is sugar, and I am spice. ~ Kareena Kapoor, #NFDB
863:If Donald Trump's main claim to be president of the United States is your business, then I think we should talk about that. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
864:It's without doubt my main subject. The way masculinity can go wrong. And I'm something of a gynocrat in a utopian kind of way. ~ Martin Amis, #NFDB
865:My curiosity and my appetite for evolving as an actor is one of the main components of me still working today in the business. ~ Kim Cattrall, #NFDB
866:One of the main reasons I remain a Christian is because I love knowing that my sins are not only forgiven, but also forgotten! ~ Tony Campolo, #NFDB
867:The main secret of his progress, the secret of all wisdom, was, that with him action was the beginning and end of thought. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
868:The main thing that excites me and makes me want to get out of bed is the thought of being able to go into my studio to work on music. ~ Moby, #NFDB
869:The main thrust of the Social Security reform was to get the benefit structure in line with the realities of the Trust Funds. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
870:The same way that you are the main character of your story, you are only a secondary character in everybody else’s story. ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz, #NFDB
871:Ultimately there is no dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street. We will rise or we will fall together as one nation. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
872:Yes, but the main thing is that greatness is doable. Greatness is many, many individual feats, and each of them is doable. ~ Angela Duckworth, #NFDB
873:In general, there are four main causes of market failures: information asymmetry, externalities, monopoly power, and risk. ~ Geoffrey G Parker, #NFDB
874:In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
875:I suppose I could have called in the whole of the Army, but what was the use? All I had to do was call in Main Street itself. ~ Herbert Hoover, #NFDB
876:My ideal city would be one long main street with no cross streets or side streets to jam up traffic. Just a long one-way street. ~ Andy Warhol, #NFDB
877:My main inspirations are the people around me, heartbreaks, frustration and everything that makes you feel stronger than you should. ~ Tove Lo, #NFDB
878:That's the main thing, looking for interesting characters, good directors, and experiences where you're growing and learning. ~ Nicholas Hoult, #NFDB
879:The Hubble Law is one of the great discoveries in science; it is one of the main supports of the scientific story of Genesis. ~ Robert Jastrow, #NFDB
880:The main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else. ~ John Cleese, #NFDB
881:the main reason they don't use seeing eye cats is because you will end up with the cat, and the blind person, stuck up a tree ~ Haresh Daswani, #NFDB
882:To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war. ~ Ludwig von Mises, #NFDB
883:With the death of Robert Mapplethorpe, I had lost my main collaborator in taking photographs. So I didn't know who to work with. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
884:Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
885:I feel that my main responsibility as a teacher isn’t to convey facts, but to rekindle that lost enthusiasm for asking questions. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
886:It'll die down like every other genre, but horror has always been one of the four or five main genres that will never go away. ~ Bruce Campbell, #NFDB
887:Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy . . . Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products. ~ Jack Welch, #NFDB
888:The crime which bankrupts men and nations is that of turning aside from one's main purpose to serve a job here and there. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
889:The main factor in a penalty shootout is luck again. You need to stay calm and focussed but the biggest thing you need is luck. ~ Peter Shilton, #NFDB
890:The main function of the museum has been to serve as a pedestal upon which a clique of socialites pose as patrons of the arts ~ Albert C Barnes, #NFDB
891:The main reason for the colossal objects is the obvious one, to expand and intensify the presence of the vessel - the object. ~ Claes Oldenburg, #NFDB
892:The main thing is that whether dead or alive, people should be treated with dignity.” A life with dignity, with head held high. ~ Rashmi Bansal, #NFDB
893:The problem is not the unhappiness and disappointment you feel at harvest time; the problem is the seeds you planted last spring. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
894:Walter Murch, the sound editor and film director, said, “Music was the main poetic metaphor for that which could not be preserved ~ David Byrne, #NFDB
895:As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to genocide. ~ Steven Pinker, #NFDB
896:Descartes left as one of his main philosophical legacies a myth which continues to distort the continental geography of the subject. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
897:Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar industry that is not only fueled by main street, but it also ruled by Wall Street... ~ Asa Don Brown, #NFDB
898:I let her ask the questions. Predictably, the main questions she had were 'What?' and 'Am I going to be on the menu?' Oh, and 'What? ~ Lia Habel, #NFDB
899:Lack of true friends is often the main complaint of people confronting an emotional crisis in the second half of life. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
900:My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden. ~ Mose Allison, #NFDB
901:My main thing is to chill with my kids. My daughter loves to work, as well-she loves to record and stuff-so I like to work with her. ~ Lil Wayne, #NFDB
902:The main concern of all great religions has been to fight a certain weariness and heaviness grown to epidemic proportions. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
903:The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man... not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology. ~ Jean Genet, #NFDB
904:The main thing is that he be willing to believe in a Power greater than himself and that he live by spiritual principles. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, #NFDB
905:There is a crowd outside the main door, talking softly about the death as if they don’t want the dead man to know that he is gone. ~ Manu Joseph, #NFDB
906:This helps me ‘keep the main thing, the main thing,’ since I am so easily distracted.” You may want to do something similar, or ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
907:Weaknesses of Voluntary Bodies 22.23 … The main weaknesses of such bodies are that they are hard to launch, liable to disintegrate ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
908:You do what you can with what you have. You have to work the edges whatever they are. The main thing is keeping your integrity. ~ Nikki Giovanni, #NFDB
909:But what we called love down there was mostly the craving to be loved. In the main I loved you for my own sake: because I needed you. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
910:...every literature, in its main lines, reflects the chief characteristics of the people for whom, and about whom, it is written. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
911:Jazz comes from a tradition where it swings. Swing was the main ingredient of jazz. And once it loses the swing...well, that's it. ~ Van Morrison, #NFDB
912:Our greatest duty and our main responsibility is to help others. But please, if you can't help them, would you please not hurt them. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
913:Thanks to their decreased brainpower, people aren't diverted from the main business of life by the hobgoblins of opinion anymore. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
914:The refrigerator was one of the main things my mother prayed to. She said that a cold beer could make you love a refrigerator. ~ Jennifer Clement, #NFDB
915:There were some things Reagan liked that I liked. The main component was that people have to talk to each other and help themselves. ~ Neil Young, #NFDB
916:But I'm more interested in why people are frightened by Jaws and why Jaws was such a hit than saying Spielberg's my main influence. ~ Damien Hirst, #NFDB
917:For he is superstitious grown of late,
Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
918:In reality, the main thing that keeps me awake at night is probably the destruction of the planet that's what gets me pretty upset. ~ Rachel Weisz, #NFDB
919:My hobby is gardening, I love it, it's my main hobby. I like being at home and I'm very happy being in my house, I love cooking. ~ Susan Hampshire, #NFDB
920:My main concern is making the connection with my listeners and making records that the whole world can sing. That's what makes me happy. ~ Ab Soul, #NFDB
921:My main goal is to try to make fun for everyone. And to see my fans responding to it and to see them having fun is really rewarding. ~ Troye Sivan, #NFDB
922:My main interests right now are to publish, to write, to explicate various views which I hope have an impact on thinking people. ~ Murray Bookchin, #NFDB
923:One of the main techniques I used was focusing on the goal and visualising myself competing in the race before the race started. ~ Michael Johnson, #NFDB
924:People who love our record love us even more when they hear us live?playing live is what it is all about and that is our main focus. ~ Jeff Martin, #NFDB
925:The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences, and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. ~ Gerda Lerner, #NFDB
926:The main thing that I want to say is that I don't think women are at their most beautiful in their adolescence or in their early 20s. ~ Nan Goldin, #NFDB
927:Throughout America, Main Street has run to the suburbs and hidden in the malls, but New York still wears Christmas on its sleeve. ~ The New Yorker, #NFDB
928:We’re not messing around tonight, I informed him as we reached the main road.
I never mess around. I’m all business in the sack. ~ Cara McKenna,#NFDB
929:Writing a new film about cereal killers. Not serial killers, cereal killers. The main character can eat two, three boxes at a time. ~ Dov Davidoff, #NFDB
930:Any power structure one of whose main goals was to prevent humans from fucking each other at will had to be extremely formidable. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
931:I'm not one of those guys that focuses much on individual stats because my main goal is to be at my best physically and mentally. ~ Giovani Bernard, #NFDB
932:I think that the main thing that you can learn from watching 'The Spectacular Now' is just learning about growing up and moving on. ~ Kaitlyn Dever, #NFDB
933:I write to try to find out who I am. One of my main themes is manliness. I think I'm trying to figure out what manliness really is. ~ Ernest Gaines, #NFDB
934:Let the main object... to seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach less, but learners learn more. ~ John Amos Comenius, #NFDB
935:Modern architecture does not mean the use of immature new materials; the main thing is to refine materials in a more human direction. ~ Alvar Aalto, #NFDB
936:That ability to stay focused in the midst of a crisis stands as one of Musk’s main advantages over other executives and competitors. ~ Ashlee Vance, #NFDB
937:The main question ... is not what motive inspired the law, but what it will be possible for men of bad motive to do with the law. ~ Benjamin Tucker, #NFDB
938:the main reason he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
939:The main reason why God gave us imaginations is to allow us to have a specific power that can help us make realistic decisions. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
940:The nature of life is to be a study of contrasts: joy/sadness, full/empty. The Main Thing is to Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
941:Servants were the main topic of conversation in St. Mary Mead, so it was not difficult to lead the conversation in that direction. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
942:the main form of family interaction was playing cards and board games, at which it was assumed that everyone was trying to cheat. ~ Jonathan Franzen, #NFDB
943:The main theme of the Bible is the restoration of humanity and, through humanity, of the whole of creation to its original harmony. ~ Bede Griffiths, #NFDB
944:This was his main therapeutic tool: his conviction, invariably imparted to the patient, that his services were not really required. ~ Anita Brookner, #NFDB
945:Wall Street can never be allowed to threaten main street again. No bank can be too big to fail, no executive too powerful to jail. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
946:Who hit you?"
"Clara."
"Clara!"
"She whaled me one in return for upsetting you. Well, at least, that was the main reason. ~ Kristin Cashore,#NFDB
947:You can stick a fork in Barack Obama. Politically, he's done. The main way we can screw this up is if we choose the wrong Republican. ~ Tim Pawlenty, #NFDB
948:Your motivation should be sincere and your life should be of benefit to some people. That is the main thing. Don't care after my death. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
949:You've got to stay current and up with the competition. The main thing, though, is finding the greatest songs you can possibly find. ~ Reba McEntire, #NFDB
950:everything living has a mouth. Mouths bite and swallow; they talk; they taste. They kiss. A mouth is the main tool for living. ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
951:Health inequalities and the social determinants of health are not a footnote to the determinants of health. They are the main issue. ~ Michael Marmot, #NFDB
952:If football had always been my main goal then I would have gone to some scholarship school; I could have gotten more exposure there. ~ Michael Corbat, #NFDB
953:I think the main issue is that a lot of the stars today are very addicted, and they simply feel more comfortable smoking as they act. ~ Joe Eszterhas, #NFDB
954:It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
955:It was like talking to Diego had cleared my head. For the first time in three months, blood was not the main thing in there. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
956:My main interest is just to work with people who have beautiful, interesting, emotive voices; I'm not too concerned whether someone is famous. ~ Moby, #NFDB
957:One of the main things that's appealing about games is that you know a game can be won. It's an unusual game that's impossible to win. ~ Jesse Schell, #NFDB
958:The car, the furniture, the wife, the children - everything has to be disposable. Because you see the main thing today is - shopping. ~ Arthur Miller, #NFDB
959:The physician knows that his little black bag can carry him only so far and that the body's own healing system is the main resource. ~ Norman Cousins, #NFDB
960:Whether it be a reggae song, rock song, a love song, the main thing was just to, whatever I was feeling, to try to capture that emotion. ~ Bruno Mars, #NFDB
961:By keeping my hand in that, it's the way I keep learning. The main way you learn in medicine is by practicing and working with patients. ~ Andrew Weil, #NFDB
962:Eh, it’s not that great a book. I’ve read it. She’ll thank me for saving her five hours of her life. The main character dies in the end. ~ Chanda Hahn, #NFDB
963:For the main character, I suggest you specify a trait which will encourage him to get into trouble –‘curious’ or ‘courageous’ are useful. ~ Rayne Hall, #NFDB
964:I'm not a policy maker. I'm not even a very great activist. My main thing is to make things that speak for the culture that I live in. ~ Wangechi Mutu, #NFDB
965:I see a sequence of seven main phases: creation,revolution or exodus (Israel in Egypt), law, wisdom, prophecy, gospel, and apocalypse. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
966:I thought of reaching out for progressive Israelis, progressive Americans, progressive American Jews - this was probably my main mission. ~ Ari Shavit, #NFDB
967:It's a big responsibility to be the main part of a film because if you don't like me, you have a problem for two-and-a-half hours. ~ Carice van Houten, #NFDB
968:I've been asked repeatedly what the 'key' to acting is, and as far as I'm concerned, the main thing is to keep the audience awake. ~ Maureen Stapleton, #NFDB
969:Nous avons échangé des civilités. Mi-scénario hollywodien, mi-bonne société. Elle a commencé à hurler, puis essayé de me mordre la main. ~ Hugh Laurie, #NFDB
970:out·li·er \-,l()r\ noun 1: something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body 2: a statistical ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
971:Snarkicist. S-n-a-r-k-i-c-i-s-t. It’s someone who uses snark as a main form of communication, often in a passive-aggressive way. ~ Aimee Nicole Walker, #NFDB
972:The main problem I always have with multiplayer is that human beings are grabby, entitled, selfish, ugly, stupid, evil cockstoppers. ~ Yahtzee Croshaw, #NFDB
973:The main problem was I don’t like people in general and people my age in particular, and people my age are the ones who go to college. ~ Peter Cameron, #NFDB
974:Here's the main page of motivational quotes, if you want a different topic. Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
975:I'm not wedded to covering the markets. I'm intrigued by the markets. If I can connect Main Street with Wall Street, then I've succeeded. ~ Neil Cavuto, #NFDB
976:Letting go of things and not being afraid of being ridiculous or over the top - I think that's the main thing for me to work on. ~ Charlotte Gainsbourg, #NFDB
977:My models, my human figures, are never like extras in an interior. They are the main theme of my work. I depend absolutely on my model. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
978:One of the main goals of self-education is to eradicate that vanity in us without which we would never have been educated. ~ Marie von Ebner Eschenbach, #NFDB
979:The main differences between prostitution and most relationships are the lengths of the relationships and the methods of payment. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
980:The main problem is that we, as an Earth civilization, have not come to understand ourselves - see ourselves in a cosmic sense at all. ~ Edgar Mitchell, #NFDB
981:the main reason most people are not rich is because they are terrified of losing. Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. ~ Robert T Kiyosaki, #NFDB
982:The private area of the White House occupies about twenty thousand square feet on the top two stories of the main historical structure ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
983:As the company grows and about this 25 or so employee size, your main job shifts from building a great product to building a great company. ~ Sam Altman, #NFDB
984:I have seen these pieces so often that I may recognize them sooner than some people, but my main job is just to get them on the table. ~ Gavin de Becker, #NFDB
985:Our main task is not to see that people of great wealth add to it, but that those without much money have a greater chance to earn some. ~ Mitch Daniels, #NFDB
986:that below the main stage were unknown others on which different dramas played out, secretly affecting the lives of everyone upstairs? She ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
987:the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss put it, ancient writing’s main function was “to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings. ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
988:The Big Bang Theory: When geeky scientists can be main characters in a hit prime time series, you know there's hope for the world. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
989:the Buddha’s main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won’t last. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
990:The main thing is to get what little happiness there is out of life in this wartorn world because ‘these are the good old days’ now. ~ Clare Boothe Luce, #NFDB
991:The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
992:The only place healing can occur, wisdom can be realized, compassion can be extended, and peace can be experienced, is the present moment. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
993:Think of every character as a main character. They believe they're the main characters in their stories. No one should just be an obstacle. ~ Ben Edlund, #NFDB
994:What are we doing, burying bodies?" Admittedly, this would be a lace to do it. Isolated, off any main roads.
"Nope. We're going to war. ~ Kelley York,#NFDB
995:At this point, a spaceship could land on Main Street and Elvis could saunter out singing "Love Me Tender," and I wouldn't be surprised ~ Michele Bardsley, #NFDB
996:I’m calling to ask you to please pick up your bike before closing hours. I would hate for you to lose your main form of transportation. ~ Theodora Taylor, #NFDB
997:I'm not a sympathetic main character. My quirks are not lovable. I am not clumsy. I am not overwhelmed by life. I am not unlucky in love. ~ Rahul Kanakia, #NFDB
998:My father mainly liked writers. His friends were writers. He wanted to find the writing. That was his main frustration I think. ~ Stephen Humphrey Bogart, #NFDB
999:One of the main reasons that it is so easy to march men off to war is that each of them feels sorry for the man next to him who will die. ~ Ernest Becker, #NFDB
1000:Poe was the first writer to write about main characters who were bad guys or who were mad guys, and those are some of my favorite stories. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1001:Some people are mistaken, they think birds need feed to survive, but they don't. The main reason to feed birds is to enjoy them. ~ Maggie Elizabeth Jones, #NFDB
1002:The main goal in any criminal statute is to produce what's best for the victim. And sometimes, a mandatory minimum doesn't accomplish that. ~ Paul Martin, #NFDB
1003:The main motivations were to try to leverage Google's expertise with large computer systems and to try to give something back to science ~ Susan Wojcicki, #NFDB
1004:The main part of the house is a deep red and I have butterscotch carpet. And I have a bathroom with leopard skin floor, wallpaper and toilet. ~ Macy Gray, #NFDB
1005:The main problem in developing a deep prayer life is by far the failure to live the radicality of the Gospel, hour by hour and day by day. ~ Thomas Dubay, #NFDB
1006:The main reason I want someone to read a story of mine is so they can enjoy it and feel like they got something interesting out of it. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi, #NFDB
1007:Yet, the main issue is not the shaping of the minds by explicit messages in the media, but the absence of a given content in the media. ~ Manuel Castells, #NFDB
1008:A main focus of Bullet Journaling is to get better at hearing the world around us as well as the one within so we can begin to understand. ~ Ryder Carroll, #NFDB
1009:Desire is the root of all sorrows, the cause of repeated births and deaths, and the main obstacle on the path of liberation. ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, #NFDB
1010:Dialogue that's distinctive, funny, peculiar, and specific is the main thing that makes me want to get involved with a film to begin with. ~ Terry Zwigoff, #NFDB
1011:Each nation has a main current in life; in India it is religion. Make it strong and the waters on either side must move along with it. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1012:"Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future and to make the Now the main focus of your life." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1013:Here’s all you have to know about men and women. Women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid. ~ Mark Nolan, #NFDB
1014:In most books, the I, of first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1015:In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1016:Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1017:I think the thing that interests most actors these days is the strength and the quality of the writing. I think that's the main thing. ~ Philip Baker Hall, #NFDB
1018:Jacques avait dévoré les livres qui lui tombaient sous la main et les avalait avec la même avidité qu’il mettait à vivre, à jouer, à rêver. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1019:My biggest concern and main engagement with UNEP is focused on endangered species and illegal wildlife trade - mostly elephants, rhinos, etc. ~ Yaya Toure, #NFDB
1020:Prayer is the only entryway into genuine self-knowledge. It is also the main way we experience deep change—the reordering of our loves. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1021:The great wisdom traditions of the world all recognize that the main impediment to living a life of meaning is being self-absorbed. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor, #NFDB
1022:The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1023:The main thing going on in the 20th century is a dissolving of boundaries, all the boundaries that historical civilization put in place. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1024:The outsider is not sure who he is. He has found an “I”, but it is not his true “I”.’ His main business is to find his way back to himself. ~ Colin Wilson, #NFDB
1025:As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately. ~ Julianna Baggott, #NFDB
1026:As the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss put it, ancient writing’s main function was “to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings. ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
1027:For me, the main inspiration to write a story or novel is the voice of its central character, or the narrative voice of the story itself. ~ Scott Bradfield, #NFDB
1028:From start to finish, this movie is obviously about God. He is the main character. How is is possible that we live as though it is about us? ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1029:I'd like to have younger people around me and that I'll be involved with them a lot more now, as opposed to me being the main focal point. ~ Bootsy Collins, #NFDB
1030:I wanted to prove that I could do something, so I made a short film. That was in fact my main concern, to be able to show that I could do one. ~ Luc Besson, #NFDB
1031:My main strength as a young writer was that I had no fear of making mistakes. I knew I would and I knew I could and would learn from them. ~ Nikki Giovanni, #NFDB
1032:One of the beauties of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is the very delicate and strange relationship between the two main characters. ~ Stellan Skarsgard, #NFDB
1033:One of the main causes of trouble in the world is dogmatic and fanatical belief in some doctrine for which there is no adequate evidence ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1034:One of the main pitfalls of any theoretically "niche" show is that you spend too much time on the "niche" and not enough time on the "show." ~ Brad Falchuk, #NFDB
1035:The main benefit of controlling a modern bureaucratic state is not the power to persecute the innocent. It is the power to protect the guilty. ~ David Frum, #NFDB
1036:The main thing I don't like about myself is an absurd level of self-consciousness that makes any sort of social encounter an ordeal for me. ~ Jarvis Cocker, #NFDB
1037:The power of every dictator has two main sources: His psychopathic mind and the support of the very easily deceivable ignorant masses! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1038:Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts, unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main. ~ Emily Bronte, #NFDB
1039:and green, a sign that whatever message Daisy was about to deliver was not a catastrophe. If a water main had burst or the air-conditioning ~ Patrick Carman, #NFDB
1040:A rill in a barnyard and the Grand Canyon represent, in the main, stages of valley erosion that began some millions of years apart. ~ George Gaylord Simpson, #NFDB
1041:Get hold of the main thing: That the world and the self are one and perfect. Only your attitude is faulty and needs readjustment. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #NFDB
1042:I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I'm a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary. ~ Tom Waits, #NFDB
1043:Independent of others and in concert with others, your main task in life is to do what you can best do and become what you can potentially be. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1044:I read annual reports of the company I'm looking at and I read the annual reports of the competitors - that is the main source of material. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
1045:Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
1046:Sometimes there are no gigs, but the main thing is the music. You can't take that away. The only person who can take that away from you is you. ~ Mike Stern, #NFDB
1047:Standing at the end of a diving board looking at the water never made the water warmer, but it will make taking the plunge unnecessarily hard. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
1048:The main point is to first get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it. The ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
1049:The main reason I have come here is to shuffle Death back to the place where it belong. That won't happen if I don't get to tangle with it. ~ Susan Meissner, #NFDB
1050:There are two main jobs in acting - the first one is to be a good actor, and the second one is to convince everyone that you're a good actor. ~ Laurence Fox, #NFDB
1051:T’inquiète pas, Papa. Les gens passent leur temps à se pointer des pistolets au visage, ici. C’est presque comme se serrer la main. (Jesper) ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
1052:What would any man do with a soggy girl who can't assert herself, who has a weak voice, and whose main personality component is helplessness? ~ Steve Martin, #NFDB
1053:When you write a story you're telling yourself the story. When you rewrite your main job is taking out all the things that are NOT the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1054:Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
1055:I have a two year old. Just turned two a couple weeks ago, and he is my main man, he is my shadow. Every spare second, I am hanging with him. ~ Rodney Atkins, #NFDB
1056:Life is a great gift, and as we reach years of discretion, most of us naturally ask ourselves what should be the main object of our existence. ~ John Lubbock, #NFDB
1057:My main source for faith-based stuff is mostly the Bible, and a childhood with a much, much higher-than-median exposure to theological thought. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
1058:One of the main reasons I paint is because I think nature is so wonderful. I want to try to get my feelings of that down on canvas, if possible. ~ E J Hughes, #NFDB
1059:Our main work is, by the spirit of God, with the Word of God, to portray the glories of God as more beautiful and more satisfying than anything. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1060:Teaching is the perpetual end and office of all things. Teaching, instruction is the main design that shines through the sky and earth. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1061:The main human problems often are that we misidentify what will make us happy; and we ask people and things to save us beyond their ability. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
1062:What I used to play was rhythm guitar before I saw Jack Bruce. I said, That's what I want to do in life. He was definitely the main influence ~ Geezer Butler, #NFDB
1063:Women are their own worst enemies. And guilt is the main weapon of self-torture…Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilty and I’ll show you a man. ~ Erica Jong, #NFDB
1064:History is full of really good stories. That's the main reason I got into this racket: I want to make the argument that history is interesting. ~ Sarah Vowell, #NFDB
1065:I guess the main thing is, you unconsciously take things for granted, and you think the audience is with you, because you're with yourself. ~ Robert Downey Jr, #NFDB
1066:I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
1067:I've decided to make my main priority for the next two years not playing the violin, but training for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. ~ Vanessa Mae, #NFDB
1068:L’intervention des deux hommes avait peut-être été superflue, mais tout le monde savait que les dieux aidaient ceux qui se prenaient en main. Il ~ Dave Duncan, #NFDB
1069:My main dream - and I'm trying to get 'Living TV' to do it - is to go into prison and interview serial killers, rapists, murderers, psychopaths. ~ Katie Price, #NFDB
1070:My main mistake was to have made an ancient people advance by forced marches toward independence, health, culture, affluence, comfort. ~ Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, #NFDB
1071:Slaves were among the main commodities traded during this era, which preceded the era of European territorial conquests in sub-Saharan Africa. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
1072:The main event has never been the manifestation; the main event has always been the way you feel moment by moment, because that's what life is. ~ Esther Hicks, #NFDB
1073:The main thing for inner contentment is to be in a state of grace. And there is an artistic state of grace, for art is a kind of religion. ~ Georges Rodenbach, #NFDB
1074:Th' first thing to have in a libry is a shelf. Fr'm time to time this can be decorated with lithrachure. But th' shelf is th' main thing. ~ Finley Peter Dunne, #NFDB
1075:We all wish to be of importance in one way or another. The child coughs with might and main, since it has no other claim on the company. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1076:When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1077:A lot of guys come up talking about The Waterboy. I get a lot of that. Misery, Delores Claiborne and The Waterboy, those are the main ones I get. ~ Kathy Bates, #NFDB
1078:He found some dignity in the back pocket of his newly acquired pants and walked up into the main apartment, only tripping once. Or twice. ~ Charlie Jane Anders, #NFDB
1079:Information is the manager's main tool, indeed the manager's capital, and it is he who must decide what information he needs and how to use it. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
1080:I think when you make a movie, one of your main focuses as a director is to inspire everyone else to give their best. Like manipulation. ~ Nicolas Winding Refn, #NFDB
1081:My main focus is ball. I know what butters my toast. I know what my job is and what is expected of me, and that's what's first and foremost. ~ Larry Fitzgerald, #NFDB
1082:One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1083:One of the main points about travelling is to develop in us a feeling of solidarity, of that oneness without which no better world is possible. ~ Ella Maillart, #NFDB
1084:The main principle of this book is that for both optimal health and weight loss, you must consume a diet with a high nutrient-per-calorie ratio. ~ Joel Fuhrman, #NFDB
1085:The main reason that over 90 percent of the American public struggles financially is because they play not to lose. They don’t play to win. ~ Robert T Kiyosaki, #NFDB
1086:The main thing about aliens is that they are alien. They feel no responsibility for fulfilling any of your expectations. (Dark City Lights) ~ Robert Silverberg, #NFDB
1087:The wedding is tomorrow, but as the groom I don’t seem to have too many responsibilities. Be there; that’s the main item on my To Do list. ~ Audrey Niffenegger, #NFDB
1088:We were mugged by some senior citizens on the way from the chopper to the main gate, but no great harm done; they were using vintage revolvers. ~ Alfred Bester, #NFDB
1089:But perhaps the main reason I was not ground down by Irene’s rage was that I always knew that it masked her profound sadness, despair, and fear. ~ Irvin D Yalom, #NFDB
1090:Daily Mojo: Your main competitors are not others in your industry. Your main competitors are distractions. Don't let them beat you - stay focused ~ Darren Hardy, #NFDB
1091:Especially as it was safer for the main team if Wyatt didn’t go with them, what with his sudden but inevitable betrayal still yet to occur. Plus, ~ K B Spangler, #NFDB
1092:I like Macron a lot and I very much welcome him - particularly the fact that he made Europe one of the main topics of the election debate. ~ Jean Claude Juncker, #NFDB
1093:In Romanticism, the main determinant is the mood, the atmosphere. And in that regard, you could also describe Schubert as a Romantic. ~ Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, #NFDB
1094:I studied other singers, so I would learn how to phrase, and learn how to breathe. And the main thing was, I learned how to inhabit my song. ~ Bruce Springsteen, #NFDB
1095:My old man was a walking, talking master class. But in the end, the main thing I learned—the best thing—was never to bring a knife to a gunfight. ~ Teresa Toten, #NFDB
1096:Religion has at one time or another been thought to fill four main roles in human life: explanation, exhortation, consolation and inspiration. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1097:The main claim to fame, I think, of Bernie Sanders - who I've never met; I'm sure he's a pleasant guy - [is that] he's certainly not stupid. ~ Michael Bloomberg, #NFDB
1098:The main reason why we look constantly to the Gita is that, whenever we need help, we may get it from the Gita. And, indeed, we always do get it. ~ Vinoba Bhave, #NFDB
1099:Woman's mind Oft' shifts her passions, like th'inconstant wind; Sudden she rages, like the troubled main, Now sinks the storm, and all is calm again. ~ John Gay, #NFDB
1100:And the main thing is," he continued, "that I know, and know for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure happiness in life. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1101:But than again (and here is one of my main complaints about human consciousness): once you think a thought, it is extremely difficult to unthink it. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1102:Daughters of the South were to their mothers what tributaries were to the main rivers they flowed into: their source of immovable strength. ~ Sarah Addison Allen, #NFDB
1103:Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
1104:Economics deals with society's fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen. ~ Robert P Murphy, #NFDB
1105:If the main pillar of the system is living a lie,” wrote Havel, “then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living in truth. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
1106:I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matterfor that I have determined for myself. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
1107:In a film score, the last thing you want to do is take people out of the movie. The music is secondary. In opera, the music is the main event. ~ Stewart Copeland, #NFDB
1108:Learning to inhibit unwanted contractions of muscles that function without, or in spite of, our will, is the main task in coordinated action. ~ Moshe Feldenkrais, #NFDB
1109:My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
1110:One of the main purpose of art has ever been that of making its indispensable contribution to the growth of entropy of the universal stupidity. ~ William C Brown, #NFDB
1111:One of the main tasks of theology is to find words that do not divide but unite, that do not create conflict but unity, that do not hurt but heal. ~ Henri Nouwen, #NFDB
1112:plot is how the dramatic events (action) in a story change and/or transform the main character (emotion) over time in a meaningful way (theme). ~ Martha Alderson, #NFDB
1113:She saw stormtroopers running down the metal steps to the main floor. And now she looked directly into the terrifying eyes of Count Vidian. ~ John Jackson Miller, #NFDB
1114:So she planned up something that lots of people would see her do. Making a great alibi right in front of all those folks on Main Street. Brilliant. ~ Delia Owens, #NFDB
1115:Spielberg was very young and starting up when we did Sugarland Express and I loved that, but the main thing was that I really loved his talent. ~ Vilmos Zsigmond, #NFDB
1116:Tel était le sens de ma vocation ~ Simone de Beauvoiradulte, je reprendrais en main mon enfance et j'en ferais un chef-d'oeuvre sans faille. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
1117:The main aspect of meditation is, as you become more meditative, you become the boss, your mind becomes the slave, and that is how it should always be. ~ Sadguru, #NFDB
1118:Who would know but ten years ago that kids would be texting each other all the time, that that would be one of their main forms of communication. ~ Amy Klobuchar, #NFDB
1119:A person cannot make another happy, but he can make him unhappy. This is the main reason why there is more unhappiness than happiness in the world. ~ Thomas Szasz, #NFDB
1120:He proposed a steam-powered pneumatic tube system to carry telegraph forms the short distance from the Stock Exchange to the main telegraph office. ~ Tom Standage, #NFDB
1121:I had one life. And what did I do? Wasted it in some palooka preliminaries in Spain, just before Hitler and Chamberlain warm up for the main event. ~ Billy Wilder, #NFDB
1122:I love your arms,’ she sang, as James carried her the long way around the outside of the main building. ‘Big manly arms, carrying little Kerry. ~ Robert Muchamore, #NFDB
1123:In my view, the right to bear arms is in the Constitution for three main reasons: self-protection, community protection, and protection from tyrrany. ~ Glenn Beck, #NFDB
1124:I see no harm in telling young people to prepare for failure rather than success, since failure is the main thing that is going to happen to them. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
1125:I've always been a relaxed person on set, but I think the main thing is I think about it from an editing point of view way more than I did before. ~ Taika Waititi, #NFDB
1126:The main dry storage room of Sin du Jour is filled with a light unseen on Earth since a time of abject innocence.
And that was long ago, indeed. ~ Matt Wallace,#NFDB
1127:The main thing is to be philanthropic in your everyday life. You don't have to have money to do that. You can do it with your time and your energy. ~ Eva Longoria, #NFDB
1128:Walking is my main method of relaxation. I don't go over my lines or try to solve the world's problems, I just enjoy the scenery and the wildlife. ~ Kevin Whately, #NFDB
1129:Don’t embrace mediocrity; its main charm is to make you fall in love with failure. Speed off… Excellence awaits you at the end of your journey! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
1130:Don't follow the mind. Don't follow the body. Follow the Conscience. That is the main principle of this text. So we should follow our Conscience. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
1131:Do you have any ambitions outside racing? My main ambition at the moment, whether inside or outside racing, is to become Formula 1 World Champion. ~ Kimi Raikkonen, #NFDB
1132:How she can be innocent even if she has no intention of harming me; her sweetness and loveliness is the main source of all my pains and sufferings. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
1133:I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1134:I still need some more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
1135:L'amour c'est comme du mercure dans la main. Garde-là ouverte, il te restera dans la paume ; resserre ton étreinte, il te filera entre les doigts. ~ Dorothy Parker, #NFDB
1136:Once you're imagining being the main character, and you're having the conversations and actually being there, the magic in fiction writing takes over. ~ Will Hobbs, #NFDB
1137:One of the main reasons that it is so easy to march men off to war is that deep down each of them feels sorry for the man next to him who will die. ~ Ernest Becker, #NFDB
1138:People are human, not some machine we can control. Main rule-nya: jangan jadiin differences itu alasan untuk ngeluarin emosi dan starting a conflict. ~ Ika Natassa, #NFDB
1139:the assistance given by the ordinary man and woman was simply marvellous and was responsible in the main for the success of our fighting services. ~ Tim Pat Coogan, #NFDB
1140:The main problem is that many support the United Russia Party without even agreeing with its ideology - or even having an ideology of their own. ~ Vladislav Surkov, #NFDB
1141:very often the main problem we face in making a good decision is not the lack of information but our limited capability to process that information ~ Ha Joon Chang, #NFDB
1142:Wah, orang itu kalau sudah fanatik agama kejamnya bukan main. Kejam atas nama Tuhan, kan kontradiksi yang aneh sekali, tetapi begitulah manusia. ~ Y B Mangunwijaya, #NFDB
1143:We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee, we don't take trips on LSD. We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street, we like living right and free. ~ Merle Haggard, #NFDB
1144:We're not mere spectators, or a cosmic accident, or some sideshow, or the Greek chorus to the main event. The human experience IS the main event. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1145:Women are their own worst enemies. And guilt is the main weapon of self-torture . . . Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man. ~ Erica Jong, #NFDB
1146:But then again (and this is one of my main complaints about the human consciousness): once you think a thought it is extremely difficult to unthank it. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1147:He said to tell you that when you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s a little difficult to remember that your main objective was to drain the swamp. ~ Kay Hooper, #NFDB
1148:If you go out there and your main purpose is to get a sponsor, then it's not gonna work. Just go out there and have fun. That's how I got sponsored. ~ Ryan Sheckler, #NFDB
1149:I'm not unaware of the fact that probably my biggest audience is lesbians, and is probably the main reason why I've attained the success that I have. ~ Sharon Gless, #NFDB
1150:I said to the president's wife, Vietnam is the main reason we are having trouble with the youth of America. It is a war without explanation or reason. ~ Eartha Kitt, #NFDB
1151:Life is not a set campaign, but an irregular work, and the main forces in it are not overt resolutions, but latent and half-involuntary promptings. ~ Walter Bagehot, #NFDB
1152:Longfellow has his popularity, in the main, because he tells his story or his idea so that one needs nothing but his verses to understand it. ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
1153:Once again, Rylann tried to catch the eye of the female bartender working Firelight’s main bar.
“One of the few times I’ve ever wished for a penis, ~ Julie James,#NFDB
1154:Only God can see the main road and the back road at the same time—which means that only God can know if you made the right choice or the wrong choice. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
1155:The main characteristic of play - whether of child or adult - is not it content but its mode. Play is an approach to action, not a form of activity. ~ Jerome Bruner, #NFDB
1156:The main motive for nonattachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
1157:The main question is, are we living in a way that adds further aggression and self-centeredness to the mix, or are we adding some much-needed sanity? ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1158:The main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe. ~ John Coltrane, #NFDB
1159:The main thing known about secrets is that keeping them is unhealthy for the brain.46 Psychologist James Pennebaker and his colleagues studied what ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
1160:You see, you’ve asked why and you’re willing to listen to me. That shows true psychology! But the main thing is not to interrupt me with questions ~ Sholom Aleichem, #NFDB
1161:Being put in this situation, where it's myself, Kyle O'Reilly and a Jay Lethal, I think it's the best main event you can have right now in Ring of Honor. ~ Adam Cole, #NFDB
1162:Four Decisions, which emphasizes the main categories of decisions that all companies must get right. They are: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. ~ Verne Harnish, #NFDB
1163:I love a sandwich that you can barely fit in your mouth because there's so much stuff on it. The bread should not be the main thing on a sandwich. ~ Adrianne Palicki, #NFDB
1164:Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1165:My hatred of crowds, the obviousness of crowds, of anything en masse. Is this why I like little-known books? A general desire to escape the main world. ~ John Fowles, #NFDB
1166:One of the main things that I read about it that appealed to me was in Islam a man is honored as a human being and not measured by the color of his skin. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
1167:religion to other religions. Then he came to his main point: the essence of Christianity is not about religion at all, but about the person of Christ. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
1168:The main point that nullification addresses is that a government allowed to determine the scope of its own powers cannot remain limited for long. ~ Thomas E Woods Jr, #NFDB
1169:The main thing isn't knowing whether you're right or wrong. That really doesn't matter. The main thing is to keep people from bothering you. ~ Louis Ferdinand C line, #NFDB
1170:When I first started, my main goal was to not be bartending anymore, and to not be working at the bank anymore. I just wanted acting to be my job. ~ Tracy Spiridakos, #NFDB
1171:When I started drama school, theatre was the main draw. I never had any movie star notions. Not that there were family ties to the theatre, either. ~ Anne Marie Duff, #NFDB
1172:Elvis Presley is the main founding father of rock music. He was an unheralded genius behind a new music that changed western civilization for all time. ~ Peter Noone, #NFDB
1173:If hard work is the source of happiness, then we can conclude that the main job of procrastination is to delay that happiness for excuses to kill. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
1174:I'm a big State Fair person, and my main goal is to eat as much food as possible, but I tend not to do the foods on a stick. But I like Big Fat Bacon. ~ Alison McGhee, #NFDB
1175:May I introduce you all to the main course?" Morpheus spreads out an arm with a dramatic flare. "Dinner, meet your worthy adversaries, the hungry guests. ~ A G Howard, #NFDB
1176:Steven Pinker puts it, “The main lesson of thirty-five years of AI research is that the hard problems are easy and the easy problems are hard. . . ~ Erik Brynjolfsson, #NFDB
1177:That's a big battle to win, to be able to do a main title sequence and a theme song these days. That's not something network television does anymore. ~ Peter M Lenkov, #NFDB
1178:The main concern of the frame is that money be kept in the common wealth (or the hands of the government) in order to be used for the common good. HOW ~ George Lakoff, #NFDB
1179:The main factor in meditation is to keep the mind active in its own pursuit without taking in external impressions or thinking of other matters. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
1180:The main problem with the Democrats is their utter negativity. They're made up of schumucks and hypocrites. They also have higher levels of immorality. ~ Jackie Mason, #NFDB
1181:The main thing is that you have a good editor - one that believes in you and who will give you the feedback that you need to produce a good book. ~ Christopher Darden, #NFDB
1182:The main thing you can change is how you perceive yourself. Stop looking in the mirror and realize that youre living for yourself, not other people. ~ Amanda Seyfried, #NFDB
1183:True power—not to be confused with worldly power—is found at that beautiful
and sacred spot where will and surrender merge into an unstoppable force. ~ Darren Main,#NFDB
1184:Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Bertrand Russell ~ Bertrand Russell,#NFDB
1185:Graham thought that the main problem with the All Night Folding Room was that there was no one around to make fun of the All Night Folding Room with. ~ Katherine Heiny, #NFDB
1186:Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord. J.I. Packer ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1187:The main factor in meditation is to keep the mind active in its own pursuit without taking in external impressions or thinking of other matters. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
1188:The main point for me is moral; animals are sentient beings. I know for some this is a hard argument to accept, but we're not built to eat a lot of meat. ~ Grace Slick, #NFDB
1189:There is one ray of hope. It seems to me that today the responsible leaders of the several peoples have, in the main, the honest will to abolish war. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1190:To be honest, I don't think of any of my characters as minor characters - they're all the main characters in a story that I don't necessarily get to tell. ~ Robin Hobb, #NFDB
1191:We must begin to create a revolutionary, multiracial women’s movement that seriously addresses the main issues affecting poor and working-class women. ~ Angela Y Davis, #NFDB
1192:When leaders fail to empower others, it is usually due to three main reasons: 1. Desire for Job Security 2. Resistance to Change 3. Lack of Self-Worth ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
1193:But I think the main thing is motivation—to have a sincere motivation to help. Then you just do the best you can, and you don’t have to worry about it. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1194:If the main pillar of the system is living a lie,” wrote Havel, “then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living in truth.” Since ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
1195:I have made the Bhagwad Gita as the main source of my inspiration and guide for the purpose of scientific investigations and formation of my theories. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1196:imagined how great it would feel to jump into the water to cool off. Sure, she could just go inside the main cabin and freeze in the air conditioning. But ~ Kaira Rouda, #NFDB
1197:In my case, performance is part of the medium. Sometimes I feel that it's my main medium, and that the presentation of my poems on the page is secondary. ~ James Arthur, #NFDB
1198:It is neither cowardice nor betrayal to insist that the Enlightenment's main lesson is to be mindful of how much it has left its inheritors to figure out. ~ Samuel Moyn, #NFDB
1199:It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
1200:I've met Jon Glaser who has a show on Adult Swim call Delocated and he's the main writer we hired for the show. That's really my brand of humor, I would say. ~ Joe Buck, #NFDB
1201:Jane will be quite an old main soon,I declare. She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before three-and-twenty! ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
1202:Making a film is so hard that if you don't have your main actors going along with the ride with the rest of the crew it can make your life very difficult. ~ Alan Parker, #NFDB
1203:My one main secret I did right after my pageants days, is I only wash my hair once a week. I tell everyone, 'You have to stop washing your hair so much!' ~ Joyce Giraud, #NFDB
1204:One of my main techniques for acting is I try to know almost nothing beyond the words that I have to say, because that's my zone of control. ~ Kristin Bauer van Straten, #NFDB
1205:Others said May was best, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens along Main Street were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips. ~ Alice Hoffman, #NFDB
1206:Religious people split into three main groups when faced with science. I shall label them the "know-nothings", the "know-alls", and the "no-contests." ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1207:The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings," said Paul, "not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
1208:The main problem, when an organization wants to map the future of x, is that it too often defines x far too narrowly, using the old market research paradigm. ~ Amy Webb, #NFDB
1209:The main reason God has given us minds is that we might seek out and find all the reasons that exist for treasuring him in all things and above all things. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1210:the main reason God has given us minds is that we might seek out and find all the reasons that exist for treasuring him in all things and above all things. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1211:The uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it finds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this is a main function of life. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1212:At the beginning of the road into the swamp they put up a sign that said MACONDO and another larger one on the main street that said GOD EXISTS. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
1213:But what does a Ministry of Magic do?” “Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there’s still witches an’ wizards up an’ down the country. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1214:Each of us seems to have a main focus, a particular idea of practicality - a concept of 'what we want out of life' against which we judge our experiences. ~ Jane Roberts, #NFDB
1215:Emerging onto the main level, Mappo and Fiddler were accosted with the harsh echo of a shouting voice, bouncing down the hallway from the altar chamber. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
1216:How does this affect the rest of your team? How on board are the people not on this call? What do your colleagues see as their main challenges in this area? ~ Chris Voss, #NFDB
1217:I acted in junior high in the junior high school group, and then when I got into senior high I was, you know, the main actor of the senior high school. ~ Richard Foreman, #NFDB
1218:It was raining in the small, mountainous country of Llamedos. It was always raining in Llamedos. Rain was the country's main export. It had rain mines. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1219:The most important thing is that it's much more fun to play in a band than to be in an audience in a club. That's the main thing I think, that you can do it. ~ Ikue Mori, #NFDB
1220:To define success or failure for a platform, and to identify how to improve it, there are three main metrics: liquidity, matching quality, and trust. ~ Geoffrey G Parker, #NFDB
1221:When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story,' he said. 'When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1222:When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,’ he said. ‘When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1223:When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1224:Withholding things in a story is no good if you aren't building to something substantial. It becomes foreplay without the main event, and no one wants that. ~ J J Abrams, #NFDB
1225:You discover that the main cause of your suffering is the seed of anger in you, because it has been watered too often, by yourself and by other people. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
1226:An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life—becoming a better person. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1227:And I realize now that the two main themes of my novels were stated by my siblings: 'Here I am, cleaning shit off of practically everything' and 'No pain. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
1228:But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
1229:By the ancients, courage was regarded as practically the main part of virtue; by us, though I hope we are not less brave, purity is so regarded now. ~ Julius Charles Hare, #NFDB
1230:I dont want to be labeled one thing. My main thing I care about is being able to create the things I want to do with my friends, whatever platform that is. ~ Derek Waters, #NFDB
1231:I'm mad emotional. But my emotions are - I don't really get just like sad, I get hyper, and I be like mad, and I get hungry - that's like my main emotion. ~ Vince Staples, #NFDB
1232:The enemy must be annihilated before he reaches our main battlefield. We must stop him in the water, destroying all his equipment while it is still afloat! ~ Erwin Rommel, #NFDB
1233:The main challenge Not For Sale is big and it is modern day slavery, which is a $32billion dollar industry second to the illegal trade of drugs and arms. ~ David Batstone, #NFDB
1234:The main difference for the history of the world if I had been shot rather than Kennedy is that Onassis probably wouldn't have married Mrs Khrushchev. ~ Nikita Khrushchev, #NFDB
1235:The main thing right now is just going out and having fun. I know what I want to do. If I go out and have fun and relax, then all my goals should come true. ~ Ryan Howard, #NFDB
1236:The main witness, Harper, the state trooper i was supposed to have shot, testified he had told an “untruth” on direct examination but denied it was a lie. ~ Assata Shakur, #NFDB
1237:We're all watching each other, so there's no chance for censorship. The main problem is the idiot TV. If you watch local news, your head will turn to mush. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
1238:We rounded the corner to the door of the building, and I came to a dead stop. Lounging on a bench beside the main entry to the Psychology building was Holden. ~ Ivy Layne, #NFDB
1239:When my first wife & I began the school, we had one main idea: to make the school fit the child - instead of making the child fit the school. ~ Alexander Sutherland Neill, #NFDB
1240:Your mother just carried you literally. The one who really gave you to her is the one who really knows about the main problem you were meant to solve! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
1241:But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1242:Des fois, je donnerais ma main à couper pour devenir tout de suite un homme et d'autres fois il me semble que je ne voudrais pas survivre à ma jeunesse. ~ Jean Paul Sartre, #NFDB
1243:For the NA market the focus tends to be on actions by game characters while for the Japanese market their characterization is more likely to be the main focus. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1244:Hidden within the main conflict were dozens of other, more local wars, which had different flavours and different motivations in each country and each region. ~ Keith Lowe, #NFDB
1245:I don’t drink tea. I hate it. It’s mud. Moreover it’s one of the main reasons for the downfall of the British Empire. Be a good girl and make me some coffee. ~ Ian Fleming, #NFDB
1246:If two spouses each say, “I’m going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the marriage,” you have the prospect of a truly great marriage. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1247:I heard the main reason the Israelites spent forty years wandering in the desert looking for the Promised Land was because Moses refused to ask directions. ~ Mary Connealy, #NFDB
1248:I'm always fascinated by losers. Also, in my "Foucault's Pendulum," the main characters, who are in a way losers, they are more interesting than the winners. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
1249:It [piano lessons] wasn't a priority, but it was an interest and through that I became acquainted with classical music, which was a main interest at the time. ~ Paul Smith, #NFDB
1250:Just because your story had a few chapters where I wasn’t the main lead doesn’t make me any less the love of your life. And you’re mine. This is it. This is us. ~ L J Shen, #NFDB
1251:Let the main thing that we prize in God’s house be, not the outward ornaments of it, or a high seat in it, but the word of God and his ordinances in it. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1252:Mastery of design, empathy, play, and other seemingly “soft” aptitudes is now the main way for individuals and firms to stand out in a crowded marketplace. ~ Daniel H Pink, #NFDB
1253:My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too. ~ Jack Welch, #NFDB
1254:The main thing is to feel your presence—hear you humming or yawning, see your combs & brushes lying around, worry about which dress you should put on, etc. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
1255:The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
1256:the real reason I had wanted to grow up, the main reason I had been willing to even consider becoming an adult, was so I could have as many pets as I wanted. ~ Betsy Byars, #NFDB
1257:There are now electrical appliances with the main unit so sealed in that it cannot be got at for repair. There have always been human beings like that. ~ Mignon McLaughlin, #NFDB
1258:The study of acting consists in the main of getting out of one’s own way, and in learning to deal with uncertainty and being comfortable being uncomfortable. ~ David Mamet, #NFDB
1259:Though times have changed, it's a nice surprise to see that youthful feeling of anti-war sentiment returning once more to the cobbled main streets of Europe. ~ Cat Stevens, #NFDB
1260:But the perception of life as an organic unity is a slow achievement, and depends for its growth on a people's entry into the main current of world-events. ~ Muhammad Iqbal, #NFDB
1261:For me, the main principle for broadcasters has to be that if people stand to benefit from an interview, they should be prepared to face some downside as well. ~ Evan Davis, #NFDB
1262:From the masthead one can see a few patches of open water in different directions, but the main outlook is the same scene of desolate hummocky pack. ~ Apsley Cherry Garrard, #NFDB
1263:had come to suspect that the main reason he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1264:I found that one of the main reasons happy couples are so happy is because they always try to assume that their spouses have good intentions toward them. ~ Shaunti Feldhahn, #NFDB
1265:If we're going to be an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and that includes Wall Street and Main Street. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
1266:I think I'm in a really nice position, where I'm sure I could do another show if I wanted to do one, but right now the main thing in my mind is writing songs. ~ Chris Isaak, #NFDB
1267:My brother. Are you ready?” “Yes,” the other replied. “You realize I’m going to use your computer to hack pm.gov.tn?” “OK,” the main replied. “Tell me what to ~ Parmy Olson, #NFDB
1268:My dad calls me 'Mac' a lot, from 'Mike Tyson's Punch Out' - Little Mac is the main character. I was obsessed. I can still beat Mike Tyson on 'Punch Out.' ~ Mayer Hawthorne, #NFDB
1269:My main life lesson from investing: self-interest is the most powerful force on earth, and can get people to embrace and defend almost anything. ~ Jesse Lauriston Livermore, #NFDB
1270:One of the main ways we move from abstract knowledge about God to a personal encounter with him as a living reality is through the furnace of affliction. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1271:There are two traditions in Northern Ireland. There are two main religious denominations. But there is only one true moral denomination. And it wants peace. ~ David Trimble, #NFDB
1272:When a study was made a few years ago on runaway wives, what do you think was discovered to be the main reason wives ran away? It was “lack of appreciation. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
1273:Capitalism is, in Mao's language, the main contradiction in the world today and so our efforts have to be focused on ending this system and making a new one. ~ Michael Yates, #NFDB
1274:Eva knew that her mom hadn’t gotten the vegan sorbet because it was too expensive. In their home, cost was the main reason why something good didn’t happen. ~ J Ryan Stradal, #NFDB
1275:Greece is a particular worry for regulators as Athens says deferred tax assets represent 30-40 per cent of the core tier one capital in the country’s main banks. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1276:Herein lies the main objective of portraiture and also its main difficulty. The photographer probes for the innermost. The lens sees only the surface... . ~ Philippe Halsman, #NFDB
1277:I could live without acting.... Acting is a gift I've received. And I'm grateful for it and I enjoy it. But it's not the main point of my life. It never was. ~ Jeanne Moreau, #NFDB
1278:In 2016 we are faced with a particularly bizarre and unappetizing choice as regards the two main political parties' presidential candidates, in my opinion. ~ Viggo Mortensen, #NFDB
1279:I think it's one of the main negative emotional ingredients that fuels show business, because there's so much at stake and the fear of failure looms large. ~ Garry Shandling, #NFDB
1280:I think the main reason a lot of child stars don't make it is that it's hard to see someone as cute and then all of a sudden see them as having more depth. ~ Christina Ricci, #NFDB
1281:It keeps us ever mindful of life, how it streams by in an awful rush if one is not careful to stop and listen...and honestly see. (Main character Annie Zook) ~ Beverly Lewis, #NFDB
1282:I've never been keen on open adoption. It doesn't seem to solve the main problem with adoption, which is that somebody feels she was abandoned by someone else. ~ Joan Didion, #NFDB
1283:Just after nightfall, a warrant arrived at the city’s main women’s prison for the execution of Sajida al-Rishawi. The instructions had come from King Abdullah ~ Joby Warrick, #NFDB
1284:Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use. ~ Ezra Pound, #NFDB
1285:My main concern is meeting with public because my main commitment, main interest is promotion of human value, human affection, compassion and religious harmony. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1286:My main objective with a home studio - I could get into doing full band demos - but my first objective is to cut things like guitar tracks and solos at home. ~ John Petrucci, #NFDB
1287:One of Netscape's main attractions to customers from Day One is that we provide alternatives. And that's cherished by many customers - certainly not all. ~ James L Barksdale, #NFDB
1288:She would expect explanations from her Main Man, and while I had invented mansplaining and was its foremost practitioner, I had no answers to give her. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1289:system, as the advanced economic sector which directly shapes a growing multitude of image-objects, the spectacle is the main production of present-day society. ~ Guy Debord, #NFDB
1290:The answer is that each element corresponds to one solution of the main equation of quantum mechanics. The whole of chemistry emerges from a single equation. ~ Carlo Rovelli, #NFDB
1291:The main activity of programming is not the origination of new independent programs, but in the integration, modification, and explanation of existing ones. ~ Terry Winograd, #NFDB
1292:The main effect of turning a partnership into a corporation was to transfer the financial risk to the shareholders. “When things go wrong it’s their problem, ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
1293:The main thing that 99designs is about is choice. Its a fantastic model that eliminates risk for small business owners and puts designers on equal footing. ~ Matt Mickiewicz, #NFDB
1294:The two main hazards of psychoanalysis: that it might fail, and that if it succeeds, you'll never be able to forgive yourself for all those wasted years. ~ Mignon McLaughlin, #NFDB
1295:Civil disobedience's main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1296:Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried. —FRANK TYGER, POLITICAL CARTOONIST AND COLUMNIST I ~ Josh Kaufman, #NFDB
1297:[...] et déjà je ne souhaitais plus rien au-delà de son sourire, et que de marcher avec elle, ainsi, dans un tiède chemin bordé de fleurs, en lui donnant la main. ~ Andr Gide, #NFDB
1298:I don't really usually push an agenda, and I don't feel that my main job is to persuade people of something. My main job is to help them think about something. ~ Louis Menand, #NFDB
1299:If I were Satan and my ultimate goal was to thwart God's kingdom and purposes, one of my main strategies would be to get churchgoers to ignore the Holy Spirit. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1300:I have one main reader, Miriam Gomez, my wife. She reads everything I write - I have not finished writing something and she is already reading it. ~ Guillermo Cabrera Infante, #NFDB
1301:In principle, there are only three main components of spending that much matter to monetary policy: consumer spending, business investment and exports and trade. ~ Evan Davis, #NFDB
1302:Kindle is not only just an E book reader. Apart from that, it supports many features to give users a great Experience. The main features are, • 1. TTS stands for ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1303:Socrate. Tiens-tu quelque chose ?
Strepsiade. Non, par Zeus, non certes.
Socrate. Rien du tout ?
Strepsiade. Rien... que ma verge dans ma main droite. ~ Aristophanes,#NFDB
1304:The fear of creative destruction is the main reason why there was no sustained increase in living standards between the Neolithic and Industrial revolutions. ~ Daron Acemo lu, #NFDB
1305:This is, in fact, our main part to play in God’s Story: to trust him even when common sense makes us scratch our head and wonder what in the world is going on. ~ Randy Frazee, #NFDB
1306:You don't want to take the world over with a whole hamper full of dirty clothes. That's the main thing people overlook. And take a shower, take a bath every day. ~ J B Smoove, #NFDB
1307:I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. ~ Michel Foucault, #NFDB
1308:I studied theater in college, and I really wanted to be an actress and play a lot of different roles. Then I made landing on a television comedy my main focus. ~ Jenna Fischer, #NFDB
1309:Main characters never die in books. If they did, the story would be ruined, or over.”
“Everybody is a main character to someone. There are no minor characters. ~ Amy Harmon,#NFDB
1310:My main problem is that over and over again, I try to get all my characters to say stuff that I think is so witty or erudite you know, so that everybody will go. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
1311:One of the main lessons I had learned is that exfiltrations are almost ninety percent logistics - just making sure everything is lined up as it needs to be. ~ Antonio J M ndez, #NFDB
1312:The main mistake most marketers make is to use Twitter primarily as an extension of their blog, a place to push a link to content they have posted elsewhere. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk, #NFDB
1313:The main thing that's missing in energy is an incentive to create things that are zero-CO2-emitting and that have the right scale and reliability characteristics. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
1314:They read in an airline magazine that they can manage their whole supply chain in the cloud for $499 per year, and suddenly that’s the main company initiative. When ~ Gene Kim, #NFDB
1315:We have a freer world because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the changes in China. Those two have been the main contributors to freedom in our time. ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
1316:We're here to get to know and study ourselves. The path, the way to do that, our main vehicle, is going to be meditation, and some sense of general wakefulness. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
1317:Whenever people say they didn't like the main character of a book, they mean they didn't like the book. The main character has to be a friend? I don't get that. ~ Melissa Bank, #NFDB
1318:With Alibaba’s operation of U.S. marketplace 11 Main and investment in Prime-mimicker Shop Runner, outfits like Tech Armor will have more choices of where to sell. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1319:Words are but the bannerets of a great army, a few bits of waving color here and there; thoughts are the main body of the footman that march unseen below. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
1320:Almost as though the painting itself becomes the embodiment of a type of struggle for visibility, and this might be considered the main subject of the painting. ~ Kehinde Wiley, #NFDB
1321:Asana, with its soothing, stretching and relaxing action, is the main physical exercise for balancing the doshas. It calms Vata, cools Pitta and releases Kapha. ~ David Frawley, #NFDB
1322:But let’s be real: feminism has mostly worked hard for those things for white women, and that is one of the main reasons why it gets its wig snatched so often. A ~ Luvvie Ajayi, #NFDB
1323:Dreaming, in short, is one of the devices we employ to circumvent repression, one of the main methods of what may be called indirect representation in the mind. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
1324:Forcing Your body into a yoga pose is like brushing your teeth with a wire brush. You may get rid of the plaque but gingivitis will be the least of your concerns. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
1325:Horror films are very functional like comedies. The main thing with a comedy, the big question is "is it funny?" And with horror the question is "is it scary?" ~ Leigh Whannell, #NFDB
1326:I describe System 1 as effortlessly originating impressions and feelings that are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
1327:I'd read things, like people criticizing me. But no one likes to read stuff about that, and probably the main thing that was getting to me was me mum's illness. ~ Jack Osbourne, #NFDB
1328:In his school, Bertrand Russell thought it was better if they had the sex, so they could give their undivided attention to mathematics, which was the main thing. ~ Paul Goodman, #NFDB
1329:I set out to be a cross between Lenny Bruce and Robert the Bruce - my main thrust was the body and its functions and malfunctions - the absurdity of the thing. ~ Billy Connolly, #NFDB
1330:My main thing is I'm gonna go out there every night and give it all I got and just try to put on the best show I can. That's just the way I'm programmed and wired. ~ Luke Bryan, #NFDB
1331:Puis ce fut la ronde de l'amour: la peur qui donne la main au désir, la tendresse et la rage, et cette souffrance brutale qui suivait, triomphant, le plaisir. ~ Fran oise Sagan, #NFDB
1332:The main difference between illustration and comics is that comics are much, much more work. Every comics page is the equivalent of six to nine illustrations. ~ Molly Crabapple, #NFDB
1333:The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences; of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
1334:The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can't save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly. ~ Benjamin Hoff, #NFDB
1335:The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can't save time, you can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly. ~ Benjamin Hoff, #NFDB
1336:The main selling appeal of NAFTA to US corporations is that it gives them an advantage in the North American market over their European and Japanese competitors. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1337:There are tree main bulwarks of defence against new thoughts: to pay no heed, to give no credence, and finally to assert that it had already long existed. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
1338:There is a young and impressionable mind out there that is hungry for information. It has latched on to an electronic tube as its main source of nourishment. ~ Joan Ganz Cooney, #NFDB
1339:"We're here to get to know and study ourselves. The path, the way to do that, our main vehicle,is going to be meditation, and some sense of general wakefulness." ~ Pema Chödrön, #NFDB
1340:What most likely caused the second event was the rupture of a main steam line, carrying steam under extreme pressure. This was Turner’s theory from the beginning. ~ Erik Larson, #NFDB
1341:When we free ourselves from the false promise of reward, we often find that the thing we were seeking happiness from was the main source of our misery." p.129 ~ Kelly McGonigal, #NFDB
1342:When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.” Gould ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1343:away from or classed differently from a main or related body 2: a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample 1. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1344:Consider that as a principle of love is the main principle in the heart of a real Christian, so the labor of love, is the main business of the Christian life. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1345:First, there was 2 Stupid Dogs. Then, Dexters Laboratory. And now, Powerpuff Girls. There were a lot of little things in between, but those were the main ones. ~ Craig McCracken, #NFDB
1346:He main retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. Dostoevsky said once, 'There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings'. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
1347:If I don't understand you, I may be angry at you, all the time. We are not capable of understanding each other, and that is the main source of human suffering. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
1348:In the second of Road’s main innovations, Vogt summed up the relationship between humanity and this global environment with a single concept: carrying capacity. ~ Charles C Mann, #NFDB
1349:Like Art, Tea has its periods and its schools. Its evolution may be roughly divided into three main stages: the Boiled Tea, the Whipped Tea, and the Steeped Tea. ~ Kakuz Okakura, #NFDB
1350:My kids are my main hobby but, now theyve gotten older, theyve forced me to do things without them. I do a lot of things with my boat. My wife and I enjoy boating. ~ Ric Flair, #NFDB
1351:New Year's Day probably is not going to work. And one of the main reasons it's not going to work is that the Rose Bowl is on New Year's Day, and it's not moving. ~ Audie Cornish, #NFDB
1352:One thing you don't want to do as a host is be running around all evening. Do as much as you can ahead of time, so all you have to do is grill the main ingredients. ~ Bobby Flay, #NFDB
1353:Relationship with another is like gazing into a still pond. You will either see your own face reflected or the depth of the water, but never both at the same time. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
1354:The main international problem facing America is our lack of - our loss of influence in the world and our lack of an ability to define what U.S. interests really are. ~ Bob Barr, #NFDB
1355:The main thing is to write for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust that imagines its haven like your hands at night dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast. ~ Seamus Heaney, #NFDB
1356:The orders come direct from the Führer, so there can be no argument. Several other camps will take some of the load, but Auschwitz is to be a main disposal center. ~ Herman Wouk, #NFDB
1357:…This remains the great deficiency of literature: its imitation of nature cannot prepare you for the main events. For the main events, only experience will answer. ~ Martin Amis, #NFDB
1358:Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, ... I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
1359:But the main lesson we can extract from biology is that it’s better to cultivate a team of populations that attack the problem in different, overlapping manners. ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
1360:Conservative Denyers and Delayers are the main reason America lacks the consensus and the political will to take up the fight against catastrophic climate change. ~ Joseph J Romm, #NFDB
1361:[he brend] gotta be with my fashion I gotta be comfortable with it and want to wear it more than anyone else. So that's really my main objective when it comes to that. ~ Lil Herb, #NFDB
1362:in the book i'm reading (The Principal) the main chareter best friend has to go to a differnt school. I can picture them waiting at the bus stop together crying. ~ Jerry Spinelli, #NFDB
1363:My books are based on emotions, feelings, relationships. In these areas women are experts, so it's not strange that the main characters of my novels are females. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
1364:No matter where we come from, a little sugar is what everybody demands in life, what everybody needs in life. It's perhaps the main ingredient that keeps us alive. ~ Merce Cardus, #NFDB
1365:Revelation 6–16 is the main section of the Bible that describes the end-times Tribulation. These eleven chapters focus upon the awful judgments of the end times. ~ Mark Hitchcock, #NFDB
1366:The main reason guys will never admit to having even the teeniest clue about what women really want is because if they did, they'd have to do something about it. ~ Barbara Graham, #NFDB
1367:The main thing a childhood in the Church did for me, I think, was set up the universe as a moral system. Once you've seen it that way, it always seems that way. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
1368:The main thing I've learned is that we all have to learn to work with - and appreciate - the brain we've been given, and not waste time wishing things were easier. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
1369:The main thing you need to know about instructions is that no one is going to read them—at least not until after repeated attempts at “muddling through” have failed. ~ Steve Krug, #NFDB
1370:Yeah, the main goal when I'm writing [movie scripts] is to entertain myself. It's supposed to be funny, but then a funny idea can be turned into something else. ~ Quentin Dupieux, #NFDB
1371:You want to be in a movie where your part works. That's the main thing. No matter how you beat yourself working on the thing, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. ~ Jeff Goldblum, #NFDB
1372:But the main thing I had to do in 1928 was watch my step. Play along with the farce. Brush my teeth. Comb my hair. At all costs, stifle my natural hideous laughter. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
1373:Checking a gauge, Maddox saw that he was supersonic. Now, he kept a close eye on his height meter. “Get ready to deploy your main parachute,” Galyan said shortly. ~ Vaughn Heppner, #NFDB
1374:My main intention was to not only create collections that defined myself and style, but to also create things that my fans identify with me and feel a belonging to. ~ Ashley Purdy, #NFDB
1375:The main peculiarity which distinguishes man from other animals is the means of his support - the power which he possesses of very greatly increasing these means. ~ Thomas Malthus, #NFDB
1376:The 'Main Street' retailers ... see customers come to the store to locate items ... only to leave and order the items over the Internet just to escape the sales tax. ~ John McCain, #NFDB
1377:We have to dedicate our efforts to better the life, the time passed by the worker in the industrial plant. That will be one of our main efforts during the next year. ~ Che Guevara, #NFDB
1378:We rebelled by criminal methods against the joyfulness of the new life.” —LESZEK KOLAKOWSKI QUOTING BUKHARIN AT HIS TRIAL, IN MAIN CURRENTS OF MARXISM, VOL. 3, P. 82 ~ Clive James, #NFDB
1379:What the photos make clear is that the main factor that affects how people live is not their religion, their culture, or the country they live in, but their income. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
1380:You have to remember that I played longer than anybody else on the main tour; I played until I was 40, and then played another six years or so on the seniors tour. ~ Jimmy Connors, #NFDB
1381:and he would probably not agree with my conviction that a sense of humor is the main measure of sanity. But who can say for sure? Humor is a very private thing. ~ Hunter S Thompson, #NFDB
1382:As a Southerner I would have to say that one of the main importances of the War is that Southerners have a sense of defeat which none of the rest of the country has. ~ Shelby Foote, #NFDB
1383:As for my career, I always said to my kids, 'You don't cry because it's over, you're happy because it happened.' That's the main thing. I'm very happy that it happened. ~ Pat Burns, #NFDB
1384: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
1385:Every action is seen to fall into one of three main categories, guarding, hitting, or moving. Here, then, are the elements of combat, whether in war or pugilism. ~ B H Liddell Hart, #NFDB
1386:If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it. ~ Margaret Thatcher, #NFDB
1387:I hope my work has inspired young artists. I have always tried to maintain my freedom as an artist and I feel it is one of the main reasons I have been successful. ~ Frank Frazetta, #NFDB
1388:I'm really trying not to feel I'm getting spoiled, because the way I look at it, since I'm not a main character of any of the movies, I realize just how fortunate I am. ~ Ken Jeong, #NFDB
1389:Islam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the west at least, a man dying in a devastating, disgraceful, helpless death. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1390:I think if you use Twitter and social media as your main source of information you are an idiot, but I think most people who use it know better, so I kind of enjoy it. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
1391:Main Street has too much debt already. It is simply a bonanza for speculators who can borrow the overnight money and then buy something that they can speculate on. ~ David Stockman, #NFDB
1392:Meine Wissenschaft gibt mir Wachträume, die andere nicht einmal im Schlafen haben."
Peter Handke: Langsame Heimkehr. Erzählung. Frankfurt am Main 1994, S. 63. ~ Peter Handke,#NFDB
1393:Prana... is the spirit of mantra. Mantra in turn is the expression of prana. Whatever most engages our prana or vital energy becomes the main subject of our speech. ~ David Frawley, #NFDB
1394:The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
1395:The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation. ~ Constantin Stanislavski, #NFDB
1396:The main thing Karate offers to me is a philosophy of life. The philosophy of Karate is respect and discipline. You give 100% of whatever you do, in every activity. ~ Lyoto Machida, #NFDB
1397:There's something in psychology called the narrative paradigm, which essentially means that we think of our lives as stories in which we are the main characters. ~ Aleksandar Hemon, #NFDB
1398:This may sound somewhat obvious but, as the French philosopher Voltaire once famously pointed out, the main problem with common sense is that it is not so common. ~ Richard Wiseman, #NFDB
1399:Behind a leader there must be followers, but they should always be on the lookout for the main chance and ready to change sides if the current leader doesn't deliver. ~ Mary Douglas, #NFDB
1400:But books–they’re different. When you watch a film, you’re sort of an outsider looking in. With a book–you’re right there. You are inside. You are the main character. ~ Alice Oseman, #NFDB
1401:Creativity has a lot to do with the main idea. Inspiration is what comes when you are dealing with the idea. But inspiration won't invite what's not there to begin with. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
1402:Even in parts of the showcase capital of Pyongyang, you can stroll down the middle of a main street at night without being able to see the buildings on either side. ~ Barbara Demick, #NFDB
1403:from Thomas Carlyle that helped him lead a life free from worry: “Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
1404:He felt a mixture of fear and excitement, but his main concerns were not dying, making his mentors proud, and not making a fool of himself, in that order of importance. ~ Wesley Chu, #NFDB
1405:His name was Sir William Osler, and these are the words he read: “Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. ~ Robert Morgan, #NFDB
1406:I am not a pacifist. The main lesson I have learned in my dealings with Hitler is that one simply can’t play poker with a gangster if one has no cards in one’s hand. ~ Robert Harris, #NFDB
1407:I didn't grow up a theatre kid, going to theatre camps. I played sports, and that was my main direction. But luckily, I never had to choose between sports and theatre. ~ Aaron Tveit, #NFDB
1408:I made mistakes. My supporters and I failed to prevent a main like [Mikhail] Saakashvili from acquiring absolute power. I should have criticized him earlier on. ~ Irakli Okruashvili, #NFDB
1409:Once we acknowledge that God is the main character, only then can we even begin to get to that place where we’re no longer tempted to let our emotions drive us. We ~ Craig Groeschel, #NFDB
1410:One of the main point of contention is whether or not Keith Scott was in possession of a gun. We still don`t know. Police say he did have a gun. The gun was recovered. ~ Chris Hayes, #NFDB
1411:Religion has nothing to do with compassion; it is our love for God that is the main thing because we have all been created for the sole purpose to love and be loved. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
1412:The main affliction of our modern civilization is that we don’t know how to handle the suffering inside us and we try to cover it up with all kinds of consumption. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
1413:The Sabbath, as now recognized and enforced, is one of the main pillars of Priestcraft and Superstition, and the stronghold of a merely ceremonial Religion. ~ William Lloyd Garrison, #NFDB
1414:The successful leader may be the person who recognizes that we all have talents and who thus sees her or his main job as encouraging mindfulness in those being led. ~ Ellen J Langer, #NFDB
1415:Tony Plummer brilliantly pointed out in his book, Forecasting Financial Markets, the main leader of the market is price. Price is the leader of the market crowd. Traders ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1416:Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1417:Trustworthiness is the thing that you need the most going to a presidential election. Honest and trustworthy is one of the main questions in any presidential election. ~ Dana Perino, #NFDB
1418:What I found was a moment where the main character has to figuratively look at himself, as in the mirror. He is confronted with a disturbing truth: change or die. ~ James Scott Bell, #NFDB
1419:When I get called in for stuff for Hollywood, I get to be the best friend of the Caucasian leadIf I want to play the main guy, I have found, I have to write it. ~ Lin Manuel Miranda, #NFDB
1420:With fiction, the works of women are often over-interpreted as autobiography, especially when the main character is a woman, especially if she is seen as privileged. ~ Kate Zambreno, #NFDB
1421:Beware 'good' main characters who have a limited repertory of culturally acceptable feelings, while your evil bastards have a full range of vivid, passionate feelings. ~ Bill Johnson, #NFDB
1422:But the main reason Scanners are different from others, and the reason they get noticed for not sticking to anything, is because they learn faster than almost anybody. ~ Barbara Sher, #NFDB
1423:I am now convinced that the Great Pyramid of Giza was built to also celebrate the Spring equinox -in its own way- as the Mayan main pyramid at Chichen Itza, Mexico. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
1424:I do not accept reading tips from strangers, especially from indecisive men whose shirt collars are a dramatically different color from the main portion of the garment. ~ Joe Queenan, #NFDB
1425:If you say in advance there is going to be a main candidate and then that doesn't count later, then that's going to be a highly problematic occurrence in a democracy. ~ Martin Schulz, #NFDB
1426:It is strange that the tactile sense, which is so infinitely less precious to men than sight, becomes at critical moments our main, if not only, handle to reality. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
1427:It's always hard to predict what's coming up next. My main guess is that content creators will increasingly start using BitTorrent to distribute their own work directly. ~ Bram Cohen, #NFDB
1428:Like all born politicians, their eye was for the main chance rather than for the argument, and they found it easier to forswear a conviction than to forego a comfort. ~ Ellen Glasgow, #NFDB
1429:Muhabbat apni marzi se khulay pinjray main totay ki tarha bethnay ki salaahiyat hai. Muhabbat is ghulami ka toq hai jo insaan khud apnay ekhtyar se galay main dalta hai ~ Bano Qudsia, #NFDB
1430:Physically I feel pretty good; that's the main key, is just making sure your body is ready to play every night since you play so many games and I feel like I'm there. ~ Stephen Curry, #NFDB
1431:The ego mind is like a plant growing in a very small pot. While the pot may be
attractive and ornate, its size doesn’t allow the plant to express its full potential. ~ Darren Main,#NFDB
1432:The journalist, whose main duty is speed, is likely sometimes to get an advantage over the diplomatist whose main object is accuracy. ~ George Curzon 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, #NFDB
1433:The main focus for me is not trying to find duet partners. It's about just making great songs. I want most of my album to be in my voice, because it's my point of view. ~ John Legend, #NFDB
1434:Trilllian had come to suspect that the main reason he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1435:All for each, and each for all, is a good motto; but only on condition that each works with might and main to so maintain himself as not to be a burden to others. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
1436:And why do the main characters always have to hate each other at the beginning of the movie? Like, hello, red flag. It’s so obvious they’re going to get together. ~ Catherine McKenzie, #NFDB
1437:Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes. ~ John Ford, #NFDB
1438:As she left the church, shaking her head, she heard Cole saying Kyle’s name again and again. It was like he’d just discovered fire, and Kyle was the main ingredient. ~ Debra Anastasia, #NFDB
1439:Here’s all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.” ~ Jewel E AnnGeorge Carlin ~ Jewel E Ann, #NFDB
1440:I made a conscious effort that I just wanted to work with people that were going to make me better and that was the main thing - writers, directors, in whatever medium. ~ Josh Duhamel, #NFDB
1441:I never wanted to be a filmmaker. I still, sometimes, think I got sidetracked by this, like this is a tangent. My main thing was painting; I was just going to do that. ~ Taika Waititi, #NFDB
1442:In fact, my main conclusion after spending ten years of my life working on the TEX project is that software is hard. It's harder than anything else I've ever had to do. ~ Donald Knuth, #NFDB
1443:My main expertise is in the past, but if I have to extrapolate into the future, I would say: no good news any time soon and an obvious exit strategy is not apparent to me. ~ Juan Cole, #NFDB
1444:The main efforts of investigators have been in papering over contradictions in the big bang theory, to build up an idea which has become ever more complex and cumbersome. ~ Fred Hoyle, #NFDB
1445:The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
1446:I still play jazz, and I've always got that trumpet very handy, but I'm coming to feel the classical venues are where my main focus is, in the realm of symphonic pops. ~ Doc Severinsen, #NFDB
1447:It is only in romances that people undergo a sudden metamorphosis. In real life, even after the most terrible experiences, the main character remains exactly the same. ~ Isadora Duncan, #NFDB
1448:The airlock on the main deck began to open. Riff hissed and drew his gun. "We're being boarded." Steel frowned and drew his sword. Midnight let qi gather in her palms. ~ Daniel Arenson, #NFDB
1449:The film [Stalker] needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky, #NFDB
1450:The main problem with all these newly developed fats and fat replacers coming out of food company laboratories is that their effects on health have barely been studied. ~ Nina Teicholz, #NFDB
1451:The main thing is to stop struggling and nourish yourself. When you nourish yourself, your creative energy is renewed. You are able to pick up your lyre again and sing. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
1452:The main things are to commit to some simple behaviors—meditating, exercising, getting enough sleep—and to practice altruism.… And nurture your social connections.” If ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
1453:The second stage set in ten or fifteen days after the bombing. The main symptom was falling hair. Diarrhoea and fever, which in some cases went as high as 106, came next. ~ John Hersey, #NFDB
1454:Well, I have a farm in Vermont that's my main residence, where I do lots of digging and mowing, and ride tractors - just so you don't get the wrong idea that I'm too girlie! ~ Tim Daly, #NFDB
1455:Born in a house where the door's shut tight
Shadowy fingers on the curtains at night
Cherry tree blossom head high snow
A busy main road where I wasn't to go ~ Robin Williamson,#NFDB
1456:I think education is power. I think that being able to communicate with people is power. One of my main goals on the planet is to encourage people to empower themselves. ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
1457:John's time and effort were, in the main, spent on pretty honorable stuff. As for the other side, well, nobody's perfect, nobody's Jesus. And look what they did to him. ~ Paul McCartney, #NFDB
1458:Let God direct your steps. The main reason why many steps fail is that people know God is an expert in directing steps, but they don’t want to give him the contract. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
1459:Life is sentimental. Why should I be cold and hard about it? That's the main content. The biggest thing in people's lives is their loves and dreams and visions, you know. ~ Jim Harrison, #NFDB
1460:The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God's Word. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
1461:Through the ages, man's main concern was life after death. Today, for the first time, we find we must ask questions about whether there will be life before death. ~ Albert Szent Gyorgyi, #NFDB
1462:Alright next question: I saw someone walking a guinea pig on a leash down Main Street of the town I live in Is this normal behavior I should copy?” “Oh gosh. No. Tell them NO! ~ K M Shea, #NFDB
1463:Among mathematicians in general, three main categories may be distinguished; and perhaps the names logicians, formalists, and intuitionists may serve to characterize them. ~ Felix Klein, #NFDB
1464:As The Book of the SubGenius (the main text of a hilarious faux religion based in Dallas—get The Book of the SubGenius) says, “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke,” right? ~ Nick Offerman, #NFDB
1465:How does this affect the rest of your team?” or “How on board are the people not on this call?” or simply “What do your colleagues see as their main challenges in this area? ~ Chris Voss, #NFDB
1466:If the question is do people (in the Liberal Party) believe that human beings are the main cause of the planet warming, then I'd say a majority don't accept that position. ~ Nick Minchin, #NFDB
1467:I hope the people on Wall Street will pay attention to the people on Main Street. If they do, they will see there is a rising tide of confidence in the future of America. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
1468:In losing her he lost not merely his main source of companionship but also his primary adviser, whose observations he had found so useful in helping shape his own thinking. ~ Erik Larson, #NFDB
1469:It surprised me because she put it as well (or better) than I could have and made a simple point she didn’t even intend: being disabled wasn’t the main thing about her. ~ Cammie McGovern, #NFDB
1470:My main worry is that after a certain point you become so identified with a character and a series that you might not be able to get work when your show goes off the air. ~ Martin Milner, #NFDB
1471:One of the main reasons for the existence of philosophy is not that it enables you to find truth (it can never do that) but that it does provide you a refuge for definitions. ~ T E Hulme, #NFDB
1472:People here just can't wait to die, it seems. It's the main event. The only reason we're not all snuffed at birth is because that would reduce our suffering by a lifetime. ~ Miriam Toews, #NFDB
1473:The doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was the main teaching of Jesus, is certainly one of the most revolutionary doctrines that ever stirred and changed human thought. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
1474:The first period of excitement, which began with the Dartmouth meeting, was later described by John McCarthy (the event’s main organizer) as the “Look, Ma, no hands!” era. ~ Nick Bostrom, #NFDB
1475:The main reason for the people who support a dictator is that their character perfectly match with the character of that dictator! They both have a mean personality! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1476:The main thing is knowing how to see,
To know how to see without thinking,
To know how to see when you see,
And not think when you see
Or see when you think. ~ Alberto Caeiro,#NFDB
1477:The main thing is realizing that even if you feel terrible for a while, that’s not how you’re going to feel the whole time. . . . Things change if you just keep moving. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk, #NFDB
1478:The main thing is to pay attention. Pay close attention to everything, notice what no one else notices. Then you’ll know what no one else knows, and that’s always useful. ~ Jeanne DuPrau, #NFDB
1479:When the audience understands that the main character has a very serious need to change his own heart and mind, the hook is set, and the audience is irrevocably invested. ~ Libbie Hawker, #NFDB
1480:Above all, TRIBES is fun, and even kind of sexy... in that every round features an Opportunity for Reproduction, which is the main aim of the game, as it is in most of Nature ~ David Brin, #NFDB
1481:As a scholar I am interested in the philosophy of language, semiotics, call it what you want, and one of the main features of the human language is the possibility of lying. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
1482:If I have even just a little sense, I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it. Keeping to the main road is easy, But people love to be sidetracked. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
1483:If you watch animals objectively for any length of time, you're driven to the conclusion that their main aim in life is to pass on their genes to the next generation. ~ David Attenborough, #NFDB
1484:Often for hors d'oeuvres, I serve room temperature vegetables, something like that, so that the main course might be quite rich but the first course has balanced it out. ~ Sally Schneider, #NFDB
1485:the main difference between writing JavaScript code like the average Joe (or Jill) and writing it like a JavaScript ninja is understanding JavaScript as a functional language. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1486:The main problem in the Christian life is that we have not thought out the deep implications of the gospel, we have not 'used' the gospel in and on all parts of our life. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
1487:The Pauli exclusion principle keeps electrons from getting too close to each other. This effect is one of the main reasons that your laptop doesn’t fall through your lap. ~ Randall Munroe, #NFDB
1488:They're monsters."
"That's what Edward thought."
"Oh, yeah? He a friend of yours?"
"No, Miss Librarian. Just a main character in a wildly popular vampire series. ~ Shannon Delany,#NFDB
1489:You can hope all you want for a happy ending, but sometimes, like it or not, the guy writing your story is working on a tragedy; you may not even be the main character. ~ Shalom Auslander, #NFDB
1490:Ab mera ishq dhamalon se kahin agay hy
Ab zaruri hy main wajd main laoon tujhko
Tu nahi manta matti ka dhuaan ho jana!!!...
To abhi raqs karun?? Ho k dikhaoon tujhko?? ~ Anonymous,#NFDB
1491:Evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
1492:If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn't any limit to what you can do with your business and your life. Ideas are any man's greatest asset. ~ Harvey S Firestone, #NFDB
1493:Our main purpose in this universe is to exist here on earth or somewhere beyond the earth. All other purposes don’t amount to a hill of beans beside this main purpose! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1494:Personally, I believe “Young Adult” to be an arbitrary title that means the book "Can be enjoyed by anyone/Has a main character who’s not quite an adult/Isn’t really boring. ~ Shannon Hale, #NFDB
1495:The brush is a more powerful and rapid tool than the point or the stump... the main thing that the brush secures is the instant grasp of the grand construction of a figure. ~ Thomas Eakins, #NFDB
1496:The main difference between me and other people who have amassed this kind of money is that I am primarily interested in ideas, and I don't have much personal use for money. ~ George Soros, #NFDB
1497:The main jobs would be The New Yorker, The Village Voice, The Washington Post and - I'm thinking of The Reporter when Max Askeli was there, but I got fired from The Reporter. ~ Nat Hentoff, #NFDB
1498:The main theme remains constant: man owes it to himself to reject despair; better to rely on miracles than opt for resignation. By changing himself, man can change the world. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
1499:These narrative structures have to be thought out beforehand, you see--strategized, methodically according to content. Because a story, in the main, dictates its own telling. ~ Gemma Files, #NFDB
1500:Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason [Zaphood] had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
652 Integral Yoga
158 Poetry
138 Occultism
71 Philosophy
69 Christianity
57 Fiction
54 Psychology
48 Yoga
21 Science
15 Mythology
10 Integral Theory
9 Islam
9 Education
7 Theosophy
7 Kabbalah
6 Sufism
6 Philsophy
6 Hinduism
5 Cybernetics
5 Baha i Faith
4 Mysticism
4 Buddhism
1 Alchemy
504 Sri Aurobindo
178 The Mother
162 Nolini Kanta Gupta
123 Satprem
57 Aleister Crowley
54 Carl Jung
47 H P Lovecraft
36 William Wordsworth
36 James George Frazer
31 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
25 Saint Augustine of Hippo
21 Swami Krishnananda
20 Walt Whitman
20 Sri Ramakrishna
20 Aldous Huxley
20 A B Purani
17 Robert Browning
14 Percy Bysshe Shelley
14 Lucretius
12 Plato
12 Ovid
11 John Keats
10 Plotinus
10 Franz Bardon
9 Nirodbaran
9 Muhammad
9 George Van Vrekhem
8 Swami Vivekananda
8 Rudolf Steiner
7 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
7 Jorge Luis Borges
7 Friedrich Nietzsche
6 Sri Ramana Maharshi
6 Ralph Waldo Emerson
6 Jordan Peterson
5 Norbert Wiener
5 Friedrich Schiller
5 Baha u llah
5 Alice Bailey
4 Saint John of Climacus
4 Peter J Carroll
4 Edgar Allan Poe
4 Bokar Rinpoche
4 Aristotle
3 Vyasa
3 Thubten Chodron
3 Ken Wilber
3 Joseph Campbell
3 Henry David Thoreau
3 Boethius
3 Al-Ghazali
2 William Butler Yeats
2 Saint Teresa of Avila
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Ibn Arabi
2 Anonymous
179 Record of Yoga
80 The Synthesis Of Yoga
47 Lovecraft - Poems
38 The Life Divine
38 Magick Without Tears
36 Wordsworth - Poems
36 The Golden Bough
34 Letters On Yoga IV
34 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
31 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
30 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
27 Letters On Yoga II
26 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
25 Agenda Vol 03
21 The Study and Practice of Yoga
21 City of God
20 Whitman - Poems
20 The Perennial Philosophy
20 Liber ABA
20 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
20 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
19 The Practice of Psycho therapy
19 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
19 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
18 Essays On The Gita
17 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
17 Mysterium Coniunctionis
17 Browning - Poems
17 Agenda Vol 02
15 The Future of Man
14 Shelley - Poems
14 Of The Nature Of Things
14 Letters On Yoga III
14 Letters On Yoga I
12 Metamorphoses
11 The Human Cycle
11 Keats - Poems
11 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
11 Agenda Vol 13
9 Words Of Long Ago
9 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
9 The Phenomenon of Man
9 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
9 Talks
9 Quran
9 Preparing for the Miraculous
9 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
9 Aion
9 Agenda Vol 01
9 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
8 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
8 On Education
8 Agenda Vol 09
7 Kena and Other Upanishads
7 General Principles of Kabbalah
7 Essays Divine And Human
7 Agenda Vol 06
6 Vedic and Philological Studies
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Practice of Magical Evocation
6 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
6 Maps of Meaning
6 Let Me Explain
6 Labyrinths
6 Emerson - Poems
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
6 Agenda Vol 12
6 Agenda Vol 11
6 Agenda Vol 10
6 Agenda Vol 08
6 Agenda Vol 04
5 Twilight of the Idols
5 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
5 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
5 Schiller - Poems
5 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
5 Cybernetics
5 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
4 Words Of The Mother II
4 The Secret Of The Veda
4 The Problems of Philosophy
4 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
4 The Divine Comedy
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Tara - The Feminine Divine
4 Some Answers From The Mother
4 Questions And Answers 1954
4 Poetics
4 Liber Null
4 Letters On Poetry And Art
4 Isha Upanishad
4 Initiation Into Hermetics
4 Bhakti-Yoga
4 Agenda Vol 05
3 Walden
3 Vishnu Purana
3 The Integral Yoga
3 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
3 The Book of Certitude
3 The Bible
3 The Alchemy of Happiness
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Raja-Yoga
3 Questions And Answers 1956
3 Poe - Poems
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
3 On the Way to Supermanhood
3 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
3 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
2 Yeats - Poems
2 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
2 Theosophy
2 Symposium
2 Selected Fictions
2 Savitri
2 Questions And Answers 1955
2 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
2 Arabi - Poems
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
00.00 - Publishers Note, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have pleasure in presenting the Second Volume of the Collected Works of Sri Nolini Kanta Gupta. The six books in this volume were originally published separately. The Essays are mainly concerned with Mysticism and Poetry.
We are happy to note that the Government of India have given to our Centre of Education a grant to meet the cost of publication of this volume.
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
On a few other occasion also, the Mother had spoken to the same sadhak on the value of reading Savitri which he had noted down afterwards. These notes have been added at the end of the main report. A few members of the Ashram had privately read this report in French, but afterwards there were many requests for its English version. A translation was therefore made in November 1967. A proposal was made to the Mother in 1972 for its publication and it was submitted to Her for approval. The Mother wanted to check the translation before permitting its publication but could check only a portion of it.
Do you read Savitri?
0 0.02 - Topographical Note, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
French disciples, on the second floor of the main Ashram building, on some pretext of work or other. She listened to our queries, spoke to us at length of yoga, occultism, her past experiences in
Algeria and in France or of her current experiences; and gradually, She opened the mind of the rebellious and materialistic Westerner that we were and made us understand the laws of the worlds, the play of forces, the working of past lives - especially this latter, which was an important factor in the difficulties with which we were struggling at that time and which periodically made us abscond.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The first boon regards the individual, that is to say, the individual identity and integrity. It asks for the maintenance of that individuality so that it may be saved from the dissolution that Death brings about. Death, of course, means the dissolution of the body, but it represents also dissolution pure and simple. Indeed death is a process which does not stop with the physical phenomenon, but continues even after; for with the body gone, the other elements of the individual organism, the vital and the mental too gradually fall off, fade and dissolve. Nachiketas wishes to secure from Death the safety and preservation of the earthly personality, the particular organisation of mind and vital based upon a recognisable physical frame. That is the first necessity for the aspiring mortalfor, it is said, the body is the first instrument for the working out of one's life ideal. But man's true personality, the real individuality lies beyond, beyond the body, beyond the life, beyond the mind, beyond the triple region that Death lords it over. That is the divine world, the Heaven of the immortals, beyond death and beyond sorrow and grief. It is the hearth secreted in the inner heart where burns the Divine Fire, the God of Life Everlasting. And this is the nodus that binds together the threefold status of the manifested existence, the body, the life and the mind. This triplicity is the structure of name and form built out of the bricks of experience, the kiln, as it were, within which burns the Divine Agni, man's true soul. This soul can be reached only when one exceeds the bounds and limitations of the triple cord and experiences one's communion and identity with all souls and all existence. Agni is the secret divinity within, within the individual and within the world; he is the Immanent Divine, the cosmic godhead that holds together and marshals all the elements and components, all the principles that make up the manifest universe. He it is that has entered into the world and created facets of his own reality in multiple forms: and it is he that lies secret in the human being as the immortal soul through all its adventure of life and death in the series of incarnations in terrestrial evolution. The adoration and realisation of this Immanent Divinity, the worship of Agni taught by Yama in the second boon, consists in the triple sacrifice, the triple work, the triple union in the triple status of the physical, the vital and the mental consciousness, the mastery of which leads one to the other shore, the abode of perennial existence where the human soul enjoys its eternity and unending continuity in cosmic life. Therefore, Agni, the master of the psychic being, is called jtaveds, he who knows the births, all the transmigrations from life to life.
The third boon is the secret of secrets, for it is the knowledge and realisation of Transcendence that is sought here. Beyond the individual lies the universal; is there anything beyond the universal? The release of the individual into the cosmic existence gives him the griefless life eternal: can the cosmos be rolled up and flung into something beyond? What would be the nature of that thing? What is there outside creation, outside manifestation, outside Maya, to use a latter day term? Is there existence or non-existence (utter dissolution or extinctionDeath in his supreme and absolute status)? King Yama did not choose to answer immediately and even endeavoured to dissuade Nachiketas from pursuing the question over which people were confounded, as he said. Evidently it was a much discussed problem in those days. Buddha was asked the same question and he evaded it, saying that the pragmatic man should attend to practical and immediate realities and not, waste time and energy in discussing things ultimate and beyond that have hardly any relation to the present and the actual.
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The perception of beauty in the Upanishadic consciousness is something elemental-of concentrated essence. It silhouettes the main contour, outlines the primordial gestures. Pregnant and pulsating with the burden of beauty, the mantra here reduces its external expression to a minimum. The body is bare and unadorned, and even in its nakedness, it has not the emphatic and vehement musculature of an athlete; rather it tends to be slim and slender and yet vibrant with the inner nervous vigour and glow. What can be more bare and brief and full to the brim of a self-gathered luminous energy than, for example:
yat prena na praiti yena pra
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his,nigam, pracetas; his is the eye of the Sun,srya caku.13 He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.14 In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer; he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, ncak;15 he is the Seer-Will,kavikratu.16 He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-Iuminousness.17 The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, srya satyasava, satyya satyaprasavya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator,savit, he is also the builder or fashioner,ta, and he is the organiser,vedh is personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara, of the Truth.18 As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,19 the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;20 it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice.21 He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward;22 he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond 23into the world of felicity.
Indeed delight is the third and the supremely intimate element of the poetic personality. Dear and delightful is the poet, dear and delightful his works, priya, priyi His hand is dripping with sweetness,kavir hi madhuhastya.24 The Poet-God shines in his pristine beauty and is showering delight.25 He is filled with utter ecstasy so that he may rise to the very source of the luminous Energy.26? Pure is the Divine Joy and it enters and purifies all forms as it moves to the seat of the Immortals.27Indeed this sparkling Delight is the Poet-Seer and it is that that brings forth the creative word, the utterance of Indra.28
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The Christian missionaries gave the finishing touch to the process of transformation. They ridiculed as relics of a barbarous age the images and rituals of the Hindu religion. They tried to persuade India that the teachings of her saints and seers were the cause of her downfall, that her Vedas, Puranas, and other scriptures were filled with superstition. Christianity, they maintained, had given the white races position and power in this world and assurance of happiness in the next; therefore Christianity was the best of all religions. Many intelligent young Hindus became converted. The man in the street was confused. The majority of the educated grew materialistic in their mental outlook. Everyone living near Calcutta or the other strong-holds of Western culture, even those who attempted to cling to the orthodox traditions of Hindu society, became infected by the new uncertainties and the new beliefs.
But the soul of India was to be resuscitated through a spiritual awakening. We hear the first call of this renascence in the spirited retort of the young Gadadhar: "Brother, what shall I do with a mere bread-winning education?"
--
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". (Ro main Holland, Prophets of the New India, p. 11.)
--
There are three kinds of formal devotion: tamasic, rajasic, and sattvic. If a person, while showing devotion, to God, is actuated by malevolence, arrogance, jealousy, or anger, then his devotion is tamasic, since it is influenced by tamas, the quality of inertia. If he worships God from a desire for fame or wealth, or from any other worldly ambition, then his devotion is rajasic, since it is influenced by rajas, the quality of activity. But if a person loves God without any thought of material gain, if he performs his duties to please God alone and maintains toward all created beings the attitude of friendship, then his devotion is called sattvic, since it is influenced by sattva, the quality of harmony. But the highest devotion transcends the three gunas, or qualities, being a spontaneous, uninterrupted inclination of the mind toward God, the Inner Soul of all beings; and it wells up in the heart of a true devotee as soon as he hears the name of God or mention of God's attributes. A devotee possessed of this love would not accept the happiness of heaven if it were offered him. His one desire is to love God under all conditions — in pleasure and pain, life and death, honour and dishonour, prosperity and adversity.
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.
--
Totapuri had no idea of the struggles of ordinary men in the toils of passion and desire. Having maintained all through life the guilelessness of a child, he laughed at the idea of a man's being led astray by the senses. He was convinced that the world was maya and had only to be denounced to vanish for ever. A born non-dualist, he had no faith in a Personal God. He did not believe in the terrible aspect of Kali, much less in Her benign aspect. Music and the chanting of God's holy name were to him only so much nonsense. He ridiculed the spending of emotion on the worship of a Personal God.
--- KALI AND MAYA
--
About spirituality in general the following were his conclusions: First, he was firmly convinced that all religions are true, that every doctrinal system represents a path to God. He had followed all the main paths and all had led him to the same goal. He was the first religious prophet recorded in history to preach the harmony of religions.
Second, the three great systems of thought known as Dualism, Qualified Non-dualism, and Absolute Non-dualism — Dvaita, Visishtadvaita, and Advaita — he perceived to represent three stages in man's progress toward the Ultimate Reality. They were not contradictory but complementary and suited to different temperaments. For the ordinary man with strong attachment to the senses, a dualistic form of religion, prescribing a certain amount of material support, such as music and other symbols, is useful. A man of God-realization transcends the idea of worldly duties, but the ordinary mortal must perform his duties, striving to be unattached and to surrender the results to God. The mind can comprehend and describe the range of thought and experience up to the Visishtadvaita, and no further. The Advaita, the last word in spiritual experience, is something to be felt in samadhi. for it transcends mind and speech. From the highest standpoint, the Absolute and Its manifestation are equally real — the Lord's Name, His Abode, and the Lord Himself are of the same spiritual Essence. Everything is Spirit, the difference being only in form.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
M., one of the intimate disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, was present during all the conversations recorded in the main body of the book and noted them down in his diary.
They therefore have the value of almost stenographic records. In Appendix A are given several conversations which took place in the absence of M., but of which he received a first-hand record from persons concerned. The conversations will bring before the reader's mind an intimate picture of the Master's eventful life from March 1882 to April 24, 1886, only a few months before his passing away. During this period he came in contact chiefly with English-educated Benglis; from among them he selected his disciples and the bearers of his message, and with them he shared his rich spiritual experiences.
--
Imparting secular education was, however, only his profession ; his main concern was with the spiritual regeneration of man a calling for which Destiny seems to have chosen him. From his childhood he was deeply pious, and he used to be moved very much by Sdhus, temples and Durga Puja celebrations. The piety and eloquence of the great Brahmo leader of the times, Keshab Chander Sen, elicited a powerful response from the impressionable mind of Mahendra Nath, as it did in the case of many an idealistic young man of Calcutta, and prepared him to receive the great Light that was to dawn on him with the coming of Sri Ramakrishna into his life.
This epoch-making event of his life came about in a very strange way. M. belonged to a joint family with several collateral members. Some ten years after he began his career as an educationist, bitter quarrels broke out among the members of the family, driving the sensitive M. to despair and utter despondency. He lost all interest in life and left home one night to go into the wide world with the idea of ending his life. At dead of night he took rest in his sister's house at Baranagar, and in the morning, accompanied by a nephew Siddheswar, he wandered from one garden to another in Calcutta until Siddheswar brought him to the Temple Garden of Dakshineswar where Sri Ramakrishna was then living. After spending some time in the beautiful rose gardens there, he was directed to the room of the Paramahamsa, where the eventful meeting of the Master and the disciple took place on a blessed evening (the exact date is not on record) on a Sunday in March 1882. As regards what took place on the occasion, the reader is referred to the opening section of the first chapter of the Gospel.
--
Besides the prompting of his inherent instinct, the main inducement for M. to keep this diary of his experiences at Dakshineswar was his desire to provide himself with a means for living in holy company at all times. Being a school teacher, he could be with the Master only on Sundays and other holidays, and it was on his diary that he depended for 'holy company' on other days. The devotional scriptures like the Bhagavata say that holy company is the first and most important means for the generation and growth of devotion. For, in such company man could hear talks on spiritual matters and listen to the glorification of Divine attri butes, charged with the fervour and conviction emanating from the hearts of great lovers of God. Such company is therefore the one certain means through which Sraddha (Faith), Rati (attachment to God) and Bhakti (loving devotion) are generated. The diary of his visits to Dakshineswar provided M. with material for re-living, through reading and contemplation, the holy company he had had earlier, even on days when he was not able to visit Dakshineswar. The wealth of details and the vivid description of men and things in the midst of which the sublime conversations are set, provide excellent material to re-live those experiences for any one with imaginative powers. It was observed by M.'s disciples and admirers that in later life also whenever he was free or alone, he would be pouring over his diary, transporting himself on the wings of imagination to the glorious days he spent at the feet of the Master.
During the Master's lifetime M. does not seem to have revealed the contents of his diary to any one. There is an unconfirmed tradition that when the Master saw him taking notes, he expressed apprehension at the possibility of his utilising these to publicise him like Keshab Sen; for the Great Master was so full of the spirit of renunciation and humility that he disliked being lionised. It must be for this reason that no one knew about this precious diary of M. for a decade until he brought out selections from it as a pamphlet in English in 1897 with the Holy Mother's blessings and permission. The Holy Mother, being very much pleased to hear parts of the diary read to her in Bengali, wrote to M.: "When I heard the Kathmrita, (Bengali name of the book) I felt as if it was he, the Master, who was saying all that." ( Ibid Part I. P 37.)
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
they may be divided into two main opposing tendencies: those
that work for the fulfilment of the Divine work upon earth,
0.02 - II - The Home of the Guru, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Guru-griha-vsa staying in the home of the Guru is a very old Indian ideal maintained by seekers through the ages. The Aranyakas the ancient teachings in the forest-groves are perhaps the oldest records of the institution. It was not for education in the modern sense of the term that men went to live with the Guru; for the Guru is not a 'teacher'. The Guru is one who is 'enlightened', who is a seer, a Rishi, one who has the vision of and has lived the Truth. He has, thus, the knowledge of the goal of human life and has learnt true values in life by living the Truth. He can impart both these to the willing seeker. In ancient times seekers went to the Guru with many questions, difficulties and doubts but also with earnestness. Their questions were preliminary to the quest.
The Master, the Guru, set at rest the puzzled human mind by his illuminating answers, perhaps even more by his silent consciousness, so that it might be able to pursue unhampered the path of realisation of the Truth. Those ancient discourses answer the mind of man today even across the ages. They have rightly acquired as everything of the past does a certain sanctity. But sometimes that very reverence prevents men from properly evaluating, and living in, the present. This happens when the mind instead of seeking the Spirit looks at the form. For instance, it is not necessary for such discourses that they take place in forest-groves in order to be highly spiritual. Wherever the Master is, there is Light. And guru-griha the house of the Master can be his private dwelling place. So much was this feeling a part of Sri Aurobindo's nature and so particular was he to maintain the personal character of his work that during the first few years after 1923 he did not like his house to be called an 'Ashram', as the word had acquired the sense of a public institution to the modern mind. But there was no doubt that the flower of Divinity had blossomed in him; and disciples, like bees seeking honey, came to him. It is no exaggeration to say that these Evening Talks were to the small company of disciples what the Aranyakas were to the ancient seekers. Seeking the Light, they came to the dwelling place of their Guru, the greatest seer of the age, and found it their spiritual home the home of their parents, for the Mother, his companion in the great mission, had come. And these spiritual parents bestowed upon the disciples freely of their Light, their Consciousness, their Power and their Grace. The modern reader may find that the form of these discourses differs from those of the past but it was bound to be so for the simple reason that the times have changed and the problems that puzzle the modern mind are so different. Even though the disciples may be very imperfect representations of what he aimed at in them, still they are his creations. It is in order to repay, in however infinitesimal a degree, the debt which we owe to him that the effort is made to partake of the joy of his company the Evening Talks with a larger public.
***
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding the misuse of "gris entretien", maintenance
grey paint) A stool used by the Mother has been painted
--
The main door of your being is open, but certain other doors
are still not open. You must open them all, for I am there and I
0.03 - III - The Evening Sittings, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
As years passed the evening sittings went on changing their time and often those disciples who came from outside for a temporary stay for Sadhana were allowed to join them. And, as the number of sadhaks practising the Yoga increased, the evening sittings also became more full, and the small verandah upstairs in the main building was found insufficient. Members of the household would gather every day at the fixed time with some sense of expectancy and start chatting in low tones. Sri Aurobindo used to come last and it was after his coming that the session would really commence.
He came dressed as usual in dhoti, part of which was used by him to cover the upper part of his body. Very rarely he came out with chaddar or shawl and then it was "in deference to the climate" as he sometimes put it. At times for minutes he would be gazing at the sky from a small opening at the top of the grass-curtains that covered the verandah upstairs in No. 9, Rue de la Marine. How much were these sittings dependent on him may be gathered from the fact that there were days when more than three-fourths of the time passed in complete silence without any outer suggestion from him, or there was only an abrupt "Yes" or "No" to all attempts at drawing him out in conversation. And even when he participated in the talk one always felt that his voice was that of one who does not let his whole being flow into his words; there was a reserve and what was left unsaid was perhaps more than what was spoken. What was spoken was what he felt necessary to speak.
--
From 1918 to 1922, we gathered at No. 41, Rue Franois Martin, called the Guest House, upstairs, on a broad verandah into which four rooms opened and whose main piece of furniture was a small table 3' x 1' covered with a blue cotton cloth. That is where Sri Aurobindo used to sit in a hard wooden chair behind the table with a few chairs in front for the visitors or for the disciples.
From 1922 to 1926, No. 9, Rue de la Marine, where he and the Mother had shifted, was the place where the sittings were held. There, also upstairs, was a less broad verandah than at the Guest House, a little bigger table in front of the central door out of three, and a broad Japanese chair, the table covered with a better cloth than the one in the Guest House, a small flower vase, an ash-tray, a block calendar indicating the date and an ordinary time-piece, and a number of chairs in front in a line. The evening sittings used to be after meditation at 4 or 4.30 p.m. After 24 November 1926, the sittings began to get later and later, till the limit of 1 o'clock at night was reached. Then the curtain fell. Sri Aurobindo retired completely after December 1926, and the evening sittings came to a close.
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The utility of the compromise in the then actual state of the world cannot be doubted. It secured in India a society which lent itself to the preservation and the worship of spirituality, a country apart in which as in a fortress the highest spiritual ideal could maintain itself in its most absolute purity unoverpowered by the siege of the forces around it. But it was a compromise, not an absolute victory. The material life lost the divine impulse to growth, the spiritual preserved by isolation its height and purity, but sacrificed its full power and serviceableness to the world. Therefore, in the divine Providence the country of the Yogins and the Sannyasins has been forced into a strict and imperative contact with the very element it had rejected, the element of the progressive Mind, so that it might recover what was now wanting to it.
We have to recognise once more that the individual exists not in himself alone but in the collectivity and that individual perfection and liberation are not the whole sense of God's intention in the world. The free use of our liberty includes also the liberation of others and of mankind; the perfect utility of our perfection is, having realised in ourselves the divine symbol, to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in others.
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Here is the very heart of the mystery, the master-key to the problem. The advent of the superhuman or divine race, however stupendous or miraculous the phenomenon may appear to be, can become a thing of practical actuality, precisely because it is no human agency that has undertaken it but the Divine himself in his supreme potency and wisdom and love. The descent of the Divine into the ordinary human nature in order to purify and transform it and be lodged there is the whole secret of the sadhana in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. The sadhaka has only to be quiet and silent, calmly aspiring, open and acquiescent and receptive to the one Force; he need not and should not try to do things by his independent personal effort, but get them done or let them be done for him in the dedicated consciousness by the Divine Master and Guide. All other Yogas or spiritual disciplines in the past envisaged an ascent of the consciousness, its sublimation into the consciousness of the Spirit and its fusion and dissolution there in the end. The descent of the Divine Consciousness to prepare its definitive home in the dynamic and pragmatic human nature, if considered at all, was not the main theme of the past efforts and achievements. Furthermore, the descent spoken of here is the descent, not of a divine consciousness for there are many varieties of divine consciousness but of the Divine's own consciousness, of the Divine himself with his Shakti. For it is that that is directly working out this evolutionary transformation of the age.
It is not my purpose here to enter into details as to the exact meaning of the descent, how it happens and what are its lines of activity and the results brought about. For it is indeed an actual descent that happens: the Divine Light leans down first into the mind and begins its purificatory work therealthough it is always the inner heart which first recognises the Divine Presence and gives its assent to the Divine action for the mind, the higher mind that is to say, is the summit of the ordinary human consciousness and receives more easily and readily the Radiances that descend. From the Mind the Light filters into the denser regions of the emotions and desires, of life activity and vital dynamism; finally, it gets into brute Matter itself, the hard and obscure rock of the physical body, for that too has to be illumined and made the very form and figure of the Light supernal. The Divine in his descending Grace is the Master-Architect who is building slowly and surely the many-chambered and many-storeyed edifice that is human nature and human life into the mould of the Divine Truth in its perfect play and supreme expression. But this is a matter which can be closely considered when one is already well within the mystery of the path and has acquired the elementary essentials of an initiate.
01.01 - Sri Aurobindo - The Age of Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Someone has written to this effect: "This is not the age of Sri Aurobindo. His ideal of a divine life upon earth mayor may not be true; at any rate it is not of today or even of tomorrow. Humanity will take some time before it reaches that stage or its possibility. What we are concerned with here and now is something perhaps less great, less spiritual, but more urgent and more practical. The problem is not to run away with one's soul, but to maintain its earthly tenement, to keep body and soul together: one has to live first, live materially before one can hope to live spiritually."
Well, the view expressed in these words is not a new revelation. It has been the cry of suffering humanity through the ages. Man has borne his cross since the beginning of his creation through want and privation, through disease and bereavement, through all manner of turmoil and tribulation, and yetmirabile dictuat the same time, in the very midst of those conditions, he has been aspiring and yearning for something else, ignoring the present, looking into the beyond. It is not the prosperous and the more happily placed in life who find it more easy to turn to the higher life, it is not the wealthiest who has the greatest opportunity to pursue a spiritual idea. On the contrary, spiritual leaders have thought and experienced otherwise.
01.01 - The One Thing Needful, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Sadhana must be the main thing and sadhana means the purification of the nature, the consecration of the being, the opening of the psychic and the inner mind and vital, the contact and presence of the Divine, the realisation of the Divine in all things, surrender, devotion, the widening of the consciousness into the cosmic Consciousness, the Self one in all, the psychic and the spiritual transformation of the nature.
... 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.
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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).
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Dares not to affront the far-off perilous main.
He in a petty coastal traffic plies,
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In an age when Reason was considered as the highest light given to man, Tagore pointed to the Vision of the mystics as always the still greater light; when man was elated with undreamt-of worldly success, puffed up with incomparable material possessions and powers, Tagore's voice rang clear and emphatic in tune with the cry of the ancients: "What shall I do with all this mass of things, if I am not made immortal by that?" When men, in their individual as well as collective egoism, were scrambling for earthly gains and hoards, he held before them vaster and cleaner horizons, higher and deeper ways of being and living, maintained the sacred sense of human solidarity, the living consciousness of the Divine, one and indivisible. When the Gospel of Power had all but hypnotised men's minds, and Superman or God-man came to be equated with the Titan, Tagore saw through the falsehood and placed in front and above all the old-world eternal verities of love and self-giving, harmony and mutuality, sweetness and light. When pessimism, cynicism, agnosticism struck the major chord of human temperament, and grief and frustration and death and decay were taken as a matter of course to be the inevitable order of earthlylifebhasmantam idam shariramhe continued to sing the song of the Rishis that Ananda and Immortality are the breath of things, the birth right of human beings. When Modernism declared with a certitude never tobe contested that Matter is Brahman, Tagore said with the voice of one who knows that Spirit is Brahman.
Tagore is in direct line with those bards who have sung of the Spirit, who always soared high above the falsehoods and uglinesses of a merely mundane life and lived in the undecaying delights and beauties of a diviner consciousness. Spiritual reality was the central theme of his poetic creation: only and naturally he viewed it in a special way and endowed it with a special grace. We know of another God-intoxicated man, the Jewish philosopher Spinoza, who saw things sub specie aeternitatis, under the figure or mode of eternity. Well, Tagore can be said to see things, in their essential spiritual reality, under the figure or mode of beauty. Keats indeed spoke of truth being beauty and beauty truth. But there is a great difference in the outlook and inner experience. A worshipper of beauty, unless he rises to the Upanishadic norm, is prone to become sensuous and pagan. Keats was that, Kalidasa was that, even Shelley was not far different. The spiritual vein in all these poets re mains secondary. In the old Indian master, it is part of his intellectual equipment, no doubt, but nothing much more than that. In the other two it comes in as strange flashes from an unknown country, as a sort of irruption or on the peak of the poetic afflatus or enthousiasmos.
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Against this tyranny of the group, this absolute rule of the collective will, the human mind rose in revolt and the result was Individualism. For whatever may be the truth and necessity of the Collective, the Individual is no less true and necessary. The individual has his own law and urge of being and his own secret godhead. The collective godhead derides the individual godhead at its peril. The first movement of the reaction, however, was a run to the other extremity; a stern collectivism gave birth to an intransigent individualism. The individual is sacred and inviolable, cost what it may. It does not matter what sort of individuality one seeks, it is enough if the thing is there. So the doctrine of individualism has come to set a premium on egoism and on forces that are disruptive of all social bonds. Each and every individual has the inherent right, which is also a duty, to follow his own impetus and impulse. Society is nothing but the battle ground for competing individualities the strongest survive and the weakest go to the wall. Association and co-operation are instruments that the individual may use and utilise for his own growth and development but in the main they act as deterrents rather than as aids to the expression and expansion of his characteristic being. In reality, however, if we probe sufficiently deep into the matter we find that there is no such thing as corporate life and activity; what appears as such is only a camouflage for rigorous competition; at the best, there maybe only an offensive and defensive alliancehumanity fights against nature, and within humanity itself group fights against group and in the last analysis, within the group, the individual fights against the individual. This is the ultimate Law-the Dharma of creation.
Now, what such an uncompromising individualism fails to recognise is that individuality and ego are not the same thing, that the individual may have his individuality intact and entire and yet sacrifice his ego, that the soul of man is a much greater thing than his vital being. It is simply ignoring the fact and denying the truth to say that man is only a fighting animal and not a loving god, that the self within the individual realises itself only through competition and not co-operation. It is an error to conceive of society as a mere parallelogram of forces, to suppose that it has risen simply out of the struggle of individual interests and continues to re main 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.
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And the reason is his metaphysics. It is the Jansenist conception of God and human nature that inspired and coloured all his experience and consciousness. According to it, as according to the Calvinist conception, man is a corrupt being, corroded to the core, original sin has branded his very soul. Only Grace saves him and releases him. The order of sin and the order of Grace are distinct and disparate worlds and yet they complement each other and need each other. Greatness and misery are intertwined, united, unified with each other in him. Here is an echo of the Manichean position which also involves an abyss. But even then God's grace is not a free agent, as Jesuits declare; there is a predestination that guides and controls it. This was one of the main subjects he treated in his famous open letters (Les Provinciales) that brought him renown almost overnight. Eternal hell is a possible prospect that faces the Jansenist. That was why a Night always over-shadowed the Day in Pascal's soul.
Man then, according to Pascal, is by nature a sinful thing. He can lay no claim to noble virtue as his own: all in him is vile, he is a lump of dirt and filth. Even the greatest has his full share of this taint. The greatest, the saintliest, and the meanest, the most sinful, all meet, all are equal on this common platform; all have the same feet of clay. Man is as miserable a creature as a beast, as much a part and product of Nature as a plant. Only there is this difference that an animal or a tree is unconscious, while man knows that he is miserable. This knowledge or perception makes him more miserable, but that is his real and only greatness there is no other. His thought, his self-consciousness, and his sorrow and repentance and contrition for what he is that is the only good partMary's part that has been given to him. Here are Pascal's own words on the subject:
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Our ideals have been mental constructions, rather than spiritual realitiesrealities of the deepest and highest being. And the power by which we sought to realise those ideals was mainly the insistence of our emotional urges, rather than Nature's Truth-Power. For this must be understood that the mental, the vital and the physical form a nexus of reality which works in its own inexorable law and so long as we are within them we cannot but obey the laws that guide them. Of these three strata which form the human adhara, it is the vital which holds the key to man's nature. It is the executive power, the force that fashions the realities on the physical plane; it is what creates the character. The power of thought and sentiment is often much too exaggerated, even so the power of the body, that of physical and external rules and regulations. The mental or the physical or both together can mould the vital only to a limited extent, to the extent which is allowed by the inherent law of the vital. If the demands of the mental and the physical are stretched too far and are not suffered by the vital, a crash and catastrophe is bound to come in the end.
This is the meaning of the Reformist's pessimism. So long as we re main within the do main 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.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
many activities and maintains a fairly high standard -
one single person in the whole world?"
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Unlike the previous irruptions that merged and were lost in the general life and consciousness, Islam entered as a leaven that maintained its integrity and revolutionized Indian life and culture by infusing into its tone a Semitic accent. After the Islamic impact India could not be what she was beforea change became inevitable even in the major note. It was a psychological cataclysm almost on a par with the geological one that formed her body; but the spirit behind which created the body was working automatically, inexorably towards the greater and more difficult synthesis demanded by the situation. Only the thing is to be done now consciously, not through an unconscious process of laissez-faire as on the inferior stages of evolution in the past. And that is the true genesis of the present conflict.
History abounds in instances of racial and cultural immixture. Indeed, all major human groupings of today are invariably composite formations. Excepting, perhaps, some primitiveaboriginal tribes there are no pure races existent. The Briton, the Dane, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Norman have combined to form the British; a Frenchman has a Gaul, a Roman, a Frank in him; and a Spaniard's blood would show an Iberian, a Latin, a Gothic, a Moorish element in it. And much more than a people, a culture in modern times has been a veritable cockpit of multifarious and even incongruous elements. There are instances also in which a perfect fusion could not be accomplished, and one element had to be rejected or crushed out. The complete disappearance of the Aztecs and Mayas in South America, the decadence of the Red Indians in North America, of the Negroes in Africa as a result of a fierce clash with European peoples and European culture illustrate the point.
--
If it is said that this is an ideal for the few only, not for the mass, our answer to that is the answer of the GitaYad yad acharati sreshthah. Let the few then practise and achieve the ideal: the mass will have to follow as far as it is possible and necessary. It is the very character of the evolutionary system of Nature, as expressed in the principle of symbiosis, that any considerable change in one place (in one species) is accompanied by a corresponding change in the same direction in other contiguous places (in other associated species) in order that the poise and balance of the system may be maintained.
It is precisely strong nuclei that are needed (even, perhaps, one strong nucleus is sufficient) where the single and integrated spiritual consciousness is an accomplished and established fact: that acts inevitably as a solvent drawing in and assimilating or transforming and re-creating as much, of the surroundings as its own degree and nature of achievement inevitably demand.
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One view considers Evil as coeval with Good: the Prince of Evil is God's peer, equal to him in all ways, absolutely separate, independent and self-existent. Light and Darkness are eternal principles living side by side, possessing equal reality. For, although it is permissible to the individual to pass out of the Darkness and enter into Light, the Darkness itself does not disappear: it re mains and maintains its do main, and even it is said that some human beings are meant eternally for this do main. That is the Manichean principle and that also is fundamentally the dualistic conception of chit-achit in some Indian systems (although the principle of chit or light is usually given a higher position and priority of excellence).
The Christian too accepts the dual principle, but does not give equal status to the two. Satan is there, an eternal reality: it is anti-God, it seeks to oppose God, frustrate his work. It is the great tempter whose task it is to persuade, to inspire man to re main always an earthly creature and never turn to know or live in God. Now the crucial question that arises is, what is the necessity of this Antagonist in God's scheme of creation? What is the meaning of this struggle and battle? God could have created, if he had chosen, a world without Evil. The orthodox Christi an answer is that in that case one could not have fully appreciated the true value and glory of God's presence. It is to manifest and proclaim the great victory that the strife and combat has been arranged in which Man triumphs in the end and God's work stands vindicated. The place of Satan is always Hell, but he cannot drag down a soul into his pit to hold it there eternally (although according to one doctrine there are or may be certain eternally damned souls).
01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Here is the crux of the question. The dictum of utilitarian philosophers is a golden rule which is easy to formulate but not so to execute. For the line of demarcation between one's own rights and the equal rights of others is so undefinable and variable that a title suit is inevitable in each case. In asserting and establishing and even maintaining one's rights there is always the possibilityalmost the certaintyof encroaching upon others' rights.
What is required is not therefore an external delimitation of frontiers between unit and unit, but an inner outlook of nature and a poise of character. And this can be cultivated and brought into action by learning to live by the sense of duty. Even then, even the sense of duty, we have to admit, is not enough. For if it leads or is capable of leading into an aberration, we must have something else to check and control it, some other higher and more potent principle. Indeed, both the conceptions of Duty and Right belong to the do main of mental ideal, although one is usually more aggressive and militant (Rajasic) and the other tends to be more tolerant and considerate (sattwic): neither can give an absolute certainty of poise, a clear guarantee of perfect harmony.
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Here the poet is almost grimly tense, concentrated and has not allowed himself to be dissipated by thinkings and arguments, has confined himself wholly to a living experience. That is because the poet has since then moved up and sought a more rarefied air, a more even and smooth temper. The utter and absolute poetic ring of the Inferno is difficult to maintain in the Paradiso, unless and until the poet transforms himself wholly into the Rishi, like the poet of the Gita or the Upanishads.
"East Coker"
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Physical education means principally all the various exercises for the development and maintenance of the body.
Naturally, here we have combined the two. But this is mainly
because human beings, especially in their childhood, still need a
0 1955-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I am not so absurdly pretentious as to blame the divine, nor yourself and I re main quite convinced that all this is my own fault. Undoubtedly I have not known how to surrender totally in some part of myself, or I do not aspire enough or know how to open myself as needed. Also, I should rely entirely upon the divine to take care of my progress and not be concerned about the absence of experiences. I have therefore asked myself why I am so far away from the true attitude, the genuine opening, and I see two main reasons: on the one hand, the difficulties inherent in my own nature, and on the other, the outer conditions of this sadhana. These conditions do not seem to be conducive to helping me overcome the difficulties in my own nature.
I feel that I am turning in circles and taking one step backward for each one forward. Furthermore, instead of helping me draw nearer to the divine consciousness, my work in the Ashram (the very fact of working for to change work, even if I felt like it, would not change the overall situation), diverts me from this divine consciousness, or at least keeps me in a superficial consciousness from which I am unable to unglue myself as long as I am busy writing letters, doing translations, corrections or classes.1 I know its my own fault, that I should know how to be detached from my work and do it by relying upon a deeper consciousness, but what can be done? Unless I receive the grace, I cannot remember the essential thing as long as the outer part of my being is active.
0 1956-10-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I am facing the same difficulties as before my departure to Hyderabad, and I have made the same mistakes. The main reason for this state is that, on the one hand, words and ideas seem to have lost all power over me, and on the other, the vital elan which led me thus far is dead. So upon what shall my faith rest? I still have some faith, of course, but it has become totally ABSTRACT. The vital does not cooperate, so I feel all withered, suspended in a void, nothing seems to give me direction anymore. There is no rebelliousness in me, but rather a void.
In this state, I am ceaselessly thinking of my forest in Guiana or of my travels through Africa and the ardor that filled me with life in those days. I seem to need to have my goal before me and to walk towards it. Outer difficulties also seem to help me resolve my inner problems: there is a kind of need in me for the elements the sea, the forest, the desert for a milieu with which I can wrestle and through which I can grow. Here, I seem to lack a dynamic point of leverage. Here, in the everyday routine, everything seems to be falling apart in me. Should I not return to my forest in Guiana?
0 1958-08-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
[The disciple who managed the Ashram 'Atelier': mechanical workshop, maintenance garage, automobile service, etc.]
It was just at four oclock in the morning, and it woke me up. It was exactly like this I was apparently in my bathroom, and I had to open the door between the bathroom and Sri Aurobindos room; the moment I put my hand on the doorknob, I knew with an absolute certainty that destruction was awaiting me behind the door. It had the form or image of those great invaders of India, those who had swooped down upon India and destroyed everything in their wake But it was only an impression.
0 1960-05-28 - death of K - the death process- the subtle physical, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I think they do it here (apart from entirely sanitary considerations in the case of people who have died from nasty diseases), here in India, mainly because they are very afraid of all these little entities that come from desires, impulsesthings which are dispersed in the air and which make ghosts and all kinds of things. All desires, all attachments, all those things are like pieces that break off (each one goes its own way, you see), then these pieces gain strength in the surrounding atmosphere, and when they can fasten on to someone, they vampirize him. Then they keep on trying to satisfy their desires.
The world, the terrestrial atmosphere, is full of filth.
0 1960-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This is the main reason for my japa. Theres a power in the sound itself, and by forcing the body to repeat the sound, you force it to receive the vibration at the same time. But Ive noticed that if something in the bodys working gets disturbed (a pain or disorder, the onset of some illness) and I repeat my mantra in a certain waystill the same words, the same mantra, but said with a certain purpose and above all in a movement of surrender, surrender of the pain, the disorder, and a call, like an openingit has a marvelous effect. The mantra acts in just the right way, in this way and in no other. And after a while everything is put back in order. And simultaneously, of course, the precise knowledge of what lies behind the disorder and what I must do to set it right comes to me. But quite apart from this, the mantra acts directly upon the pain itself.
I also use my mantra to go into trance. After relaxing on the bed and making as total a self-offering as possible of everything, from top to bottom, and after removing as fully as possible all resistance of the ego, I start repeating the mantra.1 After repeating it two or three times, I am in trance (at the beginning it took longer). And from this trance I pass into sleep; the trance lasts as long as necessary and, quite naturally, spontaneously, I pass into sleep. And when I come back, I remember everything. The sleep was like a continuation of the trance. And essentially, the only reason for sleep is to allow the body to assimilate the results of the trance, then to allow these results to be accepted throughout and to let the body do its natural nights work of eliminating toxins. My periods of sleep practically dont exist sometimes they are as short as half an hour or 15 minutes. But in the beginning, I had long periods of sleep, one or even two hours in succession. And when I woke up, I did not feel this residue of heaviness which comes from sleep the effects of the trance continued.
0 1960-07-23 - The Flood and the race - turning back to guide and save amongst the torrents - sadhana vs tamas and destruction - power of giving and offering - Japa, 7 lakhs, 140000 per day, 1 crore takes 20 years, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
What was pleasing, and really quite interesting, was this tremendous speed, like an arrow, and I always arrived in time, just in time, just in time. Once I had crossed over to the other side (I clearly felt that nothing would be left, for it was such a powerful deluge), the danger was finished, there was no longer ANY possibility at all of being touchedthis was the main feeling. Everything was stopped. Nothing could touch.
I turned around and saw all this water rushing down, and I thought, Now lets see if we can do something here. There was someone behind who interested me, someone or somethingit was still something; it was very likable and had something of the blue color that was here on the other side. Not really individuals, but more like beings representative of something that was following me quite closely. When I was there, it also was there, but it could not keep up, it kept losing groundas my speed increased, its decreased. It could not keep up. But it interested me in a special way. Oh, hes so close (he or it); he might just make it, I thought. And at that moment, I saw that all this destructive will with its instrument of water, symbolically water, had rushed past and was spreading out everywhere. But there was still a chance of saving all those who were along this path. And thats immediately what I thought of, it was my first wish: Lets see if they can still get across, if I can manage to get them across. I remembered some especially dangerous spots (while speeding past, I had remarked, Oh, here we might still be able to do this, there that could still be donemy consciousness moved at the same speed, and I noted everything along the way), and once I was firmly there on the other side, I started sending back messages.
0 1960-10-02a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Before going to bed, sometimes I say to myself, I will do what is necessary to spend my night in these great currents of force(because there is a way to do it). And then I think, Oh, what an egotist you are, my girl! So sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesntwhen theres something important to do, it doesnt happen. But all I have to do is concentrate in a certain way before going to sleep to spend my whole night in these very far from here, very far I cant say very far from the earth, for surely its in an intermediate zone between the forces from above and the earths atmosphere. Thats what it mainly is, in any case. Its a great universal current as well, but mainly its what descends and comes onto the earth, and it is permeating the earths atmosphere all the time, all the time, and it comes with this wide, overall visionit makes for wonderful nights I no longer bother about people at allat least not as such, but in a more impersonal way.
(silence)
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sometime later (he doesnt know how long, for until he returned he had no sense of time), he woke up in a rather dark, low-roofed house way out in the country; there were five persons now, not four. They were busy eating, so he was careful not to budge. mainly they were drinking (they have prohibition there). Four of them were already dead drunk. So he got up to have a look. The fifth one, whom he hadnt seen before (he must have been the chief), was not yet totally drunk; when he saw the boy stirring, he let out a fearful growlso the poor boy threw himself flat in the corner and lay stillhe waited. After awhile, the fifth one (after downing another bottle) was also dead drunk. So now that he saw them all fast asleep, he got up very cautiously and he said he ran for an hour and a half! A boy pummelled as he had been, who hadnt eaten for four days! I think thats a miracle.
After running for an hour and a half, he found himself back at the Poona station, he doesnt know how. He caught a train back to Bombay, scarcely knowing how he managed it.
--
But I was mainly interested by the fact that I felt the danger these people representednot because they were brigands, but because they had some powerbrigands with a power and from what I saw, it was not merely an hypnotic power. There must have been a tantric force in it, otherwise they would not have been so powerful, and especially so powerful from a distance. I had said to myself, They MUST be caught. Which was why (the Force kept on working, you see). And yesterday, the newspaper said that a gang of five men, eight women and half a dozen children had been arrested by the police in Allahabad for using what the newspaper called mesmeric means to rob people, attack them, etc. (They were operating in Poona, Bombay and Ahmedabad, but they were caught in Allahabad). Probably when they realized that the boy was gone, they got frightened and fled to the North. And they were arrested in Allahabad I had made a very strong formation and had said, They MUST be caught.
As of now, I have no other news Theyve been caught, so they cant do any wrong OUTWARDLY, but still their power is there. Were going to have to be And everyone here says the same thinglike a black veil of unconsciousness that has fallen upon us. Even those who arent accustomed to such things have felt it. Im presently cleaning the whole placeits not easy. Everything is upside down.
0 1960-12-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its what Sri Aurobindo calls disbelief, and its located in the most material physical consciousness it isnt doubt (which mainly belongs to the mind), it is almost like a refusal to accept the obvious as soon as it doesnt belong to the little daily routine of ordinary sensations and reactionsa sort of incapacity to accept and recognize the exceptional.
This disbelief is the bedrock of the consciousness. And it comes with a (thought is too big a word for such an ordinary thing) a mental-physical activity which makes you (I am forced to use the word) think things and which always foresees, imagines or draws conclusions (depending on the case) in a way which I myself call DEFEATIST. In other words, it automatically leads you to imagine all the bad things that can happen. And this occurs in a realm which is absolutely run-of-the-mill, in the most ordinary, restricted, banal activities of lifesuch as eating, moving in short, the coarsest of things.
0 1961-01-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But if we had the vision of the whole, if we were able to contain past, present and future simultaneously (as it is somewhere up above), then we would see how relative these things are and that its mainly the progressing evolutionary Force which gives us this will to reject; yet when these things still had their place, they were quite tolerable. However, to have this experience in a practical sense is impossible unless we have a total vision the vision that is the Supremes alone! Therefore, one must first identify with the Supreme, and then, keeping this identification, one can return to a consciousness sufficiently externalized to see things as they really are. But thats the principle, and in so far as we are able to realize it, we reach a state of consciousness where we can look at all things with the smile of a complete certainty that everything is exactly as it should be.
Of course, people who dont think deeply enough will say, Oh, but if we see that things are exactly as they should be, then nothing will budge. But no! There isnt a fraction of a second when things arent moving: theres a continuous and total transformation, a movement that never stops. Only because its difficult for us to feel that way can we imagine that by our entering certain states of consciousness things would not change. Even if we entered into an apparently total inertia, things would continue to change and we along with them!
0 1961-01-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You see, personal surrender and devotion is an excellent solution for the individual, but it doesnt work for the collectivity. For example, as soon as I am alone and lying on my bedpeace! (Ah, I forgot! They had invented yet another thing: making my heartbeats irregular. Every three or four beats it would stop; then it would start up again, pounding as if I had been struck. Three, four beats, a faint little beat, then stop then, bang! Blow after blow. One more of their extraordinary inventions!) But, as soon as I stretch out and make a total surrender of all the cellsno more activity, nothingeverything goes well. But I am well aware that this surrender has an effect on the action only to the extent that the Supreme Lord has decided upon the action, and those movements stretch over long periods of time5: all sorts of things may happen before the final Victory is won. Because, for us, the scale is very small; even if it were of terrestrial proportions, it would be a very small scale; but on a universal scale. These forces have their place and their action, their universe, and as long as their place and their action are maintained, they will be here. So before their action can be exhausted or become useless, many things can happen.
Individually, however, there is almost instantaneous bliss. But this is not a true solution its a solution in the long run, by repercussion. To have true comm and here in this world, all of that must be mastered.
0 1961-01-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I came out of this trance two hours later, at 3 a.m. And during these two hours I saw with a new consciousness, a new vision, and above all a NEW POWERI had a vision of the entire Work: all the people, all the things, all the systems, all of it. And it was it was different in appearance (this is only because appearances depend upon the needs of the moment), but mainly it differed IN POWERA considerable difference. Considerable. The power itself was no longer the same.9
A truly ESSENTIAL change in the body has occurred.
0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The body doesnt ask (its so docile), it doesnt even ask for its sufferings to stopit adapts to them. Its mainly my contact with people that makes the thing difficult: when I am all alone upstairs, everything goes well, quite well. But when I spend one or one and a half hours in the afternoon seeing people, afterwards I feel exhausted. That, obviously, is whats making the thing difficult. But the body doesnt complain. It doesnt complain, its ready. The other day when it went back upstairs, it felt a bitwell, at the end of its resources, as though it had pushed itself to the limit. It said to the Lord (and it said this so clearly, as though the consciousness of the cells were speaking; I noted it down): If this (I cant call it an illness there is no illness! Its a condition of general disequilibrium), if this condition is necessary for Your Work, then so be it, let it go on. But if its an effect of my stupidity (you see, its the BODY saying, If its because I dont understand or I am not adapting or not doing what I should or not taking the proper attitude), if it is an effect of my stupidity, then truly I pray that. It asks only to changeto know and to change!
It is attached to nothing: none of its habits, none of its ways of being-nothing. It says in all sincerity, I ask only for the Light, only to change. That is its state. it has never, never said, Oh, Im tired, Ive had enough! Bah! Its not like that. It is attached to nothing for a long, long time it has ceased to have desiresit is attached to nothing at all, to nothing. There isnt a single thing for which it says, Oh, I cant do without that! Not one. It doesnt care-if something comes, it takes it; if it doesnt come, the body doesnt think about it. In other words, its truly good-natured. But if this isnt sufficient, then it doesnt know and it says, If there is something I cant do or I dont know or I am not doing It asks for nothing more than to make the necessary effort!
0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To give a rather curious example, there was a kind of spell of illness over the Ashram, stemming mainly from peoples thoughts, from their way of thinking. It was quite widespread and it was horrible, gloomy, full of fear, pettiness, blind submission, oh! Everyone was in a state of expectation.1 In short, the atmosphere was such that there was an attempt to prevent me from leaving my room I had to sneak out! It was disgusting! Well, on the very night I saw the spell over the Ashram, Sri Aurobindo was lying sick in his bed, just as I had seen him in 1950. Normally, we spend almost every night together, doing this, seeing that, arranging things, talkingits a kind of second life behind this one, and it makes existence pleasant. But that night when I had to sneak out of my room (in my nightgown!), and people were trying to find me to (laughing) force me back into bed, he was lying sick in bedand this struck me hard, for it means these things still affect him in his consciousness. He was in a kind of trance and not at all well. It didnt last, but nonetheless.
Oh, the things that can collect there,2 ugh!
--
Note that a few days earlier [the night of February 12], a disciple had a very symbolic dream in which she saw all the disciples gathered near the Ashram's main gate with an air of consternation, as though something had happened to Mother.
In the subconscient.
0 1961-03-14, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is the sense of all things being organized, concentrated and arranged according to a rhythm, and if one manages to maintain the equilibrium of this rhythm, something permanent results.
(Mother re mains absorbed within herself) The equilibrium of this rhythm the progressive, ascending equilibrium of this rhythmis what, for Matter, must constitute Immortality.
0 1961-03-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The experience occurred in a place corresponding to ours [the main Ashram building], but immense: the rooms were ten times bigger, but absolutely one cant say emptythey were barren. Not that there was nothing in them, but nothing was in order, everything was just where it shouldnt be. There wasnt any furniture so things were strewn here and therea dreadful disarray! Things were being put to uses they werent made for, yet nothing needed for a particular purpose could be found. The whole section having to do with education [the Ashram School] was in almost total darkness: the lights were out with no way to switch them on, and people were wandering about and coming to me with incoherent, stupid proposals. I tried to find a comer where I could rest (not because I was tired; I simply wanted to concentrate a little and get a clear vision in the midst of it all), but it was impossible, no one would leave me alone. Finally I put a tottering armchair and a footstool end-to-end and tried to rest; but someone immediately came up (I know who, Im purposely not giving names) and said, Oh! This wont do at all! It CANT be arranged like that! Then he began making noise, commotion, disorderwell, it was awful.
To wind it all up, I went to Sri Aurobindos rooman enormous, enormous room, but in the same state. And he appeared to be in an eternal consciousness, entirely detached from everything yet very clearly aware of our total incapacity.
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 flowers: one very large Endurance in the Most Material Vital [zinnia] and another flower like the one X just gave me [cosmos] but bigger and pure white (it concerns sexual movements, light in sexual movements). But curiously enough, I passed inside through a trance; I was quite busy trying to make it more fluid when all at once, poof! I found myself inside. But since I entered through a trance it became completely objective: no more thought, nothing. And I saw I had put these two flowers there (at the levels of the abdomen and chest), one more active, a very large, dark purple Endurance flower, and another much smaller, pure white, slightly lower down. While I was watching this I think the clock must have struck something pulled me and it all faded away.
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 1961-04-08, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He is used to maintaining a kind of poise, the poise of the traditional attitude of indifference towards everything material: Its an illusion, it has no importance, theres no need to be concerned with it. Nature is acting, not 1; Nature is acting and Nature is built like that, so why bother about it, why worry. Thats how he lived until he came here, and its why he had this attitude of indifference. But here it began to change. And of course his body isnt used to it; it has difficulty keeping up, it lacks plasticity.
The first thing he did was to go see the Doctor and ask him to heal his ear, heal his stomach, heal. So the Doctor told him, But why do you eat just anything at any time of day? Naturally youre sick. And then he was constantly running up against our ways of organizing material things herepeople like him dont organize, they dont care, they just let things drift. Regarding his son, for instance, the Doctor told him, Its because you dont look after him. If you did, this wouldnt happen. And X very bluntly replied, But why!?
0 1961-04-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In a certain state of consciousness (I no longer remember what he calls it I think its in the Yoga of Self-Perfection), one is perfectly identified with the Supreme, not in his static but in his dynamic aspect, the state of becoming. In this state, everything is already there from all eternity, even though here it gives us the impression of a becoming. And Sri Aurobindo says that if you are capable of maintaining this state,2 then you know everything: all that has been, all that is and all that will bein an absolutely simultaneous way.
But you must have a firm head on your shoulders! Reading some of these chapters in Self-Perfection, I thought it would be better if it didnt fall into just anyones hands.
0 1961-04-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There used to be a kind of mainspring, which had its raison dtre and so persisted: do this to arrive at that, and this leads to that (its more subtle, of course); but this mainspring suddenly seems to have been abolished, because it became useless.
Now a kind of absoluteness prevails at each and every second, in each movement, from the most subtle, the most spiritual, to the most material. The sense of linking has disappeared: that isnt the cause of this, and this isnt done for that; there is no there one is heading towardsit all seems.
0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have seen other things but I have rarely seen anything favorable in churches. Here, I remember going to M I was taken inside and received there in quite an unusual waya highly respected person introduced me as a great saint! They led me up to the main altar where people are not usually allowed to go, and what did I see there! An asura (oh, not a very high-ranking one, more like a rakshasa4), but such a monster! Hideous. So I went wham! (gesture of giving a blow) I thought something was going to happen. But this being left the altar and came over to try to intimidate me; of course, he saw it was useless, so he offered to make an alliance: If you just keep quiet and dont do anything, I will share all I get with you. Well, I sent him packing! The head of this Math5. It was a Math with a monastery and temple, which means a substantial fortune; the head of the Math has it all at his disposal for as long as he holds the position and he is appointed for life. But he has to name his successor and as a rule, his own life is considerably shortened by the successorthis is how it works. Everyone knew that the present head had considerably shortened the life of his predecessor. And what a creature! As asuric as the god he worshipped! I saw some poor fellows throw themselves at his feet (he must have been squeezing them pitilessly), to beg forgiveness and mercyan absolutely ruthless man. But he received meyou should have seen it! I said nothing, not a word about their god; I gave no sign that I knew anything. But I thought to myself, So thats how it is!
Another thing happened to me in a fishing village near A., on the seashore, where there is a temple dedicated to Kalia terrible Kali. I dont know what happened to her, but she had been buried with only her head sticking out! A fantastic story I knew nothing about it at all. I was going by car from A. to this temple and halfway there a black form, in great agitation, came rushing towards me, asking for my help: Ill give you everything I haveall my power, all the peoples worshipif you help me to become omnipotent! Of course, I answered her as she deserved! I later asked who this was, and they told me that some sort of misfortune had befallen her and she had been buried with only her head above ground. And every year this fishing village has a festival and slaughters thousands of chickensshe likes chicken! Thousands of chickens. They pluck them on the spot (the whole place gets covered with feathers), and then, after offering the blood and making the sacrifice, the people, naturally, eat them all up. The day I came this had taken place that very morningfea thers littered everywhere! It was disgusting. And she was asking for my help!
0 1961-06-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have received your note1 and it didnt surprise me, because just about a month ago I received what seemed like an SOS from your mother, telling me your father was rapidly declining. I have done what I could, mainly to bring in some tranquillity, some calm, some inner peace. But I havent done. You see, there are always two possibilities when people are so seriously ill: they can be helped to die quickly, or else made to linger on for a very long time. When I have no outer or inner indications, all I ever do is apply the consciousness for the best to happen to them (the best from the souls standpoint, of course).
Do you know whether your father has expressed any wish?
0 1961-07-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
From experience, I know perfectly well that when one is satisfied with being a saint or a sage and constantly maintains the right attitude, all goes well the body doesnt get sick, and even if there are attacks it recovers very easily; all goes very well AS LONG AS THERE IS NOT THIS WILL TO TRANSFORM. All the difficulties arise in protest against the will to transform; while if one says, Very well, its all right, let things be as they are, I dont care, I am perfectly happy, in a blissful state, then the body begins to feel content!
Thats the problem: something totally new is being introduced into Matter, and the body is protesting.
0 1961-09-03, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You understand, if I were British and writing in English, I could try to do a book on Sri Aurobindo using Savitri alone. With quotations from Savitri one can maintain a certain poetical rhythm, and this rhythm can generate an opening. But in French it isnt possiblehow could it be translated?
Yes, thats what I mean-but even in English.
0 1961-11-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Maybe in a few minutesin any case not more than a few daysit would be finished. And ORIGINAL. The main impression is that it would be something new, original, unexpected, and thats just whats needed: something unexpected, unlike anything ever done before. Something sudden. At the risk of being a bit bewildering that doesnt matter! It doesnt matter. With all those pictures it will always be accessible to everyone. Especially each time you express this fatigue, this difficulty, what Sri Aurobindo seems to be saying comes back to me: But of course! He is banging up against something that shouldnt even be there!
(Laughing) Perhaps thats why you were angry with me! Because I insist! Upstairs [in Mothers room, during japa], it keeps coming all the time, all the time: Go ontake the plunge! Clear the hurdle, take the plunge, cross to the other side. Constantly, constantly.
0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I have two very serious objections. One, it would be a major occult revelation (there would be a lot of occultismwhat people term miracles or things of that nature), a major revelation. I hesitate to do that because I dont think its time yet. mainly that. And then, in spite of everything, it would inevitably be far too personal, even if it werent written along personal linesfar too personal. And now isnt the time for that.
There would inevitably be far too much of the physical person in it, and that isnt interesting. It would only be interesting if the Person, with a capital P, came to express Itself. That would be tremendous.
0 1962-01-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a difficult problem to resolve, because at no price do I want to stop the discipline (the tapasya,2 to be precise). I dont want to stop. And both things together are clearly too much for a stupid little bodystupid mainly because it lives in tension.
These past few days Ive had some interesting experiences from this standpoint. I had what is commonly called fever, but it wasnt feverit was a resurfacing from the subconscient of all the struggles, all the tensions this body has had for what will soon be eighty-three years. I went through a period in my life when the tension was tremendous, because it was psychological and vital as well as physical: a perpetual struggle against adverse forces; and during my stay in Japan, particularly oh, it was terrible! So at night, everything that had been part of that life in Japanpeople, things, movements, circumstancesall of it seemed to be surrounding my body in the form of vital3 vibrations, and to be taking the place of my present state, which had completely vanished. For hours during the night, the body was reliving all the terrible tensions it had during those four years in Japan. And I realized how much (because at the time you pay no attention; the consciousness is busy with something else and not concentrated on the body), how much the body resists and is tense. And just as I was realizing this, I had a communication with Sri Aurobindo: But youre keeping it up! he told me. Your body still has the habit of being tense. (Its much less now, of course; its quite different since the inner consciousness is in perfect peace, but the BODY keeps the habit of being tense.) For instance, in the short interval between the time I get up and the time I come down to the balcony,4 when I am getting ready (I have to get this body ready to come down) well, the body is tense about being ready in time. And thats why accidents happen at that moment. So the following morning I said, All right, no more tension, and I was exclusively concerned with keeping my body perfectly tranquil I was no later than usual! So its obviously just one of the bodys bad habits. Everything went off the same as usual, and since then things are better. But its a nasty habit.
0 1962-01-12 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So long as theres no question of physical transformation, the psychological and in large part, the subjective point of view is sufficientand thats relatively easy. But when it comes to incorporating matter into the work, matter as it is in this world where the very starting point is false (we start off in unconsciousness and ignorance), well, its very difficult. Because, to recover the consciousness it has lost, Matter has had to individualize itself, and for that for the form to last and retain this possibility of individualityit has been created with a certain indispensable measure of rigidity. And that rigidity is the main obstacle to the expansion, to the plasticity and suppleness necessary for receiving the Supermind. I constantly find myself facing this problem, which is utterly concrete, absolutely material when youre dealing with cells that have to re main cells and not vaporize into some nonphysical reality, and at the same time have to have a suppleness, a lack of rigidity, enabling them to widen indefinitely.
There have been times, while working in the most material mind (the mind ingrained in the material substance), when I felt my brain swelling and swelling and swelling, and my head becoming so large it seemed about to burst! On two occasions I was forced to stop, because it was (was it only an impression, or was it a fact?) in any event it seemed dangerous, as if the head would burst, because what was inside was becoming too tremendous (it was that power in Matter, that very powerful deep blue light which has such powerful vibrations; it is able to heal, for example, and change the functioning of the organsreally a very powerful thing materially). Well then, thats what was filling my head, more and more, more and more, and I had the feeling that my skull was (it was painful, you know) that there was a pressure inside my skull pushing out, pushing everything out. I wondered what was going to happen. Then, instead of following the movement, helping it along and going with it, I became immobile, passive, to see what would happen. And both times it stopped. I was no longer helping the movement along, you see, I simply re mained passive and it came to a halt, there was a sort of stabilization.
--
It was taking place in the subtle physical. The people who had patches on their bodies and had to be sent back were always the ones who lacked the plasticity those two movements required. But the main thing was the movement of expansion; the progressive movement, the movement of following the Becoming, seemed to be a subsequent preoccupation for those who had landed. The preparation on the boat concerned that capacity for expansion.
Another thing I didnt mention to you when I related the experience was that the ship had no engine. Everything was set in motion through will powerpeople, things (even the clothes people wore were a result of their will). And this gave all things and every persons shape a great suppleness, because there was an awareness of this willwhich is not a mental will but a will of the Self, what could be called a spiritual will or a soul-will (to give the word soul that particular meaning). I have that experience right here when theres an absolute spontaneity in action, I mean when the action for instance, an utterance or a movementis not determined by the mind, and not even (not to mention thought or intellect), not even by the mind that usually sets us in motion. Generally, when we do something, we can perceive in ourselves a will to do it; when you watch yourself, you see this: there is always (it can happen in a flash) the will to do. When you are conscious and watch yourself doing something, you see in yourself the will to do itthis is where the mind intervenes, its normal intervention, the established order in which things happen. But the supramental action is decided by a leap over the mind. The action is direct, with no need to go through the mind. Something enters directly into contact with the vital centers and activates them without going through the mindyet in full consciousness. The consciousness doesnt function in the usual sequence, it functions from the center of spiritual will straight to matter.
--
Mother later clarified the meaning of this sentence: "I saw that to follow the Supreme in the Becoming one has to be able to expand, because the universe expands in the Becoming the amount of expansion in the universe is not matched by an equal amount of dissolution. So it is really necessary to be able to grow, as a child grows, to expand; but at the same time, for things to progress, this process of expansion demands a constant inner reorganization. As the quantity is increased (if we can speak of quantity here), so must the quality be simultaneously maintained by an ongoing internal reorganization of intercellular relationships."
In December 1958.
0 1962-02-03, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There has been a kind of perception of a variety of bodily activities, a whole series of them, having to do exclusively (or so it seems) with the maintenance of the body. Some are on the borderlinesleep, for instance: one portion of it is necessary for good maintenance of the body, and another portion puts it in contact with other parts and activities of the being; but one portion of sleep is exclusively for maintaining the bodys balance. Then there is food, keeping clean, a whole range of things. And according to Sri Aurobindo, spiritual life shouldnt suppress those things; whatever is indispensable for the bodys well-being must be kept up. For ordinary people, all other bodily activities are used for personal pleasure and benefit. The spiritual man, on the other hand, has given his body to serve the Divine, so that the Divine may use it for His work and perhaps, as Sri Aurobindo said, for His joyalthough given the present state of Matter and the body, that seems to me unlikely or at best very intermittent and partial, because this body is much more a field of misery than a field of joy. (None of this is based on speculation, but on personal experience I am relating my personal experience.) But with work, its different: when the body is at work, its in full swing. Thats its joy, its needto exist only to serve Him. To exist only to serve. And of course, to reduce maintenance to a bare minimum while trying to find a way for the Divine to participate in the very restricted, limited and meager possibilities of joy this maintenance may give. To associate the Divine with all those movements and things, like keeping clean, sleeping (although sleep is different, its already a lot more interesting); but especially with personal hygiene, eating and other absolutely indispensable things, the attempt is to associate them with the Divine Presence so that they may be as much an expression of divine joy as possible. (This is realized to a certain extent.)
Now where does japa fit into all this?
0 1962-02-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact, in the Agenda conversations of 1958 and '59 (never noted by Satprem because he believed them too "personal"), Mother mentioned this as one of the main reasons for encouraging his tantric discipline. He even set out for the Himalayas, like a knight of yore, with the idea of bringing back to Mother the secrets of transformation; and Mother indicated to him the spot where one of her former bodies lay in a Himalayan cave, petrified by a mineral spring. But the secret of the new species can manifestly not be found through any "trick" tantric or otherwiseone's very nature must change. No one could help Mother because if someone "knew," it would already be done.
Mother means that it wasn't possible for Sri Aurobindo to continue.
0 1962-02-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I did it myself for years, using the same system: inhale, hold, exhale, re main empty. But holding the lungs empty is said to be dangerous, so I dont advise it. I did it for years. Without knowing it, Sri Aurobindo and I did it nearly the same way, along with all sorts of other things that arent supposed to be done! This is to tell you that the danger is mainly in what you think. In the course of certain movements, both of us made the air go out through the crown of the headapparently thats only to be done when you want to die! (Mother laughs) It didnt kill us.
No, the danger is mainLY a thought formation.
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!
0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So, according to the plane where you are conscious and can see, you perceive images and see events from varying distances and with varying degrees of accuracy. The only true and sure vision is the vision of the Divine Consciousness. The problem, therefore, is to become conscious of the Divine Consciousness and constantly maintain it in all lifes details.
Meanwhile, there are all sorts of ways to receive indications. That exact, precise and (whats the word?) habitual vision certain people have may stem from various sources. It may be a vision through identity with circumstances and things when you have learned to expand your consciousness. It may be an indication from some chatterbox of the invisible world, who has got it into his head to let you know whats going to happenthis is often the case. Then everything depends on your harbingers morals: if he is having fun at your expense, he spins stories for youthis almost always happens to those who receive their information from entities. To bait you, they may repeatedly tell you how things are going to turn out (for they have a universal vision in some vital or mental realm); then, when they are sure you trust them, they may start telling you fibs and, as they say in English, you make a fool of yourself. This happens frequently! You have to be in a higher consciousness than these fellows, these entities (or these minor gods, as some call them) and able to check from above the value of their statements.
--
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!
I leapt back just in time, and the streetcar passed by.
0 1962-03-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So it doesnt matter. Actually, you could type it up just as it is on the tape. You want to read it to me mainly to get (laughing) some additions, hmm?
There may be additions, but there are also some questions.
--
Actually, thats the main reason I dont like to talk about occultism. It puts people in touch with an extremely dangerous world which cant be safely entered unless one is (I cant even say a saint, because its not true; some saints enter the vital world and get right into it!) unless one is transformed, unless one has the true spiritual consciousness. On this condition alone are you perfectly safe. So where are the people with the spiritual consciousness? There are really very few of them, very few. And above all, in those who have this occult curiosity there are also all sorts of vital movements, which make it dangerous for them to enter that world. Unless, of course, they go shielded by the gurus presence; with that, you can go anywhere, its the same as going there with him. And if you do go with him, all is well; he has the knowledge and he protects you. But going there all on your own is you need the Divine Protection itself! Or the protection of the guru who represents the Divine. With the gurus protection you are safe.
But isnt it possible to have a fruitful collaboration with those beings? Should they be avoided altogether, or what?
0 1962-05-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The subject here is a letter, no longer extant, in which Satprem expresses his desire to go write his new book1 in the Himalayas, far from present circumstances. These circumstances included poor health, but mainly, lurking behind, was the violent and almost physical inner wound caused by his break with X. The idea was to go away for a change of air.)
(With an ironic smile) On the meandering path of the world, this trip doesnt look too bad! For you personally, its an experience that yes, that would give you a concrete sense of the vanity of a number of things that still. You see, throughout all ones lives and all of lifes circumstances, theres one thing after another, one thing after another, one thing after another (zigzag gesture) to remove the scales from your eyes.
0 1962-05-29, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Human beings arent that limited, after all! It is rather yes, its a matter of atavism, of education, of all sorts of things; and above all, I think the main reason is that you have no desire toits no fun for you!
(Satprem laughs in complete agreement)
0 1962-05-31, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a strange thing that happens to me all the time, at least fifty times a day (and its particularly clear at night). In its most external form its like moving from one room to another, or from one house to another, and you go through the door or the wall almost without noticing it, automatically. Being in one room is reflected outwardly by quite a comfortable condition, a state where theres no pain at all, no pain anywhere, and a great peacea joyous peace, a state of perfect calm an ideal condition, at any rate, which sometimes lasts a long, long time. Its mainly at night, actually; during the day people interrupt me with all sorts of things, but for a certain number of hours at night this state is practically constant. And then suddenly, with no perceptible or apparent reason (I havent yet discovered the why or the wherefore of it), you seem to FALL into the other room, or into the other house, as though you had made a false step and then you have a pain here, an ache there, youre uncomfortable.
Obviously its the continuation of the same experience I told you about,1 but now it has come to this. I mean the two states are now distinctnoticeably distinct; but so far I havent found either the why or the wherefore. Is it something coming from outside or just an old rut: yes, it really feels like an old rut, like a wrinkle in a piece of cloth; you know, you iron it out again and again, and the wrinkle comes back. Thats more the feeling it gives menot at all a conscious habit, just an old rut. But might something from outside also be provoking it?
0 1962-06-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When I spoke to him, you know, when I went to see him, it was just after my japa and I was in a state of absolute inner calmabsolute, with not a. I simply felt he had to be helped, because he was saying things that were going against him. So I had this feeling, a very strong feeling of affection, but an affection that states things clearly and unemotionally. I was very calm when I said all that. I did get upset afterwards, but I was upset mainly because he immediately had such an incredible reaction! So then I was at a loss. But the way I put things to him. Really, if he had the least. But even a man who has never done any yoga would have felt I was speaking from my heart, candidly. Even a man with no spiritual culture would have felt that. So how could he take it in such a way!
I am not sure he did.
0 1962-06-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
From this standpoint the standpoint of this body and its activities I am maintained in a state of utter indifference. Everything people want to do, all their programs and projects and so forth all that is far, far removed from me (gesture towards a distant shore); its all a distant blur. I dont even look at it. It only comes to me when someone tells me something (gesture of a thought floating momentarily by), and then it goes.
The body itself senses that it must learn to live in eternity.
0 1962-06-23, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I cant say I find it terribly interesting (!) but I am clearly meant to know about it. Not that I am seeking to see or know (my focus is rather on preparing the body and making it receptive; thats what I am actively doing), but what probably happens is that, in my contemplation, I suddenly exteriorize (or something of the sort) and then I see all kinds of things. But I DONT sleep, you see (I dont know how to explain it). I go from a state of conscious concentration to a more passive state in which I am made to take part in all kinds of scenes and visions, involving many people and many things, as if to complete my knowledge. Some of these visions are amusing, new and interesting, and I dont know, but I suspect Sri Aurobindo has something to do with it, because theres such a sense of humor running through it all! (Mother laughs) Things that make me laugh, comical things due mainly to the tremendous earnestness with which people take the most unimportant things; yes, the disproportionate importance people give to absolutely unimportant events!
(silence)
0 1962-07-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They tried, fought, operated: no movement, nothing moved. Then one day they declared him dead (by the way, according to doctors, when the body dies the heart beats on faintly for a few seconds; then it stops and its all over). In his case, those faint beats (not strong enough to pump blood) continued for half an hour the kind of heartbeats typical of the trance state. (They all seem to be crassly ignorant! But anyway, it doesnt matter.) And they all said, even the doctors, Oooh, he must be a great yogi, this only happens to yogis! I have no idea what they mean by that. But I do know that although those heartbeats arent strong enough to pump blood through the body (thus putting the body into a cataleptic state), they do suffice to maintain life, and thats how yogis can re main in trance for months on end. Well, I dont know what type of doctors they are (probably very modern), but theyre ignorant of this fact. Anyway, according to them he had those pulsations for half an hour (normally they last a few seconds). All right. Hence their remarks. And he was here the whole while, immutable. Then suddenly I felt a kind of shudder; I lookedhe was gone. I was busy and didnt note the time, but it was in the afternoon, thats all I know. Later I was told that they had decided to cremate him, and had done so at that time.
The violence of the accident had brutally exteriorized him, but when it happened he must have been thinking of me with trust. He came and didnt budgehe never knew what was happening to his body. He didnt know he was dead! And if.
0 1962-07-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
From time to time, one touches the vibration of the Supremes Love, the creative Love, Love that creates, upholds, maintains, fuels progress and is the Manifestations very reason for being (these great pulsations were the expression of That), and That is something so stupendous and marvelous for the material frame, the body, that it seems to be dosed out. From time to time, you are given a trickle of it to make you realize that the end (or anyway, the end of the beginning!) is That.
But you mustnt rush; and above all, no desire. Be very calm. The calmer you are, the longer it lasts. If youre in too much of a hurry, it goes away.
0 1962-07-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its like an image. You see, the body is stretched out here on the chaise longue. You know how it is when experiments are done on animals? Its something like that the body is there as the subject of an experiment. Then theres my consciousness, the part focused on the earthly experience and the present transformation (its what I mean when I say I). And then the Lord. I say the Lord Ive adopted that because its the best way of putting it and the easiest for me, but I never, NEVER think of a being. For me, its a simultaneous contact with the Eternal, the Infinite, the Vast, the Totality of everything the totality of everything: all that is, all that has been, all that will be, everything. Words spoil it, but its like thatautomaticallywith consciousness, sweetness and SOLICITUDE. With all the qualities a perfect Personality can offer (I dont know if you follow me, but thats the way it is). And That (I use all these words to say it, and three-fourths is left out) is a spontaneous, constant, immediate experience. So the I I spoke of asks that the body may have the experience, or at least an initial taste, even a shadow of the experience of this Love. And each time its asked for, it comes INSTANTLY. Then I see the three together1in my consciousness and perception the three are together and I see that this Love is dosed out and maintained in exact proportion to what the body can bear.
The body is aware of this and is a little sad about it. But immediately comes something soothing, calming, making it vast. The body instantly senses the immensity and regains its calm.
0 1962-07-31, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Their main complaint was, You are abstract. So if we want to be concrete, we have to speak of experiences.
No, to them concrete means telling what Sri Aurobindo did physically. Thats what they call concrete. Psychology is something abstract for them.
0 1962-08-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Concerning Satprem's new book on Sri Aurobindo, Mother foresees that again many cuts will be necessary, and emphasizes that the main point is to prevent the publisher from entrusting the book's editing to some ignoramus. And she adds:)
But its quite clear that these people cant grasp it; theyre a closed door! Not even a door of bronze, but of bricks and cementimpenetrable.
0 1962-08-28, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At times its a bit new or a bit extreme, and you have to be careful the body doesnt panic. But then you see how everything is dosed out and maintained in a way that (Mother laughs) nothing falls to pieces!
On the surface, its a very humble work, nothing sensational. There are no illuminations filling you with joy and. All that is fine for people seeking spiritual joysit belongs to the past.
0 1962-09-05, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You must go out through here (the heart)you can go out through the top of the head, but its more difficult. You must leave through the heart and return the same way. Its quite natural; its the first thing you learn when you want to exteriorize. The whole consciousness has to be concentrated here (the heart), and thats where you go out. And you must reenter the same way and maintain the link.
Its interesting though, very interesting.
--
Yes, thats mainly what makes it interesting: it shows them that consciousness can exist outside the body.
Thats it. But its not at all indispensable for ones development.
--
I have already told you the reason (there are many reasons): one tiny undeveloped level in the being is enough. It obviously has to do with atavism, with the way the body was built, the milieu one was born in, ones education, the life one has led. But its mainly how much one has been drawn to higher things. It is clear that your energies have been far more concentrated on breaking through that lid and touching the Source of Truth than on having mediumistic experiencesfar more. And for what you have come to do, that was INFINITELY more important. Minor experiences such as exteriorizing and the like are just diversions along the way thats how I have always seen them.
Yes, Mother, thats all right. But theres no outer encouragement. I have the feeling that nothing is happening I wake up each morning and theres nothing. I meditate, theres nothing theres never anything! Just the certainty that its the only thing worth doing.
0 1962-09-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Somewhere in the overmind (beyond the higher mind and from the overmind onwards), things are luminous IN THEMSELVES. Light doesnt have to strike them: things themselves are luminous. And this makes a considerable difference in vision. Things are no longer lit from outside, they are luminous in themselves. This is the main difference in the quality of the light.
It has even come to the point where things lit from outside seem artificial to me. They have lost their light.
0 1962-09-26, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, what I mainly want to know is the difference when you cross to the other side, into the Supermind the difference in vision between the Supermind and the overmind.
I dont know what Sri Aurobindo would tell you.
0 1962-10-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Actually, when people speak of transformation, theyre mainly thinking of a picturesque transformation, arent they? A beautiful appearanceluminous, supple, plastic, changing at will. But they dont give much thought to this other thing, this rather anesthetic transformation of the organs! And yet its certainly whats going to happen first, long before the appearance is transformed.
Sri Aurobindo spoke of the working of the chakras1 replacing the organs.
0 1962-10-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One does sometimes wonder why, why is this life so tragic? But in the first place, if it were a perpetual enchantment we wouldnt even appreciate it, because it would be completely natural thats mainly it: we wouldnt appreciate it because it would just be completely natural. And nothing says we wouldnt long for a little hullabaloo for a change! We just might.
This may be what the story of the earthly paradise is all about. People in that paradise had a spontaneous knowledge: they lived with the same sort of consciousness animals have, just enough of it to get a little joy out of life, to feel the joy of life. But then they started wanting to know the why and the how and where they were going and what they were supposed to do and so forth and so all their worries began they got tired of being peacefully happy.
0 1962-11-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In order to be discernible, the cube was enveloped in something that looked like a kind of tulle, a tulle made of a pale gray substance, which expressed the individual nonexistence, the perfect humility that completely abolishes the ego: because of that there wasnt the least possibility of egoif you ask me why, I cant say, but thats how it was. And I was seeing that tulle all the time something extremely delicate, scarcely perceptible, yet maintaining the cubes form. It was perfect humility (in the divine sense) and total absence of egothere wasnt even the memory or idea of it, nothing whatever: the abolition of the ego. And it served to receive that immobile immensity which manifested through an action of the Power. And then, the action of the Power. I was conscious (I was consciouswhere was I? I dont know; the cube represented my physical being: I had been TOLD it was my physical being), and I was watching it without being situated I myself had no precise place but could see and understand the whole thing. And I could discern all the action being done through the cube: this action for that thing, this for that, this for that the whole earth (gesture expressing forces radiating outward, each for a special purpose), things from the past and things FAR into the future.
And it was so imperative!
0 1963-04-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So I advised him to be sure to keep his eyes open: it maintains a certain activity. When you close your eyes, you plunge into trance (you are perfectly conscious, but you go into trance and the body is absolutely stilled). Thats what Thon had taught me: you free the body consciousness and train it in such a way that it can act on its own, so that while you are deep in trance, you can get up, write, speak, do anythingyou are outside the body, theres just a link left. But its a whole training. Its not too easy, but still it can be done.
I did it to the point that even if the link is cut (I had the experience), the body can go on speaking. Very useful.
0 1963-07-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This much conviction they still have, you see, that their religion IS superior to all others, their power is superior to all others, and therefore they have to be more powerful than the others. Thats the main idea: To be the most powerful. And whats the way, now, for them to gain that all-powerfulness? Already for two or three generations, they have understood the necessity of a broadening: the narrowness of their dogma gave them too many weak points. But he [Paul VI] understands maybe even better. Well see what happens.
Look what Ive received (Mother hands a garl and of jasmine), youll give it to Sujatait smells nice!
0 1963-07-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I saw it so clearly: had he consented (naturally, every beings soul is free, it is free to decide), had he consented to stay on, I would have had enough power to keep him, to maintain his body in a condition good enough to keep him alive, BUT I DIDNT HAVE THE POWER TO UNDO THE DAMAGE DONEthat isnt there yet.
That showed me the exact extent. That isnt there yet. The transformation isnt there yet.
0 1963-07-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So there is a period when you are in suspense: no longer this, not yet that, just in between. Its a difficult period when you have to be very quiet, very patient, and above allabove allnever become afraid or irritated or impatient, because thats catastrophic. And the difficulty is that from all quarters and without letup come all the idiotic suggestions of ordinary thinking: age, deterioration, the possibility of death, the constant threat of illness, of the slightest thingillness, dotage decay. It comes all the time, all the time, all the time; and all the time this poor harried body has to re main very quiet and not to listen, preoccupied only with maintaining its vibrations in a harmonious state.
Sometimes I catch it (that must be something quite common among human beings) in a sort of hastea haste, a kind of impatience, and also, I cant say fear or anxiety, but a sense of uncertainty. The two together: impatience to get out of the present moment to the immediately next, and at the same time uncertainty as to what that immediately next moment is going to bring. The whole thing makes a vibration of restlessnesswhats the word in French?
0 1963-07-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And now the body KNOWS (in the beginning it didnt, it thought it was attacks from the outside, adverse forces; and it can always be explained like that, it was true in a certain way, but it wasnt the true truth, the deepest truth), now the body KNOWS where it all comes from, and its so marvelous! A marvel of wisdom. It puts everything in its place, it makes you REALIZE that all that play of the adverse forces is a way of seeing things (a necessary way at a given time, maybeby necessary, I mean practical), but its still an illusion; illnesses are a necessary way of seeing things to enable you to resist properly, to fight properly, but its still an illusion. And now, the BODY itself knows all thisas long as it was only the mind that knew it, it was a remote notion in the realm of ideas, but now the body itself knows it. And it is full not only of goodwill but also of an infinite gratitudeit always wonders (thats its first movement), Do I have the capacity? And it always gets the same answer, It isnt YOUR capacity. Will I have the strength?It isnt YOUR strength. Even that sense of infirmity disappears in the joy of infinite gratitude the thing is done with such goodness, such insight, such thoughtfulness, such care to maintain, as far as possible, a progressive balance.
It came with a certitude, an OBVIOUSNESS: this is the process of transformation.
0 1963-08-07, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It seems to me (Ive been feeling that for a long time now, more than a year, almost a year and a half), it seems to me that all the work was done only to teach every single element of the body to have a physical, material consciousness, but at the same time to maintain that state of peacea positive, full, thoroughly comfortable peace: something that can last indefinitely. That is to say, I progressively teach the body what I could call all the divine states; I teach it to feel and live in the divine states. Well, the closest things (two things are close enough, but one is more comfortable, if I may say soits the word ease in Englishthan the other; the other is more tense [Mother makes a fist], there is a will in it) the closest things are the sense of eternity and the sense of silence. Because behind the whole creation (I mean the material creation), there is a perfect Silence, not the opposite of noise but a positive silence, which is at the same time a complete immobility thats very good as an antidote to disorder. But the sense of eternity is still better, and it has a sweetness the other hasnt; the sense of eternity includes the sense of sweetness (but not sweetness as we understand it). Its extremely comfortable. That is, there is no reason why it should changeor cease or start anew. It is selfexistent, perfect in itself. And these are the best antidotes to the other state [of disorder]: peace, simple peace, isnt always sufficient.
After all, the body is an utterly wretched thing. Yesterday, I think, it was complaining, really complaining (I said it was a whiner, but yesterday it was complaining), really asking, Why, why was such a wretched thing ever made?Incapacity, incomprehension, oh! Nothing but limitations and impossibilities. A sterile goodwill, a complete lack of power, and as soon as some little vital power comes, its turned into violencedisgusting.
--
There is the whole gamut, you see, right from the most material. In the most material, its really like that: elements that are perpetually clashing and clashing and clashing everything is clashing, as though it were the only way to exist. In the vital realm, its violence. And in the mental realm, its mainly that crookedness. Thats why I said to myself, Truly, we are poor things!
There is clearly in us the Remembrance that gives birth to the aspiration for something divineif that werent there, latent, we could never we could not even imagine! That aspiration couldnt exist, it would be meaningless. But still, what a long path this is.
0 1964-01-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, thats the main reason.
***
0 1964-03-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At any rate, last nights experience was decisive in that it coordinated all those scattered little promises, all those scattered little advances, and gave a TERRESTRIAL meaning to all those little things that came making a promise of progress here, a promise of consciousness thereall those promises have suddenly been coordinated within a sort of totality on the scale of the earth. I didnt feel it as something crushing in its immensity, not at all: it was still something dominated by my consciousness. A little thing (Mother holds up a ball in her hands), which my consciousness dominated but which was (for the moment) the exclusive object of my concentrations. And when I returned to the external consciousness (there was a moment when I had both consciousnesses at once), then I saw that the supposedly individual or personal consciousness, the consciousness of the bodyof the bodywas no more than a sort of convention necessary for maintaining contact. With the feeling that a step or two morenot manywill give THE Will (the supreme Will, that is) full power to act on this body.
It [this body] wasnt much more interesting or important than many other bodiesit didnt at all have the sense of its importance. Even, in the overall vision of the Work, its present imperfections were quite simply tolerated, even accepted, not because they are unavoidable, but because the amount of concentration and exclusive attention necessary to change them does not appear to be important enough to stop or reduce the general work. Thats how it was there was a smile for lots of little things. Finally, as for the Thing (the great thing from the artistic point of view of the material appearance, great too from the point of view of public faith, which only goes by appearances, of course, and which will be convinced only when there is an obvious transformation), it appeared to be, for the moment, at any rate, something secondary and not urgent. But there was a fairly clear perception that soon (how can I put it?) the state of being or way of being (I think they say the modus vivendi) of the body, of this fragment of terrestrial Matter, could be altered, ruled, entirely driven by the direct Will. Because it was as if ALL the illusions had fallen away one after another, and every time an illusion disappeared it produced one of those little promises that came in succession, announcing something that would come about later. So that prepared the final realization.
0 1964-08-22, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It isnt a consciousness that sees the details: its a consciousness that establishes and maintains a Harmony.
There. I thought it was amusing to tell.
0 1964-10-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Recently (it began yesterday), something has cleared in the atmosphere. But there is still a long way to goa long, long way. I certainly feel it very long, we must endure. Endure and endure. Thats the main impression: we must endure. And have endurance. The two absolutely indispensable things: keep a faith that nothing can shake, not even an apparently complete negation, even if you are suffering, even if you are miserable (the body, that is), even if you are tiredendure. Hold on tight and endurehave endurance. There. With that, its all right.
Some letters describing very interesting experiences People who had been deliberately refusing to understand they have yielded. Things of that sort. Things that werent moving, that were stubbornly stuck, you felt as if they would never moveall of a sudden, pop! gone. Only what spoils everything is the sort of haste people have to get a visible result. That spoils everything. One shouldnt think about results.
0 1965-01-09, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The main thing is for it to last.
And for that, we must do just what we are obliged to do to keep our balance: total inertia wouldnt help, but an effort of action is bad. So dont worry too much, and above all dont see people.
0 1965-01-12, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The main thing is to bear up. And in order to bear up, I have found only one way: that calm the inner calma calm that must grow all the more (how can I put it?) complete the more material the struggle is.
There has been lately (especially since January 1st) a sort of bombardment by the adverse forcesa rage, you know. So we have to keep like this (Mother becomes still like a statue), thats all. And when one has been shaken physically, one shouldnt ask too much of the body, one should give it a lot of peace and quiet, a lot of rest.
0 1965-02-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But there is something interesting here. I have noticed this: if you try EVERY SECOND to discern the impulse of your action, how difficult it is! To discern whether it comes from the ego, whether it comes from darkness, whether it comes from the Light. And when you want to express as purely as possible what exclusively comes from the Supreme, you have to work at it every second and it is there was a time (not so long ago) when I used to consider it was materially practically impossiblenot in the main lines or in the great movements that come from the higher parts of the being, but in all that is purely material, absolutely material. And all of a sudden, at the beginning of this year, with this Salute to the advent of the Truth5 there came a sort of very sharp inner sense, very sharp, very precise, and so QUIET, So quiet, which gave the power to clearly see the origin of a material impulse or a material reaction, EVEN IN VERY SMALL THINGS. It was very interesting. So I studied carefully, and it has become almost automatic.
Previously it took an inner discomfort, a feeling of some friction to make me aware that it wasnt the true thing; but now it isnt like that: it is seen BEFOREHAND in the space of half a second.
0 1965-06-09, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have a whole mantra [besides the main Mantra], I told you, for years now, and it is extremely complete: it applies to all necessities and all occasions, its a long series. But for some time it has become very spontaneous, too, and very self-living: when I want to see quite concretely where someone stands (someone meditating in front of me, for instance), I recite the mantra (within, of course) and I watch the reactions, because the mantra deals with the surrender of all the parts of the being and all the modes of life: its very complete. So according to the reactions [in Mothers centers], I see very clearly. The other day, when X came, I did it (it was the first time I had done it with him), I did it, and when I came to a certain point (Mother smiles) he couldnt bear it! He sort of stiffened, bowed to me and got up. Before that, he had re mained very silent, very quiet. But that (Mother laughs) You see, I invoke the Lord and ask Him to manifest His various ways of being or realizations (its not taken in a mental sense, not at all), but when I said I say many things, but up to that point he had been quiet, silent, still, and at one point (because it comes in a logical succession), I said, Manifest Your Knowledgehe felt uneasy, as if he felt he was being thrown out of himself! So I tried to calm that down, but he couldnt bear itafter five minutes, he got up and left. A real unease; because, as for me, I am inside people (I am everywhere, of course), I feel just as if it took place in my own body.
***
0 1965-06-14, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I remember having read a story, at the time when I used to receive I think it was Le Matin, the newspaper Le Matin. There were novels in it and I used to read the novels to see the state of mind of people. And there was an extraordinary novel in which the main character was a woman who was immortal (she had been condemned to immortality by God knows which deity), and she tried her best to die, without success! It was stupid, the whole thing was stupid, but the standpoint was reversed: she was compelled to be immortal and she said, Oh! When will I be allowed to die?, with the ordinary idea that death is the end, that everything is over and one rests. And she had been told, You will be able to die only when you meet true love. Everything was topsy-turvy. But when I read that, it set me thinking a lot sometimes its the most stupid things that set you thinking the most. And to complete the story you see, she had been someone, then someone else, a priestess in Egypt, anyway all kinds of things, and finally (I dont remember), it was in modern times: she met a young married couple; the husb and was a remarkable man, intelligent (I think he was an inventor); his wife, whom he loved passionately, was a stupid and wicked fool who spoilt all his work, who ruined his whole life and he went on loving her. And thats what (laughing) they gave as example of perfect love!
I read that maybe more than fifty years ago, and I still remember it! Because it set me thinking for a long time. I read that and I said to myself, Heres how people understand things!
0 1965-08-07, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
3) What, according to you, are the three main barriers that stand between the vision and the reality?
i) Ignorance ii) Fear iii) Falsehood.
0 1965-09-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday or the day before, I dont know (I think it was two days ago), it hurt all over and it was a constant effortan effort to maintain an acceptable balance; and then, at one point, I lay down and the body said, Oh, (laughing) wont it end? Will it always be like this? Then it suddenly had the perception, Oh, what a coward I am! It was ashamed of itself. And it felt (Mother presses her hands against her face), like this, inside here, everywhere, the presence of the Lordeverywhere like this, a Presence! A Presence of luminous power, but a luminous power that can be destructive, you understand! (Mother laughs) It can melt you completelyWell, arent you content, do you want something other than this?! Oh!
It doesnt ask for anything.
0 1966-10-08, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a chapter entitled The End of the Intellect, in which I wrote that in the beginning Sri Aurobindo was an agnostic and had mainly cultivated the intellect. So V. has made a summary of this chapter, and in the end he asks: How can one practice yogic disciplines without believing in God or in the Divine?
How?Very simple. Because these are mere words. When you practice without believing in God or in the Divine, you practice to reach a perfection, to make progress, for all sorts of reasons.
0 1967-01-25, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That would amount to saying that falling ill (from falling ill to dying), is the incapacity to maintain the necessary tension to go from one state to another without falling back again, without the slackening of unconsciousness. Illness is always a lapse into unconsciousness through the incapacity to sustain the movement of transformation. And death is the same thing the same thing, somewhat more total.
In Bengal, a film on Sri Aurobindo's "political life."
0 1967-02-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thon, for his part, insisted very much on adverse forces, while Sri Aurobindo didnt talk about them. So when I came here I asked him, But do hostile beings and adverse forces exist? He said to me, Yes, they exist, but in order to master them its easier to regard them as being outside, rather than inside as a part of your nature. He insisted on the One: everything is the One distorted to a greater or lesser extent, even the adverse forces. What we call adverse forces are, at bottom, distortions of consciousness. When those distortions predominate in a being, that is to say, when his nature obeys distorted influences and no longer responds to the divine influence, we may call it a hostile being (they do exist, God knows!). But here in India, they have insisted above all on the notion of Oneness. Of course, at the origin of the worlds a separation took place, but its mainly the Tantrics who have insisted on that; they say that in order to re-form Godhead, the two poles must be reunited. All this is words, a manner of speaking that fills the gaps and complements each other. And depending on the individuals, the times and countries, there were manners of speaking more or less pure, some closer than others. But all said and done We could say that the Lord enjoys narrating Himself in all possible ways.
And when you are on the very lowest rung of the ladder of consciousness, those manners of speaking become increasingly concrete, absolute, hard, and exclusive of all that isnt themselves: those are religions. Oh, by the way, it seems the Pope was approached about Auroville and he asked if there would be a Catholic church! They put the question to me. I said, No. No churches, no temples.
0 1967-02-18, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All these last days I have been considering the proportion that should be maintained between what was accomplished and established in the past and the attitude of complete acceptance of what comes from the future.
There is obviously in Nature a tendency to want a slow transformation from what was habitually regarded as good (expressive, good, harmonious) to the new Thing. And I was observing the extent to which there is attachment: the attachment of habit, something very spontaneous and uncalculating. Then recently (yesterday), I had an amusing example.
0 1967-03-25, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When it will be complete, there will come the Power to restore order, obviously. I increasingly feel the need to intervene to restore order and harmony. Its the main reason for all this burdensome work. Its a lesson and an experience to learn gradually how to put things in order and establish harmony.
Its a big work.
0 1967-04-19, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"The sense of touch alone is fully developed (in the newborn). That allows it to re main in intimate contact with its mother and prolong the time of gestation, which is a period of intense development in the security of oneness. The least separation may cause an irreparable trauma, that 'fall on the head' which is the usual but abnormal condition of the newborn in civilized peoples. This is well-known to primitive peoples, where the mother keeps the naked child on her naked skin and never parts with it.... Until the other senses are specialized, it is chiefly through the surface of the skin that the child receives its education.... If one wants it to incarnate really, to be friends with matter, its body to become as intimate as its soul, one must invent for it a yoga of caresses and play." (It is worth noting that an attempt to put these alluring and specious theories into practice was to have catastrophic results, as we shall see later in the Agenda: the main effect of the said "caresses" is to attract into the child's body vital forces of a dark order, and "genii of sex" rather than anything else, are likely to be incarnated.)
This is how Mother replied to the disciple who had sent her her study on the formation of the new child: "I have read your work with keen interestit deals with an important aspect of the problem. But a public presentation is impossible. Seeing and reading this, too many young girls would imagine they are destined to give birth to the 'solar child'that would be a disaster." Then Mother added: "In order to realize this work, one must have gone beyond all desire; and unfortunately, this is not generally the case as yet. Whereas ambition and vanity are rather widespread maladies."
0 1967-12-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its mainly that: all that the Mind has brought in terms of rigidity and absoluteness and near invincibility thats what is going to disappear. And simply by handing the supreme power over to the Supreme Consciousness.
That may be what the sages of old meant when they spoke of handing the power of Nature or the power of the Prakriti over to the Purushahanding it from the Prakriti over to the Purusha. Perhaps it was their way of expressing the same thing.
0 1968-02-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In my life, I have been given so many, so many experiences, as proof that EVERYTHING is possible. For instance, when I was twenty-two, one night, after an experience I had in the night (I forget the details of it) at the time women wore dresses that exactly touched the ground, just touched it without resting on it (gesture of skimming the ground), and in my experience at night, I had grown tallin the morning, there was one inch between the dress and the ground! Which means that the body had grown one inch WITH THE NIGHTS EXPERIENCE. You see, in the nights experience I had grown tall (I dont remember the details), and in the morning And Ive been given that material verification for many such experiences, so as to be sure, so the body may be convinced without having to repeat the experiences over and over again. So it KNOWS, it knows there is nothing impossible, it knows impossible doesnt mean anything. But it doesnt depend on an individual will, you understand. The Consciousness which rules things is a marvel of wisdom, patience, compassion, endurance. When there is destruction or disorder, it means its absolutely unavoidable, absolutelybecause matters resistance in the individual or in things is so strong that it quite naturally brings about disorder or destruction. But that doesnt form part of the Action, the supreme Action, which is a marvel. The body has understood that; it has understood, it is patient. Only, from time to time (how can I put it?) There are people whom I prevent from dyingseveral people. I dont yet have the consciousness, the conscious power to cure them, but the possibility is there and I maintain it above them. That is to say, its not all-powerful in the sense that a certain receptivity, a certain response, a certain attitude are necessary which arent always there (human natures are very fluctuating, there are ups and downs and more ups and downs, and that makes the work very difficult), but at times, during a down spell, when a being suffers or sags, there is something in the consciousness [of Mother], a compassion (how can I explain that?) Affliction and all those movements are movements of weakness, but that is something at once very strong and very sweet, almost like sorrow, and the whole, entire consciousness in the body rises like a prayer and an aspirationa pure prayer: Why are things still in this pitiful state, why? Why? And it instantly has an effect [in the sick person]. Unfortunately, the effect doesnt last; it doesnt last because certain conditions in others are still necessary. But its wonderful, you know! Its something so wonderful. And it makes one understand the necessity of a presence on this side, a presence capable of feeling, understanding still IN THE OTHER WAY, so the suffering of others may be a reality. And that also is taken into account, that also means time is needed, patience is needed. Now the body knows ittheres no longer any impatience; there is only, now and then, that sort of sorrow, especially when beings are full of aspiration, goodwill, faith, and in spite of it this suffering is still there, clinging. That on one side, and on the other, one thing: there is still a sort of horror and reprobation of acts of cruelty, of THE cruelty; thats And then, there is this awesome Poweryou feel, you can feel that a mere nothing, a simple little movement would, oh, bring about a catastrophe. So you have to keep that still, still, still so what happens may always be the best.
Now stupidity, imbecility, ignorance, all those things are looked at with a patience which waits for them to grow. But bad will and crueltyespecially viciousness, cruelty, what LOVES to cause suffering thats still difficult, one still has to keep a hold on oneself. In figurative language (not language, but a way of being), its Kali that wants to strike, and I have to tell her, Keep still, keep still. But thats a human transcription. All those gods, all those beings are real, they exist, but its a transcription. True truth is beyond all that.
0 1968-02-17, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And the main sketch is exactly the picture of a belly, its at belly level.
Oh, but then its still worse!
--
Its worse than that: theyre going to hold a conference for the children in which the children will ask questions, and ten people or so will be there to reply, but mainly Y. and Z. So those children are coming with the idea of finding something a little true, and thats what they are going to find.
The city of love is probably not going to be understood as it should be. You know, the magazine Plante is sending Mr. D. to write an article on Auroville; well, I saw this D. a year ago when he came here, and hes precisely a great adept of this yoga of sexuality.2 I had a whole talk with him, a talk so heated that afterwards, I got a sort of revelation and wrote a whole letter on the problem of sexuality in yoga. But the man reeks with this business of sex. He is sent by Plante. So if they show him this, the city of love
0 1968-06-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are, in fact, innumerable reasons, but there is a sort of effort of cohesion and harmonization, and what inevitably precedes death (unless its caused by a violent accident) is that, for one reason or another, or for no reason, that will to maintain cohesion abdicates.
Theres a second question: Must each cell be conscious of its unity with the center?
0 1968-06-15, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In our yoga we mean by the subconscient that quite submerged part of our being in which there is no wakingly conscious and coherent thought, will or feeling or organized reaction, but which yet receives obscurely the impressions of all things and stores them up in itself and from it too all sorts of stimuli, of persistent habitual movements, crudely repeated or disguised in strange forms can surge up into dream or into the waking nature. For if these impressions rise up most in dream in an incoherent and disorganized manner, they can also and do rise up into our waking consciousness as a mechanical repetition of old thoughts, old mental, vital and physical habits or an obscure stimulus to sensations, actions, emotions which do not originate in or from our conscious thought or will and are even often opposed to its perceptions, choice or dictates. In the subconscient there is an obscure mind full of obstinate Sanskaras [imprints or habits], impressions, associations, fixed notions, habitual reactions formed by our past, an obscure vital full of the seeds of habitual desires, sensations and nervous reactions, a most obscure material which governs much that has to do with the condition of the body. It is largely responsible for our illnesses; chronic or repeated illnesses are indeed mainly due to the subconscient and its obstinate memory and habit of repetition of whatever has impressed itself upon the body-consciousness. But this subconscient must be clearly distinguished from the subliminal parts of our being such as the inner or subtle physical consciousness, the inner vital or inner mental; for these are not at all obscure or incoherent or ill-organized, but only veiled from our surface consciousness. Our surface constantly receives something, inner touches, communications or influences, from these sources but does not know for the most part whence they come.
As for asserting ones will in sleep it is simply a matter of accustoming the subconscient to obey the will laid upon it by the waking mind before sleeping. It very often happens for instance that if you fix upon the subconscient your will to wake up at a particular hour in the morning, the subconscient will obey and you wake up automatically at that hour. This can be extended to other matters. Many have found that by putting a will against sexual dreams or emission on the subconscient before sleeping, there comes after a time (it does not always succeed at the beginning) an automatic action causing one to awake before the dream concludes or before it begins or in some way preventing the thing forbidden from happening. Also one can develop a more conscious sleep in which there is a sort of inner consciousness which can intervene.1
0 1968-06-29, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And as you say, this presence is maintained to the extent its useful and indispensable for a certain aspect of the work. And in that case, theres no question of a long or short time, of when, how, what and all that Its as You will. Constantly, in every cell, every activity, every moment: What You will, Lord. All the time. Like that. No question. Only, there is an observation, a very clear perception of the fact that this supreme Will is what enables things to carry on as they do.
So the conclusion is easy to draw: as long as He wills it, it will be like that; when He wills it otherwise, it will be otherwise. And thats all. At the same time, of course, the lesson is given: an increasingly clear perception that the field of the indispensable isnt as large as we imagine. For me, Sri Aurobindos presence is EXTREMELY effectiveactive.
0 1968-07-10, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, regarding leaving ones body, you said, There are innumerable reasons, but unless its caused by a violent accident, its mostly the will to maintain cohesion which abdicates for one reason or another, or for no reason. That is what inevitably precedes death.
The physical consciousness is conscious only physically, so my expression isnt clear enough: For no reason its CONSCIOUS OF. Thats all.
0 1968-10-09, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I constantly see. At night (especially at night), I see moving forms that look like You know how J. is dressed,3 or Dr. Agarwal4 Oh, speaking of Dr. Agarwal, when Pralhad [his son] died, his mother was very anxious to know if he had come to me. I told her, Nothing, I havent seen anything. So I dont know if its as a result of that or if I thought about it, but two days ago (the day before yesterday), I went for a stroll in a forest of the vital! Mon petit, it was beautiful! Oh, a magnificent forest, and so well maintained, so clean, oh, it was lovely! A really magnificent place, really magnificent. Then, I suddenly see a youngish Pralhad there, a mere lad, coming towards me and telling me (in a despairing tone), I dont know, cant find the religion. I told him, You dont need a religion! He said, Oh, theres another man here who cant find a religion. And that was Benjamin!5 I said, Hes an idiot! He doesnt need to find a religion! There you are: Benjamin lost in a mar-vel-ous forest (its beautiful, you know!) because he cant find a religion! And Pralhad looking for a religion! So I wanted to send a line to his mother to tell her, Be consoled, Pralhad is in a very beautiful place!
He looked very well. He was very well dressed.
0 1968-11-23, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Only, the other consciousness is still there. Just now, this morning, I saw a considerable number of people: everyone of them came, and I looked (there was no I looked: for the PERSON there, it was like that, I was looking at him), the eyes were fixed [on the person] like that, and then there was the perception and vision (but not vision as its understood: its all a phenomenon of consciousness), the awareness of the Presence; the Presence permeating that sort of bark, of hardened thing, permeating, permeating everywhere. And when I look, when the eyes are fixed, it makes a sort of concentration [of this Presence]. But its certainly quite a transitory and intermediate state, because the other consciousness (the consciousness that sees things and deals with them as usual, with the perception of what goes on in the individual, what he thinksnot so much what he thinks as what he feels, the way he is), thats there. Its obviously necessary, too, to maintain contact, but Its clearly still an experience, not an established fact. What I mean by established fact is the consciousness established in such a way that nothing else exists, it alone is presentits not yet like that.
(long silence)
0 1969-02-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its method (in the main, not exclusively), its method consists in awakening a memory of the body that had been quite forgotten and really seemed absolutely gone; it awakens that memory and shows how the circumstance was possible in the general state, how (Ill give you an example) its a residue of the past, and how its unacceptable for the future.
This mornings experience was very curious. All of a sudden, it awakened the memory of something that took place in my childhood when I was about eight or ten (which I had completely forgotten). On Sundays (I suppose so, or anyway on holidays), I used to go and play with my first cousins, the children of a brother of my father. I would go and play with them. I remember their house, I can still see it. We would usually spend our time playing scenes or enacting a story in tableaux. And today, it showed me something I had really forgotten. Theres a story of Bluebeard, isnt there? (Bluebeard I forget, I only know what I remembered this morning.) One day, we did a tableau vivant, in several tableaux, with the story of Bluebeard who cut off his wives heads. (To Satprem:) Thats how the story went, isnt it? (Laughter) I only remember this morning, I dont recall the story. Now, we played in a big room, a sort of enclosed verandahin Paris, a big long room. We had stood (our playmates were little boys and girls), we had stood a certain number of girls against the wall: we had stuck them to the wall, with their hair strung above their heads (Mother laughs), and we had put a sheet in front to cover the rest of their bodies the sheet reached down to the floor so that we couldnt see their bodies, only their heads! I am saying that because I saw it this morning, otherwise I didnt remember in the least. I saw this scene, I saw the memory of that room and how it was all arranged. And at the same time there came You see, we found it quite natural, just a story we had read; I remembered my impression at the time: there was no sense of horror! We didnt find it monstrous (laughing), we were having great fun! So the experience came, and it re mained for OVER AN HOUR to make me understand very deeply where this memory came from, how it acted and why we were in that state. And all of it not at all from a personal standpoint, not at all: from the general standpoint of the earth and humanity in general. It was exceedingly interesting! And then, at the same time, a vision showing how, with what swift movement, the universal consciousness moves (arrowlike gesture) in a progression towards the Divine the TRUE Divine, I mean, not religions, of coursetowards the TRUE Divine through all that. And with the consciousness of the WHOLEthe whole and nuances (Sade and all that line), from the highest to the lowest. For one hour I saw a whole stage of humanitya stage towards the late 1800s, the second half of the 1800sand how it moved on and progressed (gesture like a great curve). And thats I have no words or capacity to describe it, but its extraordinarily interesting. The vision of the human collectivity on earth, with all its stages, gradations, nuances, and how it all followed a movement (same arrowlike gesture). And this story (story this VISION, rather, because it wasnt a story: I didnt see what we said or anything, only the vision of what we did), this story came as the illustration of a certain state of mind of those times, and how children were given stories of that kind to readwe found it quite natural! (Mother laughs) And those things are so dreadful.
0 1969-03-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There has never been, at any time, a mental plan, a fixed programme or an organisation decided beforehand. The whole thing has taken birth, grown and developed as a living being by a movement of consciousness (Chit-Tapas) constantly maintained, increased and fortified.
Sri Aurobindo (25.227)
--
Whats the meaning of maintained?
He means that the movement of consciousness never ceased at any time. We didnt have a movement of creation and then stopped, and started again: the consciousness consciously re-creates, so to speak, continues its creation; its not something done that develops from that point on.
0 1969-05-10, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, but theres really a Grace acting here constantly to maintain at least a harmony in appearances, otherwise there are things And then, this Consciousness seems to be drawn to two things: money and (Mother runs her hand across her forehead as if she had forgotten). Oh, its gonethis Consciousness doesnt want me to say it.
Politics?
0 1969-05-17, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When Sri Aurobindo left, I was standing near his bed (later on, when he was alone, when there was no one left), and all the supramental force he had concentrated in his body (what was left in his body), he passed on to me. I stood near his bed; he had been declared dead, but all that supramental consciousness which was there came out of his body, slowly, and directly entered mine. It was so material that I felt the friction of the force everywhere, all over. But it was slightly luminous. That was something different than with Pavitra. As for Sri Aurobindo, he (how can I put it?), he stayed mainly I found him everywhere: I found him all the way up, absolutely one with the Supreme Consciousness; I found him spread about in many places to see many people and do a lot of work; and I found him (but then, in a precise form, though NOT FIXEDA precise, rather supple form that looked like him, like what we knew of him, with more suppleness, without the fixity of the physical, but quite precise, a form in his likeness, quite in his likeness), I found him in the subtle physical. There he has a dwelling, he is settled and stays permanently (which doesnt prevent him from being at many other places and), but there is a Sri Aurobindo there whom I see almost every night, who looks after the whole work, sees people, and who is almost constantly with me. In the subtle physical, its a specific place, and very largehuge, you know, he is there, seeing people, doing all kinds of things.
Apart from that, in Amritas case, it was something different again.6 Amrita used to come in spite of his illness, he used to come and see me every day; he would come upstairs in the morning and sit down here, and once again in the evening (you saw how much work it was to climb the stairs). In his case, when he left The doctor had told him, You cant go upstairs for a month, and its after that, later on that day, that he came: he didnt accept, he left his body and camehe came straight to me. But he was IN HIS OWN FORM, more subtle, but precisely defined (Mother draws an outline showing Amritas form), it was his form, in his likeness. And he re mained there, now active and now at rest (he rests more than he is active, but now and then he is still active). Its like like a shadow, you understand, which is wholly in my atmosphere. And he has stayed therehe stays there, rests there. But in Pavitras case, it was something else altogether: its the entire conscious being which gave up (how can I put it?) its limits, the personal limit and form, so as to identify totallyhe entered like that, like a stream of consciousness and force, but very material, very material: it produced a friction, I felt a friction, and for three hours. I had never seen that before, it was the first time I had heard about it very often (its often mentioned), that knowledge the great yogis had: they would go like that deliberately.
0 1969-07-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Asram in Pondicherry came into being in this way. Sri Aurobindo at first lived in Pondicherry with a few inmates in his house; afterwards a few more joined him. Later on after the Mother joined him, in 1920 the numbers began so much to increase that it was thought necessary to make an arrangement for lodging those who came and houses were bought and rented according to need for the purpose. Arrangements had also to be made for the maintenance, repair, rebuilding of houses, for the service of food and for decent living and hygiene. All these were private rules by the Mother and entirely at her discretion to increase, modify or alterthere is nothing in them of a public character.
All houses of the Asram are owned either by Sri Aurobindo or by the Mother. All the money spent belongs either to Sri Aurobindo or the Mother. Money is given by many to help in Sri Aurobindos work. Some who are here give their earnings, but it is given to Sri Aurobindo or the Mother and not to the Asram as a public body, for there is no such body.
0 1969-10-18, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No impatience. Thats the main thing: no impatience.
A trusting patience.
0 1970-01-17, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But at the Ashram, we have three centers doing building work: there is P. who looks after the maintenance of houses, A.S., and L. A. S. isnt equipped for that, and moreover he is too busy, because he doesnt have just building, he has all the cars and all those lands; now I consider he is fully occupied and he does his work well, so if we tried to give him too much, he couldnt do it well anymore. As for L., he is very interested and even said he would take care of bringing the white marble; he would himself go and choose it. He is very interested and if I told him to do it But that wouldnt be better.
But thats not what he meant, he didnt mean at all a problem of construction: he meant the problem of having the disciples work with the Aurovilians. N., as an engineer, would look after the construction with the money collected, but the whole manpower would have to be provided by all the Ashram people mingling with the Aurovilians. Thats the idea.
0 1970-02-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Never, never, never touched, never. Once, I had a very high fever, 108, it was tremendous (it didnt last long, a few hours); I had caught that when I went to a gathering of workers doing a puja or something.1 I had caught a fever. But Sri Aurobindo was there. And I saw, I saw all the beings of the most material vital charging (gesture of onslaught on the body). I remember that, it was in Sri Aurobindos time (quite a long time ago). I saw them, and I said to Sri Aurobindo, So thats what gives people dreadful nightmares. They would draw near (they would try to), and on touching Sri Aurobindos presence around me they would draw back, then they would come back again and would be repulsedit lasted the whole night. But last night, it wasnt that. Naturally, Sri Aurobindo wasnt there physically, and I saw those beings. The main thing is that when that being in his demonstration touched me with his finger, it made me scream I screamed materially.
Yes, he touched you.
0 1970-04-22, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Nights are very peculiar. And precisely because all that isnt mentalized, its hardly possible to describe or explain. But this subtle physical very concretely has the sense or feeling or perception (I dont know) of the divine Presence the divine Presence in all things, everywhere. So then, this body is one might say, partly this way and partly that way (gesture of oscillation between two worlds). That was one thing I asked this morning: how (the body asked itself), why, how, how is it that, having this divine perception almost constantly (because, as I told you, that consciousness is in the process of being established), how is it that the body feels this anguish?It lives in a sort of constant anguish. So whats that anguish? And there are no explanations or But just when it asked that, there was something like Sri Aurobindos manner, so full of humor, as if it were he (but not visible), telling me, Look carefully: in this anguish, there is Bliss. And this morning, I was sitting on my bed about to get up, and there was this kind of I cant call it suffering, but it would be more like a discomfort, I dont know, as if at the thought of the whole day ahead (but thought, its not a thought: its as if the day were weighing down), and while I was feeling that discomfort (I had to make an effort to get up and resume activity), at the same time, there was something laughing deep down, all the way down, and saying, But! And it was in bliss. But then, the body has been (that was part of its formation) very careful to maintain commonsensenot to go off its rocker. You feel you are just on the borderline, you know: one very small movement like that, and (gesture of dissolution).
The body was used to commonsense, practical sense and that, prrrt! seems to be crumbling away So there is a sort of What saves the situation is that I say to myself (I SEEI dont know how to explain I see its peoples reaction: in front of this, people quite naturally feel youre taking leave of your senses), so I say to myself, What do I care! What do I care what they think of mewhoever it may be, I couldnt care less. The body couldnt care less (its been a long time since the rest stopped caring, but the body). Then I see in my memory certain expressions of Sri Aurobindos, certain smiles in front of perfectly reasonable attitudes and the ridiculousness of those reasonable attitudes becomes patent. I live in that all the time.
0 1970-04-29, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I know that this bodys life (what can I say?) yes, this bodys life is a miracle. Which means that if it werent what it is and the way it is, and arranged as it is, anyone else would be dead. But then, if you knew (smiling) how it becomes The body is conscious (and things arent hidden from it: its not led up the garden path, its allowed to see things as they are), so then this is the way it is, it says, After all, it would make a difference mainly for others! For me Only, you understand, they are still in this kind of illusion of death because this [the body] disappears; and even this [Mothers body] no longer quite knows which of the two is [true]! For it, the truth should be Matterwell, even about that, it isnt quite sure (laughing) what that is! There is the other, the other way of seeing and feeling and beingano ther way of being. And this [the body] is beginning to wonder It knows that the old way is no longer that, but its beginning to wonder what it [the new way] will be like, that is to say, the way of perceiving, the relationship with things: How will the new consciousness relate with the old consciousness of those who will still be humans? All these things will re main what they are, but there will be a way of perceiving them, a relationship It comes its strange, it comes like a breath of aira breath of airand then it disappears again. Like a breath of another way of seeing, another way of feeling, another way of listening. And thats something drawing near, as it were, and then getting veiled. But then in the appearance [of Mothers body], in the appearance its (Mother makes a chaotic gesture). Yet, quite visibly, I am not ill, but at times its very difficult. Very difficult. And then, several times Ive had both [ways of being] at the same time. So (laughing) the body says to itself, Well, if people knew the way you are, theyd say youre quite insane! (Mother laughs) And it laughs.
Its not afraid. Its not afraid.
0 1970-05-09, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the main thing was this Nature. A little taller than my body. For years, every time I have seen Nature, its this person Ive seen; to me, for years she has been Nature. And its not a relationship, but like my mother who might be my sister, or my sister who might be my mother, like that (things arent quite clear-cut, words are worthless). She is tall, a beautiful woman, and she is very, very simple, very simple, and quite awesome. But with me, like a little child. She went around with me, and she said, See, Ive put on your dress, Ive put it on to tell you that its accepted Ive put on your dress. And its color was the same as that of the skin [of Mothers exposed part], it was something like skin, and the dress was exactly the same color. It also had a slight luminosity like that, something as if efflorescent.4 The skin too was efflorescent. And that was the point: no sex, neither man nor womanno sex. It was a form like this (Mother draws a svelte figure in space), a form resembling our body, but sexless: the two legs joined together.
It was pretty.
0 1970-06-20, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, no, nothing right now. I think the main thing is to sweep away those suggestions.
Yes, thats right, its the main thing.
If you could put in the body INTO the body the complete surrender, that is, it should RELY on the Supremes intervention alone, you understand; the BODY, the very body must say to Him, Here (Mother opens her hands), here to the Supreme, with the knowledge that He is there; He is there in the atmosphere, in the cells, in everything, and (gesture, hands open) and thats all. Thats very effective. Because I know, of course, this body has a lot of troubles, and thats its only remedy. It knows no other. And its the only one thats really effective (same gesture, hands open and eyes closed).
0 1971-06-09, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres an onslaught of adverse forces. A ferocious onslaught. But the Response is beginning to comejust a very small beginning. In each person there was like a storm, and its not completely over. Everything you thought was conquered and pushed away is rushing backin the most unexpected personsunder every guise, but mainly in the character, oh! doubts, revolts, everything.
(silence)
0 1971-06-12, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This kind of condition which is between two things one of which is being left but will not let go its hold and the other is almost or near to be grasped but cannot be brought into action, always comes at a certain stage in the transition between the ordinary consciousness and the Yogic consciousness. It is obviously very troublesome. One has to keep a firm mind as much as possible. There are two ways of dealing with it. One is to sit quiet with a silent will to get rapidly through to the true thing and allow the Force to work out the difficulty. The other is effort, but this effort too must be a quiet effort,if it is a struggling or over eager effort, it may increase the struggle and restlessness in the mind or body. The best way is to keep quiet, observe, will for the change in reliance on the working of the Force, but also to use a quiet effort whenever that is possible. If one does that, after a time one finds a quiet action becoming habitual which whenever the outer force comes to pull the mind out, repels it automatically and maintains the poise of the consciousness.
January 19, 1937
0 1971-07-21, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is conscious of that, but momentarily: just what is required to be able to maintain continuity. Thats all.
(silence)
0 1971-10-20, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But still I have gone far enough to be able to undertake one work on a larger scale than before the training of others to receive this Sadhana and prepare themselves as I have done, for without that my future work cannot even be begun. There are many who desire to come here and whom I can admit for the purpose, there are a greater number who can be trained at a distance; but I am unable to carry on unless I have sufficient funds to be able to maintain a centre here and one or two at least outside. I need therefore much larger resources than I at present command. I have thought that by your recommendation and influence you may help Barin to gather them for me.
Yours,
--
It is, therefore, necessary to establish a number of centres small and few at first but enlarging and increasing in number as I go on, for training in this Sadhana. The first, which will be transferred to British India when I go there, already exists at Pondicherry, but I need funds both to maintain and to enlarge it.
Many more desire and are fit to undertake this Sadhana than I can at present admit and it is only by large means being placed at my disposal that I can carry on this work which is necessary as a preparation for my own return to action.
0 1971-10-27, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil with its sweet and bitter fruits is secretly rooted in the very nature of the Inconscience from which our being has emerged and on which it still stands as a nether soil and basis of our physical existence; it has grown visibly on the surface in the manifold branchings of the Ignorance which is still the main bulk and condition of our consciousness in its difficult evolution towards a supreme consciousness and an integral awareness. As long as there is this soil with the unfound roots in it and this nourishing air and climate of Ignorance, the tree will grow and flourish and put forth its dual blossoms and its fruit of mixed nature. It would follow that there can be no final solution until we have turned our inconscience into the greater consciousness, made the truth of self and spirit our life-basis and transformed our ignorance into a higher knowledge. All other expedients will only be makeshifts or blind issues; a complete and radical transformation of our nature is the only true solution.
The Life Divine, XVIII.627
0 1971-12-01, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the main trouble is in speaking (Mother touches her chest). I dont know, I have the same trouble eating. I dont think its the result of age because I feel strong: I feel strength, its not that I am tired, I dont at all feel tiredits a change. But then my age gives it a semblance of reason. Well (laughing) I dont know if it was these last few days (yesterday or the day before), all of a sudden I understood, as if Sri Aurobindo made me understand that it has come at this advanced age to give the semblance of reason, in order to to assure me the utmost peace possible in my relations with people.
I cant explain it.
0 1972-01-12, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I wrote something, or rather I told Sri Aurobindo, who wrote down what the twelve petals were (the four petals are the four main aspects of the Mother, and the twelve are the twelve qualities or virtues of the Mother, her powers). I said it one day, and Sri Aurobindo wrote it down; thats when we were living in the other house.2 I put it in a drawer among other papers of mine, but the drawer disappeared when we moved here, someone took it. Who, why, how, I have no idea. But the drawer disappeared. Then, I remember writing the twelve names again on a piece of paper which I kept with me, but now I cant find that one either. Strange.3
When you made the sketch for Auroville, you said there would be twelve gardens, each one with a particular meaning.
0 1972-01-15, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And they leave you only with the main vein. All the others are ripped out.
Oh, but then they may immobilize your leg!
0 1972-03-10, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The architect:) We have to make a study, Mother. I think perhaps one or two lakhs for all of Auroville (for wells and fire hoses). Thats for the time being, but theres also the future: how are we going to develop Auroville, now that its started? At this point the main question is to know whether we shouldnt try to raise money, to ask people in the world for personal contri butions in rupees, francs or dollars, so that Auroville can be built by individual people. Perhaps some action along those lines could be undertaken in various countries as well as in India? Because Aurovilles financial situation is getting worse. Its worse than it was six months ago, and the needs are increasing, so I dont know, waiting may be a solution, but you should know the exact situation.
(after a long silence)
0 1972-03-11, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
On that occasion, the Holy Father expressed the wish to come in contact with representatives of your countrys main religious movements, and I know, Excellency, that he was given a biography of Sri Aurobindo.
It is in fact in connection with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry that I am taking the liberty of writing Your Excellency. I am sure you are aware of the reputation it has earned beyond Indias borders; I have been following its work and achievements for years. Recently, I was told of the difficulties encountered by those in charge of the Ashram in regard to the proposed creation of a universitya project expressly favored by the Indian Government; some Catholic students, in conjunction with a few priests, are displaying a strong opposition to this project.
0 1972-03-29a, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I agreeas you have seenwith your main thesis. But the text in question (the reply to a specific inquiry) was limited in its very scope.
Thank you again, and with sincere regards.
0 1972-03-29b, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Sujata aside: My thought is mainly for Mother.)
Sujata says its all right, but what about you?
0 1972-07-22, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Exactly, Mother, these people are very skilled at confusing everything. Thats their main power: they confuse the issue.
But I dont believe M. in the least! I dont believe a word he says to me! I told him. So they distort what I say? No, I am really baffled. Not only did I send word to M. but also to whats his name?
0 1972-08-12, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Besides, he was among people who still have a physical body, who were sleeping, I mean who had come out of their body. He was so conscious! Ive never seen anyone so so materially conscious, I could say. Exactly as if he were continuing his work. mainly seeing people, talking to them, bringing them together.
You know that when he died, at the time of his death, he entered me?1 I did my best to prevent him from blending [with Mother]: I kept him like this (gesture as an individual form). And after he recovered from the shock, he spontaneously came out and started to work. I see him almost every night.
0 1972-09-30, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In my case, you see, it was a radical action: the mind and vital were simply gone. Therefore the body had to re-create little by little a new mental and vital activity. And its very interesting, because it happened only when it was needed. So naturally, its not perfectspeech mainly. Thats the most bothersome, for I have trouble expressing myself; but the rest, oh! (pointing to the silent forehead, then arms outstretched and motionless, as if everything were suspended in the immutable Eternal). As soon as its like that, it becomes VAST, luminous, tranquil.
And time no longer counts.
0 1973-01-31, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Personally, I have a strange impression. In the past, years ago, I used to feel that a part of my consciousness was vast, was this or that; but now I understand fully well what you mean by an old piece of bark (you know, Theres only an old piece of bark left), I feel I am only a mass of flaws, of imperfections, of dark elements and so on, but the other part of myself completely eludes me. There is only this sort of facade full of unpleasant and clashing and false things. While the other part, the other me I dont know, it eludes me completely. I know its there, but I am mainly conscious of all this thats in front of me.
(Mother plunges in)
0 1973-03-31, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But for instance, personally, whenever I try to go there, into that consciousness, my main impression is of nonexistence.
Ah, no!
02.01 - Metaphysical Thought and the Supreme Truth, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Truth may re main, but mainly as a means of expressing this greater discovery and as much of its contents as can at all be expressed in mental terms to those who still live in the mental intelligence.
This, you will see, answers your point about the Western thinkers, Bradley and others, who have arrived through intellectual thinking at the idea of an "Other beyond Thought" or have even, like Bradley, tried to express their conclusions about it in terms that recall some of the expressions in the Arya. The idea in itself is not new; it is as old as the Vedas. It was repeated in other forms in Buddhism, Christian Gnosticism, Sufism. Originally, it was not discovered by intellectual speculation, but by the mystics following an inner spiritual discipline. When, somewhere between the seventh and fifth centuries B.C., men began both in the East and West to intellectualise knowledge, this Truth survived in the East; in the West, where the intellect began to be accepted as the sole or highest instrument for the discovery of
02.01 - Our Ideal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
Matter is the starting-point of evolution, it is there merely a physico-chemical entity. But it undergoes a change, the first of its kind, a transmutation when it is taken up by life, when it becomes the basis and receptacle of a living organism: vitalised Matter behaves differently from physico-chemical Matter. A farther and greater change is brought about in Matter when it is raised still higher and taken up by the mind, when it answers to the vibrations of a mental organism: mentalised Matter has yet a third norm of behaviour. The' transformation of Matter in slow degrees towards a greater plasticity and spontaneity, a growing sentiency and luminosity is evident as one proceeds up the rungs of natural evolution.
02.01 - The World War, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In fact, however, there is no insurmountable disparity between spirituality and "worldliness", between meditation and the most "terrible work"ghore karmani: the Gita has definitively proved the truth of the fact millenniums ago. War has not been the monopoly of warriors alone: it will not be much of an exaggeration to say that Avatars, the incarnations of the Divine, have done little else besides that. And what of the Divine Mother herself? The main work of an Avatar is often to subdue the evil-doers, those that follow and pull others to follow the Wrong Path. And the Divine Mother, she who harbours in her bosom the supreme Truth and Consciousness and Bliss, is in one of her essential aspects, the slayer of the Demon, of the Asura.
Now, it is precisely with the Asura that we have to deal in the present war. This is not like other warsit is not a war of one country with another, of one group of Imperialists with another, nor is it merely the fierce endeavour of a particular race or nation for world-domination: it is something more than all that. This war has a deeper, a more solemn, almost a grim significance. Some thinkers in Europe, not the mere political leaders, but those who lead in thought and ideas and ideals, to whom something of the inner world is revealed, have realised the true nature of the present struggle and have expressed it in no uncertain terms. Here is what Jules Ro mains, one of the foremost thinkers and litterateurs of contemporary France, says:
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The world has been created by a descent of consciousness; it maintains itself, it proceeds and develops through a series of descents. In fact, creation itself is a descent, the first and original one, the descent of the supreme Reality into Matter and as Matter. The supreme Reality the fount and origin of things and even that which is beyondalthough essentially something absolute, indescribable, ineffable, indeterminable, has been, for purposes of the human understanding, signalised as a triune entity of Existence, Consciousness and Bliss. That is to say, first of all, it is, it exists always and for everinvariably, in unbroken continuity; secondly, it exists not unconsciously, but consciously, in and as full consciousness; thirdly, it exists in delightthrough delight and for and as delight; it has no other reason for existence but the pleasure and joy of simply existing. This primal, this original truth or reality transcends creation and is beyond and antecedent to it. What then is creation, what is its nature and character? Strange to say, it is the very opposite of the primal reality. First of all, it is not really existent: its existence is only another name for non-existence, as, in its phenomenal constitution, it is variable, ephemeral, transient and fragmentary or even seems made, as it were, of the stuff of dream. Secondly, it is not conscious; on the contrary, it is unconsciousness. And lastly it is not delight; there is an original insensibility and much undelight, grief and sorrow. That is the actual physical creation; or so, at least, it appears to be. How is this paradox to be explained? What is the significance of this riddle?
Descent is the master-key that unravels the mystery that is to say, the descent of the delightful conscious existence as the material world. But why this descent at all? What was the necessity? What was the purpose? The why of a thing is always difficult, if not impossible, to gauge. But we shall try to understand the how of the phenomenon, and in so doing perhaps we may get at the why of it also. At present let us content ourselves by saying that such was His willLa sua voluntadesuch was His wishsa aicchat. For once perhaps instead of saying, Let there be light, He (or something in Him) must have said, Let there be darkness, and there was Darkness.
--
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 re mains 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 do mainsgives 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 slower, duller, more uncertain, more disintegrated. The lower the consciousness descends the more veiled it becomes, losing more and more the directness, the sureness, the intensity and force and the synthetic unity native to the highest ranges of our consciousness and being.
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.
--
Next is the do main of the Supermind with which the manifestation of the Divine starts. We have said it is the world of typal realities, of the first seed-realities, where the One and the Many are united and fused in each other, where the absolute unity of the Supreme maintains itself in undiminished magnitude and expresses and formulates itself perfectly in and through the original multiplicity. Here take birth the first personalities, absolute truth-forms of the Divine. Here are the highest gods, the direct formations of the Divine himself. Here are the Four Powers and Personalities of swara whom Sri Aurobindo has named after the Vaishnava terminology: (i) Mahavira, embodying the Brahmin quality of Knowledge and Light and wide Consciousness, (ii) Balarama, embodying the Kshatriya quality of Force and intense dynamism, (iii) Pradyumna, embodying the quality of love and beauty the Vaishya virtue of mutuality and harmony and solidarity, and (iv) Aniruddha, embodying the Sudra quality of competent service, of organisation and execution in detail. Corresponding with these Four there are the other Four Powers and Personalities of the Divine Mother war (i) Maheshwari, (ii) Mahakali, (iii) Mahalakshmi and (iv) Mahasaraswati. Next in the downward gradient comes the Overmind where the individualised powers and personalities of the Divine tend to become self-sufficient and self-regarding; their absolute unity is loosened and the lines of multiplicity begin to be more independent of each other, each aiming at a special fulfilment of its own. Still the veil that is being drawn over the unity is yet transparent which continues to be sufficiently dynamic. This is the abode of the gods, the true and high gods: it is these that the Vedic Rishis appear to have envisaged and sought after. The all gods (vive dev) were indeed acknowledged to be but different names and forms of one supreme godhead (dev) it is the one god, says Rishi Dirghatamas, who is called multifariously whether as Agni or Yam a or Matariswan; it is the one god, again, who is described as having a thousand heads and a thousand feet. And yet they are separate entities, each has his own distinct and distinctive character and attribute, each demands a characteristic way of approach and worship. The tendency towards an exclusive stress is already at work on this level and it is the perception of this truth that lies behind the term henotheism used by European scholars to describe the Vedic Religion.
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.
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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 do main 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.
02.02 - The Message of the Atomic Bomb, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In one sense certainly there has been a progress. This march of machinery, this evolution of tools means man's increasing mastery over Nature, even though physical nature. The primitive man like the animal is a slave, a puppet driven helplessly by Nature's forces. Both lead more or less a life of reflex action: there is here no free, original initiation of action or movement. The slow discovery of Nature's secrets, the gradual application and utilisation of these secrets in actual life meant, first, a liberation of man's conscious being originally imbedded in Nature's inertial movements, and then, a growing power to react upon Nature and mould and change it according to the will of the conscious being. The result at the outset was a release and organisation on the mental level, in the do main of reason and intelligence. Of course, man found at once that this increasing self-consciousness and self-power meant immense possibilities for good, but, unfortunately, for evil also. And so to guard against the latter contingency, rules and regulations were framed to control and canalise the new-found capacities. The Dharma of the Kshatriya, the honour of the Samurai, the code of Chivalry, all meant that. The power to kill was sought to be checked and restrained by such injunctions as, for example, not to hit below the belt, not to fight a disarmed or less armed opponent and so on. The same principle of morals and manners was maintained and continued through the centuries with necessary changes and modifications in application and finds enshrined today in International Covenants and Conventions.
But a new situation has arisen for some time past. The last Great War (World War No. I) was crucial in many ways in the life of humanity. It opened a new direction of man's growth, opened and then closed also apparently. I am referring to the tragedy of the League of Nations. That was an attempt on the part of man (and Nature) to lift the inner life and consciousness to the level of the outer achievements. The attempt failed. Man could not rise to the height demanded of him. Now the second World War became logically more devastating and shattering; it has given the go-by to all ethical standards and codes of honour. The poison gas was not used not because of any moral restraint or disinclination, but because of practical and utilitarian considerations. The Atom Bomb, however, has spoken the word.
02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The principle of Avatarhood stands justified in this scheme as a necessary and inevitable element in the terrestrial evolutionary movement. An Avatar embodies a new emergent property: he incarnates a new principle of being and consciousness, he manifestsunfolds from below or brings down from above upon eartha higher and deeper principle of organisation. He is the nucleus round which the new organisation crystallises. A Rama comes and human society attains a new status: against a mainly vitalistic and egoistic organisation whose defender and protagonist is Ravana, is set up an ideal of sattwic humanity. A Krishna appears and human consciousness is lifted, potentially at least, to a still higher level of spiritual possibility. The Avatar following, rather tracing, in his upward movement the central line of the evolutionary nisus, cuts a path, as it were, in the virgin forest of a realm of consciousness still unknown and foreign to human steps. As the Avatar presses and passes on, the way is cleared for other, ordinary human beings to come up and naturalise themselves in a new country promising a higher destiny which He discovers and conquers for them.
Now at this point we reach the crux of the problem, the supreme secretrahasyam uttamamas the Gita would say. For the apex of the pyramid, the crown of evolution, the consummation of the central line of emergence would then be nothing less than the manifestation, the terrestrial incarnation of the Supreme Divine. The Deity thus fully emerged would embody the truth and play of creation in its widest scope and highest elevation; it would mean the utter fulfilment of human destiny and terrestrial Purpose.
02.03 - National and International, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have just passed through another, a far greater, a catastrophic Kurukshetra, the last Act (Shanti Parvam) of which we are negotiating at the present moment. The significance of this cataclysm is clear and evident if we only allow ourselves to be led by the facts and not try to squeeze the facts into the groove of our past prejudices and set notions. All the difficulties that are being encountered on the way to peace and reconstruction arise mainly out of the failure to grasp what Nature has forced upon us. It is as simple as the first axiom of Euclid: Humanity is one and all nations are free and yet interdependent members of that one and single organism. No nation can hope henceforth to stand in its isolated grandeurnot even America or Russia. Subject or dependent nations too who are struggling to be free will be allowed to work out their freedom and independence, on condition that the same is worked out in furtherance and in collaboration with the ideal of human unity. That ideal has become dynamic and insistent the more man refuses to accept it, the more he will make confusion worse confounded.
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02.05 - Robert Graves, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The birth of Shilindhra resembles the birth of Dionysus. When King Zeus took the form of thunder and lightning and entered the womb of Semele, Dionysus was born. Similar is the story of the appearance of the toadstool, in the midst of rain and thunder and lightning and on the lap of mother earth. We have already said that there are two categories of gods or two types of themone belongs to heaven and the other to earth. The Vedic Rishis announced that heaven was our father and earth themotherdaurme pit mt pthvimahyam. The Vedantins usually and mainly worship the father, and Tantriks, the mother. Svarga, Dyaus, is the world of light, and earth or bhu is that of delight and enjoyment. We have already said that high above, up there, dwell Apollo and Zeus and Juno, and below here on earth, Dionysus and Bacchus and Semele and Aphrodite.
However the poet says that as the toadstool is born in the midst of thunder and lightning, his strength and capacity are of the nature of thunderenduring and hard and powerful. Born thus it spreads everywhere and lasts through all time. From the beginning of creation this god has sprouted up everywhere, as giver of pleasure and ecstasy and intoxication. To worship him is to worship earth, to worship Dionysus himself. But one needs to worship this god in the right way, to give oneself away wholly to him. Once upon a time the demons for some selfish interest wanted to capture and imprison him. The result was disastroushe thought of depriving them of their power of movement and drowning them into the ocean. On the contrary, to the devoted which world does he reveal, which delight bring? Let us listen to the poet:
02.06 - Vansittartism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Hence it is suggested that for the postwar reconstruction of Germany what is required is the re-education of its people. For, only a psychological change can bring about a durable and radical change. But certain proposals towards this end raise serious misgivings, since they mean iron regimentation under foreign control. Even if such a thing were possible and feasible, it is doubtful if the purpose could be best served in this way. Measures have to be taken, no doubt, to uproot Prussianism and Junkerism and prevent their revival, no false mercy or sympathy should be extended to the enemies of God and man. But this is only a negative step, and cannot be sufficient by itself. A more positive and more important work lies ahead. The re-education of Germany must come from within, if it is to be permanent and effective. What others can do is to help her in this new orientation. As we have said, there are the progressive elements in Germany too, although submerged for the moment. The task of reconstruction will precisely consist in calling up and organising and marshalling these forces that are for the Light. The Allied organisation, it may be noted, itself has grown up in this way. When one remembers how Britain stood alone at one time against the all-sweeping victorious march of the Titan, how slowly and gradually America was persuaded to join hands, at first in a lukewarm way, finally with all its heart and soul and might and main, how a new France is being built up out of a mass of ruins, we can hope that the same process will be adopted in the work that lies ahead even after victory, with regard to Italy and with regard to Germany. In the second case the task is difficult but it has got to be done.
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02.07 - India One and Indivisable, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It will do no good to anyone to try to Balkanise India. The Balkan malady is no longer tolerated even in its homeland; it cannot be transported to India in this century and after this Great War. To be and re main free and strong and invincible, India must be and re main indivisible. The strength of the United States of America, of the United Soviets of the Russias, of the British Commonwealth (pace Churchill) lies precisely in each one of them being a large unified aggregate, all members pooling their resources together. India cannot maintain her freedom, nor utilise her freedom to its utmost effectivity unless she is one and indivisible. The days of small peoples, of isolated independence are gonegone for ever even like Thebes and Nineveh, like Kosala of Dasarathi and Mathura of Yadupati.
India can be and is to be a federation of autonomous units. But then we must very carefully choose or find out the units, those that are real units and not fractions (especially irrational fractions) and at the same time lay as much stress on federation as on autonomy. To choose or create units on the basis of religion or race or caste or creed, that is exactly what we mean by irrationalism, in other words, mediaevalism. The Units must be, on one side, geographical wholes, and, on the other, cultural (or spiritualnot religious) wholes.
02.08 - Jules Supervielle, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Jules supervielle is a French poet and a modern French poet. He belongs to this century and died only a few years ago. Although he wrote in French, he came of a Spanish colonist family settled in South America (Montevideo). He came to France early in life and was educated there. He lived in France but maintained his relation with his mother-country.
His poetry is very characteristic and adds almost a new vein to the spirit and manner of French poetry. He has bypassed the rational and emotional tradition of his adopted country, brought in a mystic way of vision characteristic of the East. This mysticism is not however the normal spiritual way but a kind of oblique sight into what is hidden behind the appearance. By the oblique way I mean the sideway to enter into the secret of things, a passage opening through the side. The mystic vision has different ways of approachone may look at the thing straight, face to face, being level with it with a penetrating gaze, piercing a direct entry into the secrets behind. This frontal gaze is also the normal human way of knowing and understanding, the scientific way. It becomes mystic when it penetrates sufficiently behind and strikes a secret source of another light and sight, that is, the inner sight of the soul. The normal vision which I said is the scientist's vision, stops short at a certain distance and so does not possess the key to the secret knowledge. But an aspiring vision can stretch itself, drill into the surface obstacle confronting it, and make its contact with the hidden ray behind. There is also another mystic way, not a gaze inward but a gaze upward. The human intelligence and the higher brain consciousness seeks a greater and intenser light, a vaster knowledge and leaps upward as it were. There develops a penetrating gaze towards heights up and above, to such a vision the mystery of the spirit slowly reveals itself. That is Vedantic mysticism. There is a look downward also below the life-formation and one enters into contact with forces and beings and creatures of another type, a portion of which is named Hell or Hades in Europe, and in India Ptl and rastal. But here we are speaking of another way, not a frontal or straight movement, but as I said, splitting the side and entering into it, something like opening the shell of a mother of pearl and finding the pearl inside. There is a descriptive mystic: the suprasensuous experience is presented in images and feeling forms. That is the romantic way. There is an explanatory mysticism: the suprasensuous is set in intellectual or mental terms, making it somewhat clear to the normal understanding. That is I suppose classical mysticism. All these are more or less direct ways, straight approaches to the mystic reality. But the oblique is differentit is a seeking of the mind and an apprehension of the senses that are allusive, indirect, that move through contraries and negations, that point to a different direction in order just to suggest the objective aimed at. The Vedantic (and the Scientific too) is the straight, direct, rectilinear gaze the Vedantin says, May I look at the Sun with a transfixed gaze'; whether he looks upward or inward or downward. But the modem mystic is of a different mould. He has not that clear absolute vision, he has the apprehension of an aspiring consciousness. His is not religious poetry for that matter, but it is an aspiration and a yearning to perceive and seize truth and reality that eludes the senses, but seems to be still there. We shall understand better by taking a poem of his as example. Thus:
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Si vous touchez sa main c'est bien sans le savoir,
Vous vous le rappelez mais sous un autre nom,
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Et puis ouvrir les mains. Combien d'oiseaux lchs,
Combien d'oiseaux perdus qui deviennent la rue,
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mains, vous vous usurez
A ce grave jeu-l,
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Et avec quelles mains
Saisir cette pense,
t avec quelles mains
Saisir enfin le jour
--
Sommeil aux mains plus grands.
To Seize
02.09 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern French, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Tes mains sont dans les rsdas.
Oreille ouverte, oreille close
02.10 - Independence and its Sanction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Precisely, the present war brings to our door the opportunity most suited to the acquisition and development of this power and strength. The very things the Indian temperament once had in abundance but now lacks most and has to recoverdiscipline, organization, impersonality and objectivity in work, hard and patient labour, skill of execution in minute detailsqualities by virtue of which power is not only acquired, but maintained and fosteredare now made more easily available. These qualities cannot be mastered and developed with such facility and swiftness as under the pressure of the demands of a war. This does not mean that we have got to be militarists. But the world is such that if we wish to live and prosper we must know how to make use of the materials and conditions that are given to us. Many good things are imbedded among bad ones, and wisdom and commonsense do not advise us to throw out the baby with the bath-water. That is another matter, however.
If we had joined hands with the British in the war-work on their own termsto try to compel them to our terms is to put the cart before the horsewe would have seen that as we proceeded with the work, more and more of it came automatically under our charge, however small or slight it might have looked in the beginning. In the end or very soon we would have found that our possession of the field was an accomplished fact, there could be no question of denying or refusing, the fact had to be acceptedadmitted and ratified. It is the well-known policy of the camel which Aesop described in one of his Fables. We have to establish the inexorable logic of events which definitively solves the riddle, cuts the Gordian knot as it were. A theoretical, that is to say, a moral and legal pact or understanding is but a dam of sands.
02.11 - New World-Conditions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is a trite saying that one must change with the changing times. But how many can really do so or know even how to do so? In politics, as in life generally (politics is a part of life, the "precipitated" part, one may say in chemical language), the principle is well-known, though often in a pejorative sense, as policy or tactics. Anyhow the policy pays: for it is one of the main lines, if not the main line of action along which lies success in the practical field. And precisely he who cannot change, who does not see the necessity of change, although conditions and circumstances have changed, is known as the ideologist, the doctrinaire, the fanatic. The no-changer does not change with the times: for, according to him, that is the nature of the weather-cock, the time-server. On the contrary, he seeks to impose his ideas (sometimes called ideals), notions, prejudgments and even prejudices upon time and circumstance. Such an endeavour, on most occasions, can have only a modicum of success; and a blind insistence may even lead to disaster. It may not be difficult to modify some surface movements of the oceanic surge of life, but to control and comm and it is quite a different proposition. This, however, is not to say that opportunism, slavery to circumstances should be the order of the day. Not at all. One is not asked to sacrifice the bed-rock truth and principle and run after the fleeting mode, the momentary need, the passing interest, to follow always the comfortable line of least resistance. But one has to distinguish. There are things of local and transient utility and there are things of abiding value brought up by deeper world-currents in the conditions and circumstances that face us. When such great occasionsgolden opportunities they are calledcome, they come with their own norms, and then it is foolish to force upon them the narrow strait-jacket forms fabricated by our old habits and preconceived notions.
We talk even today of British Imperialism, of the Shylock nature of the white coloniser and exploiter
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True, there are contrary voices. But as one swallow does not make a summer, even so, many such voices cannot perpetuate the past. The name, even the form of Imperialism is there, but the substance of it is how much changed, if one goes behind! The British Empire, as it stands today, is composed of three strands, we may say: the first, the front line, consists of Canada and Australia, the second, of Ireland, Egypt and Irak, and the third, mainly of India. This graded pattern shows that it is something fluid and even progressive, there is nothing rigid and final about it. The very nature of the composition seems to exert a pressure working for an equality, an equilibrium of partnership building up a genuine Commonwealth. The model is catching. An Imperialistic Russia, that has found a new avatara in Stalin, has become a champion of federalism, as the best way of preserving the imperial integrity!
India should consider the present situation with calmness, detachment and wisdom, not hark back to the past, brooding over the mistakes and misdeeds of her erstwhile masters they are no longer masters; yes, forgiving and forgetting, one must face squarely the new situation and make the best use of it. India, that claims a spiritual heritage and a high and hoary civilisation, can afford to be idealistic even and envisage a deeper and higher law of Nature, of universal harmony and solidarity, of conscious co-operation. Apart from that, if as practical men, we look to our self-interest, then also it will be wise for us to take up the same line of procedure, viz., what idealism demands. A nation too, like the individual, can be swayed by pride, prejudice, passion, a false sense of prestige and a spirit of vengeance. However natural these reactions may seem to be, in view of the conditions of their incidence, they possess, more often than not, the property of the boomerang, they hit back the originating source itself. It has been said, for example, that the origin of the present war the rise of Hitleris due to the Versailles Treaty that ended the last war, which was, in its turn a war of revenge having its origin on the field of Sedan; this campaign of 1870 again was the natural and inevitable outcome of the Napoleonic conquest. Thus there has been a seesaw movement in national relations without a definite issue. And pessimists of today aver that we are not come to the end of the spiral.
02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A totalitarian equality takes men as blocks or chunks of wood and also cuts and clips them as such whenever and wherever needed, thrusts them indiscriminately into any nook and corner of the social framework for the sake of its upkeep and maintenance. It is something that is characteristic of a modern armythoroughly mechanisedin which men are not different from the nuts and bolts of a machine, all forming a stream-lined massive unity, where persons and individuals as such have no value or consideration, they are dumb and almost dead materials and when worn out just simply to be replaced by others. If it is to be compared to any living thing, we can think of only the regimentation that obtains in an ant-hill or a bee-hive.
Mechanical and totalitarian equality does injustice, to say the least, to the individual, for it does not take into account the variable value and the particularity of each individual. It usually gives him a position and function in the society to which his inner nature and character do not at all respond. The result of such indifference to individuality is evident also in a modern society based as it is on so-called freedom, that is to say, on open competition and struggle. The tragedy of a Bankim eking out his subsistence as a bureaucratic official is not a rare spectacle but the very rule of the social system in vogue. Indeed the so-called steel-frame of governmental organization of our days sucks in all the best brains and few can survive this process of "evisceration, deprivation, destitution, desiccation and evacuation", to use the glowing and graphic words of T. S. Eliot, although in another connection; few can maintain or express after passing through this grinding or sucking machine their inner reality, the truth and beauty personal to them. The poet1 regrets:
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
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We have said individual or personal worth should be the chief concern of the social governance, to bring it to birth, to maintain and foster it is its principal function. This means naturally freedom, but not the freedom that is demanded by the individualist as against the socialist or the collectivist. For there freedom means freedom for competition and rivalry, freedom for the egos, for selfish interests to fight and battle and survive who can. That is the motto of the competitive society in which we have been living for some time past. That system has become intolerable and hence all the seismic troubles in society today. What is needed is real freedom. For it is easy to see that under the competitive system the apparent freedom is only apparent, a make-believe. It is not freedom, that is to say, free choice and initiation that can work here, it is the pressure from rivals, the impact of adverse circumstances that determine one's will and choice. In the second place, it is not the deeper urges or capacities that are touched and awakened in this way, it is the superficial impulses and preoccupations that find a vent. Man is here only a link in a chain of reactions over which he has hardly any real control: one's decision is limited by conditions beyond one's reach, one's hands are forced, as the common phrase goes.
The problem then is this: how to arrive at the inner freedom, how to contact the inner man, the true person and personality? For we are aiming at nothing less than the Soul, the Self, the Divine in man, God's purpose in the Individual, the Individual as God's instrument. That is the beau idal, so to say, in the human personality which all schemes of social reconstruction must have constantly in view.
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In ancient times too there were conscious attempts to build and remould human society. The Rishis were not merely spiritual seers, but creators of the social order also. They saw by their vision the inner truths of things, they found principles and laws, right principles and correct laws which establish peace and stability, on the one hand, no doubt, but on the other hand serve also as the frame for the growth and fulfilment of the individual being. The king with his executive body was there to see that the laws were observed and honoured. The later law-givers (the makers of codes, smritis) had not the direct and large vision of the Rishis, but they tried their best to maintain the laws as they understood them, elaborate them, change or modify wherever possible or needed under given circumstances. In ancient Europe too, it was Plato who envisaged the ideal Republic, a government of philosophers the wise who are not actively engaged in the turmoil of life, but stand aloof and detached and can see more of the game and accordingly legislate all the better. In modern times also the rise of a Feuhrer or a Dictator seems to have been a psychological necessity: the mass consciousness is in sore need of a guide, and as the right guide is not easily available, the way of the false prophet is smooth and wide open. As a protection and antidote against such a calamity, we tried here and there to found and organise a government of all talents.
But again, who are the talents and where are they? For a modern society produces at best clever politicians, but very few great souls if at all, who can inspire, guide and create. Not a system or organization, but such centres of forces, with creative vision and power, it is that that mankind sorely needs at this hour. System and organization come after, they can only be the embodiment of a creative vision.
02.13 - Rabindranath and Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo retired from the outer political world to devote himself more intensively to the discovery and conquestof a new consciousness and force, glimpses of which he was having at the time and which alone could save mankind and recreate it. From 1910 to 1914 he was, he said, silently developing this new power in seclusion and in 1914 he began to give to the world the result of his realisations through his monthly review Arya. In five major sequences published month after month through several years, he envisaged, in the main, the progressive march of man towards a divine life on earth, towards the unity of mankind and a perfect social order. One of these serials was called The Future Poetry in which he traced the growth and development that world poetry is undergoing towards its future form that would voice the dawn of a New Age of the Spirit. Sri Aurobindo hailed those who feel and foresee this distant dawn behind the horizon as the Forerunners of the new Spirit, among whom he included Rabindranath, because he saw in Tagore's the first beginnings, "a glint of the greater era of man's living", something that "seems to be in promise." "The poetry of Tagore," Sri Aurobindo says, "owes its sudden and universal success to this advantage that he gives us more of this discovery and fusion for which the mind of our age is in quest than any other creative writer of the time. His work is a constant music of the overpassing of the borders, a chant-filled realm in which the subtle sounds and lights of the truth of the spirit give new meanings to the finer subtleties of life."
Characterising Tagore's poetry, in reference to a particular poem, Sri Aurobindo once wrote: "But the poignant sweetness, passion and spiritual depth and mystery of a poem like this, the haunting cadences subtle with a subtlety which is not of technique but of the soul, and the honey-laden felicity of the expression, these are the essential Rabindranath and cannot be imitated because they are things of the spirit and one must have the same sweetness and depth of soul before one can hope to catch any of these desirable qualities." Furthermore: "One of the most remarkable peculiarities of Rabindra Babu's genius is the happiness and originality with which he has absorbed the whole spirit of Vaishnava poetry and turned it into something essentially the same and yet new and modern. He has given the old sweet spirit of emotional and passionate religion an expression of more delicate and complex richness voiceful of subtler and more penetratingly spiritual shades of feeling than the deep-hearted but simple early age of Bengal could know."
02.14 - Appendix, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But even the moon has its spots, and in Wordsworth the spots are of a fairly considerable magnitude. Manmohan Ghose too had mentioned to us these defects. Much of Wordsworth is didactic and rhetoric, that is, of the nature of preaching, hence prosaic and non-poetical although couched in verse. Ghose used to say that even the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality which is so universally admired is mainly didactic and is by and large rhetoric, with very little real poetry in it. I must confess however that to me personally, some of its passages have a particular charm, like
Our birth is but a sleep and forgetting:
02.14 - Panacea of Isms, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nor can socialism remedy all the ills society suffers from, if it merely or mainly means the abolition of private enterprise and the assumption by the State of the entire economic and even cultural or educational apparatus of the society. Even as an economic proposition State Socialism, which is only another name of Totalitarianism, is hardly an unmixed good. First of all, however selfish and profiteering the individual may be, still, one must remember that it is always the individual who is adventurous and inventive, it is he who discovers, creates new things and beautiful things. A collective or global enterprise makes for massiveness and quantity, but it means also uniformity, often a dead uniformity: for variety, for originality, as well as for the aesthetic tone and the human touch, the personal element is needed, seems to be indispensable. Education in such a system would mean a set routine and pattern, an efficient machine to bring out consistently and continuously uniform types of men who are more or less 'automatons, mechanical and regimented in their make-up and behaviour. An all-out socialistic Government will bear down and entomb the deeper springs of human consciousness, the magic powers of initiative and creativity that depend upon individual liberty and the free play of personal choice. We do not deny that Socialism is an antidote to another malady in the social body the parcellation, the fragmentation into a thousand petty interestsall aggressive and combative-of the economic strength of a community, and also the stupendous inequality and maldistribution of wealth and opportunity. But it brings in its own poison.
It is a great illusion, as has been pointed out by many, that a collective and impersonal body cannot be profiteers and war-mongers. A nation as a whole can very well be moved by greed and violence and Sieglust (passion for conquest)Nazism has another name, it is also called National Socialism. Everything depends not upon the form, but the spirit that animates the form. It is the spirit, man's inner nature that is to be handled, dealt with and changed; outer systems and forms have only a secondary importance.
03.01 - Humanism and Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is, however, a type of humanism that is specially known in Indiait is not human humanism, but, as it is called, divine humanism. That is to say, the human formula is maintained, but a new significance, a transcendent connotation is put into it. The general contour of the instrumentation is preserved, but the substance is transmuted. The brain, the heart and the physical consciousness not only change their direction, but their very nature and character. And the Divine himself is conceived of as such a Human Person for the norm of the human personality is an eternal verity in the divine consciousness.
Esoteric Christianity also has given us the conception of the Human Divine; but it is somewhat different from the Vaishnava revelation which has found rather the Divine Human. In other words, as I have already said, one has brought down the divinity nearer to the human appreciation and has humanised it; in the other the human has been uplifted and made into an archetypal reality where the human terms have been more or less symbols and figures having not merely human but a supra-human significance. The entire Vaishnava Lila passes not on this earth at all, but eternally in the eternal world of consciousness cinmayabehind all earthly (and human) manifestation and expression.
03.02 - Aspects of Modernism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Science indeed gave a very decided turn to the slowly advancing humanity. It brought with it something that meant in the march of evolution a saltum, a leap wide and clear; it landed man all of a sudden into a new world, a new state of consciousness. It is this state of consciousness, the fundamental way of being, inculcated by the scientific spirit that is of capital importance and possesses a survival value. It is not the content of Science, but its intent, not its riches, but its secret inspiration, its motive power, that will give us a right understanding of the change it has effected. The material aspect of the event has lost much of its value; the mechanical inventions and discoveries, bringing in their train a revolution in the external organization of life, have become a matter of course, and almost a matter of the past. But the reactions set up in the consciousness itself, the variations brought about in the very stuff and constitution of life still maintain a potency for the future and are to be counted.
The scientific spirit, in one word, is rationalisationrationalisation of Mind as well as of Life. With regard to Mind, rationalisation means to get knowledge exclusively on the data of the senses; it is the formulation, in laws and principles, of facts observed by the physical organs, these laws and principles being the categories of the arranging, classifying, generalising faculty, called reason; its methodology also demands that the laws are to be as few as possible embracing as many facts as possible. Rationalisation of life means the government of life in accordance with these laws, so that the wastage in natural life due to the diversity and disparity off acts may be eliminated, at least minimised, and all movements of life ordered and organised in view of a single and constant purpose (which is perhaps the enhancement of the value of life). This rationalisation means further, in effect, mechanisation or efficiency, as its protagonists would prefer to call it. However, mechanistic efficiency, whether in the matter of knowledge or of lifeof mind or of morals was the motto of the early period of the gospel of science, the age of Huxley and Haeckel, of Bentham and the Mills. The formula no longer holds good either in the field of pure knowledge or in its application to life; it does not embody the aspiration and outlook of the contemporary mind, in spite of such inveterate rationalists as Russell and Wells or even Shaw (in Back to Methuselah, for example), who seem to be already becoming an anachronism in the present age.
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We spoke of the extreme atomism of modern Science that has thrown into the background the solid unity of creation and is laying emphasis for the moment more upon the division and scattering of forces than upon the cohesiveness and identity of the substratum; still that unity has not been abrogated but has been maintained on the whole, even if as an underlying note. Not only so, the reign of multiplicity, by a curious detour, is working towards a discovery of enhanced unity. The plurality of the modern consciousness is moving towards a richer and intenser unity; it is not a static, but a dynamic unitya unity that does not suppress or merely transcend the diversity and disparity of its components but holds them together as an immanent force, and brings forth out of each its fullness of individuality. In the same way the present-day movement towards internationalism or supra-nationalism has produced a rebound towards regionalism or infra-nationalism. And the voice of anarchism tends to be as insistent as that of collectivism.
The consciousness of yesterday was a unilateral movement. It rose up high and descended deep into the truth of things, but mostly along a single line. In the horizontal direction also, when it travelled, it effected a linear movement. The consciousness of today is complex and composite; it has lost much of the vertical movement; it does not very easily soar or dive, precisely because it has spread itself out in a multitude of horizontal movements. Our modern consciousness is outward gazing and extensive; it has not the in-gathering and intensive character of the old-world consciousness; but what it has lost in depth and height, it has sought to make up in width.
03.02 - Yogic Initiation and Aptitude, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Mantra or initiation, in its essence, is nothing else than contacting the inner being. In our Path, at least, there is no other rite or rule, injunction or ceremony. The only thing needed is to awake to the consciousness of the psychic being, to hear its callto live and move and act every moment of our life under the eye of this indwelling Guide, in accordance with its direction and impulsion. Our initiation is not therefore a one-time affair only; but at every moment, at each step, it has to be taken again and again, it must be renewed, revitalised, furthered and streng thened constantly and unceasingly; for it means that at each step and at every moment we have to maintain the contact of our external consciousness with the inner being; at each step and every moment we have to undergo the test of our sincerity and loyalty the test whether we are tending to our inner being, moving in its stream or, on the contrary, walking the way of our external animal nature, whether the movements in the mind and life and body are controlled by their habitual inferior nature or are open to and unified with their hidden divine source. This recurrent and continuous initiation is at the secret basis of all spiritual disciplinein the Integral Yoga this is the one and all-important principle.
Mundaka, Ill. 2. 4
03.03 - A Stainless Steel Frame, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The institution of punishment is no longer respected or appreciated in modern times to the same extent as in the past, even a century ago. When character goes awry, punishment is of no avail. Punishment does not cure or redeem the criminal; it often hardens, fixes the trait that is sought to be eradicated. Fear of punishment does not always prevent one from doing wrong things. Often danger has an irresistible fascination for a certain type of temperament, especially danger of the wrong kindindeed the greater the wrong, the greater the danger and the greater the fascination. "To live dangerously" is the motto of the heroic soul, as well as of the lost soul. A strong penal system, a rigorous policing is of help no doubt to maintain "peace and order" of some kind in a society; but that is an external pressure which cannot last very long or be effective in the end.
So the ideal proposed is that of moral regeneration. But what is the kind of moral regeneration and how is it to be effected? All depends upon that. If you issue some moral rules and regulations, inscribe them on pillars, print them in pamphlets, preach them from the platform and the pulpit, these things have been done in the past and for ages, the result is not assured and the world goes its way as ever. Something more than mental and moral rules has to be discovered: some dynamic and irresistible element in man has to be touched, evoked and brought out, something that challenges the whole world and maintains its truth and the fiat of its truth. That is the inmost soul in man, the real being behind all the apparent forms of his personality, the divine element, the very Divine in him. It is the outer man, the marginal man, man in his inferior nature that lives and moves in normal circumstances; instead, the central man, man in his higher and highest nature has to come out and take his place in the world.
What is needed then is an army of souls: individuals, either separately or in groups, who have contacted their inmost reality, their divinity, in some way or othermen with a new consciousness and aspiration, a new life and realisation. They will live in the midst of the general degeneration and disintegration, not aloof and immured in their privacy of purity, but take part in the normal activities of everyday life, still acting from the height and depth of the pure consciousness prove by their very living that one can be in the world and yet not of it, doing what is necessary for the maintenance and enhancement of life and yet not stooping to the questionable ways that are supposed to be necessary and inevitable. In other words, they will disprove that safety and success and prosperity in life can be had only if one follows the lead of Evil, if one sells one's soul. On the contrary, by living out one's divine essence one will have conquered the worldihaiva tairjitam. At every moment, in all circumstances one follows the voice of the highest in oneself. If it is that and no other inferior echo, then one becomes fearless and immortal and all-conquering.
Such souls living and moving among men with little faith and in circumstances adverse and obscure will forge precisely the new steel frame, the stainless-steel frame upon which the new society will be securely based.
03.03 - Modernism - An Oriental Interpretation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the past we used to see the world, experience and express life, mainly if not exclusively, in terms of the mind and the heart. These were the two fundamental categories or basic forms in and through which we built up our universe. It was our ideas and ideals, our notions and conceptions, our imagination and sentiment that viewed and interpreted, guided and shaped our earthly existence and creativity. Whether morally or esthetically, the domination of the mind and the heart over life was the characteristic stamp of the movement of the human spirit in the past.
Modernism means the release of life from this subjugation; it means the expression of life's own truths in its own way, life's self-determination: that is the great endeavour and achievement of today. It was a rationalised, emotionalised, idealised life that man sought to live and create yesterday; his art too consisted in showing life through that mask and veil, because it considered that that was the way to bring out the beautiful in life.
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Rousseau brought in the positive element that determined the new poise of humanity. It was the advent of the heart, the coming in of the Romantic the man of sentiment and sensibility. 1 But life had not yet had its chance. Life, pure life the biological do mainfirst declared its autonomy in art, for example, through the Realists and Naturalists. These pioneers, however, could bring forward mainly the facts, the constituents, the materials that compose life. The stuff was found, but the movement, life's own rhythm, was not there. It was new wine, but more or less in the old bottle. Zola or Maupassant or the Goncourts sought to express a life intrinsic and independent, but the instrument, the mould was still the old one; the manner and the movement, germane to mind and heart, continued to persist.
That mould was broken, and something of the mystery of Life's own rhythm first revealed by the Impressionists. But the Impressionists were too vague and had too much of a generalised sense to enter into the core of the matter. They touched life, caressed its contour and periphery and larger lines, but did not penetrate it, grasp and grip it, bring out the kernel, as it were, break it and express if in its atomic structure and movement. This is what is being done today.
03.04 - The Body Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The human frame is a miracle of creation. It would not be far wrong to say that the whole trend of physical evolution has been to bring out this morphological marvel. It has not been a very easy task for Nature to raise a living creature from its original crawling crouching slouching horizontal position to the standing vertical position which is so normal and natural to the human body. Man has proportionately a larger cranium with a greater and heavier content of the grey substance in comparison with the (vertebral) column upon which it is set, his legs too have to carry a heavier burden. And yet how easy and graceful his erect posture! It is a balancing feat worthy of the cleverest rope-dancer. Look at a bear or even at a chimpanzee standing and moving on its hind legs; what an uncouth, ungainly gait, forced and ill at ease! He is more natural and at home in the prone horizontal position. The bird was perhaps an attempt at change of position from the horizontal to the vertical: the frame here attained an angular incline (cf. tiryak, as the bird is called in Sanskrit), but to maintain even that position it was not possible to increase or enlarge the head. It is not idly that Hamlet exclaims:
What a piece of work is a man!... how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable!... the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!1
03.04 - The Other Aspect of European Culture, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But is it after all an incontrovertible fact that Europe is Europe and Asia Asia? It is now too late in the day to maintain that Asia was always dreamy and metaphysical and that she always lacked the hold upon concrete reality. On the contrary, every new additional information regarding her past is continually bringing to light the fact that Asia was no less efficient than Europe in matters worldly and material; she had as great, if not greater control over the brute reality than the latter can claim even today. Only her conquest of the spiritual realms was also as efficient and sovereign.
Nor is it a fact that Europe is and has been merely profane and materialistic in her outlook and attainment. The godless and mechanistic civilisation which is rampant today in Europe is a distemper of comparatively recent growth. Its farthest limit does not go beyond the sixteenth or the fifteenth century when the first seeds were sown by the Humanists of the Renaissance. It sprouted with the rationalists of the eighteenth century and the French Revolution cleared the ground for its free and untrammelled growth. But only in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries has it reached such vast and disconcerting proportions as to swallow all Europe's other motives and velleities and to appear as the only form of her life-expression. But in the earlier centuries, those that preceded the New Enlightenment, Europe had a different conception of culture and civilisation, she possessed almost another soul. The long period that is known as the mediaeval age was not after all so dark and unregenerate as it has been the familiar custom to represent it. Christian Europe the Europe of cathedrals and monasteries, of saints and sages, of St. Francis and St. Teresa, of Boehme and Bernard, of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, had an enlightenment all her own, which was real and living and dynamic, possessing a far-extending and deeply penetrating influence; in as much as it was this that called into being and fashioned the more abiding forces, which underlie Europe's cultural life and social institutions, although latterly "fallen on evil days and on evil tongues".
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If then Europe can cut across the snares that Modernism has spread all about her and get behind the surface turmoils and ebullitions and seek that which she herself once knew and esteemed as the one thing needful, then will she really see what the East means, then only will she find the bond of indissoluble unity with Asia. For the Truth that Europe carried in her bosom is much bigger than anything she ever suspected even in her best days. And she carried it not with the full illumination and power of a Master, but rather in the twilight consciousness of a servant or a devotee. The Truth in its purity flowed there for the most part much under the main current of life, and its formulations in life were not its direct expressions and embodiments but echoes and images. It is Asia who grasps the Truth with the hand of the Master, the Truth in its full and absolute truth and it is Asia who can show in fact and life how to embody it integrally.
Europe's spiritual soul itself in the last analysis will be found to be only a derivative of Asia's own self. For all the Mysteries and Occult Disciplines the Christian, the Platonic, the Eleusinian and Orphic, the Kabalistic, the Druidicwhich lay imbedded in Europe's spiritual and religious genius, when traced further up to the very source, will carry us straight into Asia's lap, perhaps India's.
03.04 - Towardsa New Ideology, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
For fanaticism may be defined as duty running away with itself; but duty proper, the genuine form of it is something self-poised, its natural and inherent tendency being rather to give than to demand, it is less easily provoked to aggression and battle. Even so, it may be claimed on behalf of Right that the right hand of Right is not likely to do harm, for itis then another name for liberty, it means the freedom to live one's life unhampered without infringing on an equal facility for others to do the same. But the whole difficulty comes in precisely with regard to the frontier of each other's sphere of rights. It is easy to declare the principle, but to carry it out in life and action is a different matter. The line of demarcation between one's own rights and the rights of another is always indeterminate and indefinable. In establishing and maintaining one's rights there is always the possibility, even the certainty of "frontier incidents", of encroaching upon other's rights. Liberty, alone and by itself, is not a safe guidetherefore so much stress is being laid nowadays upon discipline and obedience in modern ideologies.
But perhaps the real truth of the matter here is that all these termsliberty or right or even dutyare mental conceptions. They are indeed ideals, that is to say, made of the stuff of ideas and do not always coincide with the deeper realities of life and hence are not able to produce the perfect and durable harmony among warring members whether in the individual or in the collective life.
03.05 - Some Conceptions and Misconceptions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We can, however, make a distinction between limitation and delimitation or individuation. Limitation is a movement of Ignorance: it is the result of exclusive concentration. It creates separateness, forgets the unity. Delimitation, on the contrary, is a movement of knowledge, of pure consciousness dynamic. It creates diversity, multiplicity maintained in unity.
It is to be added that the limitation in Ignorance is after all apparent; that does not mean it is unreal or illusory, in the sense of Mayavada. Here is the distinction: Mayavada holds all formation as my, illusory, makes no difference between limitation and delimitation: according to it, all delimitation is ignorant and illusory limitation; none has real or essential existence. In Sri Aurobindo's view limitation is real, as also delimitation: only the former is a temporary reality, it is the latter itself but under certain conditions. Again, Mayavada speaks of the Brahman, the Absolute or Transcendent as the sole and true reality: it is the Stable, the Unmoving, the utter Unity cancelling, negating all movement and multiplicity. Sri Aurobindo views the highest reality as dynamic also, permeating the multiplicity and becoming the multiplicity, becoming or existing as the multiplicity in a movement of Knowledge, becoming and appearing also at first in a movement and mode of Ignorance as the material multiplicity but gradually transmuting this ignorant multiplicity into a movement and embodiment of Knowledge. For the Knowledge was always there in and behind the Ignorance, secretly informing and guiding, moulding and transforming it.
03.05 - The Spiritual Genius of India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The whole world, in fact, was more or less religious in the early stages of its evolution; for it is characteristic of the primitive nature of man to be god-fearing and addicted to religious rite and ceremony. And Europe too, when she entered on a new cycle of life and began to reconstruct herself after the ruin of the Grco-Latin culture, started with the religion of the Christ and experimented with it during a long period of time. But that is what wasTroja fuit. Europe has outgrown her nonage and for a century and a half, since the mighty upheaval of the French Revolution, she has been rapidly shaking off the last vestiges of her mediaevalism. Today she stands clean shorn of all superstition, which she only euphemistically calls religion or spirituality. Not Theology but Science, not Revelation but Reason, not Magic but Logic, not Fiction but Fact, governs her thoughts and guides her activities. Only India, in part under the stress of her own conservative nature, in part under compelling circumstances, still clings to her things of the past, darknesses that have been discarded by the modern illumination. Indian spirituality is nothing but consolidated mediaevalism; it has its companion shibboleth in the cry, "Back to the village" or "Back to the bullock-cart"! One of the main reasons, if not the one reason why India has today no place in the comity of nations, why she is not in the vanguard of civilisation, is precisely this obstinate atavism, this persistent survival of a spirit subversive of all that is modern and progressive.
It is not my purpose here to take up the cause of spirituality and defend it against materialism. Taking it for granted that real spirituality embodies a truth and power by far higher and mightier than anything materialism can offer, and that man's supreme ideal lies there, let us throw a comparing glance on the two types of spirituality,the one that India knows and the other that Europe knew in the Middle Ages.
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The French, for example, have developed as a people a special characteristic and mental turn that has set its pervading impress upon their culture and civilisation, upon their creations and activities; that which distinguishes them is a fine, clear and subtle, rational, logical, artistic and literary mind. France, it has often been said, is the head of modern Europe. The Indians are not in the same way a predominantly intellectual race, in spite of the mighty giants of intellect India has always produced, and still produces. Nor are they a literary race, although a rich and grandiose literature, unrivalled in its own great qualities, is their patrimony. It was the few, a small minority, almost a closed circle, that formed in India the elite whose interest and achievement lay in this field; the characteristic power, the main life-current of the nation, did not flow this way, but followed a different channel. Among the ancients the Greeks, and among the moderns the French alone, can rightfully claim as their special genius, as the hallmark of their corporate life, a high intellectual and literary culture. It is to this treasure,a serene and yet vigorous and organized rational mind, coupled with a wonderful felicity of expression in speech,that one turns when one thinks of the special gift that modern France and ancient Greece have brought to the heritage of mankind.
Again, the Japanese, as a people, have developed to a consummate degree the sense of beauty, especially as applied to life and living. No other people, not even the old-world Greeks, possessed almost to a man, as do these children of the Rising Sun, so fine and infallible an sthetic sensibility,not static or abstract, but of the dynamic kinduniformly successful in making out of their work-a-day life, even to its smallest accessories, a flawless object of art. It is a wonder to see in japan how, even an unlettered peasant, away in his rustic environment, chooses with unerring taste the site of his house, builds it to the best advantage, arranges everything about it in a faultless rhythm. The whole motion of the life of a Japanese is almost Art incarnate.
03.06 - Divine Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet there is a humanism that is proper to Indiait is not 'human humanism', but, as it is called, 'divine humanism'. That is to say, the human formula is maintained, but a new significance, a transcendent connotation is put into it. The general contour of the instrumentation is preserved, but the substance is transmuted. The brain, the heart and the physical consciousness not only change their direction, but their very nature and character. And the Divine Himself is conceived as such a Divine Person for the norm of the human personality in this view is an eternal verity in the divine consciousness.
Esoteric Christianity also has given us the conception of the Human Divine; but it is somewhat different from the Vaishnava revelation which has found rather the Divine Human. In other words, as I have already said, one has brought down the divinity nearer to human appreciation and has humanised it; in the other, the human has been uplifted and made into an archetypal reality where the human terms are more or less symbols and figures, having not merely a human but a suprahuman significance. The entire Vaishnava Lila takes place not on this earth at all, but eternally in the eternal world of the inner consciousness cinmayabehind all earthly (and human) manifestation and expression.
03.06 - The Pact and its Sanction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Pact if it is to be a success must be implemented at three levels. First of all, at the highest level, at the source itself, that is to say, between the Governments who initiated the move. The ministers and members at the top should themselves maintain an entente cordiale (in the literal and true sense of the phrase) and set an example by their word and deed, and what is more difficult and important, in their thought and feeling. They that are on either side of the fence should meet and talk and intermix as real friends and comrades, devise ways and means as to how best to carry out what they sincerely wish and desire. If they do not believe in the agreement in their heart of hearts, if they accept it simply because forced by compelling circumstances and because there was no other way out, if they entertain doubts and reservations and take it up as a pis aller, than surely more than half the force of the Pact is already gone. If the Pact is not sealed by the truth of our heart, then it becomes a mere scrap of paper and is sure to go the way of all such papers. It will not be stronger than the hundred and one contracts that are made between states only to be broken at the earliest opportunity. We have taken as the motto of our government the flaming mantra of the Upanishad, Truth alone leads to victory; we should not forget the continuation of the text, and not false hood.
The leaders overhead should be actuated by the truth of the soul (indeed for that they should have first a soul). A mainly political deal covers up the fissure, an apparent solution or easing of the situation hides a festering sore. We should have understood by now, it has been the bitter lesson of the epoch comprising the last two great wars that mere politics does not save, on the contrary, it leads you into a greater and greater mess. And still if governments have not learnt the lesson, if they follow the old system of real-politick, well, we can say only God save us, for we are heading straight over the precipicea final crash or a terrible revolution.
The Pact has to be implemented not only at the top but equally at the bottom. Here the matter seems somewhat easier. For in reality the common people have no interest in quarrels, they would prefer to live and let live peacefully; the burden of daily life is sufficient for them and they are not normally inclined to be busy about things that would disturb their routine work. Difference in religion or caste or creed is not such a serious matter with them. They tolerate and accommodate themselves to any variety easily and if there is a clash on an occasion, they forget it soon, and live amicably together as before. That has been the life in the villages for millennia. And if there is a formal Pact on the upper levels, it is what is normal and natural to the common mass.
03.07 - Brahmacharya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Brahmacharya means the storage of energy in the body and its sublimation. The energy in view is mainly physico-vital energy, the vital energy based upon and imbedded in the physical body. Brahmacharya naturally meant a strict observance of certain rules and regulations involving a strenuous discipline.
Brahmacharya was the very basis of education in ancient India: indeed, it was the basic education upon which Indian culture, Indian civilization, Indian life was based and built up. Without it there was no entry into the business of life.
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We do not speak of Brahmacharya in relation to a child. The discipline can be taken up only when the body and the consciousness have attained a certain degree of growth and development. A child grows in the full free play of its life movements: the care or attention of others should weigh upon it as lightly as possible, maintaining only an atmosphere of happy influence and protection. The transition from the stage of free play to conscious control is marked in Indian society by the ceremony of upanayana, the first approach or initiation: it is the beginning of the life of Brahmacharya.
It must be understood that this discipline is not merely for those who wish to follow a religious or spiritual life, but for all without exception. Brahmacharya is the first ashrama, order or stage of life with which one begins one's organisation of life; one has to pass through it to others leading to greater and higher degrees of fulfilment. It forms the foundation, prepares the necessary ground upon which the life structure can safely be raised and maintained. It is the secret fund of strength, the source of pure energies that vitalises life, enhances its values, makes it worth living.
The energy that one stores by continence, regular habits and self-discipline increases also in that way. Sometimes special methodskriyaare adopted to help the process, Asana or Pranayama, for example. But an inner and a more psychological procedure is needed, a concentration of will and consciousnessa kind of dhyana, in other wordsin order to be able to take the next step in discipline. For after the storage and increase of energy comes the sublimation of energy, that is to say, the physico-vital energy transmuted into the energy of mental substance, medh. Sublimation means also the increase of brain-power, an enhancement in the degree and quality of its capacity. This has nothing to do with the volume of knowledge enclosed (the mass of information to which we referred before) the growth is with regard to the very stuff of the mind from within, the natural strength of intelligence that can be applied to any field of knowledge with equal success and felicity.
03.08 - The Democracy of Tomorrow, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Certainly there were voices of protest, independent spirits who refused to drown themselves, lose themselves in the general current. That is to say, a separate and separative growth of the individual consciousness had to proceed at the same time under whatever duress and compression. An Antigone stood alone in the inviolable sanctity of the individual conscience against the established order of a mighty State. Indeed, individualised individuals were more or less freaks in the social set-up in the early days, revolutionaries or law-breakers, iconoclasts who were not very much favoured by the people. In Europe, it was perhaps with Luther that started a larger movement for the establishment and maintenance of the individual's right. The Reformation characteristically sought to make room for individual judgement and free choice in a field where authority the collective authority of the Churchwas all in all and the individual was almost a nonentity.
In India the spiritual life, it is true, was more or less the individual's free venture to the unknown. The Buddha said, Be thy own light; and the Gita too said, Raise thy self by thy own self. Yet here too, in the end, the individual did not stand, it rose but to get merged in the non-individual the universal, the Vast and the Infinite. The highest spiritual injunction is that God only existed and man has to annul his existence in Him.
The great mantra of individual liberty, in the social and political do main, was given by Rousseau in that famous opening line of his famous book,The Social Contract, almost the Bible of an age; Man is born free. And the first considerable mass rising seeking to vindicate and realise that ideal came with the toxin of the mighty French Revolution. It was really an awakening or rebirth of the individual that was the true source and sense of that miraculous movement. It meant the advent of democracy in politics and romanticism in art. The century that followed was a period of great experiment: for the central theme of that experiment was the search for the individual. In honouring the individual and giving it full and free scope the movement went far and even too far: liberty threatened to lead towards licence, democracy towards anarchy and disintegration; the final consequence of romanticism was surrealism, the deification of individual reason culminated in solipsism or ego-centricism. Naturally there came a reaction and we are in this century, still, on the high tide of this movement of reaction. Totalitarianism in one form or another continues to be the watchword and although neither Hitler nor Mussolini is there, a very living ghost of theirs stalks the human stage. The liberty of the individual, it is said and is found to be so by experience, is another name of the individual's erraticism and can produce only division and mutual clash and strife, and, in the end, social disintegration. A strong centralised power is necessary to hold together the warring elements of a group. Indeed, it is asserted, the group is the true reality and to maintain it and make it great the component individuals must be steamrollered into a compact mass. Evidently this is a poise that cannot stand long: the repressed individual rises in revolt and again we are on the move the other way round. Thus a never-ending see-saw, a cyclic recurrence of the same sequence of movements appears to be an inevitable law governing human society: it seems to have almost the absolutism of a law of Nature.1
In this connection we can recall Plato's famous serial of social types from aristocracy to tyranny, the last coming out of democracy the type that precedes it, (almost exactly as we have experienced it in our own days). But the most interesting point to which we can look with profit is Plato's view that the types are as men are, that is to say, the character and nature of man in a given period determines the kind of government or social system he is going to have. There has been this cyclic rotation of types, because men themselves were rotating types, because, in other words, the individuals composing human society had not found their true reality, their abiding status. Plato's aristocracy was the ideal society, it was composed of and ruled by the best of men (aristas, srestha) the wisest. And the question was put by many and not answered by Plato himself, what brought about the decline in a perfect system. We have attempted to give our answer.
03.11 - The Language Problem and India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But this is judging the present or the future by the past. Mankind is no longer exclusively or even mainly national inits outlook; it cannot re main so if it is to progress, to take the next step in evolution. We say if mankind overpasses the nationalistic stage and attains something of the international consciousness and disposition, it would be possible and even natural for a few at least among the educated to express themselves in and through the wider world language, not merely as an instrument of business deal, but as a vehicle of literary and aesthetic creation.
There are certain externalsocial and politicalcircumstances in existence today and will be more and more in evidence perhaps with the lapse of time which tend to corroborate and streng then that possibility. A language learnt for commercial or diplomatic transaction cannot re main limited to that function. Those who intend merely to learn may end very probably by cultivating it. And then it has been suggested that in the march of evolution towards world unity, there is likely to be an intermediate stage or rung where nations with special affinities or common interests will group together forming larger collectivities: there will be free associations of free nations, the Commonwealth as it has been termed. If India is to link herself specially to the English-speaking group, the English language will not cease to be an acquaintance but continue to be or develop into a very good friend.
It may be argued that a foreign language, in order that it may be the medium of literary expression even for the few, must have some living contact with the many, the people themselves. Some kind of atmosphere is needed where the few can brea the and live the language they adopt. Even for an individual when he takes to a foreign tongue, it is necessary in order to be perfectly at home and master in that language that he should live sometime (seven years is the minimum given by a French critic) in the country of the language adopted. In India, now that the British are gone, how can that atmosphere or influence be maintained? English letters may yet flourish here for a few years, because of the atmosphere created in the past but they are sure to dwindle and fade away like flowers on a plant without any roots in a sustaining soil. Indeed English was never a flowering from the mother soil, it was something imposed from above, at best grafted from outside. Circumstances have changed and we cannot hope to eternalise it.
We repeat what we have suggested, a national language flowers in one way, an international language flowers in another way. The atmosphere if not the soil, will be, in the new international consciousness, the inner life of mankind. That will become a more and more vivid, living and concrete reality. And minds open to it, soaked in it will find it quite natural to express themselves in a language that embodies that spirit. In this way, even though English might have lost a good deal of its external dominion in India, can still retain psychologically its living reality there, in minds that form as it were the vanguard of a new international age, with just the minimum amount of support needed from external circumstances and these are and may be available. And it would not be surprising, if not only English but French too in a similar way finds her votaries from among the international set in our country.
03.11 - True Humility, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not by repeating mea culpa ad infinitum that one can show one's true humility. In owning too much and too often one's sins, one may be just on the wrong side of virtue. There lurks a strain of vanity in self-maceration: the sinner in an overdose of self-pity almost feels himself saintly. Certainly, one must stand before oneself face to face, not hide or minimise or explain away one's errors and lapses, all one's omissions and commissions. But one need not brood over them, merely repenting and repining. One sees steadily, without flinching, what one actually is and then resolutely and sincerely takes to the ways and means of changing it, becoming what one has to be. A fall, the discovery of a new frailty should be an occasion not to chastise and punish yourself, thus to depress yourself and harden your nature, but to enthuse you with a fresh resolution, to rekindle your aspiration so that you may take another step forward. And, naturally, this you must do not with the sense that you can succeed or move forward by any inherent capacity of yoursyour failures are there always as standing eye-openers to you. No, it is not your self but the Divine Self that will come to your succour and lift you up tameva ea vute tanum swam to him alone it unveils its own body. That is the humility to be learnt. But it does not mean that you are to re main merely passive, inert you cannot but be that if you are only a weeping willow a dead-weight upon the force of Grace that would carry you up. Rather you should throw your weight, whatever it is, on the side of the Divine. An atmosphere of alacrity and happiness and goodwill goes a long way to the redemption and regeneration of the consciousness. This is demanded of you; the rest is the work of the Divine. It is under such conditions that the Divine's help becomes all the more speedy and effective. Otherwise, mere contrition and lamentation and self-torture mean, as I have said, a ballast, a burden upon the force of progress and purification; as Sri Krishna says in the Gita, by oppressing oneself one oppresses only the Divine within. Humility, in order to be true and sincere, need not be sour and dour in appearance or go about in sack-cloth and ashes. On the contrary, it can be smiling and buoyant: and it is so, because it is at ease, knowing that things will be donesome things naturally will be undone tooquietly, quickly, if necessary, and inevitably, provided the right consciousness, the right will within is maintained. The humble consciousness does not, of course, take credit for what is being done for it, nor does it concentrate wholly or chiefly on its utter futility and smallness. It feels small or helpless not in the sense as when one one feels weak and miserable and almost undone, but as a child feels, naturally and innocently, in the lap of it mother: only I perhaps it is more awake and self-conscious than the child mentality.
Humility is unreservedly humble, as it envisages the immensity of the labour the Divine has undertaken, sees the Grace, infinite and inscrutable, working miracles every moment: and it is full of gratitude and thanksgiving and quiet trust and hopefulness. Certainly, it means self-forgetfulness and selflessness, as it cannot co-exist with the sense of personal worth and merit, with any appreciation of one's own tapasya and achievement, even as it thrives ill upon self-abasement and self-denigration, for if one is rajasic, the other is tamasic egoismegoism, in any case. Absolute nullity of the egoistic self is the condition needed, but anything less than that, any lowering of the consciousness beyond this zero point means reaffirming the ego in a wrong direction. True humility has an unostentatious quietness, as it has a living and secret contact with the divine consciousness.
03.12 - Communism: What does it Mean?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Communism, in India at least, has come to mean things which it was not the original or the main purpose of the word to imply. Communism meant "holding in common", that is to say, there is no private property, one can claim nothing as exclusively one's ownthings are distributed, work as well as necessities, and one receives them, each in his turn, according to his need and desert, as determined by general planning. Let alone property, there are types of communism that speak of holding in common women and children even. In any case whatever one is given one possesses and enjoys only for the moment, there is nothing like permanent possession. All have equal right to all things. This is an ideal which I do not think many would care to adopt and follow. In India it appears the word "communism" has been taken in the sense of the rgime of the common man. Not that there is any harm in this deviation of the meaning. If it is a convenient label or a battle-cry for the common man's right to exist, to have his just lebensraum, well, none can object and all should sympathise and help towards that end. But the mischief is that the common man adopted by communism has a restrictive denotation, it takes in only a section of the common man: it is used mostly, if not exclusively in connection with wage-earners and that too only of the category of peasants and workmen. A large section of the common mass, even of wage earners in a sense, is left out in the communistic scheme, at least not given the same importance as the other. School teachers, especially primary school teachers, small office-clerks, for example, are not less "common" or less unfortunate or worthy of succour. These form a genuine proletariat: only they have not yet been called upon to take part in the Dictatorship.
Apart from this restrictive denotation, communism, in practice, has been given a restrictive connotation too which is more ominous and unhelpful. The communistic movement has become dynamic in so far as it is a movement for redressing grievances (although the methods employed at times it is alleged, are not as they should be, worthy of the civilised human being) in other words, it has been more or less negative in its work and outlook. The whole stress has been laid upon two items: (1) less hours of work, and (2) more wages I do not mention better housing, medical aid, pension etc., which are auxiliary items. When workers were considered as no more than slaves under the yoke of the blind and brutal exploiter, these demands had a meaning: but they have lost much of their point in the changed circumstances of today.
03.13 - Human Destiny, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The continuance and maintenance of an innocent baby animality in man shown in his physical features has been termed reversion to type or fetalisation. Some declare that for man at least it is a sign of weakness, a possible incapacity to face squarely the blows of life and nature. This is due to culture and refinement that makes one sensitive but weak. There have been races in the past that attained cultural effeminacy the Egyptians for example and could not last, last long enough to withstand the impact of less cultured, less refined, but more vigorous races. The Grco-Roman succeeded the Egyptian, but they too in their turn were overwhelmed by the onslaught of ruder races, the Nordic barbarians, and gave way and perished. And once more, in the modern age, do we not see the repetition of a similar drama? The more cultured, the more refined, the older races seem to have paid heavily for their culture and refinement by being more and more delicate and weak and thus being slowly pushed to the wall by newer races built with heavier and coarser gram.
But that perhaps is not the real truth of the matter. It may be considered in a somewhat different perspective. We say cultures, races, species die not because they become too refined, delicate, effeminate, but rather because they develop on a single track; they become lop-sided, specialised, rigid, fossilised, as we have already said. Circumstances change, the environment brings up new conditions and if the previous form continues in its groove and does not know how to react adequately to the demand, is petrified and unchanging, then it breaks and is thrown away as a thing of the dead past.
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If man has maintained a longer and greater youthfulness than his animal forbears, it means he has greater possibilities and through longer vistas of time. But leaving aside the animal creation, if we consider man himself and his prospect, certain conclusions forcibly present themselves which we shall try to clarify.
On a comparatively shorter view of the human evolution we observe as, for example, Spengler has shown, a serial or serials of the rise and fall of races and nations and cultures. Is that a mere repetition, more or less of the same or very similar facts of life, or is there a running thread that points to a growth, at least a movement towards some goal or purpose to attain and fulfil? The present cycle of humanity, which we may call and is usually called the historic age, dates from the early Egyptians and, in India, from the ancestral Vedic sages (prve pitra). On a longer outlook, what has been the nature of man's curve of life since then to the present day? Races and cultures have risen and have perished, but they have been pursuing one line, moving towards one direction the growth of homo fabricus the term coined by NietzscheMan the artisan. Man has become man through the discovery and use of toolsfrom tools of stone to tools of iron, that marks his growth from primitiveness to civilisation. And the degree of civilisation, the distance he has travelled from his origins is measured precisely by the development of his tools in respect of precision, variety, efficiency, serviceability. Viewed from that standpoint the modern man has travelled indeed very far and has civilised himself consummately. For the tools have become the whole man; man has lost his human element and almost become a machine. A machine cannot run indefinitely, it has got to stop when life is not there. So it is often prognosticated now that man is at the end of his career. He is soon going to be a thing of the past, an extinct racelike one of the prehistoric species that died out because they could not change with the circumstances of life, because they became unchanging, hard and brittle, soto say, and fell to pieces, or otherwise they continued to exist but in a degraded, a mere vegetative form.
03.14 - Mater Dolorosa, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Is that the whole truth? We, for ourselves, do not subscribe to this view. Truth is a very complex entity, the universe a mingled strain. It is not a matter of merely sinners and innocents that we have to deal with. The problem is deeper and more fundamental. The whole question is, where, in which world, on which level of consciousness do we stand, and, what is more crucial, how much of that consciousness is dynamic and effective in normal life. If we are in the ordinary consciousness and live wholly with that consciousness, it is inevitable that, being in the midst of Nature's current, we should be buffeted along, the good and the evil, as we conceive them to be, befalling us indiscriminately. Or, again, if we happen to live in part or even mainly in an inner or higher consciousness, more or less in a mood of withdrawal from the current of life allowing the life movements to happen as they list, then too we re main, in fact, creatures and playthings of Nature and we must not wonder if, externally, suffering becomes the badge of our tribe.
And yet the solution need not be a total rejection and transcendence of Nature. For what is ignored in this view is Nature's dual reality. In one form, the inferior (apar), Nature means the Law of Ignoranceof pain and misery and death; but in another form, the superior (par), Nature's is the Law of Knowledge, that is to say, of happiness, immunity and immortality, not elsewhere in another world and in a transcendent consciousness, but here below on the physical earth in a physical body.
03.17 - The Souls Odyssey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man, in his terrestrial body, although fallen, because shrouded and diverted from his central being of light and fire, is yet not, as I have said, wholly forsaken and cut adrift. He always carries within him that radiant core through all the peregrinations of earthly sojourn. And though the frontal consciousness, the physical memory has no contact with it, there is a stream of inner consciousness that continues to maintain the link. That is the silver lining to the dark cloud that envelops and engulfs our normal life. And that is why at timesnot unoften there occurs a crack, a fissure in the crust of our earthly nature of ignorance and a tongue of flame leaps outone or other perhaps of the seven sisters of which the Upanishad speaks. And then a mere man becomes a saint, a seer, a poet, a prophet, a hero. This is the flaming godhead whom we cherish within, Agni, the leader of our progressive life, the great Sacrifice, the child whom we nourish, birth after birth, by all that we experience and do and achieve. To live normally and naturally in that fiery elementlike the legendary Salamanderto mould one's consciousness and being, one's substance and constitution, even the entire cellular organisation into the radiant truth is the goal of man's highest aspiration, the ultimate end of Nature's evolutionary urge and the cycle of rebirth.
Wordsworth: Ode on the Intimations of Immortality
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This knowledge re mained at the outset scattered, hidden, confined to a few, a company of adepts: it had almost no direct contact with the main current of life. Its religious aspect too was so altered and popularised as to represent and serve the secular life. The systematisation and propagation of that knowledgeat least the aspiration for that knowledgewas attempted on an effective scale in the Hebrew Old Testament. But then a good amount of externalities, of the Inferior Knowledge was mixed up with the inner urge and the soul perception. The Christ with his New Testament came precisely with the mission of cleaning the Augean stables, in place of the dross and coverings, the false and deformed godheads, to instal something of the purest ray of the inner consciousness, the unalloyed urge of the soul, the demand of our spiritual personality. The Church sought to build up society on that basis, attempting a fusion of the spiritual and the temporal power, so that instead of a profane secular world, a mundane or worldly world, there maybe established God's own world, the City of God.
The drive towards the building of Heaven upon earth and with earth, the materialisation of the Spirit on a cosmic scale, the remodelling of the whole human society in spiritual terms was the secret inspiring the other Semitic Revelation, that of Mohammed. The Arab Master sought to bring down and establish and express in life-force what the Rabi of Bethlehem saw and felt in the inner heartone was a lover, the other a servant warrior of God.
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To sum up then. Man progresses through cycles of crest movements. They mark an ever-widening circle of the descent of Light, the growth of consciousness. Thus there is at first a small circle of elite, a few chosen people at the top, then gradually the limited aristocracy is widened out into a larger and larger democracy. One may describe the phenomenon in the Indian terms of the Four Orders. In the beginning there is the Brahminic culture, culture confined only to the highest and the fewest possible select representatives. Then came the wave of Kshatriya culture which found a broader scope among a larger community. In India, after the age of the Veda and the Upanishad, came the age of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata which was pre-eminently an age of Kshatriya-hood. In Europe too it was the bards and minstrels, sages and soothsayers who originally created, preserved and propagated the cultural movement: next came the epoch of the Arthurian legends, the age of chivalry, of knights and templars with their heroic code of conduct and high living. In the epoch that followed, culture was still further broad-based and spread to the Vaishya order. It is the culture of the bourgeoisie: it was brought about, developed and maintained by that class in society preoccupied with the production or earning of wealth. The economic bias of the literature of the period has often been pointed out. Lastly the fourth dimension of culture has made its appearance today when it seeks to be coterminous with the proletariate. With the arrival of the Sudra, culture has extended to the very base of the social pyramid in its widest commonalty.
This movement of extension, looked at from the standpoint of intensiveness, is also a movement of devolution, of reclamation. The Brahminic stage represents culture that is knowledge; it touches the mind, it is the brain that is the recipient and instrument of the Light. The Kshatriya comes into the field when the light, the vibration of awakening, from the mind comes down into the vital energies, from the brain to the heart region. The Vaishya spirit has taken up man still at a lower region, the lower vital: the economic man that has his gaze fixed upon his stomach and entrails. Lastly, the final stage is reached when physical work, bodily labour, material service have attained supreme importance and are considered almost as the only values worth the name for a human being. To walk and work firmly upon Earth the Light needs a strong pair of feet. Therefore, the Veda says, Padbhym sudro ajyata, out of the feet of the Cosmic Godhead the Sudra was born.
04.02 - A Chapter of Human Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Human evolution took a decisive turn with the advent of the Hellenic culture and civilisation. All crises in evolution are a sudden revelation, an unexpected outburst, a saltum, a leap into the unknown. Now, what the Greeks brought in was the Mind, the luminous Reason, the logical faculty that is married to the senses, no doubt, but still suffused with an inner glow of consciousness. It is the faculty mediating between a more direct and immediate perception of things, Intuition and Instinct, on the one hand, and on the other, the perception given by the senses and a power of control over material things. Take Egypt or Israel or Chaldea, what one finds prominent there is the instinctive-intuitive man, spontaneousprime-sautierimaginative, mythopoeic, clairvoyant, clairaudient (although not very clear, in the modern and Greek sense), bringing into this world things of the other world and pushing this world as much as possible into the other, maintaining a kind of direct connection and communion between the two. The Greeks are of another mould. They are a rational people; they do not move and act simply or mainly by instinctive reactions, but even these are filtered in them through a light of the Mind of Intelligence, a logical pattern, a rational disposition of things; through Mind they seek to know Matter and to control it. It is the modern methodology, that of observation and experiment, in other words, the scientific procedure. The Greeks have had their gods, their mythology; but these are modelled somewhat differently: the gods are made more human, too human, as has often been observed. Zeus and Juno (Hera) are infinitely more human than Isis and Osiris or Moloch and Baal or even the Jewish Jehovah. These vital gods have a sombre air about them, solemn and serious, grim and powerful, but they have not the sunshine, the radiance and smile of Apollo (Apollo Belvedere) or Hermes. The Greeks might have, they must have taken up their gods from a more ancient Pantheon, but they have, after the manner of their sculptor Phidias, remoulded them, shaped and polished them, made them more luminous and nearer and closer to earth and men. 1 Was it not said of Socrates that he brought down the gods from heaven upon earth?
The intermediary faculty the Paraclete, which the Greeks brought to play is a corner-stone in the edifice of human progress. It is the formative power of the Mind which gives things their shape and disposition, their consistency and cogency as physical realities. There are deeper and higher sources in man, more direct, immediate and revealing, where things have their birth and origin; but this one is necessary for the embodiment, for the building up and maintenance of the subtler and profounder truths in an earthly structure, establish and fix them in the normal consciousness. The Socratic Dialogues are rightly placed at the start of the modern culture; they set the pattern of modern mentality. That rational turn of mind, that mental intelligence and understanding as elaborated, formulated, codified by the Aristotelian system was the light that shone through the Grco-Latin culture of the Roman days; that was behind the culture and civilisation of the Middle Ages. The changes and revolutions of later days, social or cultural, did not affect it, rather were based upon it and inspired by it. And even today our scientific culture maintains and continues the tradition.
The Mind of Reason is a kind of steel-frame for other movements of consciousness pure ideas, imaginations or instinctive and sensory notions, or even secret intimations and visions of deeper truths and greater realitiesto take body, to find a local habitation and name and be firmly stabilised for experience or utilisation in physical life. There was indeed a hiatus in the human consciousness of the earlier period. Take, for example, the earliest human civilisation at its best, of which we have historical record, the Vedic culture of India: human consciousness is here at its optimum, its depth and height is a thing of wonder. But between that world, an almost occult world and this world of the physical senses there is a gap. That world was occult precisely because of this gap. The physical life and mind could translate and represent the supra-physical only in figures and symbols; the impact was direct, but it expressed itself in hieroglyphs. Life itself was more or less a life of rites and ceremonies, and mind a field of metaphors and legends and parables. The parable, the myth was an inevitability with this type of consciousness and in such a world. The language spoken was also one of images and figures, expressing ideas and perceptions not in the abstract but as concrete objects, represented through concrete objects. It is the Mind of Reason that brought in the age of philosophy, the age of pure and abstract ideas, of the analytic language. A significant point to note is that it was in the Greek language that the pre-position, the backbone almost of the analytical language, started to have an independent and autonomous status. With the Greeks dawned the spirit of Science.
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In India we have an echo of the transition, rather perhaps, she held up the type of the transition required. For here the evolution seems to have been more gradual and the steps are more clearly visible leading one to the other. India maintained an unbroken continuity in the cyclic change of the human consciousness. She was coeval with Egypt and Chaldea, Sumeria and Babylon: she communed with them perhaps in similar and parallel terms. And yet she changed or evolved and knew to express herself in other terms in other times. She had talked in mystic terms with the mystics and later on she talked in rational terms with rationalists. And today we see signs of her parleying with the Scientists in scientific terms. That is how India still lives, while Egypt and Chaldea have gone the way of Atlantis and Gondwanaland. For something is enshrined there which is eternal, something living and dynamic which is pressing forward to manifest and embody itself, some supreme truth and reality of the future which she is fostering within her to deliver to nature and humanitya new humanity with a new nature.
The Olympians as opposed to the Chthonian gods. The Olympians were white in colour, the Chthonians black or blood-red: the Olympian temples faced the East, while the Chthonian faced the West and so on.
04.02 - Human Progress, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We characterise the change as a special degree or order of self-consciousness. Self-consciousness, we have seen, is the sine qua non of humanity. It is the faculty or power by and with which man appears on earth and maintains himself as such, as a distinct species. Thanks to this faculty man has become the tool-making animal, the artisanhomo faber. But on emerging from the original mythopoeic to the scientific status man has become doubly self-conscious. Self-consciousness means to be aware of oneself as standing separate from and against the environment and the world and acting upon it as a free agent, exercising one's deliberate will. Now the first degree of self-consciousness displayed itself in a creative activity by which consciousness re mained no longer a suffering organon, but became a growing and directing, a reacting and new-creating agent. Man gained the power to shape the order of Nature according to the order of his inner will and consciousness. This creative activity, the activity of the artisan, developed along two lines: first, artisanship with regard to one's own self, one's inner nature and character, and secondly, with regard to the external nature, the not-self. The former gave rise to mysticism and Yoga and was especially cultivated in India, while the second has led us to Science, man's physical mastery, which is the especial field of European culture.
Now the second degree of self-consciousness to which we referred is the scientific consciousness par excellence. It can be described also as the spirit and power of experimentation, or more precisely, of scientific experimentation: it involves generically the process with which we are familiar in the do main of industry and is termed synthetic, that is to say, it means the skill and capacity to create the conditions under which a given phenomenon can be repeated at will. Hence it means a perfect knowledge of the process of thingswhich again is a dual knowledge: (1) the knowledge of the steps gradually leading to the result and (2) the knowledge that has the power to resolve the result into its antecedent conditions. Thus the knowledge of the mechanism, the detailed working of things, is scientific knowledge, and therefore scientific knowledge can be truly said to be mechanistic knowledge, in the best sense of the term. Now the knowledge of the ends and the knowledge of the means (to use a phrase of Aldous Huxley) and the conscious control over either have given humanity a new degree of self-consciousness.
04.03 - The Eternal East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The East and the West are two recognised wings of humanity. Only the relation between them is somewhat in dispute. According to one view the two are quite separate and irreconcilable entities, because they embody two outlooks that are contradictory to each other. The other view is that they are not contradictory, however distinct they may be; they are complementary or supplementary to each other. The interaction between the two across the centuries recorded in history has been admitted and studied; it considerably influenced the growth and development of each in its line. Only the influence exerted some view with favour, others with disfavour. For some consider the mixture of influence, like that of blood, as a necessary condition of progress and creativity: others again are keen on maintaining, the purity of stock, the particular type of culture to which each is attached and any intrusion of a foreign vein they consider as a lowering, a degeneration of the type.
We all know the great difference between the East and the West that has been pointed out and accepted generally as true is that of the spiritual East and the worldly or materialist West. Crudely and categorically formulated the truth re mains no longer true. There is a very large amount of worldliness in the East, on the one hand, and on the other, mystics and spiritual seekers or leaders are not a rare phenomenon in the West. However, it can be said and admitted as a fact that there is in the East an atmosphere that is predominantly spiritual and one can more easily come in contact with it; whereas in the West it is the mental and material culture that predominates and the approach to it is nearer and closer to man. The science of the Spirit has received greater attention in the East; it has been studied, experimented, organised, almost consummated there in a supreme manner. Even as the science of Matter has reached its apotheosis in the West.
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We say then, symbolically at least, if not literally, that the West is looking to the East for this revelation towards which it is groping or moving in its own way: the secret spirit-consciousness that is alive in and through the material cosmos, that alone gives its total sense and significance. And the secret spirit must embody itself here below in material life, the status must be made supremely dynamic the transcendent consciousness, even while maintaining its transcendence, has to deploy its immanence in things of the earth and earthly existence. That is what the West brings to the East; that is what the Scientific and materialist look and labour offer to be integrated into the aspiration and realisation of the East.
So then we say that the East starts from the summit and surveys reality from above downwards, while the West starts from below and works upward. The two complementary movements can be described in several other graphic terms. Instead of a movement from the summit to the base and of another from the base to the apex, that is to say, a movement of ascent and of descent, we can speak of a movement from within outward and of that from outside inward, that is to say, from the centre to the periphery and from the periphery to the centre; we can speak also of a movement of contraction, withdrawal or concentration and a movement of expansion; and expression and diffusion. Again, we can refer to a vertical movement and a horizontal movement. All however express the same truth. We postulate one reality, take our stand upon that and work our way towards the other; the two together form the total reality and together can they give the integral life fulfilment.
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The East does not consider the individual in his social behaviour in terms of freedom and liberty but of service and obligation, not in terms of rights but of duties. The Indian term for right and duty is the sameadhikar. The word originally and usually meant duty, one's sphere of work or service, capacity: the meaning of "right" was secondary and only latterly, probably as a result of the impact from the West, has gained predominance. The West measures human progress by the amount of rights gained for the individual or for the group. It does not seem to have any other standard: submission, obedience, any diminution of the sense of separate individuality meant slavery and loss of human value and dignity. It was the Greek perhaps, with Socrates as the great pioneer, who first declared the supremacy of the individual reason (although he himself obeyed in all things his guardian angel, the Daemon). In India, generally in the East, the value of the individual is estimated in another way. So long as he is in the society, the individual is bound by its demands: he has to serve it according to his best capacity. That is the dharma the Law that one has to observe conscientiously. But if he chooses, he can break the bonds forthwith, come out, come out of the society altogether and be free absolutely that is the only meaning of freedom. In the West the individual is taught to re main in the world and with the society, maintain his individuality and independence and gradually enlarge them in and through the natural fetters and bondages that a collective life and efficient organisation demands and inevitably imposes. The East, on the contrary, asks the individual never to protest and assert his individuality, which is in their view only another name for Ignorant egoism, but to know his position in the social scheme and fulfil the duties and obligations of that position. But the individual has the freedom not to enter into the social frame at all. If he chooses freedom as his ideal, it is the supreme freedom that he must choose, out of the chain of a terrestrial life. He can become the spiritual "outlaw", the sanysi, the word means one who has abandoned everything totally and absolutely.
The contrast points to a synthesis parallel to or an extension of the one we spoke of earlier. The first thing to note is that the individual is the source of all progress; the individual has the right, as it is also his duty to maintain himself and fulfil himself, grow to his largest and highest dimensions! Secondly, the individual has to take cognisance of the others, the whole humanity, in fact, even for the sake of his own progress. The individual is not an isolated entity, a freak product in Nature, but is integrated into it, a part and parcel of its texture and composition. Indeed the individual has a double role to perform, first to increase himself and secondly to increase others. Using the terms which the Sartrian view of existence has put into vogue, we can say, the individual en soi (in himself) is the individual in commonalty with others, living and moving in and through every other person; and then there is the individual pour soi (for himself), that is to say, existing for himself, apart and away from others, in his own inner absolute autonomy. The individual is individualised, i.e. raises and lifts himself and then becomes the spearhead breaking through the level where Nature stands fixed, leading others to follow and raise themselves. The individual is the power of organised self-consciousness; the growth of the individual means the growth of this power of organised consciousness. And growth means ascension or evolution from level to level. The individual starts from the organic cell, that is the lower end, it progresses through various gradations of the vital and mental worlds till he reaches the culmination of its growth in the Spirit as tman. But this vertical growth must be reflected in a horizontal growth too. There is a solidarity among the individuals forming the collective humanity so that the progress of one means the progress of others in the same direction, at least a chance and possibility opened for an advance. On the other hand, it may be noted that unless the collectivity rises to a certain level the individual too cannot go very far from it. A higher lift in the individual presupposes a corresponding or some minimum lift in others. There cannot or should not be too great a rift between the individual and the collective.
As I said, the East usually ignores this correspondence and posits an exclusive either-or relation between the two terms. The individual, according to it, can reach its true individuality by only dissolving itin the Infinite. Of course, I am referring to an extreme position which is general in the East and symptomatic of its fundamental character. The West does not concern itself with these higher lines of individual growth and fulfilment, it limits the individual within the social frame and his mundane or profane life; but what we learn from this outlook is the necessity of the collective growth through which only can the individual thrive and grow. It is however a growth in extension, rather than in intensity i.e. depth and height. This outlook errs in the limitation put upon individuality, precisely identifying it more or less with the "egoism" to which the spirituality of the East objects. This normal individual in its normal development cannot go very far, nor can he lead the others, the society or humanity, to a perfect and supreme fulfilment. The ego-bound normal individuality must transcend itselfexactly the thing that the East teaches; only this transcendence need not mean an abolition of all individuality, but a transformation, a higher integration in a spiritualised, a universalised and divinised individuality.
04.04 - A Global Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The aggregates are meant to express, apart from the growing unity, a diversity of achievements in the collective consciousness marking and enriching that unity. The highest, the largest aggregate attained at the present moment is as I have said, that of the nation, the lower and lesser aggregates have been subsumed under it. The principle of integration in its graded course is precisely this that the new unity absorbs the lesser units as its components, some find their place in it in a transmuted form and functionthose that are of use in the new dispositiono thers that had truth only for the past disappear or re main as vestiges of an extinct reality. The clan and the tribe have practically disappeared as living realities; the family has been maintaining itself still as a functioning unit, but it has considerably changed its features and in recent times it has been undergoing revolutionary transmutations. The rigours of the system prevailing in the old world have all but gone, they have been reduced to the minimum; the system has become more or less a mere outline, the substance and the details have become very vague and fluid. It may come out with quite a new connotation in the not very distant future. The nation, then, as the living unit of aggregation today, is on the move again towards a yet more enlarged aggregate. Empire was a blind and violent attempt at this greater aggregation. The Commonwealth of more recent times was a conscious, deliberate and healthier endeavour towards the same goal. The various trials with regard to a league of nations is also a conscious and deliberate, although somewhat groping experiment in the same line.
Man's attempt to surpass himself and establish a superhuman race is a conscious and deliberate process and the attempt can be successful only through such an willed discipline, sdhan. In the same way, a supranational human unity will be possible as a parallel eventuality to the same process of individual discipline.
04.05 - The Immortal Nation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The reason for a long life must necessarily be in the mode of life itself. The life lived by later nations had a very dominant politico-economic bias. The government, the political, that is to say, administrative power was of outstanding importance, the economic factor being necessarily an indispensable adjunct. On the other hand, in Egypt, in Greece and in all the Eastern countries, the main stream of life ran in another channel; it was cultural and ideative. What re mains of Greece or even of Egypt, what the Eastern countries carry still here and there in a living manner is that element that which is immortal in mortality, as the Vedic Rishis say. The stone monuments bear a significance and a message even to us, because they embody and point to what moved, inspired and fashioned the consciousness, the inner life of these races. And it is that that outlives the glories of governments and rulers.
What happened usually in ancient times among more ancient peoples, and in Asia generally, happened with characteristic emphasis in India. The physical vastness of China or of India, their teeming populationsmuch greater than any single nation or countryare sometimes adduced as reasons of the stability or longevity of these two Asiatic peoples. But I suppose Matthew Arnold's graphic vision of the situationin his famous lines about the dreaming East and the legions thundering pasthits the mark closer, although his was a disparaging, not an appreciating note. That is to say, here in India the king, the administrator, the political or economic factor were superficial limbs of the society, they lay at the periphery of the people's consciousness. Wars and revolutions did not affect or touch essentially the life-movement. Here was a people terribly concerned with inner values: these were much more important than an occupation with problems of food and lodging. We are all familiar with the poignant cry of an Indian woman of the Vedic age: what shall I do with the thing that does not give me Immortality?
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Viewed from this standpoint India stands as a case sui generis. She did not stop short satisfied with the lesser gods. She aspired for the highest One, the supreme spiritual reality and it was her mission, her destiny, to foster it and keep guard over it for the sake of humanity. Whatever the outer vicissitudes, she maintained throughout the inner continuity of her spiritual life and realisation. That is where she drank of the nectar of immortality and that is how she could always revive and renew herself after a period of decline and almost disintegration, because she possessed the mystery of the self. Other peoples were busy about many other things important or unimportant in some measure, but here was a race that never forgot the one thing needful. India of today, we repeat, is fundamentally and essentially the India of the Vedas, even in a more literal sense than that China of Mao-tse- Tung (or Sun-yat-Sen) is the China of Lao-tse.
A race dies out altogether or continues to lead a superficial mechanical existence, that is to say, vegetates as an inchoate mass, when it knows to live only in its body, confined only to the demands of the barest physical necessities. The life of a race gains a meaning and a new vitality when a higher light and aspiration inspire and move its spirit; when a deeper and finer sensibility, a nobler ambition stir its affections, when a superior intelligence and understanding illumine its mental horizon, its lease of life is increased by that and also its power of recuperation and renewal. And the further it enters into these basic constants of existence the greater that power of rejuvenation. 1
We may compare with profit perhaps in this regard the life of an individual person with that of a people or nation. Even as an individual has a soul beyond his body and mind, a spiritual personality behind his apparent name and form, a nation too has a soul apart from its political, economic and cultural life. As in the individual, in the aggregate too a spiritual principle seeks to express and incarnate itself. It is this immortal reality in the individual man that reincarnates in life after life surviving apparent death and disintegration. But only those individuals that live consciously a soul-life, express to some extent at least the soul's light in and through the external personality of a mind and body and vitality and maintain a true individuality and a strong and durable formation through the lives; otherwise, the soul is there no doubt, but in its own world, exerts only a very indirect influence and the rest of the personality, the dynamic members disintegrate and are taken up into the general earth atmosphere. Something of the same kind is likely to happen in the case of collective groups too. A nation like India that hitched her wagon of life to a star the supreme spiritual realityis bound to regain her life always through whatever calamities and catastrophes might befall her.
One may note three or four crises, practically rebirths, in India's life history. They correspond roughly with the great racial infiltrations or what is described as such by anthropologists, what others may describe as operations of blood transfusion. There was an original autochthonous people, the early humanity out of the stone age, usually called proto-Dravidians, whose remnants are still found among the older and cruder aboriginal tribes. Then the Dravidian infusion which culminated in the humanity, the Indian humanity, of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. Next the Aryan avatar. One usually begins Indian history with the Dravido-Aryan civilisation which is taken as the basic foundation, the general layout of the whole structure. The first shock or blow the edifice received was from the Greeks and then the Huns and Scythians the Tartars something that struck at the most essential element of Indian culture and character. Psychologically the new leaven was brought in and injected by Gautama Buddha the un-Vedic Buddha the external invasion and penetration was possible because of this opening already made from within. This injection was necessary as an antidote to the decline and fall that had set in sometime between the passing of Sri Krishna and the advent of Buddha. But traditional India absorbed this new leaven and came out with a renewed and enriched personality. The next major shaking came with the Islamic inundation. This meant or would have meant a great and even catastrophic reversal, but this too in the course of centuries succeeded only in invigorating and enlarging the life and consciousness of eternal India. The last and perhaps the most dangerous assault came from the Europeans, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and finally, most of all, from the British. An absolutely matter-of-fact vitalistic Europe overran and overwhelmed a predominantly otherworldly spirit and almost succeeded in obliterating that spirit and replacing it by a replica of its own life-pattern and Weltanschauung. Even such a blow India could survive, not only so, could utilise it for her own purpose, for the greater fulfilment of her mission in life. She is coming out of that ordeal a towering personality, a godhead for the remoulding of humanity and earth-life.
04.09 - Values Higher and Lower, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The balance is upset exactly when we say that the higher depends on the lower or that it comes after. Not only so, the statement is likely to involve an error, a mistaken view. If one has to make a distinction between higher and lower, inner and outer, it will be nearer the truth and fact to say that the lower depends on the higher, it is the inner reality that upholds and inspires the outer form: without this inner cohesive deity all the external frame would fall to pieces. It is not the contingencies of time and circumstances, of day-to-day existence that determine the nature and form of power of the soul and spirit. It is the pressure of the Inner Being, antarym, that brings about the pattern and organisation of the outer life. At the summit of being, at the absolute point of consciousness the two are identical, absolutely one and the same. In the lower ranges as manifestation and variation begin the two maintain their union and harmony and mutuality so long as the consciousness retains its purity and the being is not invaded by Ignorance. Ignorance means the gradual predominance of the outer and the lower, till it reaches its last point in Inconscience where Matter is the only reality and everything is made to stand and depend on the grossest reality.
Even then, even from that nadir, let us consider things a little more closely. We have still consciousness left in us as human beings. Now, because 'man has a body and because he has to live and move in physical surroundings and circumstances, therefore body and physical conditions must necessarily come to his consciousness first in importancethis is not a valid argument nor a statement of fact. For man has and is something else besides: and this something else, in other words, the spiritual being, is quite a free and independent entity and can act as it wills ignoring and ignorant of the body and its circumstances. Whether one is poor or rich, successful or frustrated, happy or unhappy, one can always listen and follow the call of the Spirit.
05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The general idea of a descent of the Spirit, that is to say, the Divine, the conception of avatra and avataraais, of course, not new. But here there is a difference. Avatara or Avatarana in the older disciplines was more or less an intervention of God as God, the working of a Force come specifically in the midst of the world circumstances, maintaining still its divine transcendental character, to work out a given problem, accomplish a special mission and then, when the work is done, retire to its own status. It is, as it were, a weapon of flame and light hurled into the earthly frayeven like the discus of Vishnu and having accomplished its mission, going back into the hand of the thrower, its fount and origin. The task of the Avatara was usually bhbhra-haraa, lightening earth's load: it means removing the sinful and preserving the virtuous, re-establishing the reign of Law. Esoterically, he also embodied the Way to spiritual fulfilment. There was no question of saving humanityit was more serving than savingby transfiguring it, giving it a new body and life and mind, nor was there any idea of raising the level of earth-consciousness.
The Divine acts in three different ways in his three well-known aspects. As the transcendent Reality he is above and beyond creation, he is the Unmanifest, although he may hold within either involved or dissolved the entire manifestation. Next, he is the manifestation, the cosmic or the universal; he is one with creation, immanent in it, still its master and lord. Finally, he has an individual aspect: he is a Person with whom human beings can enter into relations of love and service. The Divine incarnate as a human being, is a special manifestation of the Individual Divine. Even then, as an embodied earthly person, he may act in a way characteristic of any of the three aspects. The Divine descended upon earth, as viewed by Sri Aurobindo, does not come in his transscendental aspect, fundamentally aloof and away, in his absolute power and consciousness, working miracles here; for transcendence can do nothing but that in the midst of conditions left as they are. Nor does he manifest himself only as his cosmic power and consciousness, imbedded in the creation and all-pervading, exercising his influence through the pressure of Universal Law, perhaps in a concentrated form, still working gradually, step by step, as though through a logical process, for the maintenance of the natural order and harmony, lokasagraha. God can be more than that, individualised in a special, even a human sense. His individual being can and does hold within itself his cosmic and transcendental self covertly in a way but overtly too in a singular manner at the same time. The humanised personality of the Divine with his special role and function is at the very centre of Sri Aurobindo's solution of the world enigma. The little poem A God's Labour in its short compass outlines and explains beautifully the grand Mystery.
The usual idea of God (as the theists hold, for example) is that he is an infinite eternal impassible being, aloof from human toils and earthly turmoils, himself untouched by these and yet, in and through them, directing the world for an inscrutable purpose, unless it is for leaning towards it and stretching out the hand of Grace to those of the mortals who wish to come out of the nightmare of life, sever the coils of earthly existence. But the Divine in order to be and re main divine need not hold to his seat above and outside the creation, severely separated from his creatures. He can, on the contrary, become truly the ordinary man and labour as all others, yet maintaining his divinity and being conscious of it. After all, is not man, every human being, built in the same pattern, a composite of the earthly human element supported and infused by a secret divine element? However, God, the individual Divine, does become man, one of them and one with them. Only, his labour thereby increases manifold, hard and heavy, although for that very reason full of a bright rich multiple promise. The Divine's self-hurilanisation has for it a double purpose: (I) to show man by example how he can become what he truly is, how he can divinise himself: the Divine as man lives out the life of a sadhakawholly and completely; (2) to help concretely by his own force of consciousness the world and man in their endeavour for progress and evolution, to give the help wholly and completely from the innermost status of the self down to the most external physical body and the material field. This help again is a twofold function. The first is to make available, gather within easy reach, the high realisations, the spiritual treasures that are normally stored in a heaven somewhere else. The Divine Man brings down the divine attributes close to our earth, turns them from mere far possibilities into near probabilities, even imminent realities. They are made part and parcel, constituent elements of the earthly atmosphere, so that one has only to open one's mouth to brea the in, extend one's arms to seize and possess them: even to this opening and this gesture man is helped by the concrete touch and presence of the Divine. Further, the help and succour come in another way which is more intimate, more living and appealing to man.
A great mystery of existence, its central rub is the presence of Evil. All spiritual, generally all human endeavour has to face and answer this Sphinx. As he answers, so will be his fate. He cannot rise up even if he wishes, earth cannot progress even when there is the occasion, because of this besetting obstacle. It has many names and many forms. It is Sin or Satan in Christianity; Buddhism calls it Mara. In India it is generally known as Maya. Grief and sorrow, weakness and want, disease and death are its external and ubiquitous forms. It is a force of gravitation, as graphically named by a modern Christian mystic, that pulls man down, fixes him upon earth with its iron law of mortality, never allowing him to mount high and soar in the spiritual heavens. It has also been called the Wheel of Karma or the cycle of Ignorance. And the aim of all spiritual seekers has been to rise out of itsome-how, by force of tapasy, energy of concentrated will or divine Gracego through or by-pass and escape into the Beyond. This is the path of ascent I referred to at the outset. In this view it is taken for granted that this creation is transient and empty of happinessanityam asukham (Gita)it is anatta, empty of self or consciousness (Buddha) and it will be always so. The only way to deal with it, the way of the wise, is to discard it and pass over.
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Matter or the physical body is not by itself the centre of gravity of the human consciousness; it is not that that pins the soul or the self to the life of pain and misery and incapacity and death. Matter is not the Evil, nor made up of Evil; it contains or harbours evil under the present circumstances, even as dross is mixed up, inextricably as it appears, with the noble metal in the natural ore; but the dross can be eradicated and the free metal brought out, pure- and noble in its own true nature. It is, as Rumi, the Persian mystic, says in his famous imagery, like a piece of iron, dull and dismal to look at, but when put into fire slowly acquires the quality of fire, turning into a glowing and radiant beauty, yet maintaining its original form and individuality and concrete, even material reality. Now, the crust or dross that has to be eliminated in Matter is called by Sri Aurobindo "Inconscience". Matter is inconscient, therefore it is unconscious and ignorant. Make it conscious, it will be radiant and full of knowledge. That is the great transformation needed, the only way to true and total reformation. The Divine descends into Matter precisely to work out that transformation.
It is a long dredging process, tedious and arduous, requiring the utmost patience and perseverance, even to the absolute degree. For Inconscience, in essence, although a contingent reality, local and temporal, and therefore transient, is nonetheless the hardest, most obdurate and resistant reality: it lies thick and heavy upon the human vehicle. It is massed layer upon layer. Its first formation in the higher altitudes of the mind is perhaps like a thin fluid deposit; it begins as anindividualised separative consciousness stressing more and more its exclusiveness. Through the lower ranges of the mind and the vitality it crystallises and condenses gradually; in the worlds of thinking and feeling, enjoying and dynamic activity, it has still a malleable and mixed consistency, but when it reaches and possesses the physical being, it becomes the impervious solid obscurity that Matter presents.
05.03 - Of Desire and Atonement, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Tapasy: Never to let yourself slip down, always to maintain your progress up the slope.
Never say, "I cannot." Look more closely, you will find that it means in reality, "I want not."
05.03 - The Body Natural, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
With regard to the food that man takes, there are two factors that determine or prescribe it. First of all, the real need of the body, that is to say, what the body actually requires for its maintenance, the elements to meet the chemical changes occurring there, something quite material and very definite, viz, the kind of food and the quantity. But usually this real need of the body is obscured and sumberged under the demands of another kind of agency, almost altogether foreign to it, (I) vital desire and (2) mental notions. Indeed, the menu of our table, at least 90% of it, is arranged so as to satisfy the demands of the second category, the consideration that should come first comes last in fact. The body is at present a slave of the mind and the vital; it is hardly given the freedom of choosing its own requirements in the right quantity and quality. That is why the body is seen to suffer everywhere and it normally sick for the greater part of its earthly existence. It has been compelled to occupy an anomalous position in the human organism between these two tyrants. The vital goes by its greed, its attraction and repulsion, its impulse to excess (sometimes to its opposite of deprivation); what it has been accustomed to, what it has taken a fancy for, to that it clings, and if the body has not what it prescribes, it throws the suggestion into the body that it will fall ill. The physical mind has its own notions and schemes, pet ideas and plans (perhaps from what has been read in books or heard from persons) in respect of the body's needs; it thinks that if a certain prescription is not followed, the body will suffer. The mind and the vital are thus close friends and accomplices in regimenting the body. They impose their own demands and prejudices upon the body which helplessly gets entangled in them and loses its native instinct. The body left to itself is marvellously self-conscious; it knows spontaneously and unfailingly what is good for its health and strength. The animals usually, especially those of the forest, preserve still the unspoilt body instinct; for they have no mind to tyrannise over the body nor is their vital of a kind to go against the normal demands of the body. The body, segregated from the mind and the vital, can very easily choose the right kind of food and the right quantity and even vary them according to the varying conditions of the body. Common sense is an inherent attribute of the body consciousness; it never errs on the side of excess and immoderation or perversity. The vital is dramatic, the mind is imaginative, but the body is sanity itself. And that is not a sign of its inconscience and inertia. The dull and dumb immobility of which it is sometimes accused is after all perhaps a mode of its self-defence against the wild vagaries of the mind and the vital to which it is so often called upon to lend its support. Indeed, it may very well be that the accusation against the flesh that it is weak is only an opinion or suggestion imposed on the body by the mentalvital who throw the whole blame upon the body just to escape from the blame due to themselves. The vital is impatient and clamorous, and if it is all push and drive-towards physical execution and fulfilmentit is normally clouded and troubled and obscured and doubly twisted when counselled and supported by a mind, narrow and superficial, not seeing beyond its nose, bound within a frame of incorrect and borrowed notions.
The body, precisely because of its negative natureits dumb inertia, as it is calledprecisely because it has no axe of its own to grind, that is to say, as it has no fancies and impulsions, plans and schemes upon which it can pride itself, precisely because of this childlike innocence, it has a wonderful plasticity and a calm stability, when it is not troubled by the mind or vital. Indeed, the divine qualities that are secreted in the body, which the body seeks to conserve and express are a stable harmony, a balance and equilibrium, capable of supporting the whole weight of all the levels of consciousness from the highest peak to the lowest abysses even as physically it bears the weight of the entire depth of the atmosphere so lightly as it were, without feeling the burden in the least.
05.04 - The Immortal Person, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ego means a hardened core that is not easily broken by the impact of forces. It delimits, ,cuts out, endeavours to maintain its formation by a strong violent self-assertion. Ego is a helper, but also it is a bar. It assists the first formation but delays and obstructs the true and final formation. For the ego is a formation, an individual formation, but on the level of universal Nature: it is of a piece with the normal cosmic movement, only bounded by a peripheral line. In the general expanse it puts up enclosures and preserves and fencings; the constituting elements re maining the same in substance and quality. Even the delimitation is illusory in reality, it is something like the membrane in the body separating the different functional organs, rigid yet allowing interaction and interpenetration. That is why, when death removes the outward fencing, the individuality also cannot long maintain itself and merges into the general. We may look upon egoism as a kind of artificial or experimental individuality, a laboratory formation, as it were, tried and developed under given conditions. In fact, however, egoism is a shadow or an echo upon this side of our nature of the true individuality which lies and comes from elsewhere.
And that is the soul of the man. We have spoken of the body, the life and the mind of the individual, but beside and beyond these elements which are only instruments there is this secret master and overlord. It is the particle of divinity in each, the developing consciousness the spark of Fire, the ray of Light the immortal in the mortal no bigger than one's thumb." The soul is an individual, an individual formation of the divine reality: it is a godhead formulating an aspect or function of God. We may thus say that the whole purpose of earthly evolution is the evolution of this soul-formation, that is to say, its growing individualisation in light and power, in the expression of the godhead. This growth is first in itself and of itself, its inherent being and consciousness; then, the growth is that of its instrumentation, in other words, the development and organisation of the mind, the life and the body.
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The individualisation of the mind, its organisation as a special formation, as a vehicle of the true light, the light of the Psychic consciousness is comparatively easy for a man. Mind is the first member of the lower sphere that is taken up and dealt with by the soul; for it is the highest and the most characteristic element in man and less dense and less subject to the darkness inherent in human nature. The mental individual persists the longest after the dissolution of the body, it survives and may survive very long the disruption of the vital being. This vital being is next in the rung to be taken up, organised and individualised by and around the psychic being. The organisation of the vital being in view of a particular object or aim in ordinary life is common enough: the purpose is limited, the scope restricted. Great men of action have done it and one has to do it more or less to be successful in life. This, however, may be called organisation; it is not individualisation in the true sense, much less personalisation. A limb is individualised, personalised only when it is an instrument and formation of the soul consciousness, the psychic being. And the vital is not easily amenable to such a role. For, it is the dynamic element, the effective power of life and it has acquired a strong nature and a definite function in its earthly relations. Naturally, there is a secret drive and an occult inspiration behind over-riding or guiding all immediate and apparent forces and happenings: in and through these the shape of things to come is being built up. In the meanwhile, however, actually the vital is an executive agent of the lower consciousness: it is an anonymous force of universal nature canalised into a temporary figure that is the normal individual man. The individualisation of the vital being would mean an immortal formulation of an immortal soul as energy consciousness with a specific role for the Divine to play. It maintains its identity, its personality independent of the vicissitudes of the physical body: it continues to function as a divine being, a godhead, to work for mankind and the world. The popular legend has imaged this phenomenon in the mystic figure of an immortal Aswatthama and Vibhishana still wandering in earth's atmosphere.
Finally, it is the turn of the body to become individualised, personalised, that is to say, when it takes up the disposition and configurationof the psychic person and individual. The first stage is that of a subtle body individualised, a radiant form of etherealised elements consisting of the concentrated light particles of the divine consciousness of the Psyche. This too is an immortalisation of the personal identity which can be achieved and is achieved by the gnostic man who is to come, who will wholly psychicise and divinise his personality. The second stage is the reorganisation and individualisation of the material sheath itself. The very cells of the body are impregnated with the radiant substance of the supreme spiritual consciousness; they live the life of the spiritual individual, the personal divine embodied in the individual. When the whole process is gone through and the work clone, the individual body, physically too, shares in and attains the immortality of the soul. The body is firm enough to maintain its physical identity and yet plastic enough to change in the manner and to the degree demanded of it at any time.
In the process of making the body personal and divine and immortal, death or what appears as such may be a needed operation. It is no longer an ineluctable destiny forced upon you, but an instrument which you use consciously for a definite purpose. It is a mystic or occult work (kriy:) which we can try to understand by an analogy. The evolution of the ideal or divine man, the assumption of the mortal by the immortal involves a twofold operation: rejection and integration. Rejection means throwing out the elements that belong exclusively to the lower grade and cannot be taken up and incorporated into the higher; while integration means taking up and absorbing utilisable elements of the lower into the higher. This double process goes on on all the levels, on the mental, on the vital, on the subtle physical and even on the physical level. At a certain stage or in a concentrated process of alchemy the process of rejection may demand a mode of reshuffling and redisposition which physically appears like death, but it is inevitably followed or accompanied by the process of integration or recreation.
05.05 - In Quest of Reality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This faculty of direct knowledge, however, is not such a rare thing as it may appear to be. Indeed if we step outside the circumscribed limits of pure science instances crowd upon us, even in our normal life, which would compel one to conclude that the rational and sensory process is only a fringe and a very small part of a much greater and wider form of knowing. Poets and artists, we all know, are familiar only with that form: without intuition and inspiration they are nothing. Apart from that, modern inquiries and observations have established beyond doubt certain facts of extra-sensory, suprarational perceptionof clairvoyance and clairaudience, of prophecy, of vision into the future as well as into the past. Not only these unorthodox faculties of knowledge, but dynamic powers that almost negate or flout the usual laws of science have been demonstrated to exist and can be and are used by man. The Indian yogic discipline speaks of the eight siddhis, super-natural powers attained by the Yogi when he learns to control nature by the force of his consciousness. Once upon a time these facts were challenged as facts in the scientific world, but it is too late now in the day to deny them their right of existence. Only Science, to maintain its scientific prestige, usually tries to explain such phenomena in the material way, but with no great success. In the end she seems to say these freaks do not come within her purview and she is not concerned with them. However, that is not for us also the subject for discussion for the moment.
The first point then we seek to make out is that even from a rigid positivist stand a form of knowledge that is not strictly positivist has to be accepted. Next, if we come to the content of the knowledge that is being gained, it is found one is being slowly and inevitably led into a world which is also hardly positivistic. We have in our study of the physical world come in close contact with two disconcerting facts or two ends of one fact the infinitely small and the infinitely large. They have disturbed considerably the normal view of things, the view that dominated Science till yesterday. The laws that hold good for the ordinary sensible magnitudes fail totally, in the case of the infinite magnitudes (whether big or small). In the infinite we begin squaring the circle.
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Let us leave the do main, the do main of inorganic matter for a while and turn to another set of facts, those of organic matter, of life and its manifestation. The biological do main is a freak in the midst of what apears to be a rigidly mechanistic material universe. The laws of life are not the laws of matter, very often one contravenes the other. The two converging lenses of the two eyes do not make the image twice brighter than the one produced by a single lens. What is this alchemy that forms the equation 1=1 (we might as well put it as 1+1=1)? Again, a living wholea cellfissured and divided tends to live and grow whollyin each fragment. In life we have thus another strange equation: part=whole (although in the mathematics of infinity such an equation is a normal phenomenon). The body (of a warm-blooded animal) maintaining a constant temperature whether it is at the Pole or at the Equator is a standing miracle which baffles mere physics and chemistry. Thirdly, life is immortal the law of entropy (of irrevocably diminishing energy) that governs the fate of matter does not seem to hold good here. The original life-cells are carried over physically from generation to generation and there is no end to the continuity of the series, if allowed to run its normal course. Material energy also, it is said, is indestructible; it is never destroyed, but changes form only. But the scientific conception of material energy puts a limit to its course, it proceeds, if we are to believe thermodynamics, towards a dead equilibrium there is no such thing as "perpetual movement" in the field of matter.
Again the very characteristic of life is its diversity, its infinite variety of norms and forms and movements. The content and movement of material nature is calculable to a great extent. A few mathematical equations or formulae can after all be made to cover all or most facts concerning it. But the laws of life refuse systematisation. A few laws purporting to govern the physical bases of life claim recognition, but they stand on precarious grounds. The laws of natural selection, of heredity or genetics are applicable within a very restricted frame of facts. The variety of material substances revolves upon the gamut of 92 elements based upon 4 or 5 ultimate types of electric unitand that is sufficient to make us wonder. But the variety in life-play is simply incalculablefrom the amoeba or virus cell to man, what a bewildering kaleidoscope and each individual in each group is unique in its way! The few chromosomes that seem to be the basis of all diversity do not explain the mystery the mystery becomes doubly mysterious: how does a tiny seed contain the thing that is to become a banyan tree, how does a speck of plasma bring forth from within an object of Hamletian dimensions! What then is this energy or substance of life welling out irrepressively into multitudinous forms and modes? The chemical elements composing an organic body do not wholly exhaust its composition; there is something else besides. At least in one field, the life element has received recognition and been given an independent name and existence. I am obviously referring to the life element in food-stuff which has been called vitamin.
05.05 - Of Some Supreme Mysteries, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Dark Power too gives protection to its devotees, but it cannot maintain them long against the inexorable oncoming of the Divine.
Consciousness is the light that flows from the Truth of existence.
05.06 - Physics or philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Eddington gives us absolutely no hope for any knowledge of an objective world apart from the objectification of mind's own constructs. This is a position which a scientist, quascientist, finds it difficult to maintain. Remedies and loop-holes have been suggested with what result we shall presently see.
Einstein's was, perhaps, the most radical and revolutionary solution ever proposed. Indeed, it meant the reversal of the whole scientific outlook, but something of the kind was an imperative need in order to save Science from inconsistencies that seemed to be inherent in it. The scientific outlook was vitiated, Einstein said, because we started from wrong premises; two assumptions mainly were responsible for the bank-ruptcy which befell latter-day Science. First, it was assumed that a push and pulla force (a gravitational or, more generally, a causal force) existed and that acted upon isolated and independent particles strewn about; and secondly, they were strewn about in an independently existing time and an independently existing space. Einstein has demonstrated, it seems, successfully that there is no Time and no Space actually, but times and spaces (this reminds one of a parallel conception in Sankhya and Patanjali) , that time is not independent of space (nor space of time) but that time is another co-ordinate or dimension necessary for all observation in addition to the three usual co-ordinates (or dimensions). This was the explanation he found of the famous Michelson-Morley experiment which failed to detect any difference in the velocity of light whether it moved with or against a moving object, which is an inconsistency according to the mechanistic view. 1 The absolute dependence of time and space upon each other was further demonstrated by the fact that it was absolutely impossible to synchronise two distant clocks (moving with different speeds and thus forming different systems) with perfect accuracy, or determine exactly whether two events happened simultaneously or not. In the final account of things, this relative element that varies according to varying particulars had to be eliminated, sublated. In order to make a law applicable to all fieldsfrom the astronomical through the normal down to the microscopic or sub-atomicin an equally valid manner, the law had to divest itself of all local colour. Thus, a scientific law became a sheer 'mathematical formula; it was no longer an objective law that governed the behaviour of things, but merely a mental rule or mnemonics to string together as many diverse things as possible in order to be able to memorise them easily.
Again, the generalised law of relativity (that is to say, laws governing all motions, even accelerated motion and hot merely uniform motion) that sought to replace the laws of gravitation did away also with the concepts of force and causality: it stated that things moved not because they were pulled or pushed but because they followed the natural curve of space (they describe geodesics, i.e., move in the line of least distance). Space is not a plain surface, smooth and uniform, but full of dimples and hollows, these occurring in the vicinity of masses of matter, the sun, for instance, (although one does not see how or why a mass of matter should roll down the inclined plane of a curved surface without some kind of push and pull the problem is not solved but merely shifted and put off). All this means to say that the pattern of the universe is absolutely geometrical and science in the end resolves itself into geometry: the laws of Nature are nothing but theorems or corollaries deduced and deducible from a few initial postulates. Once again, on this line, of enquiry also the universe is dissolved into abstract and psychological factors.
Apart from the standpoint of theoretical physics developed by Einstein, the more practical aspect as brought out in Wave Mechanics leads us into no less an abstract and theoretical do main. The Newtonian particle-picture, it is true, has been maintained in the first phase of modern physics which specialised in what is called Quantum Mechanics. But waves or particlesalthough the question as to their relative validity and verity still re mains opendo not make much difference in the fundamental outlook. For in either view, the individual unit is beyond the ken of the scientist. A wave is not a wave but just the probability of a wave: it is not even a probable wave but a probability wave. Thus the pattern that Wave Mechanics weaves to show the texture of the ultimate reality is nothing more than a calculus of probabilities. By whichever way we proceed we seem to arrive always at the same inevitable conclusion.
So it is frankly admitted that what Science gives is not a faithful description of actuality, not a representation of material existence, but certain conventions or convenient signs to put together, to make a mental picture of our sensations and experiences. That does not give any clue to what the objective reality mayor may not be like. Scientific laws are mental rules imposed upon Nature. It may be asked why does Nature yield to such imposition? There must be then some sort of parallelism or commensurability between Nature and the observing Mind, between the pattern of Nature and the Mind's scheme or replica of it. If we successfully read into Nature things of the Mind, that means that there must be something very common between the two. Mind's readings are not mere figments, hanging in the air; for they are justified by their applicability, by their factual translation. This is arguing in a circle, a thorough-going mentalist like Eddington would say. What are facts? What is life? Anything more than what the senses and the mind have built up for us?
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In other words, one tries to come back more or less to the common-sense view of things. One does not argue about what is naturally given as objective reality; whatever the mental gloss over it, it is there all the same. One accepts it, takes it on trust, if you likeone can admit even that it is an act of faith, as Russell and the Neo-Realists would maintain.
But Jeans' position is remarkable and very significant in one respect. When cornered in the process of argument, feeling that the world is inexorably dematerialised and mentalised, he suggests an issue which is natural to a philosopher, a mystic philosopher alone. Well, let him state his position in his own words, the passage, I repeat, is so remarkable and significant:
05.06 - The Role of Evil, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Evil is evil, no doubt; it is not divine and it is not an illusion. It is a real blot on the fair face of creation. Its existence cannot be justified in the sense that it is the right thing and has to be welcomed and maintained, since it forms part of the universal symphony. Not even in the sense that it is a test and a trial set by the Divine for the righteous to prove their merit. It has not been put there with a set purpose, but that once given, it has been the occasion of a miracle, it offered the opportunity for the manifestation of something unique, great and grandiose, marvellous and beautiful. The presence of evil moved the DivineGiustizia masse il mio alto Fattorel1and Grace was born. He descended, the Aloof and the Transcendent, in all his love and compassion down into this vale of tears: he descended straight into our midst without halting anywhere in the infinite gradation that marks the distance between the highest and the lowest, he descended from the very highest into the very lowest, demanding nothing, asking for no condition whatsoever from the soul in Ignorance, from the earth under the grip of evil. Thus it was that Life lodged itself in the home of death, Light found its way into the far cavern of obscurity and inconscience, and Delight bloomed in the core of misery. Hope was lit, a flame rising from the nether gloom towards the Dawn. But for the spirit of denial we would not have seen this close and intimate figure of the gracious Mother.
Justice moved my great maker
05.07 - Man and Superman, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Even so mankind, at the crucial parting of the ways, would very naturally look askance at the diminished value of many of its qualities and attri butes in the new status to come. First of all, as it has been pointed out, the intellect and reasoning power will have to surrender and abdicate. The very power by which man has attained his present high status and maintains it in the world has to be sacrificed for something else called intuition or revelation whose value and efficacy are unknown and have to be rigorously tested. Anyhow, is not the known devil by far and large preferable to the unknown entity? And then the zest of life, peculiar to man, that works through contradictionsdelight and suffering, victory and defeat, war and peace, doubt and knowledge, all the play of light and shade, the spirit of adventure, of combat and struggle and heroic effort, will have to go and give place to something, peaceful and harmonious perhaps but monotonous, insipid, unprogressive. The very character of human life is its passion to battle through, even if it is not always through. For it is often said that the end or goal does not matter, the goal is always something uncertain; it is the way, the means, the immediate action that is of supreme consequence: for it is that that tests man's manhood, gives him the value he may have. And above all man is asked to give up the very thing which he has laboured to build up through millenniums of his terrestrial life, his individuality, his personality, for the demand is that he must lose his ego in order to attain the superhuman status.
So, the probability is that a large part of humanity will re main wedded to the normal human life. But this does not lessen in any way the value, the tremendous importance of what happens to the other part, may be, not insignificant or inconsiderable. Along with those that doubt and deny, there will be those who believe and affirm, who will stand for divinisation, whatever dehumanisation it may imply.
05.08 - True Charity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not true that when one's wants are met, one always becomes or re mains happy; all paupers are not unhappy, nor are the affluent invariably happy. Happiness is a quality that depends upon something else and comes from elsewhere: it is not directly proportional to material well-being. Unhappiness too is a psychological entity and consists in a special vibration of mind and vitality and consequently of the physical beingdue to a warp in the consciousness itself, in the core of the inner personality. The material conditions serve only to manifest it, maintain or aggravate it, but do not create ittruly they are created by it. That is why the spiritual healers always refer to the bliss of the Spirit as the sole remedy for physical ills even, for disease, misery and death. And the unhappy mortals are always called to turn to the Divine alone in their distressbhajasva mm.
True charity consists in laying the healing balm upon the sore that lies hidden behind all external miseries which derive from that source and sustainer. And it is in the sole possession of him alone who has found the bliss of the Spirit and dwells in it always. Such a person does not require external accessories for his work of healing and comforting. He need do nothing apparently; he may even appear to be aloof and indifferent. But his presence itself is a healing power: the patient feels it and wonders at the ease and happiness that come into him as if from nowhere. Many physicians have this kind of healing power; indeed without that, a mere medical man, with his pharmacopoeia, is no physician. It may not be well known and recognised, but it is a fact that a good part of the efficacy of medicines lies in the subtle influence, the vital health, that the doctor puts into his medicine or even directly into the body of his patient. And in the case of a spiritual Bhishak, the power can be raised to the nth degree. The healer need not even be present at all physically near the patient; his influence can act very well from any distance. It is quite natural and inevitable that it should be so. For the healing power is in the spiritual consciousness, the inalienable bliss of one's status in the Spirit. One becomes identified with each and every objectperson or thingin one's own self, in the true being and substance; and the light and happiness that one possesses there inalienably go out in a spontaneous flow to others who are not really others but integral parts and portions of the same self.
05.09 - The Changed Scientific Outlook, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Shall we elucidate a little? We were once upon a time materialists, that is to say, we had very definite and fixed notions about Matter: to Matter we gave certain invariable characteristics, inalienable properties. How many of them stand today unscathed on their legs? Take the very first, the crucial property ascribed to Matter: "Matter is that which has extension." Well, an electric charge, a unit energy of it, the ultimate constituent of Matter as discovered by Science today, can it be said to occupy space? In the early days of Science, one Boscovich advanced a theory according to which the ultimate material particle (a molecule, in his time) does not occupy space, it is a mere mathematical point toward or from which certain forces act. The theory, naturally, was laughed out of consideration; but today we have come perilously near it. Again, another postulate describing Matter's dharma was: "two material particles cannot occupy the same place at the same time". Now what do you say of the neutron and proton that coalesce and form the unit of a modern atomic nucleus? Once more, the notion of the indestructibility of Matter has been considerably modified in view of the phenomenon of an electric particle (electron) being wholly transmuted ("dematerialised" as the scientists themselves say) into a light particle (photon). Lastly, the idea of the constancy of massa bed-rock of old-world physicsis considered today to be a superstition, an illusion. If after all these changes in the idea of Matter, a man still maintains that he is a materialist, as of old, well, I can only exclaim in the Shakespearean phrase: "Bottom, thou art translated"! What I want to say is that the changes that modern physics proposes to execute in its body are not mere amendments and emendations, but they mean a radical transfiguration, a subversion and a mutation. And more than the actual changes effected, the possibilities, the tendencies that have opened out, the lines along which further developments are proceeding do point not merely to a reformation, but a revolution.
Does this mean that Science after all isveering to the Idealist position? Because we have modified the meaning and connotation of Matter does it 'follow that we have perforce arrived at spirituality? Not quite so. As Jeans says, the correct scientific position would be to withhold one's judgment about the ultimate nature of matter, whether it is material or mental (spiritual, we would prefer to say): it is an attitude of non possumus. But such neutrality, is it truly possible and is it so very correct? We do see scientists lean .on one side or the other, according to the vision or predisposition that one carries.
05.09 - Varieties of Religious Experience, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Christian conception seems to occupy an intermediary position, being a sort of connecting link between the two. Christ is not only the Son of God, he is also the God-Manhe declares very clearly and categorically that he and the Father in heaven are one and that everyone should be as perfect as God himself. Still a difference is maintained. First of all, with regard to the birth. The God-Man was not born in sin like ordinary mortals, an immaculate virgin gave him birth. And with regard to the union or identity of Father and Son, the fusion is not absolute. Man is asked to be as pure and perfect as God, but only in kind and not in being and substance. The purified and perfect souls sit by the side of God in heaven, they do not lose themselves in God. The Vaishnava conception in India was in the same line. The liberated soul, according to it, dwells with God in the same world, possesses God's qualities the union is that of Salokya and Sadharmaya but it does not become one and indivisible with God (Sayujya).
The Sufi doctrine also occupies an intermediate position, like the Christian, between the Chaldean and the Vedantic. The absolute identity of the human lover and the Divine Beloved, a complete fusion of the two at a particular stage or moment of consciousness is one of the cardinal experiences in the Sufi discipline. But that is an innermost state, not normal or habitual in life and activity, where the difference, the separation between the adorer and the adored is maintained exactly for the delight of play. But the dualism in the Indian discipline is more than compensated by the doctrine of Incarnation which obliterates fundamentally all difference between the human and the Divine. According to it, God does not become man only once, as in the Christian view, but that it is one of his constant functions. Indeed, the Indian tradition is that He is always the leader of terrestrial evolution; at each crisis, at each moment of need for guidance, He comes down in flesh and blood, in the form of an earthly creature to show the way, how to live and move and act.
The special gift of the Chaldean line of discipline lay in another direction. It cultivated not so much the higher lines of spiritual realisation but was occupied with what may be called the mid regions, the occult world. This material universe is not moved by the physical, vital or mental forces that are apparent and demonstrable, but by other secret and subtle forces; in fact, these are the motive forces, the real agents that work out and initiate movements in Nature, while the apparent ones are only the external forms and even masks. This occultism was also practised very largely in ancient Egypt from where the Greeks took up a few threads. The MysteriesOrphic and Eleusiniancultivated the tradition within a restricted circle and in a very esoteric manner. The tradition continued into the Christian Church also and an inner group formed in its heart that practised and kept alive something of this ancient science. The external tenets and dogmas of the Church did not admit or tolerate this which was considered as black magic, the Devil's Science. The evident reason was that if one pursued this line of occultism and tasted of the power it gave, one might very likely deviate from the straight and narrow path leading to the Spirit and spiritual salvation. In India too the siddhis or occult powers were always shunned by the truly spiritual, although sought by the many who take to the spiritual lifeoften with disastrous results. In Christianity, side by side with the major saints, there was always a group or a line of practicants that followed the occult system, although outwardly observing the official creed. It is curious to note that often where the original text of the Bible speaks of gods, in the plural, referring to the deities or occult powers, the official version translates it as God, to give the necessary theistic value and atmosphere.
05.10 - Children and Child Mentality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is the very central character of the child consciousness? It is confidence in life, the surety that nothing can baulk the fulfilment of life's purpose, the trust that overrides all set-backs and stumbles, gaily passes through dangers and difficulties. This confidence, this assurance the very body shares in and impels it to movements of daring and adventure. It is this that is the cause of the body's growth, and so long as it is maintained, keeps the body young. So the poet says:
AA simple child
05.12 - The Soul and its Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When a man dies, his soul or psychic being, after a time goes to the psychic world and takes rest there till the hour comes to take birth again in another body upon earth. There are then these two periods in the life after death. First, the passage and next the rest. The passage means the gradual shedding of all the other sheaths or envelopes that surround the psychic being and form its earthly frame. With the physical body has to go also the subtle body, then the vital and finally the mental too. The reason why one does not remember the past lives is this that one leaves behind the instrument of memory the brain mindwith one's death. One does not carryover with the psychic being the other parts that constitute the terrestrial life. They are dispersed and dissolved in their respective cosmic spheres. The subtle body gives up its elements to the subtle physical plane, the vital elements are taken up into the vital world and the mental elements go into the mental world,unless the psychic being is highly developed and has organised around itself as its instrument of self-expression any of these elements. In that case, as much of the terrestrial partsnamely, of the subtle body and life and mindas have come into direct contact with the psychic and have allowed themselves to be moved and moulded by its consciousness, will alone persist and share in the immortality of the soul. Normally, the elements of the human vehicle form a loose and unorganised aggregate massed round the psychic centre. When the centre withdraws, they too fall off automatically and are scattered into the universal storehouse of Nature. Only when they have been organised and when they have attained a definite form and character expressing something of the psychic nature, can they maintain their identity, for this identity is part and parcel of the psychic identity.
I have said that the memory of past lives is effaced because of the effacement of the instrument. But there is a higher memory which is the attribute of the psychic consciousness. The psychic being is made of light and knowledge: it knows, rather it sees and can survey the whole curve of its past growth and development. Of course, it may not see or remembervery often it does notall the physical details of things and happenings of an earthly life, the hundred incidents, accidents and contingencies that are not directly linked to its consciousness. But all things that have had its touch and have contri buted to its growth and development and have in their turn received its influenceobjects, persons, happenings or movementsfind themselves harboured in the psychic memory. And thus the only sure way of remembering the past, remembering, that is to say, what is worth remembering, is to go into the psychic being, possess the psychic consciousness. There one has the whole panorama of the soul's odyssey revealed. Any other way leads only to imagination, conjecture and delusion.
05.13 - Darshana and Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
European thought, European philosophy particularly, moves under the aegis of the Mind. It takes its stand within the Mind and from there tries to reach out to truths and realities; and therefore, however far it goes, its highest flights of perception, its most intimate contacts with spirit-truths are 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought'. The Indian standpoint, on the contrary, is first to contact the truth by a direct realisationthrough meditation, concentration, an uplifting and a deepening of the consciousness, through Yoga, spiritual discipline, and then endeavour to express the truth thus realised, directly intuited or revealed, through mental terms, to make it familiar and communicable to the normal intelligence. Mind, so subordinated and keyed to a new rhythm, becomes, as far as it is possible for it, a channel, a vehicle and not a veil. All the main systems of Indian philosophy have this characteristic as their background. Each stands on a definite experience, a spiritual realisation, a direct contact with an aspect of truth and in and -through that seeks to give a world-view, building "up an intellectual system, marshalling rational conclusions that are natural to it or derive inevitably from it. In the Upanishads, which preceded the Darshanas, the spiritual realisations were not yet mentally systematised or logically buttressed: truths were delivered there as self-evident statements, as certitudes luminous in their own au thenticity. We accept them without question and take them into our consciousness as forming its fundamental norms, structuring its most intimate inscape. This is darana, seeing, as philosophy is named in India. One sees the truth or reality and describes it as it is seen, its limbs and gestures, its constituents and functions. Philosophy here is fundamentally a recording of one's vision and a translation or presentation of it in mental terms.
The procedure of European philosophy is different. There the reason or the mental light is the starting-point. That light is cast about: one collects facts, one observes things and happenings and then proceeds to find out a general trutha law, a hypothesisjustified by such observations. But as a matter of fact this is the ostensible method: it is only a make-believe. For mind and reason are not normally so neutral and impersonal, a tabula rasa. The observer already comes into the field with a definite observational angle and a settled viewpoint. The precise sciences of today have almost foundered on this question of the observer entering inextricably into his observations and vitiating them. So in philosophy too as it is practised in Europe, on a closer observation, if the observer is carefully observed, one finds not unoften a core of suppositions, major premises taken for granted hidden behind the logical apparatus. In other words, even a hardened philosopher cherishes at the back of his mind a priorijudgments and his whole philosophy is only a rationalisation of an inner prejudgment, almost a window-dressing of a perception that came to him direct and in other secret ways. That was what Kant meant when he made the famous distinction between the Pure and the Practical Reason and their categories. Only the direct perceptions, the spiritual realisations are so much imbedded behind, covered so much with the mist of mind's struggle and tension and imaginative construction that it is not always easy to disengage the pure metal from the ore.
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To return to our main theme, we should point out, however, that in Europe too at one time (during the whole Middle Age, the Age of Scholasticism) philosophy was considered only as a handmaid of Religion, it had to echo and amplify and reason out the dogmas (which were sometimes real spiritual experiences or revelations); but the New Illumination came and philosophy declared her autonomy, only that autonomy did not last long. For today in Europe, Philosophy has become the handmaid of Science. It was natural, since Reason is not a self-sufficient faculty, it is mediatory and must be ancillary either to something above it 'or something below iteither to Revelation or to sense-perception.
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05.16 - A Modernist Mentality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The truth expressed in these well-chiselled lines ("purple patches", I was going to say perhaps somewhat uncharitably) is, as always happens when we are for a rounded phrase and a neat thought, only half-truth or even quarter-truth. It all depends on the meaning we attach to the words, the shade trailing behind the thought. For, first of all, it is true, it is even a truism that the rebel is a necessary agent in the economy of human evolution; but if by rebel we mean the sheer iconoclast, the mere or in the main destroyer and the word, especially since it is given preference, does carry that connotation then the sentence loses most of its truth or value and becomes only a shibboleth or slogan.
The old, fossilised or rotten past has to be destroyed and ruthlessly eradicated, no doubt: -but, how is it to be done and who will do it? By a simple process of sledge-hammeringbreaking, burning? By anybody who cares to do it? It does not require much sense or intelligence to see that that is not the ideal nor even the most effective way of doing the thing. The best way to destroy, the wise say, is to construct. Look at Nature, how she is going about the thing. Something is crumbling, precisely because something is growing within or behind. It is the drive of a living growth in secret that pushes a limb no longer necessary or useful to decay and death. Man too in his work of reformation or regeneration should learn that lesson, whether in respect of his individual or of his 'collective growth and evolution. Discover the truth that is to replace the 'old, live it intensely and wholly the old past will automatically slip down like old clothes or drop like yellow sapless leaves.
05.22 - Success and its Conditions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
How is this tranquil energism to be secured? What are the conditions that produce and maintain and foster it? The first condition is self-confidence. One must have trust in oneself, a full faith that one is able to do the thing. A pessimist, a half-hearted doubter, a defeatist can never achieve anything in the world. All successful men, whatever share they agreed to give to chance, had always immense hope and faith. Against failures, against tremendous odds they have always persisted, always believed in their star. Like Caesar they said not only to themselves but also to others: "Thou carriest with thee the fate of Caesar." Only, of course, the self-confidence sometimes overrides itself, becomes conceit and arrogance. Then you go beyond your depth, tempt the fates beyond your control and open the door to failure. So along with self-confidence, there must be an element of sobriety; we will call it modestytrue modesty that can perceive the extreme limit at least of the possible and the impossible. Such modesty itself is a source of serenity and calmness in the mind and nerves. Imagine a lion couchant, aiming at its prey. The prey re mains spellbound, unable to run away. The lion's gaze is fixed upon its victim; its hypnotism consists in a calm and absolute self-confidence, an unshakable assurance that its will shall prevail.
Man's self-confidence is, as I have said, apt to overleap itself; it turns into self-conceit and blind and obstinate complacence. An animal by instinct knows how to re main within its limits and continue to be unfailing in its judgment: it is domestic animals that begin to get muddled in their instinctive movements. With the growth of the mental self-consciousness man loses the sense of his limits and always seeks to exceed himself. And therefore failure and fall have become almost his constant companions. His efforts are not commensurate with his powers. Hence in his case modesty is a great asset and a desideratum. Modesty, we said, is the consciousness of one's limitationnot over-estimating oneself, nor for that matter under-estimating oneself: it is judging exactly what one is.
05.24 - Process of Purification, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are three well-marked stages in the process of the purification of nature and surrender to the Divine. When one has made up one's mind finally to take to the path of spiritual life and to turn one's back on the life of ignorant nature, one enters at the outset into a phase of divided consciousness and life. It is the stage when one cries, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." One feels an inner aspiration and devotion and even freedom and purity and wider consciousness, but actually in the practical world, he follows the old nature, acts under the pressure of Ignorance and the Ripus. You are a mundane man with profane habitsand yet within, when aloof, you are in contact with the deeper and larger breath of the Spirit. The next stage is one of external control and of modification of behaviour. You have the inner consciousness of the spirit grown strong in you and you are no longer a helpless prey to the physical outbursts of inferior nature: a kind of brake has been put upon the outgoing passions. Still at this stage the surges of passion are there within, inside the wall of control, as it were. The pressure and demand of the Spirit has brought about a deadlock in the ignorant movements of the outer nature, although the physico-vital and vital support behind has not been wholly purified and continues in its old way, expressing itself in veiled and sublimated acts and in dreams and imaginations. The vital support even when it does not express itself in grosser physical movements, even when it is self-contained, yet maintains its old taste for them. Finally, when this taste even goes away (that is the suggestion in the beautiful and luminous phrase of the Gita, rasavaljam), then only one rises into the integral and unadulterated life of the Spirit. Till that final consummation happens, the period of interregnum is a great occasion for training and experience. It is of considerable interest also from the standpoint of occult knowledge.
There are two typeswhich mean two stagesof control. You can control your nature by the force of your will, as one does a wicked horse by means of the toothed bit. But this control is precarious and the clearing or purification effected is only skin-deep. At the slightest weakening of the will or a momentary lack of vigilance, you may find yourself in the very midst of a volcanic eruption of passions. Even otherwise, even if there happens no external outburst, the burden or pressure of the ignorant nature is always there and the struggle or tension, although thrown into the background, obstructs the nature, does not give it the free and spontaneous higher poise of the spirit. The other control comes from the inmost being, from the spiritual self itself: it is automatic and it is occult in its action and therefore naturally effective. When the Spirit, the Inner Control (Antarymi)works, it happens that even if the desires are there, the occasions for their satisfaction are withdrawn from you. As the Mother says, some people who are destined for the spiritual life lose all earthly props whenever they wish to lean upon them, they lose their endeared objects whenever they are eager to cherish them. At a certain stage of the growth of the inner consciousness, the demand of the soul makes it impossible for the vital (or physico-vital), so far as it is unpurified and unprepared, to secure its objects: even if the lips yearn, the cup is taken away. The circumstances themselves yield to the pressure of the inner being and conspire, as it were, to withhold and remove all dangerous contacts. The being has not to say, "Lead me not into temptation", for the temptations by themselves slip away. That is the earlier poise of the interregnum we are describing; the next poise comes when the wish-impulses, the subjective vibrations also melt and disappear. Then there appear no such things as temptations. Objects, events, circumstances that might have acted in that role come and go, but the being re mains indifferent and unruffled, because suffused with the delight of another contact. The detachment from the worldly is secure and absolute because the being has found its attachment to the Divine. That is the beginning of the integral spiritualisation of the nature.
05.26 - The Soul in Anguish, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A range of mystics and philosophers or philosopher-mystics from Kierkegaard to Sartre have made much of the sentiment of "anguish". Naturally, it is not the usual feeling of grief or sorrow due to disappointment or frustration that they refer to, nor is it the "repentance" which is a cardinal virtue in the Christian spiritual discipline. Repentance or grief is for something amiss, for some wrong done, for some good not done. It has a definite cause that gives rise to it and determinate conditions that maintain and foster it: and therefore it has also an end, at least the possibility of an ending. It is not eternal and can be mastered and got over: it is of the category of the Sankhyan or Buddhistic dukhatrayabhighata for that matter even the lacrimae rerum(tears inherent in things) of Virgil1 are not eternal.
But the new Anguish spoken of is a strange phenomenon: it is causeless and it is eternal. It has sprung unbidden with no antecedent cause or condition: it is woven into the stuff of the being, part and parcel of the consciousness itself. Indeed it seems to be the veritable original sin, pertaining to the very nature. Kierkegaard makes of it an absolute necessity in the spiritual constituent and growth of the human soul something akin to, but deeper, because ineradicable, than the Socratic "divine discontent". Sartre puts it in more philosophical and rational terms, in a secular atmosphere as a kind of inevitable accompaniment to the sense of freedom and responsibility and loneliness that besets the individual being and consciousness at its inmost core, its deepest depth.
06.01 - The End of a Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet if the civilisation really goes, it will not be a small thing, even when measured on the cosmic scale. A civilisation is to be judged and valued not at its nadir, but at its zenith, in its total effect and not by a temporary phase in its course. Civilisation really means preparation of the instrument: the human instrument that is to express the Divine. The purpose of creation, we have often said, is the establishment of the highest spiritual consciousness in the embodied life on earth. The embodied life means man's body and life and mind; individually and socially these constitute the instrument through which the higher light is to manifest itself. The instrument has to be prepared, made ready for the purpose; Actually it is obscure, ignorant, narrow, weak; at the outset and for a long time it expresses only or mainly the inferior animal nature. Civilisation is an attempt to raise this inferior nature, to refine, enlarge and heighten it, to cultivate and increase its potentialities and capacities. The present civilisation, we have said, is a growth of thousands of years-at least five thousand years according to the most modest archaeological computation. In this period man has developed his brain, his rational intelligence, has unravelled some of the great mysteries of nature; he has controlled and organised life to an extent that has opened new possibilities of growth and achievement; even with respect to the body he has learnt to treat it with greater skill and endowed it with finer and more potent efficiencies. There have been aberrations and misuses, no doubt; but the essence of things achieved still re mains and is always an invaluable asset: that must not be allowed to go.
If the civilisation goes, it means the instrument is gone, the basis on which the edifice for the Divine Consciousness is to be raised is removed, nothing re mains to stand firmly on. So the labour has to start again: one must begin from the beginning. The work has to be done and will be done, it cannot be allowed to terminate into a labour of Sisyphus.
06.02 - The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Even if the One maintains the unseen decree
He writes thy refusal in thy credit page:
06.04 - The Conscious Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The original consciousness is one and indivisible and at its highest potential. But when it gets devolved and divided, i.e., individualised, it gets at the same time diffracted and minimised, like the reflections in a rough mirror. What we normally understand by consciousness is this diminished degree of it in the individual. But although diminished and diffracted in many forms and modes, the basic consciousness is still the divine consciousness which is there behind and at the origin of all the partial formulations. It is through this core of Divine Presencewhich is nothing else than the psychic that the individual maintains and develops its contact with the Divine, grows into the fullness of the divine consciousness even as an individual and earthly embodiment.
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06.11 - The Steps of the Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The complexity arises not only in extension, but also in depth. Man does not live on a single plane but on many planes at the same time. There is a scale of gradation in human consciousness: the higher one rises in the scale the greater the number of elements or personalities that one possesses. Whether one lives mostly or mainly on the physical or vital or mental plane or on any particular section of these planes or on planes above and beyond, there will be accordingly differences in the constitution or psycho-physical make-up of the individual personality. The higher one stands the richer the personality, because it lives not only on its own normal level, but also on all that are below and which it has transcended. The complete or integral man, some occultists say, possesses 365 personalities; indeed it may be much more. (The Vedas speak of the three and thirty-three and thirty-three hundred and thirty-three thousand gods that may be housed in the human vehicle the basic three being evidently the triple status or world of Body, Life and Mind).
What is the meaning of this self-contradiction, this division in man? To understand that we must know and remember that each person represents a certain quality or capacity, a particular achievement to be embodied. How best can it be done? What is the way by which one can acquire a quality at its purest, and highest and most perfect? It is by setting an opposition to it. That is how a power is increased and streng thenedby fighting against and overcoming all that weakens and contradicts it. The deficiencies in respect of a particular quality show you where you are to mend and reinforce and in what way to improve in order to make it perfectly perfect. It is the hammer that beats the weak and soft iron to transform it into hard steel. The preliminary discord is useful and necessary to be utilised for a higher harmony. This is the secret of self-conflict in man. You are weakest precisely in that element which is destined to be your greatest asset.
06.23 - Here or Elsewhere, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is easy and comfortable to go within and in an inner consciousness find and maintain a union, even a close union with the Divine. It is because of such a state of peace and bliss that many, nay, most who go there do not want to come back, to normal life upon this earth. And teachers, great or small, almost invariably, have taught that in the end it is best like that, and perhaps the only thing to do under the circumstances. For this life and this earth mean the very opposite of that inner heaven and that highest good. But some are not given this comfortable solution of the difficulty. They are asked to turn back and live the life of the earth. They are not allowed to re main cosy in a narrow room and be busy always with themselves alone. Indeed, is it not narrow egoism to seek only one's own salvation? When one has saved himself, is it not his duty the logical outcome and implication of his personal freedom that he should seek to help others in their salvation? Such was in fact the attitude of the Amitabha Buddha.
A house is on fire. It has a tarred roof. One can easily understand the fury of the fire. Some inmates who were trapped have managed to come out in time, although some-what bruised and scalded. But there were others, some children, left inside. One of those who came out rushes back again through the flames and comes and goes till all are saved. He is badly burnt, he has risked his life: he did not mind and could not re main at a safe distance. He could not be contented with saving himself, which was to be sure a sufficient gain in one respect. This soul had a consciousness of his wider self.
06.31 - Identification of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But the point is to be this individual consciousness anywhere I or everywhere and still to maintain the higher, the universal and transcendent, the supreme consciousness, to be simultaneously conscious in both the modes to the utmost degree.
The Mother: Prayers and Meditations.
06.32 - The Central Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Very often this was the experience: union with the Supreme is established, but as soon as the consciousness was about to settle and merge in the bliss of the union, it was called back and had to turn to the outside world to the ordinary affairs of ordinary consciousness. As if I was given to understand that it was not for me to forget and reject the life of the physical world and pass into the Beyond, but to maintain the contact, the closest contact, between this world and the Beyond and hold both together in one consciousness. The process is some-what like this: you withdraw the consciousness from the world outside and turn inward; you withdraw even from your own physical activities and physical perceptions; you with-draw further in this way step by step through all the grades of life movements and mental movements, go deep inward and high upward till you reach the highest summit: the absolute silence and indivisible unity with the immutable single reality. This was the aim and, generally, the end of all the greatest spiritual disciplines of the past. We too have to possess this realisation; but for us, it is the basis, the indispensable basis, no doubt, all the same it is the starting-point. Sri Aurobindo has always said that our yoga begins where other yogas end. For what we aim at is not merely the attainment of the summit reality, the consciousness beyond, but to bring it down, make it a living and actual reality in the physical world. The older yogas intended to save the world, but accomplished only the salvation of the individual, one's own self, by passing beyond the world, realising the supreme Spirit and Truth and never coming back. Thus the world re mained what it has ever been: only a few escaped out of it. Our yoga enters its crucial phase, its characteristic and its most difficult turn, when it seeks to bring down the highest consciousness once realised on the heights and make it enter into the life of the world and fix it there as the permanent possession of earthly life.
The key is to find the poise where both the extremes meet, the junction of the two levels of consciousness, the transcendent and the manifested, where the two not only do not contradict or oppose each other, but are aspects or modes of the same Truth, indissolubly united and unified. It is just the border-line, the last point of the manifested world and the first point of the Unmanifest (as one goes upward). If you are able to find the point you have not to make a choice between two irreconcilables, either the Brahman or the world. It is only when you miss the point that you are forced to the choice: some choose the other side of the border, the static consciousness, the eternal immutable pure being, self-absorbed and self-sufficient; others who dare not do that, turn to the world and re main entangled and drowned in its darkness, ignorance, travail, undelight, impotency and misery. But, as I have said, this is not the necessary or inevitable solutionif solution it is at allof the enigma.
06.33 - The Constants of the Spirit, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Divine exists in three modes: (I) Existence, (2) Consciousness and (3) Bliss. Pure existence, pure consciousness and pure blissSat-Chit-Ananda these are the three fundamental elements out of which the world is made; they are everywhere in all things, in all beings, in all do mains and levels of being. Sachchidananda is the supreme reality that is behind all, even here below, behind the mind, behind the life and behind the body too and behind each form in each of these do mains. It is that which upholds and sustains everything. Therefore in order to realise it, it is not necessary to mount up, leaving behind the mental, the vital and physical existence and go beyond. Usually when one seeks Sachchidananda one looks for it outside the universe, above and beyond the creation, in the transcendent. In reality, however, one can meet it from any place where one happens to be, either in the mind or in the vital or even in the physical; one has only to withdraw and sink down, or get behind: it is there always. To meet Sachchidananda in and through the physical existence is not very much more difficult or rare a thing than the other ways; it is more difficult and rare to maintain it there constantly and consciously, to make of it a dynamic physical possession. That is the work to be done and for which Sri Aurobindo came.
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06.35 - Second Sight, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We will now better understand the process of contact in sense perception. The purely material contact, physical vibration touching the physical nerves of the particular organ is an instance of the physical physical perception: the dog smelling or the elephant hearing at extraordinary distances. We have heard of men who, by putting their ear upon the ground, are able to catch sounds coming from a great distance and practically inaudible to others standing by. But there is another class where the material vibration is not at issue, it is the vital vibration in the physical touching the vital physical of the receiver. The elephant finding the water or sensing the hollow road is an instance in point. The mental physical, the last of the three is a kind of intuition in the physical, that is what is usually called instinct. A cat, for example, put in a sack and banished miles away from its home, will find its way back; a dog will go round the world almost and find and recognise its master even many years after (the first to recognise Ulysses was his dog). In man too the vital physical, more especially the mental physical not unoften finds room for play, although his physical physical i.e. purely material sensibility is extremely limited. This limitation of the physical sensibility in general, to whatever sphere it may belong, is due to the intellectual or rational bias that has developed in him. In the more unsophisticated races or types the sensibility is still maintained. Man can, however, cultivate, consciously develop these faculties: it then becomes what is called a system of Yoga. A familiar example of the mental physical action as cultivated in man is offered by the water diviner or dowser, as he is called. But, as I have said, the normal effect of human rationality is to inhibit the spontaneous action of the senses as it is natural with the animal.
It is interesting to note that animals in the wild state maintain intact their instinctive capacity, their second sight, but begin to lose it when they live with men, come under the influence of human mind and reason, become domesticated. A cow habituated to free grazing in the fields will never touch the poisonous grass, will always avoid it and take only the harm-less and healthy variety; but kept within the stable, accustomed to a closed life, it loses its natural instinct, gets confused, does not know how to distinguish the right from the wrong food, being always given ready-made things by the master.
Human contact has thus a harmful effect upon the animal's instinctive life. But in another way it may have an uplifting influence too. Some of the refined human sentimentssympathy, gratitude, faithfulness, self-sacrificein a pronounced human way find expression in animals that are domesticated and live close to man and within the human atmosphere. It is true many of these feelings are not totally absent in the animal kingdom (especially in the higher strata) in its natural or wild state, but they belong to the level of pure feeling or impulse and have not risen to the level of sentiments which have a mental element infused into their vital stuff. Indeed a strong mental element, a reasoning capacity sometimes very clearly develops in the domestic animal.
07.10 - Diseases and Accidents, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Not necessarily, to be sure. Illnesses are, as I have told you, generally a dislocation among the different parts of the being, a kind of disharmony. It may well be that the body has not followed the movement of progress, it might have lagged behind while the other parts have, on the contrary, made progress. In that case there is an unbalance, a breaking of harmony and that produces an illness, I mean, in the body, for the mind and the vital also might re main all right. There are many people who have been ill for years, suffering from terrible and incurable diseases, and still maintained their mental power marvellously clear and active and continuing to make progress in that do main. There was a French poet, a very good poet, named Sully Prudhomme; he was mortally ill and it was during that time that he wrote his most beautiful poems. He was always in a very good humour, charming, smiling, pleasant to everyone even while his body was going to bits. You may remember how the great Louis XIV used to joke and laugh, while, in his last days, his body was being lacerated and given over to leeches by his doctors and surgeons. It depends upon individual and individual. For there are people of the other type who get thoroughly disturbed from head to foot if there is the slightest bodily indisposition. Each one has his own combination of the elements.
There is of course a relation between the mind and the body, quite a close relation. In most cases it is the mind that makes the body ill, at least it is the most important factor in the illness. I have said, there are people who keep their mind clear although their body suffers. But it is very rare and very difficult to keep the body healthy when the mind suffers or is un-balanced. It is not impossible, but very, very exceptional. For I explained to you that it is the mind which is the master of the body, the body is an obedient and obliging servant. Unfortunately, one does not usually know how to make use of one's mind, not only so, one makes bad use of it and as bad as possible. The mind possesses a considerable power of formation and of direct action on the body. It is precisely this power which is used by people to make their body ill. As soon as there is something which does not go well, the mind begins to worry about it, makes formations of coming catastrophes, indulges in all kinds of imaginary dangers ahead. Now, instead of thus letting the mind run amuck and play havoc, if the same energy were used for a better purpose, if good formations were made, namely, giving self-confidence to the body, telling it that there is nothing to be anxious about, it is only a passing unease and so on, in that case, the body would be put in a right condition of receptivity and the illness pass away quietly even as it came. That is how the mind is to be taught to give good suggestions to the body and not to throw mud into it. Marvellous results follow if you do it properly.
07.21 - On Occultism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I shall tell you a story to illustrate my point. I knew a Dane who was a painter, a painter of some talent.' He was interested in occultism. Some of you might have heard of him. He had come here and met Sri Aurobindo. He did a portrait too of Sri Aurobindo. It was the first Great War. He returned to France and saw me. He asked me to teach him this science. I taught him how to come out of the body, how to maintain control, etc., etc. I told him especially, what I tell you now, not to have fear. Now he came to me one day and narrated his experience of a night. He had a dream; but of course it was not a dream: he knew how to come out of the body and was out consciously. Once out he was trying to find where he was. Suddenly he saw moving towards him a tiger, huge and formidable, evidently with dire intentions. He remembered, how-ever, my advice. So he kept calm and quiet and said to himself: There is no danger, I am protected, nothing can happen to me, I am surrounded by the power of protection. And he looked straight at the animal calmly and fearlessly. As he kept on gazing, strange to say, he saw the tiger diminishing in size, shrinking and shrinking, till at last it turned into a small harmless cat!
What did the tiger represent? I told the painter that perhaps in the course of the day or at some time he was angry with someone and indulged in violent thoughts, wishing him harm, etc. Now as in the physical world, so too in the occult world there is a law of action and reaction or return movement. You cherish a bad thought; it returns upon you as an attack from outside. So the tiger might have represented some bad thought or impulse in him which came back upon him, like, as it is said, a boomerang. It is exactly one of the reasons why one should have control over one's thoughts and feelings and sensations. For if you think ill of a person, wish unpleasant things for him, then in your dream you are likely to see the person coming to attack you, more violently perhaps than you thought of doing. In your ignorance and impulse of self-justification you say, Just see, was I not right in my feeling towards this man, he wanted to kill me! In point of fact, however, the contrary is the truth. It is a common law in occultism that if you make a formationa mental formation, for example, to the effect that an accident or some unpleasant thing should happen to a person and you send out the formation to do its work, then, if it so happens that the person concerned is on a higher level of consciousness, that is to say, if he wishes harm to none, is quite disinterested and indifferent in the matter, then the formation approaches him but does not enter into his atmosphere or touch him, it rebounds upon the sender. In that case a serious accident may happen to the sender of the formation: if one wishes death to another, death may come to himself. That is often the result of black magic which is a de-formation of occultism.
07.30 - Sincerity is Victory, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
First you must observe that there is not a day in your life, not an hour, not even a minute when you have not got to rectify or intensify your sincerity. I do not say that you deceive the Divine. None can deceive the divine, not even the greatest of the Asuras. When you have understood that, still then you will always find moments in your everyday life when you try to deceive yourself. Almost automatically you bring forward reasons in favour of whatever you do. I do not speak of grosser things as when you have quarrelled with a person, for example, and in your anger throw the whole blame upon him. I knew a child who gave a good blow to the door, because it thought the door was at fault. It is always the other party who is in the wrong. But even when you have passed beyond this baby stage, when you are supposed to be a little more reasonable, you do the stupidest of things and produce reasons in self-justification. The real test of sincerity, the very minimum of true sincerity lies here; in your reaction to a given situation whether you can take automatically the right attitude and do exactly the thing to be done. When, for example, one speaks angrily to you, do you catch the contagion and become angry on your side also or are you able to maintain an unshakable calm and lucidity, see the other man's point or behave as one should?
This is, I say, the very beginning of sincerity, its rudiments. And if you look into yourself with keener eyes, you will discover thousands of insincerities, more subtle, none the less seizable. Try to be sincere, occasions will multiply when you catch yourself insincere: you will know how difficult a thing it is. You say you belong to the Divine, to the Divine alone and to nothing or to nobody else; it is the Divine who moves me and does everything in me. And then you do whatever pleases you; you use the Divine as a cloak to cover your indulgence of desires and passions. This also is a gross insincerity and it should not be difficult for you to detect it. Although this is a very common deception, more perhaps to deceive others than to deceive oneself. The mind catches hold of an idea, all this is Brahman,I am Brahman, and you believe or pretend to believe that you have realised it and you can do nothing wrong. There are, however, subtler movements of insincerity or want of sincerity, even when you have not put on the divine cloak as the cover for your lapses. Even when you think you are sincere there may be movements which are not quite straight, behind which, if you probe unflinchingly, you will find lurking something undesirable. Look to the little movements, thoughts, sensations and impulses, that crowd the margin of your daily life; how many of them are solely turned to the Divine, how many of them are fired with an aspiration towards something higher? You should consider yourself fortunate if you find a few of the kind.
07.38 - Past Lives and the Psychic Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is a being who is completely identified with his psychic, who has organised his whole person, in all its parts, around this centre, in fact, a being of one piece, entirely and solely turned to the Divine that can alone remember or hold in his consciousness something like a totality of his personal history. For in his case even when the body drops, the other parts being integrated and taken up into the soul substance maintain their individual existence; the personality formed around the psychic continues to exist with its memory intact: even it can pass from one life to another without losing the consciousness.
A psychic memory has a very definite character; it has a wonderful intensity. It stores the unforgettable moments of life, those when the consciousness was most luminous, most powerful, most active. They are the happiest and the most fortunate moments of life. But they cannot be spoken about.
07.45 - Specialisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But it is a very natural and spontaneous movement in man to change from one work to another in order to maintain a kind of balance. Change also means rest. We have often heard of great artists or scholars seeking for rest and having great need for it. They find it by changing their activity. For example, Ingres was a painter; painting was his normal and major occupation. But whenever he found time he took up his violin. Curiously, it was his violin which interested him more than his painting. He was not very good at music, but he took great pleasure in it. He was sufficiently good at painting, but it interested him less. But the real thing is that he needed a stable poise or balance. Concentration upon a single thing is very necessary, I have said, if one aims at a definite and special result; but one can follow a different line that is more subtle, more comprehensive and complete. Naturally, there is a physical limit somewhere to your comprehensiveness; for on the physical plane you are confined in respect of time and space; and also it is true that great things are difficult to achieve unless there is a special concentration. But if you want to lead a higher and deeper life, you can comm and capacities which are much greater than those available to the methods of restriction and limitation belonging to the normal consciousness. There is a considerable advantage in getting rid of one's limits, if not from the point of view of actual accomplishment, at least from the point of view of spiritual realisation.
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08.22 - Regarding the Body, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
With regard to their physical being, men live in a formidable ignorance. How many of you know the exact quantity of food and the kind of food the body requires? Yes, simply this, how much to take and when to take? You do not know. You are taught all kinds of things. You learn why and how this earth moves or the sun does not, why or how the triangle consists of two right angles: your faculties of imagination and discrimination are set to the task and get sharpened. But this little bit of exact knowledge you do not have the quantity of food you must take and the hour when the body needs it. It may be you are not unaware at times of this exact need. But to know properly demands a discipline, continuous labour for years perhaps. Years indeed you require when it is a matter of control over your mind, of attaining a consciousness subtle enough to enable you to come in contact with the elements of transformation and progress, to know how to regulate for your body the exact amount of physical effort, material activity, expenditure and reception of energy, how to secure the proportion between what is received and what is given out, how to utilise energy to re-establish the equilibrium that was broken in order to push forward new cells that were lagging behind and then how to build up conditions for a further step in upward progress to be possible etc., etc. The task is formidable. And yet that is the thing to be done if you want the body to be transformed. First of all, you must bring the body into complete harmony with the inner consciousness. That means a work in each cell of the body, in each small activity, in each movement of the organs. Only that and nothing more can keep you busy day and night with no other thing to look to. It is not easy to maintain the effort, the concentration, the inner vision in a continuous manner.
You have to enter into the disposition of the cells, your inner physical organisation, if the body is to answer to the force that descends. First of all, you must be conscious of your physical cells, you must know their different functions, the degree of receptivity in each, which of them are in good condition and which are not. Even the simple thing you do not know whether you are tired or not, not to speak of why you are tired. You do not know if you have a pain somewhere, and why it is there. It is exactly for this reason that you run to the doctor. For you have the illusion that the doctor would know better how to look into what is there inside your body and what is happening there. That does not seem to be quite rational, but there is the habit. Who can look into oneself so precisely, accurately, positively, as to know exactly what is out of order, why it is out of order, how it has come to be so? All that is a matter of pure observation. And then only arises the problem of doing the thing that will bring about a new order which is a much more difficult affair. And yet this is only the ABC of body-transformation.
08.24 - On Food, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not like your stomach which can digest only a limited quantity of food and this food again can give out only a portiona very small portionof its energy. For after the energy spent in swallowing, masticating, digesting, etc. how much of it still re mains available? If, on the other hand, you learnyou learn instinctively, it is a kind of instinctto draw from the universal energy which is freely available in the world and in any quantity, you can take it in and absorb as much as you are capable of doing. Thus, as I have said, when there is not the support from below coming from food, the body makes an automatic movement to get the needed energy from the environment. It gets at times, more than enough, even an overdose and that puts you in a state of tension or stimulation. And if your body is strong and can re main without food for some time, then you can maintain your poise and utilise the energies in all waysto make inner progress, for example, to become more conscious, to change your nature. But if your body does not have much reserve, it gets easily weakened by fast, then there occurs a disharmony between the intensity of the energies you absorb and the capacity of the body to hold them and that upsets you. You lose your poise, the equilibrium of the forces is broken and anything can happen. In any case, if such a thing happens, you lose a good deal of self-control, you get excited and this unnatural excitement you consider as a higher state of consciousness. But it is an inner unbalance, nothing more. Otherwise, in that state your senses get refined and receptive. Thus when you fast and do not draw energy from below, if you smell a flower, you feel nourished, the perfume you brea the in serves as food, it gives you energy and this you would not have known but for the fasting.
In this condition certain faculties become intensified and that is taken as a spiritual effect. But in reality it has very little to do with spirituality. However, instead of thinking all the while about food, how to get it and eat it, if one were to take to fasting for the sake of freeing oneself from the bondage of food preoccupation, rising a little in the scale of consciousness, it would be a good thing. If you have the faith it will do you good, it will purify you, make you progress a little. In that way it is all right: it will not do any harm to your body except making it a little slimmer. But if you fast and then continuously turn back to it and think of the food that you might have eaten or are likely to eat after the fasting, well, such fasting is worse than feasting.
08.25 - Meat-Eating, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You must begin from within. I have said a hundred times, you must begin from above. You must purify first the higher regions and then purify the lower ones. I do not mean by this that you should give yourself up to all the licences that degrade the body. I do not mean that at all. I am not advising you not to control your desires. What I mean is this: do not try to be an angel in the body before you are already something of the kind in your mind and in your vital. For that will bring about a dislocation, a lack of balance. And I have always said that to maintain the balance, all the parts must progress together. In trying to bring light into one part you must not leave another part in darkness. You must not leave any obscure corner anywhere.
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08.31 - Personal Effort and Surrender, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The relation of the whole and its part does not hold good here; for there is no longer any division. The very quality of the approach is different. Can you say that a perfect identification with one drop of water would give you the knowledge of what the sea is? And here the perfect identification in question is not merely with the ocean but with all possible oceans. And yet the perfect identification with one drop of water does give you the knowledge of the ocean in its essence; but in the other way you know the ocean not merely in its essence but in its totality. It is however very difficult to express the reality of the truth. What can be said to put it as clearly as possible is this: in the line of personal effort, when one depends solely upon one's personal strength, all that has been individualised maintains the virtues of individuality and hence also, in a certain sense, all the limitations necessary for this individuality. In the other case, when you have surrendered your individuality, you not only enjoy the virtues of individuality but also you are not subject to its limitations. It is almost high philosophy, I am afraid. It is not clear therefore. But that is all I can say.
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08.33 - Opening to the Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You are to open yourself to the Divine and receive Him. Usually you open yourself in all directions to everything and everybody in the world. You open your surface being and receive there all sorts of influences from all quarters. So inside you there-comes about what we can call a hotch-potch of all contrary and contradictory movements: and that creates difficulties without number. Now instead of that, live away from the surface, from the outside and open up to the Divine and receive nothing hut the Divine force. If you can do that all difficulties practically disappear. But, of course, the trouble is there. Unless one is alchemically conditioned, it is an impossibility to have relations with people, to talk to them, to deal with them, have interchanges with them and yet not absorb something out of them. If one can surround oneself with an atmosphere that acts as a filter, then all that come from outside are checked and sifted before they reach you or touch you. That needs a good training and a large experience. That is why people in ancient days who wanted an easier path took to solitude, into the depths of the forest, on the top of a hill or under a cave so that they might not have to deal with people for that naturally reduces undesirable interchanges. Only, it has also been found that such people begin to take an enormous interest in the life of animals and plants instead of men: for it is indeed difficult to do without interchange with something or other. So the best thing would be to face the problem squarely, to clo the yourself with an atmosphere totally concentrated on the Divine so that whatever passes across is filtered in its passage. And further, there is the question of food. The body is obliged to take in foreign matter in order to subsist, it would therefore absorb at the same time a fair quantity of inert and unconscious forces or that of some not very desirable consciousness. I once spoke to you of the consciousness that one absorbs with food, there is also unconsciousness that one absorbs in the same way. That is why in many systems of Yoga you are advised to offer first to the Divine your food and then eat it: it means calling down the Divine into your food before absorbing it. Offering means putting in contact: the food is put in contact with type Divine, i.e. put under His influence. This is a very good, a very useful procedure; if you knew how to do it, it would diminish very much the labour of the inner transformation that one has to do. For in the world we live in solidarity with all others. You cannot take in a single breath of air without absorbing the vibrations, the numberless vibrations that come from all kinds of movements and all kinds of people. So if you want to keep yourself intact, you must, as I have said, maintain yourself in the condition of a filter allowing nothing undesirable to enter. Or put on a mask as one does when crossing an infected and poisoned locality, or do something similar.
One must have around oneself an atmosphere so condensed, condensed in a spirit of total surrender, that nothing can enter without being automatically filtered. There are wicked thoughts, evil will about you, harmful formations sent out by bad people. The air pullulates with these: dark noisome bacilli. It is so troublesome to be always on the look-out, at every step to be on one's guard, to move slowly with care and caution and precautions; even then one is not sure. But if you cover yourself with the cloak of light, the light of a happy, sincere surrender, and aspiration, that is a wonderful filter, that gives you automatic protection. The undesirable forces not only cannot enter, they are thrown back upon their originator, the attackers themselves become their own victims.
08.36 - Buddha and Shankara, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Both of them came in contact with something true and real. Buddha had surely an inner contact with something which, in relation to the outer life, appeared to him as non-existence and in this non-existence all the consequences of existence disappeared. There is indeed such a state. And it is said that if you re main in that state for more than twenty days, you are sure to lose your body. I believe it is so, if the condition becomes exclusive. But also it can be an experience that re mains behind, exists in a conscious way and yet not exclusively. In other words, the contact with the world and the outer consciousness is maintained and supported by something which is independent of them and free. It is a state in which you can make truly a great progress in your external consciousness; for then you can detach yourself from everything and act without attachment, without preference, in an inner freedom that expresses itself in the outer life. Once you have attained the inner freedom, this conscious contact with the eternal and the infinite, you must return to action without losing that consciousness and allow it to influence the whole of the consciousness turned to action.
That is what Sri Aurobindo calls bringing down the Force from above. That way lies the only chance of changing the world; for you seek there a new Force, a new do main, a new consciousness and you put that in contact with the external world. Its presence and its action will bring changes inevitably, a total transformation, we hope, in the external world.
1.001 - The Aim of Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
I will ask a question. We eat food every day so that we may be alive. But why do we want to be alive? Is there a purpose behind it? This question we cannot answer. Here is a question which is beyond ordinary logic. Why should we work so hard, and eat, and maintain ourselves, and exist? After all, we are doing all this for existing. Why do we want to exist? Suppose we do not exist; what is the harm? These kinds of questions will be pressing themselves forward when we go deep into the aims of the different activities of our life. Finally, when we press the aim to its logical limits, we will find that the human brain is not meant to understand it.
We are limited individuals, with limited capacities of understanding, and we can have only limited aims in our life but we have unlimited desires. This is a contradiction. How can unlimited desires be fulfilled with limited aims? Life is a contradiction; it has begun as a contradiction, and it ends as a contradiction. This is the reason why not one has slept peacefully, or woken up peacefully, nor lives peacefully. There is a subtle contradiction in sleep and a pressing contradiction when we wake up, and an annoying contradiction throughout our daily activities, so that there is only contradiction. There is nothing else in life; and all effort is meant to remove this contradiction. But if the very effort at removing contradiction is itself involved in a contradiction, then we are in a mess, and this is exactly what has happened to Tom, Dick, Harry, X, Y, Z, A, B, C, D whoever it is.
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This is a defect not only in the modern systems of education, but also in spiritual practices in every walk of life, in every blessed thing. When the individual who is living life has cut himself or herself off from the significance of life, then life becomes a contradiction and a meaningless pursuit of the will-o'-the-wisp. Why do we cut ourselves off from the meaning of life and then suffer like this? This is the inherent weakness of the sensory functions of the individual. The senses are our enemies. Why do we call them enemies? Because they tell us that we are isolated from everything else. This is the essence of sensory activity. There is no connection between ourselves and others, and we can go on fighting with everybody. This is what the senses tell us. But yet, they are double-edged swords; they tell us two things at the same time. On one side they tell us that everything is outside us, and we are disconnected from everybody else and everything in this world. But on the other side they say that we are bound to grab things, connect ourselves with things, obtain things, and maintain relationship with things. Now, these two things cannot be done simultaneously. We cannot disconnect ourselves from things and also try to connect ourselves with them for the purpose of exploiting them, with an intention to utilise them for our individual purposes. Here again is an instance of contradiction. On one side we disconnect ourselves from persons and things; on the other side we want to connect ourselves with persons and things for our own purpose.
The ancient sages and masters, both of the East and the West, have deeply pondered over this question, and one of the most magnificent proclamations of a solution to these problems is found in the Veda. Among the many aspects of this solution that are presented before us by these mighty revelations, I can quote one which to my mind appears to be a final solution at least, I have taken it as a solution to all my problems - which comes in the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda. In all the four Vedas it occurs: tam eva viditv atimtyum eti nnya panth vidyate ayanya. This is a great proclamation. What is the meaning of this proclamation? There is no way of escape from this problem, says this mantra, other than knowing 'That'. This is a very simple aphoristic precept that is before us: Knowing 'That' is the solution, and we have no other solution. Now, knowing 'That' what is this 'That'.
10.02 - Beyond Vedanta, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Tantra comes next in the scale. Tantra does not consider Prakriti as absolutely separate from Purusha and opposite in character. Prakriti is not unconsciousness (Achit); it is instinct with consciousness. Indeed Prakriti as conceived by Sankhya or Mayavada is only a lower formulation, an inferior aspect of the higher Prakriti which is one with the higher Purusha, Purushottama. Tantra worships the higher Prakriti as Parashakti, the Divine Mother who holds in herself the supreme Purusha. The world is created and exists not by the power of Maya but by the formative power of the Mother, which was the original meaning of the word 'maya', the Divine Maya. The Divine Mother creates the world and maintains the world in the Delight of her Conscious Existence. She is the Supreme Consciousness (Chinmayee), she is the Power of Delight (Hladini Shakti).
The whole bifurcation between Tantra and Vedanta hinges upon one point. The Vedanta overlooked one term of the Truth and missed thereby a whole world of experience and reality. The central term of Vedanta is taken as Consciousness, Consciousness pure and simple. It omitted the fact that Consciousness is also Energy. That Chit is Tapas is the central principle in Tantra. The exclusive stress on Chit, Pure Consciousness, led to the realisation of the Pure Purusha as mere Witness, Observer, a passive consciousness. Subsequently it was also added that the Purusha is not merely a Witness, (sk), but the Upholder (bhart), even Enjoyer (bhokt) of the world and creation; finally it was added also that the Purusha may be a creator also (kart), but all this is somewhat outside the pale of orthodox Vedanta, Mayavada. Tantra equated Consciousness with Energy; for it Conscious Energy or Consciousness-Energy is the indivisible Mother-Reality.
1.002 - The Heifer, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
203. And remember God during the designated days. But whoever hurries on in two days commits no wrong, and whoever stays on commits no wrong—provided he maintains righteousness. And obey God, and know that to Him you will be gathered.
204. Among the people is he whose speech about the worldly life impresses you, and he calls God to witness what is in his heart, while he is the most hostile of adversaries.
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229. Divorce is allowed twice. Then, either honorable retention, or setting free kindly. It is not lawful for you to take back anything you have given them, unless they fear that they cannot maintain God's limits. If you fear that they cannot maintain God’s limits, then there is no blame on them if she sacrifices something for her release. These are God’s limits, so do not transgress them. Those who transgress God’s limits are the unjust.
230. If he divorces her, she shall not be lawful for him again until she has married another husband. If the latter divorces her, then there is no blame on them for reuniting, provided they think they can maintain God's limits. These are God’s limits; He makes them clear to people who know.
231. When you divorce women, and they have reached their term, either retain them amicably, or release them amicably. But do not retain them to hurt them and commit aggression. Whoever does that has wronged himself. And do not take God’s revelations for a joke. And remember God's favor to you, and that He revealed to you the Scripture and Wisdom to teach you. And fear God, and know that God is aware of everything.
1.003 - Family of Imran, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
76. Indeed, whoever fulfills his commitments and maintains piety—God loves the pious.
77. Those who exchange the covenant of God, and their vows, for a small price, will have no share in the Hereafter, and God will not speak to them, nor will He look at them on the Day of Resurrection, nor will He purify them. They will have a painful punishment.
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120. If something good happens to you, it upsets them; but if something bad befalls you, they rejoice at it. But if you persevere and maintain righteousness, their schemes will not harm you at all. God comprehends what they do.
121. Remember when you left your home in the morning, to assign battle-positions for the believers. God is Hearing and Knowing.
1.004 - Women, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
34. Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, as God has given some of them an advantage over others, and because they spend out of their wealth. The good women are obedient, guarding what God would have them guard. As for those from whom you fear disloyalty, admonish them, and abandon them in their beds, then strike them. But if they obey you, seek no way against them. God is Sublime, Great.
35. If you fear a breach between the two, appoint an arbiter from his family and an arbiter from her family. If they wish to reconcile, God will bring them together. God is Knowledgeable, Expert.
1.005 - The Table, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
93. Those who believe and do righteous deeds will not be blamed for what they may have eaten, provided they obey, and believe, and do good deeds, then maintain piety and faith, then re main righteous and charitable. God loves the charitable.
94. O you who believe! God will test you with something of the game your hands and spears obtain, that God may know who fears Him at heart. Whoever commits aggression after that will have a painful punishment.
1.008 - The Principle of Self-Affirmation, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
This is the argument of the central principle of individuality called the ego, or the asmita or ahamkara. The protection of this ego is the main function of our psychophysical individuality. Its existence and its operation have two sides or aspects of emphasis a like for certain things, and a dislike for certain other things. We may be wondering why it is that we like certain things and dislike certain things. Is there any reason behind it? The reason is not easily available, though it is available if we go a little deeper. A like, a want, a love or an affection is that pattern of the movement of our consciousness towards an external object, whose characteristics are observed by the mind for the time being to be the counterpart, the correlative of the present condition of one's individuality so much so that when the condition of our personality changes, our like or love will also change. We cannot go on loving the same thing for eternity, nor can we hate a thing for eternity.
Loves and hatreds change when our condition changes, so that likes and dislikes, loves and hatreds are the reactions set up in respect of certain external objects by the changing pattern of our own personality or individuality. If it is summer, I like to drink water; if it is winter, I like to drink hot tea. My liking for hot tea or for cold water has some connection with what is taking place inside me in my biological and psychological personality. When there is drying up of the system due to heat, there is a need for water I would like to drink cold water. But when it is freezing cold due to the wintry atmosphere, I would like to have hot tea. So our like of hot tea and dislike of cold water in winter is caused by a peculiar condition of our body coupled with the condition of the mind, of course. In summer we would not like to drink hot tea. We would like a soda or cold water, etc., and dislike anything that is hot; we would not like to have hot coffee or hot tea in such climate. "Oh, it is so hot. I will take cold water." We dislike during summer that very thing which we liked in winter. What has happened to us? Why did we like it that day and today we dislike it? It is not because there is something wrong with tea or something wrong with water. They are the same things; nothing has happened to them. But something has happened to us. So today I like that which I disliked the other day, and today I dislike that which I liked the other day. What is the reason? The reason is us only. What has happened to us? Something has happened to us. If one can very carefully go into the deepest recesses of one's nature, one would know why loves and hatreds arise in one's mind. We project upon others, by a peculiar process called a defense-mechanism in psychoanalysis, the counterpart of our own nature. That which will not fit into our present condition is not liked by us. By 'present condition' I mean physical, biological, psychological, social everything. Anything that will fit into our present physical, biological, psychological and social condition is liked or loved by us. Anything that is outside the need of this condition is disliked; it becomes an obstacle. "I don't like it," we say. Why don't we like it? We do not know. "I don't like it; that is all." But if we are good physicians of the mind we will know why it is that we like it, and why it is that we do not like it.
1.009 - Perception and Reality, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
We are going from the lower stage to a higher stage, from the immediate experience of a concrete trouble to the causes thereof. We have a complex problem in the form of like and dislike for objects, and we want to maintain this condition of like and dislike. Therefore, there is love of life and fear of death, which, of course, requires the affirmation of the individual subject maintaining this attitude. We have now arrived at the stage where we understand that the reason behind all this psychological activity is the perception of an object as a real something, external to oneself. Why do we perceive the object? We are not deliberately, or of our own accord, perceiving the object; here also, we are forced. Ultimately we will find that everything that we do is under a compulsion. Though people parade under the notion that they are free people and they can do whatever they want, it is not so. There is no free person in this world. Everybody is a slave of an urge, a force, a compulsion that is at the back of all these psychological activities. Just as we cannot see our own back, we cannot see the existence of these forces they are behind.
The perception of an object is caused by a subtle activity that has taken place in the cosmos itself. We have to go back to the Upanishads and texts which are akin in nature. The human mind is not made in such a way as to be able to comprehend what has happened, ultimately. This is what they call the cosmological analysis of human experience. Why do we exist at all as individuals, and then are compelled to perceive objects, and then to have to undergo all this tragedy and suffering of positive and negative attitudes, etc.? This is a mystery for the human intellect. While we may be able to understand and explain what things are like in the world, we will not be able to explain ourselves why we are what we are. Can we explain why we are what we are? "I am what I am, that is all. It has no reason behind it." But there is a reason, which is the reason behind the reason itself. Here we go back to a condition beyond human intellect. Great masters like Acharya Sankara, Ramanuja, etc. tell us that here we land in a realm where intellect should not interfere. The intellect has a boundary, and beyond that boundary, it is useless.
1.009 - Repentance, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
19. Do you consider giving water to pilgrims and maintaining the Sacred Mosque the same as believing in God and the Last Day and striving in God’s path? They are not equal in God’s sight. God does not guide the unjust people.
20. Those who believe, and emigrate, and strive in God’s path with their possessions and their persons, are of a higher rank with God. These are the winners.
1.00a - DIVISION A - THE INTERNAL FIRES OF THE SHEATHS., #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
In the physical body we have the fires of the lower nature (the animal plane) centralised at the base of the spine. They are situated at a spot which stands in relation to the physical body as the physical sun to the solar system. This central point of heat radiates in all directions, using the spinal column as its main artery, but working in close connection with certain central ganglia, wherever located, and having a special association with the spleen.
[56]
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b. The Planet. Deep in the heart of the planetsuch a planet as the Earth, for instanceare the internal fires that occupy the central sphere, or the caverns whichfilled with incandescent burningmake life upon the globe possible at all. The internal fires of the moon are practically burnt out, and, therefore, she does not shine save through reflection, having no inner fire to blend and merge with light external. These inner fires of the earth can be seen functioning, as in the sun, through three main channels:
1. Productive substance, or the matter of the planet vitalised by heat. This heat and matter together act as the mother of all that germinates, and as the protector of all that dwells therein and thereon. This corresponds to the akasha, the active vitalised matter of the solar system, that nourishes all as does a mother.
1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
IV. In initiation from the grade of Neophyte to that of Zelator, one passes by this way. The main work is to obtain admission to, and control of, the astral plane.
Your expressions about "purifying the feelings" and so on are rather vague to enter into a scientific system like ours. The result which you doubtless refer to is attained automatically in the course of your experiments. Your very soon discover the sort of state of mind which is favourable or unfavourable to the work, and you also discover what is helpful and harmful to these states in your way of life. For instance, the practice like the non-receiving of gifts is all right for a Hindu whose mind is branded for ten thousand incarnations by the shock of accepting a cigarette or a cup of tea. Incidentally, most of the Eastern cults fall down when they come West, simply because they make no allowance for our different temperaments. Also they set tasks which are completely unsuitable to Europeans an immense amount of disappointment has been caused by failure to recognize these facts.
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Those chapters of The Book of Lies quoted in my last letter*[H1] do throw some light onto this Abyss of self-contradiction; and there is meaning much deeper than the contrast between the Will with a capital W, and desire, want, or velleity. The main point seems to be that in aspiring to Power one is limited by the True Will. If you use force, violating your own nature either from lack of understanding or from petulant whim, one is merely wasting energy; things go back to normal as soon as the stress is removed. This is one small case of the big Equation "Free Will = Necessity" (Fate, Destiny, or Karma: it's all much the same idea). One is most rigidly bound by the causal chain that has dragged one to where one is; but it is one's own self that has forged the links.
Please refrain from the obvious retort: "Then, in the long run, you can't possibly go wrong: so it doesn't matter what you do." Perfectly true, of course! (There is no single grain of dust that shall not attain to Buddhahood:" with some such words did the debauched old reprobate seek to console himself when Time began to take its revenge.) But the answer is simple enough: you happen to be the kind of being that thinks it does matter what course you steer; or, still more haughtily, you enjoy the pleasure of sailing.
1.00b - INTRODUCTION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
chosen mainly for their significancebecause they effectively illustrated some
particular point in the general system of the Perennial Philosophy but also for their
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the name of saint or prophet, sage or enlightened one. And it is mainly to
these, because there is good reason for supposing that they knew what they were
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
In our consideration of the internal fires of the system we shall find much of very real interest to the coming [78] generation of thinkers for three main reasons, which might be enumerated as follows:
1. Its Purpose and Description
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Second. In the study of the etheric body and prana lies the revelation of the effects of those rays of the sun which (for lack of better expression), we will call "solar pranic emanations." These solar pranic emanations are the produced effect of the central heat of the sun approaching other bodies within the solar system by one of the three main channels of contact, and producing on the bodies then contacted certain effects differing somewhat from those produced by the other emanations. These effects might be considered as definitely stimulating and constructive, and (through their essential quality) as producing conditions that further the growth of cellular matter, and concern its adjustment to environing conditions; they concern likewise the internal health (demonstrating as the heat of the atom and its consequent activity) and the uniform evolution of the form of which that particular atom of matter forms a constituent part. Emanative prana does little in connection with [79] form building; that is not its province, but it conserves the form through the preservation of the health of its component parts. Other rays of the sun act differently, upon the forms and upon their substance. Some perform the work of the Destroyer of forms, and others carry on the work of cohering and of attracting; the work of the Destroyer and of the Preserver is carried on under the Law of Attraction and Repulsion. Some rays definitely produce accelerated motion, others produce retardation. The ones we are dealing with herepranic solar emanationswork within the four ethers, that matter which (though physical) is not as yet objectively visible to the eye of man. They are the basis of all physical plane life considered solely in connection with the life of the physical plane atoms of matter, their inherent heat and their rotary motion. These emanations are the basis of that "fire by friction" which demonstrates in the activity of matter.
Finally, in the study of the etheric body and prana comes comprehension of the method of logoic manifestation, and therefore much of interest to the metaphysician, and all abstract thinkers. The etheric body of man holds hid the secret of his objectivity. It has its correspondence on the archetypal plane,the plane we call that of the divine manifestation, the first plane of our solar system, the plane Adi. The matter of that highest plane is called often the "sea of fire" and it is the root of the akasha, the term applied to the substance of the second plane of manifestation. Let us trace the analogy a little more in detail, for in its just apprehension will be found much of illumination and much that will serve to elucidate problems both macrocosmic and microcosmic. We will begin with man and his etheric body.
--
The etheric body may therefore be described as negative or receptive in respect to the rays of the sun, and as [98] positive and expulsive in respect to the dense physical body. The second function that of assimilationis strictly balanced or internal. As stated earlier, the pranic emanations of the sun are absorbed by the etheric body, via certain centres which are found principally in the upper part of the body, from whence they are directed downwards to the centre which is called the etheric spleen, as it is the counterpart in etheric matter of that organ. The main centre for the reception of prana at present is a centre between the shoulder blades. Another has been allowed to become partially dormant in man through the abuses of so-called civilisation, and is situated slightly above the solar plexus. In the coming rootrace, and increasingly in this, the necessity for the exposure of these two centres to the rays of the sun, will be appreciated, with a corresponding improvement in physical vitality and adaptability. These three centres,
1. Between the shoulder blades,
--
The process of assimilation is carried on in this triangle, and the prana which enters into either centre, circulates three times around the triangle before being transmitted to all parts of the etheric vehicle and from thence to the dense physical body. The main organ of assimilation is the spleen the etheric centre and the dense physical organ. The vital essence from the sun is passed into the etheric spleen, and is there subjected to a process of intensification or devitalisation, according to the condition, healthy or not, of that organ. If the man is in a healthy state the emanation received will be augmented by his own individual vibration, and its rate of vibration will be keyed up before it is passed on into the physical spleen; or it will be slowed down and lowered if the man is in a poor condition of health.
These three centres are in the form that all centres take, of saucer-like depressions, resembling somewhat the appearance of small whirlpools, and which draw within their sphere of influence the currents that come their way.
--
It is not our purpose to give facts for verification by science, or even to point the way to the next step onward for scientific investigators; that we may do so is but incidental and purely secondary. What we seek mainly is to give indications of the development and correspondence of the threefold whole that makes the solar system what it is the vehicle through which a great cosmic ENTITY, the solar Logos, manifests active intelligence with the purpose in view of demonstrating perfectly the love side of His nature. Back of this design lies a yet more esoteric and ulterior purpose, hid in the Will Consciousness of the Supreme Being, which perforce will be later demonstrated when the present objective is attained. The dual alternation of objective manifestation and of subjective obscuration, the periodic out-breathing, followed by the in-breathing of all that has been carried forward through evolution embodies in the system one of the basic cosmic vibrations, and the key-note of that cosmic ENTITY whose body we are. The heart beats of the Logos (if it might be so inadequately expressed) are the source of all cyclic evolution, and hence the importance attached to that aspect of development called the "heart" or "love aspect," and the interest that is awakened by the study of rhythm. This is true, not only cosmically and macrocosmically, but likewise in the study of the human unit. Underlying all the physical sense attached to rhythm, vibration, cycles and heart-beat, lie their subjective analogieslove, feeling, emotion, desire, harmony, synthesis and ordered sequence, and back of these analogies lies the source of all, the identity of that Supreme Being Who thus expresses Himself.
Therefore, the study of pralaya, or the withdrawal of the life from out of the etheric vehicle will be the same [129] whether one studies the withdrawal of the human etheric double, the withdrawal of the planetary etheric double, or the withdrawal of the etheric double of the solar system. The effect is the same and the consequences similar.
1.00d - DIVISION D - KUNDALINI AND THE SPINE, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Other angles of this subject, such as the centres and their relationship to manas, the fire of Spirit and manas, and the eventual blending of the three fires, will be dealt with in our next two main divisions. In this division we are confining ourselves to the study of matter and fire, and must not digress, or confusion will ensue.
[139]
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
I would point out primarily and emphasize the fact that the motion we are considering is that due to the fire latent in matter itself, a motion that is the prime characteristic and basic quality of the Primordial Ray of Active Intelligence. To express it otherwise: it is the outstanding faculty of the third Logos, of Brahma [142] viewed as the Creator, and this faculty is the product or result of an earlier manifestation. Each of the three Logoi, when in manifestation and thus personified, is exemplifying some one quality which predominates over the others. Each, more or less, exemplifies all, but each demonstrates one of the three aspects so profoundly as to be recognised as that aspect itself. In much the same way, for instance, the different incarnating jivas carry a vibration which is their main measure, though they may also have lesser vibrations that are subsidiary to them. Let us get this clear, for the truth embodied is fundamental.
1. The threefold goal,
--
All these three concepts are governed by the Law of Economy, which is the Law of Adaptation in time and space, or the line of least resistance. This line of least resistance is that which is sought for and followed on the matter side of existence. Incidentally, Brahma manifests Will, because He is purpose, and Love because in this solar system Love is the line of least resistance. While this is an occult statement worthy of consideration, yet it must be remembered that He is primarily activity and intelligence with the aim of adaptability, and that this is His main characteristic.
The Second Logos. The second Logos, Vishnu, the divine Wisdom Ray, the great principle of Buddhi seeking to blend with the principle of Intelligence, is characterised by Love. His motion is that which we might term spiral cyclic. Availing Himself of the rotary motion of all atoms, He adds to that His own form of motion or of spiralling periodical movement, and by circulation along an orbit or spheroidal path (which circles around a central focal point in an ever ascending spiral) two results are brought about:
--
Second, Increased the vibration of matter itself by means of its own energy, so that matter at the moment of pralaya and obscuration will have two main characteristics,activity, the result of the Law of Economy, and a dual magnetism which will be the result of the Law of Attraction.
All of these three concepts are governed by the Law of Synthesis, which is the law of a coherent will-to-be, persisting [150] not only in time and space, but within a still vaster cycle.
--
All teachers, who have taken pupils in hand for training, and who seek to use them in world service, follow the method of imparting a fact (oft veiled in words and blinded by symbol) and then of leaving the pupil to follow his own deductions. Discrimination is thereby developed, and discrimination is the main method whereby the Spirit effects its liberation from the trammels of matter, and discerns between illusion and that which is veiled by it.
Not much can be here imparted, as the subject, if dealt with at all fully, would convey too much information to those liable to misuse it. As we know, the evolution of the centres is a slow and gradual thing, and proceeds in ordered cycles varying according to the ray of a man's Monad.
--
The life of the Pilgrim can be, for purposes of discussion, divided into three main periods:
1. That period wherein he is under the influence of the Personality Ray.
--
a. Kundalini lies at the base of the spine, and, in the normal average man, its main function is the vitalisation of the body.
b. Kundalini makes three at-one-ments during the period of evolution:
--
c. By the application of the Rod of Initiation the downflow of force from the Ego to the personality is tripled, the direction of that force being dependent upon whether the centres receiving attention are the etheric, or the astral at the first and second Initiations, or whether the initiate is standing before the LORD OF THE WORLD. In the latter case, his mental centres or their corresponding force vortices on higher levels, will receive stimulation. When the World Teacher initiates at the first and second Initiations, the direction of the Triadal force is turned to the vivification of the heart, and throat centres, and the ability to synthesise the force of the lower centres is greatly increased. When the One Initiator applies the Rod of His Power, the downflow is from the Monad, and though the throat and heart intensify vibration as a response, the main direction of the force is to the seven head centres, and finally (at liberation) to the radiant head centre above, and synthesising the lesser seven head centres.
d. The centres at initiation receive a fresh access of [209] vibratory capacity and of power, and this results, in the exoteric life, as:
--
Once in every world period it is subjected to a similar process as that of the lesser Rod, only this time it is recharged by the direct action of the Logos Himself,the Logos of the solar system. The location of this Rod is known only to the Lord of the World, and to the Chohans of the Rays, and (being the talisman of this evolution) the Chohan of the second Ray isunder the Lord of the Worldits main guardian, aided by the deva Lord of the second plane. The Buddhas of activity are responsible for its custody, and under them the Chohan of the Ray. It is produced only at stated times when specific work has to be done. It is used not only at the initiating of men, but at certain planetary functions, of which nothing as yet has been given out. It has its place and function in certain ceremonies connected with the inner round [xciii]91 and the triangle formed by the Earth, Mars [212] and Mercury. But more about this is not at this time permissible.
1.00h - Foreword, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
This book is written mainly for the disciples and devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. They have been very eager to know something about the outer life of the Master, which, because of his seclusion for many years, re mained behind a veil. The Mother was not so far willing to let us lift that veil. But either because of Sri Aurobindo's Centenary Year or for other reasons, when I proposed to write an account of our historic personal association with the Master during the last twelve years of his life, the Mother warmly approved of it. Not only so, she very graciously listened to the whole story.
An "outsider" may find the book filled in places with devotional outpourings, miraculous phenomena and mystical overtones. But I have tried to the best of my power to give a faithful account of what I have seen and heard and what part we played in the great drama with the Master as the principal actor. Naturally, subjective impressions could not be quite left out, for it was not my purpose to draw an entirely detached description of my experience. Yet those who are interested in having an objective picture of the most sublimely enigmatic Person of the modem age, one whom thousands have felt to be a veritable God-Man, will have, I believe, sufficient food to satisfy their seeking.
1.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
not only our human but our superhuman and divine possibilities, and not only to believe in them but to discover them ourselves, step by step, to see for ourselves and to become vast, as vast as the earth we love and all the lands and all the seas we hold within us? For there is Sri Aurobindo the explorer, who was also a yogi; did he not say that Yoga is the art of conscious self-finding? 3 It is this exploration of consciousness that we would like to undertake with him. If we proceed calmly, patiently, and with sincerity, bravely facing the difficulties of the road and God knows it is rugged enough there is no reason that the window should not open at some point and let the sun shine on us forever. Actually, it is not one but several windows that open one after another, each time on a wider perspective, a new dimension of our own kingdom; and each time it means a change of consciousness as radical as going from sleep to the waking state. We are going to outline the main stages of these changes of consciousness,
as Sri Aurobindo experienced them and described them to his disciples in his integral yoga, until they take us to the threshold of a new, still unknown experience that may have the power to change life itself.
1.00 - Introduction to Alchemy of Happiness, #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
It has been reserved to our own times to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with Ghazzali, and this chiefly by means of a translation by M. Pallia, into French, of his Confessions, wherein he announces very clearly his philosophical views; and from an essay on his writings by M. Smolders. In consequence, Mr. Lewes, who in his first edition of the Biographical History of Philosophy, found no place for Ghazzali, is induced in his last edition, from the evidenee which that treatise contains that he was one of the controlling minds of his age, to devote an entire section to an exhibition of his opinions in the same series with Abclard and Bruno, and to make him the typical figure to represent Arabian philosophy. For a full account of Ghazzali's [7] school of philosophy, we refer to his history and to the two essays, just mentioned. We would observe, very briefly however, that like most of the learned Mohammedans of his age, he was a student of Aristotle. While they regarded all the Greek philosophers as infidels, they availed themselves of their logic and their principles of philosophy to maintain, as far possible, the dogmas of the Koran. Ghazzali's mind possessed however Platonizing tendencies, and he affiliated himself to the Soofies or Mystics in his later years. He was in antagonism with men who to him appeared, like Avicenna, to exalt reason above the Koran, yet he himself went to the extreme limits of reasoning in his endeavors to find an intelligible basis for the doctrines of the Koran, and a philosophical basis for a holy rule of life. His character, and moral and intellectual rank are vividly depicted in the following extract from the writings of Tholuck, a prominent leader of the modern Evangelical school of Germany.
"Ghazzali," says Tholuck, "if ever any man have deserved the name, was truly a divine, and he may justly he placed on a level with Origen, so remarkable was he for learning and ingenuity, and gifted with such a rare faculty for the skillful and worthy exposition of doctrine. All that is good, noble and sublime, which his great soul had compassed, he bestowed upon Mohammedanism; and he adorned the doctrines of the Koran with so much piety and learning, that, in the form given them by him, they seem in my opinion worthy the assent of Christians. Whatsoever was most excellent in the philosophy of Aristotle or in the Soofi mysticism, he discreetly adapted to the Mohammedan theology. From every school, he sought the [8] means of shedding light and honor upon religion; while his sincere piety and lofty conscientiousness imparted to all his writings a sacred majesty. He was the first of Mohammedan divines." (Bibliotheca Sacra, vi, 233).
1.00 - INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
3. Essential fire, or the fire elementals who are themselves the essence of fire. They are mainly divided into two groups:
a. Fire devas or evolutionary entities.
1.00 - Main, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
object:1.00 - main
author class:Baha u llah
--
They whom God hath endued with insight will readily recognize that the precepts laid down by God constitute the highest means for the maintenance of order in the world and the security of its peoples. He that turneth away from them is accounted among the abject and foolish. We, verily, have commanded you to refuse the dictates of your evil passions and corrupt desires, and not to transgress the bounds which the Pen of the Most High hath fixed, for these are the breath of life unto all created things. The seas of Divine wisdom and Divine utterance have risen under the breath of the breeze of the All-Merciful. Hasten to drink your fill, O men of understanding! They that have violated the Covenant of God by breaking His commandments, and have turned back on their heels, these have erred grievously in the sight of God, the All-Possessing, the Most High.
O ye peoples of the world! Know assuredly that My commandments are the lamps of My loving providence among My servants, and the keys of My mercy for My creatures. Thus hath it been sent down from the heaven of the Will of your Lord, the Lord of Revelation. Were any man to taste the sweetness of the words which the lips of the All-Merciful have willed to utter, he would, though the treasures of the earth be in his possession, renounce them one and all, that he might vindicate the truth of even one of His commandments, shining above the Dayspring of His bountiful care and loving-kindness.
--
Should a woman be divorced in consequence of a proven act of infidelity, she shall receive no maintenance during her period of waiting. Thus hath the day-star of Our commandment shone forth resplendent from the firmament of justice. Truly, the Lord loveth union and harmony and abhorreth separation and divorce. Live ye one with another, O people, in radiance and joy. By My life! All that are on earth shall pass away, while good deeds alone shall endure; to the truth of My words God doth Himself bear witness. Compose your differences, O My servants; then heed ye the admonition of Our Pen of Glory and follow not the arrogant and wayward.
Take heed lest the world beguile you as it beguiled the people who went before you! Observe ye the statutes and precepts of your Lord, and walk ye in this Way which hath been laid out before you in righteousness and truth. They who eschew iniquity and error, who adhere to virtue, are, in the sight of the one true God, among the choicest of His creatures; their names are extolled by the Concourse of the realms above, and by those who dwell in this Tabernacle which hath been raised in the name of God.
1.00 - Preface, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
I am greatly indebted to Madame H. P. Blavatsky's writings, and I believe I shall not be too egotistical in claiming that a proper understanding of the principles outlined herein will reveal many points of subtlety and philosophic interest in her Secret Doctrine , and aid in the comprehension of this monumental work of hers. The same is also true of S. L. McGregor Mathers' translation of portions of the Zohar, " The Kaballah Unveiled ", and of Arthur E. Waite's excellent compendium of the Zohar, " The Secret Doctrine in Israel ", both of which are closed books, in the main, to most students of mystical lore and philosophy who do not have the specialized comparative knowledge which I have endeavoured to incorporate in this little book.
I should here call attention to a tract, the author of which is unknown, entitled The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom, of which splendid translations have been made by W. Wynn Westcott, Arthur E. Waite, and Knut Stenring. In the course of time this appears to have become incorporated into, and affiliated with, the text of the Sepher Yetsirah, although several critics place it at a later date than the genuine Mishnahs of the Sepher Yetsirah. However, in giving the titles of the Paths from this tract, I have named throughout the source as the Sepher Yetsirah to avoid unnecessary confusion. It is to be hoped that no adverse criticism will arise on this point.
1.00 - PREFACE - DESCENSUS AD INFERNOS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
flaw of socialism, and the reason for its frequent failure to attract and maintain democratic power (at least
in Britain). Orwell said, essentially, that socialists did not really like the poor. They merely hated the rich.2
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junior college, where I was introduced to the history of political philosophy. When I moved to the main
campus at the University of Alberta, however, my interest disappeared.. I was taught that people were
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fascinating, profound and necessary. I learned why people wage war why the desire to maintain, protect
and expand the do main of belief motivates even the most incomprehensible acts of group-fostered
--
the process that constructs and maintains the protective adaptive structure that gives life much of its
acceptable meaning.
1.00 - Preliminary Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
In fact, there are three main classes of stroke; the bad stroke, which we associate, and rightly, with wandering attention; the good stroke which we associate, and rightly, with fixed attention; and the perfect stroke, which we do not understand, but which is really caused by the habit of fixity of attention having become independent of the will, and thus enabled to act freely of its own accord.
This is the same phenomenon referred to above as being a good sign.
1.013 - Defence Mechanisms of the Mind, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
According to ancient systems of spiritual practice, self-control is effected by three main methods: the control of the prana, the control of the mind, and concentration of consciousness. These are the three standard methods of atma vinigrah or self-control. This is a triple method prescribed in the Yoga Vasishtha, for instance. It does not mean that each method is mutually exclusive of the other; they are connected with one another. Also, it is not possible here to say which should precede and which should succeed. Are we to control the prana first and the mind afterwards, or the mind first and the prana afterwards, or are we to practise concentration first? We cannot do all of these things in a linear fashion. They all have to be worked at simultaneously in some acceptable degree.
In the Bhagavadgita, we have a hint of the method of self control where, in a very cryptic sloka, Bhagavan Sri Krishna says that the senses are turbulent and cannot be easily controlled unless resort is taken to a higher principle than the senses themselves: indriyi paryhurindriyebhya para mana, manasastu par buddhiryo buddhe paratastu sa (B.G. III.42). This is the verse which is relevant to this subject. The senses cannot be controlled because they are driven by a force which is behind them. As long as they are driven, pushed or compelled by a power that is behind them, they will naturally act in the direction of that push. So we have to exert some kind of pressure upon the power that is driving the senses towards objects. Otherwise, it would be like ordering the servants to work in a particular way while their master is saying something else which is contrary to our advice to the servants. We have to approach the master himself so that he may not direct the servants in a wrong manner or say something undesirable to them. So there is a master behind the senses, and unless this master is approached, the senses cannot be controlled. For all immediate purposes, we can regard the mind as the master and the senses as the servants. The senses cannot be controlled if the mind is not properly tackled, because the mind is the force that urges the senses towards objects. But there is a difficulty in controlling even the mind, because the mind orders the senses to move towards objects, on account of a misconception, so unless this misconception is removed we cannot do anything with the mind.
1.016 - The Bee, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
30. And it will be said to those who maintained piety, “What has your Lord revealed?” They will say, “Goodness.” To those who do good in this world is goodness, and the Home of the Hereafter is even better. How wonderful is the residence of the pious.
31. The Gardens of Perpetuity, which they will enter, beneath which rivers flow, where they will have whatever they desire. Thus God rewards the pious.
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
or Bliss as the main elements of the manifestation. But,
relates the tradition, a crucial mistake happened which2
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the Egyptian priests carried to the islands and the mainland
of primitive Greece, together with the statues of their gods,
--
Kabbalah, developed mainly in northern Spain and south-
ern France in the 12th and 13th centuries (and which also
--
Some of the main elements of Sri Aurobindos integral
synthesis evidently stem from Vedic and Vedantic roots,
1.01 - A NOTE ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
without shifting its position, obstinately maintain-
ing, "Nothing changes. We are not moving at
--
I maintain that it is possible, by following this road, to find sub-
stantial reasons for belief in Progress.
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
though functioning without sense-organs, it maintains the bal-
ance of life and, through the mysterious paths of sympathetic
1.01 - BOOK THE FIRST, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
And Western winds immortal spring maintain'd.
In following years, the bearded corn ensu'd
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Despair of land, and drop into the main.
Now hills, and vales no more distinction know;
--
And still her vow'd virginity maintains.
Impatient of a yoke, the name of bride
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That fill'd his flood, or mingled with the main:
But Inachus, who in his cave, alone,
--
With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintain'd:
Like Phoebe clad, even Phoebe's self she seems,
1.01 - Economy, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book. In most books, the _I_, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other mens lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.
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What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men?
When a man is warmed by the several modes which I have described, what does he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous incessant and hotter fires, and the like. When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.
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I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who will mind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and perchance build more magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest, without ever impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they live,if, indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those who find their encouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition of things, and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers,and, to some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not;but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them. There are some who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.
If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would certainly astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of the enterprises which I have cherished.
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On the whole, I think that it cannot be maintained that dressing has in this or any country risen to the dignity of an art. At present men make shift to wear what they can get. Like shipwrecked sailors, they put on what they can find on the beach, and at a little distance, whether of space or time, laugh at each others masquerade. Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. We are amused at beholding the costume of Henry VIII., or Queen Elizabeth, as much as if it was that of the King and Queen of the Cannibal Islands.
All costume off a man is pitiful or grotesque. It is only the serious eye peering from and the sincere life passed within it, which restrain laughter and consecrate the costume of any people. Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic and his trappings will have to serve that mood too. When the soldier is hit by a cannon ball rags are as becoming as purple.
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It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against the future, so far as the individual is concerned, mainly to the defraying of funeral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself.
Nevertheless this points to an important distinction between the civilized man and the savage; and, no doubt, they have designs on us for our benefit, in making the life of a civilized people an
--
I hewed the main timbers six inches square, most of the studs on two sides only, and the rafters and floor timbers on one side, leaving the rest of the bark on, so that they were just as straight and much stronger than sawed ones. Each stick was carefully mortised or tenoned by its stump, for I had borrowed other tools by this time. My days in the woods were not very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of bread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapped, at noon, sitting amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to my bread was imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were covered with a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was more the friend than the foe of the pine tree, though I had cut down some of them, having become better acquainted with it. Sometimes a rambler in the wood was attracted by the sound of my axe, and we chatted pleasantly over the chips which I had made.
By the middle of April, for I made no haste in my work, but rather made the most of it, my house was framed and ready for the raising. I had already bought the shanty of James Collins, an Irishman who worked on the Fitchburg Railroad, for boards. James Collins shanty was considered an uncommonly fine one. When I called to see it he was not at home. I walked about the outside, at first unobserved from within, the window was so deep and high. It was of small dimensions, with a peaked cottage roof, and not much else to be seen, the dirt being raised five feet all around as if it were a compost heap. The roof was the soundest part, though a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun. Door-sill there was none, but a perennial passage for the hens under the door board. Mrs. C. came to the door and asked me to view it from the inside. The hens were driven in by my approach. It was dark, and had a dirt floor for the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish, only here a board and there a board which would not bear removal. She lighted a lamp to show me the inside of the roof and the walls, and also that the board floor extended under the bed, warning me not to step into the cellar, a sort of dust hole two feet deep. In her own words, they were good boards overhead, good boards all around, and a good window,of two whole squares originally, only the cat had passed out that way lately. There was a stove, a bed, and a place to sit, an infant in the house where it was born, a silk parasol, gilt-framed looking-glass, and a patent new coffee mill nailed to an oak sapling, all told. The bargain was soon concluded, for James had in the meanwhile returned. I to pay four dollars and twenty-five cents to-night, he to vacate at five to-morrow morning, selling to nobody else meanwhile: I to take possession at six. It were well, he said, to be there early, and anticipate certain indistinct but wholly unjust claims on the score of ground rent and fuel. This he assured me was the only encumbrance. At six I passed him and his family on the road. One large bundle held their all,bed, coffee-mill, looking-glass, hens,all but the cat, she took to the woods and became a wild cat, and, as I learned afterward, trod in a trap set for woodchucks, and so became a dead cat at last.
--
I intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost me no more than my present one.
I thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays annually. If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself; and my shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement.
--
As with our colleges, so with a hundred modern improvements; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from maine to Texas; but maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages; he is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild honey. I doubt if Flying Childers ever carried a peck of corn to mill.
One says to me, I wonder that you do not lay up money; you love to travel; you might take the cars and go to Fitchburg to-day and see the country. But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot. I say to my friend, Suppose we try who will get there first. The distance is thirty miles; the fare ninety cents. That is almost a days wages. I remember when wages were sixty cents a day for laborers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot, and get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week together. You will in the mean while have earned your fare, and arrive there some time to-morrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part of the day. And so, if the railroad reached round the world, I think that I should keep ahead of you; and as for seeing the country and getting experience of that kind, I should have to cut your acquaintance altogether.
--
Christianity does not. Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive. As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. I might possibly invent some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it. As for the religion and love of art of the builders, it is much the same all the world over, whether the building be an Egyptian temple or the United States Bank. It costs more than it comes to. The mainspring is vanity, assisted by the love of garlic and bread and butter. Mr.
Balcom, a promising young architect, designs it on the back of his
--
It appears from the above estimate, that my food alone cost me in money about twenty-seven cents a week. It was, for nearly two years after this, rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very little salt pork, molasses, and salt, and my drink water. It was fit that I should live on rice, mainly, who loved so well the philosophy of India.
To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done, and I trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the detriment of my domestic arrangements. But the dining out, being, as I have stated, a constant element, does not in the least affect a comparative statement like this.
--
For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living. The whole of my winters, as well as most of my summers, I had free and clear for study. I have thoroughly tried school-keeping, and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out of proportion, to my income, for I was obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time into the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure. I have tried trade; but I found that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the devil. I was actually afraid that I might by that time be doing what is called a good business. When formerly I was looking about to see what I could do for a living, some sad experience in conforming to the wishes of friends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice,for my greatest skill has been to want but little,so little capital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I contemplated this occupation as most like theirs; ranging the hills all summer to pick the berries which came in my way, and thereafter carelessly dispose of them; so, to keep the flocks of Admetus. I also dreamed that I might gather the wild herbs, or carry evergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods, even to the city, by hay-cart loads. But I have since learned that trade curses everything it handles; and though you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.
As I preferred some things to others, and especially valued my freedom, as I could fare hard and yet succeed well, I did not wish to spend my time in earning rich carpets or other fine furniture, or delicate cookery, or a house in the Grecian or the Gothic style just yet. If there are any to whom it is no interruption to acquire these things, and who know how to use them when acquired, I relinquish to them the pursuit. Some are industrious, and appear to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief; to such I have at present nothing to say. Those who would not know what to do with more leisure than they now enjoy, I might advise to work twice as hard as they do,work till they pay for themselves, and get their free papers. For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborers day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.
In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain ones self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.
One young man of my acquaintance, who has inherited some acres, told me that he thought he should live as I did, _if he had the means_. I would not have any one adopt _my_ mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue _his own_ way, and not his fathers or his mothers or his neighbors instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.
--
But all this is very selfish, I have heard some of my townsmen say. I confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises. I have made some sacrifices to a sense of duty, and among others have sacrificed this pleasure also. There are those who have used all their arts to persuade me to undertake the support of some poor family in the town; and if I had nothing to do,for the devil finds employment for the idle,I might try my hand at some such pastime as that. However, when I have thought to indulge myself in this respect, and lay their Heaven under an obligation by maintaining certain poor persons in all respects as comfortably as I maintain myself, and have even ventured so far as to make them the offer, they have one and all unhesitatingly preferred to re main poor. While my townsmen and women are devoted in so many ways to the good of their fellows, I trust that one at least may be spared to other and less humane pursuits. You must have a genius for charity as well as for any thing else. As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution. Probably I should not consciously and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do the good which society demands of me, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it. But I would not stand between any man and his genius; and to him who does this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life, I would say,
Persevere, even if the world call it doing evil, as it is most likely they will.
I am far from supposing that my case is a peculiar one; no doubt many of my readers would make a similar defence. At doing something,I will not engage that my neighbors shall pronounce it good,I do not hesitate to say that I should be a capital fellow to hire; but what that is, it is for my employer to find out. What _good_ I do, in the common sense of that word, must be aside from my main path, and for the most part wholly unintended. Men say, practically, Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought go about doing good. If I were to preach at all in this strain, I should say rather, Set about being good. As if the sun should stop when he had kindled his fires up to the splendor of a moon or a star of the sixth magnitude, and go about like a Robin
Goodfellow, peeping in at every cottage window, inspiring lunatics, and tainting meats, and making darkness visible, instead of steadily increasing his genial heat and beneficence till he is of such brightness that no mortal can look him in the face, and then, and in the mean while too, going about the world in his own orbit, doing it good, or rather, as a truer philosophy has discovered, the world going about him getting good. When Phaeton, wishing to prove his heavenly birth by his beneficence, had the suns chariot but one day, and drove out of the beaten track, he burned several blocks of houses in the lower streets of heaven, and scorched the surface of the earth, and dried up every spring, and made the great desert of Sahara, till at length Jupiter hurled him headlong to the earth with a thunderbolt, and the sun, through grief at his death, did not shine for a year.
1.01 - Foreward, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
to maintain itself in spite of the efforts of the ritualistic commentators, Yajnikas, to explain everything as myth and rite
and the division made by the Pandits distinguishing the section of works, Karmakanda, and the section of Knowledge,
--
That was the general aspect of the ancient worship in Greece, Rome, India and among other ancient peoples. But in all these countries these gods began to assume a higher, a psychological function; Pallas Athene who may have been originally a Dawn-Goddess springing in flames from the head of Zeus, the Sky-God, Dyaus of the Veda, has in classical Greece a higher function and was identified by the Romans with their Minerva, the Goddess of learning and wisdom; similarly, Saraswati, a river Goddess, becomes in India the goddess of wisdom, learning and the arts and crafts: all the Greek deities have undergone a change in this direction - Apollo, the Sun-God, has become a god of poetry and prophecy, Hephaestus the Fire-God a divine smith, god of labour. In India the process was arrested half-way, and the Vedic Gods developed their psychological functions but retained more fixedly their external character and for higher purposes gave place to a new pantheon. They had to give precedence to Puranic deities who developed out of the early company but assumed larger cosmic functions, Vishnu, Rudra, Brahma - developing from the Vedic Brihaspati, or Brahmanaspati, - Shiva, Lakshmi, Durga. Thus in India the change in the gods was less complete, the earlier deities became the inferior divinities of the Puranic pantheon and this was largely due to the survival of the Rig Veda in which their psychological and their external functions co-existed and are both given a powerful emphasis; there was no such early literary record to maintain the original features of the Gods of Greece and Rome.
This change was evidently due to a cultural development in these early peoples who became progressively more mentalised and less engrossed in the physical life as they advanced in civilisation and needed to read into their religion and their deities finer and subtler aspects which would support their more highly mentalised concepts and interests and find for them a true spiritual being or some celestial figure as their support and sanction.
--
The preoccupation of the Mystics was with self-knowledge and a profounder world-knowledge; they found out that in man there was a deeper self and inner being behind the surface of the outward physical man, which it was his highest business to discover and know. "Know thyself" was their great precept, just as in India to know the Self, the Atman became the great spiritual need, the highest thing for the human being. They found also a Truth, a Reality behind the outward aspects of the universe and to discover, follow, realise this Truth was their great aspiration. They discovered secrets and powers of Nature which were not those of the physical world but which could bring occult mastery over the physical world and physical things and to systematise this occult knowledge and power was also one of their strong preoccupations. But all this could only be safely done by a difficult and careful training, discipline, purification of the nature; it could not be done by the ordinary man. If men entered into these things without a severe test and training it would be dangerous to themselves and others; this knowledge, these powers could be misused, misinterpreted, turned from truth to falsehood, from good to evil. A strict secrecy was therefore maintained, the knowledge handed down behind a veil from master to disciple. A veil of symbols was created behind which these mysteries could shelter, formulas of speech also which could be understood by the initiated but were either not known by others or were taken by them in an outward sense which carefully covered their true meaning and secret. This was the substance of Mysticism everywhere.
It has been the tradition in India from the earliest times that the Rishis, the poet-seers of the Veda, were men of this type, men with a great spiritual and occult knowledge not shared by ordinary human beings, men who handed down this knowledge and their powers by a secret initiation to their descendants and chosen disciples. It is a gratuitous assumption to suppose that this tradition was wholly unfounded, a superstition that arose suddenly or slowly formed in a void, with nothing whatever to support it; some foundation there must have been however small or however swelled by legend and the accretions of centuries. But if it is true, then inevitably the poet-seers must have expressed something of their secret knowledge, their mystic lore in their writings and such an element must be present, however well-concealed by an occult language or behind a technique of symbols, and if it is there it must be to some extent discoverable.
1.01 - Historical Survey, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai), its main texts, to about the eighth century in the first case and the third or fourth century a.d. in the latter. Some historians claim that the
Qabalah is a derivative from Pythagorean, Gnostic, and
--
Pythagorean philosophy, and that Philolaus seems to correspond in very curious ways to Joseph ben Uziel who wrote down the Sepher Yetsirah. If the latter theory can be maintained, then we may claim for the Sepher Yetsirah a pre-Talmudic origin - probably the second century prior to the Christian era.
The Zohar, if actually the wmrk of Simeon ben Yochai, was never consigned to writing at the time but had been orally handed down by the companions of the Holy
--
Be that as it may, and ignoring the sterile aspects of con- troversy, the public appearance of the Zohar was the great landmark in the development of the Qabalah, and we to-day are able to divide its history into two main periods, pre- and post-Zoharic. While it is undeniable that there were
Jewish prophetic and mystical Schools of great proficiency and possessing much recondite knowledge in Biblical times, such as that of Samuel, the Essenes, and Philo, yet the first
--
His works deal mainly with the three methods of per- mutation of numbers, letters, and words to be described in Chapter VI.
The philosophy underwent a further elaboration and exposition in the hands of R. Isaac Nasir and Jacob ben
1.01 - Maitreya inquires of his teacher (Parashara), #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[6]: Pradhānabuddhyādisū. This predicate of the Deity distinguishes most of the Purāṇas from several of the philosophical systems, which maintain, as did the earliest Grecian systems of cosmogony, the eternal and independent existence of the first principle of things, as nature, matter, or chaos. Accordingly, the commentator notices the objection. Pradhāna being without beginning, it is said how can Viṣṇu be its parent? To which he replies, that this is not so, for in a period of worldly destruction (Pralaya), when the Creator desists from creating, nothing is generated by virtue of any other energy or parent. Or, if this be not satisfactory, then the text may be understood to imply that intellect (Buddhi) &c. are formed through the materiality of crude nature, or Pradhāna.
[7]: Viṣṇu is commonly derived in the Purāṇas from the root Vis, to enter, entering into, or pervading the universe, agreeably to the text of the Vedas, 'Having created that (world), he then afterwards enters into it;' being, as our comment observes, undistinguished by place, time, or property. According to the Mātsya P. the name alludes to his entering into the mundane egg: according to the Padma P., to his entering into or combining with Prakriti, as Puruṣa or spirit. In the Mokṣa Dharma of the Mahābhārata, s. 165, the word is derived from the root vī, signifying motion, pervasion, production, radiance; or, irregularly, from krama, to go with the particle vi, implying, variously, prefixed.
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
The capacity to maintain explicit belief in religious fact, however, has been severely undermined in
the last few centuries first in the West, and then everywhere else. A succession of great scientists and
--
so necessary, at least that they maintain their existence (and flourish, and expand their do main) even in
the presence of explicit theories that undermine their validity. That is a mystery and here is another:
1.01 - MASTER AND DISCIPLE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
M., being at leisure on Sundays, had gone with his friend Sidhu to visit several gardens at Baranagore. As they were walking in Prasanna Bannerji's garden, Sidhu said: "There is a charming place on the bank of the Ganges where a paramahamsa lives. Should you like to go there?" M. assented and they started immediately for the Dakshineswar temple garden. They arrived at the main gate at dusk and went straight to Sri Ramakrishna's room. And there they found him seated on a wooden couch, facing the east. With a smile on his face he was talking of God. The room was full of people, all seated on the floor, drinking in his words in deep silence.
M. stood there speechless and looked on. It was as if he were standing where all the holy places met and as if Sukadeva himself were speaking the word of God, or as if Sri Chaitanya were singing the name and glories of the Lord in Puri with Ramananda, Swarup, and the other devotees.
--
"Late at night the snake regained consciousness. Slowly and with great difficulty it dragged itself into its hole; its bones were broken and it could scarcely move. Many days passed. The snake became a mere skeleton covered with a skin. Now and then, at night, it would come out in search of food. For fear of the boys it would not leave its hole during the day-time. Since receiving the sacred word from the teacher, it had given up doing harm to others. It maintained its life on dirt, leaves, or the fruit that dropped from the trees.
"About a year later the brahmachari came that way again and asked after the snake.
--
M. bowed low before him and took his leave. He had gone as far as the main gate of the temple garden when he suddenly remembered something and came back to Sri Ramakrishna, who was still in the natmandir. In the dim light the Master, all alone, was pacing the hall, rejoicing in the Self as the lion lives and roams alone in the forest.
In silent wonder M. surveyed that great soul.
1.01 - Meeting the Master - Authors first meeting, December 1918, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
I had an introduction to Sj. V. V. S. Aiyar who was then staying at Pondicherry. It was in December 1918 that I reached Pondicherry. I did not stay long with Mr. Aiyar. I took up my bundle of books mainly the Arya and went to No. 41, Rue Franois Martin, the Arya office, which was also Sri Aurobindo's residence. The house looked a little queer, on the right side, as one entered, were a few plantain trees and by their side a heap of broken tiles. On the left, at the edge of the open courtyard, four doors giving entrance to four rooms were seen. The verandah outside was wide. It was about eight in the morning. The time for meeting Sri Aurobindo was fixed at three o'clock in the afternoon. I waited all the time in the house, occasionally chatting with the two inmates who were there.
Sri Aurobindo was sitting in a wooden chair behind a small table covered with an indigo-blue cloth in the verandah upstairs when I went up to meet him. I felt a spiritual light surrounding his face. His look was penetrating. He had known me by my correspondence. I reminded him about my brother having met him at Baroda; he had not forgotten him. Then I informed him that our group was now ready to start revolutionary activity. It had taken us about eleven years to get organised.
1.01 - Newtonian and Bergsonian Time, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
engineering is that its main interest is not economy of energy
but the accurate reproduction of a signal. This signal may be the
--
the main lines of the direction of development of the modern
machine, nor do they seem to have had much of an influence on
1.01 - Principles of Practical Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
suggestion, the kind of therapy whose main principle is: The individualsignifies nothing in comparison with the universal. Suggestion therapy
includes all methods that arrogate to themselves, and apply, a
--
psychoneuroses into two main groups: the one comprising collective
people with underdeveloped individuality, the other individualists with
--
the doctor. After all, the doctors main concern is the sick, not the cured.
[22]
--
Those whose main characteristic is infantile pleasure-seeking generally
have the satisfaction of incompatible desires and instincts more at heart
1.01 - Proem, #Of The Nature Of Things, #Lucretius, #Poetry
Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
And fruitful lands- for all of living things
1.01 - SAMADHI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
of knowledge can only be got, a Yogi maintains, through
another knowledge. Dead, insentient matter, never calls out
--
them. Now these later Yogis consider that there are three main
currents of this Prana in the human body. One they call Ida ,
1.01 - Tara the Divine, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
Likewise, Tara's main activity is to brush away fear
and danger.
--
protectors have as a main activity to specifically brush
away obstacles to the practice and diffusion of the
--
Tara's main aspect is that of Green Tara, peaceful, a
form with two arms, one face, and two legs. We have
seen that her main activity is to protect beings from
fear and danger.
1.01 - THAT ARE THOU, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
I am not competent, nor is this the place to discuss the doctrinal differences between Buddhism and Hinduism. Let it suffice to point out that, when he insisted that human beings are by nature non-Atman, the Buddha was evidently speaking about the personal self and not the universal Self. The Brahman controversialists, who appear in certain of the Pali scriptures, never so much as mention the Vedanta doctrine of the identity of Atman and Godhead and the non-identity of ego and Atman. What they maintain and Gautama denies is the substantial nature and eternal persistence of the individual psyche. As an unintelligent man seeks for the abode of music in the body of the lute, so does he look for a soul within the skandhas (the material and psychic aggregates, of which the individual mind-body is composed). About the existence of the Atman that is Brahman, as about most other metaphysical matters, the Buddha declines to speak, on the ground that such discussions do not tend to edification or spiritual progress among the members of a monastic order, such as he had founded. But though it has its dangers, though it may become the most absorbing, because the most serious and noblest, of distractions, metaphysical thinking is unavoidable and finally necessary. Even the Hinayanists found this, and the later Mahayanists were to develop, in connection with the practice of their religion, a splendid and imposing system of cosmological, ethical and psychological thought. This system was based upon the postulates of a strict idealism and professed to dispense with the idea of God. But moral and spiritual experience was too strong for philosophical theory, and under the inspiration of direct experience, the writers of the Mahayana sutras found themselves using all their ingenuity to explain why the Tathagata and the Bodhisattvas display an infinite charity towards beings that do not really exist. At the same time they stretched the framework of subjective idealism so as to make room for Universal Mind; qualified the idea of soullessness with the doctrine that, if purified, the individual mind can identify itself with the Universal Mind or Buddha-womb; and, while maintaining godlessness, asserted that this realizable Universal Mind is the inner consciousness of the eternal Buddha and that the Buddha-mind is associated with a great compassionate heart which desires the liberation of every sentient being and bestows divine grace on all who make a serious effort to achieve mans final end. In a word, despite their inauspicious vocabulary, the best of the Mahayana sutras contain an au thentic formulation of the Perennial Philosophya formulation which in some respects (as we shall see when we come to the section, God in the World) is more complete than any other.
In India, as in Persia, Mohammedan thought came to be enriched by the doctrine that God is immanent as well as transcendent, while to Mohammedan practice were added the moral disciplines and spiritual exercises, by means of which the soul is prepared for contemplation or the unitive knowledge of the Godhead. It is a significant historical fact that the poet-saint Kabir is claimed as a co-religionist both by Moslems and Hindus. The politics of those whose goal is beyond time are always pacific; it is the idolaters of past and future, of reactionary memory and Utopian dream, who do the persecuting and make the wars.
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It is because we dont know Who we are, because we are unaware that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, that we behave in the generally silly, the often insane, the sometimes criminal ways that are so characteristically human. We are saved, we are liberated and enlightened, by perceiving the hitherto unperceived good that is already within us, by returning to our eternal Ground and re maining where, without knowing it, we have always been. Plato speaks in the same sense when he says, in the Republic, that the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always re mains. And in the Theaetetus he makes the point, so frequently insisted upon\by those who have practised spiritual religion, that it is only by becoming Godlike that we can know Godand to become Godlike is to identify ourselves with the divine element which in fact constitutes our essential nature, but of which, in our mainly voluntary ignorance, we choose to re main unaware.
They are on the way to truth who apprehend God by means of the divine, Light by the light.
1.01 - The Cycle of Society, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The theorist, Lamprecht, basing himself on European and particularly on German history, supposed that human society progresses through certain distinct psychological stages which he terms respectively symbolic, typal and conventional, individualist and subjective. This development forms, then, a sort of psychological cycle through which a nation or a civilisation is bound to proceed. Obviously, such classifications are likely to err by rigidity and to substitute a mental straight line for the coils and zigzags of Nature. The psychology of man and his societies is too complex, too synthetical of many-sided and intermixed tendencies to satisfy any such rigorous and formal analysis. Nor does this theory of a psychological cycle tell us what is the inner meaning of its successive phases or the necessity of their succession or the term and end towards which they are driving. But still to understand natural laws whether of Mind or Matter it is necessary to analyse their working into its discoverable elements, main constituents, dominant forces, though these may not actually be found anywhere in isolation. I will leave aside the Western thinkers own dealings with his idea. The suggestive names he has offered us, if we examine their intrinsic sense and value, may yet throw some light on the thickly veiled secret of our historic evolution, and this is the line on which it would be most useful to investigate.
Undoubtedly, wherever we can seize human society in what to us seems its primitive beginnings or early stages,no matter whether the race is comparatively cultured or savage or economically advanced or backward,we do find a strongly symbolic mentality that governs or at least pervades its thought, customs and institutions. Symbolic, but of what? We find that this social stage is always religious and actively imaginative in its religion; for symbolism and a widespread imaginative or intuitive religious feeling have a natural kinship and especially in earlier or primitive formations they have gone always together. When man begins to be predominantly intellectual, sceptical, ratiocinative he is already preparing for an individualist society and the age of symbols and the age of conventions have passed or are losing their virtue. The symbol then is of something which man feels to be present behind himself and his life and his activities,the Divine, the Gods, the vast and deep unnameable, a hidden, living and mysterious nature of things. All his religious and social institutions, all the moments and phases of his life are to him symbols in which he seeks to express what he knows or guesses of the mystic influences that are behind his life and shape and govern or at the least intervene in its movements.
--
This typal stage creates the great social ideals which re main impressed upon the human mind even when the stage itself is passed. The principal active contri bution it leaves behind when it is dead is the idea of social honour; the honour of the Brahmin which resides in purity, in piety, in a high reverence for the things of the mind and spirit and a disinterested possession and exclusive pursuit of learning and knowledge; the honour of the Kshatriya which lives in courage, chivalry, strength, a certain proud self-restraint and self-mastery, nobility of character and the obligations of that nobility; the honour of the Vaishya which maintains itself by rectitude of dealing, mercantile fidelity, sound production, order, liberality and philanthropy; the honour of the Shudra which gives itself in obedience, subordination, faithful service, a disinterested attachment. But these more and more cease to have a living root in the clear psychological idea or to spring naturally out of the inner life of the man; they become a convention, though the most noble of conventions. In the end they re main more as a tradition in the thought and on the lips than a reality of the life.
For the typal passes naturally into the conventional stage. The conventional stage of human society is born when the external supports, the outward expressions of the spirit or the ideal become more important than the ideal, the body or even the clothes more important than the person. Thus in the evolution of caste, the outward supports of the ethical fourfold order,birth, economic function, religious ritual and sacrament, family custom,each began to exaggerate enormously its proportions and its importance in the scheme. At first, birth does not seem to have been of the first importance in the social order, for faculty and capacity prevailed; but afterwards, as the type fixed itself, its maintenance by education and tradition became necessary and education and tradition naturally fixed themselves in a hereditary groove. Thus the son of a Brahmin came always to be looked upon conventionally as a Brahmin; birth and profession were together the double bond of the hereditary convention at the time when it was most firm and faithful to its own character. This rigidity once established, the maintenance of the ethical type passed from the first place to a secondary or even a quite tertiary importance. Once the very basis of the system, it came now to be a not indispensable crown or pendent tassel, insisted upon indeed by the thinker and the ideal code-maker but not by the actual rule of society or its practice. Once ceasing to be indispensable, it came inevitably to be dispensed with except as an ornamental fiction. Finally, even the economic basis began to disintegrate; birth, family custom and remnants, deformations, new accretions of meaningless or fanciful religious sign and ritual, the very scarecrow and caricature of the old profound symbolism, became the riveting links of the system of caste in the iron age of the old society. In the full economic period of caste the priest and the Pundit masquerade under the name of the Brahmin, the aristocrat and feudal baron under the name of the Kshatriya, the trader and money-getter under the name of the Vaishya, the half-fed labourer and economic serf under the name of the Shudra. When the economic basis also breaks down, then the unclean and diseased decrepitude of the old system has begun; it has become a name, a shell, a sham and must either be dissolved in the crucible of an individualist period of society or else fatally affect with weakness and falsehood the system of life that clings to it. That in visible fact is the last and present state of the caste system in India.
The tendency of the conventional age of society is to fix, to arrange firmly, to formalise, to erect a system of rigid grades and hierarchies, to stereotype religion, to bind education and training to a traditional and unchangeable form, to subject thought to infallible authorities, to cast a stamp of finality on what seems to it the finished life of man. The conventional period of society has its golden age when the spirit and thought that inspired its forms are confined but yet living, not yet altogether walled in, not yet stifled to death and petrified by the growing hardness of the structure in which they are cased. That golden age is often very beautiful and attractive to the distant view of posterity by its precise order, symmetry, fine social architecture, the admirable subordination of its parts to a general and noble plan. Thus at one time the modern litterateur, artist or thinker looked back often with admiration and with something like longing to the mediaeval age of Europe; he forgot in its distant appearance of poetry, nobility, spirituality the much folly, ignorance, iniquity, cruelty and oppression of those harsh ages, the suffering and revolt that simmered below these fine surfaces, the misery and squalor that was hidden behind that splendid faade. So too the Hindu orthodox idealist looks back to a perfectly regulated society devoutly obedient to the wise yoke of the Shastra, and that is his golden age,a nobler one than the European in which the apparent gold was mostly hard burnished copper with a thin gold-leaf covering it, but still of an alloyed metal, not the true Satya Yuga. In these conventional periods of society there is much indeed that is really fine and sound and helpful to human progress, but still they are its copper age and not the true golden; they are the age when the Truth we strive to arrive at is not realised, not accomplished,4 but the exiguity of it eked out or its full appearance imitated by an artistic form, and what we have of the reality has begun to fossilise and is doomed to be lost in a hard mass of rule and order and convention.
1.01 - The Ego, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
which attaches to the ego as one of its main characteristics. Al-
though the numerous elements composing this complex factor
1.01 - The First Steps, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
The next step is Asana, posture. A series of exercises, physical and mental, is to be gone through every day, until certain higher states are reached. Therefore it is quite necessary that we should find a posture in which we can re main long. That posture which is the easiest for one should be the one chosen. For thinking, a certain posture may be very easy for one man, while to another it may be very difficult. We will find later on that during the study of these psychological matters a good deal of activity goes on in the body. Nerve currents will have to be displaced and given a new channel. New sorts of vibrations will begin, the whole constitution will be remodelled as it were. But the main part of the activity will lie along the spinal column, so that the one thing necessary for the posture is to hold the spinal column free, sitting erect, holding the three parts the chest, neck, and head in a straight line. Let the whole weight of the body be supported by the ribs, and then you have an easy natural postures with the spine straight. You will easily see that you cannot think very high thoughts with the chest in. This portion of the Yoga is a little similar to the Hatha-Yoga which deals entirely with the physical body, its aim being to make the physical body very strong. We have nothing to do with it here, because its practices are very difficult, and cannot be learned in a day, and, after all, do not lead to much spiritual growth. Many of these practices you will find in Delsarte and other teachers, such as placing the body in different postures, but the object in these is physical, not psychological. There is not one muscle in the body over which a man cannot establish a perfect control. The heart can be made to stop or go on at his bidding, and each part of the organism can be similarly controlled.
The result of this branch of Yoga is to make men live long; health is the chief idea, the one goal of the Hatha-Yogi. He is determined not to fall sick, and he never does. He lives long; a hundred years is nothing to him; he is quite young and fresh when he is 150, without one hair turned grey. But that is all. A banyan tree lives sometimes 5000 years, but it is a banyan tree and nothing more. So, if a man lives long, he is only a healthy animal. One or two ordinary lessons of the Hatha-Yogis are very useful. For instance, some of you will find it a good thing for headaches to drink cold water through the nose as soon as you get up in the morning; the whole day your brain will be nice and cool, and you will never catch cold. It is very easy to do; put your nose into the water, draw it up through the nostrils and make a pump action in the throat.
1.01 - The Four Aids, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
11:Meanwhile certain general lines have to be formed which may help to guide the thought and practice of the Sadhaka. But these must take, as much as possible, forms of general truths, general statements of principle, the most powerful broad directions of effort and development rather than a fixed system which has to be followed as a routine. All Shastra is the outcome of past experience and a help to future experience. It is an aid and a partial guide. It puts up signposts, gives the names of the main roads and the already explored directions, so that the traveller may know whither and by what paths he is proceeding.
12:The rest depends on personal effort and experience and upon the power of the Guide.
1.01 - The Highest Meaning of the Holy Truths, #The Blue Cliff Records, #Yuanwu Keqin, #Zen
roundabout way, picking out the main principles of the old
story, settling the case on the basis of the facts, and that is all.
1.01 - The King of the Wood, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
borne by Diana at Nemi points clearly to the maintenance of a
perpetual holy fire in her sanctuary. A large circular basement at
1.01 - The Rape of the Lock, #The Rape of the Lock, #unset, #Zen
Ere to the main this morning sun descend,
But Heav'n reveals not what, or how, or where:
1.01 - The Science of Living, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
may be frequent, but if a courageous will is maintained, one is sure to triumph one day and see all difficulties
melt and vanish before the radiance of the truth-consciousness.
1.01 - The Unexpected, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
The radiologist arrived with his X-ray machine at about 11 p.m. and stirred us into action. He was quite a smart young man carrying a confident air and went about his business in a formal manner. He took a few films and developed them at once which was a great relief to us. But the diagnosis came like a stunning blow. The Mother was shown the pictures revealing an impacted fracture of the right femur above the knee, two fragments firmly locked together. Both the specialist and the radiologist took a serious view of it, and remarked that if the fragments had projected backwards, the main blood vessels and nerves running behind the bone would have ruptured and caused a big disaster! It would have been most unwise in this situation to reduce the fracture by any forceful traction or other drastic mechanical contrivance. "I would leave it alone, put the limb in plaster, and by means of the splints exert a steady traction," was the final verdict of the specialist. The advice was accepted and the limb put into traction from the end of the bed. Particular attention was to be paid to the daily passive movements of the patella in order to avoid adhesion. The patient was to stay in bed for a number of weeks and the specialist would pay a second visit later on to consider the future course.
The other doctors now took their leave and Dr. Manilal resumed the charge of the patient.
--
In addition to my medical work, I had to do some intellectual work as well. Reading aloud the daily newspapers to Sri Aurobindo was one. The Hindu naturally was the paper of choice. His way of reading which I had to follow at first amused me, but I realised that most of us also read in a similar way. His remarks were quite enjoyable. He would say, "Read out the prominent headlines." As I read them aloud successively, he would ask, "Yes, what does it say? Let us hear." Or, "That doesn't matter. Anything else?" Thus in 10 or 15 minutes all the news was served out. The Editorial had an occasional interest. One other paper that caught his fancy was The Daily Mail for its Curly Wee cartoon. He kept his interest in it till the end though he found it getting stale and dry. In the evening, the Weekly New Statesman and Nation, sometimes the Manchester Guardian, used to be read by Purani; later on it came to be my job, but it stopped after a while. It was probably through these media that he maintained his contact with the details of the fast-changing movements in the political and cultural world, whose general aspects he could be inwardly aware of by his universalised yogic consciousness.
***
1.01 - What is Magick?, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
13. Every man is more or less aware that his individuality comprises several orders of existence, even when he maintains that his subtler principles are merely symptomatic of the changes in his gross vehicle. A similar order may be assumed to extend throughout nature.
(Illustration: One does not confuse the pain of toothache with the decay which causes it. Inanimate objects are sensitive to certain physical forces, such as electrical and thermal conductivity; but neither in us nor in them so far as we know is there any direct conscious perception of these forces. Imperceptible influences are therefore associated with all material phenomena; and there is no reason why we should not work upon matter through those subtle energies as we do through their material bases. In fact, we use magnetic force to move iron, and solar radiation to reproduce images.)
1.01 - Who is Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
A Buddha has two main bodies: a dharmakaya or truth body, and a
rupakaya or form body. Here, body doesnt mean physical body but a collection of qualities. The omniscient mind the fully enlightened mind that
10.23 - Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Je les remercie avec reconnaissance de tout le charme qu'ils ont su donner extrieurement notre vie; je souhaite que, s'il est dans leur destine de passer pour plus ou moins longtemps en d' autres mains que les ntres, ces mains leur soient douces et sachant tout le respect que l' on doit ce que Ton divin Amour, Seigneur, a fait surgir de l' obscure inconscience du chaos.17
It is to be noted how even a material object is taken up, purified and transformed almost into a living being by the Mother's loving touch.
--
"Ainsi tu t' es unit l' me des cerisiers et tu as pu de la sorte constater que c' est le Divin qui fait au ciel l' offrande de cette prire de fleurs." Lorsque je l'eus crit, toutseffaa; mais maintenant le sang du cerisier coule dans mes veines, et avec lui une paix et une force incomparables; quelle diffrence y a-t-il entre le corps hu main et le corps d'un arbre? Aucune vraiment, et la conscience qui les anime est bien identiquement la mme.18
Indeed the Mother's voice is the voice of all men, all creatures, all beings, all things. She stands for the entire earth, not only so, she is the Earth itself; the total terrestrial being is embodied in her, earth's aspiration, and pain and yearning find utterance in her.
--
Et I' aspiration de Ton infinitude se tourne vers Cela qui n' est point manifest, afin d'implorer toujours une plus complte et plus parfaite mainifestation. "20
Or again:
1.02.4.2 - Action and the Divine Will, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
The Life-principle maintains them; it supplies their material
in the formative energy which takes shape in them. But their
1.024 - The Light, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
60. Women past the age of childbearing, who have no desire for marriage, commit no wrong by taking off their outer clothing, provided they do not flaunt their finery. But to maintain modesty is better for them. God is Hearing and Knowing.
61. There is no blame on the blind, nor any blame on the lame, nor any blame on the sick, nor on yourselves for eating at your homes, or your fathers’ homes, or your mothers’ homes, or your brothers’ homes, or your sisters’ homes, or the homes of your paternal uncles, or the homes of your paternal aunts, or the homes of your maternal uncles, or the homes of your maternal aunts, or those whose keys you own, or the homes of your friends. You commit no wrong by eating together or separately. But when you enter any home, greet one another with a greeting from God, blessed and good. God thus explains the revelations for you, so that you may understand.
1.025 - Sadhana - Intensifying a Lighted Flame, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
It is said by anthropologists, historian's of mankind's evolution, and political historians, that a state was reached when it was felt necessary to organise people into groups, and this was the beginning of the governmental system. A government is nothing but an agreement among people in order that there may not be warfare among individuals and attacks every day. Otherwise there would be chaos and confusion, and anyone could attack at any moment, for any reason whatsoever. Therefore, an agreement was made, an organisation was set up, a rule was framed and a system was brought forth under which it was obligatory on the part of individuals to obey certain principles laid down by groups, of which some people were made leaders. It does not mean that these leaders were kings or autocrats; they were the governors of law, the dispensers of justice, and the instruments for the maintenance of order in the group of people who found it necessary to bring about this system.
Here we have a higher reality than the individual, quantitatively speaking, though qualitatively we cannot say that there was an improvement. While there is a quantitative improvement in an organisation or a set-up such as a government, in the sense that an individual is made a part of a larger body so that the egoism of the individual cannot operate as forcefully as it could have operated when it was left alone and given a long rope, a consideration for the welfare of other individuals in the system becomes obligatory on the part of every individual on account of the presence of this order and system. So far, so good. From the point of view of the quantity of the reality that has been introduced into life the mathematical measure of the order that has been set up we can say that a society is a larger reality than the individual. A nation is a larger reality than a community, and the entire set-up of mankind, the international system, may be regarded as a still larger reality than a single nation. This is a quantitative evaluation of the reality toward which the human mind seems to be aiming, for the purpose of bringing peace on earth, happiness, etc.
--
However, the point on hand is that a larger reality should also be qualitatively superior to the discrete particulars from which the mind is supposed to be withdrawn for the purpose of the practice of yoga. Though it is somewhat easy to bring about a quantitative increase in the concept of reality by methods such as the ones I just mentioned, it is a little more difficult to introduce a qualitative increase into the concept of reality. This is the main difficulty for everyone. However much we may concentrate on God, we will not be able to improve upon the human concept, even when there is a concept of God. So we feel unhappy even when we are meditating on God, because we have not improved the quality but have only increased the quantity, so that we may think of God as a large human individual a massive individual, as expansive as the universe itself, for example. That is quite wonderful, but still this human thought does not leave us.
Even when we think of the Creator as a transcendent father, the anthropomorphic idea still persists and stultifies the aim at introducing a higher quality of thought into the concept of God. That is why we are unhappy even in meditation, even in our highest spiritual exalted moods. Even when we are exalted, we are quantitatively exalted; qualitatively, we are very poor. We are unhappy in some way or the other, and no one can make us happy. A tremendous effort is necessary to introduce a superior quality in the concept of reality. The difficulty lies in the mind being the only instrument that we have for doing anything whatsoever, and who is it who will introduce a higher order of value or a greater quality into this concept, other than the mind itself? But how can we expect the mind to conceive of a higher quality of reality other than the one in which it has found itself at the present moment? How can we jump over our own skin? Is it possible? How can we expect the mind to think of a reality superior in quality to the one in which it is living at present, and with which it is identified wholly? An immediate answer to this question cannot be given. However, there is an answer.
10.26 - A True Professor, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When we speak or think of education and consider the relation of the teacher and the pupil, we generally confine ourselves to the mental do main, that is to say, aim wholly or mainly at the intellectual acquisition and attainment, and only sometimes as per necessity as it were we turn at most to the moral do main, that is to say, we look for the growth of character, of good manners and behavioursocial values as we have said. Here we have tried to bring into the educationist's view a more important, a much more important and interesting do maina new dimension of consciousness.
Wordsworth: Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.
10.28 - Love and Love, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Mother says: there is only one Love, there are not two. And it is Divine Love. The difference arises only in its expression, in its application. In its essential quality and substance it is always the same. Take for example human love; stripped of the mere human element, love re mains the same original thing. Because the old ascetic orders of spiritual discipline, in the main, considered love essentially and wholly earthy and human; they rejected this limb altogether, cut it out as undivine. But that is an error.
We do not regard love, even human love, as an error but a power, a force and energy. Love, even human love, is not to be amputated or rooted out but like gold as ore, it has to be purified. The work is hard but it is worth the trouble.
1.02.9 - Conclusion and Summary, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
who has gone abroad in the movement. He maintains Himself
free from all modifications in His inactive existence. The inaction is the basis of the action and exists in the action; it is
--
4 In the ordinary view all this would be admitted, but the practical possibility of maintaining this state of consciousness and birth in the world together would be doubted.
5 In the ordinary view the Jiva cannot exist in both at the same time; his dissolution is
1.02 - BOOK THE SECOND, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Some loosely swimming in the figur'd main,
While some on rocks their dropping hair divide,
--
The horses felt 'em loose upon their mains,
And, flying out through all the plains above,
--
No more the Rhine or Rhone their course maintain,
Nor Tiber, of his promis'd empire vain.
--
Seek out the last recesses of the main;
Beneath unfathomable depths they faint,
1.02 - Groups and Statistical Mechanics, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
analysis shows. Nevertheless, it is possible to maintain that he
did not assess them at their full philosophical value. Like his
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
In this way peace may be maintained.30
You work in an office; you are climbing the corporate ladder. Your daily activity reflects this superordinate
--
the stairwell. It is locked. You curse the maintenance staff. You are frustrated and anxious. The unknown
has emerged, once again. You try another exit. Success! The door opens. Hope springs forth from your
--
When the world re mains known and familiar that is, when our beliefs maintain their validity our
emotions re main under control. When the world suddenly transforms itself into something new, however,
--
influenced by the demands of our physical being. Our central nervous systems are made up of many hardwired or automatized subsystems, responsible for biological regulation for maintaining homeostasis of
temperature, ensuring proper caloric intake, and monitoring levels of plasma carbon dioxide (for example).
--
that keep us alive, which are singularly responsible for our maintenance, in different aspects, all have a
voice in those decisions a vote. Every part of us, kingdom that we are, depends on the healthy operation
--
suffice.91 Cognition, by contrast, allows us to construct and maintain our ordered environments, and keep
chaos and affect in check.
--
and how to act, to maintain the determinate, shared and restricted values that compose our familiar worlds.
The orienting reflex the involuntary gravitation of attention to novelty lays the groundwork for the
--
environment (on the maintenance of our cultures) as on interior processes, classically related to the
strength of the ego or the personality. Social order is a necessary precondition for psychological stability: it
--
two main theses:
The first is that in the field of play and imitation it is possible to trace the transition from sensory-motor
--
and this means that you must maintain the multiple uses and valences as possibilities (whatever that
implies). This means that you must (1) decide on one course of action, and eliminate all the rest, yet (2)
--
interplay of these personalities. This myth features four main characters, or sets of characters; Tiamat,
the feminine dragon of chaos, primordial goddess of creation (the uroboros and the Great Mother are
--
preservation, maintenance, and transmission of tradition, as well as revolution and radical update of that
tradition, when such update becomes necessary. He must in addition be able to tolerate and even benefit
--
selfsame powers) lent him power, and served to maintain social and psychological order among his people.
Furthermore, the Mesopotamian emperor stood in the same relationship to his people as Marduk stood to
--
the rituals designed to maintain that sacrality:
105
--
and schemas of interpretations useful for maintaining stability of interpersonal interaction. It is the
establishment of these rules and schemas that gives determinate meaning to human experience, by bringing
--
and existence maintains itself in endless suffering, transformation and death. Life generates and destroys
itself in a pitiless cycle, and the individual re mains constantly subject to forces beyond understanding or
--
belief in the essential goodness of things necessary to voluntary maintenance of life and culture. The
beneficial sister has in consequence acquired breadth and depth of metaphoric mythic representation
--
superordinate to all other considerations including that of the maintenance of stable belief. This is why
Christ, the defining hero of the Western ethical tradition, is able to say I am the way, the truth, and the life:
--
and maintain a society?
Procedural knowledge, generated in the course of heroic behavior, is not organized and integrated within
--
under the cumulative historical pressure produced by the necessity of maintaining intrapsychic and social
order). The more-implicit information extant in the latter case is placed there as a consequence of the
--
marriage, the desire for individual self-expression is necessarily limited by the desire for maintenance of
the intimate interpersonal relationship, and for adoption of the respectable social role that constitutes
such maintenance. The male, bachelor no more, may attempt to carry on his premarital mode of activity,
purely dependent on personal desire and whim, limited by whatever minimal necessary social obligations
--
capacity to maintain territorial position when challenged is therefore indicative of the degree to which
intrapsychic state is integrated with regards to current motivation [which means, indicative of how
--
meaning itself maintains its functional utility (including credibility). maintains its functional utility
means insofar as the culture posits a reasonable current description, a believable end goal, and a workable
--
mode of transforming the former into the latter (workable for the individual, and for the maintenance and
expansion of the culture itself).
--
as security. The wise King maintains stability, not because he is afraid of the unknown, but because nothing
new can be built without a strong foundation. He is the adaptive routines, developed by the heroes of the
--
Figure 43: Explored Territory as Tyrannical Father 357 presents the forces of tradition as sondevouring King. The conservative tendency of any culture, striving to maintain itself, can easily transform
into the deadening weight of absolute authority. The Great Father as tyrant destroys what he once was, and
1.02 - Meditating on Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
osb, an English Catholic priest who organized the John main Seminar in
which His Holiness spoke about the Gospels to Christian monastics, met in
--
order to secure a fortunate rebirth. An intermediate practitioner is determined to be free from all sufferings of cyclic existence and to attain liberation. She practices mainly the three higher trainingsethics, concentration,
and wisdomas the path to liberation. An advanced practitioner wishes all
1.02 - Meeting the Master - Authors second meeting, March 1921, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The second time I met Sri Aurobindo was in March 1921, when there was a greater familiarity. Having come for a short stay, I re mained eleven days on Sri Aurobindo's asking me to prolong my stay. During my journey from Madras to Pondicherry I was enchanted by the natural scenery the vast stretches of green paddy fields. But Pondicherry as a city was lethargic, with a colonial atmosphere an exhibition of the worst elements of European and Indian culture. The market was dirty and stinking and the people had no idea of sanitation. The sea-beach was made filthy by them. Smuggling was the main business.
But the greatest surprise of my visit in 1921 was the 'darshan' of Sri Aurobindo. During the interval of two years his body had undergone a transformation which could only be described as miraculous. In 1918 the colour of the body was like that of an ordinary Bengali rather dark though there was a lustre on the face and the gaze was penetrating. This time on going upstairs to see him (in the same house) I found his cheeks wore an apple-pink colour and the whole body glowed with a soft creamy white light. So great and unexpected was the change that I could not help exclaiming: "What has happened to you?"
--
The Prabartak Sangh was started at Chandernagore by Motilal Roy and others under the inspiration of Sri Aurobindo. In the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo life is accepted as the field for the manifestation of the Divine. Its main aim is not liberation merely but the manifestation of divine perfection. In his vision not only the individual but the collectivity also is a term of the Divine. Acceptance of life includes the collective life. There is a deeper reason for accepting life. In his vision of the Reality Sri Aurobindo shows the rationality and the inevitability of an ascent by man to a higher consciousness than Mind. This ascent to the Higher Consciousness must lead to its descent in man. If the new element, the Supermind, is to become a permanent part of the earth-consciousness, then not only should it descend into the lowest plane of physical consciousness the subconscient but it must become a part of the collective consciousness on earth.
I asked him many questions about the organisation of a collective life based on spiritual aspiration.
On the last day of my stay of eleven days I met Sri Aurobindo between three and four in the afternoon. The main topic was Sadhana.When I got up to take leave I asked him: "What are you waiting for?" I put the question because it was clear to me that he had been constantly living in the Higher Consciousness.
"It is true," he said, "that the Divine Consciousness has descended but it has not yet descended into the physical being. So long as that is not done the work cannot be said to be accomplished."
1.02 - On the Knowledge of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
At the time when the heart of man had control over all the organs and members, and they were all obedient to it, some thought that man was a dweller in his own heart. When the empyrean in like manner, ruled over all things by the will of God, they reasoned that man was seated in the empyrean. But like as man has dominion over his own heart in the administration of his kingdom, the body, God also rules over the empyrean in the administration of the affairs of created beings, which he has committed to [49] the empyrean. Thus God declares in his holy word, "He sat upon the empyrean to govern the universe." 1 You should know, also, that what we have been maintaining is convincingly established. It is known to men of penetration by revelation.
"God created man in his own image." What does this mean, and how is it known to be true ? Know, beloved, that the sovereign recognizes no other person except the sovereign himself. If the Lord had not appointed you to be sovereign over the body as over a kingdom, if he had not confided to you the affairs of its government, and had not given you this brief copy as a model, how would you have been able to comprehend the sovereign, who is independent of reasoning and of place, and who cannot be known by argument or hypothesis or in any other way? Thanks and praises be given to him who is without beginning and eternal, to him who is unceasingly beneficent, to him who made you sovereign over yourself, who subjected your body to you for a kingdom, who made your heart to be an empyreal throne, and made the animal spirit which is the fountain of the heart, to be a seraphic messenger. He appointed the brain to be the throne, and the treasury of the imagination to be the Preserved Tablet. He made the cupola of the brain, which is the source of the nerves and the mine of the faculties, to be like the vault of heaven and the stars. He appointed the fingers and the pen to serve the elemental qualities of nature, and subjected them to your order. He made you more excellent and noble than all other creatures, and to exercise rule over all possible things. He has bidden you to beware and not to be heedless of your soul, which is your kindom and dominion: for to be regardless of your soul, is to be regardless of your Creator and Benefactor.
1.02 - Priestly Kings, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
THE questions which we have set ourselves to answer are mainly two:
first, why had Diana's priest at Nemi, the King of the Wood, to slay
1.02 - Self-Consecration, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
8:The difficulty of the task has led naturally to the pursuit of easy and trenchant solutions; it has generated and fixed deeply' the tendency of religions and of schools of Yoga to separate the life of the world from the inner life. The powers of this world and their actual activities, it is felt, either do not belong to God at all or are for some obscure and puzzling cause, Maya or another, a dark contradiction of the divine Truth. And on their own opposite side the powers of the Truth and their ideal activities are seen to belong to quite another plane of consciousness than that, obscure, ignorant and perverse in its impulses and forces, on which the life of the earth is founded. There appears at once the antinomy of a bright and pure kingdom of God and a dark and impure kingdom of the devil; we feel the opposition of our crawling earthly birth and life to an exalted spiritual God-consciousness; we become readily convinced of the incompatibility of life's subjection to Maya with the soul's concentration in pure Brahman existence. The easiest way is to turn away from all that belongs to the one and to retreat by a naked and precipitous ascent into the other. Thus arises the attraction and, it would seem, the necessity of the principle of exclusive concentration which plays so prominent a part in the specialised schools of Yoga; for by that concentration we can arrive through an uncompromising renunciation of the world at an entire self-consecration to the One on whom we concentrate. It is no longer incumbent on us to compel all the lower activities to the difficult recognition of a new and higher spiritualised life and train them to be its agents or executive powers. It is enough to kill or quiet them and keep at most the few energies necessary, on one side, for the maintenance of the body and, on the other, for communion with the Divine.
9:The very aim and conception of an integral Yoga debars us from adopting this simple and strenuous high-pitched process. The hope of an integral transformation forbids us to take a short cut or to make ourselves light for the race by throwing away our impediments. For we have set out to conquer all ourselves and the world for God; we are determined to give him our becoming as well as our being and not merely to bring the pure and naked spirit as a bare offering to a remote and secret Divinity in a distant heaven or abolish all we are in a holocaust to an immobile Absolute. The Divine that we adore is not only a remote extracosmic Reality, but a half-veiled Manifestation present and near to us here in the universe. Life is the field of a divine manifestation not yet complete: here, in life, on earth, in the body, -- ihaiva, as the Upanishads insist, -- we have to unveil the Godhead; here we must make its transcendent greatness, light and sweetness real to our consciousness, here possess and, as far as may be, express it. Life then we must accept in our Yoga in order utterly to transmute it; we are forbidden to shrink from the difficulties that this acceptance may add to our struggle. Our compensation is that even if the path is more rugged, the effort more complex and bafflingly arduous, yet after a point we gain an immense advantage. For once our minds are reasonably fixed in the central vision and our wills are on the whole converted to the single pursuit. Life becomes our helper. Intent, vigilant, integrally conscious, we can take every detail of its forms and every incident of its movements as food for the sacrificial Fire within us. Victorious in the struggle, we can compel Earth herself to be an aid towards our perfection and can enrich our realisation with the booty torn from the powers that oppose us.
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20:But still the greater and wider the moving idea-force behind the consecration, the better for the seeker; his attainment is likely to be fuller and more ample. If we are to attempt an integral Yoga, it will be as well to start with an idea of the Divine that is itself integral. There should be an aspiration in the heart wide enough for a realisation without any narrow limits. Not only should we avoid a sectarian religious outlook, but also all onesided philosophical conceptions which try to shut up the Ineffable in a restricting mental formula. The dynamic conception or impelling sense with which our Yoga can best set out would be naturally the idea, the sense of a conscious all-embracing but all-exceeding Infinite. Our uplook must be to a free, all-powerful, perfect and blissful One and Oneness in which all beings move and live and through which all can meet and become one. This Eternal will be at once personal and impersonal in his self-revelation and touch upon the soul. He is personal because he is the conscious Divine, the infinite Person who casts some broken reflection of himself in the myriad divine and undivine personalities of the universe. He is impersonal because he appears to us as an infinite Existence, Consciousness and Ananda and because he is the fount, base and constituent of all existences and all energies, -the very material of our being and mind and life and body, our spirit and our matter. The thought, concentrating on him, must not merely understand in an intellectual form that he exists, or conceive of him as an abstraction, a logical necessity; it must become a seeing thought able to meet him here as the Inhabitant in all, realise him in ourselves, watch and take hold on the movement of his forces. He is the one Existence: he is the original and universal Delight that constitutes all things and exceeds them: he is the one infinite Consciousness that composes all consciousnesses and informs all their movements; he is the one illimitable Being who sustains all action and experience; his will guides the evolution of things towards their yet unrealised but inevitable aim and plenitude. To him the heart can consecrate itself, approach him as the supreme Beloved, beat and move in him as in a universal sweetness of Love and a living sea of Delight. For his is the secret Joy that supports the soul in all its experiences and maintains even the errant ego in its ordeals and struggles till all sorrow and suffering shall cease. His is the Love and the Bliss of the infinite divine Lover who is drawing all things by their own path towards his happy oneness. On him the Will can unalterably fix as the invisible Power that guides and fulfils it and as the source of its strength. In the impersonality this actuating Power is a self-illumined Force that contains all results and calmly works until it accomplishes, in the personality an all wise and omnipotent Master of the Yoga whom nothing can prevent from leading it to its goal. This is the faith with which the seeker has to begin his seeking and endeavour; for in all his effort here, but most of all in his effort towards the Unseen, mental man must perforce proceed by faith. When the realisation comes, the faith divinely fulfilled and completed will be transformed into an eternal flame of knowledge.
21: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 taught 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 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.
1.02 - SOCIAL HEREDITY AND PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
hazard light on our lives, maintaining and propagating itself by grace
of circumstances that are in themselves precarious and changeable:
1.02 - Taras Tantra, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
or khenpos direc~ly study the tantras, mainly the
Hevajra Tantra or the Zamo Nangdon (Profound Inner
--
through many channels. Taranatha, our main source
of information on the origins of the Tara Tantra,
1.02 - The 7 Habits An Overview, #The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, #Stephen Covey, #unset
A few years ago, I purchased a physical asset -- a power lawn mower. I used it over and over again without doing anything to maintain it. The mower worked well for two seasons, but then it began to break down. When I tried to revive it with service and sharpening, I discovered the engine had lost over half its original power capacity. It was essentially worthless.
Had I invested in PC -- in preserving and maintaining the asset -- I would still be enjoying its P -- the mowed lawn. As it was, I had to spend far more time and money replacing the mower than I ever would have spent, had I maintained it. It simply wasn't effective.
In our quest for short-term returns, or results, we often ruin a prized physical asset -- a car, a computer, a washer or dryer, even our body or our environment. Keeping P and PC in balance makes a tremendous difference in the effective use of physical assets.
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For example, a person in charge of a physical asset, such as a machine, may be eager to make a good impression on his superiors. Perhaps the company is in a rapid growth stage and promotions are coming fast. So he produces at optimum levels -- no downtime, no maintenance. He runs the machine day and night. The production is phenomenal, costs are down, and profits skyrocket.
Within a short time, he's promoted. Golden eggs.
But suppose you are his successor on the job. You inherit a very sick goose, a machine that, by this time, is rusted and starts to break down. You have to invest heavily in downtime and maintenance.
Costs skyrocket; profits nose-dive. And who gets blamed for the loss of golden eggs? You do. Your predecessor liquidated the asset, but the accounting system only reported unit production, costs, and profit.
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To maintain the P/PC Balance, the balance between the golden egg (Production) and the health and welfare of the goose (Production Capability) is often a difficult judgment call. But I suggest it is the very essence of effectiveness. It balances short term with long term. It balances going for the grade and paying the price to get an education. It balances the desire to have a room clean and the building of a relationship in which the child is internally committed to do it -- cheerfully, willingly, without external supervision.
It's a principle you can see validated in your own life when you burn the candle at both ends to get more golden eggs and wind up sick or exhausted, unable to produce any at all; or when you get a good night's sleep and wake up ready to produce throughout the day.
1.02 - The Child as growing being and the childs experience of encountering the teacher., #The Essentials of Education, #unset, #Zen
Consequently, we can say that if Waldorf schools educate out of spirit and soul, its not because we choose to work in an unbal- anced way with only the soul and spirit. Its because we know that this is how we physically educate the inner being in the highest sense of the word: the physical being exists within the envelope of the skin. Perhaps you recall yesterdays examples. Beginning with the model supplied by the human forces of heredity, the developing child builds a second human self, experienced in the second phase of life between the change of teeth and puberty. During the initial phase of life, we struggle to fashion a second, uninherited self out of whats present within our individuality as a result of experiences in earlier earthly lives during a purely spiritual existence between death and rebirth. During the second stage of life, between the change of teeth and puberty, the influences of the outer world likewise struggle against what our individuality wants to incorpo- rate into itself. During this second stage, external influences grow more pow- erful. The childs inner nature is streng thened, however, since at this point it no longer allows every influence in the environment to continue vibrating within the bodily organization as though it were mainly a sense organ. Sensory perception begins to be more concentrated at the surface, or periphery, of the childs constitu- tion. The senses now become more individual and autonomous, and for the first time there appears within us a way of relating to the world that isnt intellectual but rather is comparable only to an artistic view of life.
The Teacher as Artist
1.02 - The Concept of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
The main source, then, is dreams, which have the advantage of
being involuntary, spontaneous products of the unconscious
--
ideas. His delusions were mainly religious, and when he invited
me to blink into the sun like he did and waggle my head he
1.02 - The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo had his material ready. The main concepts
in which his vision was formulated filled the notebooks
1.02 - The Human Soul, #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
12.: Alas, my daughters, what loss the devil must have caused to many a soul by such thoughts as these! It thinks such ideas and many others of the same sort I could mention arise from humility. This comes from not understanding our own nature; self-knowledge becomes so warped that, unless we take our thoughts off ourselves, I am not surprised that these and many worse fears should threaten us. Therefore I maintain, my daughters, that we should fix our eyes on Christ our only good, and on His saints; there we shall learn true humility, and our minds will be ennobled, so that self-knowledge will not make us base and cowardly. Although only the first, this mansion contains great riches and such treasures that if the soul only manages to elude the reptiles dwelling here, it cannot fail to advance farther. Terrible are the wiles and stratagems the devil uses to hinder people from realizing their weakness and detecting his snares.
13.: From personal experience I could give you much information as to what happens in these first mansions. I will only say that you must not imagine there are only a few, but a number of rooms, for souls enter them by many different ways, and always with a good intention. The devil is so angry at this that he keeps legions of evil spirits hidden in each room to stop the progress of Christians, whom, being ignorant of this, he entraps in a thousand ways. He cannot so easily deceive souls which dwell nearer to the King as he can beginners still absorbed in the world, immersed in its pleasures, and eager for its honours and distinctions. As the vassals of their souls, the senses and powers bestowed on them by God, are weak, such people are easily vanquished, although desirous not to offend God.
1.02 - The Magic Circle, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
The esoteric essence of the magician's standing in the centre of the magic circle is, therefore, quite different from that which the books on evocations usually maintain. If a magician standing in the centre of the magic circle were not conscious of the fact that he is, at that moment, symbolizing God the Divine and Infinite, he would not be able to practise any influence on any being whatsoever. The magician is, at that instant, a perfect magic authority whom all powers and beings must absolutely obey. His will and the orders he gives to beings or powers are equivalent to the will and orders of the Infinite, the Divine, and must therefore be unconditionally respected by the beings and powers the magician has conjured up. If the magician, during such an operation, has not the right attitude towards his doings, he degrades himself to a sorcerer, a charlatan, who simply mimics and has no true contact with the Highest. The magician's authority would, in such a case, be rather doubtful. Moreover, he would be in danger of losing his control over such beings and powers, or, what would even be worse, he could be mocked by them, not to speak of other unwanted and unforeseen surprises and accompanying phenomena that he would be exposed, especially if negative forces were involved.
The way in which a magic circle has to be formed depends on the grade of maturity and the individual attitude of the magician.
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It is hardly necessary to mention the specimen of a magic circle, since every magician will now know from what I have said above how he has to proceed, and it is now up to him to make use of the instructions given here. Yet he must never forget the main thing,
that is the orientation he needs when working with a magic circle, for only if he has reached the necessary cosmic contact by means of meditation and imagination, i. e. the personal connection with his God, will he be qualified for entering the circle and starting work inside it.
--- Overview of noun main
The noun main has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
1. main, briny ::: (any very large body of (salt) water)
2. main ::: (a principal pipe in a system that distributes water or gas or electricity or that collects sewage)
--- Overview of adj main
The adj main has 3 senses (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (33) chief, main, primary, principal, master ::: (most important element; "the chief aim of living"; "the main doors were of solid glass"; "the principal rivers of America"; "the principal example"; "policemen were primary targets"; "the master bedroom"; "a master switch")
2. independent, main ::: ((of a clause) capable of standing syntactically alone as a complete sentence; "the main (or independent) clause in a complex sentence has at least a subject and a verb")
3. main ::: (of force; of the greatest possible intensity; "by main strength")
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun main
2 senses of main
Sense 1
main, briny
=> body of water, water
=> thing
=> physical entity
=> entity
Sense 2
main
=> pipe, pipage, piping
=> tube, tubing
=> conduit
=> passage
=> way
=> artifact, artefact
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun main
1 of 2 senses of main
Sense 2
main
=> electric main
=> gas main
=> sewer main, sewer line
=> water main
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun main
2 senses of main
Sense 1
main, briny
=> body of water, water
Sense 2
main
=> pipe, pipage, piping
--- Similarity of adj main
3 senses of main
Sense 1
chief(prenominal), main(prenominal), primary(prenominal), principal(prenominal), master(prenominal)
=> important (vs. unimportant), of import
Sense 2
independent (vs. dependent), main(prenominal)
Sense 3
main(prenominal)
=> intense (vs. mild)
--- Antonyms of adj main
3 senses of main
Sense 1
chief(prenominal), main(prenominal), primary(prenominal), principal(prenominal), master(prenominal)
INDIRECT (VIA important) -> unimportant
Sense 2
independent (vs. dependent), main(prenominal)
Sense 3
main(prenominal)
INDIRECT (VIA intense) -> mild
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun main
2 senses of main
Sense 1
main, briny
-> body of water, water
=> backwater
=> bay, embayment
=> channel
=> drink
=> estuary
=> flowage
=> ford, crossing
=> gulf
=> high sea, international waters
=> inlet, recess
=> lake
=> main, briny
=> mid-water
=> ocean
=> offing
=> polynya
=> pool, puddle
=> sea
=> seven seas
=> shoal, shallow
=> sound
=> stream, watercourse
=> territorial waters
=> waterfall, falls
=> waterway
Sense 2
main
-> pipe, pipage, piping
=> chimneypot
=> discharge pipe
=> drain, drainpipe, waste pipe
=> drilling pipe
=> elbow
=> exhaust pipe
=> fuel line, gas line, petrol line
=> main
=> manifold
=> pipeline, line
=> riser, riser pipe, riser pipeline, riser main
=> sparge pipe
=> standpipe
=> steam line, steam pipe
=> tailpipe
--- Pertainyms of adj main
3 senses of main
Sense 1
chief(prenominal), main(prenominal), primary(prenominal), principal(prenominal), master(prenominal)
Sense 2
independent (vs. dependent), main(prenominal)
Sense 3
main(prenominal)
--- Derived Forms of adj main
--- Grep of noun main
coup de main
domain
electric main
eminent domain
frankfurt on the main
gas main
knowledge domain
legerdemain
main
main-topmast
main-topsail
main clause
main course
main deck
main diagonal
main drag
main entry word
main file
main line
main office
main road
main rotor
main street
main yard
maine
maine lobster
mainer
mainframe
mainframe computer
mainland
mainland china
mainmast
mainsail
mainsheet
mainspring
mainstay
mainstream
maintainer
maintenance
maintenance man
maintenance staff
maintenon
mortmain
pearmain
potage st. germain
ptomain
public domain
riser main
sewer main
spiritual domain
water main