mental age: the level of intellectual functioning which is suitable for children of a particular age. Typically, mental age is equivalent to chronological age, but if a child is of lower/higher intelligence the mental age will be accordingly lower/higher than chronological age.
mental ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the chin; genian; as, the mental nerve; the mental region.
Of or pertaining to the mind; intellectual; as, mental faculties; mental operations, conditions, or exercise. ::: n. --> A plate or scale covering the mentum or chin of a fish or
mental bhoga — mental or subjective ānanda, or any of its forms, in the state of bhoga which is the second stage of bhukti.
mental cognition of things would see. the one Truth everj-where.
mental disorders: anxiety disorders, conduct disorder, depressive disorders,oppositional defiant disorder, pervasive development disorder or Tourette's syndrome.
mental health: a state of psychological and emotional well-being that enables an individual to work, love, relate to others effectively, and resolve conflicts.
mental intuition — intuition acting in the buddhi, in contrast to ideal intuition.
mentalism ::: The view, in philosophy of mind, that the mind and mental states exist as causally efficacious inner states of persons. The view should be distinguished from substance dualism, which is the view that the mind and the body (or brain) are two distinct kinds of things, which nevertheless interact (somehow) with one another. Although this dualistic view of the mind-body connection entails mentalism, mentalism does not entail dualism. Jerry Fodor and Noam Chomsky have been two of mentalism's most ardent recent defenders.
mentality ::: n. --> Quality or state of mind.
mentally ::: adv. --> In the mind; in thought or meditation; intellectually; in idea.
mental ::: of or relating to the mind; done in the mind, esp. In the mind alone.
mental overmind — the plane of the overmind system that is “directly creative of all the formations that manifest below in the mental world”. mental sama
mental physical ::: mechanical mind.
mental plane ::: a world of mental existence in which neither life, nor matter, but mind is the first determinant; mind there is not determined by material conditions or by the life-force, but itself determines and uses them for its own satisfaction.
mental: refers to the mind, the collective aspects of intellect and consciousness.
mental retardation: individuals who have significantly below average intellectualfunctioning, with IQ scores of 70-75 or below, combined with inability to use adaptive skills.
mental set: in Gestalt theory , the schema used to organise perception of a new problem.
mental tapas — mental will-power, whose working takes the form of “perceptions realising themselves if vijnanamaya, acting as forces, if pranamaya”; same as intellectual tapas.
mental vital ::: that part of the higher vital being which gives a mental expression by thought, speech or otherwise to the emotions, desires, passions, sensations and other movements of the vital being.
Mental Being::: The soul when it dwells in the principle of mind, not yet subject to but user of life and body, knows itself as a mental being working out its mental life and forces and images, bodies of the subtle mental substance, according to its individual knowledge, will and dynamis modified by its relation to other similar beings and powers in the universal mind.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 630
MENTAL BEING. ::: The true mental being is not the same as the inner mental ; true mental, true vital, true physical being means the Purusha of that level freed from the error and ignorant thought and will of the lower Prakriti and directly open to the knowledge and guidance above.
Mental body: The “body” in which, according to occult philosophy, the conscious personality of man lives on the mental plane of existence, after “death” on the astral plane. Marc Edmund Jones calls it “the agency by which an individual functions in transcendental realms of idea, or through self-sufficient consciousness.”
Mental call (in difficulty): there is only one way if you cannot. exert your will: it is lo call the Force; csen the call
MENTAL-CAUSAL CONSCIOUSNESS Mental-causal consciousness is the monad&
Mental Chemistry: Psychological procedure, analogous to chemical analysis and synthesis, consisting in the attempted explanation of mental states as the products of the combination and fusion of psychic elements. See Associationism. -- L.W.
Mental chemistry: Psychological procedure, analogous to chemical analysis and synthesis, consisting in the attempted explanation of mental states as the products of the combination and fusion of psychic elements.
MENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS Mental consciousness is the monad&
MENTAL CULTURE The prerequisite of the stage of intellectual culture is a rational and non-contradictory world view and life view, which is free of dogmas and has been made available for all. This presupposes a system of education that develops the power of judgement. P 1.1.13
Mental culture presupposes mental self-reliance and mental self-determination.
Intellectual independence implies the ability critically to sift the material which culture has afforded us, to judge the kind of certainty and degree of probability accruing to the ideas we find. P 1.1.15
MENTAL ENVELOPE The monad&
Mentalism: Metaphysical theory of the exclusive reality of individual minds and their subjective states.
Mentalism: Metaphysical theory of the exclusive reality of individual minds and their subjective states. The term is applied to the individualistic idealism of Berkeley and Leibniz rather than to the absolutistic Idealism of Hegel and his followers. -- L.W.
MENTALIST Man at the mental stage (the stage of humanity).
Mental: (Lat. mens, mind) Pertaining to the mind either in its functional aspect (perceiving, imagining, remembering, feeling, willing, etc.) or in its contential aspects (sense data, images and other contents existing "in" the mind). See Mind. -- L.W.
MENTAL LIBERATION FROM EMOTIONALITY During incarnation the emotional and mental envelopes coalesce so as to form, as it were, one single envelope from the functional point of view. Since the emotional is incomparably more developed, it completely dominates the mental. A prerequisite of liberating the mental from the dependence on the emotional is that the coalescence be discontinued. This also results in mental objective consciousness. The method will remain esoteric until mankind has become humanized. Until then, the lowest mental (47:7) can at best dominate the two lowest emotional ones (48:6,7) and the two lowest mental ones (47:6,7) the four lower emotional
(48:4-7). K 6.8.8
From this it follows that only 47:5, perspective thinking, can control the higher emotionality (48:2,3). This explains why the great majority of people have difficulty in discovering the untenability of fictions that appeal to wishful thinking.
MENTAL LIFE BETWEEN INCARNATIONS Upon the dissolution of the emotional envelope, the individual in his mental envelope leads a life of thought that is absolutely subjective, not suspecting the impossibility of apprehending objective reality in this world. But apprehension of reality, bliss, and perfection, omniscience and omnipotence are absolute.
The independent life of the mental envelope can vary from a minute or so (in the case of the barbarian) to thousands of years. It all depends on the number of ideas the individual has collected during physical life and how vital they are. K 1.34.32f
It is significant that it is precisely those who have had a long sojourn in the mental world in between incarnations who are easy prey to the philosophy of illusion
(which says that all matter is illusion). K 5.33.16
Mental Plane ::: Also Briah. One of the Four Worlds as part of the Kabbalistic map of reality. A realm of reality between the Astral Plane and the Causal that serves as the abode of the roots of dualistic expression and the foundation upon which individual forms and archetypes can start to be created: those seeds of intent that drive reality through the lower two worlds. See also Mental Projection.
Mental plane; mental world: The plane of existence after the astral plane; the plane where man is believed by occultists to live in the mental body after “death” on the astral plane.
Mental Projection ::: The ability to firmly focus one's awareness at the level of the Mental Plane and to slip between and amongst the forms that characterize this level. Through practice this allows for exploring the realm of symbolic archetypes and raw information to the extent that the human mind can lucidly and persistently form structures around such ideas. See also Mental Plane.
Mental retardation is a term used when a person has certain limitations in mental functioning and in skills such as communicating, taking care of him or herself, and social skills.
MENTAL SELF Monad having its most important kind of self-consciousness in molecular world 47:4-7 within the solar system. Mental selves belonging to the human kingdom are at the stage of humanity.
MENTAL STAGE The mental stage is divided into the stages of humanity and ideality (or the causal stage). The humanist activates consciousness in the four lowest mental molecular kinds (47:4-7), the idealist in all six (47:2-7). The humanist is a mental self, the idealist a causal self. K 1.34.18
Mental surrender ::: A surrender by the mind and the W’ill in the mind.
Mental tests: Measurement of independent variables in a person to specific situations controlled by the medium of the instrument, expressing measurable differences in individuals. Chief form: intelligence test. -- J.E.B.
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.
Mental visions arc meant to bring in the mind the influences of the things they represent.
Mental word: In Latin, verbum mentis; the concept; the intra-mental product of the act of intellection.
MENTAL WORLD Molecular world 47:4-7 in the solar system. The mental world can be said to be the particular world of men where consciousness is concerned.
Mental World::: the powers of Mind, its ideas and principles that influence our earth-being, are found to have in the greater Mind-world their own field of fullness of self-nature, while here in human existence they throw out only partial formations which have much difficulty in establishing themselves because of their meeting and mixture with other powers and principles; this meeting, this mixture curbs their completeness, alloys their purity, disputes and defeats their influence
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 814
KEYS (10k)
286 Sri Aurobindo
69 The Mother
11 Ken Wilber
8 Aleister Crowley
6 Peter J Carroll
5 Jean Gebser
4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
3 Sri Ramakrishna
3 Manly P Hall
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1 Robert Kegan
1 Robert Greene
1 Raymond Frank Piper
1 Plotinus
1 Paracelsus
1 Nyogen Senzaki
1 Nagarjuna
1 M P Pandit
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1 Michio Kaku
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1:We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
2:Paradox is simply the way nonduality looks to the mental level. ~ Ken Wilber, #KEYS
3:Faith that is allergic to questioning is just fundamentalist blind dogma. ~ Taigen Dan Leighton, #KEYS
4:The reaction of a mentality headed for a fall, is only too typical of man in transition. ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
5:Ego is the principal knot. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of the Mental Being, #KEYS
6:Physics is the most fundamental, and least significant, of the sciences. ~ Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology Spirituality, p.93, #KEYS
7:Such a reaction, the reaction of a mentality headed for a fall, is only too typical of man in transition. ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
8:The intuitive mentality is still mind and not gnosis. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Intuitive Mind, #KEYS
9:Mental boldness: let your mind be capable of foreseeing the perfections of tomorrow.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
10:We renounce ourselves in order to find ourselves. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Kena and Other Upanishads, The Supramental Godhead, #KEYS
11:Problems are the creations of mental ignorance seeking for knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Gnostic Being, #KEYS
12:The absolute immunity can only come with the supramental change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Illness and Health, #KEYS
13:Essential mentality is idealistic and a seeker after perfection. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Threefold Life, #KEYS
14:Existence is a fundamental unity under a superficial diversity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, The Eternal in His Universe, #KEYS
15:One step firmly taken makes easier all the others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #KEYS
16:Rely on the Mother always. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences on the Subtle Physical, Vital and Mental Planes, #KEYS
17:It is not possible really to possess what is not-self to us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Kena and Other Upanishads, The Supramental Godhead, #KEYS
18:A mental knowledge can always be blinded by the tricks of the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge, #KEYS
19:I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.
~ Isaac Newton,#KEYS
20:Karma is only a machinery, it is not the fundamental cause of terrestrial existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Rebirth, #KEYS
21:Mental prayer is nothing else but being on terms of friendship with God, frequently conversing in secret with Him. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #KEYS
22:The mind is an inveterate divider of the indivisible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Difficulties of the Mental Being, #KEYS
23:Moral evil is in reality a form of mental disease or ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Delight of Existence, The Problem, #KEYS
24:A pure intuition is a rare occurrence in our mental activity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #KEYS
25:It is only the Grace that can bring the real supramental change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Supramental Transformation, #KEYS
26:There can be no immortality of the body without supramentalisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Transformation and the Body, #KEYS
27:Purification is an essential means towards self-perfection. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of the Mental Being, #KEYS
28:Three fundamental aspects of the Divine - the Individual or Immanent, the Cosmic and the Transcendent
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
29:Desire is the root of all sorrow, disappointment, affliction. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #KEYS
30:Purification is not complete till it brings about liberation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of the Mental Being, #KEYS
31:Things in their fundamental nature can neither be named nor explained. They cannot be expressed adequately in any form of language. ~ Aswaghosha, #KEYS
32:To get rid of mortal body is not to get rid of mortal mind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Difficulties of the Mental Being, #KEYS
33:We must never forget that our goal is to manifest the Supramental Reality. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 25 May, [T5],#KEYS
34:All philosophies are mental fabrications. There has never been a single doctrine by which one could enter the true essence of things. ~ Nagarjuna, #KEYS
35:Can You now say with certainty whether this supramental substance will help decisively to realise this new birth?
EVIDENTLY.
~ The Mother,#KEYS
36:All the physical senses have their corresponding powers in the psychical being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Sense, #KEYS
37:A mental control can only be a control, not a cure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #KEYS
38:All consciousness is one, but in action it takes on many movements. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Thought and Knowledge, #KEYS
39:Mental knowledge is not an integral but always a partial knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Thought and Knowledge, #KEYS
40:Mental man has not been Nature’s last effort or highest reach. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Evolutionary Process - Ascent and Integration, #KEYS
41:Limitation by ignorance and error is the fundamental defect of an untransformed mind, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, The Divine Body, #KEYS
42:Mental knowledge cannot replace faith; so long as there is only mental knowledge, faith is still needed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith, #KEYS
43:Mental realisation is useful at the beginning and prepares spiritual experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences and Realisations, #KEYS
44:The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power. ~ Nikola Tesla, #KEYS
45:Accommodation of mental structures to reality implies the existence of assimilatory schemata apart from which any structure would be impossible. ~ Jean Piaget, #KEYS
46:Man is a spirit, but a spirit that lives as a mental being in physical Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ladder of Self-Transcendence, #KEYS
47:Mental knowledge is not true knowledge; true knowledge is that which is based on the true sight. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, Conclusion and Summary, #KEYS
48:Personality is a composition of Nature,—but a mental Person, manomaya puruṣa. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of the Mental Being, #KEYS
49:In a supramentalised body immunity from illness would be automatic, inherent in its new nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Illness and Health, #KEYS
50:Supra-Material
The supramental principle is secretly lodged in all existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ladder of Self-Transcendence,#KEYS
51:Always the effect of the supramental growth is to universalise the individual consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Sense, #KEYS
52:It does not help for spiritual knowledge to be ignorant of the things of this world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Mental Development and Sadhana, #KEYS
53:The mind does not record things as they are, but as they appear to it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Mental Difficulties and the Need of Quietude, #KEYS
54:What counts now are the value-less facts, the material and the rational. All else is regarded with condescension as being of only sentimental value. ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
55:Even when it is widest and most complete, mental knowing is still an indirect knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Nature of the Supermind, #KEYS
56:The centre of mental thinking is the ego, the person of the individual thinker. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Thought and Knowledge, #KEYS
57:the mental psychic :::
...Thus the veiled psychic urge may express itself in the mind by a hunger in the thought for the knowledge of the Divine... ~ Sri Aurobindo,#KEYS
58:The supra-material is as much a reality as the existence of mental beings in the material universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga: The Planes of Our Existence, #KEYS
59:The root of desire is the vital craving to seize upon that which we feel we have not. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #KEYS
60:The supramental descent is necessary for a dynamic action of the Truth in mind, vital and body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Transformation and the Body, #KEYS
61:The psychic change is indeed the indispensable preliminary of any approach to the supramental path ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Difficulties of Yoga, #KEYS
62:Out of all masquerade of phenomenon and becoming the Real Being must eventually deliver itself. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Kena and Other Upanishads, The Supramental Godhead, #KEYS
63:Even imagined experiences (honestly imagined) can help to mental realisation and mental realisation can be a step to total realisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, #KEYS
64:Mental life is not a finished evolution of Nature; it is not yet firmly founded in the human animal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Three Steps of Nature, #KEYS
65:Mental perfection and moral are always closely allied to each other. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest, To N. K. Gogte, #KEYS
66:Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. ~ Erwin Schrodinger, #KEYS
67:The supramental influence must come first, the supramental transformation can only come afterwards. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Supramental Transformation, #KEYS
68:In spiritual matters mental logic easily blunders; intuition, faith, a plastic spiritual reason are here the only guides. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Guru, #KEYS
69:Owing to an increased technologization and a false application of time to technology, the deficient mental structure—rational consciousness—will dig its own grave. ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
70:The Beyond is not an annullation, but a transfiguration of all that we are here in our world of forms. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Kena and Other Upanishads, The Supramental Godhead, #KEYS
71:Supermind carries in it the unity, but also the largeness and multiplicities of the infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Thought and Knowledge, #KEYS
72:Purification, liberation, perfection, delight of being are four constituent elements of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of the Mental Being, #KEYS
73:The mind is really a reflector and a medium and none of its activities originate in themselves, ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Difficulties of the Mental Being, #KEYS
74:Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother - On spirit possession and mental imbalances
~ ?, https://auromere.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/on-spirit-possession-and-mental-imbalances/,#KEYS
75:Man, the mental being, has an imperfect life because mind is not the first and highest power of consciousness of the Being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #KEYS
76:Mind is the dubious outer penumbra of a conscious existence which is not limited by mentality but exceeds it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, #KEYS
77:A higher instrumental dynamis than mind is needed to transform totally a nature created by the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Evolution of the Spiritual Man, #KEYS
78:Our imperfect mental instrumentation is not the last word of our possibilities. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge, #KEYS
79:Yoga is a generic name for any discipline by which one attempts to pass out of the limits of one's ordinary mental consciousness into a greater spiritual consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
80:Even the highest spiritual realisation on the plane of mentality has in it something top-heavy, one-sided and exclusive. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Gnosis and Ananda, #KEYS
81:The liberation from an externalised ego sense is the first step towards the soul’s freedom and mastery. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Perfection of the Mental Being, #KEYS
82:A new kind of poetry demands a new mentality in the recipient as well as in the writer. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Poetry and Art, General Comments on some Criticisms of the Poem, #KEYS
83:The fundamental is not the final, the pratistha is not the consummation but only the means to the consummation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #KEYS
84:A strange pell-mell of magic artisans,
Was seen moulding the plastic clay of life,
An elfin brood, an elemental kind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Godheads of the Little Life,#KEYS
85:Study is of importance only if you study in the right way and with the turn for knowledge and mental discipline. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Place of Study in Sadhana, #KEYS
86:Man is not and cannot be wholly governed either in his thought or his action by the reason alone. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Instruments - Thought-Process, #KEYS
87:A complete self-knowledge in all things and at all moments is the gift of the supramental gnosis and with it a complete self-mastery. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Gnostic Being, #KEYS
88:All philosophy is concerned with the relations between two things, the fundamental truth of existence and the forms in which existence presents itself to our experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
89:Not mental control but some descent of a control from above the mind is the power demanded in the realisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Vital and Other Levels of Being, #KEYS
90:The future like the past presents itself to knowledge in the supermind as a memory of the preknown. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Instruments - Thought-Process, #KEYS
91:To seek for delight is therefore the fundamental impulse and sense of Life; to find and possess and fulfil it is its whole motive. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Double Soul in Man, #KEYS
92:Intense, one-pointed, monumental, lone,
Patient he sat like an incarnate hope
Motionless on a pedestal of prayer. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The House of the Spirit and the New Creation,#KEYS
93:The fundamental truth of Being must necessarily be the fundamental truth of Becoming. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence, #KEYS
94:All intuitive knowledge comes more or less directly from the light of the self-aware spirit entering into the mind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Towards the Supramental Time Vision, #KEYS
95:By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race.
~ Alfred North Whitehead,#KEYS
96:Hunger in the vital parts becomes craving of Desire in the mentalised life, straining of Will in the intellectual or thinking life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Death, Desire and Incapacity, #KEYS
97:The difference between suppression and an inward essential rejection is the difference between mental or moral control and a spiritual purification. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire, #KEYS
98:Until we know the Truth (not mentally but by experience, by change of consciousness) we need the soul’s faith to sustain us and hold on to the Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith, #KEYS
99:All harmony proceeds upon seen or given lines and carries with it a constant pulsation and rhythmic recurrence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Instruments - Thought-Process, #KEYS
100:How to remember the Mother during work?
One starts by a mental effort - afterwards it is an inner consciousness that is formed... it is always conscious of her.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Correspondences, 17,#KEYS
101:It is not by mental activity that you can quiet your miind, it is from a higher or deeper level that you can receive the help you need. And both can be reached in silence only.
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
102:Our readiest and strongest mental motives and psychological needs are those which grow out of our vital necessities and instincts. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, Internationalism and Human Unity, #KEYS
103:A free equality founded upon spontaneous cooperation, not on governmental force and social compulsion, is the highest anarchistic ideal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The End of the Curve of Reason, #KEYS
104:The godhead of the reason, the intellectual Logos, is only a partial representative and substitute for the greater supramental Logos. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Nature of the Supermind, #KEYS
105:There is an internal freedom permitted to every mental being called man to assent or not to assent to the Divine leading. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother with Letters on The Mother, Surrender to the Mother, #KEYS
106:When by a constant practice a man is capable of effecting mental concentration, then wherever he may be, his mind will always lift itself above his surroundings and will repose in the Eternal. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
107:We must never forget that we are here to serve the Supramental Truth and Light and to prepare its manifestation in ourselves and upon the earth. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, Aug 13th,#KEYS
108:Neither the mental effort nor the spiritual impulse can suffice, divorced from each other, to overcome the immense resistance of material Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Threefold Life, #KEYS
109:One has to keep a certain balance by which the fundamental consciousness remains able to turn from one concentration to another with ease. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Becoming Conscious in Work, #KEYS
110:The words supermind and supramental were first used by me, but since then people have taken up and are using the word supramental for anything above mind.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Himself And The Ashram, 142,#KEYS
111:One who wants his Yoga to be a path of peace or joy, must be prepared to dwell in his soul rather than in his outer mental and emotional nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being, #KEYS
112:A vacant Absolute is no Absolute,—our conception of a Void or Zero is only a conceptual sign of our mental inability to know or grasp it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Reality and the Integral Knowledge, #KEYS
113:The manifestation of a supramental truth-consciousness is therefore the capital reality that will make the divine life possible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Supermind and the Life Divine, #KEYS
114:We must not only have the possession of a pure self-existence independent of the world-play, but possess all existence as our ow. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Difficulties of the Mental Being, #KEYS
115:The mind is the ignorance attempting to know or it is the ignorance receiving a derivative knowledge: it is the action of Avidya. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Thought and Knowledge, #KEYS
116:All would change if man could once consent to be spiritualised; but his nature mental and vital and physical is rebellious to the higher law. He loves his imperfections. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #KEYS
117:All here in the mental is a growing light, consciousness and life; all there in the supramental is an infinite life, light and consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Kena and Other Upanishads, The Supramental Godhead, #KEYS
118:On the physical plane the Divine expresses himself through beauty, on the mental plane through knowledge, on the vital plane through power and on the psychic plane through love.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
119:Even in the most purely mental activities the fitness, readiness or perfect training of the bodily instrument is a condition indispensable. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Perfection of the Body, #KEYS
120:Experience shows that, in proportion as we deliver ourselves from the limiting mental and vital ego, we command a wider life, a larger existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
121:In order to be unattached one must be unattached everywhere, in the mental, vital, physical action and not only in the silent soul somewhere inside. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Sankhya-Yoga System, #KEYS
122:All sounds become to the supramentalised ear the voice of the Divine, himself born into sound, and a rhythm of the concord of the universal symphony. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Sense, #KEYS
123:Mental nature and mental thought are based on a consciousness of the finite; supramental nature is in its very grain a consciousness and power of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Gnostic Being, #KEYS
124:There is a fundamental psychic feeling which is the same for all; but there can also be a special psychic feeling for one or another. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life, #KEYS
125:Enlightened individual power: limited in its action but of a very high capacity.
*
Mentalised power: power becomes utilisable.
*
Dynamic power: indispensable for progress. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
126:On a certain level all knowledge presents itself as a remembering, because all is latent or inherent in the self of supermind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Instruments - Thought-Process, #KEYS
127:Perfection is the true aim of all culture, the spiritual and psychic, the mental, the vital and it must be the aim of our physical culture also. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Perfection of the Body, #KEYS
128:The higher mentality cannot be complete or secure so long as the inferior intelligence is able to deform it or even to bring in any of its own intermixture. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Intuitive Mind, #KEYS
129:When you feel something within watching all the mental activities but separate from them, just as you can watch things going on outside in the street, then that is the separation of Purusha from mental Prakriti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
130:You should not rely on anything else alone, however helpful it may seem, but chiefly, primarily, fundamentally on the Mother’s Force. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother with Letters on The Mother, Reliance on the Mother’s Force, #KEYS
131:The soul is not bound by the formula of mental humanity: it did not begin with that and will not end with it; it had a prehuman past, it has a superhuman future. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Philosophy of Rebirth, #KEYS
132:It is not true that physical work is of an inferior value to mental culture, it is the arrogance of the intellect that makes the claim. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Hostile Forces and the Difficulties of Yoga, #KEYS
133:For the most part our psychological account of others is only an account of the psychological impressions of them they produce in our own mentality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, The Movement of Modern Literature - II, #KEYS
134:We have in all functionings of the mentality four elements, the object of mental consciousness, the act of mental consciousness, the occasion and the subject.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Memory, Ego and Self-Experience, 532,#KEYS
135:Even with skills that are primarily mental, such as computer programming or speaking a foreign language, it remains the case that we learn best through practice and repetition-the natural learning process.
~ Robert Greene, Mastery,#KEYS
136:Nature moves forward always in the midst of all stumblings and secures her aims in the end more often in spite of man’s imperfect mentality than by its means. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Inadequacy of the State Idea, #KEYS
137:It is fundamentally true for most people that the pleasure of life, of existence in itself, predominates over the troubles of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I: Sachchidananda, Existence, Consciousness-Force and Bliss, #KEYS
138:Never underestimate the importance of keeping your vows. Just how a castle will protect the king from being attacked by the enemy, the vows will protect your mind from being attacked by your mental afflictions. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche, #KEYS
139:The knowledge of the Self includes also the knowledge of the principles of Being, its fundamental modes and its relations with the principles of the phenomenal universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Modes of the Self, #KEYS
140:Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
141:Man is obliged by a Power within him to be the labourer of a more or less conscious self-evolution that shall lead him to self-mastery and self-knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Thought and Knowledge, #KEYS
142:Realize that your world is only a reflection of yourself and stop finding fault with the reflection. Attend to yourself, set yourself right; mentally and emotionally. The physical self will follow automatically.
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,#KEYS
143:The pleasant is not always the right thing, the object to be preferred and selected, nor the unpleasant the wrong thing, the object to be shunned and rejected. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Purification - The Lower Mentality, #KEYS
144:What exactly should I do to accelerate the sadhana?
Wait quietly for the exact indication; all mental intervention and decisions are arbitrary. The clear indication comes in the silence of the mind.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
145:Classification, broadly defined, is the act of organizing the universe of knowledge into some systematic order. It has been considered the most fundamental activity of the human mind.
~ LOIS MAI CHAN, CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION: AN INTRODUCTION,#KEYS
146:Mental activity in the daytime creates a latent form of habitual thought which again transforms itself at night into various delusory visions sensed by the semi-consciousness. This is called the deceptive and magic-like Bardo of Dream. ~ Jetsun Milarepa, #KEYS
147:The reader must be reminded that it takes a good 'mind' to be 'insane'. Morons, imbeciles, and idiots are 'mentally' deficient, but could not be insane. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, #KEYS
148:Realised mental being and realised spiritual being are really two different planes in the arrangement of our existence, the one superior and divine, the other inferior and human. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Difficulties of the Mental Being, #KEYS
149:The mind of ignorance relies on a certain foundation or element of relative or moral certainties, but for the rest a dealing with probabilities and possibilities is its chief resource. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Towards the Supramental Time Vision, #KEYS
150:Magnitude: A mathematical notation indicating the number of times a quantity is multiplied by itself; Electricity supply; Possession of controlling influence; Possession of the qualities (especially mental qualities) required to do something or get something done ~ Def, #KEYS
151:The mind and intellect must develop to their fullness so that the spirituality of the race may rise securely upward upon a broad basis of the developed lower nature in man, the intelligent mental being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Infrarational Age of the Cycle, #KEYS
152:Beyond mind is a supramental or gnostic power of consciousness that is in eternal possession of Truth; all its motion and feeling and sense and outcome are instinct and luminous with the inmost reality of things and express nothing else.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human,#KEYS
153:We call it the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness, because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 153,#KEYS
154:Once again, it must be reiterated that beliefs and practices that developed in response to earlier, and presumably different, environmental pressures tend to persist, and the result may come to be far less than efficient utilization of an environment ~ Don Edward Beck, Spiral Dynamics, #KEYS
155:For who could be taught the knowledge of experience from paper? Since paper has the property to produce lazy and sleepy people, who are haughty and learn to persuade themselves and to fly without wings. . . . Therefore the most fundamental thing is to hasten to experience. ~ Paracelsus, #KEYS
156:The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions, and to all people, experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself. ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, #KEYS
157:It is for this meaningful development of consciousness by thought, will, emotion, desire, action and experience, leading in the end to a supreme divine self-discovery, that Man, the mental being, has entered into the material body.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Surrender in Works,#KEYS
158:As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
~ Henry David Thoreau,#KEYS
159:It is always the originating supermind that contains within itself the true values, significances and relations of the other parts of our being and its unfolding is the condition of the integral possession of our self and nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Sense, #KEYS
160:Programming, it turns out, is hard. The fundamental rules are typically simple and cleaR But programs built on top of these rules tend to become complex enough to introduce their own rules and complexity. You're building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it.
~ Marijn Haverbeke,#KEYS
161:Mother, Your Voice said to me, 'The Supermind is coming down in you.' Mother, is it a false voice? Because I know that I am not at all ready for the Supermind.
It is only in mental silence that you can hear the voice without distorting it - be very peaceful.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
162:No one can understand by his personal mental judgment the Mother’s actions and reasons for action; it can only be understood by entering into the larger consciousness from which she sees things and acts upon them. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Himself and the Ashram, General Rules and Individual Natures, #KEYS
163:What we are you cannot realise and it is a waste of time to try and do so but you can imagine (italics mine) us on the astral plane and we can contact you through your imagination, and though your mental picture is not real or actual, the results of it are real and actual.
~ Dion Fortune, The Cosmic Doctrine,#KEYS
164:Men have such a good opinion of themselves, of their mental superiority and intellectual depth; they believe themselves so skilled in discerning the true from the false, the path of safety from those of error, that they should be forbidden as much as possible the perusal of philosophic writings. ~ Imam al-Ghazali, #KEYS
165:The power of Love supramentalised can take hold of all living relations without hestitation or danger and turn them Godwards delivered from their crude, mixed and petty human settings and sublimated into the happy material of a divine life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 169, #KEYS
166:The world is not prepared yet to understand the philosophy of Occult Sciences - let them assure themselves first of all that there are beings in an invisible world, whether 'Spirits' of the dead or Elementals; and that there are hidden powers in man, which are capable of making a God of him on earth. ~ H P Blavatsky, #KEYS
167:The world is not prepared yet to understand the philosophy of Occult Sciences - let them assure themselves first of all that there are beings in an invisible world, whether 'Spirits' of the dead or Elementals; and that there are hidden powers in man, which are capable of making a God of him on earth. ~ H P Blavatsky, #KEYS
168:Till Nature is ready, the supramental Force has to act indirectly; it puts the intermediary powers of overmind or intuition in front, or it works through a modification of itself to which the already half-transformed being can be wholly or partially respo ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Ascent towards Supermind, #KEYS
169:To want to be a superman is a mistake, it only swells the ego. One can aspire for the Divine to bring about the supramental transformation, but that also should not be done till the being has become psychic and spiritualised by the descent of the Mother's peace, force, light and purity.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
170:In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
171:a sign of progress :::
We may even come to feel that the body is in a certain sense non-existent except as a sort of partial expression of our vital force and of our mentality. These experiences are signs that the mind is coming to a right poise regarding the body...
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, 345,#KEYS
172:I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace. ~ Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha, #KEYS
173:When one devotes oneself to meditation, mental burdens, unnecessary worries, and wandering thoughts drop off one by one; life seems to run smoothly and pleasantly. A student may now depend on intuition to make decisions. As one acts on intuition, second thought, with its dualism, doubt and hesitation, does not arise. ~ Nyogen Senzaki, #KEYS
174:In the Upanishad the sun is the symbol of the supramental Truth and it is said that those who pass into it may return but those who pass through the gates of the Sun itself do not; possibly this means that an ascent into the supermind itself above the golden lid of overmind was the definitive liberation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, #KEYS
175:Now intelligence seemed quantifiable. You could measure someone's actual or potential height, and now, it seemed, you could also measure someone's actual or potential intelligence. We had one dimension of mental ability along which we could array everyone... The whole concept has to be challenged; in fact, it has to be replaced. ~ Howard Gardner, #KEYS
176:The descent of the supramental is an inevitable necessity in the logic of things and is therefore sure. It is because people do not understand what the Supermind is or realise the significance of the emergence of consciousness in a world of inconscient matter that they are unable to realise this inevitability.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,#KEYS
177: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. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga,#KEYS
178:It may be necessary to regain one's original sexuality from the mass of fantasy and association into which it mostly sinks. This is achieved by judicious use of abstention and by arousing lust without any form of mental prop or fantasy. This exercise is also therapeutic. Be ye ever virgin unto Kia.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, Liber LUX, Gnosis [33],#KEYS
179:There is more spirituality in reason's denial of God than there is in myth's affirmation of God, precisely because there is more depth... even an "atheist" acting from rational-universal compassion is more spiritual than a fundamentalist acting to convert the universe in the name of a mythic-membership god. ~ Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology Spirituality, p. 250, #KEYS
180:A magical diary is the magicians most essential and powerful tool. It should be large enough to allow a full page for each day. Students should record the time, duration and degree of success of any practice undertaken. They should make notes about environmental factors conducive (or otherwise) to the work.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, Liber MMM [13],#KEYS
181:I would take it for granted that everyone who becomes a Christian would undertake [our New Testament regimental orders]. It is enjoined upon us by Our Lord; and since they are his commands, I believe in following them. It is always just possible that Jesus Christ meant what he said when He told us to seek the secret place and to close the door. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
182:Darken your room, shut the door, empty your mind. Yet you are still in great company - the Numen and your Genius with all their media, and your host of elementals and ghosts of your dead loves - are there! They need no light by which to see, no words to speak, no motive to enact except through your own purely formed desire. ~ Austin Osman Spare, The Logomachy of Zos, #KEYS
183:It can be said that all discipline whatsoever, if it is followed strictly, sincerely, deliberately, is of considerable help, for it makes the earthly life reach its goal more rapidly and prepares it to receive the new life. To discipline oneself is to hasten the arrival of this new life and the contact with the supramental reality. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, #KEYS
184:To be born as a human being is a rare thing, something to be grateful foR But being born as a human being is worthless if you spend your whole life in a mental hospital. It is worthless if you worry about not having money. It is worthless if you become neurotic because you cannot get a prestigious job. It is worthless if you weep because you lose your girlfriend. ~ Kodo Sawaki, #KEYS
185:tapasya :::
Tapasya: a discipline aiming at the realisation of the Divine.
Mental tapasya: the process leading to the goal.
Vital tapasya: the vital undergoes a rigorous discipline in order to transform itself.
Integral tapasya: the whole being lives only to know and serve the Divine.
Perfect tapasya: that which will reach its goal. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
186:Dick Feynman was a genius of visualization (he was also no slouch with equations): he made a mental picture of anything he was working on. While others were writing blackboard-filling formulas to express the laws of elementary particles, he would just draw a picture and figure out the answer. ~ Leonard Susskind, The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design, #KEYS
187:Mother, sometimes when I use my mental will to become aware of Your universal presence and to link myself with You, I feel the peace and assurance of Your touch. Mother, is it true or is it my mental construction?
In this case, it is of no importance, because there are mental constructions which can be true and which lead safely to the experience.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
188:We cannot counteract the harm done by mental faith in the need for drugs by any external measures. Only by escaping from the mental prison and emerging consciously into the light of the spirit, by a conscious union with the Divine, can we enable Him to give back to us the balance and health we have lost.The supramental transformation is the only true remedy.
~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,#KEYS
189:conditions of the psychic opening :::
The realisation of the psychic being, its awakening and the bringing of it in front depend mainly on the extent to which one can develop a personal relation with the Divine, a relation of Bhakti, love, reliance, self-giving, rejection of the insistences of the separating and self-asserting mental, vital and physical ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
190:The Isha Upanishad also speaks of the golden lid hiding the face of the Truth by removing which the Law of the Truth is seen and the highest knowledge in which the One Purusha is known (so'ham asmi) is described as the kalyan.atama form of the Sun. All this seems to refer to the supramental states of which the Sun is the symbol.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, Integral Yoga and Other Paths -IV,#KEYS
191:Our object is to change into the divine nature, but the divine nature is not a mental or moral but a spiritual condition, difficult to achieve, difficult even to conceive by our intelligence. The Master of our work and our Yoga knows the thing to be done, and we must allow him to do it in us by his own means and in his own manner.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Master of the Work, 247 [T6],#KEYS
192:But Indra does not turn back from the quest like Agni and Vayu; he pursues his way through the highest ether of the pure mentality and there he approaches the Woman, the manyshining, Uma Haimavati; from her he learns that this Daemon is the Brahman by whom alone the gods of mind and life and body conquer and affirm themselves, and in whom alone they are great. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Kena And Other Upanishads, 83, #KEYS
193:Addicts of drunkenness or other habit-forming vices cannot possibly hope to be students of concentration for the simple reason that their real will-power is too close to zero. If they cannot stop their bad habits, which they know perfectly well are harmful for them, where then would they find enough inner strength to overcome their mental apathy and laziness? ~ Mouni Sadhu, Concentration, Obstacles and Aids, #KEYS
194:These ideas have to be understood in studying dhyana, or meditation. We hear a sound. First there is the external vibration; second, the nerve motion that carries it to the mind; third, the reaction from the mind, along with which flashes the knowledgeof the object which was the external cause of these different changes, from the ethereal vibrations to the mental reaction.
~ Swami Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga, 84,#KEYS
195:"The born lover... has a certain memory of beauty but severed from it now, he longer comprehends it; spellbound by visible loveliness he clings amazed about that. His lesson must be to fall down no longer in bewildered delight before some, one embodied form, he must be led under a system of mental discipline, to beauty everywhere and made to discern the One Principle underlying all."
~ Plotinus, 1st Ennead, 3 tractate,#KEYS
196:God is, but man's conceptions of God are reflections in his own mentality, sometimes of the Divine, sometimes of other Beings and powers and they are what his mentality can make of the suggestions that come to him, generally very partial and imperfect so long as they are still mental, so long as he has not arrived at a higher and truer, a spiritual or mystic knowledge..
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, [T9],#KEYS
197:X who has been studying astrology has prepared my horoscope. I send it to you to see. Do you think the indications he has given in it for my future have any value?
The horoscope is sufficiently vague and favourable to be taken in consideration as the base of a mental conception for your future. The most important factor in a horoscope is the intuitive faculty of the astrologer.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
198:An ocean of electric Energy
Formlessly formed its strange wave-particles
Constructing by their dance this solid scheme, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Godheads of the Little Life
Wave-particles
The dictum that each has his own way is not true; each has his own way of following the common way and the \“own way\” may often be very defective. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Mental Development and Sadhana,#KEYS
199:...the conception of a Truth-consciousness supramental and divine, the invocation of the gods as powers of the Truth to raise man out of the falsehoods of the mortal mind, the attainment in and by this Truth of an immortal state of perfect good and felicity and the inner sacrifice and offering of what one has and is by the mortal to the Immortal as the means of the divine consummation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Secret Of The Veda, [68],#KEYS
200:To be in full union with the Divine is the final aim. When one has some kind of constant union, one can be called a yogi, but the union has to be made complete. There are yogis who have only the union on the spiritual plane, others who are united in mind and heart, others in the vital also. In our yoga our aim is to be united too in the physical consciousness and on the supramental plane.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T2],#KEYS
201:Is this not the first time that the Supramental has come down upon earth?
It is certainly the first time that the Supramental has come down as a general force of transformation for the whole earth. It is a new starting-point in the terrestrial creation. But it may be that once before the supramental force has manifested partially and momentarily in an individual as a promise and an example.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
202:In the growth into a divine life the spirit must be our first preoccupation; until we have revealed and evolved it in our self out of its mental, vital, physical wrappings and disguises, extricated it with patience from our own body, as the Upanishad puts it, until we have built up in ourselves an inner life of the spirit, it is obvious that no outer divine living can become possible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.28 - The Divine Life, #KEYS
203:In researching this problem, I did an extensive data search of several hundred hierarchies, taken from systems theory, ecological science, Kabalah, developmental psychology, Yo-gachara Buddhism, moral development, biological evolution, Vedanta Hinduism, Neo-Confucianism, cosmic and stellar evolution, Hwa Yen, the Neoplatonic corpus-an entire spectrum of premodern, modern, and postmodern nests.
~ Ken Wilber, Marriage of Sense and Soul, 1998,#KEYS
204:'Brahman is in all things, all things are in Brahman, all things are Brahman' is the triple formula of the comprehensive Supermind, a single truth of self-manifestation in three aspects which it holds together and inseparably in its self-view as the fundamental knowledge from which it proceeds to the play of the cosmos.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book 01: Omnipresent Reality and the Universe, The Supreme Truth-Consciousness [149] [T1],#KEYS
205:powers of freedom from subjection to the body :::
By a similar process the habit by which the bodily nature associates certain forms and degrees of activity with strain, fatigue, incapacity can be rectified and the power, freedom, swiftness, effectiveness of the work whether physical or mental which can be done with this bodily instrument marvelously increased, doubled, tripled, decupled.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, 346,#KEYS
206:The formula of the Cup is not so well suited for Evocations, and the magical Hierarchy is not involved in the same way; for the Cup being passive rather than active, it is not fitting for the magician to use it in respect of anything but the Highest. In practical working it consequently means little but prayer, and that prayer the 'prayer of silence.'
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part 3, The Formuale of the Elemental Weapons [148],#KEYS
207:upon a supramental collective :::
But if a collectivity or group could be formed of those who had reached the supramental perfection, there indeed some divine creation could take shape; a new earth could descend that would be a new heaven, a world of supamental light could be created here amidst the receding darkness of this terrestrial ignorance.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom,#KEYS
208:Sri Aurobindo: With the mental will you can suppress it temporarily but that does not bring real mastery. This pull shows that you have a strong vital force - this has to be regenerated. All thoughts, desires, conventions, attachments which come from outside must be ruthlessly pushed away. The inside must be made entirely calm and quiet and there should reign an upward aspiration - a state of awaiting. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Anilbaran Roy Interviews and Conversations, #KEYS
209:All evolution is in essence a heightening of the force of consciousness in the manifest being so that it may be raised into the greater intensity of what is still unmanifest, from matter into life, from life into mind, from mind into the spirit. It is this that must be the method of our growth from a mental into a spiritual and supramental manifestation, out of a still half-animal humanity into a divine being and divine living.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
210:fundamentally, all pain and suffering are the result of an insufficient consciousness-force in the surface being which makes it unable to deal rightly with self and Nature or unable to assimilate and to harmonise itself with the contacts of the universal Energy; they would not exist if in us there were an integral presence of the luminous Consciousness and the divine Force of an integral Being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin of Falsehood and Evil [623],#KEYS
211:All knowledge is ultimately the knowledge of God, through himself, through Nature, through her works. Mankind has first to seek this knowledge through the external life; for until its mentality is sufficiently developed, spiritual knowledge is not really possible, and in proportion as it is developed, the possibilities of spiritual knowledge become richer and fuller.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge,#KEYS
212:St. Teresa of Avila wrote: 'All difficulties in prayer can be traced to one cause: praying as if God were absent.' This is the conviction that we bring with us from early childhood and apply to everyday life and to our lives in general. It gets stronger as we grow up, unless we are touched by the Gospel and begin the spiritual journey. This journey is a process of dismantling the monumental illusion that God is distant or absent. ~ Thomas Keating, Fruits & Gifts of the Spirit, #KEYS
213:The sadhana of this 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 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.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T3],#KEYS
214:I was speaking of your experiences of the higher consciousness, of your seeing the Mother in all things - these are what are called spiritual realisations, spiritual knowledge. Realisations are the essence of knowledge - thoughts about them, expression of them in words are a lesser knowledge and if the thoughts are merely mental without experience or realisation, they are not regarded as jnana in the spiritual sense at all.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, Transformation of the Mind,#KEYS
215:Not to be disturbed by either joy or grief, pleasure or displeasure by what people say or do or by any outward things is called in yoga a state of samata, equality to all things. It is of immense importance in sadhana to be able to reach this state. It helps the mental quietude and silence as well as the vital to come. It means indeed that the vital itself and the vital mind are already falling silent and becoming quiet. The thinking mind is sure to follow.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
216:There is first a central change of the consciousness and a growing direct experience, vision, feeling of the Supreme and the cosmic existence, the Divine in itself and the Divine in all things; the mind will be taken up into a growing preoccupation with this first and foremost and will feel itself heightening, widening into a more and more illumined means of expression of the one fundamental knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Yoga of Divine Works, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1 [T1],#KEYS
217:But the true black magician does not work through the ethers which are the home of the etheric elementals. He works through the entities who dwell in the astral light or the animal magnetism of the lower astral plane. The true black magician can become (and usually is) clairvoyant, but he can never go any higher than the astral world. To this plane he is tied to his passions, hates, incantations, and the animal nature which is the basis of black magic. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics, #KEYS
218:The Master came back to the drawing-room and said: "The worldly minded practise devotions, japa, and austerity only by fits and starts. But those who know nothing else but God repeat His name with every breath. Some always repeat mentally, 'Om Rāma'.
Even the followers of the path of knowledge repeat, 'Soham', 'I am He'. There are others whose tongues are always moving, repeating the name of God. One should remember and think of God constantly." ~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishana,#KEYS
219:From the morning there has been a feeling of nearness to the Mother, almost as if there were no difference between us. But how can that be possible, as there is such a great gulf between her and me? I am on the mental plane and she is on the highest Supramental.
But the Mother is there not only on the Supramental but on all the planes. And especially she is close to everyone in the psychic part (the inner heart), so when that opens, the feeling of nearness naturally comes. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [T4],#KEYS
220:The sword, or more usually the dagger, is the weapon of analysis or scission, or in the most simple sense, destruction. Through the sword, the magical will and perception vitalize the imagination of the undoing of things. The sword is the reservoir of the power which disintegrates aetheric influences through which the material plane is affected. Both the sword and pentacle are aetheric weapons through which the higher-order powers of will, perception, and imagination execute mental commands on the planes of middle nature.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,#KEYS
221: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
222:The integral Yoga, refusing to rely upon the fragile stuff of mental and moral ideals, puts its whole emphasis in this field on three central dynamic processes -- the development of the true soul or psychic being to take the place of the false soul of desire, the sublimation of human into divine love, the elevation of consciousness from its mental to its spiritual and supramental plane by whose power alone both the soul and the life-force can be utterly delivered from the veils and prevarications of the Ignorance.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T4],#KEYS
223:Creator of all things, true source of light and wisdom, origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your light penetrate the darkness of my understanding. Take from me the double darkness in which I have been born, an obscurity of sin and ignorance. Give me a keen understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally. Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm. Point out the beginning, direct the progress, and help in the completion. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
224:Since ancient times, the left side has stood for the side of the unconscious or the unknown; the right side, by contrast, has represented the side of consciousness or wakefulness. Through the late twentieth century, the movement of the Left limited themselves to a materialist understanding of reality- exemplified by Marxism- demanding social justice and economic equality but not the restoration of intuition and the recognition of the hidden, qualitative dimensions of being suppressed by the mental-rational consciousness, narrowly focused on the quantifiable. ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
225:Has the subconscient accepted the Higher Consciousness?
If the subconscient were to accept the Consciousness, it would no longer be the subconscient, it would become consciousness. I think that you mean: has the subconscient submitted to the rule, to the law of the higher Consciousness? This is not done as a whole, for the subconscient is vast and complex; there is a mental subconscient, a vital subconscient, a physical subconscient, a bodily subconscient. We have to wrest the subconscient fragment by fragment from its ignorant and inert...
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
226:The supramental Yoga is at once an ascent towards God and a descent of Godhead into the embodied nature.
The ascent can only be achieved by a one-centered all-gathering upward aspiration of the soul and mind and life and body; the descent can only come by a call of the whole being towards the infinite and the eternal Divine. If this call and this aspiration are there, or if by any means they can be born and grow constantly and seize all the nature, then and then only a supramental uplifting and transformation becomes possible.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, [T2],#KEYS
227:People pontificate, Suicide is selfishness. Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.
~ David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas,#KEYS
228:As gnostic knowledge, will and ananda are a direct instrumentation of spirit and can only be won by growing into the spirit, into divine being, this growth has to be the first aim of our Yoga. The mental being has to enlarge itself into the oneness of the Divine before the Divine will perfect in the soul of the individual its gnostic outflowering. That is the reason why the triple way of knowledge, works and love becomes the key-note of the whole Yoga, for that is the direct means for the soul in mind to rise to its highest intensities where it passes upward into the divine oneness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
229:There are only three fundamental obstacles that can stand in the way: (1) Absence of faith or insufficient faith. (2) Egoism - the mind clinging to its own ideas, the vital preferring its own desires to a true surrender, the physical adhering to its own habits. (3) Some inertia or fundamental resistance in the consciousness, not willing to change because it is too much of an effort or because it does not want to believe in its own capacity or the power of the Divine - or for some other more subconscient reason. You have to see for yourself which of these it is.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path,#KEYS
230:Someone told me that Ramana Maharshi lives on the overmental plane or that his realisation is on the same level as Shankara's. How is it then that he is not aware of the arrival of the Divine, while others, for instance X's Guru, had this awareness?
I can't say on what plane the Maharshi is, but his method is that of Adwaita Knowledge and Moksha - so there is no necessity for him to recognise the arrival of the Divine. X's Guru was a bhakta of the Divine Mother and believed in the dynamic side of existence, so it was quite natural for him to have the revelation of the coming of the Mother. 23 January 1936 ~ Sri Aurobindo,#KEYS
231:This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had a form of living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door which separated the world from the Divine. As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single movement of consciousness, that "the time has come," and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow, one single blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.
Then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T2],#KEYS
232:It may yet be said that a logical succession of the states of progress would be very much in this order. First, there is a large turning in which all the natural mental activities proper to the individual nature are taken up or referred to a higher standpoint and dedicated by the soul in us, the psychic being, the priest of the sacrifice, to the divine service; next, there is an attempt at an ascent of the being and a bringing down of the Light and Power proper to some new height of consciousness gained by its upward effort into the whole action of the knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent Of The Sacrifice - I, [T1],#KEYS
233:The Self in man enlarging light and knowledge and harmonising will with light and knowledge so as to fulfil in life what he has seen in his increasing vision and idea of the Self, this is man’s source and law of progress and the secret of his impulse towards perfection. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle: The Ideal Law of Social Development
Man's law of progress progress perfection man
He [man] needs the help of the secret Divine above his mentality in his superconscient self; he needs the help also of the secret Divine around him in Nature and in his fellow-men. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Ideal Law of Social Development,#KEYS
234:The system of negation is indispensable to it in order to get rid of its own definitions and limited experience; it is obliged to escape through a vague Indefinite into the Infinite. For it lives in a closed prison of constructions and representations that are necessary for its action but are not the self-existent truth either of Matter or Life or Mind or Spirit. But if we can once cross beyond the Minds frontier twilight into the vast plane of supramental Knowledge, these devices cease to be indispensable. supermind has quite another, a positive and direct and living experience of the supreme Infinite.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
235:Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodied also in part the supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare oneself for manifesting it. The best thing we can do is to study all that he has told us and endeavour to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the new manifestation.
This gives life its real sense and will help us to overcome all obstacles.
Let us live for the new creation and we shall grow stronger and stronger by remaining young and progressive. 30 January 1972
*
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I,#KEYS
236:Apart from the individual difficulty there is a general difficulty in the physical earth-nature. Physical nature is slow and inert and unwilling to change; its tendency is to be still and take long periods of time for a little progress. It is very difficult for even the strongest mental or vital or even psychic will to overcome this inertia. It is only by bringing down constantly the consciousness and force and light from above that it can be done. Therefore there must be a constant will and aspiration for that and for the change and it must be a steady and patient will not tired out even by the utmost resistance of the physical nature.
~ SATM?,#KEYS
237:The visions you describe are those which come in the earliest stages of sadhana. At this stage most of the things seen are formations of the mental plane and it is not always possible to put on them a precise significance, for they depend on the individual mind of the sadhak. At a later stage the power of vision becomes important for the sadhana, but at first one has to go on without attaching excessive importance to the details - until the consciousness develops more. The opening of the consciousness to the Divine Light and Truth and Presence is always the one important thing in the yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Visions and Symbols,#KEYS
238:Drugs have a long history of use in magic in various cultures, and usually in the context of either ecstatic communal rituals or in personal vision quests. However compared to people in simple pastoral tribal situations most people in developed countries now live in a perpetual state of mental hyperactivity with overactive imaginations anyway, so throwing drugs in on top of this usually just leads to confusion and a further loss of focus. Plus as the real Shamans say, if you really do succeed in opening a door with a drug it will thereafter open at will and most such substances give all they will ever give on the first attempt.
~ Peter J Carroll, The Octavo,#KEYS
239:There is a period, more or less prolonged, of internal effort and struggle in which the individual will has to reject the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right attitude or trained to admit and answer to the right influences. It is only then, only when this has been truly done, that the surrender of the lower to the higher can be effected, because the sacrifice has become acceptable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 61, [T0],#KEYS
240:the inability to know :::
In sum, it may be safely affirmed that no solution offered can be anything but provisional until a supramental Truth-consciousness is reached by which the appearances of things are put in their place and their essence revealed and that in them which derives straight from the spiritual essence. In the meanwhile our only safety is to find a guiding law of spiritual experience - or else to liberate a light within that can lead us on the way until that greater direct Truth-consciousness is reached above us or born within us.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, The Works of Knowledge - The Psychic Being,#KEYS
241:abolishing the ego :::
In the path of Knowledge one attempts this abolition, negatively by a denial of the reality of the ego, positively by a constant fixing of the thought upon the idea of the One and the Infinite in itself or the One and Infinite everywhere. This, if persistently done, changes in the end the mental outlook on oneself and the whole world and there is a kind of mental realisation; but afterwards by degrees or perhaps rapidly and imperatively and almost at the beginning the mental realisation deepens into spiritual experience - a realisation in the very substance of our being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, 363,#KEYS
242:At the base of all spiritual knowledge is this consciousness of identity and by identity, which knows or is simply aware of all as itself. Translated into our way of consciousness this becomes the triple knowledge thus formulated in the Upanishad, 'He who sees all existences in the Self', 'He who sees the Self in all existences', 'He in whom the Self has become all existences', -inclusion, indwelling and identity: but in the fundamental consciousness this seeing is a spiritual self-sense, a seeing that is self-light of being, not a separative regard or a regard upon self turning that self into object.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, 565,#KEYS
243:In an early study of the influence of temperament on attention span, the mothers of 232 pairs of twins were interviewed periodically about the similarities and differences in behavior displayed by their twins during infancy and early childhood. The results showed that each of the behavioral variables (temper frequency, temper intensity, irritability, crying, and demanding attention) had a significant inverse relationship with attention span. In other words, the twin with longer attention span was better able to remain absorbed in a particular activity without distraction, and was also the less temperamental twin.
~ Wikipedia, Attention Span, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_span,#KEYS
244:Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism. ~ W V O Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism, 1951, #KEYS
245:I am again feeling that depression, but I cannot find out its cause. I feel a burning pain inside me and then some part in me becomes very hostile. There is also some inertia in the nature.
These are the two difficulties, one of the vital dissatisfaction and restlessness, the other of the inertia of the physical consciousness which are the chief obstacles to the sadhana. The first thing to do is to keep detached from them, not to identify yourself mentally with these movements - even if you cannot reject them - next to call on the Mother's force quietly but steadily for it to descend and make the obstacles disappear. 31 January 1934 ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
246:The person who has allowed himself to develop certain mental habits finds that attitudes can be just as much addiction as narcotics. Someone who would not under any conditions become an alcoholic can become so completely sickened by his own habitual negative thinking, that many people around him wish he would become alcoholic as the lesser of two evils. It is hard to cure an alcoholic, although Alcoholics Anonymous can do it sometimes; but the individual who falls too deeply into some of the traps of his own thinking is practically incurable because he has warped all perspective and has no real desire to make any change in himself. ~ Manly P Hall, (Change Yourself and You Change All 1969, p.7), #KEYS
247:Don't confuse having no violence in your heart with having no violence in the real world, if required. Your duty may or may not include violence, but let us not forget that there are indeed occasions where violence ends violence or, I should say, reflecting the messiness and microscopically incremental nature of Eros: there are occasions where violence replaces a grosser violence with a subtler violence, a lesser devil on the way to a vaguely greater good. The Zen-inspired code of the Samurai warrior is still as good a guide as any: the best fight is not to fight; the real sword is no sword-but if you think that means a Samurai warrior never used his sword, you are tad naive, I fear. ~ Ken Wilber?, #KEYS
248:It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come, e.g. the writing of a book, poetry, inspired speech etc. When the mind is active it interferes with the inspiration, puts in its own small ideas which get mixed up with the inspiration or starts something from a lower level or simply stops the inspiration altogether by bubbling up with all sorts of mere mental suggestions. So also intuitions or action etc. can come more easily when the ordinary inferior movement of the mind is not there. It is also in the silence of the mind that it is easiest for knowledge to come from within or above, from the psychic or from the higher consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
249:Self-justification is always a sign of ego and ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV: Problems in Human Relations
Self-Justification
One must found self-knowledge before one can have the basis of a right world-knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita: The Fullness of Spiritual Action
Self-knowledge
A man capable of self-sacrifice, whatever his other sins, has left the animal behind him; he has the stuff in him of a future and higher humanity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin: The Doctrine of Sacrifice
Self-Sacrifice
The pure action of sense is a spiritual action and pure sense is itself a power of the spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supramental Sense,#KEYS
250:The oil consecrates everything that is touched with it; it is his aspiration; all acts performed in accordance with that are holy. The scourge tortures him; the dagger wounds him; the chain binds him. It is by virtue of these three that his aspiration remains pure, and is able to consecrate all other things. He wears a crown to affirm his lordship, his divinity; a robe to symbolize silence, and a lamen to declare his work. The book of spells or conjurations is his magical record, his Karma. In the East is the Magick Fire, in which all burns up at last. We will now consider each of these matters in detail.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part II - Magick (elemental theory), Preliminary Marks,#KEYS
251:[two grappling hooks for the Divine to lay hold upon one's nature]
As he can use his thinking mind and will to restrain and correct his life impulses, so too he can bring in the action of a still higher luminous mentality aided by the deeper soul in him, the psychic being, and supersede by these greater and purer motive-powers the domination of the vital and sensational force that we call desire. He can entirely master or persuade it and offer it up for transformation to its divine Master. This higher mentality and this deeper soul, the psychic element in mall, are the two grappling hooks by which the Divine can lay hold upon his nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 79, [T2],#KEYS
252:Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation.
No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite discarded. How to regard them is the question,--for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness ~ William James,#KEYS
253:one gradually equilibrizes the whole of one's mental structure and obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast complexity of the universe. For it is written: "Equilibrium is the basis of the work." Serious students will need to make a careful study of the attributions detailed in this work and commit them to memory. When, by persistent application to his own mental apparatus, the numerical system with its correspondences is partly understood-as opposed to being merely memorized-the student will be amazed to find fresh light breaking in on him at every turn as he continues to refer every item in experience and consciousness to this standard.
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On the Tree Of Life,#KEYS
254:There is only one way if you cannot exert your will - it is to call the Force; even the call only with the mind or the mental word is better than being extremely passive and submitted to the attack, - for although it may not succeed instantaneously, the mental call even ends by bringing the Force and opening up the consciousness again. For everything depends upon that. In the externalised consciousness obscurity and suffering can always be there; the more the internalised consciousness reigns, the more these things are pushed back and out, and with the full internalised consciousness they cannot remain
- if they come, it is as outside touches unable to lodge themselves in the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
255:But the vijnana or gnosis is not only truth but truth power, it is the very working of the infinite and divine nature; it is the divine knowledge one with the divine will in the force and delight of a spontaneous and luminous and inevitable self-fulfilment. By the gnosis, then, we change our human into a divine nature. But even the intuitive reason is not the gnosis; it is only an edge of light of the supermind finding its way by flashes of illumination into the mentality like lightnings in dim and cloudy places. Its inspirations, revelations, intuitions, self-luminous discernings are messages from a higher knowledge-plane that make their way opportunely into our lower level of consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
256:Theres another class of people and I would say this is one of the pathologies of being creative so if your a high open person and you have all those things its not going to be enough. you are going to have to pick another domain where you are working on something positive and revolutiony because like the creative impulse for someone who is open we know it is a fundamental personallity dimension, ... and if the ones who are high in openness arent doing something creative they are like dead sticks adn cant live properly. And I think those are the people who benefit particularly from depth psychological approaches, especially Jungian approaches. ~ Jordan Peterson, 015 Maps of Meaning 4: Narrative, Neuropsychology & Mythology II / Part 1, #KEYS
257:... All the works of mind and intllect must be first heightened and widened, then illumined, lifted into the domain of a higher Intelligence, afterwards translated into workings of a greater non-mental Intuition, these again transformed into the dynamic outpourings of the Overmind radiance, and those transfigured into the full light and sovereignty of the supramental Gnosis. It is this that the evolution of consciousness in the world carries prefigured but latent in its seed and in the straining tense intention of its process; nor can that process, that evolution cease till it has evolved the instruments of a perfect in place of its now imperfect manifestation of the Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 149, #KEYS
258:When we are concentrated in mental movements or intellectual pursuits, why do we sometimes forget or lose touch with the Divine?
You lose it because your consciousness is still divided. The Divine has not settled in your mind; you are not wholly consecrated to the Divine Life. Otherwise you could concentrate to any extent upon such things and still you would have the sense of being helped and supported by the Divine. In all pursuits, intellectual or active, your one motto should be, Remember and Offer. Let whatever you do be done as an offering to the Divine. And this too will be an excellent discipline for you; it will prevent you from doing many foolish and useless things.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, [T0],#KEYS
259:Everyone who is turned to the Mother is doing my Yoga. It is a great mistake to suppose that one can 'do' the Purna Yoga - i.e. carry out and fulfil all the sides of the Yoga by one's own effort. No human being can do that. What one has to do is to put oneself in the Mother's hands and open oneself to her by service, by bhakti, by aspiration; then the Mother by her light and force works in him so that the sadhana is done. It is a mistake also to have the ambition to be a big Purna Yogi or a supramental being and ask oneself how far have I got towards that. The right attitude is to be devoted and given to the Mother and to wish to be whatever she wants you to be. The rest is for the Mother to decide and do in you.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, 151 [T3],#KEYS
260:Overmind is the highest source of the cosmic consciousness available to the embodied being in the Ignorance. It is part of the cosmic consciousness-but the human individual when he opens into the cosmic usually remains in the cosmic Mind-Life-Matter receiving only inspirations and influences from the higher planes of Intuition and Overmind. He receives through the spiritualised higher and illumined mind the fundamental experiences on which spiritual knowledge is based; he can become even full of intuitive mind movements, illuminations, various kinds of powers and illumined light, liberation, Ananda. But to rise fully into the Intuition is rare, to reach the Overmind still rarer- although influences and experiences can come down from there.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, 152,#KEYS
261:I mean by the Higher Mind a first plane of spiritual [consciousness] where one becomes constantly and closely aware of the Self, the One everywhere and knows and sees things habitually with that awareness; but it is still very much on the mind level although highly spiritual in its essential substance; and its instrumentation is through an elevated thought-power and comprehensive mental sight-not illumined by any of the intenser upper lights but as if in a large strong and clear daylight. It acts as an intermediate state between the Truth-Light above and the human mind; communicating the higher knowledge in a form that the Mind intensified, broadened, made spiritually supple, can receive without being blinded or dazzled by a Truth beyond it.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Poetry And Art, [9:342],#KEYS
262:the fundamental 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 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.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
263:Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind,-but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin,-as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of spirit-born conceptual knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
264:I have read your account of your sadhana. There is nothing to say, I think, - for it is all right - except that the most important thing for you is to develop the psychic fire in the heart and the aspiration for the psychic being to come forward as the leader of the sadhana. When the psychic does so, it will show you the 'undetected ego-knots' of which you speak and loosen them or burn them in the psychic fire. This psychic development and the psychic change of mind, vital and physical consciousness is of the utmost importance because it makes safe and easy the descent of the higher consciousness and the spiritual transformation without which the supramental must always remain far distant. Powers etc. have their place, but a very minor one so long as this is not done.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
265:[the four aids ::: YOGA-SIDDHI, the perfection that comes from the practice of Yoga, can be best attained by the combined working of four great instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the realisation - sastra. Next comes a patient and persistent action on the lines laid down by this knowledge, the force of our personal effort - utsaha. 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 instrumentality of Time - kala; for in all things there is a cycle of their action and a period of the divine movement.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Four Aids, 53 [T0],#KEYS
266:But it is evident that all analogies of this kind depend on principles of a more fundamental nature; and that, if we had a true mathematical classification of quantities, we should be able at once to detect the analogy between any system of quantities presented to us and other systems of quantities in known sciences, so that we should lose no time in availing ourselves of the mathematical labors of those who had already solved problems essentially the same. [...] At the same time, I think that the progress of science, both in the way of discovery, and in the way of diffusion, would be greatly aided if more attention were paid in a direct way to the classification of quantities. ~ James Clerk Maxwell, Remarks on the mathematical classification of physical quantities, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 1871, #KEYS
267:It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman, and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [305],#KEYS
268:It marshals a vast amount of scientific evidence, from physics to biology, and offers extensive arguments, all geared to objectively proving the holistic nature of the universe. It fails to see that if we take a bunch of egos with atomistic concepts and teach them that the universe is holistic, all we will actually get is a bunch of egos with holistic concepts. Precisely because this monological approach, with its unskillful interpretation of an otherwise genuine intuition, ignores or neglects the "I" and the "we" dimensions, it doesn't understand very well the exact nature of the inner transformations that are necessary in the first place in order to be able to find an identity that embraces the manifest All. Talk about the All as much as we want, nothing fundamentally changes. ~ Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology Spirituality, #KEYS
269:An integral approach is based on one basic idea: no human mind can be 100% wrong. Or, we might say, nobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time. And that means, when it comes to deciding which approaches, methodologies, epistemologies, or ways or knowing are "correct" the answer can only be, "All of them." That is, all of the numerous practices or paradigms of human inquiry - including physics, chemistry, hermeneutics, collaborative inquiry, meditation, neuroscience, vision quest, phenomenology, structuralism, subtle energy research, systems theory, shamanic voyaging, chaos theory, developmental psychology-all of those modes of inquiry have an important piece of the overall puzzle of a total existence that includes, among other many things, health and illness, doctors and patients, sickness and healing. ~ Ken Wilber, #KEYS
270:Finally, in terms of overall spiritual intelligence-which we have been briefly tracking-on the other side of the leading edge of evolution we have 3 or 4 higher, at this point mostly potential, levels of development, including levels of spiritual intelligence. Individually, their basic strcture-rungs are referred to as para-mind, meta-mind, overmind, and supermind; collectively, they are called 3rd tier. What all 3rd-tier structures have in common is some degree of direct transpersonal identity and experience. Further, each 3rd-tier structure of consciousness is integrated, in some fashion, with a particular state of consciousness (often, para-mental with the gross, meta-mental with subtle, overmind with causal/Witnessing, and supermind with nondual, although this varies with each individual's actual history).
~ Ken Wilber?,#KEYS
271:So, it is a basic function of education to help you to find out what you really love to do, so that you can give your whole mind and heart to it, because that creates human dignity, that sweeps away mediocrity, the petty bourgeois mentality. That is why it is very important to have the right teachers, the right atmosphere, so that you will grow up with the love which expresses itself in what you are doing. Without this love your examinations, your knowledge, your capacities, your position and possessions are just ashes, they have no meaning; without this love your actions are going to bring more wars, more hatred, more mischief and destruction. All this may mean nothing to you, because outwardly you are still very young, but I hope it will mean something to your teachers-and also to you, somewhere inside. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #KEYS
272:THE TRUE STUDENT OF OCCULT SCIENCE
The White Magician uses none of the powers of the animal world in his work, but rather seeks to transmute the poles of the beast within himself into higher and finer qualities. The White Magician labors entirely with the finer forces of the elemental planes. He is a builder--not a destroyer--and seeks to liberate rather than to dominate his fellow creatures. The White Magician has dedicated his soul to the immortal light, while the Black Magician has sold his for mortal glory. The Grimores of the Middle Ages are filled with chants and charms for the invoking of spirits. History is filled with stories of Black Magicians but the true student of occult science must have nothing to do with these things other than to protect himself against them. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Natural Occultism, 28,#KEYS
273:Calm, even if it seems at first only a negative thing, is so difficult to attain, that to have it at all must be regarded as a great step in advance.
"In reality, calm is not a negative thing, it is the very nature of the Sat-Purusha and the positive foundation of the divine consciousness. Whatever else is aspired for and gained, this must be kept. Even Knowledge, Power, Ananda, if they come and do not find this foundation, are unable to remain and have to withdraw until the divine purity and peace of the Sat-Purusha are permanently there.
"Aspire for the rest of the divine consciousness, but with a calm and deep aspiration. It can be ardent as well as calm, but not impatient, restless or full of rajasic eagerness.
"Only in the quiet mind and being can the supramental Truth build its true creation." ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
274:But, apart from all these necessities, there is the one fundamental necessity of the nature and object of embodied life itself, which is to seek infinite experience on a finite basis; and since the form, the basis by its very organisation limits the possibility of experience, this can only be done by dissolving it and seeking new forms. For the soul, having once limited itself by concentrating on the moment and the field, is driven to seek its infinity again by the principle of succession, by adding moment to moment and thus storing up a Time-experience which it calls its past; in that Time it moves through successive fields, successive experiences or lives, successive accumulations of knowledge, capacity, enjoyment, and all this it holds in subconscious or superconscious memory as its fund of past acquisition in Time.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
275:what is meant by the psychic :::
What is meant in the terminology of the yoga by the psychic is the soul element in the nature, the pure psyche or divine nucleus which stands behind mind, life and body (it is not the ego) but of which we are only dimly aware. It is a portion of the Divine and permanent from life to life, taking the experience of life through its outer instruments. As this experience grows it manifests a developing psychic personality which insisting always on the good, true and beautiful, finally becomes ready and strong enough to turn the nature towards the Divine. It can then come entirely forward, breaking through the mental, vital and physical screen, govern the instincts and transform the nature. Nature no longer imposes itself on the soul, but the soul, the Purusha, imposes its dictates on the nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
276:January 7, 1914
GIVE them all, O Lord, Thy peace and light, open their blinded eyes and their darkened understanding; calm their futile worries and their vain anxieties. Turn their gaze away from themselves and give them the joy of being consecrated to Thy work without calculation or mental reservation. Let Thy beauty flower in all things, awaken Thy love in all hearts, so that Thy eternally progressive order may be realised upon earth and Thy harmony be spread until the day all becomes Thyself in perfect purity and peace.
Oh! let all tears be wiped away, all suffering relieved, all anguish dispelled, and let calm serenity dwell in every heart and powerful certitude strengthen every mind. Let Thy life flow through all like a regenerating stream that all may turn to Thee and draw from that contemplation the energy for all victories. ~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations,#KEYS
277:It is not enough to devote ourselves by the reading of Scriptures or by the stress of philosophic reasoning to an intellectual understanding of the Divine; for at the end of our long mental labour we might know all that has been said of the Eternal, possess all that can be thought about the Infinite and yet we might not know him at all. This intellectual preparation can indeed be the first stage in a powerful Yoga, but it is not indispensable: it is not a step which all need or can be called upon to take. Yoga would be impossible, except for a very few, if the intellectual figure of knowledge arrived at by the speculative or meditative Reason were its indispensable condition or a binding preliminary. All that the Light from above asks of us that it may begin its work is a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T5],#KEYS
278:But if in passing from one domain to another we renounce what has already been given us from eagerness for our new attainment, if in reaching the mental life we cast away or belittle the physical life which is our basis, or if we reject the mental and physical in our attraction to the spiritual, we do not fulfil God integrally, nor satisfy the conditions of His selfmanifestation. We do not become perfect, but only shift the field of our imperfection or atmost attain a limited altitude. However high we may climb, even though it be to the Non-Being itself, we climb ill if we forget our base. Not to abandon the lower to itself, but to transfigure it in the light of the higher to which we have attained, is true divinity of nature. Brahman is integral and unifies many states of consciousness at a time; we also, manifesting the nature of Brahman, should become integral and all-embracing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, #KEYS
279:A silence, an entry into a wide or even immense or infinite emptiness is part of the inner spiritual experience; of this silence and void the physical mind has a certain fear, the small superficially active thinking or vital mind a shrinking from it or dislike, - for it confuses the silence with mental and vital incapacity and the void with cessation or non-existence: but this silence is the silence of the spirit which is the condition of a greater knowledge, power and bliss, and this emptiness is the emptying of the cup of our natural being, a liberation of it from its turbid contents so that it may be filled with the wine of God; it is the passage not into non-existence but to a greater existence. Even when the being turns towards cessation, it is a cessation not in non-existence but into some vast ineffable of spiritual being or the plunge into the incommunicable superconscience of the Absolute. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.28 - The Divine Life, #KEYS
280:a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness: - it will mean the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
281:For the contact of the human and individual consciousness with the divine is the very essence of Yoga. Yoga is the union of that which has become separated in the play of the universe with its own true self, origin and universality. The contact may take place at any point of the complex and intricately organised consciousness which we call our personality. It may be effected in the physical through the body; in the vital through the action of those functionings which determine the state and the experiences of our nervous being; through the mentality, whether by means of the emotional heart, the active will or the understanding mind, or more largely by a general conversion of the mental consciousness in all its activities. It may equally be accomplished through a direct awakening to the universal or transcendent Truth and Bliss by the conversion of the central ego in the mind. And according to the point of contact that we choose will be the type of the Yoga that we practise. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, #KEYS
282: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. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, #KEYS
283: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
284:Gaya, the Rishi, prays to Agni, Lord of Tapas, the representative in Nature of the Divine Power that builds the worlds & works in them towards our soul's fulfilment in and beyond heaven - Agni, as játavedas, the self-existent luminosity of knowledge in this Cosmic Force - for Force is only Chitshakti, working power of the Divine Consciousness & therefore Cosmic Force is always self-luminous, all-knowing force. Agni Jatavedas then is the ray of divine knowledge in this embodied state of existence; - he is Adhrigu - the Light in our embodied being. For this reason all action offered by us to Agni as a work of divine tapas becomes in its nature a self-luminous activity guiding itself whether consciously in our minds or super-consciously, guháhitam, to the divine goal. All Tapas is self-effective and God-effective. As Adhrigu, the divine Light in our embodied being, Agni is to bring to us an illumination of knowledge in our mentality which is ojistha, most full of ojas, superabundant ... ~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, #KEYS
285:What you write is no doubt true and it is necessary to see it so as to be able to comprehend and grasp the true attitude necessary for the sadhana. But, as I have said, one must not be distressed or depressed by perceiving the weaknesses inherent in human nature and the difficulty of getting them out. The difficulty is natural, for they have been there for thousands of lives and are the very nature of man's vital and mental ignorance. It is not surprising that they should have a power to stick and take time to disappear. But there is a true being and a true consciousness that is there in us hidden by these surface formations of nature and which can shake them off once it emerges. By taking the right attitude of selfless devotion within and persisting in it in spite of the surface nature's troublesome self-repetitions one enables this inner being and consciousness to emerge and with the Mother's Force working in it deliver the being from all return of the movements of the old nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, Dealing with Depression and Despondency, #KEYS
286:The fourth condition is study. One must cultivate the mind, know what others have thought, open the mental being to this impact of the higher vibrations of knowledge. A mental knowledge is not tantamount to realization, it is true, but still one must know mentally where one is going, what has happened to others, how they have achieved, what are the hindrances and the helping points. This education of oneself by study, study of spiritual writings, suddhydya as it is called, a disciplined reading and incorporation of the knowledge contained in scriptures and authentic texts - that is a very important part. Even when you don't understand a text, still if you persist at it, the force that is in that book creates certain new grooves in your brain and the second or the third time when you read it, it begins to make some meaning. This is the meaning of studying, of exposing your mind to the constant vibrations of higher levels of knowledge. Incidentally, the mind gets developed, a mental climate is created, a climate of spiritual culture.
~ M P Pandit, The Advent 1981, 30,#KEYS
287:We already saw that in evolution each of these structures emerges as a substitute gratification, and is abandoned when it ceases to gratify. And we can see now that each of them emerges as a substitute in evolution because each was created as substitute in involution. The self can climb back up this involved chain of substitutes only by tasting them, finding them lacking, accepting their death, and thus transcending them (all of which the self in involution refused to do). But the self will evolve up the chain of being only to the point at which it will accept the substitute gratifications as satisfactory (bodily substitutes, or mental substitutes, or subtle ones, or causal ones). At that particular level, its incest settles in, it accepts its substitutes as real, its Eros wins out over Thanatos, it will not undergo the separation anxiety of transcending and dying to that level, and so evolution stops cold (for this lifetime). The self has, in this life, gotten as close as it can to the Source (while still imagining it is the Source)
~ Ken Wilber, The Atman Project,#KEYS
288:There is nothing unintelligible in what I say about strength and Grace. Strength has a value for spiritual realisation, but to say that it can be done by strength only and by no other means is a violent exaggeration. Grace is not an invention, it is a face of spiritual experience. Many who would be considered as mere nothings by the wise and strong have attained by Grace; illiterate, without mental power or training, without "strength" of character or will, they have yet aspired and suddenly or rapidly grown into spiritual realisation, because they had faith or because they were sincere. ...
Strength, if it is spiritual, is a power for spiritual realisation; a greater power is sincerity; the greatest power of all is Grace. I have said times without number that if a man is sincere, he will go through in spite of long delay and overwhelming difficulties. I have repeatedly spoken of the Divine Grace. I have referred any number of times to the line of the Gita:
"I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve." ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
289:[invocation] Let us describe the magical method of identification. The symbolic form of the god is first studied with as much care as an artist would bestow upon his model, so that a perfectly clear and unshakeable mental picture of the god is presented to the mind. Similarly, the attributes of the god are enshrined in speech, and such speeches are committed perfectly to memory. The invocation will then begin with a prayer to the god, commemorating his physical attributes, always with profound understanding of their real meaning. In the second part of the invocation, the voice of the god is heard, and His characteristic utterance is recited. In the third portion of the invocation the Magician asserts the identity of himself with the god. In the fourth portion the god is again invoked, but as if by Himself, as if it were the utterance of the will of the god that He should manifest in the Magician. At the conclusion of this, the original object of the invocation is stated.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part 3, The Formuale of the Elemental Weapons [149] [T4],#KEYS
290:To know, possess and be the divine being in an animal and egoistic consciousness, to convert our twilit or obscure physical men- tality into the plenary supramental illumination, to build peace and a self-existent bliss where there is only a stress of transitory satisfactions besieged by physical pain and emotional suffering, to establish an infinite freedom in a world which presents itself as a group of mechanical necessities, to discover and realise the immortal life in a body subjected to death and constant mutation, - this is offered to us as the manifestation of God in Matter and the goal of Nature in her terrestrial evolution. To the ordinary material intellect which takes its present organisation of consciousness for the limit of its possibilities, the direct contradiction of the unrealised ideals with the realised fact is a final argument against their validity. But if we take a more deliberate view of the world's workings, that direct opposition appears rather as part of Nature's profoundest method and the seal of her completest sanction. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1.01, #KEYS
291:ALL YOGA is in its nature a new birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material life of man into a higher spiritual consciousness and a greater and diviner being. No Yoga can be successfully undertaken and followed unless there is a strong awakening to the necessity of that larger spiritual existence. The soul that is called to this deep and vast inward change, may arrive in different ways to the initial departure. It may come to it by its own natural development which has been leading it unconsciously towards the awakening; it may reach it through the influence of a religion or the attraction of a philosophy; it may approach it by a slow illumination or leap to it by a sudden touch or shock; it may be pushed or led to it by the pressure of outward circumstances or by an inward necessity, by a single word that breaks the seals of the mind or by long reflection, by the distant example of one who has trod the path or by contact and daily influence. According to the nature and the circumstances the call will come.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,#KEYS
292:This concentration proceeds by the Idea, using thought, form and name as keys which yield up to the concentrating mind the Truth that lies concealed behind all thought, form and name; for it is through the Idea that the mental being rises beyond all expression to that which is expressed, to that of which the Idea itself is only the instrument. By concentration upon the Idea the mental existence which at present we are breaks open the barrier of our mentality and arrives at the state of consciousness, the state of being, the state of power of conscious-being and bliss of conscious-being to which the Idea corresponds and of which it is the symbol, movement and rhythm. Concentration by the Idea is, then, only a means, a key to open to us the superconscient planes of our existence; a certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Integral Knowledge, Concentration [321],#KEYS
293:To enlarge the sense-faculties without the knowledge that would give the old sense-values their right interpretation from the new standpoint might lead to serious disorders and incapacities, might unfit for practical life and for the orderly and disciplined use of the reason. Equally, an enlargement of our mental consciousness out of the experience of the egoistic dualities into an unregulated unity with some form of total consciousness might easily bring about a confusion and incapacity for the active life of humanity in the established order of the world's relativities. This, no doubt, is the root of the injunction imposed in the Gita on the man who has the knowledge not to disturb the life-basis and thought-basis of the ignorant; for, impelled by his example but unable to comprehend the principle of his action, they would lose their own system of values without arriving at a higher foundation.
Such a disorder and incapacity may be accepted personally and are accepted by many great souls as a temporary passage or as the price to be paid for the entry into a wider existence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
294:Only by our coming into constant touch with the divine Consciousness and its absolute Truth can some form of the conscious Divine, the dynamic Absolute, take up our earth-existence and transform its strife, stumbling, sufferings and falsities into an image of the supreme Light, Power and Ananda.
The culmination of the soul's constant touch with the Supreme is that self-giving which we call surrender to the divine Will and immergence of the separated ego in the One who is all. A vast universality of soul and an intense unity with all is the base and fixed condition of the supramental consciousness and spiritual life. In that universality and unity alone can we find the supreme law of the divine manifestation in the life of the embodied spirit; in that alone can we discover the supreme motion and right play of our individual nature. In that alone can all these lower discords resolve themselves into a victorious harmony of the true relations between manifested beings who are portions of the one Godhead and children of one universal Mother. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, 205,#KEYS
295: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
296:In Hathayoga the instrument is the body and life. All the power of the body is stilled, collected, purified, heightened, concentrated to its utmost limits or beyond any limits by Asana and other physical processes; the power of the life too is similarly purified, heightened, concentrated by Asana and Pranayama. This concentration of powers is then directed towards that physical centre in which the divine consciousness sits concealed in the human body. The power of Life, Nature-power, coiled up with all its secret forces asleep in the lowest nervous plexus of the earth-being,-for only so much escapes into waking action in our normal operations as is sufficient for the limited uses of human life,-rises awakened through centre after centre and awakens, too, in its ascent and passage the forces of each successive nodus of our being, the nervous life, the heart of emotion and ordinary mentality, the speech, sight, will, the higher knowledge, till through and above the brain it meets with and it becomes one with the divine consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609,#KEYS
297:You should not be tilted sideways, backwards, or forwards. You should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with your head. This is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice this way.
These forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture itself is the purpose of our practice. When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind, so there is no need to try to attain some special state.
When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. A Zen master would say, "Kill the Buddha!" Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature. Doing something is expressing our own nature. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. This is the fundamental teaching expressed in the forms we observe. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginners Mind,#KEYS
298:The Transcendent Mother and the Higher Hemisphere
"At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power."1 The Transcendent Mother thus stands above the Ananda plane.There are then four steps of the Divine Shakti:
(1) The Transcendent Mahashakti who stands above the Ananda plane and who bears the Supreme Divine in her eternal consciousness.
(2) The Mahashakti immanent in the worlds of SatChit-Ananda where all beings live and move in an ineffable completeness.
(3) The Supramental Mahashakti immanent in the worlds of Supermind.
(4) The Cosmic Mahashakti immanent in the lower hemisphere.
Yes; that is all right. One speaks often however of all above the lower hemisphere as part of the transcendence. This is because the Supermind and Ananda are not manifested in our universe at present, but are planes above it. For us the higher hemisphere is pr [para], the Supreme Transcendence is prA(pr [paratpara]. The Sanskrit terms are here clearer than the English.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, Three Aspects of the Mother, 52,#KEYS
299:five schools of yoga :::
For if, leaving aside the complexities of their particular processes, we fix our regard on the central principle of the chief schools of Yoga still prevalent in India, we find that they arrange themselves in an ascending order which starts from the lowest rung of the ladder, the body, and ascends to the direct contact between the individual soul and the transcendent and universal Self. Hathayoga selects the body and the vital functionings as its instruments of perfection and realisation; its concern is with the gross body. Rajayoga selects the mental being in its different parts as its lever-power; it concentrates on the subtle body. The triple Path of Works, of Love and of Knowledge uses some part of the mental being, will, heart or intellect as a starting-point and seeks by its conversion to arrive at the liberating Truth, Beatitude and Infinity which are the nature of the spiritual life.Its method is a direct commerce between the human Purusha in the individual body and the divine Purusha who dwells in everybody and yet transcends all form and name.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga,#KEYS
300:The whole principle of this Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody and to nothing else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother-Power all the transcendent light, force, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ananda of the supramental Divine. In this Yoga, therefore, there can be no place for vital relations or interchanges with others; any such relation or interchange immediately ties down the soul to the lower consciousness and its lower nature, prevents the true and full union with the Divine and hampers both the ascent to the supramental Truth consciousness and the descent of the supramental Ishwari Shakti. Still worse would it be if this interchange took the form of a sexual relation or a sexual enjoyment, even if kept free from any outward act; therefore these things are absolutely forbidden in the sadhana. It goes without saying that any physical act of the kind is not allowed, but also any subtler form is ruled out. It is only after becoming one with the supramental Divine that we can find our true spiritual relations with others in the Divine; in that higher unity this kind of gross lower vital movement can have no place. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, #KEYS
301:In your early struggles you may have found it difficult to conquer sleep; and you may have wandered so far from the object of your meditations without noticing it, that the meditation has really been broken; but much later on, when you feel that you are "getting quite good," you will be shocked to find a complete oblivion of yourself and your surroundings. You will say: "Good heavens! I must have been to sleep!" or else "What on earth was I meditating upon?" or even "What was I doing?" "Where am I?" "Who am I?" or a mere wordless bewilderment may daze you. This may alarm you, and your alarm will not be lessened when you come to full consciousness, and reflect that you have actually forgotten who you are and what you are doing! This is only one of many adventures that may come to you; but it is one of the most typical. By this time your hours of meditation will fill most of the day, and you will probably be constantly having presentiments that something is about to happen. You may also be terrified with the idea that your brain may be giving way; but you will have learnt the real symptoms of mental fatigue, and you will be careful to avoid them. They must be very carefully distinguished from idleness! ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, #KEYS
302:Therefore the age of intuitive knowledge, represented by the early Vedantic thinking of the Upanishads, had to give place to the age of rational knowledge; inspired Scripture made room for metaphysical philosophy, even as afterwards metaphysical philosophy had to give place to experimental Science.
Intuitive thought which is a messenger from the superconscient and therefore our highest faculty, was supplanted by the pure reason which is only a sort of deputy and belongs to the middle heights of our being; pure reason in its turn was supplanted for a time by the mixed action of the reason which lives on our plains and lower elevations and does not in its view exceed the horizon of the experience that the physical mind and senses or such aids as we can invent for them can bring to us.
And this process which seems to be a descent, is really a circle of progress.
For in each case the lower faculty is compelled to take up as much as it can assimilate of what the higher had already given and to attempt to re-establish it by its own methods.
By the attempt it is itself enlarged in its scope and arrives eventually at a more supple and a more ample selfaccommodation to the higher faculties. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1.08-13,#KEYS
303:In order to strengthen the higher knowledge-faculty in us we have to effect the same separation between the intuitive and intellectual elements of our thought as we have already effected between the understanding and the sense-mind; and this is no easy task, for not only do our intuitions come to us incrusted in the intellectual action, but there are a great number of mental workings which masquerade and ape the appearances of the higher faculty. The remedy is to train first the intellect to recognise the true intuilion, to distinguish it from the false and then to accustom it, when it arrives at an intellectual perception or conclusion, to attach no final value to it, but rather look upward, refer all to the divine principle and wait in as complete a silence as it can command for the light from above. In this way it is possible to transmute a great part of our intellectual thinking into the luminous truth-conscious vision, -- the ideal would be a complete transition, -- or at least to increase greatly the frequency, purity and conscious force of the ideal knowledge working behind the intellect. The latter must learn to be subject and passive to the ideal faculty.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, 316,#KEYS
304:The pure existent is then a fact and no mere concept; it is the fundamental reality. But, let us hasten to add, the movement, the energy, the becoming are also a fact, also a reality. The supreme intuition and its corresponding experience may correct the other, may go beyond, may suspend, but do not abolish it. We have therefore two fundamental facts of pure existence and of worldexistence, a fact of Being, a fact of Becoming. To deny one or the other is easy; to recognise the facts of consciousness and find out their relation is the true and fruitful wisdom.
Stability and movement, we must remember, are only our psychological representations of the Absolute, even as are oneness and multitude. The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and multitudinous. World-existence is the ecstatic dance of Shiva which multiplies the body of the God numberlessly to the view: it leaves that white existence precisely where and what it was, ever is and ever will be; its sole absolute object is the joy of the dancing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Pure Existent, 85,#KEYS
305:Raise Your Standards
Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards. When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming.
Think of the far-reaching consequences set in motion by men and women who raised their standards and acted in accordance with them, deciding they would tolerate no less. History chronicles the inspiring examples of people like Leonardo da Vinci, Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Albeit Einstein, Cesar Chavez, Soichiro Honda, and many others who took the magnificently powerful step of raising their standards. The same power that was available to them is available to you, if you have the courage to claim it. Changing an organization, acompany, a country-or a world-begins with the simple step of changing yourself.
STEP TWO
Change Your Limiting Beliefs ~ Anthony Robbins, How to take Immediate Control of Your Mental Emotional Physical and Financial Destiny,#KEYS
306:Philosophy, as defined by Fichte, is the "science of sciences." Its aim was to solve the problems of the world. In the past, when all exact sciences were in their infancy, philosophy had to be purely speculative, with little or no regard to realities. But if we regard philosophy as a Mother science, divided into many branches, we find that those branches have grown so large and various, that the Mother science looks like a hen with her little ducklings paddling in a pond, far beyond her reach; she is unable to follow her growing hatchlings. In the meantime, the progress of life and science goes on, irrespective of the cackling of metaphysics. Philosophy does not fulfill her initial aim to bring the results of experimental and exact sciences together and to solve world problems. Through endless, scientific specialization scientific branches multiply, and for want of coordination the great world-problems suffer. This failure of philosophy to fulfill her boasted mission of scientific coordination is responsible for the chaos in the world of general thought. The world has no collective or organized higher ideals and aims, nor even fixed general purposes. Life is an accidental game of private or collective ambitions and greeds. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity, #KEYS
307:"Q: What is the right attitude to stick on to this path till the Supramental Truth is realised?
"A: There is the psychic condition and sincerity and devotion to the Mother."
What is "the psychic condition"?
The psychic condition? That means being in relation with one's psychic, I suppose, being governed by one's psychic being.
Sweet Mother, I don't understand very clearly the difference between faith, belief and confidence.
But Sri Aurobindo has given the full explanation here. If you don't understand, then...
He has written "Faith is a feeling in the whole being."
The whole being, yes. Faith, that's the whole being at once. He says that belief is something that occurs in the head, that is purely mental; and confidence is quite different. Confidence - one can have confidence in life, trust in the Divine, trust in others, trust in one's own destiny, that is, one has the feeling that everything is going to help him, to do what he wants to do.
Faith is a certitude without any proof.
Mother, on what does faith depend?
Probably on Divine Grace. Some people have it spontaneously. There are others who need to make a great effort to have it.
~ The Mother, Question and Answers, Volume-6, page no.120,#KEYS
308:on cultivating equality :::
For it is certain that so great a result cannot be arrived at immediately and without any previous stages. At first we have to learn to bear the shocks of the world with the central part of our being untouched and silent, even when the surface mind, heart, life are strongly shaken; unmoved there on the bedrock of our life, we must separate the soul watching behind or immune deep within from these outer workings of our nature. Afterwards, extending this calm and steadfastness of the detached soul to its instruments, it will become slowly possible to radiate peace from the luminous centre to the darker peripheries. In this process we may take the passing help of many minor phases; a certain stoicism, a certain calm philosophy, a certain religious exaltation may help us towards some nearness to our aim, or we may call in even less strong and exalted but still useful powers of our mental nature. In the end we must either discard or transform them and arrive instead at an entire equality, a perfect self-existent peace within and even, if we can, a total unassailable, self-poised and spontaneous delight in all our members.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [103-104],#KEYS
309:For our concentration on the Eternal will be consummated by the mind when we see constantly the Divine in itself and the Divine in ourselves, but also the Divine in all things and beings and happenings. It will be consummated by the heart when all emotion is summed up in the love of the Divine, - of the Divine in itself and for itself, but love too of the Divine in all its beings and powers and personalities and forms in the Universe. It will be consummated by the will when we feel and receive always the divine impulsion and accept that alone as our sole motive force; but this will mean that, having slain to the last rebellious straggler the wandering impulses of the egoistic nature, we have universalised ourselves and can accept with a constant happy acceptance the one divine working in all things. This is the first fundamental siddhi of the integral Yoga.
It is nothing less that is meant in the end when we speak of the absolute consecration of the individual to the Divine. But this total fullness of consecration can only come by a constant progression when the long and difficult process of transforming desire out of existence is completed in an ungrudging measure. Perfect self-consecration implies perfect self-surrender.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 85-86, [T1],#KEYS
310:Ordinarily, man is limited in all these parts of his being and he can grasp at first only so much of the divine truth as has some large correspondence to his own nature and its past development and associations. Therefore God meets us first in different limited affirmations of his divine qualities and nature; he presents himself to the seeker as an absolute of the things he can understand and to which his will and heart can respond; he discloses some name and aspect of his Godhead.
This is what is called in Yoga the is.t.a-devata, the name and form elected by our nature for its worship. In order that the human being may embrace this Godhead with every part of himself, it is represented with a form that answers to its aspects and qualities and which becomes the living body of God to the adorer. These are those forms of Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna, Kali, Durga, Christ, Buddha, which the mind of man seizes on for adoration. Even the monotheist who worships a formless Godhead, yet gives to him some form of quality, some mental form or form of Nature by which he envisages and approaches him. But to be able to see a living form, a mental body, as it were, of the Divine gives to the approach a greater closeness and sweetness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Mystery of Love,#KEYS
311:Art is the human language of the nervous plane, intended to express and communicate the Divine, who in the domain of sensation manifests as beauty.
The purpose of art is therefore to give those for whom it is meant a freer and more perfect communion with the Supreme Reality. The first contact with this Supreme Reality expresses itself in our consciousness by a flowering of the being in a plenitude of vast and peaceful delight. Each time that art can give the spectator this contact with the infinite, however fleetingly, it fulfils its aim; it has shown itself worthy of its mission. Thus no art which has for many centuries moved and delighted a people can be dismissed, since it has at least partially fulfilled its mission - to be the powerful and more or less perfect utterance of that which is to be expressed. What makes it difficult for the sensibility of a nation to enjoy the delight that another nation finds in one art or another is the habitual limitation of the nervous being which, even more than the mental being, is naturally exclusive in its ability to perceive the Divine and which, when it has entered into relation with Him through certain forms, feels an almost irresistible reluctance to recognise Him through other forms of sensation. ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, 122,#KEYS
312:
Sweet Mother, Just as there is a methodical progression of exercises for mental and physical education, isn't there a similar method to progress towards Sri Aurobindo's yoga?
It should vary with each individual.
Could you make a step-by-step programme for me to follow daily?
The mechanical regularity of a fixed programme is indispensable for physical, mental and vital development; but this mechanical rigidity has little or no effect on spiritual development where the spontaneity of an absolute sincerity is indispensable. Sri Aurobindo has written very clearly on this subject. And what he has written on it has appeared in The Synthesis Of Yoga.
However, as an initial help to set you on the path, I can tell you: (1) that on getting up, before starting the day, it is good to make an offering of this day to the Divine, an offering of all that one thinks, all that one is, all that one will do; (2) and at night, before going to sleep, it is good to review the day, taking note of all the times one has forgotten or neglected to make an offering of one's self or one's action, and to aspire or pray that these lapses do not recur. This is a minimum, a very small beginning - and it should increase with the sincerity of your consecration. 31 March 1965
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother, [T1],#KEYS
313:Supermind and the human mind are a number of ranges, planes or layers of consciousness - one can regard it in various ways - in which the element or substance of mind and consequently its movements also become more and more illumined and powerful and wide. The Overmind is the highest of these ranges; it is full of lights and powers; but from the point of view of what is above it, it is the line of the soul's turning away from the complete and indivisible knowledge and its descent towards the Ignorance. For although it draws from the Truth, it is here that begins the separation of aspects of the Truth, the forces and their working out as if they were independent truths and this is a process that ends, as one descends to ordinary Mind, Life and Matter, in a complete division, fragmentation, separation from the indivisible Truth above. There is no longer the essential, total, perfectly harmonising and unifying knowledge, or rather knowledge for ever harmonious because for ever one, which is the character of Supermind. In the Supermind mental divisions and oppositions cease, the problems created by our dividing and fragmenting mind disappear and Truth is seen as a luminous whole. In the Overmind there is not yet the actual fall into Ignorance, but the first step is taken which will make the fall inevitable. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, #KEYS
314:the great division :::
Secondly, with regard to the movements and experiences of the body the mind will come to know the Purusha seated within it as, first, the witness or observer of the movements and, secondly, the knower or perceiver of the experiences. It will cease to consider in thought or feel in sensation these movements and experiences as its own but rather consider and feel them as not its own, as operations of Nature governed by the qualities of Nature and their interaction upon each other. This detachment can be made so normal and carried so far that there will be a kind of division between the mind and the body and the former will observe and experience the hunger, thirst, pain, fatigue, depression, etc. of the physical being as if they were experiences of some other person with whom it has so close a rapport as to be aware of all that is going on within him. This division is a great means, a great step towards mastery; for the mind comes to observe these things first without being overpowered and finally without at all being affected by them, dispassionately, with clear understanding but with perfect detachment. This is the initial liberation of the mental being from servitude to the body; for by right knowledge put steadily into practice liberation comes inevitably
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, 345,#KEYS
315:The Twenty Tenets of Holons
1. Reality as a whole is not composed of things, or processes, but of holons.
2. Holons display four fundamental capacities:
a. self-preservation,
b. self-adaptation,
c. self-transcendence.
d. self-dissolution.
3. Holons emerge.
4. Holons emerge holarchically.
5. Each emergent holon transcends but includes its predecessor.
6. The lower sets the possibilities of the higer; the higher sets the probabilities of the lower.
7. "The number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is 'shallow' or 'deep'; and the number of holons on any given level we shall call its 'span'" (A. Koestler).
8. Each successive level of evolution produces greater depth and less span.
9. Destroy any type of holon, and you will destroy all of the holons above it and none of the holons below it.
10. Holarchies coevolve.
11. The micro is in relational exchange with the macro at all levels of its depth.
12. Evolution has directionality:
a. Increasing complexity.
b. Increasing differentiation/integration.
c. Increasing organisation/structuration.
d. Increasing relative autonomy.
e. Increasing telos.
~ Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology Spirituality, 1995, p. 35-78.,#KEYS
316:the psychic transformation :::
The soul, the psychic being is in direct touch with the divine Truth, but it is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature. One may practise yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason; one may conquer power and luxuriate in all kinds of experiences in the vital; one may establish even surprising physical Siddhis; but if the true soul-power behind does not manifest, if the psychic nature does not come into the front, nothing genuine has been done. In this yoga the psychic being is that which opens the rest of the nature to the true supramental light and finally to the supreme Ananda. Mind can open by itself to its own higher reaches; it can still itself in some kind of static liberation or Nirvana; but the supramental cannot find a sufficient base in a spiritualised mind alone. If the inmost soul is awakened, if there is a new birth out of the mere mental, vital and physical into the psychic consciousness, then this yoga can be done; otherwise (by the sole power of the mind or any other part) it is impossible.... If there is a refusal of the psychic new birth, a refusal to become the child new born from the Mother, owing to attachment to intellectual knowledge or mental ideas or to some vital desire, then there will be a failure in the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
317:Endure and you will triumph. Victory goes to the most enduring. And with the Grace and divine love nothing is impossible. My force and love are with you. At the end of the struggle there is Victory And so we find once more that the Ego-idea must be ruthlessly rooted out before Understanding can be attained The emptiness that you described in your letter yesterday was not a bad thing - it is this emptiness inward and outward that often in Yoga becomes the first step towards a new consciousness. Man's nature is like a cup of dirty water - the water has to be thrown out, the cup left clean and empty for the divine liquor to be poured into it. The difficulty is that the human physical consciousness feels it difficult to bear this emptiness - it is accustomed to be occupied by all sorts of little mental and vital movements which keep it interested and amused or even if in trouble and sorrow still active. The cessation of these things is hard to bear for it. It begins to feel dull and restless and eager for the old interests and movements. But by this restlessness it disturbs the quietude and brings back the things that had been thrown out. It is this that is creating the difficulty and the obstruction for the moment. If you can accept emptiness as a passage to the true consciousness and true movements, then it will be easier to get rid of the obstacle.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
318:The supramental memory is different from the mental, not a storing up of past knowledge and experience, but an abiding presence of knowledge that can be brought forward or, more characteristically, offers itself, when it is needed: it is not dependent on attention or on conscious reception, for the things of the past not known actually or not observed can be called up from latency by an action which is yet essentially a remembrance. Especially on a certain level all knowledge presents itself as a remembering, because all is latent or inherent in the self of supermind. The future like the past presents itself to knowledge in the supermind as a memory of the preknown. The imagination transformed in the supermind acts on one side as a power of true image and symbol, always all image or index of some value or significance or other truth of being, on the other as an inspiration or interpretative seeing of possibilities and potentialities not less true than actual or realised things. These are put in their place either by an attendant intuitive or interpretative judgment or by one inherent in the vision of the image, symbol or potentiality, or by a supereminent revelation of that which is behind the image or symbol or which determines the potential and the actual and their relations and, it may be, overrides and overpasses them, imposing ultimate truths and supreme certitudes.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
319:
Mother, in your symbol the twelve petals signify the twelve inner planes, don't they?
It signifies anything one wants, you see. Twelve: that's the number of Aditi, of Mahashakti. So it applies to everything; all her action has twelve aspects. There are also her twelve virtues, her twelve powers, her twelve aspects, and then her twelve planes of manifestation and many other things that are twelve; and the symbol, the number twelve is in itself a symbol. It is the symbol of manifestation, double perfection, in essence and in manifestation, in the creation.
What are the twelve aspects, Sweet Mother?
Ah, my child, I have described this somewhere, but I don't remember now. For it is always a choice, you see; according to what one wants to say, one can choose these twelve aspects or twelve others, or give them different names. The same aspect can be named in different ways. This does not have the fixity of a mental theory. (Silence)
According to the angle from which one sees the creation, one day I may describe twelve aspects to you; and then another day, because I have shifted my centre of observation, I may describe twelve others, and they will be equally true.
(To Vishwanath) Is it the wind that's producing this storm? It is very good for a dramatic stage-effect.... The traitor is approaching in the night... yes? We are waiting for some terrible deed....
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954, 395,#KEYS
320:When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into the head and liberates the inner mind mind centres, then into the heart centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner vital, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated, creating what has to be created. It integrates, harmonises, establishes a new rhythm in the nature. It can bring down too a higher and yet higher force and range of the higher nature until, if that be the aim of the sadhana, it becomes possible to bring down the supramental force and existence. All this is prepared, assistance, farthered by the work of the psychic being in the heart centre; the more it is open, in front, active, the quicker, safer, easier the working of the Force can be. The more love and bhakti and surrender grow in the heart, the more rapid and perfect becomes the evolution of the sadhana. For the descent and transformation imply at the same time an increasing contact and union with the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #KEYS
321:In Rajayoga the chosen instrument is the mind. our ordinary mentality is first disciplined, purified and directed towards the divine Being, then by a summary process of Asana and Pranayama the physical force of our being is stilled and concentrated, the life-force released into a rhythmic movement capable of cessation and concentrated into a higher power of its upward action, the mind, supported and strengthened by this greater action and concentration of the body and life upon which it rests, is itself purified of all its unrest and emotion and its habitual thought-waves, liberated from distraction and dispersion, given its highest force of concentration, gathered up into a trance of absorption. Two objects, the one temporal, the other eternal,are gained by this discipline. Mind-power develops in another concentrated action abnormal capacities of knowledge, effective will, deep light of reception, powerful light of thought-radiation which are altogether beyond the narrow range of our normal mentality; it arrives at the Yogic or occult powers around which there has been woven so much quite dispensable and yet perhaps salutary mystery. But the one final end and the one all-important gain is that the mind, stilled and cast into a concentrated trance, can lose itself in the divine consciousness and the soul be made free to unite with the divine Being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609,#KEYS
322:
If one is too serious in yoga, doesn't one become obsessed by the difficulty of the task?
There is a limit to be kept!... But if one chooses one's obsession well, it may be very useful because it is no longer quite an obsession. For example, one has decided to find the Divine within oneself, and constantly, in every circumstance, whatever happens or whatever one may do, one concentrates in order to enter into contact with the inner Divine. Naturally, first one must have that little thing Sri Aurobindo speaks about, that "lesser truth" which consists in knowing that there is a Divine within one (this is a very good example of the "lesser truth") and once one is sure of it and has the aspiration to find it, if that aspiration becomes constant and the effort to realise it becomes constant, in the eyes of others it looks like an obsession, but this kind of obsession is not bad. It becomes bad only if one loses one's balance. But it must be made quite clear that those who lose their balance with that obsession are only those who were quite ready to lose their balance; any circumstance whatever would have produced the same result and made them lose their balance - it is a defect in the mental structure, it is not the fault of the obsession. And naturally, he who changes a desire into an obsession would be sure to go straight towards imbalance. That is why I say it is important to know the object of the obsession. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1950-1951,#KEYS
323:Are remembrance and memory the same thing?
Not necessarily. Memory is a mental phenomenon, purely mental. Remembrance can be a phenomenon of consciousness. One can remember in all the domains of one's being: one can remember vitally, one can remember physically, one can remember psychically, one can remember mentally also. But memory is a purely mental phenomenon. Memory can, first of all, be deformed and it can also be effaced, one can forget. The phenomenon of consciousness is very precise; if you can take the consciousness back to the state in which it was, things come back exactly as they were. It is as though you relived the same mo- ment. You can relive it once, twice, ten times, a hundred times, but you relive a phenomenon of consciousness. It is very different from the memory of a fact which you inscribe somewhere in your brain. And if the cerebral associations are disturbed in the least (for there are many things in your brain and it is a very delicate instrument), if there is the slightest disturbance, your memory goes out of order. And then holes are formed and you forget. On the other hand, if you know how to bring back a particular state of consciousness in you, it comes back exactly the same as it was. Now, a remembrance can also be purely mental and it may be a continuation of cerebral activities, but that is mental remembrance. And you have remembrances in feeling, remembrances in sensation.... ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 290-291,#KEYS
324:0 Order - All developmental theories consider the infant to be "undifferentiated," the essence of which is the absence of any self-other boundary (interpersonally) or any subject-object boundary (intrapsychically), hence, stage 0 rather than stage 1. The infant is believed to consider all of the phenomena it experiences as extensions of itself. The infant is "all self" or "all subject" and "no object or other." Whether one speaks of infantile narcissism," "orality," being under the sway completely of "the pleasure principle" with no countervailing "reality principle," or being "all assimilative" with no countervailing "accommodation," all descriptions amount to the same picture of an objectless, incorporative embeddedness. Such an underlying psychologic gives rise not only to a specific kind of cognition (prerepresentational) but to a specific kind of emotion in which the emotional world lacks any distinction between inner and outer sources of pleasure and discomfort. To describe a state of complete undifferentiation, psychologists have had to rely on metaphors: Our language itself depends on the transcendence of this prerepresentational stage. The objects, symbols, signs, and referents of language organize the experienced world and presuppose the very categories that are not yet articulated at stage 0. Thus, Freud has described this period as the "oceanic stage," the self undifferentiated from the swelling sea. Jung suggested "uroboros," the snake that swallows its tail. ~ Robert Kegan, #KEYS
325:There must be accepted and progressively accomplished a surrender of our capacities of working into the hands of a greater Power behind us and our sense of being the doer and worker must disappear. All must be given for a more direct use into the hands of the divine Will which is hidden by these frontal appearances; for by that permitting Will alone is our action possible. A hidden Power is the true Lord and overruling Observer of our acts and only he knows through all the ignorance and perversion and deformation brought in by the ego their entire sense and ultimate purpose. There must be effected a complete transformation of our limited and distorted egoistic life and works into the large and direct outpouring of a greater divine Life, Will and Energy that now secretly supports us. This greater Will and Energy must be made conscious in us and master; no longer must it remain, as now, only a superconscious, upholding and permitting Force. There must be achieved an undistorted transmission through us of the all-wise purpose and process of a now hidden omniscient Power and omnipotent Knowledge which will turn into its pure, unobstructed, happily consenting and participating channel all our transmuted nature. This total consecration and surrender and this resultant entire transformation and free transmission make up the whole fundamental means and the ultimate aim of an integral Karmayoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [92],#KEYS
326:At first, needing the companionship of the human voice, he had listened to classical plays especially the works of Shaw, Ibsen, and Shakespeare - or poetry readings from Discovery's enormous library of recorded sounds. The problems they dealt with, however, seemed so remote, or so easily resolved with a little common sense, that after a while he lost patience with them.
So he switched to opera - usually in Italian or German, so that he was not distracted even by the minimal intellectual content that most operas contained. This phase lasted for two weeks before he realized that the sound of all these superbly trained voices was only exacerbating his loneliness. But what finally ended this cycle was Verdi's Requiem Mass, which he had never heard performed on Earth. The "Dies Irae," roaring with ominous appropriateness through the empty ship, left him completely shattered; and when the trumpets of Doomsday echoed from the heavens, he could endure no more.
Thereafter, he played only instrumental music. He started with the romantic composers, but shed them one by one as their emotional outpourings became too oppressive. Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, lasted a few weeks, Beethoven rather longer. He finally found peace, as so many others had done, in the abstract architecture of Bach, occasionally ornamented with Mozart. And so Discovery drove on toward Saturn, as often as not pulsating with the cool music of the harpsichord, the frozen thoughts of a brain that had been dust for twice a hundred years. ~ Arthur C Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey,#KEYS
327:But what has fixed the modes of Nature? Or who has originated and governs the movements of Force? There is a Consciousness - or a Conscient - behind that is the lord, witness, knower, enjoyer, upholder and source of sanction for her works; this consciousness is Soul or Purusha. Prakriti shapes the action in us; Purusha in her or behind her witnesses, assents, bears and upholds it. Prakriti forms the thought in our minds; Purusha in her or behind her knows the thought and the truth in it. Prakriti determines the result of the action; Purusha in her or behind her enjoys or suffers the consequence. Prakriti forms mind and body, labours over them, develops them; Purusha upholds the formation and evolution and sanctions each step of her works. Prakriti applies the Will-force which works in things and men; Purusha sets that Will-force to work by his vision of that which should be done. This Purusha is not the surface ego, but a silent Self, a source of Power, an originator and receiver of Knowledge behind the ego. Our mental "I" is only a false reflection of this Self, this Power, this Knowledge. This Purusha or supporting Consciousness is therefore the cause, recipient and support of all Nature's works, but he is not himself the doer. Prakriti, NatureForce, in front and Shakti, Conscious-Force, Soul-Force behind her, - for these two are the inner and outer faces of the universal Mother, - account for all that is done in the universe. The universal Mother, Prakriti-Shakti, is the one and only worker. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 214, #KEYS
328:[the value of sublimation:]
And since Yoga is in its essence a turning away from the ordinary material and animal life led by most men or from the more mental but still limited way of living followed by the few to a greater spiritual life, to the way divine, every part of our energies that is given to the lower existence in the spirit of that existence is a contradiction of our aim and our self-dedication. On the other hand, every energy or activity that we can convert from its allegiance to the lower and dedicate to the service of the higher is so much gained on our road, so much taken from the powers that oppose our progress. It is the difficulty of this wholesale conversion that is the source of all the stumblings in the path of Yoga. For our entire nature and its environment, all our personal and all our universal self, are full of habits and of influences that are opposed to our spiritual rebirth and work against the whole-heartedness of our endeavour.
In a certain sense we are nothing but a complex mass of mental, nervous and physical habits held together by a few ruling ideas, desires and associations, - an amalgam of many small self-repeating forces with a few major vibrations. What we propose in our Yoga is nothing less than to break up the whole formation of our past and present which makes up the ordinary material and mental man and to create a new centre of vision and a new universe of activities in ourselves which shall constitute a divine humanity or a superhuman nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, [71] [T1],#KEYS
329:But even when the desire to know exists in the requisite strength, the mental vision by which abstract truth is recognised is hard to distinguish from vivid imaginability and consonance with mental habits. It is necessary to practise methodological doubt, like Descartes, in order to loosen the hold of mental habits; and it is necessary to cultivate logical imagination, in order to have a number of hypotheses at command, and not to be the slave of the one which common sense has rendered easy to imagine. These two processes, of doubting the familiar and imagining the unfamiliar, are correlative, and form the chief part of the mental training required for a philosopher.
The naïve beliefs which we find in ourselves when we first begin the process of philosophic reflection may turn out, in the end, to be almost all capable of a true interpretation; but they ought all, before being admitted into philosophy, to undergo the ordeal of sceptical criticism. Until they have gone through this ordeal, they are mere blind habits, ways of behaving rather than intellectual convictions. And although it may be that a majority will pass the test, we may be pretty sure that some will not, and that a serious readjustment of our outlook ought to result. In order to break the dominion of habit, we must do our best to doubt the senses, reason, morals, everything in short. In some directions, doubt will be found possible; in others, it will be checked by that direct vision of abstract truth upon which the possibility of philosophical knowledge depends. ~ Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World,#KEYS
330:This ego or "I" is not a lasting truth, much less our essential part; it is only a formation of Nature, a mental form of thought centralisation in the perceiving and discriminating mind, a vital form of the centralisation of feeling and sensation in our parts of life, a form of physical conscious reception centralising substance and function of substance in our bodies. All that we internally are is not ego, but consciousness, soul or spirit. All that we externally and superficiallyare and do is not ego but Nature. An executive cosmic force shapes us and dictates through our temperament and environment and mentality so shaped, through our individualised formulation of the cosmic energies, our actions and their results. Truly, we do not think, will or act but thought occurs in us, will occurs in us, impulse and act occur in us; our ego-sense gathers around itself, refers to itself all this flow of natural activities. It is cosmic Force, it is Nature that forms the thought, imposes the will, imparts the impulse. our body, mind and ego are a wave of that sea of force in action and do not govern it, but by it are governed and directed. The Sadhaka in his progress towards truth and self-knowledge must come to a point where the soul opens its eyes of vision and recognises this truth of ego and this truth of works. He gives up the idea of a mental, vital, physical, "I" that acts or governs action; he recognises that Prakriti, Force of cosmic nature following her fixed modes, is the one and only worker in him and in all things and creatures.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 214,#KEYS
331:These are the conditions of our effort and they point to an ideal which can be expressed in these or in equivalent formulae. To live in God and not in the ego; to move, vastly founded, not in the little egoistic consciousness, but in the consciousness of the All-Soul and the Transcendent. To be perfectly equal in all happenings and to all beings, and to see and feel them as one with oneself and one with the Divine; to feel all in oneself and all in God; to feel God in all, oneself in all. To act in God and not in the ego. And here, first, not to choose action by reference to personal needs and standards, but in obedience to the dictates of the living highest Truth above us. Next, as soon as we are sufficiently founded in the spiritual consciousness, not to act any longer by our separate will or movement, but more and more to allow action to happen and develop under the impulsion and guidance of a divine Will that surpasses us. And last, the supreme result, to be exalted into an identity in knowledge, force, consciousness, act, joy of existence with the Divine Shakti; to feel a dynamic movement not dominated by mortal desire and vital instinct and impulse and illusive mental free-will, but luminously conceived and evolved in an immortal self-delight and an infinite self-knowledge. For this is the action that comes by a conscious subjection and merging of the natural man into the divine Self and eternal Spirit; it is the Spirit that for ever transcends and guides this world-Nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [101],#KEYS
332: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
333:Concentrating the Attention:
Whatever you may want to do in life, one thing is absolutely indispensable and at the basis of everything, the capacity of concentrating the attention. If you are able to gather together the rays of attention and consciousness on one point and can maintain the concentration with a presistent will, nothing can resist it - whatever it may be, from the most material physical development to the highest spiritual one. But this discipline must be followed in a constant and, it may be said, imperturbable way; not that you should always be concentrated on the same thing - thats not what I mean, I mean learning to concentrate. And materially, for studies, sports, all physical or mental development, it is absolutely indispensble. And the value of an individual is proportionate to the value of his attention. And from the spiritual point of view it is still more important. There is no spiritual obstacle which can resist a penetrating power of concentration. For instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union with the inner Divine, opening to the higher spheres, all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power of concentration - but one must learn how to do it. There is nothing in the human or even in the superhuman field, to which the power of concentration is not the key. You can be the best athlete, you can be the best student, you can be an artistic, literary or scientific genius, you can be the greatest saint with that faculty. And everyone has in himself a tiny little beginning of it - it is given to everybody, but people do not cultivate it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,#KEYS
334:For invincible reasons of homogeneity and coherence, the fibers of cosmogenesis require to be prolonged in ourselves far more deeply than flesh and bone. We are not being tossed about and drawn along in the vital current merely by the material surface of our being. But like a subtle fluid, space-time, having drowned our bodies, penetrates our soul. It fills it and impregnates it. It mingles with its powers, until the soul soon no longer knows how to distinguish space-time from its own thoughts. Nothing can escape this flux any longer, for those who know how to see, even though it were the summit of our being, because it can only be defined in terms of increases of consciousness. For is not the very act by which the fine point of our mind penetrates the absolute a phenomenon of emergence? In short, recognized at first in a single point of things, then inevitably having spread to the whole of the inorganic and organic volume of matter, whether we like it or not evolution is now starting to invade the psychic zones of the world.... The human discovers that, in the striking words of Julian Huxley, we are nothing else than evolution become conscious of itself. It seems to me that until it is established in this perspective, the modern mind...will always be restless. For it is on this summit and this summit alone that a resting place and illumination await us.... All evolution becomes conscious of itself deep within us.... Not only do we read the secret of its movements in our slightest acts, but to a fundamental extent we hold it in our own hands: responsible for its past and its future. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #KEYS
335:Instruction about Sadhana to a disciple:
Disciple: What is the nature of realisation in this yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: In this yoga we want to bring down the Truth-consciousness into the whole being - no part being left out. This can be done by the Higher Power itself. What you have to do is to open yourself to it.
Disciple: As the Higher Power is there why does it not work in all men - consciously?
Sri Aurobindo: Because man, at present, is shut up in his mental being, his vital nature and physical consciousness and their limitations. You have to open yourself. By an opening I mean an aspiration in the heart for the coming down of the Power that is above, and a will in the Mind, or above the Mind, open to it.
The first thing this working of the Higher Power does is to establish Shanti - peace - in all the parts of the being and an opening above. This peace is not mere mental Shanti, it is full of power and, whatever action takes place in it, Samata, equality, is its basis and the Shanti and Samata are never disturbed. What comes from Above is peace, power and joy. It also brings about changes in various parts of our nature so that they can bear the pressure of the Higher Power.
Knowledge also progressively develops showing all in our being that is to be thrown out and what is to be retained. In fact, knowledge and guidance both come and you have constantly to consent to the guidance. The progress may be more in one direction than in anotheR But it is the Higher Power that works. The rest is a matter of experience and the movement of the Shakti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, RECORDED BY A B PURANI (28-09-1923),#KEYS
336:The second condition of consciousness is potential only to the human being and gained by an inner enlightening and transformation of the mind of ignorance; it is that in which the mind seeks for its source of knowledge rather within than without and becomes to its own feeling and self-experience, by whatever means, a mind, not of original ignorance, but of self-forgetful knowledge. This mind is conscious that the knowledge of all things is hidden within it or at least somewhere in the being, but as if veiled and forgotten, and the knowledge comes to it not as a thing acquired from outside, but always secretly there and now remembered and known at once to be true, - each thing in its own place, degree, manner and measure. This is its attitude to knowledge even when the occasion of knowing is some external experience, sign or indication, because that is to it only the occasion and its reliance for the truth of the knowledge is not on the external indication or evidence but on the inner confirming witness. The true mind is the universal within us and the individual is only a projection on the surface, and therefore this second state of consciousness we have either when the individual mind goes more and more inward and is always consciously or subconsciously near and sensitive to the touches of the universal mentality in which all is contained, received, capable of being made manifest, or, still more powerfully, when we live in the consciousness of universal mind with the personal mentality only as a projection, a marking board or a communicating switch on the surface. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Towards the Supramental Time Vision, 887, #KEYS
337:In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is called 'the resurrection body ' and 'the glorified body.' The prophet Isaiah said, 'The dead shall live, their bodies shall rise' (Isa. 26:19). St. Paul called it 'the celestial body' or 'spiritual body ' (soma pneumatikon) (I Corinthians 15:40). In Sufism it is called 'the most sacred body ' (wujud al-aqdas) and 'supracelestial body ' (jism asli haqiqi). In Taoism, it is called 'the diamond body,' and those who have attained it are called 'the immortals' and 'the cloudwalkers.' In Tibetan Buddhism it is called 'the light body.' In Tantrism and some schools of yoga, it is called 'the vajra body,' 'the adamantine body,' and 'the divine body.' In Kriya yoga it is called 'the body of bliss.' In Vedanta it is called 'the superconductive body.' In Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, it is called 'the radiant body.' In the alchemical tradition, the Emerald Tablet calls it 'the Glory of the Whole Universe' and 'the golden body.' The alchemist Paracelsus called it 'the astral body.' In the Hermetic Corpus, it is called 'the immortal body ' (soma athanaton). In some mystery schools, it is called 'the solar body.' In Rosicrucianism, it is called 'the diamond body of the temple of God.' In ancient Egypt it was called 'the luminous body or being' (akh). In Old Persia it was called 'the indwelling divine potential' (fravashi or fravarti). In the Mithraic liturgy it was called 'the perfect body ' (soma teilion). In the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, it is called 'the divine body,' composed of supramental substance. In the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin, it is called 'the ultrahuman'.
~ ?, http://herebedragons.weebly.com/homo-lumen.html,#KEYS
338:Thoughts are forms and have an individual life, independent of their author: sent out from him into the world, they move in it towards the realisation of their own purpose of existence. When you think of anyone, your thought takes a form and goes out to find him; and, if your thinking is associated with some will that is behind it, the thought-form that has gone out from you makes an attempt to realise itself. Let us say, for instance, that you have a keen desire for a certain person to come and that, along with this vital impulse of desire, a strong imagination accompanies the mental form you have made; you imagine, "If he came, it would be like this or it would be like that." After a time you drop the idea altogether, and you do not know that even after you have forgotten it, your thought continues to exist. For it does still exist and is in action, independent of you, and it would need a great power to bring it back from its work. It is working in the atmosphere of the person touched by it and creates in him the desire to come. And if there is a sufficient power of will in your thought-form, if it is a well-built formation, it will arrive at its own realisation. But between the formation and the realisation there is a certain lapse of time, and if in this interval your mind has been occupied with quite other things, then when there happens this fulfilment of your forgotten thought, you may not even remember that you once harboured it; you do not know that you were the instigator of its action and the cause of what has come about. And it happens very often too that when the result does come, you have ceased to desire or care for it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
339:
Why do some children take interest in things only when there is some excitement?
They are tamasic. It is due to the large proportion of tamas in their nature. The more tamasic one is, the more does one need something violent and exciting circumstances. When the physical is tamasic, unless one eats spices and highly flavoured food, one does not feel nourished. And yet these are poisons. They act exactly like poison on the nerves. They do not nourish. But it is because people are tamasic, because their body's consciousness is not sufficiently developed. Well, mentally it is the same thing, vitally the same thing. If they are tamasic, they always need new excitements, dramas, murders, suicides, etc. to feel anything at all, otherwise.... And there is nothing, nothing that makes one more wicked and cruel than tamas. For it is this need of excitement which shakes you up a little, makes you come out of yourself. And one must also learn, there, to distinguish between those who are exclusively tamasic and those who are mixed, and those who are struggling within themselves with their different parts. One can, one must know in what proportion their nature is constituted, so as to be able to insist at need on one thing or another. Some people constantly need a whipping from life in order to move, otherwise they would spend their time sleeping. Others, on the contrary, need soothing things, silence, a retreat in the country-side - all things that do a lot of good but which must disappear as soon as one needs to make an effort for progress or to realise something or struggle against a defect, conquer an obstacle.... It is complicated, don't you think so? ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
340:The whole crux and difficulty of human life lies here. Man is this mental being, this mental consciousness working as mental force, aware in a way of the universal force and life of which he is part but, because he has not knowledge of its universality or even of the totality of his own being, unable to deal either with life in general or with his own life in a really effective and victorious movement of mastery. He seeks to know Matter in order to be master of the material environment, to know Life in order to be master of the vital existence, to know Mind in order to be master of the great obscure movement of mentality in which he is not only a jet of light of self-consciousness like the animal, but also more and more a flame of growing knowledge. Thus he seeks to know himself in order to be master of himself, to know the world in order to be master of the world. This is the urge of Existence in him, the necessity of the Consciousness he is, the impulsion of the Force that is his life, the secret will of Sachchidananda appearing as the individual in a world in which He expresses and yet seems to deny Himself. To find the conditions under which this inner impulsion is satisfied is the problem man must strive always to resolve and to that he is compelled by the very nature of his own existence and by the Deity seated within him; and until the problem is solved, the impulse satisfied, the human race cannot rest from its labour. Either man must fulfil himself by satisfying the Divine within him or he must produce out of himself a new and greater being who will be more capable of satisfying it. He must either himself become a divine humanity or give place to Superman.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
341:8. We all recognize the Universe must have been thought into shape before it ever could have become a material fact. And if we are willing to follow along the lines of the Great Architect of the Universe, we shall find our thoughts taking form, just as the universe took concrete form. It is the same mind operating through the individual. There is no difference in kind or quality, the only difference is one of degree.
9. The architect visualizes his building, he sees it as he wishes it to be. His thought becomes a plastic mold from which the building will eventually emerge, a high one or a low one, a beautiful one or a plain one, his vision takes form on paper and eventually the necessary material is utilized and the building stands complete.
10. The inventor visualizes his idea in exactly the same manner, for instance, Nikola Tesla, he with the giant intellect, one of the greatest inventors of all ages, the man who has brought forth the most amazing realities, always visualizes his inventions before attempting to work them out. He did not rush to embody them in form and then spend his time in correcting defects. Having first built up the idea in his imagination, he held it there as a mental picture, to be reconstructed and improved by his thought. "In this way," he writes in the Electrical Experimenter. "I am enabled to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of, and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete, the product of my brain. Invariably my devise works as I conceived it should; in twenty years there has not been a single exception. ~ Charles F Haanel, The Master Key System,#KEYS
342:But this is only one side of the force that works for perfection. The process of the integral Yoga has three stages, not indeed sharply distinguished or separate, but in a certain measure successive. There must be, first, the effort towards at least an initial and enabling self-transcendence and contact with the Divine; next, the reception of that which transcends, that with which we have gained communion, into ourselves for the transformation of our whole conscious being; last, the utilisation of our transformed humanity as a divine centre in the world. So long as the contact with the Divine is not in some considerable degree established, so long as there is not some measure of sustained identity, sayujya, the element of personal effort must normally predominate. But in proportion as this contact establishes itself, the sadhaka must become conscious that a force other than his own, a force transcending his egoistic endeavour and capacity, is at work in him and to this Power he learns progressively to submit himself and delivers up to it the charge of his Yoga. In the end his own will and force become one with the higher Power; he merges them in the divineWill and its transcendent and universal Force. He finds it thenceforward presiding over the necessary transformation of his mental, vital and physical being with an impartial wisdom and provident effectivity of which the eager and interested ego is not capable. It is when this identification and this self-merging are complete that the divine centre in the world is ready. Purified, liberated, plastic, illumined, it can begin to serve as a means for the direct action of a supreme Power in the larger Yoga of humanity or superhumanity, of the earth's spiritual progression or its transformation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T2],#KEYS
343:What your reasoning ignores is that which is absolute or tends towards the absolute in man and his seeking as well as in the Divine - something not to be explained by mental reasoning or vital motive. A motive, but a motive of the soul, not of vital desire; a reason not of the mind, but of the self and spirit. An asking too, but the asking that is the soul's inherent aspiration, not a vital longing. That is what comes up when there is the sheer self-giving, when "I seek you for this, I seek you for that" changes to a sheer "I seek you for you." It is that marvellous and ineffable absolute in the Divine that Krishnaprem means when he says, "Not knowledge nor this nor that, but Krishna."
The pull of that is indeed a categorical imperative, the self in us drawn to the Divine because of the imperative call of its greater Self, the soul ineffably drawn towards the object of its adoration, because it cannot be otherwise, because it is it and He is He. That is all about it.
I have written all that only to explain what we mean whenwe speak of seeking the Divine for himself and not for anything else - so far as it is explicable. Explicable or not, it is one of the most dominant facts of spiritual experience. The call to selfgiving is only an expression of this fact. But this does not mean that I object to your asking for Ananda. Ask for that by all means, so long as to ask for it is a need of any part of your being - for these are the things that lead on towards the Divine so long as the absolute inner call that is there all the time does not push itself to the surface. But it is really that that has drawn from the beginning and is there behind - it is the categorical spiritual imperative, the absolute need of the soul for the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Seeking the Divine,#KEYS
344:The link between the spiritual and the lower planes of the mental being is that which is called in the old Vedantic phraseology the vijnana and which we may term the Truth-plane or the ideal mind or supermind where the One and the Many meet and our being is freely open to the revealing light of the divine Truth and the inspiration of the divine Will and Knowledge. If we can break down the veil of the intellectual, emotional, sensational mind which our ordinary existence has built between us and the Divine, we can then take up through the Truth-mind all our mental, vital and physical experience and offer it up to the spiritual -- this was the secret or mystic sense of the old Vedic "sacrifice" -- to be converted into the terms of the infinite truth of Sachchidananda, and we can receive the powers and illuminations of the infinite Existence in forms of a divine knowledge, will and delight to be imposed on our mentality, vitality, physical existence till the lower is transformed into the perfect vessel of the higher. This was the double Vedic movement of the descent and birth of the gods in the human creature and the ascent of the human powers that struggle towards the divine knowledge, power and delight and climb into the godheads, the result of which was the possession of the One, the Infinite, the beatific existence, the union with God, the Immortality. By possession of this ideal plane we break down entirely the opposition of the lower and the higher existence, the false gulf created by the Ignorance between the finite and the Infinite, God and Nature, the One and the Many, open the gates of the Divine, fulfil the individual in the complete harmony of the cosmic consciousness and realise in the cosmic being the epiphany of the transcendent Sachchidananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 2.15, #KEYS
345:IN OUR scrutiny of the seven principles of existence it was found that they are one in their essential and fundamental reality: for if even the matter of the most material universe is nothing but a status of being of Spirit made an object of sense, envisaged by the Spirit's own consciousness as the stuff of its forms, much more must the life-force that constitutes itself into form of Matter, and the mind-consciousness that throws itself out as Life, and the Supermind that develops Mind as one of its powers, be nothing but Spirit itself modified in apparent substance and in dynamism of action, not modified in real essence. All are powers of one Power of being and not other than that All-Existence, All-Consciousness, All-Will, All-Delight which is the true truth behind every appearance. And they are not only one in their reality, but also inseparable in the sevenfold variety of their action. They are the seven colours of the light of the divine consciousness, the seven rays of the Infinite, and by them the Spirit has filled in on the canvas of his self-existence conceptually extended, woven of the objective warp of Space and the subjective woof of Time, the myriad wonders of his self-creation great, simple, symmetrical in its primal laws and vast framings, infinitely curious and intricate in its variety of forms and actions and the complexities of relation and mutual effect of all upon each and each upon all. These are the seven Words of the ancient sages; by them have been created and in the light of their meaning are worked out and have to be interpreted the developed and developing harmonies of the world we know and the worlds behind of which we have only an indirect knowledge. The Light, the Sound is one; their action is sevenfold.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 7 - The Knowledge and the Ignorance, 499,#KEYS
346:There is, indeed, a higher form of the buddhi that can be called the intuitive mind or intuitive reason, and this by its intuitions, its inspirations, its swift revelatory vision, its luminous insight and discrimination can do the work of the reason with a higher power, a swifter action, a greater and spontaneous certitude. It acts in a self-light of the truth which does not depend upon the torch-flares of the sense-mind and its limited uncertain percepts; it proceeds not by intelligent but by visional concepts: It is a kind of truth-vision, truth-hearing, truth-memory, direct truth-discernment. This true and authentic intuition must be distinguished from a power of the ordinary mental reason which is too easily confused with it, that power of Involved reasoning that reaches its conclusion by a bound and does not need the ordinary steps of the logical mind. The logical reason proceeds pace after pace and tries the sureness of each step like a marl who is walking over unsafe ground and has to test by the hesitating touch of his foot each span of soil that he perceives with his eye. But this other supralogical process of the reason is a motion of rapid insight or swift discernment; it proceeds by a stride or leap, like a man who springs from one sure spot to another point of sure footing, -- or at least held by him to be sure. He sees this space he covers in one compact and flashing view, but he does not distinguish or measure either by eye or touch its successions, features and circumstances. This movement has something of the sense of power of the intuition, something of its velocity, some appearance of its light and certainty, arid we always are apt to take it for the intuition. But our assumption is an error and, if we trust to it, it may lead us into grievous blunders.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
347:If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, - an image which in this experience becomes a reality, - we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; for though we have applied that word for want of a better to any supra-intellectual direct way of knowing, yet what we actually know as intuition is only one special movement of self-existent knowledge. This new range is its origin; it imparts to our intuitions something of its own distinct character and is very clearly an intermediary of a greater Truth-Light with which our mind cannot directly communicate. At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, - not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind Mind and the Overmind Maya, 293, #KEYS
348:the aim of our yoga :::
The aim set before our Yoga is nothing less than to hasten this supreme object of our existence here. Its process leaves behind the ordinary tardy method of slow and confused growth through the evolution of Nature. For the natural evolution is at its best an uncertain growth under cover, partly by the pressure of the environment, partly by a groping education and an ill-lighted purposeful effort, an only partially illumined and half-automatic use of opportunities with many blunders and lapses and relapses; a great portion of it is made up of apparent accidents and circumstances and vicissitudes, - though veiling a secret divine intervention and guidance. In Yoga we replace this confused crooked crab-motion by a rapid, conscious and self-directed evolution which is planned to carry us, as far as can be, in a straight line towards the goal set before us. In a certain sense it may be an error to speak of a goal anywhere in a progression which may well be infinite. Still we can conceive of an immediate goal, an ulterior objective beyond our present achievement towards which the soul in man can aspire. There lies before him the possibility of a new birth; there can be an ascent into a higher and wider plane of being and its descent to transform his members. An enlarged and illumined consciousness is possible that shall make of him a liberated spirit and a perfected force - and, if spread beyond the individual, it might even constitute a divine humanity or else a new, a supramental and therefore a superhuman race. It is this new birth that we make our aim: a growth into a divine consciousness is the whole meaning of our Yoga, an integral conversion to divinity not only of the soul but of all the parts of our nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, 89-90,#KEYS
349:There is the one door in us that sometimes swings open upon the splendour of a truth beyond and, before it shuts again, allows a ray to touch us, - a luminous intimation which, if we have the strength and firmness, we may hold to in our faith and make a starting-point for another play of consciousness than that of the sense-mind, for the play of Intuition. For if we examine carefully, we shall find that Intuition is our first teacher. Intuition always stands veiled behind our mental operations. Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the Unknown which are the beginning of his higher knowledge. Reason only comes in afterwards to see what profit it can have of the shining harvest. Intuition gives us that idea of something behind and beyond all that we know and seem to be which pursues man always in contradiction of his lower reason and all his normal experience and impels him to formulate that formless perception in the more positive ideas of God, Immortality, Heaven and the rest by which we strive to express it to the mind. For Intuition is as strong as Nature herself from whose very soul it has sprung and cares nothing for the contradictions of reason or the denials of experience. It knows what is because it is, because itself it is of that and has come from that, and will not yield it to the judgment of what merely becomes and appears. What the Intuition tells us of, is not so much Existence as the Existent, for it proceeds from that one point of light in us which gives it its advantage, that sometimes opened door in our own self-awareness. Ancient Vedanta seized this message of the Intuition and formulated it in the three great declarations of the Upanishads, I am He, Thou art That, O Swetaketu, All this is the Brahman; this Self is the Brahman.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge,#KEYS
350:Though the supermind is suprarational to our intelligence and its workings occult to our apprehension, it is nothing irrationally mystic, but rather its existence and emergence is a logical necessity of the nature of existence, always provided we grant that not matter or mind alone but spirit is the fundamental reality and everywhere a universal presence. All things are a manifestation of the infinite spirit out of its own being, out of its own consciousness and by the self-realising, self-determining, self-fulfilling power of that consciousness. The Infinite, we may say, organises by the power of its self-knowledge the law of its own manifestation of being in the universe, not only the material universe present to our senses, but whatever lies behind it on whatever planes of existence. All is organised by it not under any inconscient compulsion, not according to a mental fantasy or caprice, but in its own infinite spiritual freedom according to the self-truth of its being, its infinite potentialities and its will of self-creation out of those potentialities, and the law of this self-truth is the necessity that compels created things to act and evolve each according to its own nature. The Intelligence- to give it an inadequate name-the Logos that thus organises its own manifestation is evidently something infinitely greater, more extended in knowledge, compelling in self-power, large both in the delight of its self-existence and the delight of its active being and works than the mental intelligence which is to us the highest realised degree and expression of consciousness. It is to this intelligence infinite in itself but freely organising and self-determiningly organic in its self-creation and its works that we may give for our present purpose the name of the divine supermind or gnosis.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 785-86,#KEYS
351:19 - When I had the dividing reason, I shrank from many things; after I had lost it in sight, I hunted through the world for the ugly and the repellent, but I could no longer find them. - Sri Aurobindo
Is there really nothing ugly and repellent in the world? Is it our reason alone that sees things in that way?
To understand truly what Sri Aurobindo means here, you must yourself have had the experience of transcending reason and establishing your consciousness in a world higher than the mental intelligence. For from up there you can see, firstly, that everything that exists in the universe is an expression of Sachchidananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss) and therefore behind any appearance whatever, if you go deeply enough, you can perceive Sachchidananda, which is the principle of Supreme Beauty.
Secondly, you see that everything in the manifested universe is relative, so much so that there is no beauty which may not appear ugly in comparison with a greater beauty, no ugliness which may not appear beautiful in comparison with a yet uglier ugliness.
When you can see and feel in this way, you immediately become aware of the extreme relativity of these impressions and their unreality from the absolute point of view. However, so long as we dwell in the rational consciousness, it is, in a way, natural that everything that offends our aspiration for perfection, our will for progress, everything we seek to transcend and surmount, should seem ugly and repellent to us, since we are in search of a greater ideal and we want to rise higher.
And yet it is still only a half-wisdom which is very far from the true wisdom, a wisdom that appears wise only in the midst of ignorance and unconsciousness.
In the Truth everything is different, and the Divine shines in all things. 17 February 1960 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,#KEYS
352:When, in last week's aphorism, Sri Aurobindo opposed - as one might say - "knowledge" to "Wisdom", he was speaking of knowledge as it is lived in the average human consciousness, the knowledge which is obtained through effort and mental development, whereas here, on the contrary, the knowledge he speaks of is the essential Knowledge, the supramental divine Knowledge, Knowledge by identity. And this is why he describes it here as "vast and eternal", which clearly indicates that it is not human knowledge as we normally understand it.
Many people have asked why Sri Aurobindo said that the river is "slender". This is an expressive image which creates a striking contrast between the immensity of the divine, supramental Knowledge - the origin of this inspiration, which is infinite - and what a human mind can perceive of it and receive from it.
Even when you are in contact with these domains, the portion, so to say, which you perceive, is minimal, slender. It is like a tiny little stream or a few falling drops and these drops are so pure, so brilliant, so complete in themselves, that they give you the sense of a marvellous inspiration, the impression that you have reached infinite domains and risen very high above the ordinary human condition. And yet this is nothing in comparison with what is still to be perceived.
I have also been asked if the psychic being or psychic consciousness is the medium through which the inspiration is perceived.
Generally, yes. The first contact you have with higher regions is a psychic one. Certainly, before an inner psychic opening is achieved, it is difficult to have these inspirations. It can happen as an exception and under exceptional conditions as a grace, but the true contact comes through the psychic; because the psychic consciousness is certainly the medium with the greatest affinity with the divine Truth. ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,#KEYS
353:One can concentrate in any of the three centres which is easiest to the sadhak or gives most result. The power of the concentration in the heart-centre is to open that centre and by the power of aspiration, love, bhakti, surrender remove the veil which covers and conceals the soul and bring forward the soul or psychic being to govern the mind, life and body and turn and open them all-fully-to the Divine, removing all that is opposed to that turning and opening.
This is what is called in this Yoga the psychic transformation. The power of concentration above the head is to bring peace, silence, liberation from the body sense, the identification with mind and life and open the way for the lower (mental vital-physical) consciousness to rise up to meet the higher Consciousness above and for the powers of the higher (spiritual or divine) Consciousness to descend into mind, life and body. This is what is called in this Yoga the spiritual transformation. If one begins with this movement, then the Power from above has in its descent to open all the centres (including the lowest centre) and to bring out the psychic being; for until that is done there is likely to be much difficulty and struggle of the lower consciousness obstructing, mixing with or even refusing the Divine Action from above. If the psychic being is once active this struggle and these difficulties can be greatly minimised. The power of concentration in the eyebrows is to open the centre there, liberate the inner mind and vision and the inner or Yogic consciousness and its experiences and powers. From here also one can open upwards and act also in the lower centres; but the danger of this process is that one may get shut up in one's mental spiritual formations and not come out of them into the free and integral spiritual experience and knowledge and integral change of the being and nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [where to concentrate?],#KEYS
354:Disciple : What part does breathing exercise - Pranayama - play in bringing about the higher consciousness?
Sri Aurobindo : It sets the Pranic - vital - currents free and removes dullness of the brain so that the higher consciousness can come down. Pranayama does not bring dullness in the brain. My own experience, on the contrary, is that brain becomes illumined. When I was practising Pranayama at Baroda, I used to do it for about five hours in the day, - three hours in the morning and two in the evening. I found that the mind began to work with great illumination and power. I used to write poetry in those days. Before the Pranayama practice, usually I wrote five to eight lines per day; and about two hundred lines in a month. After the practice I could write 200 lines within half an hour. That was not the only result. Formerly my memory was dull. But after this practice I found that when the inspiration came I could remember all the lines in their order and write them down correctly at any time. Along with these enhanced functionings I could see an electrical activity all round the brain, and I could feel that it was made up of a subtle substance. I could feel everything as the working of that substance. That was far from your carbon-dioxide!
Disciple : How is it that Pranayama develops mental capacities? What part does it play in bringing about the higher consciousness?
Sri Aurobindo : It is the Pranic - vital - currents which sustain mental activity. When these currents are changed by Pranayama, they bring about a change in the brain. The cause of dullness of the brain is some obstruction in it which does not allow the higher thought to be communicated to it. When this obstruction is removed the higher mental being is able to communicate its action easily to the brain. When the higher consciousness is attained the brain does not become dull. My experience is that it becomes illumined.
~ Sri Aurobindo, A B Purani, Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, 19-9-1926,#KEYS
355:Disciple: If the Asuras represent the dark side of God on the vital plane - does this dark side exist on every plane? If so, are there beings on the mental plane which correspond to the dark side?
Sri Aurobindo: The Asura is really the dark side of God on the mental plane. Mind is the very field of the Asura. His characteristic is egoistic strength, which refuses the Higher Law. The Asura has got Self-control, Tapas, intelligence, only, all that is for his ego.
On the vital plane the corresponding forces we call the Rakshashas which represent violent passions and impulses. There are other beings on the vital plane which we call pramatta and piśacha and these; manifest, more or less, on the physico-vital plane.
Distiple: What is the corresponding being on the higher plane?
Sri Aurobindo: On the higher plane there are no Asuras - there the Truth prevails. There are "Asuras" there in the Vedic sense,- "beings with divine powers". The mental Asura is only a deviation of that power.
The work of the Asura has all the characteristics of mind in it. It is mind refusing to submit to the Higher Law; it is the mind in revolt. It works on the basis of ego and ignorance.
Disciple: What are the forces that correspond to the dark side of God on the physical plane?
Sri Aurobindo: They are what may be called the "elemental beings", or rather, obscure elemental forces - they are more "forces" than "beings". It is these that the Theosophists call the "Elementals". They are not individualised beings like the Asura and the Rakshasas, they are ignorant forces working oh the subtle physical plane.
Disciple: What is the word for them in Sanskrit;?
Sri Aurobindo: What are called bhūtas seem most nearly to correspond to them.
Disciple: The term "Elemental" means that these work through the elements.
Sri Aurobindo: There are two kinds of "elementals": one mischievous and the other innocent. What the Europeans call the gnomes come under this category. ~ A B Purani, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, 15-06-1926,#KEYS
356:middle vision logic or paradigmatic ::: (1:25) Cognition is described as middle-vision logic, or paradigmatic in that it is capable of co-ordinating the relations between systems of systems, unifying them into principled frameworks or paradigms. This is an operation on meta-systems and allows for the view described above, a view of human development itself. Self-sense at teal is called Autonomous or Strategist and is characterized by the emergent capacity to acknowledge and cope with inner conflicts in needs, ... and values. All of which are part of a multifacted and complex world. Teal sees our need for autonomy and autonomy itself as limited because emotional interdependence is inevitable. The contradictory aspects of self are weaved into an identity that is whole, integrated and commited to generating a fulfilling life.
Additionally, Teal allows individuals to link theory and practice, perceive dynamic systems interactions, recognize and strive for higher principles, understand the social construction of reality, handle paradox and complexity, create positive-sum games and seek feedback from others as a vital source for growth. Values embrace magnificence of existence, flexibility, spontaneioty, functionality, the integration of differences into interdependent systems and complimenting natural egalitarianism with natural ranking. Needs shift to self-actualization, and morality is in both terms of universal ethical principles and recognition of the developmental relativity of those universals. Teal is the first wave that is truly able to see the limitations of orange and green morality, it is able to uphold the paradox of universalism and relativism. Teal in its decision making process is able to see ... deep and surface features of morality and is able to take into consideration both those values when engaging in moral action. Currently Teal is quite rare, embraced by 2-5% of the north american and european population according to sociological research. ~ Essential Integral, L4.1-53, Middle Vision Logic,#KEYS
357:It must also be kept in mind that the supramental change is difficult, distant, an ultimate stage; it must be regarded as the end of a far-off vista; it cannot be and must not be turned into a first aim, a constantly envisaged goal or an immediate objective. For it can only come into the view of possibility after much arduous self-conquest and self-exceeding, at the end of many long and trying stages of a difficult self-evolution of the nature. One must first acquire an inner Yogic consciousness and replace by it our ordinary view of things, natural movements, motives of life; one must revolutionise the whole present build of our being. Next, we have to go still deeper, discover our veiled psychic entity and in its light and under its government psychicise our inner and outer parts, turn mind-nature, life-nature, body-nature and all our mental, vital, physical action and states and movements into a conscious instrumentation of the soul. Afterwards or concurrently we have to spiritualise the being in its entirety by a descent of a divine Light, Force, Purity, Knowledge, freedom and wideness. It is necessary to break down the limits of the personal mind, life and physicality, dissolve the ego, enter into the cosmic consciousness, realise the self, acquire a spiritualised and universalised mind and heart, life-force, physical consciousness. Then only the passage into the supramental consciousness begins to become possible, and even then there is a difficult ascent to make each stage of which is a separate arduous achievement. Yoga is a rapid and concentrated conscious evolution of the being, but however rapid, even though it may effect in a single life what in an instrumental Nature might take centuries and millenniums or many hundreds of lives, still all evolution must move by stages; even the greatest rapidity and concentration of the movement cannot swallow up all the stages or reverse natural process and bring the end near to the beginning.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supermind and the Yoga of Works, 281,#KEYS
358:indifference to things of the body :::
This detachment of the mind must be strengthened by a certain attitude of indifference to the things of the body; we must not care essentially about its sleep or its waking, its movement or its rest, its pain or its pleasure, its health or ill-health, its vigour or its fatigue, its comfort or its discomfort, or what it eats or drinks. This does not mean that we shall not keep the body in right order so far as we can; we have not to fall into violent asceticisms or a positive neglect of the physical frame. But we have not either to be affected in mind by hunger or thirst or discomfort or ill-health or attach the importance which the physical and vital man attaches to the things of the body, or indeed any but a quite subordinate and purely instrumental importance. Nor must this instrumental importance be allowed to assume the proportions of a necessity; we must not for instance imagine that the purity of the mind depends on the things we eat or drink, although during a certain stage restrictions in eating and drinking are useful to our inner progress; nor on the other hand must we continue to think that the dependence of the mind or even of the life on food and drink is anything more than a habit, a customary relation which Nature has set up between these principles. As a matter of fact the food we take can be reduced by contrary habit and new relation to a minimum without the mental or vital vigour being in any way reduced; even on the contrary with a judicious development they can be trained to a greater potentiality of vigour by learning to rely on the secret fountains of mental and vital energy with which they are connected more than upon the minor aid of physical aliments. This aspect of self-discipline is however more important in the Yoga of self-perfection than here; for our present purpose the important point is the renunciation by the mind of attachment to or dependence on the things of the body.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from Subjection to the Body,#KEYS
359:The capacity for visions, when it is sincere and spontaneous, can put you in touch with events which you are not capable of knowing in your outer consciousness.... There is a very interesting fact, it is that somewhere in the terrestrial mind, somewhere in the terrestrial vital, somewhere in the subtle physical, one can find an exact, perfect, automatic recording of everything that happens. It is the most formidable memory one could imagine, which misses nothing, forgets nothing, records all. And if you are able to enter into it, you can go backward, you can go forward, and in all directions, and you will have the "memory" of all things - not only of things of the past, but of things to come. For everything is recorded there.
In the mental world, for instance, there is a domain of the physical mind which is related to physical things and keeps the memory of physical happenings upon earth. It is as though you were entering into innumerable vaults, one following another indefinitely, and these vaults are filled with small pigeon-holes, one above another, one above another, with tiny doors. Then if you want to know something and if you are conscious, you look, and you see something like a small point - a shining point; you find that this is what you wish to know and you have only to concentrate there and it opens; and when it opens, there is a sort of an unrolling of something like extremely subtle manuscripts, but if your concentration is sufficiently strong you begin to read as though from a book. And you have the whole story in all its details. There are thousands of these little holes, you know; when you go for a walk there, it is as though you were walking in infinity. And in this way you can find the exact facts about whatever you want to know. But I must tell you that what you find is never what has been reported in history - histories are always planned out; I have never come across a single "historical" fact which is like history.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1950-1951, 109 [T7],#KEYS
360:The way of integral knowledge supposes that we are intended to arrive at an integral self-fulfilment and the only thing that is to be eliminated is our own unconsciousness, the Ignorance and the results of the Ignorance. Eliminate the falsity of the being which figures as the ego; then our true being can manifest in us. Eliminate the falsity of the life which figures as mere vital craving and the mechanical round of our corporeal existence; our true life in the power of the Godhead and the joy of the Infinite will appear. Eliminate the falsity of the senses with their subjection to material shows and to dual sensations; there is a greater sense in us that can open through these to the Divine in things and divinely reply to it. Eliminate the falsity of the heart with its turbid passions and desires and its dual emotions; a deeper heart in us can open with its divine love for all creatures and its infinite passion and yearning for the responses of the Infinite. Eliminate the falsity of the thought with its imperfect mental constructions, its arrogant assertions and denials, its limited and exclusive concentrations; a greater faculty of knowledge is behind that can open to the true Truth of God and the soul and Nature and the universe. An integral self-fulfilment, - an absolute, a culmination for the experiences of the heart, for its instinct of love, joy, devotion and worship; an absolute, a culmination for the senses, for their pursuit of divine beauty and good and delight in the forms of things; an absolute, a culmination for the life, for its pursuit of works, of divine power, mastery and perfection; an absolute, a culmination beyond its own limits for the thought, for its hunger after truth and light and divine wisdom and knowledge. Not something quite other than themselves from which they are all cast away is the end of these things in our nature, but something supreme in which they at once transcend themselves and find their own absolutes and infinitudes, their harmonies beyond measure.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge,#KEYS
361:Nati is the submission of the soul to the will of God; its acceptance of all touches as His touches, of all experience as His play with the soul of man. Nati may be with titiksha, feeling the sorrow but accepting it as God's will, or with udasinata, rising superior to it and regarding joy and sorrow equally as God's working in these lower instruments, or with ananda, receiving everything as the play of Krishna and therefore in itself delightful. The last is the state of the complete Yogin, for by this continual joyous or anandamaya namaskara to God constantly practised we arrive eventually at the entire elimination of grief, pain etc, the entire freedom from the dwandwas, and find the Brahmananda in every smallest, most trivial, most apparently discordant detail of life & experience in this human body. We get rid entirely of fear and suffering; Anandam Brahmano vidvan na bibheti kutaschana. We may have to begin with titiksha and udasinata but it is in this ananda that we must consummate the siddhi of samata. The Yogin receives victory and defeat, success and ill-success, pleasure and pain, honour and disgrace with an equal, a sama ananda, first by buddhi-yoga, separating himself from his habitual mental & nervous reactions & insisting by vichara on the true nature of the experience itself and of his own soul which is secretly anandamaya, full of the sama ananda in all things. He comes to change all the ordinary values of experience; amangala reveals itself to him as mangala, defeat & ill-success as the fulfilment of God's immediate purpose and a step towards ultimate victory, grief and pain as concealed and perverse forms of pleasure. A stage arrives even, when physical pain itself, the hardest thing for material man to bear, changes its nature in experience and becomes physical ananda; but this is only at the end when this human being, imprisoned in matter, subjected to mind, emerges from his subjection, conquers his mind and delivers himself utterly in his body, realising his true anandamaya self in every part of the adhara.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Record Of Yoga,#KEYS
362:My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever; the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain. Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it. In twenty years there has not been a single exception. Why should it be otherwise? Engineering, electrical and mechanical, is positive in results. There is scarcely a subject that cannot be examined beforehand, from the available theoretical and practical data. The carrying out into practice of a crude idea as is being generally done, is, I hold, nothing but a waste of energy, money, and time. My early affliction had however, another compensation. The incessant mental exertion developed my powers of observation and enabled me to discover a truth of great importance. I had noted that the appearance of images was always preceded by actual vision of scenes under peculiar and generally very exceptional conditions, and I was impelled on each occasion to locate the original impulse. After a while this effort grew to be almost automatic and I gained great facility in connecting cause and effect. Soon I became aware, to my surprise, that every thought I conceived was suggested by an external impression. Not only this but all my actions were prompted in a similar way. In the course of time it became perfectly evident to me that I was merely an automation endowed with power OF MOVEMENT RESPONDING TO THE STIMULI OF THE SENSE ORGANS AND THINKING AND ACTING ACCORDINGLY.
~ Nikola Tesla, The Strange Life of Nikola Tesla,#KEYS
363:Many men think and write through inspiration. From where does it come?
Many! That is indeed a wonderful thing. I did not think there have been so many.... So?
Poets, when they write poems...
Ah! Inspirations come from very many different places. There are inspirations that may be very material, there are inspirations that may be vital, there are inspirations that come from all kinds of mental planes, and there are very, very rare inspirations that come from the higher mind or from a still higher region. All inspirations do not come from the same place. Hence, to be inspired does not necessarily mean that one is a higher be- ing.... One may be inspired also to do and say many stupid things!
What does "inspired" mean?
It means receiving something which is beyond you, which was not within you; to open yourself to an influence which is outside your individual conscious being.
Indeed, one can have also an inspiration to commit a murder! In countries where they decapitate murderers, cut off their heads, this causes a very brutal death which throws out the vital being, not allowing it the time to decompose for coming out of the body; the vital being is violently thrown out of the body, with all its impulses; and generally it goes and lodges itself in one of those present there, men half horrified, half with a kind of unhealthy curiosity. That makes the opening and it enters within. Statistics have proved that most young murderers admit that the impulse came to them when they were present at the death of another murderer. It was an "inspiration", but of a detestable kind.
Fundamentally it is a moment of openness to something which was not within your personal consciousness, which comes from outside and rushes into you and makes you do something. This is the widest formula that can be given.
Now, generally, when people say: "Oh! he is an inspired poet", it means he has received something from high above and expressed it in a remarkable manneR But one should rather say that his inspiration is of a high quality. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
364:It is not very easy for the customary mind of man, always attached to its past and present associations, to conceive of an existence still human, yet radically changed in what are now our fixed circumstances.We are in respect to our possible higher evolution much in the position of the original Ape of the Darwinian theory. It would have been impossible for that Ape leading his instinctive arboreal life in primeval forests to conceive that there would be one day an animal on the earth who would use a new faculty called reason upon the materials of his inner and outer existence, who would dominate by that power his instincts and habits, change the circumstances of his physical life, build for himself houses of stone, manipulate Nature's forces, sail the seas, ride the air, develop codes of conduct, evolve conscious methods for his mental and spiritual development. And if such a conception had been possible for the Ape-mind, it would still have been difficult for him to imagine that by any progress of Nature or long effort of Will and tendency he himself could develop into that animal. Man, because he has acquired reason and still more because he has indulged his power of imagination and intuition, is able to conceive an existence higher than his own and even to envisage his personal elevation beyond his present state into that existence. His idea of the supreme state is an absolute of all that is positive to his own concepts and desirable to his own instinctive aspiration,-Knowledge without its negative shadow of error, Bliss without its negation in experience of suffering, Power without its constant denial by incapacity, purity and plenitude of being without the opposing sense of defect and limitation. It is so that he conceives his gods; it is so that he constructs his heavens. But it is not so that his reason conceives of a possible earth and a possible humanity. His dream of God and Heaven is really a dream of his own perfection; but he finds the same difficulty in accepting its practical realisation here for his ultimate aim as would the ancestral Ape if called upon to believe in himself as the future Man. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Ego and the Dualities, #KEYS
365:For centuries and centuries humanity has waited for this time. It is come. But it is difficult.
I don't simply tell you we are here upon earth to rest and enjoy ourselves, now is not the time for that. We are here..... to prepare the way for the new creation.
The body has some difficulty, so I can't be active, alas. It is not because I am old, I am not old, I am younger than most of you. If I am here inactive, it is because the body has given itself definitely to prepare the transformation. But the consciousness is clear and we are here to work - rest and enjoyment will come afterwards. Let us do our work here.
So I have called you to tell you that. Take what you can, do what you can, my help will be with you. All sincere effort will be helped to the maximum.
It is the hour to be the heroic. Heroism is not what it is said to be; it is to become wholly unified - and the Divine help will always be with those who have resolved to be heroic in full sincerity.
There!
You are here at this moment that is to say upon earth, because you chose it at one time - you do not remember it any more, but I know it - that is why you are here. Well, you must rise to the height of the task. You must strive, you must conquer all weakness and limitations; above all you must tell your ego: "Your hour is gone." We want a race that has no ego, that has in place of the ego the Divine Consciousness. It is that which we want: the Divine Consciousness which will allow the race to develop itself and the Supramental being to take birth.
If you believe that I am here because I am bound - it is not true. I am not bound, I am here because my body has been given for the first attempt at transformation. Sri Aurobindo told me so. Well, I am doing it. I do not wish anyone to do it for me because.... Because it is not very pleasant, but I do it willingly because of the result; everybody will be able to benefit from it. I ask only one thing: do not listen to the ego.
If there is in your hearts a sincere Yes, you will satisfy me completely. I do not need words, I need the sincere adhesion of your hearts. That's all. ~ The Mother, (This talk was given by the Mother on April 2,1972,#KEYS
366:separating from the heart and mind and the benefits of doing so :::
Therefore the mental Purusha has to separate himself from association and self-identification with this desire-mind. He has to say I am not this thing that struggles and suffers, grieves and rejoices, loves and hates, hopes and is baffled, is angry and afraid and cheerful and depressed, a thing of vital moods and emotional passions. All these are merely workings and habits of Prakriti in the sensational and emotional mind. The mind then draws back from its emotions and becomes with these, as with the bodily movements and experiences, the observer or witness. There is again an inner cleavage. There is this emotional mind in which these moods and passions continue to occur according to the habit of the modes of Nature and there is the observing mind which sees them, studies and understands but is detached from them. It observes them as if in a sort of action and play on a mental stage of personages other than itself, at first with interest and a habit of relapse into identification, then with entire calm and detachment, and, finally, attaining not only to calm but to the pure delight of its own silent existence, with a smile at thier unreality as at the imaginary joys and sorrows of a child who is playing and loses himself in the play. Secondly, it becomes aware of itself as master of the sanction who by his withdrawl of sanction can make this play to cease. When the sanction is withdrawn, another significant phenomenon takes place; the emotional mind becomes normally calm and pure and free from these reactions, and even when they come, they no longer rise from within but seem to fall on it as impression from outside to which its fibers are still able to respond; but this habit of reponse dies away and the emotional mind is in time entirely liberated from the passions which it has renounced. Hope and fear, joy and grief, liking and disliking, attraction and repulsion, content and discontent, gladness and depression, horror and wrath and fear and disgust and shame and the passions of love and hatred fall away from the liberated psychic being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Heart and the Mind, 352,#KEYS
367:outward appearances..." I did not quite understand "the egoistic state of consciousness absorbed in the outward People are occupied with outward things. That means that the consciousness is turned towards external things - that is, all the things of life which one sees, knows, does - instead of being turned inwards in order to find the deeper truth, the divine Presence. This is the first movement. You are busy with all that you do, with the people around you, the things you use; and then with life: sleeping, eating, talking, working a little, having a little fun also; and then beginning over again: sleeping, eating, etc., etc., and then it begins again. And then what this one has said, what that one has done, what one ought to do, the lesson one ought to learn, the exercise one ought to prepare; and then again whether one is keeping well, whether one is feeling fit, etc.
This is what one usually thinks about.
So the first movement - and it is not so easy - is to make all that pass to the background, and let one thing come inside and in front of the consciousness as the important thing: the discovery of the very purpose of existence and life, to learn what one is, why one lives, and what there is behind all this. This is the first step: to be interested more in the cause and goal than in the manifestation. That is, the first movement is a withdrawal of the consciousness from this total identification with outward and apparent things, and a kind of inward concentration on what one wants to discover, the Truth one wants to discover.
This is the first movement.
Many people who are here forget one thing. They want to begin by the end. They think that they are ready to express in their life what they call the supramental Force or Consciousness, and they want to infuse this in their actions, their movements, their daily life. But the trouble is that they don't at all know what the supramental Force or Consciousness is and that first of all it is necessary to take the reverse path, the way of interiorisation and of withdrawal from life, in order to find within oneself this Truth which has to be expressed.
For as long as one has not found it, there is nothing to ~ The Mother,#KEYS
368:I know perfectly well that pain and suffering and struggle and excesses of despair are natural - though not inevitable - on the way, - not because they are helps, but because they are imposed on us by the darkness of this human nature out of which we have to struggle into the Light. . . .
The dark path is there and there are many who make like the Christians a gospel of spiritual suffering; many hold it to be the unavoidable price of victory. It may be so under certain circumstances, as it has been in so many lives at least at the beginning, or one may choose to make it so. But then the price has to be paid with resignation, fortitude or a tenacious resilience. I admit that if borne in that way the attacks of the Dark Forces or the ordeals they impose have a meaning. After each victory gained over them, there is then a sensible advance; often they seem to show us the difficulties in ourselves which we have to overcome and to say, "Here you must conquer us and here."
But all the same it is a too dark and difficult way which nobody should follow on whom the necessity does not lie.
In any case one thing can never help and that is to despond always and say, "I am unfit; I am not meant for the Yoga." And worse still are these perilous mental formations such as you are always accepting that you must fare like X (one whose difficulty of exaggerated ambition was quite different from yours) and that you have only six years etc. These are clear formations of the Dark Forces seeking not only to sterilise your aspiration but to lead you away and so prevent your sharing in the fruit of the victory hereafter. I do not know what Krishnaprem has said but his injunction, if you have rightly understood it, is one that cannot stand as valid, since so many have done Yoga relying on tapasya or anything else but not confident of any Divine Grace. It is not that, but the soul's demand for a higher Truth or a higher life that is indispensable. Where that is, the Divine Grace whether believed in or not, will intervene. If you believe, that hastens and facilitates things; if you cannot yet believe, still the soul's aspiration will justify itself with whatever difficulty and struggle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
369:As Korzybski and the general semanticists have pointed out, our words, symbols, signs, thoughts and ideas are merely maps of reality, not reality itself, because "the map is not the territory." The word "water" won't satisfy your thirst.
But we live in the world of maps and words as if it were the real world. Following in the footsteps of Adam, we have become totally lost in a world of purely fantasy maps and boundaries. And these illusory boundaries, with the opposites they create, have become our impassioned battles.
Most of our "problems of living," then, are based on the illusion that the opposites can and should be separated and isolated from one anotheR But since all opposites are actually aspects of one underlying reality, this is like trying to totally separate the two ends of a single rubber band. All you can do is pull harder and harder-until something violently snaps. Thus we might be able to understand that, in all the mystical traditions the world over, one who sees through the illusion of the opposites is called "liberated." Because he is "freed from the pairs" of opposites, he is freed in this life from the fundamentally nonsensical problems and conflicts involved in the war of opposites. He no longer manipulates the opposites one against the other in his search for peace, but instead transcends them both. Not good vs. evil but beyond good and evil. Not life against death but a center of awareness that transcends both. The point is not to separate the opposites and make "positive progress," but rather to unify and harmonize the opposites, both positive and negative, by discovering a ground which transcends and encompasses them both. And that ground, as we will soon see, is unity consciousness itself. In the meantime, let us note, as does the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita, that liberation is not freedom from the negative, but freedom from the pairs altogether:
Content with getting what arrives of itself
Passed beyond the pairs, free from envy,
Not attached to success nor failure,
Even acting, he is not bound.
He is to be recognized as eternally free
Who neither loathes nor craves;
For he that is freed from the pairs,
Is easily freed from conflict.
~ Ken Wilber, No Boundary,#KEYS
370:The Absolute is beyond personality and beyond impersonality, and yet it is both the Impersonal and the supreme Person and all persons. The Absolute is beyond the distinction of unity and multiplicity, and yet it is the One and the innumerable Many in all the universes. It is beyond all limitation by quality and yet it is not limited by a qualityless void but is too all infinite qualities. It is the individual soul and all souls and more of them; it is the formless Brahman and the universe. It is the cosmic and the supracosmic spirit, the supreme Lord, the supreme Self, the supreme Purusha and supreme shakti, the Ever Unborn who is endlessly born, the Infinite who is innumerably finite, the multitudinous One, the complex Simple, the many-sided Single, the Word of the Silence Ineffable, the impersonal omnipresent Person, the Mystery, translucent in highest consciousness to its own spirit, but to a lesser consciousness veiled in its own exceeding light and impenetrable for ever. These things are to the dimensional mind irreconcilable opposites, but to the constant vision and experience of the supramental Truth-Consciousness they are so simply and inevitably the intrinsic nature of each other that even to think of them as contraries is an unimaginable violence. The walls constructed by the measuring and separating Intellect have disappeared and the Truth in its simplicity and beauty appears and reduces all to terms of its harmony and unity and light. Dimensions and distinctions remain but as figures for use, not a separative prison for the self-forgetting Spirit.
2:In the ordinary Yoga of knowledge it is only necessary to recognise two planes of our consciousness, the spiritual and the materialised mental; the pure reason standing between these two views them both, cuts through the illusions of the phenomenal world, exceeds the materialised mental plane, sees the reality of the spiritual; and then the will of the individual Purusha unifying itself with this poise of knowledge rejects the lower and draws back to the supreme plane, dwells there, loses mind and body, sheds life from it and merges itself in the supreme Purusha, is delivered from individual existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, 2.01 - The Object of Knowledge,#KEYS
371:So then let the Adept set this sigil upon all the Words he hath writ in the book of the Works of his Will. And let him then end all, saying: Such are the Words!2 For by this he maketh proclamation before all them that be about his Circle that these Words are true and puissant, binding what he would bind, and loosing what he would loose. Let the Adept perform this ritual right, perfect in every part thereof, once daily for one moon, then twice, at dawn and dusk, for two moons; next thrice, noon added, for three moons; afterwards, midnight making up his course, for four moons four times every day. Then let the Eleventh Moon be consecrated wholly to this Work; let him be instant in constant ardour, dismissing all but his sheer needs to eat and sleep.3 For know that the true Formula4 whose virtue sufficed the Beast in this Attainment, was thus:
INVOKE OFTEN
So may all men come at last to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel: thus sayeth The Beast, and prayeth his own Angel that this Book be as a burning Lamp, and as a living Spring, for Light and Life to them that read therein.
1. There is an alternative spelling, TzBA-F, where the Root, "an Host," has the value of 93. The Practicus should revise this Ritual throughout in the Light of his personal researches in the Qabalah, and make it his own peculiar property. The spelling here suggested implies that he who utters the Word affirms his allegiance to the symbols 93 and 6; that he is a warrior in the army of Will, and of the Sun. 93 is also the number of AIWAZ and 6 of The Beast.
2. The consonants of LOGOS, "Word," add (Hebrew values) to 93 [reading the Sigma as Samekh = 60; reading it as Shin = 300 gives 333], and ΕΠΗ, "Words" (whence "Epic") has also that value; ΕΙ∆Ε ΤΑ ΕΠΗ might be the phrase here intended; its number is 418. This would then assert the accomplishment of the Great Work; this is the natural conclusion of the Ritual. Cf. CCXX, III, 75.
3. These needs are modified during the process of Initiation both as to quantity and quality. One should not become anxious about one's phyiscal or mental health on à priori grounds, but pay attention only to indubitable symptoms of distress should such arise. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber Samekh,#KEYS
372:The guiding law of spiritual experience can only come by an opening of human consciousness to the Divine Consciousness; there must be the power to receive in us the working and command and dynamic presence of the Divine Shakti and surrender ourselves to her control; it is that surrender and that control which bring the guidance. But the surrender is not sure, there is no absolute certitude of the guidance so long as we are besieged by mind formations and life impulses and instigations of ego which may easily betray us into the hands of a false experience. This danger can only be countered by the opening of a now nine-tenths concealed inmost soul or psychic being that is already there but not commonly active within us. That is the inner light we must liberate; for the light of this inmost soul is our one sure illumination so long as we walk still amidst the siege of the Ignorance and the Truth-consciousness has not taken up the entire control of our Godward endeavour. The working of the Divine Force in us under the conditions of the transition and the light of the psychic being turning us always towards a conscious and seeing obedience to that higher impulsion and away from the demands and instigations of the Forces of the Ignorance, these between them create an ever progressive inner law of our action which continues till the spiritual and supramental can be established in our nature. In the transition there may well be a period in which we take up all life and action and offer them to the Divine for purification, change and deliverance of the truth within them, another period in which we draw back and build a spiritual wall around us admitting through its gates only such activities as consent to undergo the law of the spiritual transformation, a third in which a free and all-embracing action, but with new forms fit for the utter truth of the Spirit, can again be made possible. These things, however, will be decided by no mental rule but in the light of the soul within us and by the ordaining force and progressive guidance of the Divine Power that secretly or overtly first impels, then begins clearly to control and order and finally takes up the whole burden of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 138, #KEYS
373:Are there no false visions?
There are what in appearance are false visions. There are, for instance, hundreds or thousands of people who say that they have seen the Christ. Of that number those who have actually seen Him are perhaps less than a dozen, and even with them there is much to say about what they have seen. What the others saw may be an emanation; or it may be a thought or even an image remembered by the mind. There are, too, those who are strong believers in the Christ and have had a vision of some Force or Being or some remembered image that is very luminous and makes upon them a strong impression. They have seen something which they feel belongs to another world, to a supernatural order, and it has created in them an emotion of fear, awe or joy; and as they believe in the Christ, they can think of nothing else and say it is He. But the same vision or experience if it comes to one who believes in the Hindu, the Mohammedan or some other religion, will take a different name and form. The thing seen or experienced may be fundamentally the same, but it is formulated differently according to the different make-up of the apprehending mind. It is only those that can go beyond beliefs and faiths and myths and traditions who are able to say what it really is; but these are few, very few. You must be free from every mental construction, you must divest yourself of all that is merely local or temporal, before you can know what you have seen.
Spiritual experience means the contact with the Divine in oneself (or without, which comes to the same thing in that domain). And it is an experience identical everywhere in all countries, among all peoples and even in all ages. If you meet the Divine, you meet it always and everywhere in the same way. Difference comes in because between the experience and its formulation there is almost an abyss. Directly you have spiritual experience, which takes place always in the inner consciousness, it is translated into your external consciousness and defined there in one way or another according to your education, your faith, your mental predisposition. There is only one truth, one reality; but the forms through which it may be expressed are many. 21 April 1929 ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
374:"Will it take long for the Supermind which is involved in material Nature to emerge into the outer consciousness and bring visible results?"
That depends on the state of consciousness from which one answers, for... For the human consciousness, obviously, I think it will take quite a long time. For another consciousness it will be relatively very fast, and for yet another consciousness, it is already accomplished. It is an accomplished fact. But in order to become aware of this, one must be able to enter into another state of consciousness than the ordinary physical consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo has spoken - I believe I have read it to you, I think it's in The Synthesis of Yoga - of the true mind, the true vital and the true physical or subtle physical, and he has said that they co-exist with the ordinary mind, vital and physical, and that in certain conditions one may enter into contact with them, and then one becomes aware of the difference between what really is and the appearances of things.
Well, for a developed consciousness, the Supermind is already realised somewhere in a domain of the subtle physical, it already exists there visible, concrete, and expresses itself in forms and activities. And when one is in tune with this domain, when one lives there, one has a very strong feeling that this world would only have to be condensed, so to say, for it to become visible to all. What would then be interesting would be to develop this inner perception which would put you into contact with the supramental truth which is already manifested, and is veiled for you only for want of appropriate organs to enter into relation with it.
It is possible that those who are conscious of their dreams may have dreams of a new kind which put them into contact with that world, for it is accessible to the subtle physical of all those who have the corresponding organs in themselves. And there is necessarily a subtle influence of this physical on outer matter, if one is ready to receive impressions from it and admit them into one's consciousness. That's all.
Now, if nobody has any questions to ask, well, we shall remain silent.
Something to say, over there? (Mother looks at a disciple.) Oh! he is burning to speak! ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956,#KEYS
375:In the Indian spiritual tradition, a heart's devotion to God, called Bhakti, is regarded as the easiest path to the Divine. What is Bhakti? Is it some extravagant religious sentimentalism? Is it inferior to the path of Knowledge? What is the nature of pure and complete spiritual devotion to God and how to realise it?
What Is Devotion?
...bhakti in its fullness is nothing but an entire self-giving. But then all meditation, all tapasya, all means of prayer or mantra must have that as its end... [SABCL, 23:799]
Devotion Is a State of the Heart and Soul
Bhakti is not an experience, it is a state of the heart and soul. It is a state which comes when the psychic being is awake and prominent. [SABCL, 23:776]
...Worship is only the first step on the path of devotion. Where external worship changes into the inner adoration, real Bhakti begins; that deepens into the intensity of divine love; that love leads to the joy of closeness in our relations with the Divine; the joy of closeness passes into the bliss of union. [SABCL, 21:525]
Devotion without Gratitude Is Incomplete
...there is another movement which should constantly accompany devotion. ... That kind of sense of gratitude that the Divine exists; that feeling of a marvelling thankfulness which truly fills you with a sublime joy at the fact that the Divine exists, that there is something in the universe which is the Divine, that it is not just the monstrosity we see, that there is the Divine, the Divine exists. And each time that the least thing puts you either directly or indirectly in contactwith this sublime Reality of divine existence, the heart is filled with so intense, so marvellous a joy, such a gratitude as of all things has the most delightful taste.
There is nothing which gives you a joy equal to that of gratitude. One hears a bird sing, sees a lovely flower, looks at a little child, observes an act of generosity, reads a beautiful sentence, looks at the setting sun, no matter what, suddenly this comes upon you, this kind of emotion-indeed so deep, so intense-that the world manifests the Divine, that there is something behind the world which is the Divine.
So I find that devotion without gratitude is quite incomplete, gratitude must come with devotion. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
376:34
D: What are the eight limbs of knowledge (jnana ashtanga)?
M: The eight limbs are those which have been already mentioned, viz., yama, niyama etc., but differently defined:
(1) Yama: This is controlling the aggregate of sense-organs, realizing the defects that are present in the world consisting of the body, etc.
(2) Niyama: This is maintaining a stream of mental modes that relate to the Self and rejecting the contrary modes. In other words, it means love that arises uninterruptedly for the Supreme Self.
(3) Asana: That with the help of which constant meditation on Brahman is made possible with ease is asana.
(4) Pranayama: Rechaka (exhalation) is removing the two unreal aspects of name and form from the objects constituting the world, the body etc., puraka (inhalation) is grasping the three real aspects, existence, consciousness and bliss, which are constant in those objects, and kumbhaka is retaining those aspects thus grasped.
(5) Pratyahara: This is preventing name and form which have been removed from re-entering the mind.
(6) Dharana: This is making the mind stay in the Heart, without straying outward, and realizing that one is the Self itself which is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.
(7) Dhyana: This is meditation of the form 'I am only pure consciousness'. That is, after leaving aside the body which consists of five sheaths, one enquires 'Who am I?', and as a result of that, one stays as 'I' which shines as the Self.
(8) Samadhi: When the 'I-manifestation' also ceases, there is (subtle) direct experience. This is samadhi.
For pranayama, etc., detailed here, the disciplines such as asana, etc., mentioned in connection with yoga are not necessary.
The limbs of knowledge may be practised at all places and at all times. Of yoga and knowledge, one may follow whichever is pleasing to one, or both, according to circumstances. The great teachers say that forgetfulness is the root of all evil, and is death for those who seek release,10 so one should rest the mind in one's Self and should never forget the Self: this is the aim. If the mind is controlled, all else can be controlled. The distinction between yoga with eight limbs and knowledge with eight limbs has been set forth elaborately in the sacred texts; so only the substance of this teaching has been given here. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Self-Enquiry, 34,#KEYS
377:There is one point in particular I would like to single out and stress, namely, the notion of evolution. It is common to assume that one of the doctrines of the perennial philosophy... is the idea of involution-evolution. That is, the manifest world was created as a "fall" or "breaking away" from the Absolute (involution), but that all things are now returning to the Absolute (via evolution). In fact, the doctrine of progressive temporal return to Source (evolution) does not appear anywhere, according to scholars as Joseph Campbell, until the axial period (i.e. a mere two thousand years ago). And even then, the idea was somewhat convoluted and backwards. The doctrine of the yugas, for example, sees the world as proceeding through various stages of development, but the direction is backward: yesterday was the Golden Age, and time ever since has been a devolutionary slide downhill, resulting in the present-day Kali-Yuga. Indeed, this notion of a historical fall from Eden was ubiquitous during the axial period; the idea that we are, at this moment, actually evolving toward Spirit was simply not conceived in any sort of influential fashion.
But sometime during the modern era-it is almost impossible to pinpoint exactly-the idea of history as devolution (or a fall from God) was slowly replaced by the idea of history as evolution (or a growth towards God). We see it explicitly in Schelling (1775-1854); Hegel (1770-1831) propounded the doctrine with a genius rarely equaled; Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) made evolution a universal law, and his friend Charles Darwin (1809-1882) applied it to biology. We find it next appearing in Aurobindo (1872-1950), who gave perhaps its most accurate and profound spiritual context, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) who made it famous in the West.
But here is my point: we might say that the idea of evolution as return-to-Spirit is part of the perennial philosophy, but the idea itself, in any adequate form, is no more than a few hundred years old. It might be 'ancient' as timeless, but it is certainly not ancient as "old."...
This fundamental shift in the sense or form of the perennial philosophy-as represented in, say, Aurobindo, Hegel, Adi Da, Schelling, Teilhard de Chardin, Radhakrishnan, to name a few-I should like to call the "neoperennial philosophy." ~ Ken Wilber, The Eye Of Spirit,#KEYS
378:higher mind or late vision logic ::: Even more rare, found stably in less than 1% of the population and even more emergent is the turquoise altitude.
Cognition at Turquoise is called late vision-logic or cross-paradigmatic and features the ability to connect meta-systems or paradigms, with other meta-systems. This is the realm of coordinating principles. Which are unified systems of systems of abstraction to other principles. ... Aurobindo indian sage and philosopher offers a more first-person account of turquoise which he called higher-mind, a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamism capable of formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming of all of which a spontaneous inherient knowledge.
Self-sense at turquoise is called Construct-aware and is the first stage of Cook-Greuter's extension of Loveigers work on ego-development. The Construct-aware stage sees individuals for the first time as exploring more and more complex thought-structures with awareness of the automatic nature of human map making and absurdities which unbridaled complexity and logical argumentation can lead. Individuals at this stage begin to see their ego as a central point of reference and therefore a limit to growth. They also struggle to balance unique self-expressions and their concurrent sense of importance, the imperical and intuitive knowledge that there is no fundamental subject-object separation and the budding awareness of self-identity as temporary which leads to a decreased ego-desire to create a stable self-identity. Turquoise individuals are keenly aware of the interplay between awareness, thought, action and effects. They seek personal and spiritual transformation and hold a complex matrix of self-identifications, the adequecy of which they increasingly call into question. Much of this already points to Turquoise values which embrace holistic and intuitive thinking and alignment to universal order in a conscious fashion.
Faith at Turquoise is called Universalising and can generate faith compositions in which conceptions of Ultimate Reality start to include all beings. Individuals at Turquoise faith dedicate themselves to transformation of present reality in the direction of transcendent actuality. Both of these are preludes to the coming of Third Tier. ~ Essential Integral, L4.1-54, Higher Mind,#KEYS
379:the three stages of the ascent :::
There are three stages of the ascent, -at the bottom the bodily life enslaved to the pressure of necessity and desire, in the middle the mental, the higher emotional and psychic rule that feels after greater interests, aspirations, experiences, ideas, and at the summits first a deeper psychic and spiritual state and then a supramental eternal consciousness in which all our aspirations and seekings discover their own intimate significance.In the bodily life first desire and need and then the practical good of the individual and the society are the governing consideration, the dominant force. In the mental life ideas and ideals rule, ideas that are half-lights wearing the garb of Truth, ideals formed by the mind as a result of a growing but still imperfect intuition and experience. Whenever the mental life prevails and the bodily diminishes its brute insistence, man the mental being feels pushed by the urge of mental Nature to mould in the sense of the idea or the ideal the life of the individual, and in the end even the vaguer more complex life of the society is forced to undergo this subtle process.In the spiritual life, or when a higher power than Mind has manifested and taken possession of the nature, these limited motive-forces recede, dwindle, tend to disappear. The spiritual or supramental Self, the Divine Being, the supreme and immanent Reality, must be alone the Lord within us and shape freely our final development according to the highest, widest, most integral expression possible of the law of our nature. In the end that nature acts in the perfect Truth and its spontaneous freedom; for it obeys only the luminous power of the Eternal. The individual has nothing further to gain, no desire to fulfil; he has become a portion of the impersonality or the universal personality of the Eternal. No other object than the manifestation and play of the Divine Spirit in life and the maintenance and conduct of the world in its march towards the divine goal can move him to action. Mental ideas, opinions, constructions are his no more; for his mind has fallen into silence, it is only a channel for the Light and Truth of the divine knowledge. Ideals are too narrow for the vastness of his spirit; it is the ocean of the Infinite that flows through him and moves him for ever.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will,#KEYS
380:Imperial Maheshwari is seated in the wideness above the thinking mind and will and sublimates and greatens them into wisdom and largeness or floods with a splendour beyond them. For she is the mighty and wise One who opens us to supramental infinities and the cosmic vastness, to the grandeur of the supreme Light, to a treasure-house of miraculous knowledge, to the measureless movement of the Mother's eternal forces. Tranquil is she and wonderful, great and calm for ever. Nothing can move her because all wisdom is in her; nothing is hidden from her that she chooses to know; she comprehends all things and all beings and their nature and what moves them and the law of the world and its times and how all was and is and must be. A strength is in her that meets everything and masters and none can prevail in the end against her vast intangible wisdom and high tranquil power. Equal, patient, unalterable in her will she deals with men according to their nature and with things and happenings according to their Force and truth that is in them. Partiality she has none, but she follows the decrees of the Supreme and some she raises up and some she casts down or puts away into the darkness. To the wise she gives a greater and more luminous wisdom; those that have vision she admits to her counsels; on the hostile she imposes the consequence of their hostility; the ignorant and foolish she leads them according to their blindness. In each man she answers and handles the different elements of his nature according to their need and their urge and the return they call for, puts on them the required pressure or leaves them to their cherished liberty to prosper in the ways of the Ignorance or to perish. For she is above all, bound by nothing, attached to nothing in the universe. Yet she has more than any other the heart of the universal Mother. For her compassion is endless and inexhaustible; all are to her eyes her children and portions of the One, even the Asura and Rakshasa and Pisacha and those that are revolted and hostile. Even her rejections are only a postponement, even her punishments are a grace. But her compassion does not blind her wisdom or turn her action from the course decreed; for the Truth of things is her one concern, knowledge her centre of power and to build our soul and our nature into the divine Truth her mission and her labour.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [39],#KEYS
381:The object of spiritual knowledge is the Supreme, the Divine, the Infinite and the Absolute. This Supreme has its relations to our individual being and its relations to the universe and it transcends both the soul and the universe. Neither the universe nor the individual are what they seem to be, for the report of them which our mind and our senses give us, is, so long as they are unenlightened by a faculty of higher supramental and suprasensuous knowledge, a false report, an imperfect construction, an attenuated and erroneous figure. And yet that which the universe and the individual seem to be is still a figure of what they really are, a figure that points beyond itself to the reality behind it. Truth proceeds by a correction of the values our mind and senses give us, and first by the action of a higher intelligence that enlightens and sets right as far as may be the conclusions of the ignorant sense-mind and limited physical intelligence; that is the method of all human knowledge and science. But beyond it there is a knowledge, a Truth-Consciousness, that exceeds our intellect and brings us into the true light of which it is a refracted ray.
There the abstract terms of pure reason and the constructions .of the mind disappear or are converted into concrete soul-vision and the tremendous actuality of spiritual experience. This knowledge can turn away to the absolute Eternal and lose vision of the soul and the universe; but it can too see that existence from that Eternal. When that is done, we find that the ignorance of the mind and the senses and all the apparent futilities of human life were not an useless excursion of the conscious being, an otiose blunder. Here they were planned as a rough ground for the self-expression of the Soul that comes from the Infinite, a material foundation for its self-unfolding and self-possessing in the terms of the universe. It is true that in themselves they and all that is here have no significance, and to build separate significances for them is to live in an illusion, Maya; but they have a supreme significance in the Supreme, an absolute Power in the Absolute and it is that that assigns to them and refers to that Truth their present relative values. This is the all-uniting experience that is the foundation of the deepest integral and most intimate self-knowledge and world-knowledge
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, 293, 11457,#KEYS
382:But even before that highest approach to identity is achieved, something of the supreme Will can manifest in us as an imperative impulsion, a God-driven action; we then act by a spontaneous self-determining Force but a fuller knowledge of meaning and aim arises only afterwards. Or the impulse to action may come as an inspiration or intuition, but rather in the heart and body than in the mind; here an effective sight enters in but the complete and exact knowledge is still deferred and comes, if at all, lateR But the divine Will may descend too as a luminous single command or a total perception or a continuous current of perception of what is to be done into the will or into the thought or as a direction from above spontaneously fulfilled by the lower members. When the Yoga is imperfect, only some actions can be done in this way, or else a general action may so proceed but only during periods of exaltation and illumination. When the Yoga is perfect, all action becomes of this character. We may indeed distinguish three stages of a growing progress by which, first, the personal will is occasionally or frequently enlightened or moved by a supreme Will or conscious Force beyond it, then constantly replaced and, last, identified and merged in that divine Power-action. The first is the stage when we are still governed by the intellect, heart and senses; these have to seek or wait for the divine inspiration and guidance and do not always find or receive it. The second is the stage when human intelligence is more and more replaced by a high illumined or intuitive spiritualised mind, the external human heart by the inner psychic heart, the senses by a purified and selfless vital force. The third is the stage when we rise even above spiritualised mind to the supramental levels. In all three stages the fundamental character of the liberated action is the same, a spontaneous working of Prakriti no longer through or for the ego but at the will and for the enjoyment of the supreme Purusha. At a higher level this becomes the Truth of the absolute and universal Supreme expressed through the individual soul and worked out consciously through the nature, - no longer through a half-perception and a diminished or distorted effectuation by the stumbling, ignorant and all-deforming energy of lower nature in us but by the all-wise transcendent and universal Mother. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 218, #KEYS
383:Fundamentally, whatever be the path one follows - whe- ther the path of surrender, consecration, knowledge-if one wants it to be perfect, it is always equally difficult, and there is but one way, one only, I know of only one: that is perfect sincerity, but perfect sincerity!
Do you know what perfect sincerity is?...
Never to try to deceive oneself, never let any part of the being try to find out a way of convincing the others, never to explain favourably what one does in order to have an excuse for what one wants to do, never to close one's eyes when something is unpleasant, never to let anything pass, telling oneself, "That is not important, next time it will be better."
Oh! It is very difficult. Just try for one hour and you will see how very difficult it is. Only one hour, to be totally, absolutely sincere. To let nothing pass. That is, all one does, all one feels, all one thinks, all one wants, is exclusively the Divine.
"I want nothing but the Divine, I think of nothing but the Divine, I do nothing but what will lead me to the Divine, I love nothing but the Divine."
Try - try, just to see, try for half an hour, you will see how difficult it is! And during that time take great care that there isn't a part of the vital or a part of the mind or a part of the physical being nicely hidden there, at the back, so that you don't see it (Mother hides her hands behind her back) and don't notice that it is not collaborating - sitting quietly there so that you don't unearth it... it says nothing, but it does not change, it hides itself. How many such parts! How many parts hide themselves! You put them in your pocket because you don't want to see them or else they get behind your back and sit there well-hidden, right in the middle of your back, so as not to be seen. When you go there with your torch - your torch of sincerity - you ferret out all the corners, everywhere, all the small corners which do not consent, the things which say "No" or those which do not move: "I am not going to budge. I am glued to this place of mine and nothing will make me move."... You have a torch there with you, and you flash it upon the thing, upon everything. You will see there are many of them there, behind your back, well stuck.
Try, just for an hour, try!
No more questions?
Nobody has anything to say? Then, au revoir, my children! ~ The Mother, Question and Answers, Volume-6, page no.132-133),#KEYS
384:requirements for the psychic :::
At a certain stage in the Yoga when the mind is sufficiently quieted and no longer supports itself at every step on the sufficiency of its mental certitudes, when the vital has been steadied and subdued and is no longer constantly insistent on its own rash will, demand and desire, when the physical has been sufficiently altered not to bury altogether the inner flame under the mass of its outwardness, obscurity or inertia, an inmost being hidden within and felt only in its rare influences is able to come forward and illumine the rest and take up the lead of the sadhana. Its character is a one-pointed orientation towards the Divine or the Highest, one-pointed and yet plastic in action and movement; it does not create a rigidity of direction like the one-pointed intellect or a bigotry of the regnant idea or impulse like the one-pointed vital force; it is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the Truth, automatically distinguishes the right step from the false, extricates the divine or Godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine. Its action is like a searchlight showing up all that has to be changed in the nature; it has in it a flame of will insistent on perfection, on an alchemic transmutation of all the inner and outer existence. It sees the divine essence everywhere but rejects the mere mask and the disguising figure. It insists on Truth, on will and strength and mastery, on Joy and Love and Beauty, but on a Truth of abiding Knowledge that surpasses the mere practical momentary truth of the Ignorance, on an inward joy and not on mere vital pleasure, -- for it prefers rather a purifying suffering and sorrow to degrading satisfactions, -- on love winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feet sunk in the mire, on beauty restored to its priesthood of interpretation of the Eternal, on strength and will and mastery as instruments not of the ego but of the Spirit. Its will is for the divinisation of life, the expression through it of a higher Truth, its dedication to the Divine and the Eternal.
But the most intimate character of the psychic is its pressure towards the Divine through a sacred love, joy and oneness. It is the divine Love that it seeks most, it is the love of the Divine that is its spur, its goal, its star of Truth shining over the luminous cave of the nascent or the still obscure cradle of the new-born godhead within us.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,#KEYS
385:Thus the eternal paradox and eternal truth of a divine life in an animal body, an immortal aspiration or reality inhabiting a mortal tenement, a single and universal consciousness representing itself in limited minds and divided egos, a transcendent, indefinable, timeless and spaceless Being who alone renders time and space and cosmos possible, and in all these the higher truth realisable by the lower term, justify themselves to the deliberate reason as well as to the persistent instinct or intuition of mankind. Attempts are sometimes made to have done finally with questionings which have so often been declared insoluble by logical thought and to persuade men to limit their mental activities to the practical and immediate problems of their material existence in the universe; but such evasions are never permanent in their effect. Mankind returns from them with a more vehement impulse of inquiry or a more violent hunger for an immediate solution. By that hunger mysticism profits and new religions arise to replace the old that have been destroyed or stripped of significance by a scepticism which itself could not satisfy because, although its business was inquiry, it was unwilling sufficiently to inquire. The attempt to deny or stifle a truth because it is yet obscure in its outward workings and too often represented by obscurantist superstition or a crude faith, is itself a kind of obscurantism. The will to escape from a cosmic necessity because it is arduous, difficult to justify by immediate tangible results, slow in regulating its operations, must turn out eventually to have been no acceptance of the truth of Nature but a revolt against the secret, mightier will of the great Mother. It is better and more rational to accept what she will not allow us as a race to reject and lift it from the sphere of blind instinct, obscure intuition and random aspiration into the light of reason and an instructed and consciously self-guiding will. And if there is any higher light of illumined intuition or self-revealing truth which is now in man either obstructed and inoperative or works with intermittent glancings as if from behind a veil or with occasional displays as of the northern lights in our material skies, then there also we need not fear to aspire. For it is likely that such is the next higher state of consciousness of which Mind is only a form and veil, and through the splendours of that light may lie the path of our progressive self-enlargement into whatever highest state is humanity's ultimate resting-place. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Human Aspiration, #KEYS
386:The fundamental nature of this supermind is that, all its knowledge is originally a knowledge by identity and oneness and even when it makes numberless apparent divisions and discriminating modifications in itself, still all the knowledge that operates in its workings even in these divisions, is founded upon and sustained and lit and guided by this perfect knowledge by identity and oneness. The Spirit is one everywhere and it knows all things as itself and in itself, so sees them always and therefore knows them intimately, completely, in their reality as well as their appearance, in their truth, their law, the entire spirit and sense and figure of their nature and their workings. When it sees anything as an object of knowledge, it yet sees it as itself and in itself, and not as a thing other than or divided from it about which therefore it would at first be ignorant of the nature, constitution and workings and have to learn about them, as the mind is at first ignorant of its object and has to learn about it because the mind is separated from its object and regards and senses and meets it as something other than itself and external to its own being. ..... This is the second character of the supreme supermind that its knowledge is a real because a total knowledge. It has in the first place a transcendental vision and sees the universe not only in the universal terms, but in its right relation to the supreme and eternal reality from which it proceeds and of which it is an expression. It knows the spirit and truth and whole sense of the universal expression because it knows all the essentiality and all the infinite reality and all the consequent constant potentiality of that which in part it expresses. It knows rightly the relative because it knows the Absolute and all its absolutes to which the relatives refer back and of which they are the partial or modified or suppressed figures. It is in the second place universal and sees all that is individual in the terms of the universal as well as in its own individual terms and holds all these individual figures in their right and complete relation to the universe. It is in the third place, separately with regard to individual things, total in its view because it knows each in its inmost essence of which all else is the resultant, in its totality which is its complete figure and in its parts and their connections and dependences, -- as well as in its connections with and its dependences upon other things and its nexus with the total implications and the explicits of the universe.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
387:Integral knowledge will then mean the cancelling of the sevenfold Ignorance by the discovery of what it misses and ignores, a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness:- it will mean the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality. But this is not an intellectual knowledge which can be learned and completed in our present mould of consciousness; it must be an experience, a becoming, a change of consciousness, a change of being. This brings in the evolutionary character of the Becoming and the fact that our mental ignorance is only a stage in our evolution. The integral knowledge, then, can only come by an evolution of our being and our nature, and that would seem to signify a slow process in Time such as has accompanied the other evolutionary transformations. But as against that inference there is the fact that the evolution has now become conscious and its method and steps need not be altogether of the same character as when it was subconscious in its process. The integral knowledge, since it must result from a change of consciousness, can be gained by a process in which our will and endeavour have a part, in which they can discover and apply their own steps and method: its growth in us can proceed by a conscious self-transformation. It is necessary then to see what is likely to be the principle of this new process of evolution and what are the movements of the integral knowledge that must necessarily emerge in it,-or, in other words, what is the nature of the consciousness that must be the base of the life divine and how that life may be expected to be formed or to form itself, to materialise or, as one might say, to realise.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Reality and the Integral Knowledge, 681,#KEYS
388:Why do we forget things?
Ah! I suppose there are several reasons. First, because one makes use of the memory to remember. Memory is a mental instrument and depends on the formation of the brain. Your brain is constantly growing, unless it begins to degenerate, but still its growth can continue for a very, very long time, much longer than that of the body. And in this growth, necessarily some things will take the place of others. And as the mental instrument develops, things which have served their term or the transitory moment in the development may be wiped out to give place to the result. So the result of all that you knew is there, living in itself, but the road traversed to reach it may be completely blurred. That is, a good functioning of the memory means remembering only the results so as to be able to have the elements for moving forward and a new construction. That is more important than just retaining things rigidly in the mind.
Now, there is another aspect also. Apart from the mental memory, which is something defective, there are states of consciousness. Each state of consciousness in which one happens to be registers the phenomena of a particular moment, whatever they may be. If your consciousness remains limpid, wide and strong, you can at any moment whatsoever, by concentrating, call into the active consciousness what you did, thought, saw, observed at any time before; all this you can remember by bringing up in yourself the same state of consciousness. And that, that is never forgotten. You could live a thousand years and you would still remember it. Consequently, if you don't want to forget, it must be your consciousness which remembers and not your mental memory. Your mental memory will be wiped out inevitably, get blurred, and new things will take the place of the old ones. But things of which you are conscious you do not forget. You have only to bring up the same state of consciousness again. And thus one can remember circumstances one has lived thousands of years ago, if one knows how to bring up the same state of consciousness. It is in this way that one can remember one's past lives. This never gets blotted out, while you don't have any more the memory of what you have done physically when you were very young. You would be told many things you no longer remember. That gets wiped off immediately. For the brain is constantly changing and certain weaker cells are replaced by others which are much stronger, and by other combinations, other cerebral organisations. And so, what was there before is effaced or deformed.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
389:
"Without conscious occult powers, is it possible to help or protect from a distance somebody in difficulty or danger? If so, what is the practical procedure?"
Then a sub-question:
"What can thought do?"
We are not going to speak of occult processes at all; although, to tell the truth, everything that happens in the invisible world is occult, by definition. But still, practically, there are two processes which do not exclude but complete each other, but which may be used separately according to one's preference.
It is obvious that thought forms a part of one of the methods, quite an important part. I have already told you several times that if one thinks clearly and powerfully, one makes a mental formation, and that every mental formation is an entity independent of its fashioner, having its own life and tending to realise itself in the mental world - I don't mean that you see your formation with your physical eyes, but it exists in the mental world, it has its own particular independent existence. If you have made a formation with a definite aim, its whole life will tend to the realisation of this aim. Therefore, if you want to help someone at a distance, you have only to formulate very clearly, very precisely and strongly the kind of help you want to give and the result you wish to obtain. That will have its effect. I cannot say that it will be all-powerful, for the mental world is full of innumerable formations of this kind and naturally they clash and contradict one another; hence the strongest and the most persistent will have the best of it.
Now, what is it that gives strength and persistence to mental formations? - It is emotion and will. If you know how to add to your mental formation an emotion, affection, tenderness, love, and an intensity of will, a dynamism, it will have a much greater chance of success. That is the first method. It is within the scope of all those who know how to think, and even more of those who know how to love. But as I said, the power is limited and there is great competition in that world.
Therefore, even if one has no knowledge at all but has trust in the divine Grace, if one has the faith that there is something in the world like the divine Grace, and that this something can answer a prayer, an aspiration, an invocation, then, after making one's mental formation, if one offers it to the Grace and puts one's trust in it, asks it to intervene and has the faith that it will intervene, then indeed one has a chance of success.
Try, and you will surely see the result.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956, 253,#KEYS
390:Vijnana, true ideation, called ritam, truth or vedas, knowledge in the Vedas, acts in human mind by four separate functions; revelation, termed drishti, sight; inspiration termed sruti,hearing; and the two faculties of discernment, smriti, memory,which are intuition, termed ketu, and discrimination, termed daksha, division, or viveka, separation. By drishti we see ourselves the truth face to face, in its own form, nature or self-existence; by sruti we hear the name, sound or word by which the truth is expressed & immediately suggested to the knowledge; by ketu we distinguish a truth presented to us behind a veil whether of result or process, as Newton discovered the law of gravitation hidden behind the fall of the apple; by viveka we distinguish between various truths and are able to put them in their right place, order and relation to each other, or, if presented with mingled truth & error, separate the truth from the falsehood. Agni Jatavedas is termed in the Veda vivichi, he who has the viveka, who separates truth from falsehood; but this is only a special action of the fourth ideal faculty & in its wider scope, it is daksha, that which divides & rightly distributes truth in its multiform aspects. The ensemble of the four faculties is Vedas or divine knowledge. When man is rising out of the limited & error-besieged mental principle, the faculty most useful to him, most indispensable is daksha or viveka. Drishti of Vijnana transmuted into terms of mind has become observation, sruti appears as imagination, intuition as intelligent perception, viveka as reasoning & intellectual judgment and all of these are liable to the constant touch of error. Human buddhi, intellect, is a distorted shadow of the true ideative faculties. As we return from these shadows to their ideal substance viveka or daksha must be our constant companion; for viveka alone can get rid of the habit of mental error, prevent observation being replaced by false illumination, imagination by false inspiration, intelligence by false intuition, judgment & reason by false discernment. The first sign of human advance out of the anritam of mind to the ritam of the ideal faculty is the growing action of a luminous right discernment which fixes instantly on the truth, feels instantly the presence of error. The fullness, the manhana of this viveka is the foundation & safeguard of Ritam or Vedas. The first great movement of Agni Jatavedas is to transform by the divine will in mental activity his lower smoke-covered activity into the bright clearness & fullness of the ideal discernment. Agne adbhuta kratw a dakshasya manhana.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, 717,#KEYS
391:10000 ::: The True Object of Spiritual Seeking:
To find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual Truth and the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable and all the rest is nothing without it. The Divine once found, to manifest Him,-that is, first of all to transform one's own limited consciousness into the Divine Consciousness, to live in the infinite Peace, Light, Love, Strength, Bliss, to become that in one's essential nature and, as a consequence, to be its vessel, channel, instrument in one's active nature. To bring into activity the principle of oneness on the material plane or to work for humanity is a mental mistranslation of the Truth-these things cannot be the first or true object of spiritual seeking. We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. As we grow in the inner consciousness, or as the spiritual Truth of the Divine grows in us, our life and action must indeed more and more flow from that, be one with that. But to decide beforehand by our limited mental conceptions what they must be is to hamper the growth of the spiritual Truth within. As that grows we shall feel the Divine Light and Truth, the Divine Power and Force, the Divine Purity and Peace working within us, dealing with our actions as well as our consciousness, making use of them to reshape us into the Divine Image, removing the dross, substituting the pure gold of the Spirit. Only when the Divine Presence is there in us always and the consciousness transformed, can we have the right to say that we are ready to manifest the Divine on the material plane. To hold up a mental ideal or principle and impose that on the inner working brings the danger of limiting ourselves to a mental realisation or of impeding or even falsifying by a half-way formation the true growth into the full communion and union with the Divine and the free and intimate outflowing of His will in our life. This is a mistake of orientation to which the mind of today is especially prone. It is far better to approach the Divine for the Peace or Light or Bliss that the realisation of Him gives than to bring in these minor things which can divert us from the one thing needful. The divinisation of the material life also as well as the inner life is part of what we see as the Divine Plan, but it can only be fulfilled by an outflowing of the inner realisation, something that grows from within outward, not by the working out of a mental principle.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T1],#KEYS
392:INVOCATION
The ultimate invocation, that of Kia, cannot be performed. The paradox is that as Kia has no dualized qualities, there are no attributes by which to invoke it. To give it one quality is merely to deny it another. As an observant dualistic being once said:
I am that I am not.
Nevertheless, the magician may need to make some rearrangements or additions to what he is. Metamorphosis may be pursued by seeking that which one is not, and transcending both in mutual annihilation. Alternatively, the process of invocation may be seen as adding to the magician's psyche any elements which are missing. It is true that the mind must be finally surrendered as one enters fully into Chaos, but a complete and balanced psychocosm is more easily surrendered.
The magical process of shuffling beliefs and desires attendant upon the process of invocation also demonstrates that one's dominant obsessions or personality are quite arbitrary, and hence more easily banished.
There are many maps of the mind (psychocosms), most of which are inconsistent, contradictory, and based on highly fanciful theories. Many use the symbology of god forms, for all mythology embodies a psychology. A complete mythic pantheon resumes all of man's mental characteristics. Magicians will often use a pagan pantheon of gods as the basis for invoking some particular insight or ability, as these myths provide the most explicit and developed formulation of the particular idea's extant. However it is possible to use almost anything from the archetypes of the collective unconscious to the elemental qualities of alchemy.
If the magician taps a deep enough level of power, these forms may manifest with sufficient force to convince the mind of the objective existence of the god. Yet the aim of invocation is temporary possession by the god, communication from the god, and manifestation of the god's magical powers, rather than the formation of religious cults.
The actual method of invocation may be described as a total immersion in the qualities pertaining to the desired form. One invokes in every conceivable way. The magician first programs himself into identity with the god by arranging all his experiences to coincide with its nature. In the most elaborate form of ritual he may surround himself with the sounds, smells, colors, instruments, memories, numbers, symbols, music, and poetry suggestive of the god or quality. Secondly he unites his life force to the god image with which he has united his mind. This is accomplished with techniques from the gnosis. Figure 5 shows some examples of maps of the mind. Following are some suggestions for practical ritual invocation.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,#KEYS
393:What is the difference between meditation and concentration?
Meditation is a purely mental activity, it interests only the mental being. One can concentrate while meditating but this is a mental concentration; one can get a silence but it is a purely mental silence, and the other parts of the being are kept immobile and inactive so as not to disturb the meditation. You may pass twenty hours of the day in meditation and for the remaining four hours you will be an altogether ordinary man because only the mind has been occupied-the rest of the being, the vital and the physical, is kept under pressure so that it may not disturb. In meditation nothing is directly done for the other parts of the being.
Certainly this indirect action can have an effect, but... I have known in my life people whose capacity for meditation was remarkable but who, when not in meditation, were quite ordinary men, even at times ill-natured people, who would become furious if their meditation was disturbed. For they had learnt to master only their mind, not the rest of their being.
Concentration is a more active state. You may concentrate mentally, you may concentrate vitally, psychically, physically, and you may concentrate integrally. Concentration or the capacity to gather oneself at one point is more difficult than meditation. You may gather together one portion of your being or consciousness or you may gather together the whole of your consciousness or even fragments of it, that is, the concentration may be partial, total or integral, and in each case the result will be different.
If you have the capacity to concentrate, your meditation will be more interesting and easieR But one can meditate without concentrating. Many follow a chain of ideas in their meditation - it is meditation, not concentration.
Is it possible to distinguish the moment when one attains perfect concentration from the moment when, starting from this concentration, one opens oneself to the universal Energy?
Yes. You concentrate on something or simply you gather yourself together as much as is possible for you and when you attain a kind of perfection in concentration, if you can sustain this perfection for a sufficiently long time, then a door opens and you pass beyond the limit of your ordinary consciousness-you enter into a deeper and higher knowledge. Or you go within. Then you may experience a kind of dazzling light, an inner wonder, a beatitude, a complete knowledge, a total silence. There are, of course, many possibilities but the phenomenon is always the same.
To have this experience all depends upon your capacity to maintain your concentration sufficiently long at its highest point of perfection. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
394:The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, clear state of mind and heart is established.
This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pranayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalini, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga, 36,#KEYS
395:The Mahashakti, the universal Mother, works out whatever is transmitted by her transcendent consciousness from the Supreme and enters into the worlds that she has made; her presence fills and supports them with the divine spirit and the divine all-sustaining force and delight without which they could not exist. That which we call Nature or Prakriti is only her most outward executive aspect; she marshals and arranges the harmony of her forces and processes, impels the operations of Nature and moves among them secret or manifest in all that can be seen or experienced or put into motion of life. Each of the worlds is nothing but one play of the Mahashakti of that system of worlds or universe, who is there as the cosmic Soul and Personality of the transcendent Mother. Each is something that she has seen in her vision, gathered into her heart of beauty and power and created in her Ananda.
But there are many planes of her creation, many steps of the Divine Shakti. At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power. All beings there live and move in an ineffable completeness and unalterable oneness, because she carries them safe in her arms for ever. Nearer to us are the worlds of a perfect supramental creation in which the Mother is the supramental Mahashakti, a Power of divine omniscient Will and omnipotent Knowledge always apparent in its unfailing works and spontaneously perfect in every process. There all movements are the steps of the Truth; there all beings are souls and powers and bodies of the divine Light; there all experiences are seas and floods and waves of an intense and absolute Ananda. But here where we dwell are the worlds of the Ignorance, worlds of mind and life and body separated in consciousness from their source, of which this earth is a significant centre and its evolution a crucial process. This too with all its obscurity and struggle and imperfection is upheld by the Universal Mother; this too is impelled and guided to its secret aim by the Mahashakti.
The Mother as the Mahashakti of this triple world of the Ignorance stands in an intermediate plane between the supramental Light, the Truth life, the Truth creation which has to be brought down here and this mounting and descending hierarchy of planes of consciousness that like a double ladder lapse into the nescience of Matter and climb back again through the flowering of life and soul and mind into the infinity of the Spirit. Determining all that shall be in this universe and in the terrestrial evolution by what she sees and feels and pours from her, she stands there... ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
396:If we look at this picture of the Self-Existence and its works as a unitary unlimited whole of vision, it stands together and imposes itself by its convincing totality: but to the analysis of the logical intellect it offers an abundance of difficulties, such as all attempts to erect a logical system out of a perception of an illimitable Existence must necessarily create; for any such endeavour must either effect consistency by an arbitrary sectioning of the complex truth of things or else by its comprehensiveness become logically untenable. For we see that the Indeterminable determines itself as infinite and finite, the Immutable admits a constant mutability and endless differences, the One becomes an innumerable multitude, the Impersonal creates or supports personality, is itself a Person; the Self has a nature and is yet other than its nature; Being turns into becoming and yet it is always itself and other than its becomings; the Universal individualises itself and the Individual universalises himself; Brahman is at once void of qualities and capable of infinite qualities, the Lord and Doer of works, yet a non-doer and a silent witness of the workings of Nature. If we look carefully at these workings of Nature, once we put aside the veil of familiarity and our unthinking acquiescence in the process of things as natural because so they always happen, we discover that all she does in whole or in parts is a miracle, an act of some incomprehensible magic. The being of the Self-existence and the world that has appeared in it are, each of them and both together, a suprarational mystery. There seems to us to be a reason in things because the processes of the physical finite are consistent to our view and their law determinable, but this reason in things, when closely examined, seems to stumble at every moment against the irrational or infrarational and the suprarational: the consistency, the determinability of process seems to lessen rather than increase as we pass from matter to life and from life to mentality; if the finite consents to some extent to look as if it were rational, the infinitesimal refuses to be bound by the same laws and the infinite is unseizable. As for the action of the universe and its significance, it escapes us altogether; if Self, God or Spirit there be, his dealings with the world and us are incomprehensible, offer no clue that we can follow. God and Nature and even ourselves move in a mysterious way which is only partially and at points intelligible, but as a whole escapes our comprehension. All the works of Maya look like the production of a suprarational magical Power which arranges things according to its wisdom or its phantasy, but a wisdom which is not ours and a phantasy which baffles our imagination. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.02, #KEYS
397:root of the falsification and withdrawl of divine love :::
At every moment they are moved to take egoistic advantage of the psychic and spiritual influences and can be detected using the power, joy or light these bring into us for a lower life-motive. Afterwards too, even when the seeker has opened to the Divine Love transcendental, universal or immanent, yet if he tries to pour it into life, he meets the power of obscuration and perversion of these lower Nature-forces. Always they draw away towards pitfalls, pour into that higher intensity their diminishing elements, seek to capture the descending Power for themselves and their interests and degrade it into an aggrandised mental, vital or physical instrumentation for desire and ego. Instead of a Divine Love creator of a new heaven and a new earth of Truth and Light, they would hold it here prisoner as a tremendous sanction and glorifying force of sublimation to gild the mud of the old earth and colour with its rose and sapphire the old turbid unreal skies of sentimentalising vital imagination and mental idealised chimera. If that falsification is permitted, the higher Light and Power and Bliss withdraw, there is a fall back to a lower status; or else the realisation remains tied to an insecure half-way and mixture or is covered and even submerged by an inferior exaltation that is not the true Ananda. It is for this reason that Divine Love which is at the heart of all creation and the most powerful of all redeeming and creative forces has yet been the least frontally present in earthly life, the least successfully redemptive, the least creative. Human nature has been unable to bear it in its purity for the very reason that it is the most powerful, pure, rare and intense of all the divine energies; what little could be seized has been corrupted at once into a vital pietistic ardour, a defenceless religious or ethical sentimentalism, a sensuous or even sensual erotic mysticism of the roseate coloured mind or passionately turbid life-impulse and with these simulations compensated its inability to house the Mystic Flame that could rebuild the world with its tongues of sacrifice. It is only the inmost psychic being unveiled and emerging in its full power that can lead the pilgrim sacrifice unscathed through these ambushes and pitfalls; at each moment it catches, exposes, repels the mind's and the life's falsehoods, seizes hold on the truth of the Divine Love and Ananda and separates it from the excitement of the mind's ardours and the blind enthusiasms of the misleading life-force. But all things that are true at their core in mind and life and the physical being it extricates and takes with it in the journey till they stand on the heights, new in spirit and sublime in figure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 166,#KEYS
398:What do we understand by the term "chance"? Chance can only be the opposite of order and harmony. There is only one true harmony and that is the supramental - the reign of Truth, the expression of the Divine Law. In the Supermind, therefore, chance has no place. But in the lower Nature the supreme Truth is obscured: hence there is an absence of that divine unity of purpose and action which alone can constitute order. Lacking this unity, the domain of lower Nature is governed by what we may call chance - that is to say, it is a field in which various conflicting forces intermix, having no single definite aim. Whatever arises out of such a rushing together of forces is a result of confusion, dissonance and falsehood - a product of chance. Chance is not merely a conception to cover our ignorance of the causes at work; it is a description of the uncertain mele ́e of the lower Nature which lacks the calm one-pointedness of the divine Truth. The world has forgotten its divine origin and become an arena of egoistic energies; but it is still possible for it to open to the Truth, call it down by its aspiration and bring about a change in the whirl of chance. What men regard as a mechanical sequence of events, owing to their own mental associations, experiences and generalisations, is really manipulated by subtle agencies each of which tries to get its own will done. The world has got so subjected to these undivine agencies that the victory of the Truth cannot be won except by fighting for it. It has no right to it: it has to gain it by disowning the falsehood and the perversion, an important part of which is the facile notion that, since all things owe their final origin to the Divine, all their immediate activities also proceed directly from it. The fact is that here in the lower Nature the Divine is veiled by a cosmic Ignorance and what takes place does not proceed directly from the divine knowledge. That everything is equally the will of God is a very convenient suggestion of the hostile influences which would have the creation stick as tightly as possible to the disorder and ugliness to which it has been reduced. So what is to be done, you ask? Well, call down the Light, open yourselves to the power of Transformation. Innumerable times the divine peace has been given to you and as often you have lost it - because something in you refuses to surrender its petty egoistic routine. If you are not always vigilant, your nature will return to its old unregenerate habits even after it has been filled with the descending Truth. It is the struggle between the old and the new that forms the crux of the Yoga; but if you are bent on being faithful to the supreme Law and Order revealed to you, the parts of your being belonging to the domain of chance will, however slowly, be converted and divinised. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #KEYS
399:the process of unification, the perfecting our one's instrumental being, the help one needs to reach the goal :::
If we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavor.
As you pursue this labor of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection. ... It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us [the psychic being], to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it.
In various times and places many methods have been prescribed for attaining this perfection and ultimately achieving this identification. Some methods are psychological, some religious, some even mechanical. In reality, everyone has to find the one which suits him best, and if one has an ardent and steadfast aspiration, a persistent and dynamic will, one is sure to meet, in one way or another - outwardly through reading and study, inwardly through concentration, meditation, revelation and experience - the help one needs to reach the goal. Only one thing is absolutely indispensable: the will to discover and to realize. This discovery and realization should be the primary preoccupation of our being, the pearl of great price which we must acquire at any cost. Whatever you do, whatever your occupations and activities, the will to find the truth of your being and to unite with it must be always living and present behind all that you do, all that you feel, all that you think.
~ The Mother, On Education, [T1],#KEYS
400:How can one awaken his Yoga-shakti?
It depends on this: when one thinks that it is the most important thing in his life. That's all.
Some people sit in meditation, concentrate on the base of the vertebral column and want it very much to awake, but that's not enough. It is when truly it becomes the most important thing in one's life, when all the rest seems to have lost all taste, all interest, all importance, when one feels within that one is born for this, that one is here upon earth for this, and that it is the only thing that truly counts, then that's enough.
One can concentrate on the different centres; but sometimes one concentrates for so long, with so much effort, and has no result. And then one day something shakes you, you feel that you are going to lose your footing, you have to cling on to something; then you cling within yourself to the idea of union with the Divine, the idea of the divine Presence, the idea of the transformation of the consciousness, and you aspire, you want, you try to organise your feelings, movements, impulses around this. And it comes.
Some people have recommended all kinds of methods; probably these were methods which had succeeded in their case; but to tell the truth, one must find one's own method, it is only after having done the thing that one knows how it should be done, not before.
If one knows it beforehand, one makes a mental construction and risks greatly living in his mental construction, which is an illusion; because when the mind builds certain conditions and then they are realised, there are many chances of there being mostly pure mental construction which is not the experience itself but its image. So for all these truly spiritual experiences I think it is wiser to have them before knowing them. If one knows them, one imitates them, one doesn't have them, one imagines oneself having them; whereas if one knows nothing - how things are and how they ought to happen, what should happen and how it will come about - if one knows nothing about all this, then by keeping very still and making a kind of inner sorting out within one's being, one can suddenly have the experience, and then later knows what one has had. It is over, and one knows how it has to be done when one has done it - afterwards. Like that it is sure.
One may obviously make use of his imagination, imagine the Kundalini and try to pull it upwards. But one can also tell himself tales like this. I have had so many instances of people who described their experiences to me exactly as they are described in books, knowing all the words and putting down all the details, and then I asked them just a little question like that, casually: that if they had had the experience they should have known or felt a certain thing, and as this was not in the books, they could not answer.~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, 211-212,#KEYS
401:- for every well-made and significant poem, picture, statue or building is an act of creative knowledge, a living discovery of the consciousness, a figure of Truth, a dynamic form of mental and vital self-expression or world-expression, - all that seeks, all that finds, all that voices or figures is a realisation of something of the play of the Infinite and to that extent can be made a means of God-realisation or of divine formation. But the Yogin has to see that it is no longer done as part of an ignorant mental life; it can be accepted by him only if by the feeling, the remembrance, the dedication within it, it is turned into a movement of the spiritual consciousness and becomes a part of its vast grasp of comprehensive illuminating knowledge.
For all must be done as a sacrifice, all activities must have the One Divine for their object and the heart of their meaning. The Yogin's aim in the sciences that make for knowledge should be to discover and understand the workings of the Divine Consciousness-Puissance in man and creatures and things and forces, her creative significances, her execution of the mysteries, the symbols in which she arranges the manifestation. The Yogin's aim in the practical sciences, whether mental and physical or occult and psychic, should be to enter into the ways of the Divine and his processes, to know the materials and means for the work given to us so that we may use that knowledge for a conscious and faultless expression of the spirit's mastery, joy and self-fulfilment. The Yogin's aim in the Arts should not be a mere aesthetic, mental or vital gratification, but, seeing the Divine everywhere, worshipping it with a revelation of the meaning of its own works, to express that One Divine in ideal forms, the One Divine in principles and forces, the One Divine in gods and men and creatures and objects. The theory that sees an intimate connection between religious aspiration and the truest and greatest Art is in essence right; but we must substitute for the mixed and doubtful religious motive a spiritual aspiration, vision, interpreting experience. For the wider and more comprehensive the seeing, the more it contains in itself the sense of the hidden Divine in humanity and in all things and rises beyond a superficial religiosity into the spiritual life, the more luminous, flexible, deep and powerful will the Art be that springs from that high motive. The Yogin's distinction from other men is this that he lives in a higher and vaster spiritual consciousness; all his work of knowledge or creation must then spring from there: it must not be made in the mind, - for it is a greater truth and vision than mental man's that he has to express or rather that presses to express itself through him and mould his works, not for his personal satisfaction, but for a divine purpose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 142 [T4],#KEYS
402:The modern distinction is that the poet appeals to the imagination and not to the intellect. But there are many kinds of imagination; the objective imagination which visualises strongly the outward aspects of life and things; the subjective imagination which visualises strongly the mental and emotional impressions they have the power to start in the mind; the imagination which deals in the play of mental fictions and to which we give the name of poetic fancy; the aesthetic imagination which delights in the beauty of words and images for their own sake and sees no farther. All these have their place in poetry, but they only give the poet his materials, they are only the first instruments in the creation of poetic style. The essential poetic imagination does not stop short with even the most subtle reproductions of things external or internal, with the richest or delicatest play of fancy or with the most beautiful colouring of word or image. It is creative, not of either the actual or the fictitious, but of the more and the most real; it sees the spiritual truth of things, - of this truth too there are many gradations, - which may take either the actual or the ideal for its starting-point. The aim of poetry, as of all true art, is neither a photographic or otherwise realistic imitation of Nature, nor a romantic furbishing and painting or idealistic improvement of her image, but an interpretation by the images she herself affords us, not on one but on many planes of her creation, of that which she conceals from us, but is ready, when rightly approached, to reveal.
This is the true, because the highest and essential aim of poetry; but the human mind arrives at it only by a succession of steps, the first of which seems far enough from its object. It begins by stringing its most obvious and external ideas, feelings and sensations of things on a thread of verse in a sufficient language of no very high quality. But even when it gets to a greater adequacy and effectiveness, it is often no more than a vital, an emotional or an intellectual adequacy and effectiveness. There is a strong vital poetry which powerfully appeals to our sensations and our sense of life, like much of Byron or the less inspired mass of the Elizabethan drama; a strong emotional poetry which stirs our feelings and gives us the sense and active image of the passions; a strong intellectual poetry which satisfies our curiosity about life and its mechanism, or deals with its psychological and other "problems", or shapes for us our thoughts in an effective, striking and often quite resistlessly quotable fashion. All this has its pleasures for the mind and the surface soul in us, and it is certainly quite legitimate to enjoy them and to enjoy them strongly and vividly on our way upward; but if we rest content with these only, we shall never get very high up the hill of the Muses.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry,#KEYS
403:There is one fundamental perception indispensable towards any integral knowledge or many-sided experience of this Infinite. It is to realise the Divine in its essential self and truth unaltered by forms and phenomena. Otherwise we are likely to remain caught in the net of appearances or wander confusedly in a chaotic multitude of cosmic or particular aspects, and if we avoid this confusion, it will be at the price of getting chained to some mental formula or shut up in a limited personal experience. The one secure and all-reconciling truth which is the very foundation of the universe is this that life is the manifestation of an uncreated Self and Spirit, and the key to life's hidden secret is the true relation of this Spirit with its own created existences. There is behind all this life the look of an eternal Being upon its multitudinous becomings; there is around and everywhere in it the envelopment and penetration of a manifestation in time by an unmanifested timeless Eternal. But this knowledge is valueless for Yoga if it is only an intellectual and metaphysical notion void of life and barren of consequence; a mental realisation alone cannot be sufficient for the seeker. 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. This infinite and eternal Self of things is an omnipresent Reality, one existence everywhere; it is a single unifying presence and not different in different creatures; it can be met, seen or felt in its completeness in each soul or each form in the universe. For its infinity is spiritual and essential and not merely a boundlessness in Space or an endlessness in Time; the Infinite can be felt in an infinitesimal atom or in a second of time as convincingly as in the stretch of the aeons or the stupendous enormity of the intersolar spaces. The knowledge or experience of it can begin anywhere and express itself through anything; for the Divine is in all, and all is the Divine.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice,#KEYS
404: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
405:3. Conditions internal and external that are most essential for meditation. There are no essential external conditions, but solitude and seculsion at the time of meditation as well as stillness of the body are helpful, sometimes almost necessary to the beginning. But one should not be bound by external conditions. Once the habit of meditation is formed, it should be made possible to do it in all circumstances, lying, sitting, walking, alone, in company, in silence or in the midst of noise etc.
The first internal condition necessary is concentration of the will against the obstacles to meditation, i.e. wandering of the mind, forgetfulness, sleep, physical and nervous impatience and restlessness etc. If the difficulty in meditation is that thoughts of all kinds come in, that is not due to hostile forces but to the ordinary nature of the human mind. All sadhaks have this difficulty and with many it lasts for a very long time. There are several was of getting rid of it. One of them is to look at the thoughts and observe what is the nature of the human mind as they show it but not to give any sanction and to let them run down till they come to a standstill - this is a way recommended by Vivekananda in his Rajayoga. Another is to look at the thoughts as not one's own, to stand back as the witness Purusha and refuse the sanction - the thoughts are regarded as things coming from outside, from Prakriti, and they must be felt as if they were passers-by crossing the mind-space with whom one has no connection and in whom one takes no interest. In this way it usually happens that after the time the mind divides into two, a part which is the mental witness watching and perfectly undisturbed and quiet and a part in which the thoughts cross or wander. Afterwards one can proceed to silence or quiet the Prakriti part also. There is a third, an active method by which one looks to see where the thoughts come from and finds they come not from oneself, but from outside the head as it were; if one can detect them coming, then, before enter, they have to be thrown away altogether. This is perhaps the most difficult way and not all can do it, but if it can be done it is the shortest and most powerful road to silence. It is not easy to get into the Silence. That is only possible by throwing out all mental-vital activities. It is easier to let the Silence descend into you, i.e., to open yourself and let it descend. The way to do this and the way to call down the higher powers is the same. It is to remain quiet at the time of efforts to pull down the Power or the Silence but keeping only a silent will and aspiration for them. If the mind is active one has to learn to look at it, drawn back and not giving sanction from within, until its habitual or mechanical activities begin to fall quiet for want of support from within. if it is too persistent, a steady rejection without strain or struggle is the one thing to be done.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Autobiographical Notes,#KEYS
406:on purifying ego and desire :::
The elimination of all egoistic activity and of its foundation, the egoistic consciousness, is clearly the key to the consummation we desire. And since in the path of works action is the knot we have first to loosen, we must endeavour to loosen it where it is centrally tied, in desire and in ego; for otherwise we shall cut only stray strands and not the heart of our bondage.These are the two knots of our subjection to this ignorant and divided Nature, desire and ego-sense. And of these two desire has its native home in the emotions and sensations and instincts and from there affects thought and volition; ego-sense lives indeed in these movements, but it casts its deep roots also in the thinking mind and its will and it is there that it becomes fully self conscious. These are the twin obscure powers of the obsessing world-wide Ignorance that we have to enlighten and eliminate.
In the field of action desire takes many forms, but the most powerful of all is the vital selfs craving or seeking after the fruit of our works. The fruit we covet may be a reward of internal pleasure; it may be the accomplishment of some preferred idea or some cherished will or the satisfaction of the egoistic emotions, or else the pride of success of our highest hopes and ambitions. Or it may be an external reward, a recompense entirely material, -wealth, position, honour, victory, good fortune or any other fulfilment of vital or physical desire. But all alike are lures by which egoism holds us. Always these satisfactions delude us with the sense of mastery and the idea of freedom, while really we are harnessed and guided or ridden and whipped by some gross or subtle, some noble or ignoble, figure of the blind Desire that drives the world. Therefore the first rule of action laid down by the Gita is to do the work that should be done without any desire for the fruit, niskama karma. ...
The test it lays down is an absolute equality of the mind and the heart to all results, to all reactions, to all happenings. If good fortune and ill fortune, if respect and insult, if reputation and obloquy, if victory and defeat, if pleasant event and sorrowful event leave us not only unshaken but untouched, free in the emotions, free in the nervous reactions, free in the mental view, not responding with the least disturbance or vibration in any spot of the nature, then we have the absolute liberation to which the Gita points us, but not otherwise. The tiniest reaction is a proof that the discipline is imperfect and that some part of us accepts ignorance and bondage as its law and clings still to the old nature. Our self-conquest is only partially accomplished; it is still imperfect or unreal in some stretch or part or smallest spot of the ground of our nature. And that little pebble of imperfection may throw down the whole achievement of the Yoga
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [102],#KEYS
407:An integral Yoga includes as a vital and indispensable element in its total and ultimate aim the conversion of the whole being into a higher spiritual consciousness and a larger divine existence. Our parts of will and action, our parts of knowledge, our thinking being, our emotional being, our being of life, all our self and nature must seek the Divine, enter into the Infinite, unite with the Eternal. But mans present nature is limited, divided, unequal, -- it is easiest for him to concentrate in the strongest part of his being and follow a definite line of progress proper to his nature: only rare individuals have the strength to take a large immediate plunge straight into the sea of the Divine Infinity. Some therefore must choose as a starting-point a concentration in thought or contemplation or the minds one-pointedness to find the eternal reality of the Self in them; others can more easily withdraw into the heart to meet there the Divine, the Eternal: yet others are predominantly dynamic and active; for these it is best to centre themselves in the will and enlarge their being through works. United with the Self and source of all by their surrender of their will into its infinity, guided in their works by the secret Divinity within or surrendered to the Lord of the cosmic action as the master and mover of all their energies of thought, feeling, act, becoming by this enlargement of being selfless and universal, they can reach by works some first fullness of a spiritual status. But the path, whatever its point of starting, must debouch into a vaster dominion; it must proceed in the end through a totality of integrated knowledge, emotion, will of dynamic action, perfection of the being and the entire nature. In the supramental consciousness, on the level of the supramental existence this integration becomes consummate; there knowledge, will, emotion, the perfection of the self and the dynamic nature rise each to its absolute of itself and all to their perfect harmony and fusion with each other, to a divine integrality, a divine perfection. For the supermind is a Truth-Consciousness in which the Divine Reality, fully manifested, no longer works with the instrumentation of the Ignorance; a truth of status of being which is absolute becomes dynamic in a truth of energy and activity of the being which is self-existent and perfect. Every movement there is a movement of the self-aware truth of Divine Being and every part is in entire harmony with the whole. Even the most limited and finite action is in the Truth-Consciousness a movement of the Eternal and Infinite and partakes of the inherent absoluteness and perfection of the Eternal and Infinite. An ascent into the supramental Truth not only raises our spiritual and essential consciousness to that height but brings about a descent of this Light and Truth into all our being and all our parts of nature. All then becomes part of the Divine Truth, an element and means of the supreme union and oneness; this ascent and descent must be therefore an ultimate aim of this Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Supermind and the Yoga of Works [279-280],#KEYS
408:Something happened to you before you were born, and this is what it was:
STAGE ONE: THE CHIKHAI
The events of the 49-day Bardo period are divided into three major stages, the Chikhai, the Chonyid, and the Sidpa (in that order). Immediately following physical death, the soul enters the Chikhai, which is simply the state of the immaculate and luminous Dharmakaya, the ultimate Consciousness, the BrahmanAtman. This ultimate state is given, as a gift, to all individuals: they are plunged straight into ultimate reality and exist as the ultimate Dharmakaya. "At this moment," says the Bardo Thotrol, "the first glimpsing of the Bardo of the Clear Light of Reality, which is the Infallible Mind of the Dharmakaya, is experienced by all sentient beings.''110 Or, to put it a different way, the Thotrol tells us that "Thine own consciousness, shining, void, and inseparable from the Great Body of Radiance, hath no birth, nor death, and is the Immutable Light-Buddha Amitabha. Knowing this is sufficient. Recognizing the voidness of thine own intellect to be Buddhahood ... is to keep thyself in the Divine Mind."110 In short, immediately following physical death, the soul is absorbed in and as the ultimate-causal body (if we may treat them together).
Interspersed with this brief summary of the Bardo Thotrol, I will add my commentaries on involution and on the nature of the Atman project in involution. And we begin by noting that at the start of the Bardo experience, the soul is elevated to the utter heights of Being, to the ultimate state of Oneness-that is, he starts his Bardo career at the top. But, at the top is usually not where he remains, and the Thotrol tells us why. In Evans-Wentz's words, "In the realm of the Clear Light [the highest Chikhai stage] the mentality of a person . . . momentarily enjoys a condition of balance, of perfect equilibrium, and of [ultimate] oneness. Owing to unfamiliarity with such a state, which is an ecstatic state of non-ego, of [causal] consciousness, the . . . average human being lacks the power to function in it; karmic propensities becloud the consciousness-principle with thoughts of personality, of individualized being, of dualism, and, losing equilibrium, the consciousness-principle falls away from the Clear Light."
The soul falls away from the ultimate Oneness because "karmic propensities cloud consciousness"-"karmic propensities'' means seeking, grasping, desiring; means, in fact, Eros. And as this Erosseeking develops, the state of perfect Oneness starts to "break down" (illusorily). Or, from a different angle, because the individual cannot stand the intensity of pure Oneness ("owing to unfamiliarity with such a state"), he contracts away from it, tries to ''dilute it," tries to extricate himself from Perfect Intensity in Atman. Contracting in the face of infinity, he turns instead to forms of seeking, desire, karma, and grasping, trying to "search out" a state of equilibrium. Contraction and Eros-these karmic propensities couple and conspire to drive the soul away from pure consciousness and downwards into multiplicity, into less intense and less real states of being. ~ Ken Wilber, The Atman Project,#KEYS
409:The Mother once described the characteristics of the unity-body, of the future supramental body, to a young Ashramite: 'You know, if there is something on that window-sill and if I [in a supramental body] want to take it, I stretch out my hand and it becomes - wow! - long, and I have the thing in my hand without even having to get up from my chair ... Physically, I shall be able to be here and there at the same time. I shall be able to communicate with many people at the same time. To have something in my hand, I'll just have to wish for it. I think about something and I want it and it is already in my hand. With this transformed body I shall be free of the fetters of ignorance, pain, of mortality and unconsciousness. I shall be able to do many things at the same time. The transparent, luminous, strong, light, elastic body won't need any material things to subsist on ... The body can even be lengthened if one wants it to become tall, or shrunk when one wants it to be small, in any circumstances ... There will be all kinds of changes and there will be powers without limit. And it won't be something funny. Of course, I am giving you somewhat childish examples to tease you and to show the difference. 'It will be a true being, perfect in proportion, very, very beautiful and strong, light, luminous or else transparent. It will have a supple and malleable body endowed with extraordinary capacities and able to do everything; a body without age, a creation of the New Consciousness or else a transformed body such as none has ever imagined ... All that is above man will be within its reach. It will be guided by the Truth alone and nothing less. That is what it is and more even than has ever been conceived.'895 This the Mother told in French to Mona Sarkar, who noted it down as faithfully as possible and read it out to her for verification. The supramental body will not only be omnipotent and omniscient, but also omnipresent. And immortal. Not condemned to a never ending monotonous immortality - which, again, is one of our human interpretations of immortality - but for ever existing in an ecstasy of inexhaustible delight in 'the Joy that surpasses all understanding.' Moment after moment, eternity after eternity. For in that state each moment is an eternity and eternity an ever present moment. If gross matter is not capable of being used as a permanent coating of the soul in the present phase of its evolution, then it certainly is not capable of being the covering of the supramental consciousness, to form the body that has, to some extent, been described above. This means that the crux of the process of supramental transformation lies in matter; the supramental world has to become possible in matter, which at present still is gross matter. - Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were supramentalized in their mental and vital, but their enormous problem was the supramentalization of the physical body, consisting of the gross matter of the Earth. As the Mother said: 'It is matter itself that must change so that the Supramental may manifest. A new kind of matter no longer corresponding with Mendeleyev's periodic table of the elements? Is that possible?
~ Georges Van Vrekhem,#KEYS
410:28 August 1957
Mother, Sri Aurobindo says here: "Whether the whole of humanity would be touched [by the Supramental influence] or only a part of it ready for the change would depend on what was intended or possible in the continued order of the universe."
The Supramental Manifestation, SABCL, Vol. 16, p. 56
What is meant by "what was intended or possible"? The two things are different. So far you have said that if humanity changes, if it wants to participate in the new birth...
It is the same thing. But when you look at an object on a certain plane, you see it horizontally, and when you look at the same object from another plane, you see it vertically. (Mother shows the cover and the back of her book.) So, if one looks from above, one says "intended"; if one looks from below, one says "possible".... But it is absolutely the same thing, only the point of view is different.
But in that case, it is not our incapacity or lack of will to change that makes any difference.
We have already said this many a time. If you remain in a consciousness which functions mentally, even if it is the highest mind, you have the notion of an absolute determinism of cause and effect and feel that things are what they are because they are what they are and cannot be otherwise.
It is only when you come out of the mental consciousness completely and enter a higher perception of things - which you may call spiritual or divine - that you suddenly find yourself in a state of perfect freedom where everything is possible.
(Silence)
Those who have contacted that state or lived in it, even if only for a moment, try to describe it as a feeling of an absolute Will in action, which immediately gives to the human mentality the feeling of being arbitrary. And because of that distortion there arises the idea - which I might call traditional - of a supreme and arbitrary God, which is something most unacceptable to every enlightened mind. I suppose that this experience badly expressed is at the origin of this notion. And in fact it is incorrect to express it as an absolute Will: it is very, very, very different. It is something else altogether. For, what man understands by "Will" is a decision that is taken and carried out. We are obliged to use the word "will", but in its truth the Will acting in the universe is neither a choice nor a decision that is taken. What seems to me the closest expression is "vision". Things are because they are seen. But of course "seen", not seen as we see with these eyes.
(Mother touches her eyes...) All the same, it is the nearest thing.
It is a vision - a vision unfolding itself.
The universe becomes objective as it is progressively seen.
And that is why Sri Aurobindo has said "intended or possible". It is neither one nor the other. All that can be said is a distortion.
(Silence)
Objectivisation - universal objectivisation - is something like a projection in space and time, like a living image of what is from all eternity. And as the image is gradually projected on the screen of time and space, it becomes objective:
The Supreme contemplating His own Image.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,#KEYS
411:Talk 26
...
D.: Taking the first part first, how is the mind to be eliminated or relative consciousness transcended?
M.: The mind is by nature restless. Begin liberating it from its restlessness; give it peace; make it free from distractions; train it to look inward; make this a habit. This is done by ignoring the external world and removing the obstacles to peace of mind.
D.: How is restlessness removed from the mind?
M.: External contacts - contacts with objects other than itself - make the mind restless. Loss of interest in non-Self, (vairagya) is the first step. Then the habits of introspection and concentration follow. They are characterised by control of external senses, internal faculties, etc. (sama, dama, etc.) ending in samadhi (undistracted mind).
Talk 27.
D.: How are they practised?
M.: An examination of the ephemeral nature of external phenomena leads to vairagya. Hence enquiry (vichara) is the first and foremost step to be taken. When vichara continues automatically, it results in a contempt for wealth, fame, ease, pleasure, etc. The 'I' thought becomes clearer for inspection. The source of 'I' is the Heart - the final goal. If, however, the aspirant is not temperamentally suited to Vichara Marga (to the introspective analytical method), he must develop bhakti (devotion) to an ideal - may be God, Guru, humanity in general, ethical laws, or even the idea of beauty. When one of these takes possession of the individual, other attachments grow weaker, i.e., dispassion (vairagya) develops. Attachment for the ideal simultaneously grows and finally holds the field. Thus ekagrata (concentration) grows simultaneously and imperceptibly - with or without visions and direct aids.
In the absence of enquiry and devotion, the natural sedative pranayama (breath regulation) may be tried. This is known as Yoga Marga. If life is imperilled the whole interest centres round the one point, the saving of life. If the breath is held the mind cannot afford to (and does not) jump at its pets - external objects. Thus there is rest for the mind so long as the breath is held. All attention being turned on breath or its regulation, other interests are lost. Again, passions are attended with irregular breathing, whereas calm and happiness are attended with slow and regular breathing. Paroxysm of joy is in fact as painful as one of pain, and both are accompanied by ruffled breaths. Real peace is happiness. Pleasures do not form happiness. The mind improves by practice and becomes finer just as the razor's edge is sharpened by stropping. The mind is then better able to tackle internal or external problems. If an aspirant be unsuited temperamentally for the first two methods and circumstantially (on account of age) for the third method, he must try the Karma Marga (doing good deeds, for example, social service). His nobler instincts become more evident and he derives impersonal pleasure. His smaller self is less assertive and has a chance of expanding its good side. The man becomes duly equipped for one of the three aforesaid paths. His intuition may also develop directly by this single method. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramanasramam,#KEYS
412:"If the Divine that is all love is the source of the creation, whence have come all the evils abounding upon earth?"
"All is from the Divine; but the One Consciousness, the Supreme has not created the world directly out of itself; a Power has gone out of it and has descended through many gradations of its workings and passed through many agents. There are many creators or rather 'formateurs', form-makers, who have presided over the creation of the world. They are intermediary agents and I prefer to call them 'Formateurs' and not 'Creators'; for what they have done is to give the form and turn and nature to matter. There have been many, and some have formed things harmonious and benignant and some have shaped things mischievous and evil. And some too have been distorters rather than builders, for they have interfered and spoiled what was begun well by others." - Questions and Answers 1929 - 1931 (30 June 1929)
You say, "Many creators or rather 'formateurs', formmakers, have presided over the creation of the world." Who are these 'formateurs'?
That depends. They have been given many names. All has been done by gradations and through individual beings of all kinds. Each state of being is inhabited by entities, individualities and personalities and each one has created a world around him or has contributed to the formation of certain beings upon earth. The last creators are those of the vital world, but there are beings of the Overmind (Sri Aurobindo calls this plane the Overmind), who have created, given forms, sent out emanations, and these emanations again had their emanations and so on. What I meant is that it is not the Divine Will that acted directly on Matter to give to the world the required form, it is by passing through layers, so to say, planes of the world, as for example, the mental plane - there are so many beings on the mental plane who are form-makers, who have taken part in the formation of some beings who have incarnated upon earth. On the vital plane also the same thing happens.
For example, there is a tradition which says that the whole world of insects is the outcome of the form-makers of the vital world, and that this is why they take such absolutely diabolical shapes when they are magnified under the microscope. You saw the other day, when you were shown the microbes in water? Naturally the pictures were made to amuse, to strike the imagination, but they are based on real forms, so magnified, however, that they look like monsters. Almost the whole world of insects is a world of microscopic monsters which, had they been larger in size, would have been quite terrifying. So it is said these are entities of the vital world, beings of the vital who created that for fun and amused themselves forming all these impossible beasts which make human life altogether unpleasant.
Did these intermediaries also come out of the Divine Power?
Through intermediaries, yes, not directly. These beings are not in direct contact with the Divine (there are exceptions, I mean as a general rule), they are beings who are in relation with other beings, who are again in relation with others, and these with still others, and so on, in a hierarchy, up to the Supreme.(to be continued....) ~ The Mother, Question and Answers,#KEYS
413:What do you mean by these words: 'When you are in difficulty, widen yourself'?
I am speaking, of course, of difficulties on the path of yoga, incomprehension, limitations, things like obstacles, which prevent you from advancing. And when I say "widen yourself", I mean widen your consciousness.
Difficulties always arise from the ego, that is, from your more or less egoistic personal reaction to circumstances, events and people around you, to the conditions of your life. They also come from that feeling of being closed up in a sort of shell, which prevents your consciousness from uniting with higher and vaster realities.
One may very well think that one wants to be vast, wants to be universal, that all is the expression of the Divine, that one must have no egoism - one may think all sorts of things - but that is not necessarily a cure, for very often one knows what one ought to do, and yet one doesn't do it, for one reason or another.
But if, when you have to face anguish, suffering, revolt, pain or a feeling of helplessness - whatever it may be, all the things that come to you on the path and which precisely are your difficulties-if physically, that is to say, in your body- consciousness, you can have the feeling of widening yourself, one could say of unfolding yourself - you feel as it were all folded up, one fold on another like a piece of cloth which is folded and refolded and folded again - so if you have this feeling that what is holding and strangling you and making you suffer or paralysing your movement, is like a too closely, too tightly folded piece of cloth or like a parcel that is too well-tied, too well-packed, and that slowly, gradually, you undo all the folds and stretch yourself out exactly as one unfolds a piece of cloth or a sheet of paper and spreads it out flat, and you lie flat and make yourself very wide, as wide as possible, spreading yourself out as far as you can, opening yourself and stretching out in an attitude of complete passivity with what I could call "the face to the light": not curling back upon your difficulty, doubling up on it, shutting it in, so to say, into yourself, but, on the contrary, unfurling yourself as much as you can, as perfectly as you can, putting the difficulty before the Light - the Light which comes from above - if you do that in all the domains, and even if mentally you don't succeed in doing it - for it is sometimes difficult - if you can imagine yourself doing this physically, almost materially, well, when you have finished unfolding yourself and stretching yourself out, you will find that more than three-quarters of the difficulty is gone. And then just a little work of receptivity to the Light and the last quarter will disappear.
This is much easier than struggling against a difficulty with one's thought, for if you begin to discuss with yourself, you will find that there are arguments for and against which are so convincing that it is quite impossible to get out of it without a higher light. Here, you do not struggle against the difficulty, you do not try to convince yourself; ah! you simply stretch out in the Light as though you lay stretched on the sands in the sun. And you let the Light do its work. That's all. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers, Volume-8, page no.286-288),#KEYS
414:But still the greater and wider the moving idea-force behind the consecration, the better for the seeker; his attainment is likely to be fuller and more ample. If we are to attempt an integral Yoga, it will be as well to start with an idea of the Divine that is itself integral. There should be an aspiration in the heart wide enough for a realisation without any narrow limits. Not only should we avoid a sectarian religious outlook, but also all onesided philosophical conceptions which try to shut up the Ineffable in a restricting mental formula. The dynamic conception or impelling sense with which our Yoga can best set out would be naturally the idea, the sense of a conscious all-embracing but all-exceeding Infinite. Our uplook must be to a free, all-powerful, perfect and blissful One and Oneness in which all beings move and live and through which all can meet and become one. This Eternal will be at once personal and impersonal in his self-revelation and touch upon the soul. He is personal because he is the conscious Divine, the infinite Person who casts some broken reflection of himself in the myriad divine and undivine personalities of the universe. He is impersonal because he appears to us as an infinite Existence, Consciousness and Ananda and because he is the fount, base and constituent of all existences and all energies, -the very material of our being and mind and life and body, our spirit and our matter. The thought, concentrating on him, must not merely understand in an intellectual form that he exists, or conceive of him as an abstraction, a logical necessity; it must become a seeing thought able to meet him here as the Inhabitant in all, realise him in ourselves, watch and take hold on the movement of his forces. He is the one Existence: he is the original and universal Delight that constitutes all things and exceeds them: he is the one infinite Consciousness that composes all consciousnesses and informs all their movements; he is the one illimitable Being who sustains all action and experience; his will guides the evolution of things towards their yet unrealised but inevitable aim and plenitude. To him the heart can consecrate itself, approach him as the supreme Beloved, beat and move in him as in a universal sweetness of Love and a living sea of Delight. For his is the secret Joy that supports the soul in all its experiences and maintains even the errant ego in its ordeals and struggles till all sorrow and suffering shall cease. His is the Love and the Bliss of the infinite divine Lover who is drawing all things by their own path towards his happy oneness. On him the Will can unalterably fix as the invisible Power that guides and fulfils it and as the source of its strength. In the impersonality this actuating Power is a self-illumined Force that contains all results and calmly works until it accomplishes, in the personality an all wise and omnipotent Master of the Yoga whom nothing can prevent from leading it to its goal. This is the faith with which the seeker has to begin his seeking and endeavour; for in all his effort here, but most of all in his effort towards the Unseen, mental man must perforce proceed by faith. When the realisation comes, the faith divinely fulfilled and completed will be transformed into an eternal flame of knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration [83],#KEYS
415:There is no invariable rule of such suffering. It is not the soul that suffers; the Self is calm and equal to all things and the only sorrow of the psychic being is the sorrow of the resistance of Nature to the Divine Will or the resistance of things and people to the call of the True, the Good and the Beautiful. What is affected by suffering is the vital nature and the body. When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt - which may create mental and vital suffering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature whose principal character is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffering of the mind and vital parts. The physical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incomprehension, an inability to respond to the higher consciousness, a habit of helplessly responding to the lower mechanically, even when it does not want to do so; both vital and physical suffering may be the consequence. There is moreover the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence on the continuation of the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses, desires, feelings, responses continue even after they are thrown out and rejected, and can return like an invading army from outside, until the whole nature, given to the Divine, refuses to admit them. This is the subjective form of the universal resistance, but it may also take an objective form - opposition, calumny, attacks, persecution, misfortunes of many kinds, adverse conditions and circumstances, pain, illness, assaults from men or forces. There too the possibility of suffering is evident. There are two ways to meet all that - first that of the Self, calm, equality, a spirit, a will, a mind, a vital, a physical consciousness that remain resolutely turned towards the Divine and unshaken by all suggestion of doubt, desire, attachment, depression, sorrow, pain, inertia. This is possible when the inner being awakens, when one becomes conscious of the Self, of the inner mind, the inner vital, the inner physical, for that can more easily attune itself to the divine Will, and then there is a division in the being as if there were two beings, one within, calm, strong, equal, unperturbed, a channel of the Divine Consciousness and Force, one without, still encroached on by the lower Nature; but then the disturbances of the latter become something superficial which are no more than an outer ripple, - until these under the inner pressure fade and sink away and the outer being too remains calm, concentrated, unattackable. There is also the way of the psychic, - when the psychic being comes out in its inherent power, its consecration, adoration, love of the Divine, self-giving, surrender and imposes these on the mind, vital and physical consciousness and compels them to turn all their movements Godward. If the psychic is strong and master...
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, Resistances, Sufferings and Falls, 669,#KEYS
416:Can it be said in justification of one's past that whatever has happened in one's life had to happen?
The Mother: Obviously, what has happened had to happen; it would not have been, if it had not been intended. Even the mistakes that we have committed and the adversities that fell upon us had to be, because there was some necessity in them, some utility for our lives. But in truth these things cannot be explained mentally and should not be. For all that happened was necessary, not for any mental reason, but to lead us to something beyond what the mind imagines. But is there any need to explain after all? The whole universe explains everything at every moment and a particular thing happens because the whole universe is what it is. But this does not mean that we are bound over to a blind acquiescence in Nature's inexorable law. You can accept the past as a settled fact and perceive the necessity in it, and still you can use the experience it gave you to build up the power consciously to guide and shape your present and your future.
Is the time also of an occurrence arranged in the Divine Plan of things?
The Mother: All depends upon the plane from which one sees and speaks. There is a plane of divine consciousness in which all is known absolutely, and the whole plan of things foreseen and predetermined. That way of seeing lives in the highest reaches of the Supramental; it is the Supreme's own vision. But when we do not possess that consciousness, it is useless to speak in terms that hold good only in that region and are not our present effective way of seeing things. For at a lower level of consciousness nothing is realised or fixed beforehand; all is in the process of making. Here there are no settled facts, there is only the play of possibilities; out of the clash of possibilities is realised the thing that has to happen. On this plane we can choose and select; we can refuse one possibility and accept another; we can follow one path, turn away from another. And that we can do, even though what is actually happening may have been foreseen and predetermined in a higher plane.
The Supreme Consciousness knows everything beforehand, because everything is realised there in her eternity. But for the sake of her play and in order to carry out actually on the physical plane what is foreordained in her own supreme self, she moves here upon earth as if she did not know the whole story; she works as if it was a new and untried thread that she was weaving. It is this apparent forgetfulness of her own foreknowledge in the higher consciousness that gives to the individual in the active life of the world his sense of freedom and independence and initiative. These things in him are her pragmatic tools or devices, and it is through this machinery that the movements and issues planned and foreseen elsewhere are realised here.
It may help you to understand if you take the example of an actor. An actor knows the whole part he has to play; he has in his mind the exact sequence of what is to happen on the stage. But when he is on the stage, he has to appear as if he did not know anything; he has to feel and act as if he were experiencing all these things for the first time, as if it was an entirely new world with all its chance events and surprises that was unrolling before his eyes. 28th April ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
417:If this is the truth of works, the first thing the sadhaka has to do is to recoil from the egoistic forms of activity and get rid of the sense of an "I" that acts. He has to see and feel that everything happens in him by the plastic conscious or subconscious or sometimes superconscious automatism of his mental and bodily instruments moved by the forces of spiritual, mental, vital and physical Nature. There is a personality on his surface that chooses and wills, submits and struggles, tries to make good in Nature or prevail over Nature, but this personality is itself a construction of Nature and so dominated, driven, determined by her that it cannot be free. It is a formation or expression of the Self in her, - it is a self of Nature rather than a self of Self, his natural and processive, not his spiritual and permanent being, a temporary constructed personality, not the true immortal Person. It is that Person that he must become. He must succeed in being inwardly quiescent, detach himself as the observer from the outer active personality and learn the play of the cosmic forces in him by standing back from all blinding absorption in its turns and movements. Thus calm, detached, a student of himself and a witness of his nature, he realises that he is the individual soul who observes the works of Nature, accepts tranquilly her results and sanctions or withholds his sanction from the impulse to her acts. At present this soul or Purusha is little more than an acquiescent spectator, influencing perhaps the action and development of the being by the pressure of its veiled consciousness, but for the most part delegating its powers or a fragment of them to the outer personality, - in fact to Nature, for this outer self is not lord but subject to her, anı̄sa; but, once unveiled, it can make its sanction or refusal effective, become the master of the action, dictate sovereignly a change of Nature. Even if for a long time, as the result of fixed association and past storage of energy, the habitual movement takes place independent of the Purusha's assent and even if the sanctioned movement is persistently refused by Nature for want of past habit, still he will discover that in the end his assent or refusal prevails, - slowly with much resistance or quickly with a rapid accommodation of her means and tendencies she modifies herself and her workings in the direction indicated by his inner sight or volition. Thus he learns in place of mental control or egoistic will an inner spiritual control which makes him master of the Nature-forces that work in him and not their unconscious instrument or mechanic slave. Above and around him is the Shakti, the universal Mother and from her he can get all his inmost soul needs and wills if only he has a true knowledge of her ways and a true surrender to the divine Will in her. Finally, he becomes aware of that highest dynamic Self within him and within Nature which is the source of all his seeing and knowing, the source of the sanction, the source of the acceptance, the source of the rejection. This is the Lord, the Supreme, the One-in-all, Ishwara-Shakti, of whom his soul is a portion, a being of that Being and a power of that Power. The rest of our progress depends on our knowledge of the ways in which the Lord of works manifests his Will in the world and in us and executes them through the transcendent and universal Shakti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 216, #KEYS
418:In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration.
A certain kind of Agnosticism is the final truth of all knowledge. For when we come to the end of whatever path, the universe appears as only a symbol or an appearance of an unknowable Reality which translates itself here into different systems of values, physical values, vital and sensational values, intellectual, ideal and spiritual values. The more That becomes real to us, the more it is seen to be always beyond defining thought and beyond formulating expression. "Mind attains not there, nor speech."3 And yet as it is possible to exaggerate, with the Illusionists, the unreality of the appearance, so it is possible to exaggerate the unknowableness of the Unknowable. When we speak of It as unknowable, we mean, really, that It escapes the grasp of our thought and speech, instruments which proceed always by the sense of difference and express by the way of definition; but if not knowable by thought, It is attainable by a supreme effort of consciousness. There is even a kind of Knowledge which is one with Identity and by which, in a sense, It can be known. Certainly, that Knowledge cannot be reproduced successfully in the terms of thought and speech, but when we have attained to it, the result is a revaluation of That in the symbols of our cosmic consciousness, not only in one but in all the ranges of symbols, which results in a revolution of our internal being and, through the internal, of our external life. Moreover, there is also a kind of Knowledge through which That does reveal itself by all these names and forms of phenomenal existence which to the ordinary intelligence only conceal It. It is this higher but not highest process of Knowledge to which we can attain by passing the limits of the materialistic formula and scrutinising Life, Mind and Supermind in the phenomena that are characteristic of them and not merely in those subordinate movements by which they link themselves to Matter.
The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity. And since in man there is the inalienable impulse of Nature towards self-realisation, no struggle of the intellect to limit the action of our capacities within a determined area can for ever prevail. When we have proved Matter and realised its secret capacities, the very knowledge which has found its convenience in that temporary limitation, must cry to us, like the Vedic Restrainers, 'Forth now and push forward also in other fields.'
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
419:It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in the Yoga will proceed to its object; for liberation, perfection, mastery are dependent on this integralisation, since the little wave on the surface cannot control its own movement, much less have any true control over the vast life around it. The Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks up our present psychological formations, shatters every wall, widens, liberates, presents us with always newer and greater powers of vision, ideation, perception and newer and greater life-motives, enlarges and newmodels increasingly the soul and its instruments, confronts us with every imperfection in order to convict and destroy it, opens to a greater perfection, does in a brief period the work of many lives or ages so that new births and new vistas open constantly within us. Expansive in her action, she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, feeling the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe. It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. We begin to perceive the working of the forces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working, separate from within the truth and falsehood of our perceptions, enlarge their field, extend and illumine their significance, become master of our own minds and active to shape the movements of Mind in the world around us. We begin to perceive the flow and surge of the universal life-forces, detect the origin and law of our feelings, emotions, sensations, passions, are free to accept, reject, new-create, open to wider, rise to higher planes of Life-Power. We begin to perceive too the key to the enigma of Matter, follow the interplay of Mind and Life and Consciousness upon it, discover more and more its instrumental and resultant function and detect ultimately the last secret of Matter as a form not merely of Energy but of involved and arrested or unstably fixed and restricted consciousness and begin to see too the possibility of its liberation and plasticity of response to higher Powers, its possibilities for the conscious and no longer the more than half-inconscient incarnation and self-expression of the Spirit. All this and more becomes more and more possible as the working of the Divine Shakti increases in us and, against much resistance or labour to respond of our obscure consciousness, through much struggle and movement of progress and regression and renewed progress necessitated by the work of intensive transformation of a half-inconscient into a conscious substance, moves to a greater purity, truth, height, range. All depends on the psychic awakening in us, the completeness of our response to her and our growing surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 183, #KEYS
420: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
421:We have now completed our view of the path of Knowledge and seen to what it leads. First, the end of Yoga of Knowledge is God-possession, it is to possess God and be possessed by him through consciousness, through identification, through reflection of the divine Reality. But not merely in some abstraction away from our present existence, but here also; therefore to possess the Divine in himself, the Divine in the world, the Divine within, the Divine in all things and all beings. It is to possess oneness with God and through that to possess also oneness with the universal, with the cosmos and all existences; therefore to possess the infinite diversity also in the oneness, but on the basis of oneness and not on the basis of division. It is to possess God in his personality and his impersonality; in his purity free from qualities and in his infinite qualities; in time and beyond time; in his action and in his silence; in the finite and in the infinite. It is to possess him not only in pure self, but in all self; not only in self, but in Nature; not only in spirit, but in supermind, mind, life and body; to possess him with the spirit, with the mind, with the vital and the physical consciousness; and it is again for all these to be possessed by him, so that our whole being is one with him, full of him, governed and driven by him. It is, since God is oneness, for our physical consciousness to be one with the soul and the nature of the material universe; for our life, to be one with all life; for our mind, to be one with the universal mind; for our spirit, to be identified with the universal spirit. It is to merge in him in the absolute and find him in all relations. Secondly, it is to put on the divine being and the divine nature. And since God is Sachchidananda, it is to raise our being into the divine being, our consciousness into the divine consciousness, our energy into the divine energy, our delight of existence into the divine delight of being. And it is not only to lift ourselves into this higher consciousness, but to widen into it in all our being, because it is to be found on all the planes of our existence and in all our members, so that our mental, vital, physical existence shall become full of the divine nature. Our intelligent mentality is to become a play of the divine knowledge-will, our mental soul-life a play of the divine love and delight, our vitality a play of the divine life, our physical being a mould of the divine substance. This God-action in us is to be realised by an opening of ourselves to the divine gnosis and divine Ananda and, in its fullness, by an ascent into and a permanent dwelling in the gnosis and the Ananda. For though we live physically on the material plane and in normal outwardgoing life the mind and soul are preoccupied with material existence, this externality of our being is not a binding limitation. We can raise our internal consciousness from plane to plane of the relations of Purusha with prakriti, and even become, instead of the mental being dominated by the physical soul and nature, the gnostic being or the bliss-self and assume the gnostic or the bliss nature. And by this raising of the inner life we can transform our whole outward-going existence; instead of a life dominated by matter we shall then have a life dominated by spirit with all its circumstances moulded and determined by the purity of being, the consciousness infinite even in the finite, the divine energy, the divine joy and bliss of the spirit.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge [511] [T1],#KEYS
422:The Teachings of Some Modern Indian Yogis
Ramana Maharshi
According to Brunton's description of the sadhana he (Brunton) practised under the Maharshi's instructions,1 it is the Overself one has to seek within, but he describes the Overself in a way that is at once the Psychic Being, the Atman and the Ishwara. So it is a little difficult to know what is the exact reading.
*
The methods described in the account [of Ramana Maharshi's technique of self-realisation] are the well-established methods of Jnanayoga - (1) one-pointed concentration followed by thought-suspension, (2) the method of distinguishing or finding out the true self by separating it from mind, life, body (this I have seen described by him [Brunton] more at length in another book) and coming to the pure I behind; this also can disappear into the Impersonal Self. The usual result is a merging in the Atman or Brahman - which is what one would suppose is meant by the Overself, for it is that which is the real Overself. This Brahman or Atman is everywhere, all is in it, it is in all, but it is in all not as an individual being in each but is the same in all - as the Ether is in all. When the merging into the Overself is complete, there is no ego, no distinguishable I, or any formed separative person or personality. All is ekakara - an indivisible and undistinguishable Oneness either free from all formations or carrying all formations in it without being affected - for one can realise it in either way. There is a realisation in which all beings are moving in the one Self and this Self is there stable in all beings; there is another more complete and thoroughgoing in which not only is it so but all are vividly realised as the Self, the Brahman, the Divine. In the former, it is possible to dismiss all beings as creations of Maya, leaving the one Self alone as true - in the other it is easier to regard them as real manifestations of the Self, not as illusions. But one can also regard all beings as souls, independent realities in an eternal Nature dependent upon the One Divine. These are the characteristic realisations of the Overself familiar to the Vedanta. But on the other hand you say that this Overself is realised by the Maharshi as lodged in the heart-centre, and it is described by Brunton as something concealed which when it manifests appears as the real Thinker, source of all action, but now guiding thought and action in the Truth. Now the first description applies to the Purusha in the heart, described by the Gita as the Ishwara situated in the heart and by the Upanishads as the Purusha Antaratma; the second could apply also to the mental Purusha, manomayah. pran.asarı̄ra neta of the Upanishads, the mental Being or Purusha who leads the life and the body. So your question is one which on the data I cannot easily answer. His Overself may be a combination of all these experiences, without any distinction being made or thought necessary between the various aspects. There are a thousand ways of approaching and realising the Divine and each way has its own experiences which have their own truth and stand really on a basis, one in essence but complex in aspects, common to all, but not expressed in the same way by all. There is not much use in discussing these variations; the important thing is to follow one's own way well and thoroughly. In this Yoga, one can realise the psychic being as a portion of the Divine seated in the heart with the Divine supporting it there - this psychic being takes charge of the sadhana and turns the ......
1 The correspondent sent to Sri Aurobindo two paragraphs from Paul Brunton's book A Message from Arunachala (London: Rider & Co., n.d. [1936], pp. 205 - 7). - Ed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
423:
Sometimes while reading a text one has ideas, then Sweet Mother, how can one distinguish between the other person's idea and one's own?
Oh! This, this doesn't exist, the other person's idea and one's own idea.
Nobody has ideas of his own: it is an immensity from which one draws according to his personal affinity; ideas are a collective possession, a collective wealth.
Only, there are different stages. So there is the most common level, the one where all our brains bathe; this indeed swarms here, it is the level of "Mr. Everybody". And then there is a level that's slightly higher for people who are called thinkers. And then there are higher levels still - many - some of them are beyond words but they are still domains of ideas. And then there are those capable of shooting right up, catching something which is like a light and making it come down with all its stock of ideas, all its stock of thoughts. An idea from a higher domain if pulled down organises itself and is crystallised in a large number of thoughts which can express that idea differently; and then if you are a writer or a poet or an artist, when you make it come lower down still, you can have all kinds of expressions, extremely varied and choice around a single little idea but one coming from very high above. And when you know how to do this, it teaches you to distinguish between the pure idea and the way of expressing it.
Some people cannot do it in their own head because they have no imagination or faculty for writing, but they can do it through study by reading what others have written. There are, you know, lots of poets, for instance, who have expressed the same idea - the same idea but with such different forms that when one reads many of them it becomes quite interesting to see (for people who love to read and read much). Ah, this idea, that one has said it like this, that other has expressed it like that, another has formulated it in this way, and so on. And so you have a whole stock of expressions which are expressions by different poets of the same single idea up there, above, high above. And you notice that there is an almost essential difference between the pure idea, the typal idea and its formulation in the mental world, even the speculative or artistic mental world. This is a very good thing to do when one loves gymnastics. It is mental gymnastics.
Well, if you want to be truly intelligent, you must know how to do mental gymnastics; as, you see, if you want really to have a fairly strong body you must know how to do physical gymnastics. It is the same thing. People who have never done mental gymnastics have a poor little brain, quite over-simple, and all their life they think like children. One must know how to do this - not take it seriously, in the sense that one shouldn't have convictions, saying, "This idea is true and that is false; this formulation is correct and that one is not and this religion is the true one and that religion is false", and so on and so forth... this, if you enter into it, you become absolutely stupid.
But if you can see all that and, for example, take all the religions, one after another and see how they have expressed the same aspiration of the human being for some Absolute, it becomes very interesting; and then you begin... yes, you begin to be able to juggle with all that. And then when you have mastered it all, you can rise above it and look at all the eternal human discussions with a smile. So there you are master of the thought and can no longer fly into a rage because someone else does not think as you, something that's unfortunately a very common malady here.
Now, there we are. Nobody has any questions, no?
That's enough? Finished! ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955,#KEYS
424:In the process of this change there must be by the very necessity of the effort two stages of its working. First, there will be the personal endeavour of the human being, as soon as he becomes aware by his soul, mind, heart of this divine possibility and turns towards it as the true object of life, to prepare himself for it and to get rid of all in him that belongs to a lower working, of all that stands in the way of his opening to the spiritual truth and its power, so as to possess by this liberation his spiritual being and turn all his natural movements into free means of its self-expression. It is by this turn that the self-conscious Yoga aware of its aim begins: there is a new awakening and an upward change of the life motive. So long as there is only an intellectual, ethical and other self-training for the now normal purposes of life which does not travel beyond the ordinary circle of working of mind, life and body, we are still only in the obscure and yet unillumined preparatory Yoga of Nature; we are still in pursuit of only an ordinary human perfection. A spiritual desire of the Divine and of the divine perfection, of a unity with him in all our being and a spiritual perfection in all our nature, is the effective sign of this change, the precursory power of a great integral conversion of our being and living. By personal effort a precursory change, a preliminary conversion can be effected; it amounts to a greater or less spiritualising of our mental motives, our character and temperament, and a mastery, stilling or changed action of the vital and physical life. This converted subjectivity can be made the base of some communion or unity of the soul in mind with the Divine and some partial reflection of the divine nature in the mentality of the human being. That is as far as man can go by his unaided or indirectly aided effort, because that is an effort of mind and mind cannot climb beyond itself permanently: at most it arises to a spiritualised and idealised mentality. If it shoots up beyond that border, it loses hold of itself, loses hold of life, and arrives either at a trance of absorption or a passivity. A greater perfection can only be arrived at by a higher power entering in and taking up the whole action of the being. The second stage of this Yoga will therefore be a persistent giving up of all the action of the nature into the hands of this greater Power, a substitution of its influence, possession and working for the personal effort, until the Divine to whom we aspire becomes the direct master of the Yoga and effects the entire spiritual and ideal conversion of the being. Two rules there are that will diminish the difficulty and obviate the danger. One must reject all that comes from the ego, from vital desire, from the mere mind and its presumptuous reasoning incompetence, all that ministers to these agents of the Ignorance. One must learn to hear and follow the voice of the inmost soul, the direction of the Guru, the command of the Master, the working of the Divine Mother. Whoever clings to the desires and weaknesses of the flesh, the cravings and passions of the vital in its turbulent ignorance, the dictates of his personal mind unsilenced and unillumined by a greater knowledge, cannot find the true inner law and is heaping obstacles in the way of the divine fulfilment. Whoever is able to detect and renounce those obscuring agencies and to discern and follow the true Guide within and without will discover the spiritual law and reach the goal of the Yoga. A radical and total change of consciousness is not only the whole meaning but, in an increasing force and by progressive stages, the whole method of the integral Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Integral Perfection [618],#KEYS
425:EVOCATION
Evocation is the art of dealing with magical beings or entities by various acts which create or contact them and allow one to conjure and command them with pacts and exorcism. These beings have a legion of names drawn from the demonology of many cultures: elementals, familiars, incubi, succubi, bud-wills, demons, automata, atavisms, wraiths, spirits, and so on. Entities may be bound to talismans, places, animals, objects, persons, incense smoke, or be mobile in the aether. It is not the case that such entities are limited to obsessions and complexes in the human mind. Although such beings customarily have their origin in the mind, they may be budded off and attached to objects and places in the form of ghosts, spirits, or "vibrations," or may exert action at a distance in the form of fetishes, familiars, or poltergeists. These beings consist of a portion of Kia or the life force attached to some aetheric matter, the whole of which may or may not be attached to ordinary matter.
Evocation may be further defined as the summoning or creation of such partial beings to accomplish some purpose. They may be used to cause change in oneself, change in others, or change in the universe. The advantages of using a semi-independent being rather than trying to effect a transformation directly by will are several: the entity will continue to fulfill its function independently of the magician until its life force dissipates. Being semi-sentient, it can adapt itself to a task in that a non-conscious simple spell cannot. During moments of the possession by certain entities the magician may be the recipient of inspirations, abilities, and knowledge not normally accessible to him.
Entities may be drawn from three sources - those which are discovered clairvoyantly, those whose characteristics are given in grimoires of spirits and demons, and those which the magician may wish to create himself.
In all cases establishing a relationship with the spirit follows a similar process of evocation. Firstly the attributes of the entity, its type, scope, name, appearance and characteristics must be placed in the mind or made known to the mind. Automatic drawing or writing, where a stylus is allowed to move under inspiration across a surface, may help to uncover the nature of a clairvoyantly discovered being. In the case of a created being the following procedure is used: the magician assembles the ingredients of a composite sigil of the being's desired attributes. For example, to create an elemental to assist him with divination, the appropriate symbols might be chosen and made into a sigil such as the one shown in figure 4.
A name and an image, and if desired, a characteristic number can also be selected for the elemental.
Secondly, the will and perception are focused as intently as possible (by some gnostic method) on the elemental's sigils or characteristics so that these take on a portion of the magician's life force and begin autonomous existence. In the case of preexisting beings, this operation serves to bind the entity to the magician's will.
This is customarily followed by some form of self-banishing, or even exorcism, to restore the magician's consciousness to normal before he goes forth.
An entity of a low order with little more than a singular task to perform can be left to fulfill its destiny with no further interference from its master. If at any time it is necessary to terminate it, its sigil or material basis should be destroyed and its mental image destroyed or reabsorbed by visualization. For more powerful and independent beings, the conjuration and exorcism must be in proportion to the power of the ritual which originally evoked them. To control such beings, the magicians may have to re-enter the gnostic state to the same depth as before in order to draw their power. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,#KEYS
426: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
427:The perfect supramental action will not follow any single principle or limited rule.It is not likely to satisfy the standard either of the individual egoist or of any organised group-mind. It will conform to the demand neither of the positive practical man of the world nor of the formal moralist nor of the patriot nor of the sentimental philanthropist nor of the idealising philosopher. It will proceed by a spontaneous outflowing from the summits in the totality of an illumined and uplifted being, will and knowledge and not by the selected, calculated and standardised action which is all that the intellectual reason or ethical will can achieve. Its sole aim will be the expression of the divine in us and the keeping together of the world and its progress towards the Manifestation that is to be. This even will not be so much an aim and purpose as a spontaneous law of the being and an intuitive determination of the action by the Light of the divine Truth and its automatic influence. It will proceed like the action of Nature from a total will and knowledge behind her, but a will and knowledge enlightened in a conscious supreme Nature and no longer obscure in this ignorant Prakriti. It will be an action not bound by the dualities but full and large in the spirit's impartial joy of existence. The happy and inspired movement of a divine Power and Wisdom guiding and impelling us will replace the perplexities and stumblings of the suffering and ignorant ego.
If by some miracle of divine intervention all mankind at once could be raised to this level, we should have something on earth like the Golden Age of the traditions, Satya Yuga, the Age of Truth or true existence. For the sign of the Satya Yuga is that the Law is spontaneous and conscious in each creature and does its own works in a perfect harmony and freedom. Unity and universality, not separative division, would be the foundation of the consciousness of the race; love would be absolute; equality would be consistent with hierarchy and perfect in difference; absolute justice would be secured by the spontaneous action of the being in harmony with the truth of things and the truth of himself and others and therefore sure of true and right result; right reason, no longer mental but supramental, would be satisfied not by the observation of artificial standards but by the free automatic perception of right relations and their inevitable execution in the act. The quarrel between the individual and society or disastrous struggle between one community and another could not exist: the cosmic consciousness imbedded in embodied beings would assure a harmonious diversity in oneness.
In the actual state of humanity, it is the individual who must climb to this height as a pioneer and precursor. His isolation will necessarily give a determination and a form to his outward activities that must be quite other than those of a consciously divine collective action. The inner state, the root of his acts, will be the same; but the acts themselves may well be very different from what they would be on an earth liberated from ignorance. Nevertheless his consciousness and the divine mechanism of his conduct, if such a word can be used of so free a thing, would be such as has been described, free from that subjection to vital impurity and desire and wrong impulse which we call sin, unbound by that rule of prescribed moral formulas which we call virtue, spontaneously sure and pure and perfect in a greater consciousness than the mind's, governed in all its steps by the light and truth of the Spirit. But if a collectivity or group could be formed of those who had reached the supramental perfection, there indeed some divine creation could take shape; a new earth could descend that would be a new heaven, a world of supramental light could be created here amidst the receding darkness of this terrestrial ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, 206,#KEYS
428: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
429:"There is a true movement of the intellect and there is a wrong movement: one helps, the other hinders." Questions and Answers 1929 - 1931 (5 May 1929)
What is the true movement of the intellect?
What exactly do you understand by intellect? Is it a function of the mind or is it a part of the human being? How do you understand it?
A function of the mind.
A function of the mind? Then it is that part of the mind which deals with ideas; is that what you mean?
Not ideas, Mother.
Not ideas? What else, then?
Ideas, but...
There is a part of the mind which receives ideas, ideas that are formed in a higher mind. Still, I don't know, it is a question of definition and one must know what exactly you mean to say.
It is intellect that puts ideas in the form of thoughts, gathering and organising the thoughts at the same time. There are great ideas which lie beyond the ordinary human mentality, which can put on all possible forms. These great ideas tend to descend, they want to manifest themselves in precise forms. These precise forms are the thoughts; and generally it is this, I believe, that is meant by intellect: it is this that gives thought-form to the ideas.
And then, there is also the organisation of the thoughts among themselves. All that has to be put in a certain order, otherwise one becomes incoherent. And after that, there is the putting of these thoughts to use for action; that is still another movement.
To be able to say what the true movement is, one must know first of all which movement is being spoken about. You have a body, well, you don't expect your body to walk on its head or its hands nor to crawl flat on its belly nor indeed that the head should be down and the legs up in the air. You give to each limb a particular occupation which is its own. This appears to you quite natural because that is the habit; otherwise, the very little ones do not know what to do, neither with their legs nor with their hands nor with their heads; it is only little by little that they learn that. Well, it is the same thing with the mind's functions. You must know which part of the mind you are speaking about, what its own function is, and then only can you say what its true movement is and what is not its true movement. For example, for the part which has to receive the master ideas and change them into thought, its true movement is to be open to the master ideas, receive them and change them into as exact, as precise, as expressive a thought as possible. For the part of the mind which has the charge of organising all these thoughts among themselves so that they might form a coherent and classified whole, not a chaos, the true movement is just to make the classification according to a higher logic and in a thoroughly clear, precise and expressive order which may be serviceable each time a thought is referred to, so that one may know where to look for it and not put quite contradictory things together. There are people whose mind does not work like that; all the ideas that come into it, without their being even aware of what the idea is, are translated into confused thoughts which remain in a kind of inner chaos. I have known people who, from the philosophical point of view - although there is nothing philosophical in it - could put side by side the most contradictory things, like ideas of hierarchic order and at the same time ideas of the absolute independence of the individual and of anarchism, and both were accepted with equal sympathy, knocked against each other in the head in the midst of a wild disorder, and these people were not even aware of it!... You know the saying: "A question well put is three-fourths solved." So now, put your question. What do you want to speak about? I am stretching out a helping hand, you have only to catch it. What is it you are speaking about, what is it that you call intellect? Do you know the difference between an idea and a thought?
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 107,#KEYS
430:I have never been able to share your constantly recurring doubts about your capacity or the despair that arises in you so violently when there are these attacks, nor is their persistent recurrence a valid ground for believing that they can never be overcome. Such a persistent recurrence has been a feature in the sadhana of many who have finally emerged and reached the goal; even the sadhana of very great Yogis has not been exempt from such violent and constant recurrences; they have sometimes been special objects of such persistent assaults, as I have indeed indicated in Savitri in more places than one - and that was indeed founded on my own experience. In the nature of these recurrences there is usually a constant return of the same adverse experiences, the same adverse resistance, thoughts destructive of all belief and faith and confidence in the future of the sadhana, frustrating doubts of what one has known as the truth, voices of despondency and despair, urgings to abandonment of the Yoga or to suicide or else other disastrous counsels of déchéance. The course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they have strong family resemblance. One can eventually overcome if one begins to realise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of observing them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf, finally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and refusing the mind's sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl or the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions. In the end these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature; the recurrence becomes feeble or has no power to last: even, if the detachment is strong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once. The strongest attitude to take is to regard these things as what they really are, incursions of dark forces from outside taking advantage of certain openings in the physical mind or the vital part, but not a real part of oneself or spontaneous creation in one's own nature. To create a confusion and darkness in the physical mind and throw into it or awake in it mistaken ideas, dark thoughts, false impressions is a favourite method of these assailants, and if they can get the support of this mind from over-confidence in its own correctness or the natural rightness of its impressions and inferences, then they can have a field day until the true mind reasserts itself and blows the clouds away. Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense of grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or rankling as long as possible. In that case one has to discover these openings in one's nature and learn to close them permanently to such attacks or else to throw out intruders at once or as soon as possible. The recurrence is no proof of a fundamental incapacity; if one takes the right inner attitude, it can and will be overcome. The idea of suicide ought never to be accepted; there is no real ground for it and in any case it cannot be a remedy or a real escape: at most it can only be postponement of difficulties and the necessity for their solution under no better circumstances in another life. One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time he conceals himself, and then in his own right time he will reveal his Presence.
I have tried to dispel all the misconceptions, explain things as they are and meet all the points at issue. It is not that you really cannot make progress or have not made any progress; on the contrary, you yourself have admitted that you have made a good advance in many directions and there is no reason why, if you persevere, the rest should not come. You have always believed in the Guruvada: I would ask you then to put your faith in the Guru and the guidance and rely on the Ishwara for the fulfilment, to have faith in my abiding love and affection, in the affection and divine goodwill and loving kindness of the Mother, stand firm against all attacks and go forward perseveringly towards the spiritual goal and the all-fulfilling and all-satisfying touch of the All-Blissful, the Ishwara.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
431:To arrive then at this settled divine status must be the object of our concentration. The first step in concentration must be always to accustom the discursive mind to a settled unwavering pursuit of a single course of connected thought on a single subject and this it must do undistracted by all lures and alien calls on its attention. Such concentration is common enough in our ordinary life, but it becomes more difficult when we have to do it inwardly without any outward object or action on which to keep the mind; yet this inward concentration is what the seeker of knowledge must effect. Nor must it be merely the consecutive thought of the intellectual thinker, whose only object is to conceive and intellectually link together his conceptions. It is not, except perhaps at first, a process of reasoning that is wanted so much as a dwelling so far as possible on the fruitful essence of the idea which by the insistence of the soul's will upon it must yield up all the facets of its truth. Thus if it be the divine Love that is the subject of concentration, it is on the essence of the idea of God as Love that the mind should concentrate in such a way that the various manifestation of the divine Love should arise luminously, not only to the thought, but in the heart and being and vision of the Sadhaka. The thought may come first and the experience afterwards, but equally the experience may come first and the knowledge arise out of the experience. Afterwards the thing attained has to be dwelt on and more and more held till it becomes a constant experience and finally the Dharma or law of the being.
This is the process of concentrated meditation; but a more strenuous method is the fixing of the whole mind in concentration on the essence of the idea only, so as to reach not the thought-knowledge or the psychological experience of the subject, but the very essence of the thing behind the idea. In this process thought ceases and passes into the absorbed or ecstatic contemplation of the object or by a merging into it m an inner Samadhi. If this be the process followed, then subsequently the state into which we rise must still be called down to take possession of the lower being, to shed its light, power and bliss on our ordinary consciousness. For otherwise we may possess it, as many do, in the elevated condition or in the inward Samadhi, but we shall lose our hold of it when we awake or descend into the contacts of the world; and this truncated possession is not the aim of an integral Yoga.
A third process is neither at first to concentrate in a strenuous meditation on the one subject nor in a strenuous contemplation of the one object of thought-vision, but first to still the mind altogether. This may be done by various ways; one is to stand back from the mental action altogether not participating in but simply watching it until, tired of its unsanctioned leaping and running, it falls into an increasing and finally an absolute quiet. Another is to reject the thought-suggestions, to cast them away from the mind whenever they come and firmly hold to the peace of the being which really and always exists behind the trouble and riot of the mind. When this secret peace is unveiled, a great calm settles on the being and there comes usually with it the perception and experience of the all-pervading silent Brahman, everything else at first seeming to be mere form and eidolon. On the basis of this calm everything else may be built up in the knowledge and experience no longer of the external phenomena of things but of the deeper truth of the divine manifestation.
Ordinarily, once this state is obtained, strenuous concentration will be found no longer necessary. A free concentration of will using thought merely for suggestion and the giving of light to the lower members will take its place. This Will will then insist on the physical being, the vital existence, the heart and the mind remoulding themselves in the forms of the Divine which reveal themselves out of the silent Brahman. By swifter or slower degrees according to the previous preparation and purification of the members, they will be obliged with more or less struggle to obey the law of the will and its thought-suggestion, so that eventually the knowledge of the Divine takes possession of our consciousness on all its planes and the image of the Divine is formed in our human existence even as it was done by the old Vedic Sadhakas. For the integral Yoga this is the most direct and powerful discipline.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, Concentration,#KEYS
432:GURU YOGA
Guru yoga is an essential practice in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon. This is true in sutra, tantra, and Dzogchen. It develops the heart connection with the masteR By continually strengthening our devotion, we come to the place of pure devotion in ourselves, which is the unshakeable, powerful base of the practice. The essence of guru yoga is to merge the practitioner's mind with the mind of the master.
What is the true master? It is the formless, fundamental nature of mind, the primordial awareness of the base of everything, but because we exist in dualism, it is helpful for us to visualize this in a form. Doing so makes skillful use of the dualisms of the conceptual mind, to further strengthen devotion and help us stay directed toward practice and the generation of positive qualities.
In the Bon tradition, we often visualize either Tapihritsa* as the master, or the Buddha ShenlaOdker*, who represents the union of all the masters. If you are already a practitioner, you may have another deity to visualize, like Guru Rinpoche or a yidam or dakini. While it is important to work with a lineage with which you have a connection, you should understand that the master you visualize is the embodiment of all the masters with whom you are connected, all the teachers with whom you have studied, all the deities to whom you have commitments. The master in guru yoga is not just one individual, but the essence of enlightenment, the primordial awareness that is your true nature.
The master is also the teacher from whom you receive the teachings. In the Tibetan tradition, we say the master is more important than the Buddha. Why? Because the master is the immediate messenger of the teachings, the one who brings the Buddha's wisdom to the student. Without the master we could not find our way to the Buddha. So we should feel as much devotion to the master as we would to the Buddha if the Buddha suddenly appeared in front of us.
Guru yoga is not just about generating some feeling toward a visualized image. It is done to find the fundamental mind in yourself that is the same as the fundamental mind of all your teachers, and of all the Buddhas and realized beings that have ever lived. When you merge with the guru, you merge with your pristine true nature, which is the real guide and masteR But this should not be an abstract practice. When you do guru yoga, try to feel such intense devotion that the hair stands upon your neck, tears start down your face, and your heart opens and fills with great love. Let yourself merge in union with the guru's mind, which is your enlightened Buddha-nature. This is the way to practice guru yoga.
The Practice
After the nine breaths, still seated in meditation posture, visualize the master above and in front of you. This should not be a flat, two dimensional picture-let a real being exist there, in three dimensions, made of light, pure, and with a strong presence that affects the feeling in your body,your energy, and your mind. Generate strong devotion and reflect on the great gift of the teachings and the tremendous good fortune you enjoy in having made a connection to them. Offer a sincere prayer, asking that your negativities and obscurations be removed, that your positive qualities develop, and that you accomplish dream yoga.
Then imagine receiving blessings from the master in the form of three colored lights that stream from his or her three wisdom doors- of body, speech, and mind-into yours. The lights should be transmitted in the following sequence: White light streams from the master's brow chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your entire body and physical dimension. Then red light streams from the master's throat chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your energetic dimension. Finally, blue light streams from the master's heart chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your mind.
When the lights enter your body, feel them. Let your body, energy, and mind relax, suffused inwisdom light. Use your imagination to make the blessing real in your full experience, in your body and energy as well as in the images in your mind.
After receiving the blessing, imagine the master dissolving into light that enters your heart and resides there as your innermost essence. Imagine that you dissolve into that light, and remain inpure awareness, rigpa.
There are more elaborate instructions for guru yoga that can involve prostrations, offerings, gestures, mantras, and more complicated visualizations, but the essence of the practice is mingling your mind with the mind of the master, which is pure, non-dual awareness. Guru yoga can be done any time during the day; the more often the better. Many masters say that of all the practices it is guru yoga that is the most important. It confers the blessings of the lineage and can open and soften the heart and quiet the unruly mind. To completely accomplish guru yoga is to accomplish the path.
~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep, [T3],#KEYS
433: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
434:
In the lower planes can't one say what will happen at a particular moment?
That depends. On certain planes there are consciousnesses that form, that make formations and try to send them down to earth and manifest them. These are planes where the great forces are at play, forces struggling with each other to organise things in one way or another. On these planes all the possibilities are there, all the possibilities that present themselves but have not yet come to a decision as to which will come down.... Suppose a plane full of the imaginations of people who want certain things to be realised upon earth - they invent a novel, narrate stories, produce all kinds of phenomena; it amuses them very much. It is a plane of form-makers and they are there imagining all kinds of circumstances and events; they play with the forces; they are like the authors of a drama and they prepare everything there and see what is going to happen. All these formations are facing each other; and it is those which are the strongest, the most successful or the most persistent or those that have the advantage of a favourable set of circumstances which dominate. They meet and out of the conflict yet another thing results: you lose one thing and take up another, you make a new combination; and then all of a sudden, you find, pluff! it is coming down. Now, if it comes down with a sufficient force, it sets moving the earth atmosphere and things combine; as for instance, when with your fist you thump the saw-dust, you know surely what happens, don't you? You lift your hand, give a formidable blow: all the dust gets organised around your fist. Well, it is like that. These formations come down into matter with that force, and everything organises itself automatically, mechanically as around the striking fist. And there's your wished object about to be realised, sometimes with small deformations because of the resistance, but it will be realised finally, even as the person narrating the story up above wanted it more or less to be realised. If then you are for some reason or other in the secret of the person who has constructed the story and if you follow the way in which he creates his path to reach down to the earth and if you see how a blow with the fist acts on earthly matter, then you are able to tell what is going to happen, because you have seen it in the world above, and as it takes some time to make the whole journey, you see in advance. And the higher you rise, the more you foresee in advance what is going to happen. And if you pass far beyond, go still farther, then everything is possible.
It is an unfolding that follows a wide road which is for you unknowable; for all will be unfolded in the universe, but in what order and in what way? There are decisions that are taken up there which escape our ordinary consciousness, and so it is very difficult to foresee. But there also, if you enter consciously and if you can be present up there... How shall I explain that to you? All is there, absolute, static, eternal: but all that will be unfolded in the material world, naturally more or less one thing after another; for in the static existence all can be there, but in the becoming all becomes in time, that is, one thing after another. Well, what path will the unfolding follow? Up there is the domain of absolute freedom.... Who says that a sufficiently sincere aspiration, a sufficiently intense prayer is not capable of changing the path of the unfolding?
This means that all is possible.
Now, one must have a sufficient aspiration and a prayer that's sufficiently intense. But that has been given to human nature. It is one of the marvellous gifts of grace given to human nature; only, one does not know how to make use of it. This comes to saying that in spite of the most absolute determinisms in the horizontal line, if one knows how to cross all these horizontal lines and reach the highest Point of consciousness, one is able to make things change, things apparently absolutely determined. So you may call it by any name you like, but it is a kind of combination of an absolute determinism with an absolute freedom. You may pull yourself out of it in any way you like, but it is like that.
I forgot to say in that book (perhaps I did not forget but just felt that it was useless to say it) that all these theories are only theories, that is, mental conceptions which are merely more or less imaged representations of the reality; but it is not the reality at all. When you say "determinism" and when you say "freedom", you say only words and all that is only a very incomplete, very approximate and very weak description of what is in reality within you, around you and everywhere; and to be able to begin to understand what the universe is, you must come out of your mental formulas, otherwise you will never understand anything.
To tell the truth, if you live only a moment, just a tiny moment, of this absolutely sincere aspiration or this sufficiently intense prayer, you will know more things than by meditating for hours.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
435: Sri Aurobindo writes here: "...Few and brief in their visits are the Bright Ones who are willing or permitted to succour." Why?
(1 "The Way", Cent. Vol. 17, p. 40.)
One must go and ask them! But there is a conclusion, the last sentences give a very clear explanation. It is said: "Nay, then, is immortality a plaything to be given lightly to a child, or the divine life a prize without effort or the crown for a weakling?" This comes back to the question why the adverse forces have the right to interfere, to harass you. But this is precisely the test necessary for your sincerity. If the way were very easy, everybody would start on the way, and if one could reach the goal without any obstacle and without any effort, everybody would reach the goal, and when one has come to the end, the situation would be the same as when one started, there would be no change. That is, the new world would be exactly what the old has been. It is truly not worth the trouble! Evidently a process of elimination is necessary so that only what is capable of manifesting the new life remains. This is the reason and there is no other, this is the best of reasons. And, you see, it is a tempering, it is the ordeal of fire, only that which can stand it remains absolutely pure; when everything has burnt down, there remains only the little ingot of pure gold. And it is like that. What puts things out very much in all this is the religious idea of fault, sin, redemption. But there is no arbitrary decision! On the contrary, for each one it is the best and most favourable conditions which are given. We were saying the other day that it is only his friends whom God treats with severity; you thought it was a joke, but it is true. It is only to those who are full of hope, who will pass through this purifying flame, that the conditions for attaining the maximum result are given. And the human mind is made in such a way that you may test this; when something extremely unpleasant happens to you, you may tell yourself, "Well, this proves I am worth the trouble of being given this difficulty, this proves there is something in me which can resist the difficulty", and you will notice that instead of tormenting yourself, you rejoice - you will be so happy and so strong that even the most unpleasant things will seem to you quite charming! This is a very easy experiment to make. Whatever the circumstance, if your mind is accustomed to look at it as something favourable, it will no longer be unpleasant for you. This is quite well known; as long as the mind refuses to accept a thing, struggles against it, tries to obstruct it, there are torments, difficulties, storms, inner struggles and all suffering. But the minute the mind says, "Good, this is what has to come, it is thus that it must happen", whatever happens, you are content. There are people who have acquired such control of their mind over their body that they feel nothing; I told you this the other day about certain mystics: if they think the suffering inflicted upon them is going to help them cross the stages in a moment and give them a sort of stepping stone to attain the Realisation, the goal they have put before them, union with the Divine, they no longer feel the suffering at all. Their body is as it were galvanised by the mental conception. This has happened very often, it is a very common experience among those who truly have enthusiasm. And after all, if one must for some reason or other leave one's body and take a new one, is it not better to make of one's death something magnificent, joyful, enthusiastic, than to make it a disgusting defeat? Those who cling on, who try by every possible means to delay the end even by a minute or two, who give you an example of frightful anguish, show that they are not conscious of their soul.... After all, it is perhaps a means, isn't it? One can change this accident into a means; if one is conscious one can make a beautiful thing of it, a very beautiful thing, as of everything. And note, those who do not fear it, who are not anxious, who can die without any sordidness are those who never think about it, who are not haunted all the time by this "horror" facing them which they must escape and which they try to push as far away from them as they can. These, when the occasion comes, can lift their head, smile and say, "Here I am."
It is they who have the will to make the best possible use of their life, it is they who say, "I shall remain here as long as it is necessary, to the last second, and I shall not lose one moment to realise my goal"; these, when the necessity comes, put up the best show. Why? - It is very simple, because they live in their ideal, the truth of their ideal; because that is the real thing for them, the very reason of their being, and in all things they can see this ideal, this reason of existence, and never do they come down into the sordidness of material life.
So, the conclusion:
One must never wish for death.
One must never will to die.
One must never be afraid to die.
And in all circumstances one must will to exceed oneself. ~ The Mother, Question and Answers, Volume-4, page no.353-355,#KEYS
436:It is natural from the point of view of the Yoga to divide into two categories the activities of the human mind in its pursuit of knowledge. There is the supreme supra-intellectual knowledge which concentrates itself on the discovery of the One and Infinite in its transcendence or tries to penetrate by intuition, contemplation, direct inner contact into the ultimate truths behind the appearances of Nature; there is the lower science which diffuses itself in an outward knowledge of phenomena, the disguises of the One and Infinite as it appears to us in or through the more exterior forms of the world-manifestation around us. These two, an upper and a lower hemisphere, in the form of them constructed or conceived by men within the mind's ignorant limits, have even there separated themselves, as they developed, with some sharpness.... Philosophy, sometimes spiritual or at least intuitive, sometimes abstract and intellectual, sometimes intellectualising spiritual experience or supporting with a logical apparatus the discoveries of the spirit, has claimed always to take the fixation of ultimate Truth as its province. But even when it did not separate itself on rarefied metaphysical heights from the knowledge that belongs to the practical world and the pursuit of ephemeral objects, intellectual Philosophy by its habit of abstraction has seldom been a power for life. It has been sometimes powerful for high speculation, pursuing mental Truth for its own sake without any ulterior utility or object, sometimes for a subtle gymnastic of the mind in a mistily bright cloud-land of words and ideas, but it has walked or acrobatised far from the more tangible realities of existence. Ancient Philosophy in Europe was more dynamic, but only for the few; in India in its more spiritualised forms, it strongly influenced but without transforming the life of the race.... Religion did not attempt, like Philosophy, to live alone on the heights; its aim was rather to take hold of man's parts of life even more than his parts of mind and draw them Godwards; it professed to build a bridge between spiritual Truth and the vital and material human existence; it strove to subordinate and reconcile the lower to the higher, make life serviceable to God, Earth obedient to Heaven. It has to be admitted that too often this necessary effort had the opposite result of making Heaven a sanction for Earth's desires; for, continually, the religious idea has been turned into an excuse for the worship and service of the human ego. Religion, leaving constantly its little shining core of spiritual experience, has lost itself in the obscure mass of its ever extending ambiguous compromises with life: in attempting to satisfy the thinking mind, it more often succeeded in oppressing or fettering it with a mass of theological dogmas; while seeking to net the human heart, it fell itself into pits of pietistic emotionalism and sensationalism; in the act of annexing the vital nature of man to dominate it, it grew itself vitiated and fell a prey to all the fanaticism, homicidal fury, savage or harsh turn for oppression, pullulating falsehood, obstinate attachment to ignorance to which that vital nature is prone; its desire to draw the physical in man towards God betrayed it into chaining itself to ecclesiastic mechanism, hollow ceremony and lifeless ritual. The corruption of the best produced the worst by that strange chemistry of the power of life which generates evil out of good even as it can also generate good out of evil. At the same time in a vain effort at self-defence against this downward gravitation, Religion was driven to cut existence into two by a division of knowledge, works, art, life itself into two opposite categories, the spiritual and the worldly, religious and mundane, sacred and profane; but this defensive distinction itself became conventional and artificial and aggravated rather than healed the disease.... On their side Science and Art and the knowledge of Life, although at first they served or lived in the shadow of Religion, ended by emancipating themselves, became estranged or hostile, or have even recoiled with indifference, contempt or scepticism from what seem to them the cold, barren and distant or unsubstantial and illusory heights of unreality to which metaphysical Philosophy and Religion aspire. For a time the divorce has been as complete as the one-sided intolerance of the human mind could make it and threatened even to end in a complete extinction of all attempt at a higher or a more spiritual knowledge. Yet even in the earthward life a higher knowledge is indeed the one thing that is throughout needful, and without it the lower sciences and pursuits, however fruitful, however rich, free, miraculous in the abundance of their results, become easily a sacrifice offered without due order and to false gods; corrupting, hardening in the end the heart of man, limiting his mind's horizons, they confine in a stony material imprisonment or lead to a final baffling incertitude and disillusionment. A sterile agnosticism awaits us above the brilliant phosphorescence of a half-knowledge that is still the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, #KEYS
437:[the sevenfold ignorance and the integral knowledge:]
We are ignorant of the Absolute which is the source of all being and becoming; we take partial facts of being, temporal relations of the becoming for the whole truth of existence,-that is the first, the original ignorance. We are ignorant of the spaceless, timeless, immobile and immutable Self; we take the constant mobility and mutation of the cosmic becoming in Time and Space for the whole truth of existence, -that is the second, the cosmic ignorance. We are ignorant of our universal self, the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness, our infinite unity with all being and becoming; we take our limited egoistic mentality, vitality, corporeality for our true self and regard everything other than that as not-self,-that is the third, the egoistic ignorance. We are ignorant of our eternal becoming in Time; we take this little life in a small span of Time, in a petty field of Space, for our beginning, our middle and our end,-that is the fourth, the temporal ignorance. Even within this brief temporal becoming we are ignorant of our large and complex being, of that in us which is superconscient, subconscient, intraconscient, circumconscient to our surface becoming; we take that surface becoming with its small selection of overtly mentalised experiences for our whole existence,-that is the fifth, the psychological ignorance. We are ignorant of the true constitution of our becoming; we take the mind or life or body or any two of these or all three for our true principle or the whole account of what we are, losing sight of that which constitutes them and determines by its occult presence and is meant to determine sovereignly by its emergence their operations,-that is the sixth, the constitutional ignorance. As a result of all these ignorances, we miss the true knowledge, government and enjoyment of our life in the world; we are ignorant in our thought, will, sensations, actions, return wrong or imperfect responses at every point to the questionings of the world, wander in a maze of errors and desires, strivings and failures, pain and pleasure, sin and stumbling, follow a crooked road, grope blindly for a changing goal,-that is the seventh, the practical ignorance.
Our conception of the Ignorance will necessarily determine our conception of the Knowledge and determine, therefore, since our life is the Ignorance at once denying and seeking after the Knowledge, the goal of human effort and the aim of the cosmic endeavour. Integral knowledge will then mean the cancelling of the sevenfold Ignorance by the discovery of what it misses and ignores, a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness:- it will mean [1] the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; [2] the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; [3] the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; [4] the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; [5] the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; [6] the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; [7] the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality.
But this is not an intellectual knowledge which can be learned and completed in our present mould of consciousness; it must be an experience, a becoming, a change of consciousness, a change of being. This brings in the evolutionary character of the Becoming and the fact that our mental ignorance is only a stage in our evolution. The integral knowledge, then, can only come by an evolution of our being and our nature, and that would seem to signify a slow process in Time such as has accompanied the other evolutionary transformations. But as against that inference there is the fact that the evolution has now become conscious and its method and steps need not be altogether of the same character as when it was subconscious in its process. The integral knowledge, since it must result from a change of consciousness, can be gained by a process in which our will and endeavour have a part, in which they can discover and apply their own steps and method: its growth in us can proceed by a conscious self-transformation. It is necessary then to see what is likely to be the principle of this new process of evolution and what are the movements of the integral knowledge that must necessarily emerge in it,-or, in other words, what is the nature of the consciousness that must be the base of the life divine and how that life may be expected to be formed or to form itself, to materialise or, as one might say, to realise.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 680-683 [T1],#KEYS
438:What are these operations? They are not mere psychological self-analysis and self-observation. Such analysis, such observation are, like the process of right thought, of immense value and practically indispensable. They may even, if rightly pursued, lead to a right thought of considerable power and effectivity. Like intellectual discrimination by the process of meditative thought they will have an effect of purification; they will lead to self-knowledge of a certain kind and to the setting right of the disorders of the soul and the heart and even of the disorders of the understanding. Self-knowledge of all kinds is on the straight path to the knowledge of the real Self. The Upanishad tells us that the Self-existent has so set the doors of the soul that they turn outwards and most men look outward into the appearances of things; only the rare soul that is ripe for a calm thought and steady wisdom turns its eye inward, sees the Self and attains to immortality. To this turning of the eye inward psychological self-observation and analysis is a great and effective introduction.We can look into the inward of ourselves more easily than we can look into the inward of things external to us because there, in things outside us, we are in the first place embarrassed by the form and secondly we have no natural previous experience of that in them which is other than their physical substance. A purified or tranquillised mind may reflect or a powerful concentration may discover God in the world, the Self in Nature even before it is realised in ourselves, but this is rare and difficult. (2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the process of the Self in its becoming and follow the process by which it draws back into self-being. Therefore the ancient counsel, know thyself, will always stand as the first word that directs us towards the knowledge. Still, psychological self-knowledge is only the experience of the modes of the Self, it is not the realisation of the Self in its pure being.
The status of knowledge, then, which Yoga envisages is not merely an intellectual conception or clear discrimination of the truth, nor is it an enlightened psychological experience of the modes of our being. It is a "realisation", in the full sense of the word; it is the making real to ourselves and in ourselves of the Self, the transcendent and universal Divine, and it is the subsequent impossibility of viewing the modes of being except in the light of that Self and in their true aspect as its flux of becoming under the psychical and physical conditions of our world-existence. This realisation consists of three successive movements, internal vision, complete internal experience and identity.
This internal vision, dr.s.t.i, the power so highly valued by the ancient sages, the power which made a man a Rishi or Kavi and no longer a mere thinker, is a sort of light in the soul by which things unseen become as evident and real to it-to the soul and not merely to the intellect-as do things seen to the physical eye. In the physical world there are always two forms of knowledge, the direct and the indirect, pratyaks.a, of that which is present to the eyes, and paroks.a, of that which is remote from and beyond our vision. When the object is beyond our vision, we are necessarily obliged to arrive at an idea of it by inference, imagination, analogy, by hearing the descriptions of others who have seen it or by studying pictorial or other representations of it if these are available. By putting together all these aids we can indeed arrive at a more or less adequate idea or suggestive image of the object, but we do not realise the thing itself; it is not yet to us the grasped reality, but only our conceptual representation of a reality. But once we have seen it with the eyes,-for no other sense is adequate,-we possess, we realise; it is there secure in our satisfied being, part of ourselves in knowledge. Precisely the same rule holds good of psychical things and of he Self. We may hear clear and luminous teachings about the Self from philosophers or teachers or from ancient writings; we may by thought, inference, imagination, analogy or by any other available means attempt to form a mental figure or conception of it; we may hold firmly that conception in our mind and fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration;3 but we have not yet realised it, we have not seen God. It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman, and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity.
(2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the 2 In one respect, however, it is easier, because in external things we are not so much hampered by the sense of the limited ego as in ourselves; one obstacle to the realisation of God is therefore removed.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge,#KEYS
439: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
440:[an Integral conception of the Divine :::
But on that which as yet we know not how shall we concentrate? And yet we cannot know the Divine unless we have achieved this concentration of our being upon him. A concentration which culminates in a living realisation and the constant sense of the presence of the One in ourselves and in all of which we are aware, is what we mean in Yoga by knowledge and the effort after knowledge. It is not enough to devote ourselves by the reading of Scriptures or by the stress of philosophical reasoning to an intellectual understanding of the Divine; for at the end of our long mental labour we might know all that has been said of the Eternal, possess all that can be thought about the Infinite and yet we might not know him at all. This intellectual preparation can indeed be the first stage in a powerful Yoga, but it is not indispensable : it is not a step which all need or can be called upon to take. Yoga would be impossible, except for a very few, if the intellectual figure of knowledge arrived at by the speculative or meditative Reason were its indispensable condition or a binding preliminary. All that the Light from above asks of us that it may begin its work is a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind. This support can be reached through an insistent idea of the Divine in the thought, a corresponding will in the dynamic parts, an aspiration, a faith, a need in the heart. Any one of these may lead or predominate, if all cannot move in unison or in an equal rhythm. The idea may be and must in the beginning be inadequate; the aspiration may be narrow and imperfect, the faith poorly illumined or even, as not surely founded on the rock of knowledge, fluctuating, uncertain, easily diminished; often even it may be extinguished and need to be lit again with difficulty like a torch in a windy pass. But if once there is a resolute self-consecration from deep within, if there is an awakening to the soul's call, these inadequate things can be a sufficient instrument for the divine purpose. Therefore the wise have always been unwilling to limit man's avenues towards God; they would not shut against his entry even the narrowest portal, the lowest and darkest postern, the humblest wicket-gate. Any name, any form, any symbol, any offering has been held to be sufficient if there is the consecration along with it; for the Divine knows himself in the heart of the seeker and accepts the sacrifice.
But still the greater and wider the moving idea-force behind the consecration, the better for the seeker; his attainment is likely to be fuller and more ample. If we are to attempt an integral Yoga, it will be as well to start with an idea of the Divine that is itself integral. There should be an aspiration in the heart wide enough for a realisation without any narrow limits. Not only should we avoid a sectarian religious outlook, but also all onesided philosophical conceptions which try to shut up the Ineffable in a restricting mental formula. The dynamic conception or impelling sense with which our Yoga can best set out would be naturally the idea, the sense of a conscious all-embracing but all-exceeding Infinite. Our uplook must be to a free, all-powerful, perfect and blissful One and Oneness in which all beings move and live and through which all can meet and become one. This Eternal will be at once personal and impersonal in his self-revelation and touch upon the soul. He is personal because he is the conscious Divine, the infinite Person who casts some broken reflection of himself in the myriad divine and undivine personalities of the universe. He is impersonal because he appears to us as an infinite Existence, Consciousness and Ananda and because he is the fount, base and constituent of all existences and all energies, -the very material of our being and mind and life and body, our spirit and our matter. The thought, concentrating on him, must not merely understand in an intellectual form that he exists, or conceive of him as an abstraction, a logical necessity; it must become a seeing thought able to meet him here as the Inhabitant in all, realise him in ourselves, watch and take hold on the movement of his forces. He is the one Existence: he is the original and universal Delight that constitutes all things and exceeds them: he is the one infinite Consciousness that composes all consciousnesses and informs all their movements; he is the one illimitable Being who sustains all action and experience; his will guides the evolution of things towards their yet unrealised but inevitable aim and plenitude. To him the heart can consecrate itself, approach him as the supreme Beloved, beat and move in him as in a universal sweetness of Love and a living sea of Delight. For his is the secret Joy that supports the soul in all its experiences and maintains even the errant ego in its ordeals and struggles till all sorrow and suffering shall cease. His is the Love and the Bliss of the infinite divine Lover who is drawing all things by their own path towards his happy oneness. On him the Will can unalterably fix as the invisible Power that guides and fulfils it and as the source of its strength. In the impersonality this actuating Power is a self-illumined Force that contains all results and calmly works until it accomplishes, in the personality an all wise and omnipotent Master of the Yoga whom nothing can prevent from leading it to its goal. This is the faith with which the seeker has to begin his seeking and endeavour; for in all his effort here, but most of all in his effort towards the Unseen, mental man must perforce proceed by faith. When the realisation comes, the faith divinely fulfilled and completed will be transformed into an eternal flame of knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 82-83 [T1],#KEYS
441:Education
THE EDUCATION of a human being should begin at birth and continue throughout his life.
Indeed, if we want this education to have its maximum result, it should begin even before birth; in this case it is the mother herself who proceeds with this education by means of a twofold action: first, upon herself for her own improvement, and secondly, upon the child whom she is forming physically. For it is certain that the nature of the child to be born depends very much upon the mother who forms it, upon her aspiration and will as well as upon the material surroundings in which she lives. To see that her thoughts are always beautiful and pure, her feelings always noble and fine, her material surroundings as harmonious as possible and full of a great simplicity - this is the part of education which should apply to the mother herself. And if she has in addition a conscious and definite will to form the child according to the highest ideal she can conceive, then the very best conditions will be realised so that the child can come into the world with his utmost potentialities. How many difficult efforts and useless complications would be avoided in this way!
Education to be complete must have five principal aspects corresponding to the five principal activities of the human being: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual. Usually, these phases of education follow chronologically the growth of the individual; this, however, does not mean that one of them should replace another, but that all must continue, completing one another until the end of his life.
We propose to study these five aspects of education one by one and also their interrelationships. But before we enter into the details of the subject, I wish to make a recommendation to parents. Most parents, for various reasons, give very little thought to the true education which should be imparted to children. When they have brought a child into the world, provided him with food, satisfied his various material needs and looked after his health more or less carefully, they think they have fully discharged their duty. Later on, they will send him to school and hand over to the teachers the responsibility for his education.
There are other parents who know that their children must be educated and who try to do what they can. But very few, even among those who are most serious and sincere, know that the first thing to do, in order to be able to educate a child, is to educate oneself, to become conscious and master of oneself so that one never sets a bad example to one's child. For it is above all through example that education becomes effective. To speak good words and to give wise advice to a child has very little effect if one does not oneself give him an example of what one teaches. Sincerity, honesty, straightforwardness, courage, disinterestedness, unselfishness, patience, endurance, perseverance, peace, calm, self-control are all things that are taught infinitely better by example than by beautiful speeches. Parents, have a high ideal and always act in accordance with it and you will see that little by little your child will reflect this ideal in himself and spontaneously manifest the qualities you would like to see expressed in his nature. Quite naturally a child has respect and admiration for his parents; unless they are quite unworthy, they will always appear to their child as demigods whom he will try to imitate as best he can.
With very few exceptions, parents are not aware of the disastrous influence that their own defects, impulses, weaknesses and lack of self-control have on their children. If you wish to be respected by a child, have respect for yourself and be worthy of respect at every moment. Never be authoritarian, despotic, impatient or ill-tempered. When your child asks you a question, do not give him a stupid or silly answer under the pretext that he cannot understand you. You can always make yourself understood if you take enough trouble; and in spite of the popular saying that it is not always good to tell the truth, I affirm that it is always good to tell the truth, but that the art consists in telling it in such a way as to make it accessible to the mind of the hearer. In early life, until he is twelve or fourteen, the child's mind is hardly open to abstract notions and general ideas. And yet you can train it to understand these things by using concrete images, symbols or parables. Up to quite an advanced age and for some who mentally always remain children, a narrative, a story, a tale well told teach much more than any number of theoretical explanations.
Another pitfall to avoid: do not scold your child without good reason and only when it is quite indispensable. A child who is too often scolded gets hardened to rebuke and no longer attaches much importance to words or severity of tone. And above all, take good care never to scold him for a fault which you yourself commit. Children are very keen and clear-sighted observers; they soon find out your weaknesses and note them without pity.
When a child has done something wrong, see that he confesses it to you spontaneously and frankly; and when he has confessed, with kindness and affection make him understand what was wrong in his movement so that he will not repeat it, but never scold him; a fault confessed must always be forgiven. You should not allow any fear to come between you and your child; fear is a pernicious means of education: it invariably gives birth to deceit and lying. Only a discerning affection that is firm yet gentle and an adequate practical knowledge will create the bonds of trust that are indispensable for you to be able to educate your child effectively. And do not forget that you have to control yourself constantly in order to be equal to your task and truly fulfil the duty which you owe your child by the mere fact of having brought him into the world.
Bulletin, February 1951
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
442:To what gods shall the sacrifice be offered? Who shall be invoked to manifest and protect in the human being this increasing godhead?
Agni first, for without him the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with Knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity.
Indra, the Puissant next, who is the power of pure Existence self-manifested as the Divine Mind. As Agni is one pole of Force instinct with knowledge that sends its current upward from earth to heaven, so Indra is the other pole of Light instinct with force which descends from heaven to earth. He comes down into our world as the Hero with the shining horses and slays darkness and division with his lightnings, pours down the life-giving heavenly waters, finds in the trace of the hound, Intuition, the lost or hidden illuminations, makes the Sun of Truth mount high in the heaven of our mentality.
Surya, the Sun, is the master of that supreme Truth, - truth of being, truth of knowledge, truth of process and act and movement and functioning. He is therefore the creator or rather the manifester of all things - for creation is out-bringing, expression by the Truth and Will - and the father, fosterer, enlightener of our souls. The illuminations we seek are the herds of this Sun who comes to us in the track of the divine Dawn and releases and reveals in us night-hidden world after world up to the highest Beatitude.
Of that beatitude Soma is the representative deity. The wine of his ecstasy is concealed in the growths of earth, in the waters of existence; even here in our physical being are his immortalising juices and they have to be pressed out and offered to all the gods; for in that strength these shall increase and conquer.
Each of these primary deities has others associated with him who fulfil functions that arise from his own. For if the truth of Surya is to be established firmly in our mortal nature, there are previous conditions that are indispensable; a vast purity and clear wideness destructive of all sin and crooked falsehood, - and this is Varuna; a luminous power of love and comprehension leading and forming into harmony all our thoughts, acts and impulses, - this is Mitra; an immortal puissance of clear-discerning aspiration and endeavour, - this is Aryaman; a happy spontaneity of the right enjoyment of all things dispelling the evil dream of sin and error and suffering, - this is Bhaga. These four are powers of the Truth of Surya. For the whole bliss of Soma to be established perfectly in our nature a happy and enlightened and unmaimed condition of mind, vitality and body are necessary. This condition is given to us by the twin Ashwins; wedded to the daughter of Light, drinkers of honey, bringers of perfect satisfactions, healers of maim and malady they occupy our parts of knowledge and parts of action and prepare our mental, vital and physical being for an easy and victorious ascension.
Indra, the Divine Mind, as the shaper of mental forms has for his assistants, his artisans, the Ribhus, human powers who by the work of sacrifice and their brilliant ascension to the high dwelling-place of the Sun have attained to immortality and help mankind to repeat their achievement. They shape by the mind Indra's horses, the chariot of the Ashwins, the weapons of the Gods, all the means of the journey and the battle. But as giver of the Light of Truth and as Vritra-slayer Indra is aided by the Maruts, who are powers of will and nervous or vital Force that have attained to the light of thought and the voice of self-expression. They are behind all thought and speech as its impellers and they battle towards the Light, Truth and Bliss of the supreme Consciousness.
There are also female energies; for the Deva is both Male and Female and the gods also are either activising souls or passively executive and methodising energies. Aditi, infinite Mother of the Gods, comes first; and there are besides five powers of the Truthconsciousness, - Mahi or Bharati, the vast Word that brings us all things out of the divine source; Ila, the strong primal word of the Truth who gives us its active vision; Saraswati, its streaming current and the word of its inspiration; Sarama, the Intuition, hound of heaven who descends into the cavern of the subconscient and finds there the concealed illuminations; Dakshina, whose function is to discern rightly, dispose the action and the offering and distribute in the sacrifice to each godhead its portion. Each god, too, has his female energy.
All this action and struggle and ascension is supported by Heaven our Father and Earth our Mother Parents of the Gods, who sustain respectively the purely mental and psychic and the physical consciousness. Their large and free scope is the condition of our achievement. Vayu, master of life, links them together by the mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities, - Parjanya, giver of the rain of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine war-horse, a power of Agni; the mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trita Aptya who on the third plane of existence consummates our triple being; and more besides.
The development of all these godheads is necessary to our perfection. And that perfection must be attained on all our levels, - in the wideness of earth, our physical being and consciousness; in the full force of vital speed and action and enjoyment and nervous vibration, typified as the Horse which must be brought forward to upbear our endeavour; in the perfect gladness of the heart of emotion and a brilliant heat and clarity of the mind throughout our intellectual and psychical being; in the coming of the supramental Light, the Dawn and the Sun and the shining Mother of the herds, to transform all our existence; for so comes to us the possession of the Truth, by the Truth the admirable surge of the Bliss, in the Bliss infinite Consciousness of absolute being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, The Doctrine of the Mystics,#KEYS
443:The Two Paths Of Yoga :::
14 April 1929 - What are the dangers of Yoga? Is it especially dangerous to the people of the West? Someone has said that Yoga may be suitable for the East, but it has the effect of unbalancing the Western mind.
Yoga is not more dangerous to the people of the West than to those of the East. Everything depends upon the spirit with which you approach it. Yoga does become dangerous if you want it for your own sake, to serve a personal end. It is not dangerous, on the contrary, it is safety and security itself, if you go to it with a sense of its sacredness, always remembering that the aim is to find the Divine.
Dangers and difficulties come in when people take up Yoga not for the sake of the Divine, but because they want to acquire power and under the guise of Yoga seek to satisfy some ambition. if you cannot get rid of ambition, do not touch the thing. It is fire that burns.
There are two paths of Yoga, one of tapasya (discipline), and the other of surrender. The path of tapasya is arduous. Here you rely solely upon yourself, you proceed by your own strength. You ascend and achieve according to the measure of your force. There is always the danger of falling down. And once you fall, you lie broken in the abyss and there is hardly a remedy. The other path, the path of surrender, is safe and sure. It is here, however, that the Western people find their difficulty. They have been taught to fear and avoid all that threatens their personal independence. They have imbibed with their mothers' milk the sense of individuality. And surrender means giving up all that. In other words, you may follow, as Ramakrishna says, either the path of the baby monkey or that of the baby cat. The baby monkey holds to its mother in order to be carried about and it must hold firm, otherwise if it loses its grip, it falls. On the other hand, the baby cat does not hold to its mother, but is held by the mother and has no fear nor responsibility; it has nothing to do but to let the mother hold it and cry ma ma.
If you take up this path of surrender fully and sincerely, there is no more danger or serious difficulty. The question is to be sincere. If you are not sincere, do not begin Yoga. If you were dealing in human affairs, then you could resort to deception; but in dealing with the Divine there is no possibility of deception anywhere. You can go on the Path safely when you are candid and open to the core and when your only end is to realise and attain the Divine and to be moved by the Divine. There is another danger; it is in connection with the sex impulses. Yoga in its process of purification will lay bare and throw up all hidden impulses and desires in you. And you must learn not to hide things nor leave them aside, you have to face them and conquer and remould them. The first effect of Yoga, however, is to take away the mental control, and the hungers that lie dormant are suddenly set free, they rush up and invade the being. So long as this mental control has not been replaced by the Divine control, there is a period of transition when your sincerity and surrender will be put to the test. The strength of such impulses as those of sex lies usually in the fact that people take too much notice of them; they protest too vehemently and endeavour to control them by coercion, hold them within and sit upon them. But the more you think of a thing and say, "I don't want it, I don't want it", the more you are bound to it. What you should do is to keep the thing away from you, to dissociate from it, take as little notice of it as possible and, even if you happen to think of it, remain indifferent and unconcerned. The impulses and desires that come up by the pressure of Yoga should be faced in a spirit of detachment and serenity, as something foreign to yourself or belonging to the outside world. They should be offered to the Divine, so that the Divine may take them up and transmute them. If you have once opened yourself to the Divine, if the power of the Divine has once come down into you and yet you try to keep to the old forces, you prepare troubles and difficulties and dangers for yourself. You must be vigilant and see that you do not use the Divine as a cloak for the satisfaction of your desires. There are many self-appointed Masters, who do nothing but that. And then when you are off the straight path and when you have a little knowledge and not much power, it happens that you are seized by beings or entities of a certain type, you become blind instruments in their hands and are devoured by them in the end. Wherever there is pretence, there is danger; you cannot deceive God. Do you come to God saying, "I want union with you" and in your heart meaning "I want powers and enjoyments"? Beware! You are heading straight towards the brink of the precipice. And yet it is so easy to avoid all catastrophe. Become like a child, give yourself up to the Mother, let her carry you, and there is no more danger for you.
This does not mean that you have not to face other kinds of difficulties or that you have not to fight and conquer any obstacles at all. Surrender does not ensure a smooth and unruffled and continuous progression. The reason is that your being is not yet one, nor your surrender absolute and complete. Only a part of you surrenders; and today it is one part and the next day it is another. The whole purpose of the Yoga is to gather all the divergent parts together and forge them into an undivided unity. Till then you cannot hope to be without difficulties - difficulties, for example, like doubt or depression or hesitation. The whole world is full of the poison. You take it in with every breath. If you exchange a few words with an undesirable man or even if such a man merely passes by you, you may catch the contagion from him. It is sufficient for you to come near a place where there is plague in order to be infected with its poison; you need not know at all that it is there. You can lose in a few minutes what it has taken you months to gain. So long as you belong to humanity and so long as you lead the ordinary life, it does not matter much if you mix with the people of the world; but if you want the divine life, you will have to be exceedingly careful about your company and your environment.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
444:
Why do we forget our dreams?
Because you do not dream always at the same place. It is not always the same part of your being that dreams and it is not at the same place that you dream. If you were in conscious, direct, continuous communication with all the parts of your being, you would remember all your dreams. But very few parts of the being are in communication.
For example, you have a dream in the subtle physical, that is to say, quite close to the physical. Generally, these dreams occur in the early hours of the morning, that is between four and five o'clock, at the end of the sleep. If you do not make a sudden movement when you wake up, if you remain very quiet, very still and a little attentive - quietly attentive - and concentrated, you will remember them, for the communication between the subtle physical and the physical is established - very rarely is there no communication.
Now, dreams are mostly forgotten because you have a dream while in a certain state and then pass into another. For instance, when you sleep, your body is asleep, your vital is asleep, but your mind is still active. So your mind begins to have dreams, that is, its activity is more or less coordinated, the imagination is very active and you see all kinds of things, take part in extraordinary happenings.... After some time, all that calms down and the mind also begins to doze. The vital that was resting wakes up; it comes out of the body, walks about, goes here and there, does all kinds of things, reacts, sometimes fights, and finally eats. It does all kinds of things. The vital is very adventurous. It watches. When it is heroic it rushes to save people who are in prison or to destroy enemies or it makes wonderful discoveries. But this pushes back the whole mental dream very far behind. It is rubbed off, forgotten: naturally you cannot remember it because the vital dream takes its place. But if you wake up suddenly at that moment, you remember it. There are people who have made the experiment, who have got up at certain fixed hours of the night and when they wake up suddenly, they do remember. You must not move brusquely, but awake in the natural course, then you remember.
After a time, the vital having taken a good stroll, needs to rest also, and so it goes into repose and quietness, quite tired at the end of all kinds of adventures. Then something else wakes up. Let us suppose that it is the subtle physical that goes for a walk. It starts moving and begins wandering, seeing the rooms and... why, this thing that was there, but it has come here and that other thing which was in that room is now in this one, and so on. If you wake up without stirring, you remembeR But this has pushed away far to the back of the consciousness all the stories of the vital. They are forgotten and so you cannot recollect your dreams. But if at the time of waking up you are not in a hurry, you are not obliged to leave your bed, on the contrary you can remain there as long as you wish, you need not even open your eyes; you keep your head exactly where it was and you make yourself like a tranquil mirror within and concentrate there. You catch just a tiny end of the tail of your dream. You catch it and start pulling gently, without stirring in the least. You begin pulling quite gently, and then first one part comes, a little later another. You go backward; the last comes up first. Everything goes backward, slowly, and suddenly the whole dream reappears: "Ah, there! it was like that." Above all, do not jump up, do not stir; you repeat the dream to yourself several times - once, twice - until it becomes clear in all its details. Once that dream is settled, you continue not to stir, you try to go further in, and suddenly you catch the tail of something else. It is more distant, more vague, but you can still seize it. And here also you hang on, get hold of it and pull, and you see that everything changes and you enter another world; all of a sudden you have an extraordinary adventure - it is another dream. You follow the same process. You repeat the dream to yourself once, twice, until you are sure of it. You remain very quiet all the time. Then you begin to penetrate still more deeply into yourself, as though you were going in very far, very far; and again suddenly you see a vague form, you have a feeling, a sensation... like a current of air, a slight breeze, a little breath; and you say, "Well, well...." It takes a form, it becomes clear - and the third category comes. You must have a lot of time, a lot of patience, you must be very quiet in your mind and body, very quiet, and you can tell the story of your whole night from the end right up to the beginning.
Even without doing this exercise which is very long and difficult, in order to recollect a dream, whether it be the last one or the one in the middle that has made a violent impression on your being, you must do what I have said when you wake up: take particular care not even to move your head on the pillow, remain absolutely still and let the dream return.
Some people do not have a passage between one state and another, there is a little gap and so they leap from one to the other; there is no highway passing through all the states of being with no break of the consciousness. A small dark hole, and you do not remember. It is like a precipice across which one has to extend the consciousness. To build a bridge takes a very long time; it takes much longer than building a physical bridge.... Very few people want to and know how to do it. They may have had magnificent activities, they do not remember them or sometimes only the last, the nearest, the most physical activity, with an uncoordinated movement - dreams having no sense.
But there are as many different kinds of nights and sleep as there are different days and activities. There are not many days that are alike, each day is different. The days are not the same, the nights are not the same. You and your friends are doing apparently the same thing, but for each one it is very different. And each one must have his own procedure.
Why are two dreams never alike?
Because all things are different. No two minutes are alike in the universe and it will be so till the end of the universe, no two minutes will ever be alike. And men obstinately want to make rules! One must do this and not that.... Well! we must let people please themselves.
You could have put to me a very interesting question: "Why am I fourteen years old today?" Intelligent people will say: "It is because it is the fourteenth year since you were born." That is the answer of someone who believes himself to be very intelligent. But there is another reason. I shall tell this to you alone.... I have drowned you all sufficiently well! Now you must begin to learn swimming!
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 36?,#KEYS
445:
Mother, when one imagines something, does it not exist?
When you imagine something, it means that you make a mental formation which may be close to the truth or far from the truth - it also depends upon the quality of your formation. You make a mental formation and there are people who have such a power of formation that they succeed in making what they imagine real. There are not many of these but there are some. They imagine something and their formation is so well made and so powerful that it succeeds in being realised. These are creators; there are not many of them but there are some.
If one thinks of someone who doesn't exist or who is dead?
Ah! What do you mean? What have you just said? Someone who doesn't exist or someone who is dead? These are two absolutely different things.
I mean someone who is dead.
Someone who is dead!
If this person has remained in the mental domain, you can find him immediately. Naturally if he is no longer in the mental domain, if he is in the psychic domain, to think of him is not enough. You must know how to go into the psychic domain to find him. But if he has remained in the mental domain and you think of him, you can find him immediately, and not only that, but you can have a mental contact with him and a kind of mental vision of his existence.
The mind has a capacity of vision of its own and it is not the same vision as with these eyes, but it is a vision, it is a perception in forms. But this is not imagination. It has nothing to do with imagination.
Imagination, for instance, is when you begin to picture to yourself an ideal being to whom you apply all your conceptions, and when you tell yourself, "Why, it should be like this, like that, its form should be like this, its thought like that, its character like that," when you see all the details and build up the being. Now, writers do this all the time because when they write a novel, they imagine. There are those who take things from life but there are those who are imaginative, creators; they create a character, a personage and then put him in their book later. This is to imagine. To imagine, for example, a whole concurrence of circumstances, a set of events, this is what I call telling a story to oneself. But it can be put down on paper, and then one becomes a novelist. There are very different kinds of writers. Some imagine everything, some gather all sorts of observations from life and construct their book with them. There are a hundred ways of writing a book. But indeed some writers imagine everything from beginning to end. It all comes out of their head and they construct even their whole story without any support in things physically observed. This truly is imagination. But as I say, if they are very powerful and have a considerable capacity for creation, it is possible that one day or other there will be a physical human being who realises their creation. This too is true.
What do you suppose imagination is, eh? Have you never imagined anything, you?
And what happens?
All that one imagines.
You mean that you imagine something and it happens like that, eh? Or it is in a dream...
What is the function, the use of the imagination?
If one knows how to use it, as I said, one can create for oneself his own inner and outer life; one can build his own existence with his imagination, if one knows how to use it and has a power. In fact it is an elementary way of creating, of forming things in the world. I have always felt that if one didn't have the capacity of imagination he would not make any progress. Your imagination always goes ahead of your life. When you think of yourself, usually you imagine what you want to be, don't you, and this goes ahead, then you follow, then it continues to go ahead and you follow. Imagination opens for you the path of realisation. People who are not imaginative - it is very difficult to make them move; they see just what is there before their nose, they feel just what they are moment by moment and they cannot go forward because they are clamped by the immediate thing. It depends a good deal on what one calls imagination. However...
Men of science must be having imagination!
A lot. Otherwise they would never discover anything. In fact, what is called imagination is a capacity to project oneself outside realised things and towards things realisable, and then to draw them by the projection. One can obviously have progressive and regressive imaginations. There are people who always imagine all the catastrophes possible, and unfortunately they also have the power of making them come. It's like the antennae going into a world that's not yet realised, catching something there and drawing it here. Then naturally it is an addition to the earth atmosphere and these things tend towards manifestation. It is an instrument which can be disciplined, can be used at will; one can discipline it, direct it, orientate it. It is one of the faculties one can develop in himself and render serviceable, that is, use it for definite purposes.
Sweet Mother, can one imagine the Divine and have the contact?
Certainly if you succeed in imagining the Divine you have the contact, and you can have the contact with what you imagine, in any case. In fact it is absolutely impossible to imagine something which doesn't exist somewhere. You cannot imagine anything at all which doesn't exist somewhere. It is possible that it doesn't exist on the earth, it is possible that it's elsewhere, but it is impossible for you to imagine something which is not already contained in principle in the universe; otherwise it could not occur.
Then, Sweet Mother, this means that in the created universe nothing new is added?
In the created universe? Yes. The universe is progressive; we said that constantly things manifest, more and more. But for your imagination to be able to go and seek beyond the manifestation something which will be manifested, well, it may happen, in fact it does - I was going to tell you that it is in this way that some beings can cause considerable progress to be made in the world, because they have the capacity of imagining something that's not yet manifested. But there are not many. One must first be capable of going beyond the manifested universe to be able to imagine something which is not there. There are already many things which can be imagined.
What is our terrestrial world in the universe? A very small thing. Simply to have the capacity of imagining something which does not exist in the terrestrial manifestation is already very difficult, very difficult. For how many billions of years hasn't it existed, this little earth? And there have been no two identical things. That's much. It is very difficult to go out from the earth atmosphere with one's mind; one can, but it is very difficult. And then if one wants to go out, not only from the earth atmosphere but from the universal life!
To be able simply to enter into contact with the life of the earth in its totality from the formation of the earth until now, what can this mean? And then to go beyond this and enter into contact with universal life from its beginnings up to now... and then again to be able to bring something new into the universe, one must go still farther beyond.
Not easy!
That's all?
(To the child) Convinced?
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, [T1],#KEYS
446:This, in short, is the demand made on us, that we should turn our whole life into a conscious sacrifice. Every moment and every movement of our being is to be resolved into a continuous and a devoted self-giving to the Eternal. All our actions, not less the smallest and most ordinary and trifling than the greatest and most uncommon and noble, must be performed as consecrated acts. Our individualised nature must live in the single consciousness of an inner and outer movement dedicated to Something that is beyond us and greater than our ego. No matter what the gift or to whom it is presented by us, there must be a consciousness in the act that we are presenting it to the one divine Being in all beings. Our commonest or most grossly material actions must assume this sublimated character; when we eat, we should be conscious that we are giving our food to that Presence in us; it must be a sacred offering in a temple and the sense of a mere physical need or self-gratification must pass away from us. In any great labour, in any high discipline, in any difficult or noble enterprise, whether undertaken for ourselves, for others or for the race, it will no longer be possible to stop short at the idea of the race, of ourselves or of others. The thing we are doing must be consciously offered as a sacrifice of works, not to these, but either through them or directly to the One Godhead; the Divine Inhabitant who was hidden by these figures must be no longer hidden but ever present to our soul, our mind, our sense. The workings and results of our acts must be put in the hands of that One in the feeling that that Presence is the Infinite and Most High by whom alone our labour and our aspiration are possible. For in his being all takes place; for him all labour and aspiration are taken from us by Nature and offered on his altar. Even in those things in which Nature is herself very plainly the worker and we only the witnesses of her working and its containers and supporters, there should be the same constant memory and insistent consciousness of a work and of its divine Master. Our very inspiration and respiration, our very heart-beats can and must be made conscious in us as the living rhythm of the universal sacrifice.
It is clear that a conception of this kind and its effective practice must carry in them three results that are of a central importance for our spiritual ideal. It is evident, to begin with, that, even if such a discipline is begun without devotion, it leads straight and inevitably towards the highest devotion possible; for it must deepen naturally into the completest adoration imaginable, the most profound God-love. There is bound up with it a growing sense of the Divine in all things, a deepening communion with the Divine in all our thought, will and action and at every moment of our lives, a more and more moved consecration to the Divine of the totality of our being. Now these implications of the Yoga of works are also of the very essence of an integral and absolute Bhakti. The seeker who puts them into living practice makes in himself continually a constant, active and effective representation of the very spirit of self-devotion, and it is inevitable that out of it there should emerge the most engrossing worship of the Highest to whom is given this service. An absorbing love for the Divine Presence to whom he feels an always more intimate closeness, grows upon the consecrated worker. And with it is born or in it is contained a universal love too for all these beings, living forms and creatures that are habitations of the Divine - not the brief restless grasping emotions of division, but the settled selfless love that is the deeper vibration of oneness. In all the seeker begins to meet the one Object of his adoration and service. The way of works turns by this road of sacrifice to meet the path of Devotion; it can be itself a devotion as complete, as absorbing, as integral as any the desire of the heart can ask for or the passion of the mind can imagine.
Next, the practice of this Yoga demands a constant inward remembrance of the one central liberating knowledge, and a constant active externalising of it in works comes in too to intensify the remembrance. In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. A memory, a self-dynamising meditation of this kind, must and does in its end turn into a profound and uninterrupted vision and a vivid and all-embracing consciousness of that which we so powerfully remember or on which we so constantly meditate. For it compels a constant reference at each moment to the Origin of all being and will and action and there is at once an embracing and exceeding of all particular forms and appearances in That which is their cause and upholder. This way cannot go to its end without a seeing vivid and vital, as concrete in its way as physical sight, of the works of the universal Spirit everywhere. On its summits it rises into a constant living and thinking and willing and acting in the presence of the Supramental, the Transcendent. Whatever we see and hear, whatever we touch and sense, all of which we are conscious, has to be known and felt by us as That which we worship and serve; all has to be turned into an image of the Divinity, perceived as a dwelling-place of his Godhead, enveloped with the eternal Omnipresence. In its close, if not long before it, this way of works turns by communion with the Divine Presence, Will and Force into a way of Knowledge more complete and integral than any the mere creature intelligence can construct or the search of the intellect can discover.
Lastly, the practice of this Yoga of sacrifice compels us to renounce all the inner supports of egoism, casting them out of our mind and will and actions, and to eliminate its seed, its presence, its influence out of our nature. All must be done for the Divine; all must be directed towards the Divine. Nothing must be attempted for ourselves as a separate existence; nothing done for others, whether neighbours, friends, family, country or mankind or other creatures merely because they are connected with our personal life and thought and sentiment or because the ego takes a preferential interest in their welfare. In this way of doing and seeing all works and all life become only a daily dynamic worship and service of the Divine in the unbounded temple of his own vast cosmic existence. Life becomes more and more the sacrifice of the eternal in the individual constantly self-offered to the eternal Transcendence. It is offered in the wide sacrificial ground of the field of the eternal cosmic Spirit; and the Force too that offers it is the eternal Force, the omnipresent Mother. Therefore is this way a way of union and communion by acts and by the spirit and knowledge in the act as complete and integral as any our Godward will can hope for or our soul's strength execute.
It has all the power of a way of works integral and absolute, but because of its law of sacrifice and self-giving to the Divine Self and Master, it is accompanied on its one side by the whole power of the path of Love and on the other by the whole power of the path of Knowledge. At its end all these three divine Powers work together, fused, united, completed, perfected by each other.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [111-114],#KEYS
447:The Supermind [Supramental consciousness] is in its very essence a truth-consciousness, a consciousness always free from the Ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or evolutionary existence and from which nature in us is trying to arrive at self-knowledge and world-knowledge and a right consciousness and the right use of our existence in the universe. The Supermind, because it is a truth-consciousness, has this knowledge inherent in it and this power of true existence; its course is straight and can go direct to its aim, its field is wide and can even be made illimitable. This is because its very nature is knowledge: it has not to acquire knowledge but possesses it in its own right; its steps are not from nescience or ignorance into some imperfect light, but from truth to greater truth, from right perception to deeper perception, from intuition to intuition, from illumination to utter and boundless luminousness, from growing widenesses to the utter vasts and to very infinitude. On its summits it possesses the divine omniscience and omnipotence, but even in an evolutionary movement of its own graded self-manifestation by which it would eventually reveal its own highest heights, it must be in its very nature essentially free from ignorance and error: it starts from truth and light and moves always in truth and light. As its knowledge is always true, so too its will is always true; it does not fumble in its handling of things or stumble in its paces. In the Supermind feeling and emotion do not depart from their truth, make no slips or mistakes, do not swerve from the right and the real, cannot misuse beauty and delight or twist away from a divine rectitude. In the Supermind sense cannot mislead or deviate into the grossnesses which are here its natural imperfections and the cause of reproach, distrust and misuse by our ignorance. Even an incomplete statement made by the Supermind is a truth leading to a further truth, its incomplete action a step towards completeness. All the life and action and leading of the Supermind is guarded in its very nature from the falsehoods and uncertainties that are our lot; it moves in safety towards its perfection. Once the truth-consciousness was established here on its own sure foundation, the evolution of divine life would be a progress in felicity, a march through light to Ananda. Supermind is an eternal reality of the divine Being and the divine Nature. In its own plane it already and always exists and possesses its own essential law of being; it has not to be created or to emerge or evolve into existence out of involution in Matter or out of non-existence, as it might seem to the view of mind which itself seems to its own view to have so emerged from life and Matter or to have evolved out of an involution in life and Matter. The nature of Supermind is always the same, a being of knowledge, proceeding from truth to truth, creating or rather manifesting what has to be manifested by the power of a pre-existent knowledge, not by hazard but by a self-existent destiny in the being itself, a necessity of the thing in itself and therefore inevitable. Its -manifestation of the divine life will also be inevitable; its own life on its own plane is divine and, if Supermind descends upon the earth, it will bring necessarily the divine life with it and establish it here. Supermind is the grade of existence beyond mind, life and Matter and, as mind, life and Matter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable course of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts, it is through these inferior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet recognisable. It is only by the approach and arrival of the descending Supermind that it can be liberated upon earth and reveal itself in the action of our material, vital and mental parts so that these lower powers can become portions of a total divinised activity of our whole being: it is that that will bring to us a completely realised divinity or the divine life. It is indeed so that life and mind involved in Matter have realised themselves here; for only what is involved can evolve, otherwise there could be no emergence. The manifestation of a supramental truth-consciousness is therefore the capital reality that will make the divine life possible. It is when all the movements of thought, impulse and action are governed and directed by a self-existent and luminously automatic truth-consciousness and our whole nature comes to be constituted by it and made of its stuff that the life divine will be complete and absolute. Even as it is, in reality though not in the appearance of things, it is a secret self-existent knowledge and truth that is working to manifest itself in the creation here. The Divine is already there immanent within us, ourselves are that in our inmost reality and it is this reality that we have to manifest; it is that which constitutes the urge towards the divine living and makes necessary the creation of the life divine even in this material existence. A manifestation of the Supermind and its truth-consciousness is then inevitable; it must happen in this world sooner or lateR But it has two aspects, a descent from above, an ascent from below, a self-revelation of the Spirit, an evolution in Nature. The ascent is necessarily an effort, a working of Nature, an urge or nisus on her side to raise her lower parts by an evolutionary or revolutionary change, conversion or transformation into the divine reality and it may happen by a process and progress or by a rapid miracle. The descent or self-revelation of the Spirit is an act of the supreme Reality from above which makes the realisation possible and it can appear either as the divine aid which brings about the fulfilment of the progress and process or as the sanction of the miracle. Evolution, as we see it in this world, is a slow and difficult process and, indeed, needs usually ages to reach abiding results; but this is because it is in its nature an emergence from inconscient beginnings, a start from nescience and a working in the ignorance of natural beings by what seems to be an unconscious force. There can be, on the contrary, an evolution in the light and no longer in the darkness, in which the evolving being is a conscious participant and cooperator, and this is precisely what must take place here. Even in the effort and progress from the Ignorance to Knowledge this must be in part if not wholly the endeavour to be made on the heights of the nature, and it must be wholly that in the final movement towards the spiritual change, realisation, transformation. It must be still more so when there is a transition across the dividing line between the Ignorance and the Knowledge and the evolution is from knowledge to greater knowledge, from consciousness to greater consciousness, from being to greater being. There is then no longer any necessity for the slow pace of the ordinary evolution; there can be rapid conversion, quick transformation after transformation, what would seem to our normal present mind a succession of miracles. An evolution on the supramental levels could well be of that nature; it could be equally, if the being so chose, a more leisurely passage of one supramental state or condition of things to something beyond but still supramental, from level to divine level, a building up of divine gradations, a free growth to the supreme Supermind or beyond it to yet undreamed levels of being, consciousness and Ananda.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, 558,#KEYS
448: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
449:Intuition And The Value Of Concentration :::
Mother, how can the faculty of intuition be developed?
... There are different kinds of intuition, and we carry these capacities within us. They are always active to some extent but we don't notice them because we don't pay enough attention to what is going on in us. Behind the emotions, deep within the being, in a consciousness seated somewhere near the level of the solar plexus, there is a sort of prescience, a kind of capacity for foresight, but not in the form of ideas: rather in the form of feelings, almost a perception of sensations. For instance, when one is going to decide to do something, there is sometimes a kind of uneasiness or inner refusal, and usually, if one listens to this deeper indication, one realises that it was justified. In other cases there is something that urges, indicates, insists - I am not speaking of impulses, you understand, of all the movements which come from the vital and much lower still - indications which are behind the feelings, which come from the affective part of the being; there too one can receive a fairly sure indication of the thing to be done. These are forms of intuition or of a higher instinct which can be cultivated by observation and also by studying the results. Naturally, it must be done very sincerely, objectively, without prejudice. If one wants to see things in a particular way and at the same time practise this observation, it is all useless. One must do it as if one were looking at what is happening from outside oneself, in someone else. It is one form of intuition and perhaps the first one that usually manifests. There is also another form but that one is much more difficult to observe because for those who are accustomed to think, to act by reason - not by impulse but by reason - to reflect before doing anything, there is an extremely swift process from cause to effect in the half-conscious thought which prevents you from seeing the line, the whole line of reasoning and so you don't think that it is a chain of reasoning, and that is quite deceptive. You have the impression of an intuition but it is not an intuition, it is an extremely rapid subconscious reasoning, which takes up a problem and goes straight to the conclusions. This must not be mistaken for intuition. In the ordinary functioning of the brain, intuition is something which suddenly falls like a drop of light. If one has the faculty, the beginning of a faculty of mental vision, it gives the impression of something coming from outside or above, like a little impact of a drop of light in the brain, absolutely independent of all reasoning. This is perceived more easily when one is able to silence one's mind, hold it still and attentive, arresting its usual functioning, as if the mind were changed into a kind of mirror turned towards a higher faculty in a sustained and silent attention. That too one can learn to do. One must learn to do it, it is a necessary discipline.
When you have a question to solve, whatever it may be, usually you concentrate your attention here (pointing between the eyebrows), at the centre just above the eyes, the centre of the conscious will. But then if you do that, you cannot be in contact with intuition. You can be in contact with the source of the will, of effort, even of a certain kind of knowledge, but in the outer, almost material field; whereas, if you want to contact the intuition, you must keep this (Mother indicates the forehead) completely immobile. Active thought must be stopped as far as possible and the entire mental faculty must form - at the top of the head and a little further above if possible - a kind of mirror, very quiet, very still, turned upwards, in silent, very concentrated attention. If you succeed, you can - perhaps not immediately - but you can have the perception of the drops of light falling upon the mirror from a still unknown region and expressing themselves as a conscious thought which has no connection with all the rest of your thought since you have been able to keep it silent. That is the real beginning of the intellectual intuition.
It is a discipline to be followed. For a long time one may try and not succeed, but as soon as one succeeds in making a mirror, still and attentive, one always obtains a result, not necessarily with a precise form of thought but always with the sensations of a light coming from above. And then, if one can receive this light coming from above without entering immediately into a whirl of activity, receive it in calm and silence and let it penetrate deep into the being, then after a while it expresses itself either as a luminous thought or as a very precise indication here (Mother indicates the heart), in this other centre.
Naturally, first these two faculties must be developed; then, as soon as there is any result, one must observe the result, as I said, and see the connection with what is happening, the consequences: see, observe very attentively what has come in, what may have caused a distortion, what one has added by way of more or less conscious reasoning or the intervention of a lower will, also more or less conscious; and it is by a very deep study - indeed, almost of every moment, in any case daily and very frequent - that one succeeds in developing one's intuition. It takes a long time. It takes a long time and there are ambushes: one can deceive oneself, take for intuitions subconscious wills which try to manifest, indications given by impulses one has refused to receive openly, indeed all sorts of difficulties. One must be prepared for that. But if one persists, one is sure to succeed.
And there comes a time when one feels a kind of inner guidance, something which is leading one very perceptibly in all that one does. But then, for the guidance to have its maximum power, one must naturally add to it a conscious surrender: one must be sincerely determined to follow the indication given by the higher force. If one does that, then... one saves years of study, one can seize the result extremely rapidly. If one also does that, the result comes very rapidly. But for that, it must be done with sincerity and... a kind of inner spontaneity. If one wants to try without this surrender, one may succeed - as one can also succeed in developing one's personal will and making it into a very considerable power - but that takes a very long time and one meets many obstacles and the result is very precarious; one must be very persistent, obstinate, persevering, and one is sure to succeed, but only after a great labour.
Make your surrender with a sincere, complete self-giving, and you will go ahead at full speed, you will go much faster - but you must not do this calculatingly, for that spoils everything! (Silence) Moreover, whatever you may want to do in life, one thing is absolutely indispensable and at the basis of everything, the capacity of concentrating the attention. If you are able to gather together the rays of attention and consciousness on one point and can maintain this concentration with a persistent will, nothing can resist it - whatever it may be, from the most material physical development to the highest spiritual one. But this discipline must be followed in a constant and, it may be said, imperturbable way; not that you should always be concentrated on the same thing - that's not what I mean, I mean learning to concentrate.
And materially, for studies, sports, all physical or mental development, it is absolutely indispensable. And the value of an individual is proportionate to the value of his attention.
And from the spiritual point of view it is still more important.
There is no spiritual obstacle which can resist a penetrating power of concentration. For instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union with the inner Divine, opening to the higher spheres, all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power of concentration - but one must learn how to do it. There is nothing in the human or even in the superhuman field, to which the power of concentration is not the key. You can be the best athlete, you can be the best student, you can be an artistic, literary or scientific genius, you can be the greatest saint with that faculty. And everyone has in himself a tiny little beginning of it - it is given to everybody, but people do not cultivate it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,#KEYS
450:
Can a Yogi attain to a state of consciousness in which he can know all things, answer all questions, relating even to abstruse scientific problems, such as, for example, the theory of relativity?
Theoretically and in principle it is not impossible for a Yogi to know everything; all depends upon the Yogi.
But there is knowledge and knowledge. The Yogi does not know in the way of the mind. He does not know everything in the sense that he has access to all possible information or because he contains all the facts of the universe in his mind or because his consciousness is a sort of miraculous encyclopaedia. He knows by his capacity for a containing or dynamic identity with things and persons and forces. Or he knows because he lives in a plane of consciousness or is in contact with a consciousness in which there is the truth and the knowledge.
If you are in the true consciousness, the knowledge you have will also be of the truth. Then, too, you can know directly, by being one with what you know. If a problem is put before you, if you are asked what is to be done in a particular matter, you can then, by looking with enough attention and concentration, receive spontaneously the required knowledge and the true answer. It is not by any careful application of theory that you reach the knowledge or by working it out through a mental process. The scientific mind needs these methods to come to its conclusions. But the Yogi's knowledge is direct and immediate; it is not deductive. If an engineer has to find out the exact position for the building of an arch, the line of its curve and the size of its opening, he does it by calculation, collating and deducing from his information and data. But a Yogi needs none of these things; he looks, has the vision of the thing, sees that it is to be done in this way and not in another, and this seeing is his knowledge.
Although it may be true in a general way and in a certain sense that a Yogi can know all things and can answer all questions from his own field of vision and consciousness, yet it does not follow that there are no questions whatever of any kind to which he would not or could not answer. A Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could not or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusion of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge is not in the mind. If you put him some silly mental query of that character, he probably would not answer. The very common conception that you can put any ignorant question to him as to some super-schoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder.
Moreover, the term "Yogi" is very vague and wide. There are many types of Yogis, many lines or ranges of spiritual or occult endeavour and different heights of achievement, there are some whose powers do not extend beyond the mental level; there are others who have gone beyond it. Everything depends on the field or nature of their effort, the height to which they have arrived, the consciousness with which they have contact or into which they enter.
Do not scientists go sometimes beyond the mental plane? It is said that Einstein found his theory of relativity not through any process of reasoning, but through some kind of sudden inspiration. Has that inspiration anything to do with the Supermind?
The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane illumined by some other light still farther above. But all that has nothing to do with the action of Supermind and this higher mental level is far removed from the supramental plane. Men are too easily inclined to believe that they have climbed into regions quite divine when they have only gone above the average level. There are many stages between the ordinary human mind and the Supermind, many grades and many intervening planes. If an ordinary man were to get into direct contact even with one of these intermediate planes, he would be dazzled and blinded, would be crushed under the weight of the sense of immensity or would lose his balance; and yet it is not the Supermind.
Behind the common idea that a Yogi can know all things and answer all questions is the actual fact that there is a plane in the mind where the memory of everything is stored and remains always in existence. All mental movements that belong to the life of the earth are memorised and registered in this plane. Those who are capable of going there and care to take the trouble, can read in it and learn anything they choose. But this region must not be mistaken for the supramental levels. And yet to reach even there you must be able to silence the movements of the material or physical mind; you must be able to leave aside all your sensations and put a stop to your ordinary mental movements, whatever they are; you must get out of the vital; you must become free from the slavery of the body. Then only you can enter into that region and see. But if you are sufficiently interested to make this effort, you can arrive there and read what is written in the earth's memory.
Thus, if you go deep into silence, you can reach a level of consciousness on which it is not impossible for you to receive answers to all your questions. And if there is one who is consciously open to the plenary truth of the supermind, in constant contact with it, he can certainly answer any question that is worth an answer from the supramental Light. The queries put must come from some sense of the truth and reality behind things. There are many questions and much debated problems that are cobwebs woven of mere mental abstractions or move on the illusory surface of things. These do not pertain to real knowledge; they are a deformation of knowledge, their very substance is of the ignorance. Certainly the supramental knowledge may give an answer, its own answer, to the problems set by the mind's ignorance; but it is likely that it would not be at all satisfactory or perhaps even intelligible to those who ask from the mental level. You must not expect the supramental to work in the way of the mind or demand that the knowledge in truth should be capable of being pieced together with the half-knowledge in ignorance. The scheme of the mind is one thing, but Supermind is quite another and it would no longer be supramental if it adapted itself to the exigencies of the mental scheme. The two are incommensurable and cannot be put together.
When the consciousness has attained to supramental joys, does it no longer take interest in the things of the mind?
The supramental does not take interest in mental things in the same way as the mind. It takes its own interest in all the movements of the universe, but it is from a different point of view and with a different vision. The world presents to it an entirely different appearance; there is a reversal of outlook and everything is seen from there as other than what it seems to the mind and often even the opposite. Things have another meaning; their aspect, their motion and process, everything about them, are watched with other eyes. Everything here is followed by the supermind; the mind movements and not less the vital, the material movements, all the play of the universe have for it a very deep interest, but of another kind. It is about the same difference as that between the interest taken in a puppet-play by one who holds the strings and knows what the puppets are to do and the will that moves them and that they can do only what it moves them to do, and the interest taken by another who observes the play but sees only what is happening from moment to moment and knows nothing else. The one who follows the play and is outside its secret has a stronger, an eager and passionate interest in what will happen and he gives an excited attention to its unforeseen or dramatic events; the other, who holds the strings and moves the show, is unmoved and tranquil. There is a certain intensity of interest which comes from ignorance and is bound up with illusion, and that must disappear when you are out of the ignorance. The interest that human beings take in things founds itself on the illusion; if that were removed, they would have no interest at all in the play; they would find it dry and dull. That is why all this ignorance, all this illusion has lasted so long; it is because men like it, because they cling to it and its peculiar kind of appeal that it endures.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 93?
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451:
The whole question.
The whole question? And now, do you understand?... Not quite? I told you that you did not understand because it was muddled up; in one question three different ideas were included. So naturally it created a confusion. But taken separately they are what I explained to you just now, most probably; that is to say, one has this altogether ignorant and obliterated consciousness and is convinced that he is the cause and effect, the origin and result of himself, separate from all others, separate with a limited power to act upon others and a little greater capacity to be set in movement by others or to react to others' influence. That is how people think usually, something like that, isn't that so? How do you feel, you? What effect do you have upon yourself? And you? And you?... You have never thought about it? You have never looked into yourself to see what effect you exercise upon yourself? Never thought over it? No? How do you feel? Nobody will tell me? Come, you tell me that. Never tried to understand how you feel? Yes? No? How strange! Never sought to understand how, for example, decisions take place in you? From where do they come? What makes you decide one thing rather than another? And what is the relation between a decision of yours and your action? And to what extent do you have the freedom of choice between one thing and another? And how far do you feel you are able to, you are free to do this or that or that other or nothing at all?... You have pondered over that? Yes? Is there any one among the students who has thought over it? No? Nobody put the question to himself? You? You?...
Even if one thinks over it, perhaps one is not able to answer!
One cannot explain?
No.
It is difficult to explain? Even this simple little thing, to see where in your consciousness the wills that come from outside meet your will (which you call yours, which comes from within), at what place the two join together and to what extent the one from outside acts upon that from within and the one from within acts upon that from outside? You have never tried to find this out? It has never seemed to you unbearable that a will from outside should have an action upon your will? No?
I do not know.
Oh! I am putting very difficult problems! But, my children, I was preoccupied with that when I was a child of five!... So I thought you must have been preoccupied with it since a long time. In oneself, there are contradictory wills. Yes, many. That is one of the very first discoveries. There is one part which wants things this way; and then at another moment, another way, and a third time, one wants still another thing! Besides, there is even this: something that wants and another which says no. So? But it is exactly that which has to be found if you wish in the least to organise yourself. Why not project yourself upon a screen, as in the cinema, and then look at yourself moving on it? How interesting it is!
This is the first step.
You project yourself on the screen and then observe and see all that is moving there and how it moves and what happens. You make a little diagram, it becomes so interesting then. And then, after a while, when you are quite accustomed to seeing, you can go one step further and take a decision. Or even a still greater step: you organise - arrange, take up all that, put each thing in its place, organise in such a way that you begin to have a straight movement with an inner meaning. And then you become conscious of your direction and are able to say: "Very well, it will be thus; my life will develop in that way, because that is the logic of my being. Now, I have arranged all that within me, each thing has been put in its place, and so naturally a central orientation is forming. I am following this orientation. One step more and I know what will happen to me for I myself am deciding it...." I do not know, I am telling you this; to me it seemed terribly interesting, the most interesting thing in the world. There was nothing, no other thing that interested me more than that.
This happened to me.... I was five or six or seven years old (at seven the thing became quite serious) and I had a father who loved the circus, and he came and told me: "Come with me, I am going to the circus on Sunday." I said: "No, I am doing something much more interesting than going to the circus!" Or again, young friends invited me to attend a meeting where we were to play together, enjoy together: "No, I enjoy here much more...." And it was quite sincere. It was not a pose: for me, it was like this, it was true. There was nothing in the world more enjoyable than that.
And I am so convinced that anybody who does it in that way, with the same freshness and sincerity, will obtain most interesting results.... To put all that on a screen in front of yourself and look at what is happening. And the first step is to know all that is happening and then you must not try to shut your eyes when something does not appear pleasant to you! You must keep them wide open and put each thing in that way before the screen. Then you make quite an interesting discovery. And then the next step is to start telling yourself: "Since all that is happening within me, why should I not put this thing in this way and then that thing in that way and then this other in this way and thus wouldn't I be doing something logical that has a meaning? Why should I not remove that thing which stands obstructing the way, these conflicting wills? Why? And what does that represent in the being? Why is it there? If it were put there, would it not help instead of harming me?" And so on.
And little by little, little by little, you see clearer and then you see why you are made like that, what is the thing you have got to do - that for which you are born. And then, quite naturally, since all is organised for this thing to happen, the path becomes straight and you can say beforehand: "It is in this way that it will happen." And when things come from outside to try and upset all that, you are able to say: "No, I accept this, for it helps; I reject that, for that harms." And then, after a few years, you curb yourself as you curb a horse: you do whatever you like, in the way you like and you go wherever you like.
It seems to me this is worth the trouble. I believe it is the most interesting thing.
...
You must have a great deal of sincerity, a little courage and perseverance and then a sort of mental curiosity, you understand, curious, seeking to know, interested, wanting to learn. To love to learn: that, one must have in one's nature. To find it impossible to stand before something grey, all hazy, in which nothing is seen clearly and which gives you quite an unpleasant feeling, for you do not know where you begin and where you end, what is yours and what is not yours and what is settled and what is not settled - what is this pulp-like thing you call yourself in which things get intermingled and act upon one another without even your being aware of it? You ask yourself: "But why have I done this?" You know nothing about it. "And why have I felt that?" You don't know that, either. And then, you are thrown into a world outside that is only fog and you are thrown into a world inside that is also for you another kind of fog, still more impenetrable, in which you live, like a cork thrown upon the waters and the waves carry it away or cast it into the air, and it drops and rolls on. That is quite an unpleasant state. I do not know, but to me it appears unpleasant.
To see clearly, to see one's way, where one is going, why one is going there, how one is to go there and what one is going to do and what is the kind of relation with others... But that is a problem so wonderfully interesting - it is interesting - and you can always discover things every minute! One's work is never finished.
There is a time, there is a certain state of consciousness when you have the feeling that you are in that condition with all the weight of the world lying heavy upon you and besides you are going in blinkers and do not know where you are going, but there is something which is pushing you. And that is truly a very unpleasant condition. And there is another moment when one draws oneself up and is able to see what is there above, and one becomes it; then one looks at the world as though from the top of a very very high mountain and one sees all that is happening below; then one can choose one's way and follow it. That is a more pleasant condition. This then is truly the truth, you are upon earth for that, surely. All individual beings and all the little concentrations of consciousness were created to do this work. It is the very reason for existence: to be able to become fully conscious of a certain sum of vibrations representing an individual being and put order there and find one's way and follow it.
And so, as men do not know it and do not do it, life comes and gives them a blow here: "Oh! that hurts", then a blow there: "Ah! that's hurting me." And the thing goes on like that and all the time it is like that. And all the time they are getting pain somewhere. They suffer, they cry, they groan. But it is simply due to that reason, there is no other: it is that they have not done that little work. If, when they were quite young, there had been someone to teach them to do the work and they had done it without losing time, they could have gone through life gloriously and instead of suffering they would have been all-powerful masters of their destiny.
This is not to say that necessarily all things would become pleasant. It is not at all that. But your reaction towards things becomes the true reaction and instead of suffering, you learn; instead of being miserable, you go forward and progress. After all, I believe it is for this that you are here - so that there is someone who can tell you: "There, well, try that. It is worth trying." ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 199,#KEYS
452:[The Gods and Their Worlds]
[...] According to traditions and occult schools, all these zones of realities, these planes of realities have got different names; they have been classified in a different way, but there is an essential analogy, and if you go back far enough into the traditions, you see only the words changing according to the country and the language. Even now, the experiences of Western occultists and those of Eastern occultists offer great similarities. All who set out on the discovery of these invisible worlds and make a report of what they saw, give a very similar description, whether they be from here or there; they use different words, but the experience is very similar and the handling of forces is the same.
This knowledge of the occult worlds is based on the existence of subtle bodies and of subtle worlds corresponding to those bodies. They are what the psychological method calls "states of consciousness", but these states of consciousness really correspond to worlds. The occult procedure consists then in being aware of these various inner states of being or subtle bodies and in becoming sufficiently a master of them so as to be able to go out of them successively, one after another. There is indeed a whole scale of subtleties, increasing or decreasing according to the direction in which you go, and the occult procedure consists in going out of a denser body into a subtler body and so on again, up to the most ethereal regions. You go, by successive exteriorisations, into bodies or worlds more and more subtle. It is somewhat as if every time you passed into another dimension. The fourth dimension of the physicists is nothing but the scientific transcription of an occult knowledge. To give another image, one can say that the physical body is at the centre - it is the most material, the densest and also the smallest - and the inner bodies, more subtle, overflow more and more the central physical body; they pass through it, extending themselves farther and farther, like water evaporating from a porous vase and forming a kind of steam all around. And the greater the subtlety, the more the extension tends to unite with that of the universe: one ends by universalising oneself. And it is altogether a concrete process which gives an objective experience of invisible worlds and even enables one to act in these worlds.
There are, then, only a very small number of people in the West who know that these gods are not merely subjective and imaginary - more or less wildly imaginary - but that they correspond to a universal truth.
All these regions, all these domains are filled with beings who exist, each in its own domain, and if you are awake and conscious on a particular plane - for instance, if on going out of a more material body you awake on some higher plane, you have the same relation with the things and people of that plane as you had with the things and people of the material world. That is to say, there exists an entirely objective relation that has nothing to do with the idea you may have of these things. Naturally, the resemblance is greater and greater as you approach the physical world, the material world, and there even comes a time when the one region has a direct action upon the other. In any case, in what Sri Aurobindo calls the overmental worlds, you will find a concrete reality absolutely independent of your personal experience; you go back there and again find the same things, with the differences that have occurred during your absence. And you have relations with those beings that are identical with the relations you have with physical beings, with this difference that the relation is more plastic, supple and direct - for example, there is the capacity to change the external form, the visible form, according to the inner state you are in. But you can make an appointment with someone and be at the appointed place and find the same being again, with certain differences that have come about during your absence; it is entirely concrete with results entirely concrete.
One must have at least a little of this experience in order to understand these things. Otherwise, those who are convinced that all this is mere human imagination and mental formation, who believe that these gods have such and such a form because men have thought them to be like that, and that they have certain defects and certain qualities because men have thought them to be like that - all those who say that God is made in the image of man and that he exists only in human thought, all these will not understand; to them this will appear absolutely ridiculous, madness. One must have lived a little, touched the subject a little, to know how very concrete the thing is.
Naturally, children know a good deal if they have not been spoilt. There are so many children who return every night to the same place and continue to live the life they have begun there. When these faculties are not spoilt with age, you can keep them with you. At a time when I was especially interested in dreams, I could return exactly to a place and continue a work that I had begun: supervise something, for example, set something in order, a work of organisation or of discovery, of exploration. You go until you reach a certain spot, as you would go in life, then you take a rest, then you return and begin again - you begin the work at the place where you left off and you continue it. And you perceive that there are things which are quite independent of you, in the sense that changes of which you are not at all the author, have taken place automatically during your absence.
But for this, you must live these experiences yourself, you must see them yourself, live them with sufficient sincerity and spontaneity in order to see that they are independent of any mental formation. For you can do the opposite also, and deepen the study of the action of mental formation upon events. This is very interesting, but it is another domain. And this study makes you very careful, very prudent, because you become aware of how far you can delude yourself. So you must study both, the dream and the occult reality, in order to see what is the essential difference between the two. The one depends upon us; the other exists in itself; entirely independent of the thought that we have of it.
When you have worked in that domain, you recognise in fact that once a subject has been studied and something has been learnt mentally, it gives a special colour to the experience; the experience may be quite spontaneous and sincere, but the simple fact that the subject was known and studied lends a particular quality. Whereas if you had learnt nothing about the question, if you knew nothing at all, the transcription would be completely spontaneous and sincere when the experience came; it would be more or less adequate, but it would not be the outcome of a previous mental formation.
Naturally, this occult knowledge or this experience is not very frequent in the world, because in those who do not have a developed inner life, there are veritable gaps between the external consciousness and the inmost consciousness; the linking states of being are missing and they have to be constructed. So when people enter there for the first time, they are bewildered, they have the impression they have fallen into the night, into nothingness, into non-being!
I had a Danish friend, a painter, who was like that. He wanted me to teach him how to go out of the body; he used to have interesting dreams and thought that it would be worth the trouble to go there consciously. So I made him "go out" - but it was a frightful thing! When he was dreaming, a part of his mind still remained conscious, active, and a kind of link existed between this active part and his external being; then he remembered some of his dreams, but it was a very partial phenomenon. And to go out of one's body means to pass gradually through all the states of being, if one does the thing systematically. Well, already in the subtle physical, one is almost de-individualised, and when one goes farther, there remains nothing, for nothing is formed or individualised.
Thus, when people are asked to meditate or told to go within, to enter into themselves, they are in agony - naturally! They have the impression that they are vanishing. And with reason: there is nothing, no consciousness!
These things that appear to us quite natural and evident, are, for people who know nothing, wild imagination. If, for example, you transplant these experiences or this knowledge to the West, well, unless you have been frequenting the circles of occultists, they stare at you with open eyes. And when you have turned your back, they hasten to say, "These people are cranks!" Now to come back to the gods and conclude. It must be said that all those beings who have never had an earthly existence - gods or demons, invisible beings and powers - do not possess what the Divine has put into man: the psychic being. And this psychic being gives to man true love, charity, compassion, a deep kindness, which compensate for all his external defects.
In the gods there is no fault because they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint: as gods, it is their manner of being. But if you take a higher point of view, if you have a higher vision, a vision of the whole, you see that they lack certain qualities that are exclusively human. By his capacity of love and self-giving, man can have as much power as the gods and even more, when he is not egoistic, when he has surmounted his egoism.
If he fulfils the required condition, man is nearer to the Supreme than the gods are. He can be nearer. He is not so automatically, but he has the power to be so, the potentiality.
If human love manifested itself without mixture, it would be all-powerful. Unfortunately, in human love there is as much love of oneself as of the one loved; it is not a love that makes you forget yourself. - 4 November 1958
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III, 355
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453:The Science of Living
To know oneself and to control oneself
AN AIMLESS life is always a miserable life.
Every one of you should have an aim. But do not forget that on the quality of your aim will depend the quality of your life.
Your aim should be high and wide, generous and disinterested; this will make your life precious to yourself and to others.
But whatever your ideal, it cannot be perfectly realised unless you have realised perfection in yourself.
To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's nature, especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, that we can hope to form in ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour.
As you pursue this labour of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all the movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection.
All this can be realised by means of a fourfold discipline, the general outline of which is given here. The four aspects of the discipline do not exclude each other, and can be followed at the same time; indeed, this is preferable. The starting-point is what can be called the psychic discipline. We give the name "psychic" to the psychological centre of our being, the seat within us of the highest truth of our existence, that which can know this truth and set it in movement. It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us, to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it.
In various times and places many methods have been prescribed for attaining this perception and ultimately achieving this identification. Some methods are psychological, some religious, some even mechanical. In reality, everyone has to find the one which suits him best, and if one has an ardent and steadfast aspiration, a persistent and dynamic will, one is sure to meet, in one way or another - outwardly through reading and study, inwardly through concentration, meditation, revelation and experience - the help one needs to reach the goal. Only one thing is absolutely indispensable: the will to discover and to realise. This discovery and realisation should be the primary preoccupation of our being, the pearl of great price which we must acquire at any cost. Whatever you do, whatever your occupations and activities, the will to find the truth of your being and to unite with it must be always living and present behind all that you do, all that you feel, all that you think.
To complement this movement of inner discovery, it would be good not to neglect the development of the mind. For the mental instrument can equally be a great help or a great hindrance. In its natural state the human mind is always limited in its vision, narrow in its understanding, rigid in its conceptions, and a constant effort is therefore needed to widen it, to make it more supple and profound. So it is very necessary to consider everything from as many points of view as possible. Towards this end, there is an exercise which gives great suppleness and elevation to the thought. It is as follows: a clearly formulated thesis is set; against it is opposed its antithesis, formulated with the same precision. Then by careful reflection the problem must be widened or transcended until a synthesis is found which unites the two contraries in a larger, higher and more comprehensive idea.
Many other exercises of the same kind can be undertaken; some have a beneficial effect on the character and so possess a double advantage: that of educating the mind and that of establishing control over the feelings and their consequences. For example, you must never allow your mind to judge things and people, for the mind is not an instrument of knowledge; it is incapable of finding knowledge, but it must be moved by knowledge. Knowledge belongs to a much higher domain than that of the human mind, far above the region of pure ideas. The mind has to be silent and attentive to receive knowledge from above and manifest it. For it is an instrument of formation, of organisation and action, and it is in these functions that it attains its full value and real usefulness.
There is another practice which can be very helpful to the progress of the consciousness. Whenever there is a disagreement on any matter, such as a decision to be taken, or an action to be carried out, one must never remain closed up in one's own conception or point of view. On the contrary, one must make an effort to understand the other's point of view, to put oneself in his place and, instead of quarrelling or even fighting, find the solution which can reasonably satisfy both parties; there always is one for men of goodwill.
Here we must mention the discipline of the vital. The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depressions, of passions and revolts. It can set everything in motion, build and realise; but it can also destroy and mar everything. Thus it may be the most difficult part to discipline in the human being. It is a long and exacting labour requiring great patience and perfect sincerity, for without sincerity you will deceive yourself from the very outset, and all endeavour for progress will be in vain. With the collaboration of the vital no realisation seems impossible, no transformation impracticable. But the difficulty lies in securing this constant collaboration. The vital is a good worker, but most often it seeks its own satisfaction. If that is refused, totally or even partially, the vital gets vexed, sulks and goes on strike. Its energy disappears more or less completely and in its place leaves disgust for people and things, discouragement or revolt, depression and dissatisfaction. At such moments it is good to remain quiet and refuse to act; for these are the times when one does stupid things and in a few moments one can destroy or spoil the progress that has been made during months of regular effort. These crises are shorter and less dangerous for those who have established a contact with their psychic being which is sufficient to keep alive in them the flame of aspiration and the consciousness of the ideal to be realised. They can, with the help of this consciousness, deal with their vital as one deals with a rebellious child, with patience and perseverance, showing it the truth and light, endeavouring to convince it and awaken in it the goodwill which has been veiled for a time. By means of such patient intervention each crisis can be turned into a new progress, into one more step towards the goal. Progress may be slow, relapses may be frequent, but if a courageous will is maintained, one is sure to triumph one day and see all difficulties melt and vanish before the radiance of the truth-consciousness.
Lastly, by means of a rational and discerning physical education, we must make our body strong and supple enough to become a fit instrument in the material world for the truth-force which wants to manifest through us.
In fact, the body must not rule, it must obey. By its very nature it is a docile and faithful servant. Unfortunately, it rarely has the capacity of discernment it ought to have with regard to its masters, the mind and the vital. It obeys them blindly, at the cost of its own well-being. The mind with its dogmas, its rigid and arbitrary principles, the vital with its passions, its excesses and dissipations soon destroy the natural balance of the body and create in it fatigue, exhaustion and disease. It must be freed from this tyranny and this can be done only through a constant union with the psychic centre of the being. The body has a wonderful capacity of adaptation and endurance. It is able to do so many more things than one usually imagines. If, instead of the ignorant and despotic masters that now govern it, it is ruled by the central truth of the being, you will be amazed at what it is capable of doing. Calm and quiet, strong and poised, at every minute it will be able to put forth the effort that is demanded of it, for it will have learnt to find rest in action and to recuperate, through contact with the universal forces, the energies it expends consciously and usefully. In this sound and balanced life a new harmony will manifest in the body, reflecting the harmony of the higher regions, which will give it perfect proportions and ideal beauty of form. And this harmony will be progressive, for the truth of the being is never static; it is a perpetual unfolding of a growing perfection that is more and more total and comprehensive. As soon as the body has learnt to follow this movement of progressive harmony, it will be possible for it to escape, through a continuous process of transformation, from the necessity of disintegration and destruction. Thus the irrevocable law of death will no longer have any reason to exist.
When we reach this degree of perfection which is our goal, we shall perceive that the truth we seek is made up of four major aspects: Love, Knowledge, Power and Beauty. These four attributes of the Truth will express themselves spontaneously in our being. The psychic will be the vehicle of true and pure love, the mind will be the vehicle of infallible knowledge, the vital will manifest an invincible power and strength and the body will be the expression of a perfect beauty and harmony.
Bulletin, November 1950
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
454:Mental Education
OF ALL lines of education, mental education is the most widely known and practised, yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient.
Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. And when a child has been made to undergo, for a number of years, a methodical training which is more like cramming than true schooling, it is considered that whatever is necessary for his mental development has been done. Nothing of the kind. Even conceding that the training is given with due measure and discrimination and does not permanently damage the brain, it cannot impart to the human mind the faculties it needs to become a good and useful instrument. The schooling that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a system of gymnastics to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulations given to these various branches each constitute a special and well-defined language.
A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five principal phases. Normally these phases follow one after another, but in exceptional individuals they may alternate or even proceed simultaneously. These five phases, in brief, are:
(1) Development of the power of concentration, the capacity of attention.
(2) Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness.
(3) Organisation of one's ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life.
(4) Thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants.
(5) Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.
It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations on points of detail can be given.
Undeniably, what most impedes mental progress in children is the constant dispersion of their thoughts. Their thoughts flutter hither and thither like butterflies and they have to make a great effort to fix them. Yet this capacity is latent in them, for when you succeed in arousing their interest, they are capable of a good deal of attention. By his ingenuity, therefore, the educator will gradually help the child to become capable of a sustained effort of attention and a faculty of more and more complete absorption in the work in hand. All methods that can develop this faculty of attention from games to rewards are good and can all be utilised according to the need and the circumstances. But it is the psychological action that is most important and the sovereign method is to arouse in the child an interest in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for learning more and always more.
For that, to attention and concentration should be added observation, precise recording and faithfulness of memory. This faculty of observation can be developed by varied and spontaneous exercises, making use of every opportunity that presents itself to keep the child's thought wakeful, alert and prompt. The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart, mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know.
This will bring us quite naturally to the second phase of development in which the mind should be widened and enriched.
You will gradually show the child that everything can become an interesting subject for study if it is approached in the right way. The life of every day, of every moment, is the best school of all, varied, complex, full of unexpected experiences, problems to be solved, clear and striking examples and obvious consequences. It is so easy to arouse healthy curiosity in children, if you answer with intelligence and clarity the numerous questions they ask. An interesting reply to one readily brings others in its train and so the attentive child learns without effort much more than he usually does in the classroom. By a choice made with care and insight, you should also teach him to enjoy good reading-matter which is both instructive and attractive. Do not be afraid of anything that awakens and pleases his imagination; imagination develops the creative mental faculty and through it study becomes living and the mind develops in joy.
In order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of his mind, one should see not only that he studies many varied topics, but above all that a single subject is approached in various ways, so that the child understands in a practical manner that there are many ways of facing the same intellectual problem, of considering it and solving it. This will remove all rigidity from his brain and at the same time it will make his thinking richer and more supple and prepare it for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis. In this way also the child will be imbued with the sense of the extreme relativity of mental learning and, little by little, an aspiration for a truer source of knowledge will awaken in him.
Indeed, as the child grows older and progresses in his studies, his mind too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid chaos in one's thoughts. All contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. It is always good to consider every problem from all possible standpoints so as to avoid partiality and exclusiveness; but if the thought is to be active and creative, it must, in every case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the points of view adopted. And if you want to make the totality of your thoughts into a dynamic and constructive force, you must also take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of this synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organise and harmonise.
It goes without saying that this work of organisation cannot be done once and for all. The mind, if it is to keep its vigour and youth, must progress constantly, revise its notions in the light of new knowledge, enlarge its frame-work to include fresh notions and constantly reclassify and reorganise its thoughts, so that each of them may find its true place in relation to the others and the whole remain harmonious and orderly.
All that has just been said concerns the speculative mind, the mind that learns. But learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, which is at least equally important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to form and thus prepare action. This very important part of mental activity has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing and disciplining this faculty of formation; and as soon as they try it, they have to face difficulties so great that they appear almost insurmountable.
And yet control over this formative activity of the mind is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can say that without it no mental mastery is possible. As far as study is concerned, all ideas are acceptable and should be included in the synthesis, whose very function is to become more and more rich and complex; but where action is concerned, it is just the opposite. The ideas that are accepted for translation into action should be strictly controlled and only those that agree with the general trend of the central idea forming the basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be set before the central idea; if it finds a logical place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be rejected so that it can have no influence on the action. This work of mental purification should be done very regularly in order to secure a complete control over one's actions.
For this purpose, it is good to set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order. Once the habit is acquired, you can maintain control over your thoughts even during work and action, allowing only those which are useful for what you are doing to come to the surface. Particularly, if you have continued to cultivate the power of concentration and attention, only the thoughts that are needed will be allowed to enter the active external consciousness and they then become all the more dynamic and effective. And if, in the intensity of concentration, it becomes necessary not to think at all, all mental vibration can be stilled and an almost total silence secured. In this silence one can gradually open to the higher regions of the mind and learn to record the inspirations that come from there.
But even before reaching this point, silence in itself is supremely useful, because in most people who have a somewhat developed and active mind, the mind is never at rest. During the day, its activity is kept under a certain control, but at night, during the sleep of the body, the control of the waking state is almost completely removed and the mind indulges in activities which are sometimes excessive and often incoherent. This creates a great stress which leads to fatigue and the diminution of the intellectual faculties.
The fact is that like all the other parts of the human being, the mind too needs rest and it will not have this rest unless we know how to provide it. The art of resting one's mind is something to be acquired. Changing one's mental activity is certainly one way of resting; but the greatest possible rest is silence. And as far as the mental faculties are concerned a few minutes passed in the calm of silence are a more effective rest than hours of sleep.
When one has learned to silence the mind at will and to concentrate it in receptive silence, then there will be no problem that cannot be solved, no mental difficulty whose solution cannot be found. When it is agitated, thought becomes confused and impotent; in an attentive tranquillity, the light can manifest itself and open up new horizons to man's capacity. Bulletin, November 1951
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
455:The Supreme Discovery
IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
The ancient traditions rightly said:
"Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
On this a sage has said:
"I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,#KEYS
456:It does not matter if you do not understand it - Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step.
But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.
Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.
*He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.
You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, *I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies and religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it gives out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. - 5 November 1967
~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, The Mother to Mona Sarkar, [T0],#KEYS
457:Some young men who had come with an introduction from the Ramakrishna Mission at Madras asked Bhagavan, “Which is the proper path for us to follow?”
Bhagavan: When you speak of a path, where are you now? and where do you want to go? If these are known, then we can talk of the path. Know first where you are and what you are. There is nothing to be reached. You are always as you really are. But you don’t realise it. That is all.
A little while after, one of the visitors asked Bhagavan, “I am now following the path of japa. Is that all right?”
Bhagavan: Yes. It is quite good. You can continue in that. The gentleman who asked about creation said, “I never thought I was going to have the good fortune of visiting Bhagavan. But circumstances have brought me here and I find in his presence, without any effort on my part, I am having santi. Apparently, getting peace does not depend on our effort.
It seems to come only as the result of grace!” Bhagavan was silent. Meanwhile, another visitor remarked, “No. Our effort is also necessary, though no one can do without grace.” After some time, Bhagavan remarked, “Mantra japa, after a time, leads to a stage when you become Mantra maya i.e., you become that whose name you have been repeating or chanting.
First you repeat the mantra by mouth; later you do it mentally.
First, you do this dhyana with breaks. Later, you do it without any break. At that stage you realise you do dhyana without any effort on your part, that dhyana is your real nature. Till then, effort is necessary.” ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day By Day,#KEYS
458:During a period of nearly fifty years... [Sri Aurobindo] created what is probably the greatest epic in the English language… I venture the judgment that it is the most comprehensive, integrated, beautiful and perfect cosmic poem ever composed. It ranges symbolically from a primordial cosmic void, through earth’s darkness and struggles, to the highest realms of supramental spiritual existence, and illumines every important concern of man, through verse of unparalleled massiveness, magnificence, and metaphorical brilliance. Savitri is perhaps the most powerful artistic work in the world for expanding man’s mind towards the Absolute». ~ Raymond Frank Piper, #KEYS
459:It's easy to imagine that, in the future, telepathy and telekinesis will be the norm; we will interact with machines by sheer thought. Our mind will be able to turn on the lights, activate the internet, dictate letters, play video games, communicate with friends, call for a car, purchase merchandise, conjure any movie-all just by thinking. Astronauts of the future may use the power of their minds to pilot their spaceships or explore distant planets. Cities may rise from the desert of Mars, all due to master builders who mentally control the work of robots. ~ Michio Kaku #KEYS
460:A MARWARI DEVOTEE: "Sir, what is the way?"
Two ways of God-realization
MASTER: "There are two ways. One is the path of discrimination, the other is that of love. Discrimination means to know the distinction between the Real and the unreal.
God alone is the real and permanent Substance; all else is illusory and impermanent.
The magician alone is real; his magic is illusory. This is discrimination.
"Discrimination and renunciation. Discrimination means to know the distinction between the Real and the unreal. Renunciation means to have dispassion for the things of the world. One cannot acquire them all of a sudden. They must be practised every day.
One should renounce 'woman and gold' mentally at first. Then, by the will of God, one can renounce it both mentally and outwardly. It is impossible to ask the people of Calcutta to renounce all for the sake of God. One has to tell them to renounce mentally. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,#KEYS
461:When I asked Him (December 8, 1950) to resuscitate his body, He clearly answered: “I have left this body purposely. I will not take it back. I shall manifest again in the first supramental body built in the supramental way. 11 April 1952 ~ The Mother, cwm, 13:9, #KEYS
462:Attention on Hypnagogic Imagery The most common strategy for inducing WILDs is to fall asleep while focusing on the hypnagogic imagery that accompanies sleep onset. Initially, you are likely to see relatively simple images, flashes of light, geometric patterns, and the like.
Gradually more complicated forms appear: faces, people, and finally entire scenes. 6
The following account of what the Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky called “half-dream states” provides a vivid example of what hypnagogic imagery can be like:
I am falling asleep. Golden dots, sparks and tiny stars appear and disappear before my eyes. These sparks and stars gradually merge into a golden net with diagonal meshes which moves slowly and regularly in rhythm with the beating of my heart, which I feel quite distinctly. The next moment the golden net is transformed into rows of brass helmets belonging to Roman soldiers marching along the street below. I hear their measured tread and watch them from the window of a high house in Galata, in Constantinople, in a narrow lane, one end of which leads to the old wharf and the Golden Horn with its ships and steamers and the minarets of Stamboul behind them. I hear their heavy measured tread, and see the sun shining on their helmets. Then suddenly I detach myself from the window sill on which I am lying, and in the same reclining position fly slowly over the lane, over the houses, and then over the Golden Horn in the direction of Stamboul. I smell the sea, feel the wind, the warm sun. This flying gives me a wonderfully pleasant sensation, and I cannot help opening my eyes. 7
Ouspensky’s half-dream states developed out of a habit of observing the contents of his mind while falling asleep or in half-sleep after awakening from a dream. He notes that they were much easier to observe in the morning after awakening than before sleep at the beginning of the night and did not occur at all “without definite efforts.” 8
Dr. Nathan Rapport, an American psychiatrist, cultivated an approach to lucid dreaming very similar to Ouspensky’s: “While in bed awaiting sleep, the experimenter interrupts his thoughts every few minutes with an effort to recall the mental item vanishing before each intrusion that inquisitive attention.” 9 This habit is continued sleep itself, with results like the following:
Brilliant lights flashed, and a myriad of sparkles twinkled from a magnificent cut glass chandelier. Interesting as any stage extravaganza were the many quaintly detailed figurines upon a mantel against the distant, paneled wall adorned in rococo.
At the right a merry group of beauties and gallants in the most elegant attire of Victorian England idled away a pleasant occasion. This scene continued for [a] period of I was not aware, before I discovered that it was not reality, but a mental picture and that I was viewing it. Instantly it became an incommunicably beautiful vision. It was with the greatest stealth that my vaguely awakened mind began to peep: for I knew that these glorious shows end abruptly because of such intrusions.
I thought, “Have I here one of those mind pictures that are without motion?” As if in reply, one of the young ladies gracefully waltzed about the room. She returned to the group and immobility, with a smile lighting her pretty face, which was turned over her shoulder toward me. The entire color scheme was unobtrusive despite the kaleidoscopic sparkles of the chandelier, the exquisite blues and creamy pinks of the rich settings and costumes. I felt that only my interest in dreams brought my notice to the tints – delicate, yet all alive as if with inner illumination. 10
Hypnagogic Imagery Technique
1. Relax completely
While lying in bed, gently close your eyes and relax your head, neck, back, arms, and legs. Completely let go of all muscular and mental tension, and breathe slowly and restfully. Enjoy the feeling of relaxation and let go of your thoughts, worries, and concerns. If you have just awakened from sleep, you are probably sufficiently relaxed.
Otherwise, you may use either the progressive relaxation exercise (page 33) or the 61-point relaxation exercise (page 34) to relax more deeply. Let everything wind down,
slower and slower, more and more relaxed, until your mind becomes as serene as the calmest sea.
2. Observe the visual images
Gently focus your attention on the visual images that will gradually appear before your mind’s eye. Watch how the images begin and end. Try to observe the images as delicately as possible, allowing them to be passively reflected in your mind as they unfold. Do not attempt to hold onto the images, but instead just watch without attachment or desire for action. While doing this, try to take the perspective of a detached observer as much as possible. At first you will see a sequence of disconnected, fleeting patterns and images. The images will gradually develop into scenes that become more and more complex, finally joining into extended sequences.
3. Enter the dream
When the imagery becomes a moving, vivid scenario, you should allow yourself to be passively drawn into the dream world. Do not try to actively enter the dream scene,
but instead continue to take a detached interest in the imagery. Let your involvement with what is happening draw you into the dream. But be careful of too much involvement and too little attention. Don’t forget that you are dreaming now!
Commentary
Probably the most difficult part of this technique to master is entering the dream at Step 3. The challenge is to develop a delicate vigilance, an unobtrusive observer perspective, from which you let yourself be drawn into the dream. As Paul Tholey has emphasized, “It is not desirable to want actively to enter into the scenery,
since such an intention as a rule causes the scenery to disappear.” 11 A passive volition similar to that described in the section on autosuggestion in the previous chapter is required: in Tholey’s words, “Instead of actively wanting to enter into the scenery, the subject should attempt to let himself be carried into it passively.” 12 A Tibetan teacher advises a similar frame of mind: “While delicately observing the mind, lead it gently into the dream state, as though you were leading a child by the hand.” 13
Another risk is that, once you have entered into the dream, the world can seem so realistic that it is easy to lose lucidity, as happened in the beginning of Rapport’s WILD described above. As insurance in case this happens, Tholey recommends that you resolve to carry out a particular action in the dream, so that if you momentarily lose lucidity, you may remember your intention to carry out the action and thereby regain lucidity.
~ Stephen LaBerge, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming,#KEYS
463:It can be expected that the orthodox Christian will at first reject the theories about the Christ which occultism presents; at the same time, this same orthodox Christian will find it increasingly difficult to induce the intelligent masses of people to accept the impossible Deity and the feeble Christ, which historical Christianity has endorsed. A Christ Who is present and living, Who is known to those who follow Him, Who is a strong and able executive, and not a sweet and sentimental sufferer, Who has never left us but Who has worked for two thousand years through the medium of His disciples, the inspired men and women of all faiths, all religions, and all religious persuasions; Who has no use for fanaticism or hysterical devotion, but Who loves all men persistently, intelligently and optimistically, Who sees divinity in them all, and Who comprehends the techniques of the evolutionary development of the human consciousness (mental, emotional and physical, producing civilizations and cultures appropriate to a particular point in evolution) – these ideas the intelligent public can and will accept. p. 589/90 ~ Alice Bailey, in The Externalization of the Hierarchy (1957) #KEYS
464:As a result of their separate formulation in Nature, man has open to him a choice between three kinds of life, the ordinary material existence, a life of mental activity and progress and the unchanging spiritual beatitude. But he can, as he progresses, combine these three forms, resolve their discords into a harmonious rhythm and so create in himself the whole godhead, the perfect Man. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Threefold Life #KEYS
465:And all the time the experience lasted, one hourone hour of that time is longI was in a state of extraordinary joyfulness, almost in an intoxicated state. The difference between the two states of consciousness is so great that when you are in one, the other seems unreal, like a dream. When I came back what struck me first of all was the futility of life here; our little conceptions down here seem so laughable, so comical. We say that some people are mad, but their madness is perhaps a great wisdom, from the supramental point of view, and their behaviour is perhaps nearer to the truth of thingsI am not speaking of the obscure mad men whose brains have been damaged, but of many other incomprehensible mad men, the luminous mad: they have wanted to cross the border too quickly and the rest has not followed. ~ The Mother, Agenda Vol 1, 1958-02 #KEYS
466: The age-old advice, "Know thyself," is more imperative than ever. The tempo of science has accelerated to such a degree that today's discoveries frequently make yesterday's equations obsolescent almost before they can be chalked up on a blackboard. Small wonder, then that every other hospital bed is occupied by a mental patient. Man was not constructed to spend his life at a crossroads, one of which leads he knows not where, and the other to threatened annihilation of his species. ~ Israel Regardie, A Garden of Pomegranates, Intro, #KEYS
467:So too we can rise to a consciousness above and observe the various parts of our being, inner and outer, mental, vital and physical and the subconscient below all, and act upon one or other or the whole from that higher status. It is possible also to go down from that height or from any height into any of these lower states and take its limited light or its obscurity as our place of working while the rest that we are is either temporarily put away or put behind or else kept as a field of reference from which we can get support, sanction or light and influence or as a status into which we can ascend or recede and from it observe the inferior movements. Or we can plunge into trance, get within ourselves and be conscious there while all outward things are excluded; or we can go beyond even this inner awareness and lose ourselves in some deeper other consciousness or some high superconscience. There is also a pervading equal consciousness into which we can enter and see all ourselves with one enveloping glance or omnipresent awareness one and indivisible. All this which looks strange and abnormal or may seem fantastic to the surface reason acquainted only with our normal status of limited ignorance and its movements divided from our inner higher and total reality, becomes easily intelligible and admissible in the light of the larger reason and logic of the Infinite or by the admission of the greater illimitable powers of the Self, the Spirit in us which is of one essence with the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1.2.02 #KEYS
468:Mental japa is very good. That helps meditation. Mind gets identified with the repetition and then you get to know what worship (puja) reall is - the losing of one's individuality in that which is worshipped. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks 31, #KEYS
469:Even in the Inconscient there seems to be at least an urge of inherent necessity producing the evolution of forms and in the forms a developing Consciousness, and it may well be held that this urge is the evolutionary will of a secret Conscious-Being and its push of progressive manifestation the evidence of an innate intention in the evolution. Truth of Being inevitably fulfilling itself would be the fundamental fact of the evolution, but Will and its purpose must be there as part of the instrumentation, as an element in the operative principle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, #KEYS
470:When one goes out of the body, one must try to rush towards you I think everybody does that, dont they?
Not one in a hundred!
If you did that, very interesting things would happen to you. I knew someone in France who used to come to me every evening in order that I might show him some unknown region and take him for a ramble in the vital or mental world, and actually I used to take him there. At times there were others also, at times this person was alone. I showed him how to go out of the body, how to get back into it, how to keep the consciousness, etc., I showed him many places telling him There you must take this precaution, here you must do such and such a thing. And this continued for a long time.
I do not mean that no one among you comes to me in the night, but there are very few who do it consciously. Generally (you will tell me if I am wrong, but that is my impression), when you go to sleep and have decided to remember me before going to sleep, it is rather a call than a will to rush to me, as you say. You are there on your bed, you want to rest, to have a good sleep, remain in a good consciousness; then you call me rather than have the idea of going out of the body and coming to see me. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1950-1951, 1951-02-19,#KEYS
471:Experience has taught me that it is wrong and cruel to suspend judgement, that nonjudgmentalism is at its best indifference to the suffering of others, at worst a disguised form of sadism. How can one respect people as members of the human race unless one holds them to a standard of conduct and truthfulness? How can people learn from experience unless they are told that they can and should change? ~ Theodore Dalrymple, #KEYS
*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Are — you — mental? ~ J K Rowling
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2:environmental hazard ~ David Bishop
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3:I'm a sentimental guy. ~ Fred Durst
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4:Positive Mental Health ~ Mary Pipher
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5:DIAGNOSIS: MENTAL LITE! ~ David Leite
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6:her house. The mental ~ Kendra Elliot
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7:Love: a grave mental disease. ~ Plato
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8:Hiver Sentimental
~ Émile Nelligan
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9:Mental note: no swimming. ~ Ruby Dixon
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10:Thème Sentimental
~ Émile Nelligan
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11:Jardin Sentimental
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12:Love is a grave mental illness. ~ Plato
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13:Everything is mental, ~ Richard Matheson
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14:Love is a serious mental illness ~ Plato
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15:Sentimentality blinds you! ~ Arnold Arre
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16:Chess is mental torture. ~ Garry Kasparov
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17:I'm not a sentimental guy. ~ Gene Hackman
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18:Love is a serious mental disease. ~ Plato
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19:Love is a serious mental illness. ~ Plato
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20:Love is a severe mental disorder. ~ Plato
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21:O balances sentimentales. ~ Robert Desnos
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22:Rage is mental imbecility. ~ Hosea Ballou
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23:There are no new fundamentals. ~ Jim Rohn
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24:1. Make incremental advances ~ Peter Thiel
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25:adapt mentally -- to surprises ~ Anonymous
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26:An eye for an eye is elemental. ~ Lou Reed
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27:Be curious not judgemental. ~ Walt Whitman
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28:Be curious, not judgmental. ~ Walt Whitman
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29:Cheap, sentimental things ~ Edith Grossman
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30:Concepts are mental images. ~ Paul Virilio
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31:Have an Abundant Mentality G ~ Joel Osteen
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32:The most fundamental seems fickle. ~ Laozi
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33:and mentally aberrant type. ~ H P Lovecraft
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34:Be curious, not judgemental. ~ Walt Whitman
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35:They’re being really judgmental. ~ P C Cast
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36:90% of the game is half mental. ~ Yogi Berra
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37:Jealousy... is a mental cancer. ~ B C Forbes
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38:Mental illness is not funny. ~ Philip K Dick
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39:I like to break a mental sweat!!! ~ Anonymous
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40:Storm is prerequisite to mental gain ~ Eyedea
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41:With a sort of mental squint. ~ Lewis Carroll
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42:All novels are experimental. ~ Anthony Burgess
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43:Audiences can be very judgmental. ~ Clive Owen
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44:Commence mental back patting. ~ Adrianne Brooks
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45:El amor es una grave enfermedad mental. ~ Plato
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46:I am not a sentimental person. ~ Jack Kevorkian
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47:If you're not mentally tough, ~ Summer Sanders
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48:I'm not terribly sentimental. ~ Katherine Heigl
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49:Love is sentimental measles. ~ Charles Kingsley
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50:Mental illness is real illness ~ Andrew Solomon
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51:All progress is experimental. ~ John Jay Chapman
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52:I am fundamentally an optimist. ~ Nelson Mandela
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53:Mental illness is a cruel disease. ~ Pete Earley
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54:Upped but mentally disjointed. ~ Beatrice Sparks
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55:Golf is a mental disorder. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs
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56:Liberalism is a mental disorder. ~ Michael Savage
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57:Rumble is the best instrumental ever. ~ Bob Dylan
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58:Sentimentality is unearned emotion. ~ James Joyce
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59:Slavery is more mental than anything ~ Kanye West
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60:Your mentality shapes your reality. ~ Suzy Kassem
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61:Mental strength induces mind and body. ~ Toba Beta
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62:Don’t use language instrumentally ~ Jordan Peterson
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63:Human beings are fundamentally good. ~ Desmond Tutu
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64:I always wanted to be really experimental. ~ Grimes
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65:I crave for mental exaltation. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle
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66:Im an environmentalist; I recycle. ~ Kyrsten Sinema
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67:made a mental note to look up whether ~ Diane Capri
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68:Madness is a kind of mental suicide. ~ Stephen King
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69:My mind's monumental, my pen is penetration ~ Elzhi
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70:Nature is monumentally indifferent. ~ Werner Herzog
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71:physically loose and mentally tight. ~ Ryan Holiday
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72:Prejudice marks a mental landmine. ~ Gloria Steinem
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73:Volvos are fundamentally invisible. ~ John Sandford
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74:why are we so monumentally slow? ~ Naomi Shihab Nye
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75:You have severe mental constipation. ~ Tahereh Mafi
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76:All poetry is experimental poetry. ~ Wallace Stevens
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77:Fundamentalism is still on the march. ~ David Brooks
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78:Life is fundamentally up for grabs ~ Jonathan Lethem
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79:Music is a fundamental human right ~ Gustavo Dudamel
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80:Use PMA: Positive Mental Actitude. ~ Benjamin Carson
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81:All philosophies are mental fabrications. ~ N g rjuna
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82:A rare theorist turned experimentalist. ~ Willis Lamb
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83:Ben McAdoo has a "work hard" mentality. ~ Victor Cruz
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84:Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit. ~ Barack Obama
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85:Don’t be sentimental. Everything dies ~ gota Krist f
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86:Don’t use language instrumentally ~ Jordan B Peterson
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87:Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. ~ Bob Marley
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88:judgmental looks cast her way by the ~ Kristin Hannah
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89:My tendency is to be very experimental. ~ Sean Lennon
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90:All the physical comes from the mental. ~ Clara Hughes
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91:Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, ~ Bob Marley
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92:I mean, I think I'm pretty sentimental. ~ Gus Van Sant
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93:Mental energy from within keeps me higher, ~ Masta Ace
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94:Shun the incremental and go for the leap. ~ Jack Welch
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95:Youth is wholly experimental. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
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96:As a species we're fundamentally insane. ~ Stephen King
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97:El insulto mental sólo admite el tuteo. ~ Javier Mar as
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98:Freedom and slavery are mental states. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
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99:Freedom is an incremental process. ~ William Paul Young
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100:Judgmental heart has lack of introspection. ~ Toba Beta
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101:Nothing but dust and fundamentalists. ~ Terry Pratchett
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102:Reading is fundamental - fun to mental. ~ Eddie Griffin
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103:We’d connected on a purely mental level. ~ Ernest Cline
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104:A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post. ~ Tom Waits
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105:But she had run out of mental highway and, ~ Terry Hayes
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106:Donald Trump needs mental-health help. ~ Mika Brzezinski
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107:Earnestness can ferment into sentimentality. ~ Marc Webb
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108:Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself. ~ D T Suzuki
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109:I'm opposed to fundamentalism in any form. ~ J K Rowling
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110:It's 90% mental. The other half is physical ~ Yogi Berra
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111:Mentally, I'm not ever going to go away. ~ Roger Federer
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112:Ninety percent of this game is half mental. ~ Yogi Berra
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113:Nothing more isolating than a mental illness. ~ Hannibal
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114:Psychology is the science of mental life ~ William James
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115:You are quite acute for a mental stillborn ~ Dan Simmons
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116:Action is the fundamental key to success. ~ Pablo Picasso
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117:Anything cruel I do is mental, not physical ~ Bette Davis
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118:¿Estaré reseco? Sentimentalmente, digo. ~ Mario Benedetti
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119:Faith minus vulnerability is fundamentalism ~ Brene Brown
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120:Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself. ~ D.T. Suzuki
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121:I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency ~ Plato
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122:I'm very fond of experimental housekeeping. ~ Jane Austen
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123:Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum. ~ James Lee Burke
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124:Sentimentality is a failure of feeling. ~ Wallace Stevens
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125:Sentimentality is a form of fatigue. ~ Leonora Carrington
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126:temperamentally unfitted for romance ~ F Scott Fitzgerald
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127:Truth is more than a mental exercise. ~ Thurgood Marshall
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128:All our acts have sacramental possibilities. ~ Freya Stark
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129:Collaborative work] is absolutely fundamental… ~ Anonymous
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130:Fundamentally, I like to accomplish things. ~ Kevin Spacey
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131:MAN is a slave only to his own mental lethargy. ~ Mina Loy
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132:Mental toughness is essential to success. ~ Vince Lombardi
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133:was in the grip of his moral, mental being. ~ D H Lawrence
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134:A bit, fundamentally, is always a coin toss. ~ James Gleick
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135:A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion. ~ George Orwell
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136:A fight is 10% physical and 90% mental. ~ Georges St Pierre
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137:Everything depends on your mental attitude. ~ Dharma Mittra
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138:Fundamentalism is dictatorship of the mind ~ Hanif Kureishi
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139:I am not a compromiser on fundamentals. ~ Margaret Thatcher
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140:I wanted to make experimental music out of pop. ~ Girl Talk
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141:Pictures help you to form the mental mold. ~ Robert Collier
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142:The soul never thinks without a mental picture. ~ Aristotle
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143:Your own mental attitude is your real boss. ~ Napoleon Hill
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144:Courage is the most fundamental of all virtues. ~ Max Anders
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145:for all Force or Energy is Mental. ~ William Walker Atkinson
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146:Fundamentally, other animals do not do barter. ~ Matt Ridley
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147:I began writing as an experimental writer. ~ Sandra Cisneros
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148:I come from reckless, unsentimental people. ~ Rachel Kushner
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149:I need that love to stop being so judgmental. ~ Lauren Layne
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150:Mental health is one of the last great taboos. ~ Stephen Fry
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151:On my John Coltrane. In a sentimental mood. ~ Brandi L Bates
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152:Our ultimate destination is mental peace. ~ Bikram Choudhury
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153:Practical Techniques in Mental Healings An ~ Joseph Murphy
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154:The human mind is our fundamental resource. ~ John F Kennedy
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155:We are being programmed by mental pygmies. ~ Howard Hesseman
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156:We try not to talk much about mental fatigue. ~ Tommy Bowden
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157:A diet of solely mental work is suffocating. ~ Tom Hodgkinson
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158:Being judgmental is cheap. Any fool can do it. ~ Barbara Sher
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159:Everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality. ~ Alan Watts
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160:Everything gets to me. I'm very sentimental. ~ Cornelia Funke
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161:Experimental science is the queen of knowledge. ~ Roger Bacon
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162:his blue eyes glittering with mental hygiene. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
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163:Invention at its core is mental association. ~ W Brian Arthur
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164:Judgmental, prophetic lone rangers do not last ~ James W Goll
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165:Mental slavery is worst than physical slavery ~ Dave Hockaday
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166:physical pain to make the mental pain go away ~ Richelle Mead
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167:sentimentalism, nor anything that belongs ~ Swami Vivekananda
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168:The most fundamental constraint is limited time ~ Gary Becker
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169:The soul's a sort of sentimental wife, ~ Richard Le Gallienne
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170:Art, in other words, betrays a sexy mental fitness. ~ Sam Kean
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171:Concentration is at the root of mental mastery. ~ Robin Sharma
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172:Europeans don't seem to have the groupie mentality. ~ Kid Rock
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173:Every animal is fundamentally a band, a pack. ~ Gilles Deleuze
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174:Let a bitch enjoy her mental breakdown in peace. ~ C J Roberts
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175:People get really irritated by mental illness. ~ Maria Bamford
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176:Religious freedom is a fundamental human right. ~ Pope Francis
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177:The fundamental issue is the moral issue. ~ David Attenborough
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178:There was mental and physical abuse in my family. ~ Erin Moran
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179:To work in fundamental theory, one must be stupid. ~ Liu Cixin
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180:You are the mental architect of your own destiny ~ Bob Proctor
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181:Dispassion is the best of mental states. . . . ~ Gautama Buddha
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182:Fundamentally, diaries are about loneliness. ~ Kenneth Williams
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183:Fundamentally I believed that I was unlovable. ~ Dani Alexander
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184:I have a bad reputation for being temperamental. ~ Ted Kotcheff
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185:Mental seduction. He’d never thought it possible ~ Karen Ranney
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186:The most fundamental constraint is limited time ~ Gary S Becker
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187:They haven’t the mental equipment for leisure. ~ Nathanael West
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188:Writing fiction is fundamentally an irrational act. ~ Dale Peck
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189:A kind life...is fundamentally a life of courage. ~ Wayne Muller
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190:Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ. ~ Will Durant
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191:I have this mental sickness called creativity. ~ Philippe Starck
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192:I stand, limited primitive, sentimentalist, escapist ~ Aceyalone
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193:Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. ~ John Ortberg Jr
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194:Manson and the Beatles were mentally attuned. ~ Vincent Bugliosi
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195:Religion is detrimental to the progress of society. ~ Bill Maher
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196:That's the mentality - don't just play it, win it. ~ Luis Suarez
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197:The attitudes towards mental health must change ~ Kate Middleton
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198:There is nothing I hate more than sentimentality. ~ Max Beckmann
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199:Though men may be deep, mentally they are slow. ~ Camille Paglia
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200:To shake your rump is to be environmentally aware. ~ David Byrne
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201:Whatever we know without inference is mental. ~ Bertrand Russell
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202:When you're dead you don't have a mental problem. ~ Gene Simmons
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203:You can't put a price on a sentimental value. ~ Astrid Yrigollen
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204:75% of baseball is mental the other half is phisical ~ Yogi Berra
#NFDB
205:Evolution is fundamentally hostile to religion. ~ Richard Dawkins
#NFDB
206:I am an environmentalist. ... I am for clean air. ~ Ronald Reagan
#NFDB
207:I don't believe in any kind of fundamentalism. ~ Antonio Banderas
#NFDB
208:Incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy. ~ Nicholas Negroponte
#NFDB
209:I want to destigmatize the words mental illness. ~ Linda Hamilton
#NFDB
210:Mentally ill people come from all belief systems. ~ Penn Jillette
#NFDB
211:Mental power cannot be got from ill-fed brains. ~ Herbert Spencer
#NFDB
212:Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one. ~ Bobby Knight
#NFDB
213:My co-workers expect me to be late and temperamental. ~ Eva Gabor
#NFDB
214:Reasoning is the mental tool that use to think with ~ Bob Proctor
#NFDB
215:Sentimental memories were like sugar-water icicles. ~ Tom Robbins
#NFDB
216:So you have to be more mentally focused in baseball. ~ Bo Jackson
#NFDB
217:the fundamental problem of the value of money. ~ Ludwig von Mises
#NFDB
218:There is no place suitable to my kind of mentality, ~ Erik Larson
#NFDB
219:The Senate was the home of governmental sclerosis. ~ Joseph Flynn
#NFDB
220:The sentimental want to be thrilled by everything. ~ Mason Cooley
#NFDB
221:the transient character of the mental disintegration. ~ Anonymous
#NFDB
222:Will I really be able to accept my mental loneliness? ~ Ana s Nin
#NFDB
223:Courage is temperamental, scientific, ideal. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
#NFDB
224:Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation ~ Steve Jobs
#NFDB
225:Elmer has the mentality of approximately one peanut. ~ Frank Zappa
#NFDB
226:El tumulto es fundamental; es el sentido de este libro ~ Anonymous
#NFDB
227:Freedom is the fundamental condition for any growth. ~ Erich Fromm
#NFDB
228:Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. ~ Anthony Horowitz
#NFDB
229:Fundamentalists don’t know how to make exceptions. ~ Aaron Milavec
#NFDB
230:Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov
#NFDB
231:giving too many fucks is bad for your mental health. ~ Mark Manson
#NFDB
232:I write rhymes with addition and algebra, mental geometry. ~ Ice T
#NFDB
233:Ninety percent of all mental errors are in your head. ~ Yogi Berra
#NFDB
234:Nothing that is mentally our own can ever be lost. ~ Sigmund Freud
#NFDB
235:Respecting yourself is key - physically and mentally. ~ Matt Sorum
#NFDB
236:Sentimentality is a superstructure covering brutality. ~ Carl Jung
#NFDB
237:The first mile is mental. The rest are all heart. ~ Summer Sanders
#NFDB
238:Whatever you believe and mentally create, you can have. ~ Al Koran
#NFDB
239:Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire ~ Dale Carnegie
#NFDB
240:Antony was also obsessive, judgmental, and paranoid. ~ Jodi Picoult
#NFDB
241:Complete peace equally reigns between two mental waves. ~ Sivananda
#NFDB
242:I don't know if I like being the sentimental favorite. ~ John Elway
#NFDB
243:I'm not an environmentalist. I'm an Earth warrior. ~ Darryl Cherney
#NFDB
244:I'm not very strong mentally, I'm straight forward. ~ Shahid Afridi
#NFDB
245:Meditation is THE fundamental practice of the Quest. ~ Paul Brunton
#NFDB
246:Mental Health is dedication to reality at all costs. ~ M Scott Peck
#NFDB
247:Mentally, physically and emotionally we are the same. ~ Dalai Lama
#NFDB
248:No one should be adored, it's fundamentally immoral. ~ Kate Millett
#NFDB
249:No one should be adored, it’s fundamentally immoral. ~ Kate Millett
#NFDB
250:Physical pain will never compare to mental anguish ~ Gena Showalter
#NFDB
251:pupils are sensitive indicators of mental effort— ~ Daniel Kahneman
#NFDB
252:Stop mentally fucking her while she’s holding my kid. ~ Abbi Glines
#NFDB
253:The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist ~ Thomas Carlyle
#NFDB
254:The environmental crisis is all a result of rushing. ~ Ed Begley Jr
#NFDB
255:The fundamental condition of man is his verticality. ~ Laura Fraser
#NFDB
256:The fundamental precept of liberty is toleration. ~ Calvin Coolidge
#NFDB
257:The mental sciences? A strange synonym for magic. ~ Lindsay Buroker
#NFDB
258:The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain. ~ Karl Marx
#NFDB
259:There's hardly any governmental censorship in Korea. ~ Bong Joon ho
#NFDB
260:What you call types of mind are only mental ages. ~ Fran oise Sagan
#NFDB
261:When you look at athletes, they have fundamentals. ~ Raphael Saadiq
#NFDB
262:Women always have some mental reservation. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine
#NFDB
263:Alleviation of suffering is my fundamental principle. ~ Yusuf Hamied
#NFDB
264:America is a young country with an old mentality. ~ George Santayana
#NFDB
265:Charts are a leading indicator of fundamental analysis ~ John Murphy
#NFDB
266:Comes off like she’s got the mental capacity of broccoli, ~ J D Robb
#NFDB
267:Fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth. ~ Donald Sutherland
#NFDB
268:If you are mentally somewhere else, you miss real life ~ Byron Katie
#NFDB
269:I grew up believing that I was fundamentally powerless. ~ Thom Yorke
#NFDB
270:I have a recording that I did of instrumental songs. ~ Joanna Newsom
#NFDB
271:It is a question of our own peace and mental stability. ~ Dalai Lama
#NFDB
272:Mental indolence is one of the commonest of human traits ~ Anonymous
#NFDB
273:Physical pain will never compare to mental anguish. ~ Gena Showalter
#NFDB
274:Spring into action, because falling back is detrimental. ~ T F Hodge
#NFDB
275:The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist. ~ Thomas Carlyle
#NFDB
276:We are fundamentally good, and evil is an aberration. ~ Desmond Tutu
#NFDB
277:A joke was the best barometer for mental weather. ~ Charles Sheffield
#NFDB
278:An emotion is both a mental and a physical event. ~ Nathaniel Branden
#NFDB
279:be patient and curious instead of instantly judgemental. ~ Jon Ronson
#NFDB
280:Fundamental belief consoled him for superficial irony. ~ Thomas Hardy
#NFDB
281:Geometry is the rules of all mental investigation ~ Mikhail Lomonosov
#NFDB
282:I'm the thing that fundamentalist Christians cringe over. ~ Tori Amos
#NFDB
283:Know your numbers' is a fundamental precept of business. ~ Bill Gates
#NFDB
284:Living close to nature is wonderful for your mental health. ~ Ishmael
#NFDB
285:love is always in danger of being sentimentalized. ~ Georgia Harkness
#NFDB
286:Love is the fundamental relatedness in the universe. ~ Ron Smothermon
#NFDB
287:Only people with full stomachs become environmentalists. ~ David Brin
#NFDB
288:para mí, un sinónimo de salud mental y podría definirse ~ Jorge Bucay
#NFDB
289:Practice moment to moment non-judgemental awareness. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn
#NFDB
290:Psychoanalysis is the mental illness it purports to cure ~ Karl Kraus
#NFDB
291:Science is a fundamental part of our existence. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
#NFDB
292:Sentimentality is loving something more than God does. ~ J D Salinger
#NFDB
293:The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental. ~ Ken Kesey
#NFDB
294:The one governmental agency that has no ambition. ~ William O Douglas
#NFDB
295:The Stag at Bay with the mentality of a fox at large. ~ Bernard Levin
#NFDB
296:This mental space is occupied and everything is mine. ~ Leonard Cohen
#NFDB
297:To make a commencement requires a mental effort. ~ Seneca the Younger
#NFDB
298:You can't love somebody into a state of mental health. ~ Harold Ramis
#NFDB
299:Can’t you see that? Everybody’s sentimental, everybody. ~ Michel Faber
#NFDB
300:Elasticity is a fundamental principle of perception, ~ Neal Shusterman
#NFDB
301:Every mode of travel has its signature mental aberration. ~ Mary Roach
#NFDB
302:everything is fundamentally energy and we are all One. ~ Aletheia Luna
#NFDB
303:Experiment is fundamentally only induced observation. ~ Claude Bernard
#NFDB
304:For a traitor, Jedao had always been a judgmental prick. ~ Yoon Ha Lee
#NFDB
305:If you are being judgemental, that is non-yogic. ~ Rajashree Choudhury
#NFDB
306:In a mental hospital, we do not want psychotic doctors. ~ Roger Fisher
#NFDB
307:La simpatía es fundamental. Nace de la imperfección. ~ Federico Moccia
#NFDB
308:Mental confusion can be the product of divine discipline. ~ Max Anders
#NFDB
309:My desire is to be a forgiving, non-judgmental person. ~ Janine Turner
#NFDB
310:Of course, we all carry around false fundamentals. ~ Rachel Held Evans
#NFDB
311:Physical pain is far easier to bear than mental agony. ~ Preeti Shenoy
#NFDB
312:Senior year is supposed to be about being mentally done. ~ Jon Stewart
#NFDB
313:The fundamental condition of childhood is powerlessness. ~ Jane Smiley
#NFDB
314:The mentality we have in India is not very sporting. ~ Mahesh Bhupathi
#NFDB
315:the pupils are sensitive indicators of mental effort ~ Daniel Kahneman
#NFDB
316:There is no such thing as a pro-nuclear environmentalist. ~ Tom Harkin
#NFDB
317:A fundamental duty of government is to protect its people. ~ Brad Henry
#NFDB
318:case you haven’t noticed, you have a mental dialogue ~ Michael A Singer
#NFDB
319:Cynic' is the sentimentalist's name for the realist. ~ Carolyn Heilbrun
#NFDB
320:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; ~ Michael Finkel
#NFDB
321:Endings make me sentimental the way new beginnings do, ~ Krista Ritchie
#NFDB
322:Fundamentalism isn't about religion, it's about power. ~ Salman Rushdie
#NFDB
323:How you live your life can affect your mental state. ~ Mariel Hemingway
#NFDB
324:I do find walking is fundamental to my creative process. ~ Baz Luhrmann
#NFDB
325:If environmentalism is a fad, it will be the last one. ~ Barry Commoner
#NFDB
326:I'm always mentally photographing everything as practice. ~ Minor White
#NFDB
327:I'm very judgmental person. It's one of my faults. ~ Laurell K Hamilton
#NFDB
328:Instrumental music can spread the international language. ~ Herb Alpert
#NFDB
329:"Inter-dependence ... is a fundamental law of nature." ~ Dalai Lama XIV
#NFDB
330:It requires less mental effort to condemn than to think. ~ Emma Goldman
#NFDB
331:Left alone with our own heads on, we can be pretty mental. ~ Tony Adams
#NFDB
332:Mental clarity ain't for the faint of heart. ~ Katerina Stoykova Klemer
#NFDB
333:mental institutions, rural health clinics. Once, he met ~ Peter Hessler
#NFDB
334:No need to be sentimental to mourn the loss of Paradise. ~ Mason Cooley
#NFDB
335:Suicide and mental health problems have no boundaries. ~ Santosh Kalwar
#NFDB
336:The most effective torture is not physical, it's mental. ~ Raine Miller
#NFDB
337:this ability to focus one’s attention was fundamental. ~ Dalai Lama XIV
#NFDB
338:Variability is the world’s most fundamental quality. For ~ Vadim Zeland
#NFDB
339:we are most judgmental of the defect we’ve just given up. ~ Judi Hollis
#NFDB
340:We ought to have lived in mental communion, and no more. ~ Thomas Hardy
#NFDB
341:What is the past, what is it all for? A mental sandwich? ~ John Ashbery
#NFDB
342:You're like the little mentally retarded sister I never had ~ Meg Cabot
#NFDB
343:A judgmental heart keeps listening to the things that annoy. ~ Toba Beta
#NFDB
344:A positive mental attitude is the right mental attitude. ~ Napoleon Hill
#NFDB
345:Art in the Church fundamentally exists for evangelization ~ Pope Francis
#NFDB
346:Concentrating for four hours will wear you out mentally. ~ Sergio Garcia
#NFDB
347:con su maldad se había mezclado el sentimentalismo. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#NFDB
348:Discipline — both mental and physical — is crucial. ~ Anna Deavere Smith
#NFDB
349:education is most fundamentally a matter of formation, ~ James K A Smith
#NFDB
350:Experimentalists never know when their work is finished. ~ Daniel H Pink
#NFDB
351:He said, "You look mentally ill"
I said "I am, Let's go ~ Nico Walker
#NFDB
352:Humans are mentally sick with a disease called fear. ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz
#NFDB
353:I believe that every human being has mental challenges. ~ Sandra Bullock
#NFDB
354:I just don't let that mentality be a part of my world. ~ Sarah Silverman
#NFDB
355:[...] ironia este însușirea fundamentală a providenței ~ Honor de Balzac
#NFDB
356:It strikes at a fundamental human need to be organized. ~ Donna Dubinsky
#NFDB
357:I want to show people that environmentalism can be fun! ~ Adrian Grenier
#NFDB
358:Matter is matter, and mental association only a delusion. ~ Thomas Hardy
#NFDB
359:Meditation is nothing but taking a mental shower. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi
#NFDB
360:Moral codes adjust themselves to environmental conditions. ~ Will Durant
#NFDB
361:So, baseball is probably more physical of the two mentally. ~ Bo Jackson
#NFDB
362:Success is all about consistency around the fundamentals. ~ Robin Sharma
#NFDB
363:Theories come and go, but fundamental data always remains. ~ Mary Leakey
#NFDB
364:There is a very fine line between hobby and mental illness. ~ Dave Barry
#NFDB
365:This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner. ~ Bob Woodward
#NFDB
366:Those who can mentally cope should also do the following ~ Thupten Jinpa
#NFDB
367:Build your empire on the firm foundation of the fundamentals. ~ Lou Holtz
#NFDB
368:College was at the heart of his sentimental imagination. ~ Rick Perlstein
#NFDB
369:If vanity were a religion, he’d be a fundamentalist. ~ Rion Amilcar Scott
#NFDB
370:I'm an environmentalist. Most of my jokes are recycled. ~ David Letterman
#NFDB
371:I'm not an environmentalist, or a doctor, or a nutritionist. ~ Dan Barber
#NFDB
372:I'm not into this judgmental, religious-right kind of thing. ~ Neil Young
#NFDB
373:It's about mental toughness. Mental toughness is everything. ~ Jon Gordon
#NFDB
374:My only enemy is right-wing religious fundamentalism. ~ William J Clinton
#NFDB
375:naturally live a long life in joyful, nonjudgmental peace. ~ Wayne W Dyer
#NFDB
376:Teams do not go physically flat, they go mentally stale. ~ Vince Lombardi
#NFDB
377:The final weapon is the brain, all else is supplemental. ~ John Steinbeck
#NFDB
378:The fundamental human experience is that of compassion. ~ Joseph Campbell
#NFDB
379:The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature. ~ William James
#NFDB
380:The physical part has a lot to do with the mental part. ~ Adrian Peterson
#NFDB
381:there is a fundamental messiness to the nature of the good. ~ Tyler Cowen
#NFDB
382:Christianity isn't the only group that has fundamentalists. ~ Tony Campolo
#NFDB
383:Cynicism is the other thing that goes with sentimentality. ~ Margaret Mead
#NFDB
384:...forgetting is vastly underrated as a mental operation. ~ Michael Pollan
#NFDB
385:I cannot comprehend fundamentalism. It's fundamentally wrong. ~ John Lydon
#NFDB
386:I do not know a better cure for mental illness than a book. ~ Irving Stone
#NFDB
387:I think that every sexual position is fundamentally comic. ~ Judith Butler
#NFDB
388:I think the fundamental part of my technique is my vibrato. ~ Robin Trower
#NFDB
389:it will fundamentally change the practice of medicine. ~ Peter H Diamandis
#NFDB
390:Jesus, you get sentimental when you're high on paint fumes. ~ Lisa Kleypas
#NFDB
391:Mentally strong people are comfortable in their own skin. ~ John C Maxwell
#NFDB
392:Never underestimate the commercial value of mental illness. ~ Moriah Jovan
#NFDB
393:Out: Reading is fundamental. In: Feeling is fundamental. ~ Michelle Malkin
#NFDB
394:People have a crab mentality, man. They're walking sideways. ~ Cody Wilson
#NFDB
395:Physically, man is a dwarf; mentally, man is a giant! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
#NFDB
396:Science has its being in a perpetual mental restlessness. ~ William Temple
#NFDB
397:Sentimentality about nature denatures everything it touches. ~ Jane Jacobs
#NFDB
398:The freedom to convert is fundamental to freedom of religion. ~ Bob Inglis
#NFDB
399:The great curse of modern political life is incrementalism. ~ Paul Keating
#NFDB
400:The laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of history. ~ Ariel Durant
#NFDB
401:Worry is an unhealthy and destructive mental habit. ~ Norman Vincent Peale
#NFDB
402:You have to have a temperamental attraction to dangerous ideas. ~ Jim Holt
#NFDB
403:Attention is a little-noticed and underrated mental asset. ~ Daniel Goleman
#NFDB
404:Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally. ~ Eckhart Tolle
#NFDB
405:Distraction serves evil more than any other mental state. ~ Stefan Molyneux
#NFDB
406:Divorcing developmental and evaluative feedback is essential. ~ Laszlo Bock
#NFDB
407:Friendship is one of the grand fundamentals of Mormonism. ~ Joseph Smith Jr
#NFDB
408:Great leadership is by definition relentlessly developmental. ~ Bill Hybels
#NFDB
409:Happiness is mental harmony; unhappiness is mental inharmony. ~ James Allen
#NFDB
410:Honey mustard is obviously not good for my mental state. ~ Lauren Barnholdt
#NFDB
411:If I can't get a mental image from the song, I won't sing it. ~ Namie Amuro
#NFDB
412:I hate watching myself on film because I am so judgmental. ~ Tamsin Egerton
#NFDB
413:In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. ~ William S Burroughs
#NFDB
414:Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. ~ Fernando Pessoa
#NFDB
415:Mental attitude is more important than mental capacity. ~ Walter Dill Scott
#NFDB
416:Mental health courts exist because the system has failed. ~ E Fuller Torrey
#NFDB
417:named Tom Bird, a half-breed who took a sentimental turn ~ Colson Whitehead
#NFDB
418:Regret is like a mental parasite that alters your behavior. ~ Peter Tieryas
#NFDB
419:Sentimentality is the knife that cuts away logic and reason. ~ Sarah Noffke
#NFDB
420:That’s where change comes from: these tiny incremental shifts. ~ Lindy West
#NFDB
421:There is nothing so loathsome as a sentimental surrealist. ~ Thomas Pynchon
#NFDB
422:"The ultimate source of happiness is our mental attitude." ~ Dalai Lama XIV
#NFDB
423:Those who sentimentally indulge humanity do it no favours. ~ Terry Eagleton
#NFDB
424:We want to mentally be young, even if physically we're not. ~ Milo Aukerman
#NFDB
425:Yoga es auto-dominio de las modificaciones mentales”. ~ Swami Satchidananda
#NFDB
426:You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession. ~ Phil Gramm
#NFDB
427:Advent is not about a sentimental waiting for the Baby Jesus. ~ Richard Rohr
#NFDB
428:a relationship could only function when honesty was fundamental. ~ R J Lewis
#NFDB
429:a webcam that Iceland’s environmental agency had set up. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert
#NFDB
430:Delve far enough into Metal, and you’ll find environmentalists. ~ Erik Davis
#NFDB
431:He said, “You look mentally ill.”
I said, “I am. Let’s go. ~ Nico Walker
#NFDB
432:History doesn't proceed in incremental little notches. ~ Frances Moore Lappe
#NFDB
433:Holy meditation helps to burn out all mental impurities. ~ Swami Vivekananda
#NFDB
434:I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it. ~ Samuel Goldwyn
#NFDB
435:I've worked really, really hard on myself to not be judgmental. ~ Jane Fonda
#NFDB
436:...mastery of the emotions is fundamental to a virtuous life. ~ A C Grayling
#NFDB
437:Positive mental attitude is determined by you. Not others. ~ Jeffrey Gitomer
#NFDB
438:possessed by the demon of mental afflictions, such as anger. ~ Thupten Jinpa
#NFDB
439:Psychology is the science of mental life.” William James ~ Tom Butler Bowdon
#NFDB
440:Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. ~ Fran Lebowitz
#NFDB
441:The environmental crisis is fundamentally a spiritual crisis. ~ Thomas Berry
#NFDB
442:The fundamental desire of life is the desire to exist. ~ Rabindranath Tagore
#NFDB
443:The stigma of mental illness is still alive and well. ~ Kate Clifford Larson
#NFDB
444:But it's pretty hard to get a liberal off their mental grooves.) ~ John Ringo
#NFDB
445:Chemists all agree on the fundamental facts of chemistry. ~ Richard C Carrier
#NFDB
446:Culture is fundamental. Literature saves you. Cinema saves you. ~ Lea Seydoux
#NFDB
447:Examine your own mental attitudes. Become your own therapist. ~ Thubten Yeshe
#NFDB
448:Experimental evidence is the final arbiter of right and wrong. ~ Brian Greene
#NFDB
449:Fundamentally, I think of myself as a storyteller, not a writer. ~ Tom Clancy
#NFDB
450:give a mental assent to the customs of their forefathers, ~ Swami Vivekananda
#NFDB
451:I am a believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. ~ Joseph Lister
#NFDB
452:I didn't know how faith felt when it grew incrementally. ~ Jen Pollock Michel
#NFDB
453:It makes me happy to talk about some fundamentally good things. ~ Joe Goddard
#NFDB
454:It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali
#NFDB
455:I was known as a 35-mm photographer with a view-camera mentality. ~ Sam Abell
#NFDB
456:Oh, boys, don't be sentimental; it's bad for the digestion! ~ Herman Melville
#NFDB
457:Our mental attitude is the X factor that determines our fate. ~ Dale Carnegie
#NFDB
458:Our mental attitude is the x factor that determines our fate. ~ Dale Carnegie
#NFDB
459:Paradox is simply the way nonduality looks to the mental level. ~ Ken Wilber,
#NFDB
460:"Play it as it lies" is one of the fundamental dictates of golf ~ Henry Beard
#NFDB
461:Please don’t get sentimental,” said Jerome. “It’s nauseating. ~ Richelle Mead
#NFDB
462:proper mental exercise increases your chances for wealth. ~ Robert T Kiyosaki
#NFDB
463:Sentimentality is the respect the cold-hearted pay to feeling. ~ Mason Cooley
#NFDB
464:Some of my earlier songs are kind of more about mental illness. ~ Andrew Bird
#NFDB
465:The Anti-christ of mental health and emotional maturity. ~ Augusten Burroughs
#NFDB
466:The basic fundamental of behaviour should be to give. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
#NFDB
467:To be moral is to discover fundamentally ones own being. ~ Simone de Beauvoir
#NFDB
468:We control by attitudes-positive mental attitudes-not by rules. ~ Woody Hayes
#NFDB
469:Art like life, should be free, since both are experimental. ~ George Santayana
#NFDB
470:Being fit will keep you mentally sharp and people forget that. ~ Peter Shilton
#NFDB
471:Bores put you in a mental cemetery while you are still walking. ~ Elsa Maxwell
#NFDB
472:Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance. ~ Anonymous
#NFDB
473:far from being weird, mental illness was absolutely normal. So ~ Bryony Gordon
#NFDB
474:Fearful of sentimentality, I disown my tears and melting heart. ~ Mason Cooley
#NFDB
475:fundamental principle of management: what gets measured gets done. ~ Anonymous
#NFDB
476:[God] is a kind of perpetual critique of instrumental reason. ~ Terry Eagleton
#NFDB
477:Horniness is just a mental state with a physical repercussion. ~ Bink Cummings
#NFDB
478:How much more sensuality invites to art than does sentimentality. ~ Andre Gide
#NFDB
479:I think society had to grow up to the mentality of Peter Norman. ~ John Carlos
#NFDB
480:It isn't work that makes you tired, it's your mental attitude. ~ Dale Carnegie
#NFDB
481:Maybe we’re just fundamentally destined for unhappiness. ~ Garth Risk Hallberg
#NFDB
482:Mental acuity was never born from comfortable circumstances. ~ Haruki Murakami
#NFDB
483:Mental attitude and concentration are the keys to pitching. ~ Ferguson Jenkins
#NFDB
484:Mental note: never interrupt a villain who is monologuing. I ~ Hannu Rajaniemi
#NFDB
485:My dad died at a point in his life when he was mentally at peace. ~ Carla Fine
#NFDB
486:Ninety percent of baseball is mental, the other half is physical. ~ Yogi Berra
#NFDB
487:Nothing is more tragic - or more common - than mental inertia. ~ Napoleon Hill
#NFDB
488:People are fundamentally good. But conditions deteriorate them. ~ Shirin Ebadi
#NFDB
489:Science teachers and the mentally ill, that's all Jazz is for. ~ Noel Fielding
#NFDB
490:Sometimes I find bringing in my old ideas is just detrimental. ~ Bear McCreary
#NFDB
491:The first casualty of the conflict must be our own sentimentality ~ Max Brooks
#NFDB
492:The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight. ~ Arthur Ashe
#NFDB
493:The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow. ~ Samuel Johnson
#NFDB
494:Ambien might have mentally just tossed my salad. WITH CROUTONS. ~ Jen Lancaster
#NFDB
495:As muito feias que me perdoem
Mas beleza é fundamental. ~ Vinicius de Moraes
#NFDB
496:Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics. ~ Roman Jakobson
#NFDB
497:But as long as we have a slave mentality, it will limit our life. ~ Joel Osteen
#NFDB
498:clean nails, like clean shoes, are fundamental to self-respect. ~ Gail Honeyman
#NFDB
499:... coyotes enjoy no governmental protection against being killed. ~ Dan Flores
#NFDB
500:Don't look to the approval of others for your mental stability ~ Karl Lagerfeld
#NFDB
1544 Integral Yoga
90 Occultism
46 Fiction
43 Yoga
33 Psychology
32 Christianity
31 Philosophy
18 Poetry
15 Education
11 Hinduism
10 Science
8 Theosophy
4 Integral Theory
4 Buddhism
1 Mythology
1 Mysticism
1 Alchemy
849 Sri Aurobindo
781 The Mother
469 Satprem
222 Nolini Kanta Gupta
45 H P Lovecraft
33 Aleister Crowley
32 Carl Jung
28 A B Purani
22 Swami Krishnananda
17 Swami Vivekananda
15 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
14 Franz Bardon
14 Aldous Huxley
12 Saint Augustine of Hippo
9 George Van Vrekhem
8 James George Frazer
7 Sri Ramakrishna
6 Sri Ramana Maharshi
6 Saint John of Climacus
6 Plato
6 Alice Bailey
5 Saint Teresa of Avila
5 Rudolf Steiner
5 Nirodbaran
4 Thubten Chodron
4 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
4 Plotinus
4 Patanjali
4 Jordan Peterson
4 Bokar Rinpoche
3 Paul Richard
3 John Keats
2 Lucretius
2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2 Friedrich Nietzsche
334 Record of Yoga
73 The Synthesis Of Yoga
60 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
55 The Life Divine
54 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
54 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
45 Lovecraft - Poems
45 Letters On Yoga IV
45 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
45 Agenda Vol 08
44 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
44 Agenda Vol 04
42 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
42 Letters On Yoga III
42 Letters On Yoga II
40 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
40 Agenda Vol 10
40 Agenda Vol 03
39 Agenda Vol 09
39 Agenda Vol 02
35 Agenda Vol 01
32 Questions And Answers 1956
32 Questions And Answers 1953
32 Agenda Vol 05
31 Questions And Answers 1955
31 Agenda Vol 06
30 Agenda Vol 07
28 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
28 Essays On The Gita
28 Agenda Vol 11
27 Questions And Answers 1954
26 Letters On Yoga I
23 Prayers And Meditations
22 The Study and Practice of Yoga
22 Liber ABA
22 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
22 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
21 The Human Cycle
21 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
20 Essays Divine And Human
19 Letters On Poetry And Art
19 Agenda Vol 12
17 Agenda Vol 13
16 Magick Without Tears
15 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
15 On the Way to Supermanhood
15 On Education
14 The Secret Of The Veda
14 The Perennial Philosophy
13 Some Answers From The Mother
13 Mysterium Coniunctionis
12 Isha Upanishad
11 Talks
11 Raja-Yoga
11 City of God
10 Words Of The Mother II
10 Words Of Long Ago
10 The Practice of Magical Evocation
10 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
10 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
10 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
9 The Integral Yoga
9 Preparing for the Miraculous
8 Vedic and Philological Studies
8 The Practice of Psycho therapy
8 The Golden Bough
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
7 The Future of Man
7 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
6 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
6 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
5 Words Of The Mother III
5 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
4 The Way of Perfection
4 The Phenomenon of Man
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Tara - The Feminine Divine
4 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
4 Maps of Meaning
4 Liber Null
4 Kena and Other Upanishads
4 Initiation Into Hermetics
4 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
4 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
4 Amrita Gita
4 Aion
3 Walden
3 The Problems of Philosophy
3 The Blue Cliff Records
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Savitri
3 Let Me Explain
3 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
3 Keats - Poems
2 Words Of The Mother I
2 Twilight of the Idols
2 Theosophy
2 The Lotus Sutra
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
2 Of The Nature Of Things
2 Faust
2 Bhakti-Yoga
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The mystic forces are not only of immense potency but of a definite moral disposition and character, that is to say, they are of immense potency either for good or for evil. They are not mechanical and amoral forces like those that physical sciences deal with; they are forces of consciousness and they are conscious forces, they act with an aim and a purpose. The mystic forces are forces either of light or of darkness, either Divine or Titanic. And it is most often the powers of darkness that the naturally ignorant consciousness of man contacts when it seeks to cross the borderline without training or guidance, by the sheer arrogant self-sufficiency of mental scientific reason.
Ignorance, certainly, is not man's ideal conditionit leads to death and dissolution. But knowledge also can be equally disastrous if it is not of the right kind. The knowledge that is born of spiritual disobedience, inspired by the Dark ones, leads to the soul's fall and its calvary through pain and suffering on earth. The seeker of true enlightenment has got to make a distinction, learn to separate the true and the right from the false and the wrong, unmask the luring Mra say clearly and unfalteringly to the dark light of Luciferapage Satana, if he is to come out into the true light and comm and the right forces. The search for knowledge alone, knowledge for the sake of knowledge, the path of pure scientific inquiry and inquisitiveness, in relation to the mystic world, is a dangerous thing. For such a spirit serves only to encourage and enhance man's arrogance and in the end not only limits but warps and falsifies the knowledge itself. A knowledge based on and secured exclusively through the reason and mental light can go only so far as that faculty can be reasonably stretched and not infinitelyto stretch it to infinity means to snap it. This is the warning that Yajnavalkya gave to Gargi when the latter started renewing her question ad infinitum Yajnavalkya said, "If you do not stop, your head will fall off."
00.02 - Mystic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man being an embodied soul, his external consciousness (what the Upanishad calls jgrat) is the milieu in which his soul-experiences naturally manifest and find their play. It is the forms and movements of that consciousness which clo the and give a concrete habitation and name to perceptions on the subtler ranges of the inner existence. If the experiences on these planes are to be presented to the conscious memory and to the brain-mind and made communicable to others through speech, this is the inevitable and natural process. Symbols are a translation in mental and sensual (and vocal) terms of experiences that are beyond the mind and the sense and the speech and yet throw a kind of echoing vibrations upon these lesser levels.
***
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, before any explanation is attempted it is important to bear in mind that the Upanishads speak of things experiencednot merely thought, reasoned or argued and that these experiences belong to a world and consciousness other than that of the mind and the senses. One should naturally expect here a different language and mode of expression than that which is appropriate to mental and physical things. For example, the world of dreams was once supposed to be a sheer chaos, a mass of meaningless confusion; but now it is held to be quite otherwise. Psychological scientists have discovered a methodeven a very well-defined and strict methodin the madness of that domain. It is an ordered, organised, significant world; but its terminology has to be understood, its code deciphered. It is not a jargon, but a foreign language that must be learnt and mastered.
--
The Sun is the first and the most immediate source of light that man has and needs. He is the presiding deity of our waking consciousness and has his seat in the eyecakusa ditya, ditya caku bhtvakii prviat. The eye is the representative of the senses; it is the sense par excellence. In truth, sense-perception is the initial light with which we have to guide us, it is the light with which we start on the way. A developed stage comes when the Sun sets for us, that is to say, when we retire from the senses and rise into the mind, whose divinity is the Moon. It is the mental knowledge, the light of reason and intelligence, of reflection and imagination that govern our consciousness. We have to proceed farther and get beyond the mind, exceed the derivative light of the Moon. So when the Moon sets, the Fire is kindled. It is the light of the ardent and aspiring heart, the glow of an inner urge, the instincts and inspirations of our secret life-will. Here we come into touch with a source of knowledge and realization, a guidance more direct than the mind and much deeper than the sense-perception. Still this light partakes more of heat than of pure luminosity; it is, one may say, incandescent feeling, but not vision. We must probe deeper, mount higherreach heights and profundities that are serene and transparent. The Fire is to be quieted and silenced, says the Upanishad. Then we come nearer, to the immediate vicinity of the Truth: an inner hearing opens, the direct voice of Truth the Wordreaches us to lead and guide. Even so, however, we have not come to the end of our journey; the Word of revelation is not the ultimate Light. The Word too is clothing, though a luminous clothinghiramayam ptram When this last veil dissolves and disappears, when utter silence, absolute calm and quietude reign in the entire consciousness, when no other lights trouble or distract our attention, there appears the Atman in its own body; we stand face to face with the source of all lights, the self of the Light, the light of the Self. We are that Light and we become that Light.
--
One is an ideal in and of the world, the other is an ideal transcending the world. The Path of the Fathers (Pityna) enjoins the right accomplishing of the dharma of Lifeit is the path of works, of Karma; it is the line of progressive evolution that, man follows through the experience of life after life on earth. The Path of the Gods (Devayna) runs above life's evolutionary course; it lifts man out of the terrestrial cycle and places him in a superior consciousness it is the path of knowledge, of Vidya.4 The Path of the Fathers is the soul's southern or inferior orbit (dakiyana, aparrdha); the Path of the Gods is the northern or superior orbit (uttaryaa, parrdha)The former is also called the Lunar Path and the latter the Solar Path.5 For the moon represents the mind,6 and is therefore, an emblem that befits man so long as he is a mental being and pursues a dharma that is limited by the mind; the sun, on the other hand, is the knowledge and consciousness that is beyond the mindit is the eye of the Gods.7
--
The one, however, is not completely divorced from the other. The apparent, the inferior nature is only a preparation for the real, the superior nature. The Path of the Fathers concerns itself with man as a mental being and seeks so to ordain and accomplish its duties and ideals as to lead him on to the Path of the Gods; the mind, the life, and the body consciousness should be so disciplined, educated, purified, they should develop along such a line and gradually rise to such a stage as to make them fit to receive the light which belongs to the higher level, so allowing the human soul imbedded in them to extricate itself and pass on to the Immortal Life.
--
Agni in the physical consciousness is calledghapati, for the body is the house in which the soul is lodged and he is its keeper, guardian and lord. The fire in the mental consciousness is called daki; for it is that which gives discernment, the power to discriminate between the truth and the falsehood, it is that which by the pressure of its heat and light cleaves the wrong away from the right. And the fire in the life-force is called havanya; for pra is not only the plane of hunger and desire, but also of power and dynamism, it is that which calls forth forces, brings them into' play and it is that which is to be invoked for the progression of the Sacrifice, for an onward march on the spiritual path.
--
Apart from the question whether the biological phenomenon described is really a symbol and a cloak for another order of reality, and even taking it at its face value, what is to be noted here is the idea of a cosmic cycle, and a cosmic cycle that proceeds through the principle of sacrifice. If it is asked what there is wonderful or particularly spiritual in this rather naf description of a very commonplace happening that gives it an honoured place in the Upanishads, the answer is that it is wonderful to see how the Upanishadic Rishi takes from an event its local, temporal and personal colour and incorporates it in a global movement, a cosmic cycle, as a limb of the Universal Brahman. The Upanishads contain passages which a puritanical mentality may perhaps describe as 'pornographic'; these have in fact been put by some on the Index expurgatorius. But the ancients saw these matters with other eyes and through another consciousness.
--
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.
--
But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord of creation and the Inner Mastersarvabhtntartm, antarymis called brahmajam, born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the human consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the Pleasurable (reya and preya). The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness in the heart of all that is unstable and fleetingone has to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.
0.00 - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The age-old advice, "Know thyself," is more imperative than ever. The tempo of science has accelerated to such a degree that today's discoveries frequently make yesterday's equations obsolescent almost before they can be chalked up on a blackboard. Small wonder, then that every other hospital bed is occupied by a mental patient. Man was not constructed to spend his life at a crossroads, one of which leads he knows not where, and the other to threatened annihilation of his species.
0.01 - I - Sri Aurobindos personality, his outer retirement - outside contacts after 1910 - spiritual personalities: Vibhutis and Avatars - transformtion of human personality, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Philosophy
The Evening Talks collected here may afford to the outside world a glimpse of his external personality and give the seeker some idea of its richness, its many-sidedness, its uniqueness. One can also form some notion of Sri Aurobindo's personality from the books in which the height, the universal sweep and clear vision of his integral ideal and thought can be seen. His writings are, in a sense, the best representative of his mental personality. The versatile nature of his genius, the penetrating power of his intellect, his extraordinary power of expression, his intense sincerity, his utter singleness of purpose all these can be easily felt by any earnest student of his works. He may discover even in the realm of mind that Sri Aurobindo brings the unlimited into the limited. Another side of his dynamic personality is represented by the Ashram as an institution. But the outer, if one may use the phrase, the human side of his personality, is unknown to the outside world because from 1910 to 1950 a span of forty years he led a life of outer retirement. No doubt, many knew about his staying at Pondicherry and practising some kind of very special Yoga to the mystery of which they had no access. To some, perhaps, he was living a life of enviable solitude enjoying the luxury of a spiritual endeavour. Many regretted his retirement as a great loss to the world because they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as 'public', 'altruistic' or 'beneficial'. Even some of his admirers thought that he was after some kind of personal salvation which would have very little significance for mankind in general. His outward non-participation in public life was construed by many as lack of love for humanity.
--
The Gita in its chapters on the Vibhuti and the Avatar takes in general the same position. It shows that the present formula of our nature, and therefore the mental personality of man, is not final. A Vibhuti embodies in a human manifestation a certain divine quality and thus demonstrates the possibility of overcoming the limits of ordinary human personality. The Vibhuti the embodiment of a divine quality or power, and the Avatar the divine incarnation, are not to be looked upon as supraphysical miracles thrown at humanity without regard to the process of evolution; they are, in fact, indications of human possibility, a sign that points to the goal of evolution.
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
lying down in a condition of absolute immobility in which the
whole being, mental, psychic, vital and physical, enters into a
complete state of rest made of perfect peace, absolute silence
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
merely saying: “nothing will happen” that an accident can be
avoided. Your mental formation may be strong, but the contrary
formation is at least as strong as yours — and we must never
--
*
Is it because there is no mental control in the dream state
and hence the vital being is free to act as it likes?
--
lasting concentration.
The concentration can be kept constantly but not by mental
decision.
--
absurdity of this request?
It is a mental formation prompted by a desire of the vital,
which protests and rebels because it cannot be fulfilled. These
--
myself with the roof? Is there a definite method? Is this
method easier and more certain than the mental process
of reasoning which is based on acquired experience?
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That which Nature has evolved for us and has firmly founded is the bodily life. She has effected a certain combination and harmony of the two inferior but most funda mentally necessary elements of our action and progress upon earth, -
Matter, which, however the too ethereally spiritual may despise it, is our foundation and the first condition of all our energies and realisations, and the Life-Energy which is our means of existence in a material body and the basis there even of our mental and spiritual activities. She has successfully achieved a certain stability of her constant material movement which is at once sufficiently steady and durable and sufficiently pliable and mutable to provide a fit dwelling-place and instrument for the progressively manifesting god in humanity. This is what is meant by the fable in the Aitareya Upanishad which tells us that the gods rejected the animal forms successively offered to them by the Divine Self and only when man was produced, cried out, "This indeed is perfectly made," and consented to enter in. She has effected also a working compromise between the inertia of matter and the active Life that lives in and feeds on it, by which not only is vital existence sustained, but the fullest developments of mentality are rendered possible. This equilibrium constitutes the basic status of Nature in man and is termed in the language of Yoga his gross body composed
--
If the bodily life is what Nature has firmly evolved for us as her base and first instrument, it is our mental life that she is evolving as her immediate next aim and superior instrument. This in her ordinary exaltations is the lofty preoccupying thought in her; this, except in her periods of exhaustion and recoil into a reposeful and recuperating obscurity, is her constant pursuit wherever she can get free from the trammels of her first vital and physical realisations. For here in man we have a distinction which is of the utmost importance. He has in him not a single mentality, but a double and a triple, the mind material and nervous, the pure intellectual mind which liberates itself from the illusions of the body and the senses, and a divine mind above intellect which in its turn liberates itself from the imperfect modes of the logically discriminative and imaginative reason. Mind in man is first emmeshed in the life of the body, where in the plant it is entirely involved and in animals always imprisoned. It accepts this life as not only the first but the whole condition of its activities and serves its needs as if they were the entire aim of existence. But the bodily life in man is a base, not the aim, his first condition and not his last determinant. In the just idea of the ancients man is essentially the thinker, the Manu, the mental being who leads the life and the body,3 not the animal who is led by them. The true human existence, therefore, only begins when the intellectual mentality emerges out of the material and we begin more and more to live in the mind independent of the nervous and physical obsession and in the measure of that liberty are able to accept rightly and rightly to use the life of the body. For freedom and not a skilful subjection is the true means of mastery. A free, not a compulsory acceptance of the conditions, the enlarged and sublimated conditions of our physical being, is the high human ideal. But beyond this intellectual mentality is the divine.
The mental life thus evolving in man is not, indeed, a
3
--
Certainly, the mental life is not a finished evolution of Nature; it is not yet firmly founded in the human animal. The sign is that the fine and full equilibrium of vitality and matter, the sane, robust, long-lived human body is ordinarily found only in races or classes of men who reject the effort of thought, its disturbances, its tensions, or think only with the material mind.
--
Indeed, the increasing effort towards a more intense mental life seems to create, frequently, an increasing disequilibrium of the human elements, so that it is possible for eminent scientists to describe genius as a form of insanity, a result of degeneration, a pathological morbidity of Nature. The phenomena which are used to justify this exaggeration, when taken not separately, but in connection with all other relevant data, point to a different truth. Genius is one attempt of the universal Energy to so quicken and intensify our intellectual powers that they shall be prepared for those more puissant, direct and rapid faculties which constitute the play of the supra-intellectual or divine mind. It is not, then, a freak, an inexplicable phenomenon, but a perfectly natural next step in the right line of her evolution.
She has harmonised the bodily life with the material mind, she is harmonising it with the play of the intellectual mentality; for that, although it tends to a depression of the full animal and vital vigour, need not produce active disturbances. And she is shooting yet beyond in the attempt to reach a still higher level.
--
The Conditions of the Synthesis
to this conclusion that mental life, far from being a recent appearance in man, is the swift repetition in him of a previous achievement from which the Energy in the race had undergone one of her deplorable recoils. The savage is perhaps not so much the first forefa ther of civilised man as the degenerate descendant of a previous civilisation. For if the actuality of intellectual achievement is unevenly distri buted, the capacity is spread everywhere. It has been seen that in individual cases even the racial type considered by us the lowest, the negro fresh from the perennial barbarism of Central Africa, is capable, without admixture of blood, without waiting for future generations, of the intellectual culture, if not yet of the intellectual accomplishment of the dominant European. Even in the mass men seem to need, in favourable circumstances, only a few generations to cover ground that ought apparently to be measured in the terms of millenniums. Either, then, man by his privilege as a mental being is exempt from the full burden of the tardy laws of evolution or else he already represents and with helpful conditions and in the right stimulating atmosphere can always display a high level of material capacity for the activities of the intellectual life.
It is not mental incapacity, but the long rejection or seclusion from opportunity and withdrawal of the awakening impulse that creates the savage. Barbarism is an intermediate sleep, not an original darkness.
Moreover the whole trend of modern thought and modern endeavour reveals itself to the observant eye as a large conscious effort of Nature in man to effect a general level of intellectual equipment, capacity and farther possibility by universalising the opportunities which modern civilisation affords for the mental life. Even the preoccupation of the European intellect, the protagonist of this tendency, with material Nature and the externalities of existence is a necessary part of the effort. It seeks to prepare a sufficient basis in man's physical being and vital energies and in his material environment for his full mental possibilities. By the spread of education, by the advance of the backward races, by the elevation of depressed classes, by the multiplication of labour-saving appliances, by the movement
--
And when the preliminary conditions are satisfied, when the great endeavour has found its base, what will be the nature of that farther possibility which the activities of the intellectual life must serve? If Mind is indeed Nature's highest term, then the entire development of the rational and imaginative intellect and the harmonious satisfaction of the emotions and sensibilities must be to themselves sufficient. But if, on the contrary, man is more than a reasoning and emotional animal, if beyond that which is being evolved, there is something that has to be evolved, then it may well be that the fullness of the mental life, the suppleness, flexibility and wide capacity of the intellect, the ordered richness of emotion and sensibility may be only a passage towards the development of a higher life and of more powerful faculties which are yet to manifest and to take possession of the lower instrument, just as mind itself has so taken possession of the body that the physical being no longer lives only for its own satisfaction but provides the foundation and the materials for a superior activity.
The assertion of a higher than the mental life is the whole foundation of Indian philosophy and its acquisition and organisation is the veritable object served by the methods of Yoga.
--
The only approximate terms in the English language have other associations and their use may lead to many and even serious inaccuracies. The terminology of Yoga recognises besides the status of our physical and vital being, termed the gross body and doubly composed of the food sheath and the vital vehicle, besides the status of our mental being, termed the subtle body and singly composed of the mind sheath or mental vehicle,5 a third, supreme and divine status of supra- mental being, termed the causal body and composed of a fourth and a fifth vehicle6 which are described as those of knowledge and bliss. But this knowledge is not a systematised result of mental questionings and reasonings, not a temporary arrangement of conclusions and opinions in the terms of the highest probability, but rather a pure self-existent and self-luminous Truth. And this bliss is not a supreme pleasure of the heart and sensations with the experience of pain and sorrow as its background, but a delight also selfexistent and independent of objects and particular experiences, a self-delight which is the very nature, the very stuff, as it were, of a transcendent and infinite existence.
--
For, as is indicated by the name, causal body (karan.a), as opposed to the two others which are instruments (karan.a), this crowning manifestation is also the source and effective power of all that in the actual evolution has preceded it. Our mental activities are, indeed, a derivation, selection and, so long as they are divided from the truth that is secretly their source, a deformation of the divine knowledge. Our sensations and emotions have the same relation to the Bliss, our vital forces and actions to the aspect of Will or Force assumed by the divine consciousness, our physical being to the pure essence of that Bliss and
Consciousness. The evolution which we observe and of which
--
So dazzling is even a glimpse of this supreme existence and so absorbing its attraction that, once seen, we feel readily justified in neglecting all else for its pursuit. Even, by an opposite exaggeration to that which sees all things in Mind and the mental life as an exclusive ideal, Mind comes to be regarded as an unworthy deformation and a supreme obstacle, the source of an illusory universe, a negation of the Truth and itself to be denied and all its works and results annulled if we desire the final liberation. But this is a half-truth which errs by regarding only the actual limitations of Mind and ignores its divine intention.
--
We perceive, then, these three steps in Nature, a bodily life which is the basis of our existence here in the material world, a mental life into which we emerge and by which we raise the bodily to higher uses and enlarge it into a greater completeness, and a divine existence which is at once the goal of the other two and returns upon them to liberate them into their highest possibilities. Regarding none of them as either beyond our reach or below our nature and the destruction of none of them as essential to the ultimate attainment, we accept this liberation and fulfilment as part at least and a large and important part of the aim of Yoga.
0.03 - III - The Evening Sittings, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Philosophy
These sittings, in fact, furnished Sri Aurobindo with an occasion to admit and feel the outer atmosphere and that of the group living with him. It brought to him the much-needed direct contact of the mental and vital make-up of the disciples, enabling him to act on the atmosphere in general and on the individual in particular. He could thus help to remould their mental make-up by removing the limitations of their minds and opinions, and correct tempera mental tendencies and formations. Thus, these sittings contributed at least partly to the creation of an atmosphere amenable to the working of the Higher Consciousness. Far more important than the actual talk and its content was the personal contact, the influence of the Master, and the divine atmosphere he emanated; for through his outer personality it was the Divine Consciousness that he allowed to act. All along behind the outer manifestation that appeared human, there was the influence and presence of the Divine.
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
never repeat themselves in exactly the same way — everything
changes and progresses. But the state of mental peace you have
known is nothing compared to the one — much deeper and
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
NATURE, then, is an evolution or progressive self-manifestation of an eternal and secret existence, with three successive forms as her three steps of ascent. And we have consequently as the condition of all our activities these three mutually interdependent possibilities, the bodily life, the mental existence and the veiled spiritual being which is in the involution the cause of the others and in the evolution their result. Preserving and perfecting the physical, fulfilling the mental, it is Nature's aim and it should be ours to unveil in the perfected body and mind the transcendent activities of the Spirit. As the mental life does not abrogate but works for the elevation and better utilisation of the bodily existence, so too the spiritual should not abrogate but transfigure our intellectual, emotional, aesthetic and vital activities.
--
Since this is the plan of the divine Energy in humanity, the whole method and aim of our existence must work by the interaction of these three elements in the being. As a result of their separate formulation in Nature, man has open to him a choice between three kinds of life, the ordinary material existence, a life of mental activity and progress and the unchanging spiritual beatitude. But he can, as he progresses, combine these three forms, resolve their discords into a harmonious rhythm and so create in himself the whole godhead, the perfect Man.
--
The characteristic energy of pure Mind is change, and the more our mentality acquires elevation and organisation, the more this law of Mind assumes the aspect of a continual enlargement, improvement and better arrangement of its gains and so of a continual passage from a smaller and simpler to a larger and more complex perfection. For Mind, unlike bodily life, is infinite in its field, elastic in its expansion, easily variable in its formations. Change, then, self-enlargement and selfimprovement are its proper instincts. Mind too moves in cycles, but these are ever-enlarging spirals. Its faith is perfectibility, its watchword is progress.
--
In each of these forms Nature acts both individually and collectively; for the Eternal affirms Himself equally in the single form and in the group-existence, whether family, clan and nation or groupings dependent on less physical principles or the supreme group of all, our collective humanity. Man also may seek his own individual good from any or all of these spheres of activity, or identify himself in them with the collectivity and live for it, or, rising to a truer perception of this complex universe, harmonise the individual realisation with the collective aim. For as it is the right relation of the soul with the Supreme, while it is in the universe, neither to assert egoistically its separate being nor to blot itself out in the Indefinable, but to realise its unity with the Divine and the world and unite them in the individual, so the right relation of the individual with the collectivity is neither to pursue egoistically his own material or mental progress or spiritual salvation without regard to his fellows, nor for the sake of the community to suppress or maim his proper development, but to sum up in himself all its best and completest possibilities and pour them out by thought, action and all other means on his surroundings so that the whole race may approach nearer to the attainment of its supreme personalities.
--
Its higher manifestations, even the most splendid and puissant, either merely increase the number of souls drawn out of social life and so impoverish it or disturb the society for a while by a momentary elevation. The truth is that neither the mental effort nor the spiritual impulse can suffice, divorced from each other, to overcome the immense resistance of material Nature.
--
The mental life concentrates on the aesthetic, the ethical and the intellectual activities. Essential mentality is idealistic and a seeker after perfection. The subtle self, the brilliant Atman,1 is ever a dreamer. A dream of perfect beauty, perfect conduct, perfect Truth, whether seeking new forms of the Eternal or revitalising the old, is the very soul of pure mentality. But it knows not how to deal with the resistance of Matter. There it is hampered and inefficient, works by bungling experiments and has either to withdraw from the struggle or submit to the grey actuality. Or else, by studying the material life and accepting the conditions of the contest, it may succeed, but only in imposing temporarily some artificial system which infinite Nature either rends and casts aside or disfigures out of recognition or by withdrawing her assent leaves as the corpse of a dead ideal. Few and far between have been those realisations of the dreamer in Man which the world has gladly accepted, looks back to with a fond memory and seeks, in its elements, to cherish.
--
But if it is often difficult for the mental life to accommodate itself to the dully resistant material activity, how much more difficult must it seem for the spiritual existence to live on in a world that appears full not of the Truth but of every lie and illusion, not of Love and Beauty but of an encompassing discord and ugliness, not of the Law of Truth but of victorious selfishness and sin? Therefore the spiritual life tends easily in the saint and Sannyasin to withdraw from the material existence and reject it either wholly and physically or in the spirit. It sees this world as the kingdom of evil or of ignorance and the eternal and divine either in a far-off heaven or beyond where there is no world and no life. It separates itself inwardly, if not also physically, from the world's impurities; it asserts the spiritual reality in a spotless isolation. This withdrawal renders an invaluable service to the material life itself by forcing it to regard and even to bow down to something that is the direct negation of its own petty ideals, sordid cares and egoistic self-content.
--
But the spiritual life, like the mental, may thus make use of this outward existence for the benefit of the individual with a perfect indifference to any collective uplifting of the merely symbolic world which it uses. Since the Eternal is for ever the same in all things and all things the same to the Eternal, since the exact mode of action and the result are of no importance compared with the working out in oneself of the one great realisation, this spiritual indifference accepts no matter what environment, no matter what action, dispassionately, prepared to retire as soon as its own supreme end is realised. It is so that many have understood the ideal of the Gita. Or else the inner love and bliss may pour itself out on the world in good deeds, in service, in compassion, the inner Truth in the giving of knowledge, without therefore attempting the transformation of a world which must by its inalienable nature remain a battlefield of the dualities, of sin and virtue, of truth and error, of joy and suffering.
But if Progress also is one of the chief terms of worldexistence and a progressive manifestation of the Divine the true sense of Nature, this limitation also is invalid. It is possible for the spiritual life in the world, and it is its real mission, to change the material life into its own image, the image of the Divine. Therefore, besides the great solitaries who have sought and attained their self-liberation, we have the great spiritual teachers who have also liberated others and, supreme of all, the great dynamic souls who, feeling themselves stronger in the might of the Spirit than all the forces of the material life banded together, have thrown themselves upon the world, grappled with it in a loving wrestle and striven to compel its consent to its own transfiguration. Ordinarily, the effort is concentrated on a mental and moral change in humanity, but it may extend itself also to the alteration of the forms of our life and its institutions so that they too may be a better mould for the inpourings of the Spirit. These attempts have been the supreme landmarks in the progressive development of human ideals and the divine preparation of the race. Every one of them, whatever its outward results, has left Earth more capable of Heaven and quickened in its tardy movements the evolutionary Yoga of Nature.
--
But their aim is one in the end. The generalisation of Yoga in humanity must be the last victory of Nature over her own delays and concealments. Even as now by the progressive mind in Science she seeks to make all mankind fit for the full development of the mental life, so by Yoga must she inevitably seek to make all mankind fit for the higher evolution, the second birth, the spiritual existence. And as the mental life uses and perfects the material, so will the spiritual use and perfect the material and the mental existence as the instruments of a divine self-expression.
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yet it is always through something which she has formed in her evolution that Nature thus overpasses her evolution. It is the individual heart that by sublimating its highest and purest emotions attains to the transcendent Bliss or the ineffable Nirvana, the individual mind that by converting its ordinary functionings into a knowledge beyond mentality knows its oneness with the
Ineffable and merges its separate existence in that transcendent unity. And always it is the individual, the Self conditioned in its experience by Nature and working through her formations, that attains to the Self unconditioned, free and transcendent.
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33
those functionings which determine the state and the experiences of our nervous being; through the mentality, whether by means of the emotional heart, the active will or the understanding mind, or more largely by a general conversion of the mental consciousness in all its activities. It may equally be accomplished through a direct awakening to the universal or transcendent Truth and
Bliss by the conversion of the central ego in the mind. And according to the point of contact that we choose will be the type of the Yoga that we practise.
--
For if, leaving aside the complexities of their particular processes, we fix our regard on the central principle of the chief schools of Yoga still prevalent in India, we find that they arrange themselves in an ascending order which starts from the lowest rung of the ladder, the body, and ascends to the direct contact between the individual soul and the transcendent and universal
Self. Hathayoga selects the body and the vital functionings as its instruments of perfection and realisation; its concern is with the gross body. Rajayoga selects the mental being in its different parts as its lever-power; it concentrates on the subtle body. The triple Path of Works, of Love and of Knowledge uses some part of the mental being, will, heart or intellect as a starting-point and seeks by its conversion to arrive at the liberating Truth,
Beatitude and Infinity which are the nature of the spiritual life.
--
The results of Hathayoga are thus striking to the eye and impose easily on the vulgar or physical mind. And yet at the end we may ask what we have gained at the end of all this stupendous labour. The object of physical Nature, the preservation of the mere physical life, its highest perfection, even in a certain sense the capacity of a greater enjoyment of physical living have been carried out on an abnormal scale. But the weakness of Hathayoga is that its laborious and difficult processes make so great a demand on the time and energy and impose so complete a severance from the ordinary life of men that the utilisation of its results for the life of the world becomes either impracticable or is extraordinarily restricted. If in return for this loss we gain another life in another world within, the mental, the dynamic, these results could have been acquired through other systems, through Rajayoga, through Tantra, by much less laborious methods and held on much less exacting terms. On the other hand the physical results, increased vitality, prolonged youth, health, longevity are of small avail if they must be held by us as misers of ourselves, apart from the common life, for their own sake, not utilised, not thrown into the common sum of the world's activities. Hathayoga attains large results, but at an exorbitant price and to very little purpose.
Rajayoga takes a higher flight. It aims at the liberation and perfection not of the bodily, but of the mental being, the control of the emotional and sensational life, the mastery of the whole apparatus of thought and consciousness. It fixes its eyes on the citta, that stuff of mental consciousness in which all these activities arise, and it seeks, even as Hathayoga with its physical material, first to purify and to tranquillise. The normal state of man is a condition of trouble and disorder, a kingdom either at war with itself or badly governed; for the lord, the Purusha, is subjected to his ministers, the faculties, subjected even to his subjects, the instruments of sensation, emotion, action, enjoyment. Swarajya, self-rule, must be substituted for this subjection.
--
the powers of disorder. The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is a careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine
Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, glad, clear state of mind and heart is established.
--
But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pran.ayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kun.d.alin, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra- mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on
--
We perceive that as Hathayoga, dealing with the life and body, aims at the supernormal perfection of the physical life and its capacities and goes beyond it into the domain of the mental life, so Rajayoga, operating with the mind, aims at a supernormal perfection and enlargement of the capacities of the mental life and goes beyond it into the domain of the spiritual existence.
But the weakness of the system lies in its excessive reliance on abnormal states of trance. This limitation leads first to a certain aloofness from the physical life which is our foundation and the sphere into which we have to bring our mental and spiritual gains. Especially is the spiritual life, in this system, too much associated with the state of Samadhi. Our object is to make the spiritual life and its experiences fully active and fully utilisable in the waking state and even in the normal use of the functions.
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The triple Path of devotion, knowledge and works attempts the province which Rajayoga leaves unoccupied. It differs from
Rajayoga in that it does not occupy itself with the elaborate training of the whole mental system as the condition of perfection, but seizes on certain central principles, the intellect, the heart, the will, and seeks to convert their normal operations by turning them away from their ordinary and external preoccupations and activities and concentrating them on the Divine. It
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The Conditions of the Synthesis
differs also in this, - and here from the point of view of an integral Yoga there seems to be a defect, - that it is indifferent to mental and bodily perfection and aims only at purity as a condition of the divine realisation. A second defect is that as actually practised it chooses one of the three parallel paths exclusively and almost in antagonism to the others instead of effecting a synthetic harmony of the intellect, the heart and the will in an integral divine realisation.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am putting peace in your heart; but to become conscious
of it, you should repeat, as often as possible, mentally turning
to me: “You have put Peace in my heart; make me aware of its
--
poem is very good. But when you try to write every day, it
becomes more and more mental and you lose contact with the
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Perfection includes perfection of mind and body, so that the highest results of Rajayoga and Hathayoga should be contained in the widest formula of the synthesis finally to be effected by mankind. At any rate a full development of the general mental and physical faculties and experiences attainable by humanity through Yoga must be included in the scope of the integral method. Nor would these have any raison d'etre unless employed for an integral mental and physical life. Such a mental and physical life would be in its nature a translation of the spiritual existence into its right mental and physical values. Thus we would arrive at a synthesis of the three degrees of Nature and of the three modes of human existence which she has evolved or is evolving. We would include in the scope of our liberated being and perfected modes of activity the material life, our base, and the mental life, our intermediate instrument.
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The divinising of the normal material life of man and of his great secular attempt of mental and moral self-culture in the individual and the race by this integralisation of a widely perfect
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
with the law of the truth of things, and not arbitrarily through
a mental decision.
*
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Ask X, he will tell you that the Presence is not a matter of faith
or of mental imagination, it is a fact, absolutely concrete and
as real and tangible to the consciousness as the most material
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This also is false. The higher part of the vital being, like the
higher part of the mental being, aspires for the Divine and suffers
when far from Him.
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find there the true knowledge?
Intellectual culture is indispensable for preparing a good mental
instrument, large, supple and rich, but its action stops there.
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
of leadership, the Deva type and the saint type (not in
the western sense), a war on all fronts, the mental, the
vital and the physical. But I am deeply sensible of your
--
makes them separate.
The best way to get to it is to refuse all mental agitation when
it comes, also all vital desires and turmoils, and to keep the mind
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
may classify them generally into vital energies, mental energies, spiritual energies. Modern science tells us that Matter is
ultimately nothing but energy condensed.
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What is meant by “a subtle physical prolongation
of the superficial form of the mental envelope”?
It means that the ghost one sees and wrongly takes for the
departed being itself, is only an image of it, an imprint (like
a photographic imprint) left in the subtle physical by the superficial mental form, an image that can become visible under
certain conditions. These images can move about (like cinema
--
within and without. So we may say with certainty that what we
carry in ourselves in all our states of being, mentally, vitally and
physically, is that which constitutes our life objectified in what
--
In listening to it, one should make oneself as silent and
passive as possible. And if, in the mental silence, a part of the
being can take the attitude of the witness who observes without
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nor even in a year. This mastery, in whatever domain it may be,
vital, mental, over mental, demands assiduous effort and a great
--
see, feel and study, this Nature that has been our familiar environment since our birth upon earth, is not the only one. There
is a vital nature, a mental nature, and so on. It is this that, for
the ordinary consciousness, is Supernature.
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different terms, makes for an essential analogy. This analogy can
be expressed by a quaternary: the physical, the vital, the mental
and the psychic or soul.
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No conception of the Divine can be correct; for conceptions are
mental activities, and no mental activity is fit to manifest the
Divine.
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
it not always choose Yoga?
Sri Aurobindo means that one should not mistake a mental
ambition or a vital caprice for the spiritual call — for that alone
01.01 - The One Thing Needful, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual Truth and the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable and all the resit is nothing without it. The Divine once found, to manifest Him, - that is, first of all to transform one's own limited consciousness into the Divine Consciousness, to live in the infinite Peace, Light, Love, Strength, Bliss, to become that in one's essential nature and, as a consequence, to be its vessel, channel, instrument in one's active nature. To bring into activity the principle of oneness on the material plane or to work for humanity is a mental mistranslation of the Truth - these things cannot be the first true object of spiritual seeking. We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or a means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. As we grow in inner consciousness, or as the spiritual Truth of the Divine grows in us, our life and action must indeed more and more flow from that, be one with that. But to decide beforeh and by our limited mental conceptions what they must be is to hamper the growth of the spiritual Truth within. As that grows we shall feel the Divine Light and Truth, the Divine Power and Force, the Divine Purity and Peace working within us, dealing with our actions as well as our consciousness, making use of them to reshape us into the Divine Image, removing the dross, substituting the pure Gold of the Spirit. Only when the Divine Presence is there in us always and the consciousness transformed, can we have the right to say that we are ready to manifest the Divine on the material plane. To hold up a mental ideal or principle and impose that on the inner working brings the danger of limiting ourselves to a mental realisation or of impeding or even falsifying by a halfway formation the truth growth into the full communion and union with the Divine and the free and intimate outflowing of His will in our life. This is a mistake of orientation to which the mind of today is especially prone. It is far better to approach the Divine for the Peace or Light or Bliss that the realisation of Him gives than to bring in these minor things which can divert us from the one thing needful. The divinisation of the material life also as well as the inner life is part of what we see as the Divine Plan, but it can only be fulfilled by an ourflowing of the inner realisation, something that grows from within outwards, not by the working out of a mental principle.
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The course of evolution has not come to a stop with man and the next stage, Sri Aurobindo says, which Nature envisages and is labouring to bring out and establish is the life now superconscious to us, embodied in a still higher type of created being, that of the superman or god-man. The principle of consciousness which will determine the nature and build of this new, being is a spiritual principle beyond the mental principle which man now incarnates: it may be called the Supermind or Gnosis.
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But the initial illusory consciousness of the Overmind need not at all lead to the static Brahmic consciousness or Sunyam alone. As a matter of fact, there is in this particular processes of consciousness a hiatus between the two, between Maya and Brahman, as though one has to leap from the one into the other somehow. This hiatus is filled up in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga by the principle of Supermind, not synthetic-analytic2 in knowledge like Overmind and the highest mental intelligence, but inescapably unitarian even in the utmost diversity. Supermind is the Truth-consciousness at once static and dynamic, self-existent and creative: in Supermind the Brahmic consciousness Sachchidanandais ever self-aware and ever manifested and embodied in funda mental truth-powers and truth-forms for the play of creation; it is the plane where the One breaks out into the Many and the Many still remain one, being and knowing themselves to be but various self-expressions of the One; it develops the spiritual archetypes, the divine names and forms of all individualisations of an evolving existence.
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In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its, spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually exclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot of separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres of the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and Overmind meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each distinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all together forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely composite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into Supermind one sees something moreOneness gathering into itself all diversity, not destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness that is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness, the initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in when the supra mental light enters the penumbra of the mental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement of light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving, absolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness of Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential and unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression of each one assured truth entering into and upholding every other and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no trial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests on all others and on that which harmonises them all and does not act as a Power diverging from and even competing with other Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play of divergent possibilities the simple, direct, united and absolute certainties of the supra mental consciousness retire, as it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out through the interaction first of separately individualised and then of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind there is a conscious underlying Unity but yet each Power, Truth, Aspect of that Unity is encouraged to work out its possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are used by it for its own enhancement until in the denser and darker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of blind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation or manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being into a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends' towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the Spirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakeningsMatter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit.
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The heart and its urges, the vital and its surges, the physical impulsesit is these of which the poets sang in their infinite variations. But the mind proper, that is to say, the higher reflective ideative mind, was not given the right of citizenship in the domain of poetry. I am not forgetting the so-called Metaphysicals. The element of metaphysics among the Metaphysicals has already been called into question. There is here, no doubt, some theology, a good dose of mental cleverness or conceit, but a modern intellectual or rather rational intelligence is something other, something more than that. Even the metaphysics that was commandeered here had more or less a decorative value, it could not be taken into the pith and substance of poetic truth and beauty. It was a decoration, but not unoften a drag. I referred to the Upanishads, but these strike quite a different, almost an opposite line in this connection. They are in a sense truly metaphysical: they bypass the mind and the mental powers, get hold of a higher mode of consciousness, make a direct contact with truth and beauty and reality. It was Buddha's credit to have forged this missing link in man's spiritual consciousness, to have brought into play the power of the rational intellect and used it in support of the spiritual experience. That is not to say that he was the very first person, the originator who initiated the movement; but at least this seems to be true that in him and his au thentic followers the movement came to the forefront of human consciousness and attained the proportions of a major member of man's psychological constitution. We may remember here that Socrates, who started a similar movement of rationalisation in his own way in Europe, was almost a contemporary of the Buddha.
Poetry as an expression of thought-power, poetry weighted with intelligence and rationalised knowledge that seems to me to be the end and drive, the secret sense of all the mystery of modern technique. The combination is risky, but not impossible. In the spiritual domain the Gita achieved this miracle to a considerable degree. Still, the power of intelligence and reason shown by Vyasa is of a special order: it is a sublimated function of the faculty, something aloof and other-worldly"introvert", a modern mind would term it that is to say, something a priori, standing in its own au thenticity and self-sufficiency. A modern intelligence would be more scientific, let us use the word, more matter-of-fact and sense-based: the mental light should not be confined in its ivory tower, however high that may be, but brought down and placed at the service of our perception and appreciation and explanation of things human and terrestrial; made immanent in the mundane and the ephemeral, as they are commonly called. This is not an impossibility. Sri Aurobindo seems to have done the thing. In him we find the three terms of human consciousness arriving at an absolute fusion and his poetry is a wonderful example of that fusion. The three terms are the spiritual, the intellectual or philosophical and the physical or sensational. The intellectual, or more generally, the mental, is the intermediary, the Paraclete, as he himself will call it later on in a poem9 magnificently exemplifying the point we are trying to make out the agent who negotiates, bridges and harmonises the two other firmaments usually supposed to be antagonistic and incompatible.
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now the centre of this energy, the matrix of creativity is the soul itself, one's own soul. If you want to createlive, grow and be real-find yourself, be yourself. The simple old wisdom still remains the eternal wisdom. It is because we fall off from our soul that we wander into side-paths, paths that do not belong to our real nature and hence that lead to imitation and repetition, decay and death. This is what happens to what we call common souls. The force of circumstances, the pressure of environment or simply the momentum of custom or habit compel them to choose the easiest and the readiest way that may lie before them. They do not consult the demand of the inner being but the requirement of the moment. Our bodily needs, our vital hungers and our mental prejudices obsess and obscure the impulsions that thrill the hidden spirit. We hasten to gratify the immediate and forget the eternal, we clutch at the shadow and let go the substance. We are carried away in the flux and tumult of life. It is a mixed and collective whirla Weltgeist that moves and governs us. We are helpless straws drifting in the current. But manhood demands that we stop and pause, pull ourselves out of the Maelstrom and be what we are. We must shape things as we want and not allow things to shape us as they want.
01.02 - The Object of the Integral Yoga, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
You must go inside yourself and enter into a complete dedication to the spiritual life. All clinging to mental preferences must fall away from you, all insistence on vital aims and interests and attachments must be put away, all egoistic clinging to family, friends, country must disappear if you want to succeed in Yoga. Whatever has to come as outgoing energy or action, must proceed from the Truth once discovered and not from the lower mental or vital motives, from the Divine Will and not from personal choice or the preferences of the ego.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Among the ancients, strictly speaking, the later classical Lucretius was a remarkable phenomenon. By nature he was a poet, but his mental interest lay in metaphysical speculation, in philosophy, and unpoetical business. He turned away from arms and heroes, wrath and love and, like Seneca and Aurelius, gave himself up to moralising and philosophising, delving 'into the mystery, the why and the how and the whither of it all. He chose a dangerous subject for his poetic inspiration and yet it cannot be said that his attempt was a failure. Lucretius was not a religious or spiritual poet; he was rather Marxian,atheistic, materialistic. The dialectical materialism of today could find in him a lot of nourishment and support. But whatever the content, the manner has made a whole difference. There was an idealism, a clarity of vision and an intensity of perception, which however scientific apparently, gave his creation a note, an accent, an atmosphere high, tense, aloof, ascetic, at times bordering on the supra-sensual. It was a high light, a force of consciousness that at its highest pitch had the ring and vibration of something almost spiritual. For the basic principle of Lucretius' inspiration is a large thought-force, a tense perception, a taut nervous reactionit is not, of course, the identity in being with the inner realities which is the hallmark of a spiritual consciousness, yet it is something on the way towards that.
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The growth of a philosophical thought-content in poetry has been inevitable. For man's consciousness in its evolutionary march is driving towards a consummation which includes and presupposes a development along that line. The mot d'ordre in old-world poetry was "fancy", imaginationremember the famous lines of Shakespeare characterising a poet; in modern times it is Thought, even or perhaps particularly abstract metaphysical thought. Perceptions, experiences, realisationsof whatever order or world they may beexpressed in sensitive and aesthetic terms and figures, that is poetry known and appreciated familiarly. But a new turn has been coming on with an increasing insistencea definite time has been given to that, since the Renaissance, it is said: it is the growing importance of Thought or brain-power as a medium or atmosphere in which poetic experiences find a sober and clear articulation, a definite and strong formulation. Rationalisation of all experiences and realisations is the keynote of the modern mentality. Even when it is said that reason and rationality are not ultimate or final or significant realities, that the irrational or the sub mental plays a greater role in our consciousness and that art and poetry likewise should be the expression of such a mentality, even then, all this is said and done in and through a strong rational and intellectual stress and frame the like of which cannot be found in the old-world frankly non-intellectual creations.
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The philosophical trend in poetry has an interesting history with a significant role: it has acted as a force of purification, of sublimation, of katharsis. As man has risen from his exclusively or predominantly vital nature into an increasing mental poise, in the same way his creative activities too have taken this new turn and status. In the earlier stages of evolution the mental life is secondary, subordinate to the physico-vital life; it is only subsequently that the mental finds an independent and self-sufficient reality. A similar movement is reflected in poetic and artistic creation too: the thinker, the philosopher remains in the background at the outset, he looks out; peers through chinks and holes from time to time; later he comes to the forefront, assumes a major role in man's creative activity.
Man's consciousness is further to rise from the mental to over- mental regions. Accordingly, his life and activities and along with that his artistic creations too will take on a new tone and rhythm, a new mould and constitution even. For this transition, the higher mentalwhich is normally the field of philosophical and idealistic activitiesserves as the Paraclete, the Intercessor; it takes up the lower functionings of the consciousness, which are intense in their own way, but narrow and turbid, and gives, by purifying and enlarging, a wider frame, a more luminous pattern, a more subtly articulated , form for the higher, vaster and deeper realities, truths and harmonies to express and manifest. In the old-world spiritual and mystic poets, this intervening medium was overlooked for evident reasons, for human reason or even intelligence is a double-edged instrument, it can make as well as mar, it has a light that most often and naturally shuts off other higher lights beyond it. So it was bypassed, some kind of direct and immediate contact was sought to be established between the normal and the transcendental. The result was, as I have pointed out, a pure spiritual poetry, on the one hand, as in the Upanishads, or, on the other, religious poetry of various grades and denominations that spoke of the spiritual but in the terms and in the manner of the mundane, at least very much coloured and dominated by the latter. Vyasa was the great legendary figure in India who, as is shown in his Mahabharata, seems to have been one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer, to forge and build the missing link of Thought Power. The exemplar of the manner is the Gita. Valmiki's represented a more ancient and primary inspiration, of a vast vital sensibility, something of the kind that was at the basis of Homer's genius. In Greece it was Socrates who initiated the movement of speculative philosophy and the emphasis of intellectual power slowly began to find expression in the later poets, Sophocles and Euripides. But all these were very simple beginnings. The moderns go in for something more radical and totalitarian. The rationalising element instead of being an additional or subordinate or contri buting factor, must itself give its norm and form, its own substance and manner to the creative activity. Such is the present-day demand.
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This is what I was trying to make out as the distinguishing trait of the real spiritual consciousness that seems to be developing in the poetic creation of tomorrow, e.g., it has the same rationality, clarity, concreteness of perception as the scientific spirit has in its own domain and still it is rounded off with a halo of magic and miracle. That is the nature of the logic of the infinite proper to the spiritual consciousness. We can have a Science of the Spirit as well as a Science of Matter. This is the Thought element or what corresponds to it, of which I was speaking, the philosophical factor, that which gives form to the formless or definition to that which is vague, a nearness and familiarity to that which is far and alien. The fullness of the spiritual consciousness means such a thing, the presentation of a divine name and form. And this distinguishes it from the mystic consciousness which is not the supreme solar consciousness but the nearest approach to it. Or, perhaps, the mystic dwells in the domain of the Divine, he may even be suffused with a sense of unity but would not like to acquire the Divine's nature and function. Normally and generally he embodies all the aspiration and yearning moved by intimations and suggestions belonging to the human mentality, the divine urge retaining still the human flavour. We can say also, using a Vedantic terminology, that the mystic consciousness gives us the tatastha lakshana, the nearest approximative attri bute of the attri buteless; or otherwise, it is the hiranyagarbha consciousness which englobes the multiple play, the coruscated possibilities of the Reality: while the spiritual proper may be considered as prajghana, the solid mass, the essential lineaments of revelatory knowledge, the typal "wave-particles" of the Reality. In the former there is a play of imagination, even of fancy, a decorative aesthesis, while in the latter it is vision pure and simple. If the spiritual poetry is solar in its nature, we can say, by extending the analogy, that mystic poetry is characteristically lunarMoon representing the delight and the magic that Mind and mental imagination, suffused, no doubt, with a light or a reflection of some light from beyond, is capable of (the Upanishad speaks of the Moon being born of the Mind).
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Poetry, actually however, has been, by and large, a profane and mundane affair: for it expresses the normal man's perceptions and feelings and experiences, human loves and hates and desires and ambitions. True. And yet there has also always been an attempt, a tendency to deal with them in such a way as can bring calm and puritykatharsisnot trouble and confusion. That has been the purpose of all Art from the ancient days. Besides, there has been a growth and development in the historic process of this katharsis. As by the sublimation of his bodily and vital instincts and impulses., man is gradually growing into the mental, moral and finally spiritual consciousness, even so the artistic expression of his creative activity has followed a similar line of transformation. The first and original transformation happened with religious poetry. The religious, one may say, is the profane inside out; that is to say, the religious man has almost the same tone and temper, the same urges and passions, only turned Godward. Religious poetry too marks a new turn and development of human speech, in taking the name of God human tongue acquires a new plasticity and flavour that transform or give a new modulation even to things profane and mundane it speaks of. Religious means at bottom the colouring of mental and moral idealism. A parallel process of katharsis is found in another class of poetic creation, viz., the allegory. Allegory or parable is the stage when the higher and inner realities are expressed wholly in the modes and manner, in the form and character of the normal and external, when moral, religious or spiritual truths are expressed in the terms and figures of the profane life. The higher or the inner ideal is like a loose clothing upon the ordinary consciousness, it does not fit closely or fuse. In the religious, however, the first step is taken for a mingling and fusion. The mystic is the beginning of a real fusion and a considerable ascension of the lower into the higher. The philosopher poet follows another line for the same katharsisinstead of uplifting emotions and sensibility, he proceeds by thought-power, by the ideas and principles that lie behind all movements and give a pattern to all things existing. The mystic can be of either type, the religious mystic or the philosopher mystic, although often the two are welded together and cannot be very well separated. Let us illustrate a little:
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The fact is that Reason is a lower manifestation of knowledge, it is an attempt to express on the mental level a power that exceeds it. It is the section of a vast and unitarian Consciousness-Power; the section may be necessary under certain conditions and circumstances, but unless it is viewed in its relation to the ensemble, unless it gives up its exclusive absolutism, it will be perforce arbitrary and misleading. It would still remain helpful and useful, but its help and use would be always limited in scope and temporary in effectivity.
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01.03 - Yoga and the Ordinary Life, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Morality is a part of the ordinary life; it is an attempt to govern the outward conduct by certain mental rules or to form the character by these rules in the image of a certain mental ideal. The spiritual life goes beyond the mind; it enters into the deeper consciousness of the Spirit and acts out of the truth of the Spirit.
01.04 - Motives for Seeking the Divine, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Home and Country of all souls, the Truth of which truths are only imperfect figures. And can He then not be loved and sought for his own sake, as and more than these have been by men even in their lesser selves and nature?
What your reasoning ignores is that which is absolute or tends towards the absolute in man and his seeking as well as in the Divine - something not to be explained by mental reasoning or vital motive. A motive, but a motive of the soul, not of vital desire; a reason not of the mind, but of the self and spirit. An asking too, but the asking that is the soul's inherent aspiration, not a vital longing. That is what comes up when there is the sheer self-giving, when "I seek you for this, I seek you for that" changes to a sheer "I seek you for you." It is that marvellous and ineffable absolute in the Divine that Krishnaprem means when he says, "Not knowledge nor this nor that, but Krishna."
The pull of that is indeed a categorical imperative, the self in us drawn to the Divine because of the imperative call of its greater Self, the soul ineffably drawn towards the object of its adoration, because it cannot be otherwise, because it is it and
01.04 - Sri Aurobindos Gita, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo has raised action completely out of the mental and moral plane and has given it an absolute spiritual life. Action has been spiritualised by being carried back to its very source and origin, for it is the expression in life of God's own Consciousness-Energy (Chit-Shakti).
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The worship of man as something essentially and exclusively human necessitates as a corollary, the other doctrine, viz the deification of Reason; and vice versa. Humanism and Scientism go together and the whole spirit and mentality of the age that is passing may be summed up in those two words. So Nietzsche says, "All our modern world is captured in the net of the Alexandrine culture and has, for its ideal, the theoretical man, armed with the most powerful instruments of knowledge, toiling in the service of science and whose prototype and original ancestor is Socrates." Indeed, it may be generally asserted that the nation whose prophet and sage claimed to have brought down Philosophia from heaven to dwell upon earth among men was precisely the nation, endowed with a clear and logical intellect, that was the very embodiment of rationality and reasonableness. As a matter of fact, it would not be far, wrong to say that it is the Hellenic culture which has been moulding humanity for ages; at least, it is this which has been the predominating factor, the vital and dynamic element in man's nature. Greece when it died was reborn in Rome; Rome, in its return, found new life in France; and France means Europe. What Europe has been and still is for the world and humanity one knows only too much. And yet, the Hellenic genius has not been the sole motive power and constituent element; there has been another leaven which worked constantly within, if intermittently without. If Europe represented mind and man and this side of existence, Asia always reflected that which transcends the mind the spirit, the Gods and the Beyonds.
However, we are concerned more with the immediate past, the mentality that laid its supreme stress upon the human rationality. What that epoch did not understand was that Reason could be overstepped, that there was something higher, something greater than Reason; Reason being the sovereign faculty, it was thought there could be nothing beyond, unless it were draison. The human attri bute par excellence is Reason. Exactly so. But the fact is that man is not bound by his humanity and that reason can be transformed and sublimated into other more powerful faculties.
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Certainly this does not go far enough into the motive of the change. The cosmic order does not mean mentalised vitalism which is also in its turn a section of the integral reality. It means the order of the spirit, it means the transfiguration of the physical, the vital and the intellectual into the supernal Substance, Power and Light of that Spirit. The real transcendence of humanity is not the transcendence of one or other of its levels but the total transcendence to an altoge ther different status and the transmutation of humanity in the mould of that statusnot a Nietzschean Titan nor a Bergsonian Dionysus but the tranquil vision and delight and dynamism of the Spirit the incarnation of a god-head.
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01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When we say one is conscious, we usually mean that one is conscious with the mental consciousness, with the rational intelligence, with the light of the brain. But this need not be always so. For one can be conscious with other forms of consciousness or in other planes of consciousness. In the average or normal man the consciousness is linked to or identified with the brain function, the rational intelligence and so we conclude that without this wakeful brain activity there can be no consciousness. But the fact is otherwise. The experiences of the mystic prove the point. The mystic is conscious on a level which we describe as higher than the mind and reason, he has what may be called the overhead consciousness. (Apart from the normal consciousness, which is named jagrat, waking, the Upanishad speaks of three other increasingly subtler states of consciousness, swapna, sushupti and turiya.)And then one can be quite unconscious, as in samadhi that can be sushupti or turiyaorpartially consciousin swapna, for example, the external behaviour may be like that of a child or a lunatic or even a goblin. One can also remain normally conscious and still be in the superconscience. Not only so, the mystic the Yogican be conscious on infraconscious levels also; that is to say, he can enter into and identify with the consciousness involved in life and even in Matter; he can feel and realise his oneness with the animal world, the plant world and finally the world of dead earth, of "stocks and stones" too. For all these strands of existence have each its own type of consciousness and all different from the mode of mind which is normally known as consciousness. When St. Francis addresses himself to the brother Sun or the sister Moon, or when the Upanishad speaks of the tree silhouetted against the sky, as if stilled in trance, we feel there is something of this fusion and identification of consciousness with an infra-conscient existence.
I said that the supreme artist is superconscious: his consciousness withdraws from the normal mental consciousness and becomes awake and alive in another order of consciousness. To that superior consciousness the artist's mentalityhis ideas and dispositions, his judgments and valuations and acquisitions, in other words, his normal psychological make-upserves as a channel, an instrument, a medium for transcription. Now, there are two stages, or rather two lines of activity in the processus, for they may be overlapping and practically simultaneous. First, there is the withdrawal and the in-gathering of consciousness and then its reappearance into expression. The consciousness retires into a secret or subtle worldWords-worth's "recollected in tranquillity"and comes back with the riches gathered or transmuted there. But the purity of the gold thus garnered and stalled in the artistry of words and sounds or lines and colours depends altoge ther upon the purity of the channel through which it has to pass. The mental vehicle receives and records and it can do so to perfection if it is perfectly in tune with what it has to receive and record; otherwise the transcription becomes mixed and blurred, a faint or confused echo, a poor show. The supreme creators are precisely those in whom the receptacle, the instru mental faculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute fidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety in the recording mentality, suffuses it with its own glow and puissance, indeed resolves it into its own substance, as it were. And the difference between the two, the secret norm and the recording form, determines the scale of the artist's creative value. It happens often that the obstruction of a too critically observant and self-conscious brain-mind successfully blocks up the flow of something supremely beautiful that wanted to come down and waited for an opportunity.
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But the Yogi is a wholly conscious being; a perfect Yogi is he who possesses a conscious and willed control over his instruments, he silences them, as and when he likes, and makes them convey and express with as little deviation as possible truths and realities from the Beyond. Now the question is, is it possible for the poet also to do something like that, to consciously create and not to be a mere unconscious or helpless channel? Conscious artistry, as we have said, means to be conscious on two levels of consciousness at the same time, to be at home in both equally and simultaneously. The general experience, however, is that of "one at a time": if the artist dwells more in the one, the other retires into the background to the same measure. If he is in the over-consciousness, he is only half-conscious in his brain consciousness, or even not conscious at allhe does not know how he has created, the sources or process of his creative activity, he is quite oblivious of them" gone through them all as if per saltum. Such seems to have been the case with the primitives, as they are called, the ele mental poetsShakespeare and Homer and Valmiki. In some others, who come very near to them in poetic genius, yet not quite on a par, the instru mental intelligence is strong and active, it helps in its own way but in helping circumscribes and limits the original impulsion. The art here becomes consciously artistic, but loses something of the initial freshness and spontaneity: it gains in correctness, polish and elegance and has now a style in lieu of Nature's own naturalness. I am thinking of Virgil and Milton and Kalidasa. Dante's place is perhaps somewhere in between. Lower in the rung where the mental medium occupies a still more preponderant place we have intellectual poetry, poetry of the later classical age whose representatives are Pope and Dryden. We can go farther down and land in the domain of versificationalthough here, too, there can be a good amount of beauty in shape of ingenuity, cleverness and conceit: Voltaire and Delille are of this order in French poetry.
The three or four major orders I speak of in reference to conscious artistry are exampled characteristically in the history of the evolution of Greek poetry. It must be remembered, however, at the very outset that the Greeks as a race were nothing if not rational and intellectual. It was an element of strong self-consciousness that they brought into human culture that was their special gift. Leaving out of account Homer who was, as I said, a primitive, their classical age began with Aeschylus who was the first and the most spontaneous and intuitive of the Great Three. Sophocles, who comes next, is more balanced and self-controlled and pregnant with a reasoned thought-content clothed in polished phrasing. We feel here that the artist knew what he was about and was exercising a conscious control over his instruments and materials, unlike his predecessor who seemed to be completely carried away by the onrush of the poetic enthousiasmos. Sophocles, in spite of his artistic perfection or perhaps because of it, appears to be just a little, one remove, away from the purity of the central inspiration there is a veil, although a thin transparent veil, yet a veil between which intervenes. With the third of the Brotherhood, Euripides, we slide lower downwe arrive at a predominantly mental transcription of an experience or inner conception; but something of the major breath continues, an aura, a rhythm that maintains the inner contact and thus saves the poetry. In a subsequent age, in Theocritus, for example, poetry became truly very much 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought', so much of virtuosity and precocity entered into it; in other words, the poet then was an excessively self-conscious artist. That seems to be the general trend of all literature.
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The modern critical self-consciousness in the artist originated with the Romantics. The very essence of Romanticism is curiosity the scientist's pleasure in analysing, observing, experimenting, changing the conditions of our reactions, mental or senti mental or even nervous and physical by way of discovery of new and unforeseen or unexpected modes of "psychoses" or psychological states. Goethe, Wordsworth, Stendhal represented a mentality and initiated a movement which led logically to the age of Hardy, Housman and Bridges and in the end to that of Lawrence and Joyce, Ezra Pound and Eliot and Auden. On the Continent we can consider Flaubert as the last of the classicists married to the very quintessence of Romanticism. A hard, self-regarding, self-critical mentality, a cold scalpel-like gaze that penetrates and upturns the reverse side of things is intimately associated with the poetic genius of Mallarm and constitutes almost the whole of Valry's. The impassioned lines of a very modern poet like Aragon are also characterised by a consummate virtuosity in chiselled artistry, conscious and deliberate and willed at every step and turn.
The consciously purposive activity of the poetic consciousness in fact, of all artistic consciousness has shown itself with a clear and unambiguous emphasis in two directions. First of all with regard to the subject-matter: the old-world poets took things as they were, as they were obvious to the eye, things of human nature and things of physical Nature, and without questioning dealt with them in the beauty of their normal form and function. The modern mentality has turned away from the normal and the obvious: it does not accept and admit the "given" as the final and definitive norm of things. It wishes to discover and establish other norms, it strives to bring about changes in the nature and condition of things, envisage the shape of things to come, work for a brave new world. The poet of today, in spite of all his effort to remain a pure poet, in spite of Housman's advocacy of nonsense and not-sense being the essence of true Art, is almost invariably at heart an incorrigible prophet. In revolt against the old and established order of truths and customs, against all that is normally considered as beautiful,ideals and emotions and activities of man or aspects and scenes and movements of Natureagainst God or spiritual life, the modern poet turns deliberately to the ugly and the macabre, the meaningless, the insignificant and the triflingtins and teas, bone and dust and dustbin, hammer and sicklehe is still a prophet, a violent one, an iconoclast, but one who has his own icon, a terribly jealous being, that seeks to pull down the past, erase it, to break and batter and knead the elements in order to fashion out of them something conforming to his heart's desire. There is also the class who have the vision and found the truth and its solace, who are prophets, angelic and divine, messengers and harbingers of a new beauty that is to dawn upon earth. And yet there are others in whom the two strains mingle or approach in a strange way. All this means that the artist is far from being a mere receiver, a mechanical executor, a passive unconscious instrument, but that he is supremely' conscious and master of his faculties and implements. This fact is doubly reinforced when we find how much he is preoccupied with the technical aspect of his craft. The richness and variety of patterns that can be given to the poetic form know no bounds today. A few major rhythms were sufficient for the ancients to give full expression to their poetic inflatus. For they cared more for some major virtues, the basic and funda mental qualitiessuch as truth, sublimity, nobility, forcefulness, purity, simplicity, clarity, straightforwardness; they were more preoccupied with what they had to say and they wanted, no doubt, to say it beautifully and powerfully; but the modus operandi was not such a passion or obsession with them, it had not attained that almost absolute value for itself which modern craftsmanship gives it. As technology in practical life has become a thing of overwhelming importance to man today, become, in the Shakespearean phrase, his "be-all and end-all", even so the same spirit has invaded and pervaded his aesthetics too. The subtleties, variations and refinements, the revolutions, reversals and inventions which the modern poet has ushered and takes delight in, for their own sake, I repeat, for their intrinsic interest, not for the sake of the subject which they have to embody and clothe, have never been dream by Aristotle, the supreme legislator among the ancients, nor by Horace, the almost incomparable craftsman among the ancients in the domain of poetry. Man has become, to be sure, a self-conscious creator to the pith of his bone.