1. A distinctive and pervasive quality or character; air; atmosphere. 2. A subtle emanation from and enveloping living persons and things, viewed by mystics as consisting of the essence of the individual.
1. Greatest in importance, degree, significance, character, or achievement. greatest; utmost; ultimate. 2. Highest in rank or authority; paramount; sovereign; chief. supremeness.
1. Large and impressive in size, scope, or extent; magnificent. 2. Most important; chief. 3. Eminent; great in position; stately; majestic. 4. Impressive in size, appearance or general effect. 5. Magnificent or splendid. grander.
1. Of or pertaining to the present time or moment. 2. Next in line or relation; closest or most direct in effect or relationship. 3. Without intervening medium or agent; direct.
abaculus ::: n. --> A small tile of glass, marble, or other substance, of various colors, used in making ornamental patterns in mosaic pavements.
abacus ::: n. --> A table or tray strewn with sand, anciently used for drawing, calculating, etc.
A calculating table or frame; an instrument for performing arithmetical calculations by balls sliding on wires, or counters in grooves, the lowest line representing units, the second line, tens, etc. It is still employed in China.
The uppermost member or division of the capital of a column, immediately under the architrave. See Column.
"A basis can be created for a subjective illusion-consciousness which is yet part of Being, if we accept in the sense of an illusory subjective world-awareness the account of sleep and dream creation given to us in the Upanishads. For the affirmation there is that Brahman as Self is fourfold; the Self is Brahman and all that is is the Brahman, but all that is is the Self seen by the Self in four states of its being. In the pure self-status neither consciousness nor unconsciousness as we conceive it can be affirmed about Brahman; it is a state of superconscience absorbed in its self-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy, or else it is the status of a free Superconscient containing or basing everything but involved in nothing. But there is also a luminous status of sleep-self, a massed consciousness which is the origin of cosmic existence; this state of deep sleep in which yet there is the presence of an omnipotent Intelligence is the seed state or causal condition from which emerges the cosmos; — this and the dream-self which is the continent of all subtle, subjective or supraphysical experience, and the self of waking which is the support of all physical experience, can be taken as the whole field of Maya.” The Life Divine
“A basis can be created for a subjective illusion-consciousness which is yet part of Being, if we accept in the sense of an illusory subjective world-awareness the account of sleep and dream creation given to us in the Upanishads. For the affirmation there is that Brahman as Self is fourfold; the Self is Brahman and all that is is the Brahman, but all that is is the Self seen by the Self in four states of its being. In the pure self-status neither consciousness nor unconsciousness as we conceive it can be affirmed about Brahman; it is a state of superconscience absorbed in its self-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy, or else it is the status of a free Superconscient containing or basing everything but involved in nothing. But there is also a luminous status of sleep-self, a massed consciousness which is the origin of cosmic existence; this state of deep sleep in which yet there is the presence of an omnipotent Intelligence is the seed state or causal condition from which emerges the cosmos;—this and the dream-self which is the continent of all subtle, subjective or supraphysical experience, and the self of waking which is the support of all physical experience, can be taken as the whole field of Maya.” The Life Divine
abelmosk ::: n. --> An evergreen shrub (Hibiscus -- formerly Abelmoschus -- moschatus), of the East and West Indies and Northern Africa, whose musky seeds are used in perfumery and to flavor coffee; -- sometimes called musk mallow.
abominable ::: a. --> Worthy of, or causing, abhorrence, as a thing of evil omen; odious in the utmost degree; very hateful; detestable; loathsome; execrable.
Excessive; large; -- used as an intensive.
absolute reality ::: Sri Aurobindo: "I would myself say that bliss and oneness are the essential condition of the absolute reality, and love as the most characteristic dynamic power of bliss and oneness must support fundamentally and colour their activities; . . . .” Letters on Yoga
Absolute ::: Sri Aurobindo: “We mean by the Absolute something greater than ourselves, greater than the cosmos which we live in, the supreme reality of that transcendent Being which we call God, something without which all that we see or are conscious of as existing, could not have been, could not for a moment remain in existence. Indian thought calls it Brahman, European thought the Absolute because it is a self-existent which is absolved of all bondage to relativities . . . The Absolute is for us the Ineffable.” The Life Divine
A certain amount of sclf-defence is necessary, so that the consciousness may not be puIJed down or out constantly info the ordinary atmosphere or the physical strained by being forced into activities that have become foreign to you.
acinus ::: n. --> One of the small grains or drupelets which make up some kinds of fruit, as the blackberry, raspberry, etc.
A grapestone.
One of the granular masses which constitute a racemose or compound gland, as the pancreas; also, one of the saccular recesses in the lobules of a racemose gland.
"A cosmos or universe is always a harmony, otherwise it could not exist, it would fly to pieces. But as there are musical harmonies which are built out of discords partly or even predominantly, so this universe (the material) is disharmonious in its separate elements — the individual elements are at discord with each other to a large extent; it is only owing to the sustaining Divine Will behind that the whole is still a harmony to those who look at it with the cosmic vision. But it is a harmony in evolution in progress — that is, all is combined to strive towards a goal which is not yet reached, and the object of our yoga is to hasten the arrival to this goal. When it is reached, there will be a harmony of harmonies substituted for the present harmony built up on discords. This is the explanation of the present appearance of things.” Letters on Yoga
“A cosmos or universe is always a harmony, otherwise it could not exist, it would fly to pieces. But as there are musical harmonies which are built out of discords partly or even predominantly, so this universe (the material) is disharmonious in its separate elements—the individual elements are at discord with each other to a large extent; it is only owing to the sustaining Divine Will behind that the whole is still a harmony to those who look at it with the cosmic vision. But it is a harmony in evolution in progress—that is, all is combined to strive towards a goal which is not yet reached, and the object of our yoga is to hasten the arrival to this goal. When it is reached, there will be a harmony of harmonies substituted for the present harmony built up on discords. This is the explanation of the present appearance of things.” Letters on Yoga
A cosmos or universe is always a harmony, otherwise it could not exist, it would fly to pieces. But it is a harmony in evolu- tion in progress — that is, all is combined to strive towards a goal which is not yet reached, and the object of your yoga is to hasten (he arrival to this goal.
acotyledonous ::: a. --> Having no seed lobes, as the dodder; also applied to plants which have no true seeds, as ferns, mosses, etc.
acraspeda ::: n. pl. --> A group of acalephs, including most of the larger jellyfishes; the Discophora.
acrocarpous ::: a. --> Having a terminal fructification; having the fruit at the end of the stalk.
Having the fruit stalks at the end of a leafy stem, as in certain mosses.
action ::: “Action is the first power of life. Nature begins with force and its works which, once conscious in man, become will and its achievements; therefore it is that by turning his action Godwards the life of man best and most surely begins to become divine.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Action of the Divine Force: What comes from above can come when one is In a clear mind or when the vital is disturbed, when one is in meditation or when one is moving about, when one is working or when one is doing nothing. Most often it comes when one is in a clear concentrated stale, but it may not,
— active only when driven by an energy, otherwise inactive and immobile. When one first falls into direct contact with this level, the feeling in the body is that of inertia and immobility, in the vital-physical exhaustion or lassitude, in the physical mind absence of prakasa and pravrtti* or only the most ordinary thoughts and impulses. Once it is illumined, the advantage is that the sub-conscient becomes conscient and this removes a very fucidamfintal obstacle from the sadhana.
"A divine life must be first and foremost an inner life; for since the outward must be the expression of what is within, there can be no divinity in the outer existence if there is not the divinisation of the inner being.” The Life Divine*
“A divine life must be first and foremost an inner life; for since the outward must be the expression of what is within, there can be no divinity in the outer existence if there is not the divinisation of the inner being.” The Life Divine
adjure ::: v. t. --> To charge, bind, or command, solemnly, as if under oath, or under the penalty of a curse; to appeal to in the most solemn or impressive manner; to entreat earnestly.
admirable ::: a. --> Fitted to excite wonder; wonderful; marvelous.
Having qualities to excite wonder united with approbation; deserving the highest praise; most excellent; -- used of persons or things.
admiral ::: n. --> A naval officer of the highest rank; a naval officer of high rank, of which there are different grades. The chief gradations in rank are admiral, vice admiral, and rear admiral. The admiral is the commander in chief of a fleet or of fleets.
The ship which carries the admiral; also, the most considerable ship of a fleet.
A handsome butterfly (Pyrameis Atalanta) of Europe and America. The larva feeds on nettles.
adorable ::: a. --> Deserving to be adored; worthy of divine honors.
Worthy of the utmost love or respect.
adore ::: 1. To worship as a deity, to pay divine honours to. 2. To reverence or honour very highly; to regard with the utmost respect and affection. adores, adored, adoring, adorer, adorer"s.
adore ::: v. t. --> To worship with profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine.
To love in the highest degree; to regard with the utmost esteem and affection; to idolize.
To adorn.
adytum ::: n. --> The innermost sanctuary or shrine in ancient temples, whence oracles were given. Hence: A private chamber; a sanctum.
adytum ::: the innermost part of a temple; the secret shrine whence oracles were delivered; a most sacred or reserved part of any place of worship; hence, fig. a private or inner chamber, a sanctum.
ae ::: --> Alt. of Ae
A diphthong in the Latin language; used also by the Saxon writers. It answers to the Gr. ai. The Anglo-Saxon short ae was generally replaced by a, the long / by e or ee. In derivatives from Latin words with ae, it is mostly superseded by e. For most words found with this initial combination, the reader will therefore search under the letter E.
aerial ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the air, or atmosphere; inhabiting or frequenting the air; produced by or found in the air; performed in the air; as, aerial regions or currents.
Consisting of air; resembling, or partaking of the nature of air. Hence: Unsubstantial; unreal.
Rising aloft in air; high; lofty; as, aerial spires.
Growing, forming, or existing in the air, as opposed to growing or existing in earth or water, or underground; as, aerial
aerography ::: n. --> A description of the air or atmosphere; aerology.
aerology ::: n. --> That department of physics which treats of the atmosphere.
aeromancy ::: n. --> Divination from the state of the air or from atmospheric substances; also, forecasting changes in the weather.
aeroscopy ::: n. --> The observation of the state and variations of the atmosphere.
aerosphere ::: n. --> The atmosphere.
"Aesthesis therefore is of the very essence of poetry, as it is of all art. But it is not the sole element and aesthesis too is not confined to a reception of poetry and art; it extends to everything in the world: there is nothing we can sense, think or in any way experience to which there cannot be an aesthetic reaction of our conscious being. Ordinarily, we suppose that aesthesis is concerned with beauty, and that indeed is its most prominent concern: but it is concerned with many other things also. It is the universal Ananda that is the parent of aesthesis and the universal Ananda takes three major and original forms, beauty, love and delight, the delight of all existence, the delight in things, in all things.” Letters on Savitri
“Aesthesis therefore is of the very essence of poetry, as it is of all art. But it is not the sole element and aesthesis too is not confined to a reception of poetry and art; it extends to everything in the world: there is nothing we can sense, think or in any way experience to which there cannot be an aesthetic reaction of our conscious being. Ordinarily, we suppose that aesthesis is concerned with beauty, and that indeed is its most prominent concern: but it is concerned with many other things also. It is the universal Ananda that is the parent of aesthesis and the universal Ananda takes three major and original forms, beauty, love and delight, the delight of all existence, the delight in things, in all things.” Letters on Savitri
aftmost ::: a. --> Nearest the stern.
aftermost ::: a. superl. --> Hindmost; -- opposed to foremost.
Nearest the stern; most aft.
agar-agar ::: n. --> A fucus or seaweed much used in the East for soups and jellies; Ceylon moss (Gracilaria lichenoides).
aged ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Age ::: a. --> Old; having lived long; having lived almost to or beyond the usual time allotted to that species of being; as, an aged man; an aged oak.
Belonging to old age.
agouty ::: n. --> A rodent of the genus Dasyprocta, about the size of a rabbit, peculiar to South America and the West Indies. The most common species is the Dasyprocta agouti.
air ::: n. --> The fluid which we breathe, and which surrounds the earth; the atmosphere. It is invisible, inodorous, insipid, transparent, compressible, elastic, and ponderable.
Symbolically: Something unsubstantial, light, or volatile.
A particular state of the atmosphere, as respects heat, cold, moisture, etc., or as affecting the sensations; as, a smoky air, a damp air, the morning air, etc.
Any aeriform body; a gas; as, oxygen was formerly called vital
Almost all the occult systems and disciplines aim at the development and mastery of the overmind.
“All aspects of the omnipresent Reality have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Thus even the aspect or power of Inconscience, which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, yet corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. It is, when we look closely at it, the Infinite’s power of plunging the consciousness into a trance of self-involution, a self-oblivion of the Spirit veiled in its own abysses where nothing is manifest but all inconceivably is and can emerge from that ineffable latency. In the heights of Spirit this state of cosmic or infinite trance-sleep appears to our cognition as a luminous uttermost Superconscience: at the other end of being it offers itself to cognition as the Spirit’s potency of presenting to itself the opposites of its own truths of being,—an abyss of non-existence, a profound Night of inconscience, a fathomless swoon of insensibility from which yet all forms of being, consciousness and delight of existence can manifest themselves,—but they appear in limited terms, in slowly emerging and increasing self-formulations, even in contrary terms of themselves; it is the play of a secret all-being, all-delight, all-knowledge, but it observes the rules of its own self-oblivion, self-opposition, self-limitation until it is ready to surpass it. This is the Inconscience and Ignorance that we see at work in the material universe. It is not a denial, it is one term, one formula of the infinite and eternal Existence.” The Life Divine
“All birds of that region are relatives. But this is the bird of eternal Ananda, while the Hippogriff is the divinised Thought and the Bird of Fire is the Agni-bird, psychic and tapas. All that however is to mentalise too much and mentalising always takes most of the life out of spiritual things. That is why I say it can be seen but nothing said about it.”
"All birds of that region are relatives. But this is the bird of eternal Ananda, while the Hippogriff is the divinised Thought and the Bird of Fire is the Agni-bird, psychic and tapas. All that however is to mentalise too much and mentalising always takes most of the life out of spiritual things. That is why I say it can be seen but nothing said about it.” ::: "The question was: ‘In the mystical region, is the dragon bird any relation of your Bird of Fire with ‘gold-white wings" or your Hippogriff with ‘face lustred, pale-blue-lined"? And why do you write: ‘What to say about him? One can only see"?” Letters on Savitri
all- ::: prefix: Wholly, altogether, infinitely. Since 1600, the number of these [combinations] has been enormously extended, all-** having become a possible prefix, in poetry at least, to almost any adjective of quality. all-affirming, All-Beautiful, All-Beautiful"s, All-Bliss, All-Blissful, All-causing, all-concealing, all-conquering, All-Conscient, All-Conscious, all-containing, All-containing, all-creating, all-defeating, All-Delight, all-discovering, all-embracing, all-fulfilling, all-harbouring, all-inhabiting, all-knowing, All-knowing, All-Knowledge, all-levelling, All-Life, All-love, All-Love, all-negating, all-powerful, all-revealing, All-ruler, all-ruling, all-seeing, All-seeing, all-seeking, all-shaping, all-supporting, all-sustaining, all-swallowing, All-Truth, All-vision, All-Wisdom, all-wise, All-Wise, all-witnessing, All-Wonderful, All-Wonderful"s.**
Amal: “He is the inner or inmost being in us which knows the rhythms of the world, but the conditions under which we live at present prevent them from being fully caught.”
Amal: “Since there is in the passage a reference to the rocking of the cosmic Child, the being who does this is the Divine Mother. The cosmic child is obviously the cosmos in which all the planes exist.”
Amal: “The ‘inner prophet’ is the psychic being who corresponds in the lower hemisphere of the cosmos to the higher hemisphere’s ananda planes.”
Amal: “The phrase ‘the Book of Bliss’ is a reference to the plane of Ananda which is beyond-behind the plane of the Supermind. I have equated ‘beyond’ to ‘behind’ because there is nothing higher than the Supermind. Through Supermind comes the disclosure of the supreme Ananda which may be called its inmost self.”
Amal: “There are several items preceding this phrase and one has to pick out the seven which seem the most plausible. That is all I can tentatively say.”
Amal: “They are beautiful feminine beings of subtle worlds—the vital planes. They correspond to what the Greeks spoke of as nymphs. They are to be distinguished from other such beings—the nereids (river nymphs) and the oreads (mountain nymphs). The most beautiful among them was Urvasie whom King Pururavas made his wife thus saving her from the grasp of a giant demon.”
ambience ::: 1. The mood, character, quality, tone, atmosphere, etc., particularly of an environment or milieu. 2. That which surrounds or encompasses.
A mental formation stamped by the thoughts and feelings of a departed human being on the atmosphere of a place or locality, wandering about there or repeating itself, till that formation either exhausts itself or is dissolved by one means or another. This is the explanation of such phenomena as the haunted house in which the scenes attending or surrounding or preceding a murder are repeated over and over again and many other similar phenomena.
Ananke ::: “This truth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in another; but to the Buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the clearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In the West too the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary glimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as an ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength of man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of law, vague ideas of some superior caprice or of some divine jealousy,—that was a notion of the Greeks,—a blind Fate or inscrutable Necessity, Ananke, or, later, the mysterious ways of an arbitrary, though no doubt an all-wise Providence.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"And if there is, as there must be in the nature of things, an ascending series in the scale of substance from Matter to Spirit, it must be marked by a progressive diminution of these capacities most characteristic of the physical principle and a progressive increase of the opposite characteristics which will lead us to the formula of pure spiritual self-extension. This is to say that they must be marked by less and less bondage to the form, more and more subtlety and flexibility of substance and force, more and more interfusion, interpenetration, power of assimilation, power of interchange, power of variation, transmutation, unification. Drawing away from durability of form, we draw towards eternity of essence; drawing away from our poise in the persistent separation and resistance of physical Matter, we draw near to the highest divine poise in the infinity, unity and indivisibility of Spirit.” The Life Divine
“And if there is, as there must be in the nature of things, an ascending series in the scale of substance from Matter to Spirit, it must be marked by a progressive diminution of these capacities most characteristic of the physical principle and a progressive increase of the opposite characteristics which will lead us to the formula of pure spiritual self-extension. This is to say that they must be marked by less and less bondage to the form, more and more subtlety and flexibility of substance and force, more and more interfusion, interpenetration, power of assimilation, power of interchange, power of variation, transmutation, unification. Drawing away from durability of form, we draw towards eternity of essence; drawing away from our poise in the persistent separation and resistance of physical Matter, we draw near to the highest divine poise in the infinity, unity and indivisibility of Spirit.” The Life Divine
and ihe working it is most important not to rely entirely on oneself, but to rely on the guidance of the Guru and to refer all that happens to his judgment and arbitration and decision.
Animat figures: It is mostly there (the vital plane — pro- bably the vital physical) that the beings of the vital world appear with animal heads or features.
Apsaras ::: Amal: “They are beautiful feminine beings of subtle worlds—the vital planes. They correspond to what the Greeks spoke of as nymphs. They are to be distinguished from other such beings—the nereids (river nymphs) and the oreads (mountain nymphs). The most beautiful among them was Urvasie whom King Pururavas made his wife thus saving her from the grasp of a giant demon.”
Apsaras ::: Sri Aurobindo: “The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
apsaras ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
Apsaras ::: “The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
arabesques ::: 1. Any ornaments or ornamental objects such as rugs or mosaics, in which flowers, foliage, fruits, vases, animals, and figures are represented in a fancifully combined pattern. 2. *Fine Arts.* A sinuous, spiraling, undulating, or serpentine line or linear motif.
arch- ::: a combining form that represents the outcome of archi- in words borrowed through Latin from Greek in the Old English period; it subsequently became a productive form added to nouns of any origin, which thus denote individuals or institutions directing or having authority over others of their class (archbishop; archdiocese; archpriest): principal. More recently, arch-1 has developed the senses "principal” (archenemy; archrival) or "prototypical” and thus exemplary or extreme (archconservative); nouns so formed are almost always pejorative. Arch-intelligence.
ARRESTS IN SADHANA. ::: A difficulty comes or an arrest in some movement which you have begun or have been carrying on for some time. Such arrests are inevitably frequent enough; one might almost say that every step forward is followed by an arrest. It is to be dealt with by becoming always more quiet, more firm in the will to go through, by opening oneself more and more so that any obstructing non-receptivity in the nature may diminish or disappear, by an affirmation of faith even in the midst of obscurity, faith in the presence of a Power that is working behind the cloud and the veil, in the guidance of the Guru, by an observation of oneself to find any cause of the arrest, not in a spirit of depression or discouragement but with the will to find out and remove it. This is the only right attitude and, if one is persistent in taking it, the periods of arrest are not abolished, - for that cannot be at this stage, - but greatly shortened and lightened in their incidence. Sometimes these arrests are periods, long or short, of assimilation or unseen preparation, their appearance of sterile immobility is deceptive ::: in that case, with the right attitude, one can after a time, by opening, by observation, by accumulated experience, begin to feel, to get some inkling of what is being prepared or done. Sometimes it is a period of true obstruction in which the Power at work has to deal with the obstacles in the way, obstacles in oneself, obstacles of the opposing cosmic forces or any other or of all together, and this kind of arrest may be long or short according to the magnitude or obstinacy or complexity of the impediments that are met. But here, too, the right attitude can alleviate or shorten and, if persistently taken, help to a more radical removal of the difficulties and greatly diminish the necessity of complete arrests hereafter.
On the contrary, an attitude of depression or unfaith in the help or the guidance or in the certitude of the victory of the guiding Power, a shutting up of yourself in the sense of the difficulties, helps the obstructions to recur with force instead of progressively diminishing in their incidence.
Asana is used by the Rajayoga only in its easiest and most natural position, that naturally taken by the body when seated and gathered together, but wth the back and head strictly erect and in a straight line, so that there may be no deflection of the spinal chord. The object of the fatter rule I's obviously con- nected with the theory of the six Chakras and the circulation of the vital energy between the mul&dhara and^he brahmarandhra.
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
asphodel ::: a genus of liliaceous plants with very attractive white, pink or yellow flowers, mostly natives of the south of Europe; by the poets made an immortal flower, and said to cover the Elysian (heavenly, paradisal) fields.
Asura and are most generally misheld and misused by those who retain them. The seekers or keepers of wealth are more often possessed rather than its possessors ; few escape entirely a certain distorting influence stamped on it by its long seizure and perversion by the Asura. For this reason most spiritual disciplines insist on a complete self-control, detachment and renunciation of all bondage to wealth and of all personal and egoistic desire for its possession. Some even put a ban on money and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness of life as the only spiritual condition. But this is an error ; it leaves the power in the hands of the hostile forces. To reconquer it for the Divine to whom it belongs 'and use it divinely for the divine life is the supramental way for the sadhaka.
At a certain stage attacks fall heavily on the body because the opposing forces find it more difficult than before to upset the mind and vital directly, so they fall on the physical in the hope that that will do the trick, the physical bemg most vulnerable.
atmosphere ::: 1. A surrounding or pervading mood, environment, or influence. 2. The air.
"A third step is to find out that there is something in him other than his instrumental mind, life and body, not only an immortal ever-developing individual soul that supports his nature but an eternal immutable self and spirit, and to learn what are the categories of his spiritual being, until he discovers that all in him is an expression of the spirit and distinguishes the link between his lower and his higher existence; thus he sets out to remove his constitutional self-ignorance. Discovering self and spirit he discovers God; he finds out that there is a Self beyond the temporal: he comes to the vision of that Self in the cosmic consciousness as the divine Reality behind Nature and this world of beings; his mind opens to the thought or the sense of the Absolute of whom self and the individual and the cosmos are so many faces; the cosmic, the egoistic, the original ignorance begin to lose the rigidness of their hold upon him.” The Life Divine
“A third step is to find out that there is something in him other than his instrumental mind, life and body, not only an immortal ever-developing individual soul that supports his nature but an eternal immutable self and spirit, and to learn what are the categories of his spiritual being, until he discovers that all in him is an expression of the spirit and distinguishes the link between his lower and his higher existence; thus he sets out to remove his constitutional self-ignorance. Discovering self and spirit he discovers God; he finds out that there is a Self beyond the temporal: he comes to the vision of that Self in the cosmic consciousness as the divine Reality behind Nature and this world of beings; his mind opens to the thought or the sense of the Absolute of whom self and the individual and the cosmos are so many faces; the cosmic, the egoistic, the original ignorance begin to lose the rigidness of their hold upon him.” The Life Divine
ATMAN. ::: The Ātman is the Self or Spirit that remains above, pure and stainless, unaffected by the stains of life, by desire and ego and ignorance. It is realised as the true being of the individual, but also more widely as the same being in all and as the Self in the cosmos; it his also a self-existence above the individual and cosmos and it is then called the Paramatma, the supreme Divine Being.
Attacks of illnesses ::: These forces, when thronm out, retreat into the environmental consciousness and remain there concealed and at any opportunity make an attack on the centres accustomed to receive them (external mind and the external emotional) and get in. This happens with most sadbakas. Two things are neces- sary — (1) to open fully the physical to the higher forces, (2) to reach the stage when even if the forces attack they cannot come fully in, the inner being remaining calm and free. Then even if there is still a surface dIfiBcuIty, there will not be these overpowerings.
aura ::: “Yet all the time the universal forces are pouring into him without his knowing it. He is aware only of thoughts, feelings, etc., that rise to the surface and these he takes for his own. Really they come from outside in mind waves, vital waves, waves of feeling and sensation, etc., which take particular form in him and rise to the surface after they have got inside. But they do not get into his body at once. He carries about with him an environmental consciousness (called by the Theosophists the Aura) into which they first enter. If you can become conscious of this environmental self of yours, then you can catch the thought, passion, suggestion or force of illness and prevent it from entering into you. If things in you are thrown out, they often do not go altogether but take refuge in this environmental atmosphere and from there they try to get in again. Or they go to a distance outside but linger on the outskirts or even perhaps far off, waiting till they get an opportunity to attempt entrance.” Letters on Yoga
"Behind this petty instrumental action of the human will there is something vast and powerful and eternal that oversees the trend of the inclination and presses on the turn of the will. There is a total Truth in Nature greater than our individual choice. And in this total Truth, or even beyond and behind it, there is something that determines all results; its presence and secret knowledge keep up steadily in the process of Nature a dynamic, almost automatic perception of the right relations, the varying or persistent necessities, the inevitable steps of the movement. There is a secret divine Will, eternal and infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, that expresses itself in the universality and in each particular of all these apparently temporal and finite inconscient or half-conscient things. This is the Power or Presence meant by the Gita when it speaks of the Lord within the heart of all existences who turns all creatures as if mounted on a machine by the illusion of Nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“Behind this petty instrumental action of the human will there is something vast and powerful and eternal that oversees the trend of the inclination and presses on the turn of the will. There is a total Truth in Nature greater than our individual choice. And in this total Truth, or even beyond and behind it, there is something that determines all results; its presence and secret knowledge keep up steadily in the process of Nature a dynamic, almost automatic perception of the right relations, the varying or persistent necessities, the inevitable steps of the movement. There is a secret divine Will, eternal and infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, that expresses itself in the universality and in each particular of all these apparently temporal and finite inconscient or half-conscient things. This is the Power or Presence meant by the Gita when it speaks of the Lord within the heart of all existences who turns all creatures as if mounted on a machine by the illusion of Nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Being or a Presence — sometimes one of these, sometimes several of them or all together. The movement of ascension has diffe- rent results ; it may liberate the consciousness so that one feels no longer in he body, but above it or else spread in wideness with the body whether almost non-existent or only a point in one’s free expanse. It may enable the being or some part of the being to go out from the body and move elsewhere, and this action is usually accompanied by some kind of partial Samadhi or else a complete trance. Or, it may result in empowering the cons- ciousness, no longer limited by the body and the habits of the external nature, to go within, to enter the inner mental depths, the inner vital, the inner (subtle) physical, the psychic, to become aware of its inmost psychic self or its inner mental, vital, and subtle physical being, and it may be, to move and live in the domains, the planes, the worlds that correspond to these parts of the nature. It is the repeated and constant ascent of the lower consciousness that enables the mind, the vital, the physical to come into touch with the higher planes up to the Supramental and get impregnated with their light and power and influence.
Being (true) ::: the true being is the inner with all its vast possibilities of reaching and expressing the Divine and especially the inmost, the soul, the psychic Purusha which is always in its essence pure, divine, turned to all that is good and true and beautiful, The exterior being has to be taken hold of by the inner being and turned into an instrument no longer of the upsurging of the ignorant subconscient Nature, but of the Divine.
benumbed ::: made (any part of the body) insensible, torpid, or powerless; made numb, deprived of sensation; stupefied or stunned, as by a blow or shock; now mostly used for the effects of cold.
bitter ::: 1. Having or being a taste that is sharp, acrid, and unpleasant. 2. Difficult or distasteful to accept, admit; bear or endure. 3. Proceeding from or exhibiting strong animosity. 4. Causing a sharply unpleasant, painful, or stinging sensation; harsh; severe. bitterness.
Bliss and oneness are the essential condition of the absolute reality, and love as the most characteristic dynamic power of bliss and oneness must support fundamentally and colour their activities.
mosaic ::: 1. A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface. 2. Something resembling such a picture or decoration in composition, esp. in being made up of diverse elements.
mosque ::: a Muslim house of worship.
Body consciousness ::: The body has its own consciousness and acts from it, even without any mental will of our own or even against that will, and our surface mind knows very little about this body consciousness, feels it only in an imperfect way, sees only its results and has the greatest dihiculty in finding out their causes. It is part of the yoga to become aware of this separate consciousness of the body, to sec and feel its movements and the forces that act upon it from inside or outside and to learn how to control and direct it even in its most hidden and (to us) subconscient processes.
"Body is the outward sign and lowest basis of the apparent division which Nature plunging into ignorance and self-nescience makes the starting-point for the recovery of unity by the individual soul, unity even in the midst of the most exaggerated forms of her multiple consciousness.” The Life Divine
“Body is the outward sign and lowest basis of the apparent division which Nature plunging into ignorance and self-nescience makes the starting-point for the recovery of unity by the individual soul, unity even in the midst of the most exaggerated forms of her multiple consciousness.” The Life Divine
Brahman or of the Self docs not usually come at the beginning of a sadhana or in the first years or for many years. It comes so to a very few. Most would say that a slow development is the best one can hope for in the first years and only when the nature is ready and fully concentrated towards the Divine can the definitive experience come. To some rapid prepdhitory experiences can come at a comparatively early stage, but even they cannot escape the labour of the consciousness which will make these experiences culminate in the realisation that is enduring and complete. It is not a question of liking or disliking, it is a matter of fact and truth and experience. It is the fact that people who arc cheerful and ready to go step by step, even by slow steps if need be, do actually march faster and more surely than those who are impatient and in haste.
brim ::: the rim or uppermost edge of a hollow container or natural basin, bowl, etc.
butions of the medium's subliminal consciousness one gets into contact wth a world of beings which is of a very deceptive or self-deceptive illusory nature. Many of these come and claim to be the departed souls of relatives, acquaintances, well-known men, famous personalities, etc. There are also beings who pick up the discarded feelings and memories of the dead and mas- querade with them. There are a great number of beings who come to such seances only to pfay with the consciousness of men or exercise their powers through this contact with the earth and who dope the mediums and sitters with their falsehoods, tricks and illusions. A contact with such a plane of spirits can be harmful (most mediums become nervously or morally un- balanced) and spiritually dangerous. Of course all pretended communications with the famous dead of long-past times are in their very nature deceptive and most of those with the recent ones also ~ that is evident from the character of these communications.
But it is mostly people who live much in the vital that so fall ; with a strong and free and calm mind and a psychic awake and alive, such petdnesses ate not likely to occur. As for those who live in the true Divine Consciousness, certain powers are not powers at all and in that sense, not, that is to say, supernatural or abnormal, but rather their normal way of seeing and acting, part of the consciousness — and how can they be forbidden or refuse to act according to tbelr consciousness and its nature ?
But still it is the personal effort that Is prominent and assumes most of the burden. The other way is that of the psychic being, the consciousness opening to the Divine, not only opening the psychic and bringing it forward, but opening the mind, the vital and the physical, receiving the Light, perceiving what is to be done, feeling and seeing it done by the Divine Force itself and helping constantly by its own vigilant and conscious assent to and call for the Divine working.
"But the role of subliminal forces cannot be said to be small, since from there come all the greater aspirations, ideals, strivings towards a better self and better humanity without which man would be only a thinking animal — as also most of the art, poetry, philosophy, thirst for knowledge which relieve, if they do not yet dispel, the ignorance.” Letters on Yoga*
“But the role of subliminal forces cannot be said to be small, since from there come all the greater aspirations, ideals, strivings towards a better self and better humanity without which man would be only a thinking animal—as also most of the art, poetry, philosophy, thirst for knowledge which relieve, if they do not yet dispel, the ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
"But the Spirit, the Divine is not only above Nature; it is master of Nature and cosmos; the soul rising into its spiritual poise must at least be capable of the same mastery by its unity with the Divine. " The Synthesis of Yoga*
“But the Spirit, the Divine is not only above Nature; it is master of Nature and cosmos; the soul rising into its spiritual poise must at least be capable of the same mastery by its unity with the Divine.” The Synthesis of Yoga
But they do not get into his body at once. He carries about with him an cn\ironmenlal consciousness (called by the Thco- sophists the Aura) into which they' first enter. If you can become conscious of this environmental self of you, then you can catch the thought, passion, suggestion, or force of illness and prevent it from entering into you. If things tn you arc thrown out, they often do not go altogether but take refuge in this environmental atmosphere and from there they try to gel in again or they go to a distance outside but linger on the outskirts or csen perhaps far off, waiting till they get an opportunity to attempt entrance.
"By individual we mean normally something that separates itself from everything else and stands apart, though in reality there is no such thing anywhere in existence; it is a figment of our mental conceptions useful and necessary to express a partial and practical truth. But the difficulty is that the mind gets dominated by its words and forgets that the partial and practical truth becomes true truth only by its relation to others which seem to the reason to contradict it, and that taken by itself it contains a constant element of falsity. Thus when we speak of an individual we mean ordinarily an individualisation of mental, vital, physical being separate from all other beings, incapable of unity with them by its very individuality. If we go beyond these three terms of mind, life and body, and speak of the soul or individual self, we still think of an individualised being separate from all others, incapable of unity and inclusive mutuality, capable at most of a spiritual contact and soul-sympathy. It is therefore necessary to insist that by the true individual we mean nothing of the kind, but a conscious power of being of the Eternal, always existing by unity, always capable of mutuality. It is that being which by self-knowledge enjoys liberation and immortality.” The Life Divine
“By individual we mean normally something that separates itself from everything else and stands apart, though in reality there is no such thing anywhere in existence; it is a figment of our mental conceptions useful and necessary to express a partial and practical truth. But the difficulty is that the mind gets dominated by its words and forgets that the partial and practical truth becomes true truth only by its relation to others which seem to the reason to contradict it, and that taken by itself it contains a constant element of falsity. Thus when we speak of an individual we mean ordinarily an individualisation of mental, vital, physical being separate from all other beings, incapable of unity with them by its very individuality. If we go beyond these three terms of mind, life and body, and speak of the soul or individual self, we still think of an individualised being separate from all others, incapable of unity and inclusive mutuality, capable at most of a spiritual contact and soul-sympathy. It is therefore necessary to insist that by the true individual we mean nothing of the kind, but a conscious power of being of the Eternal, always existing by unity, always capable of mutuality. It is that being which by self-knowledge enjoys liberation and immortality.” The Life Divine
::: "By self-realisation of Brahman as our self we find the force, the divine energy which lifts us beyond the limitation, weakness, darkness, sorrow, all-pervading death of our mortal existence; by the knowledge of the one Brahman in all beings and in all the various movement of the cosmos we attain beyond these things to the infinity, the omnipotent being, the omniscient light, the pure beatitude of that divine existence.” The Upanishads
“By self-realisation of Brahman as our self we find the force, the divine energy which lifts us beyond the limitation, weakness, darkness, sorrow, all-pervading death of our mortal existence; by the knowledge of the one Brahman in all beings and in all the various movement of the cosmos we attain beyond these things to the infinity, the omnipotent being, the omniscient light, the pure beatitude of that divine existence.” The Upanishads
calyx ::: the outermost group of floral parts enclosing the bud and surrounding the base of a flower; the sepals.
CENTRES. ::: The inner bring is connected with the small outer personality by certain centres of consciousness of which we become aware by yoga. They are for the most part closed or asleep ; to open and make them awake and active is one
cittakasa. These may be transcriptions there or impresses of physical things, persons, scenes, happenings, whatever is, was or will be or may be in the ph^ical universe. These images are very variously seen and under all kinds of conditions ; in samadhi or in the waking stale, and in the latter with the bodily eyes closed or open, projected on or into a physical object or medium or seen as if materialised in the physical atmosphere or only in a psychical ether revealing itself through this grosser physical atmosphere ; seen through the physical eyes themselves as a secondary instrument and as if under the conditions of the physical vision or by the psychical vision alone and indepen- dently of the relations of our ordinary sight to space. The real agent is always the psychical sight and the power indicates that the consciousness is more or less awake, intermittently or nor- mally and more or less perfectly, in the psj’chical body. It is possible to see In this way the transcriptions or impressions of things at any distance beyond the range of the physical vision or the images of the past or the future.
climax ::: the highest or most intense point in the development or resolution of something; culmination.
climes ::: 1. Poetic: Regions or their climates; atmospheres. 2. The prevailing attitudes, standards or conditions of a group, period, or place.
Coilas ::: (Most often spelled Kailas). One of the highest and most rugged mountains of the Himalayan range, located in the southwestern part of China. It is an important holy site both to the Hindus, who identify it with the paradise of Shiva and also regard it as the abode of Kubera, and to the Tibetan Buddhists, who identify it with Mount Sumeru, cosmic centre of the universe.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
coilas ::: (Most often spelled Kailas.) "One of the highest and most rugged mountains of the Himalayan range, located in the southwestern part of China. It is an important holy site both to the Hindus, who identify it with the paradise of Shiva and also regard it as the abode of Kubera, and to the Tibetan Buddhists, who identify it with Mount Sumeru, cosmic centre of the universe.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
Cold ::: Knowledge of the divine Truth ; indicates at its most intense, something from the supramenlal, othenvise overinind truth or intuitive truth deriving ultimately from the suprameotal
Conditions essfntitd for meditation ::: There are no essential external conditions, but solitude and seclusion at the time of meditation as as stillness of the body arc helpful, sometimes almost necessary to the beginner. Bui one should not bound b' external conditions. Once the habit of meditation is formed, it should be mads possible to do it in all circumstances, l.ving. sitting, walking, alone, in company, in silettce or in the midst of noise etc. The first imeroal condition necessary is concentration of the will against the obstacles to meditation. i.e. wandermg of the mind, forgetfulness, sfeep, phjsieal and nervous impatience and restlessness etc. The second is an increasing purity and calm of the inner consciousness (citia) out of which thought and emotion arise, i.e. a freedom frona all disturb i ng reactions, such as anger, grief, depression, anxiet>' about w-orldly happenings etc. Mental perfection and moral are always closely allied to each other.
Contemplate, for a moment, this wondrous reply in six lines, of Satyavan to his father’s gentle scolding of Savitri.”at noon leaving this house of clay”, for in the epic his death in the forest takes place at noon, not a departure of an early morning soul or one who leaves enfolded in the dark rooms of night, but at a time when the sun is at its most brilliant, showering the earth with light.
Co-ordination and harmonisation of parts is absent in many ; it is a thing that has to be attained to or built up. Moreover at a certain stage in sSdhana there is almost always a disparity or opposition between the parts that are already turned towards the Truth and are capable of experience and others that are not and pull one down to a lower level. The opposition is not equally acute in all cases, but in one degree or another it is almost uni- versal. Co-ordinadon and univeisaUsation can be satisfactorily done only when this is overcome. Till then oscillations are inevitable.
core ::: the central, innermost, or most essential part of something.
cosmos ::: “But if the individual is a persistent reality, an eternal portion or power of the Eternal, if his growth of consciousness is the means by which the Spirit in things discloses its being, the cosmos reveals itself as a conditioned manifestation of the play of the eternal One in the being of Sachchidananda with the eternal Many.” The Life Divine
::: "Cosmos is not the Divine in all his utter reality, but a single self-expression, a true but minor motion of his being.” *The Human Cycle
“Cosmos is not the Divine in all his utter reality, but a single self-expression, a true but minor motion of his being.” The Human Cycle
cosmos ::: the universe regarded as an orderly, harmonious whole. cosmos", cosmos-chaos.
cosmic ::: of or pertaining to the cosmos and characteristic of its phenomena as forming a part of the material universe; infinite.
cosmic Self ::: Sri Aurobindo: "When one has the cosmic consciousness, one can feel the cosmic Self as one"s own self, one can feel one with other beings in the cosmos, one can feel all the forces of Nature as moving in oneself, all selves as one"s own self. There is no why except that it is so, since all is the One.” Letters on Yoga (See also Cosmic Spirit)
"Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; . . . .” *The Life Divine
"An eternal infinite self-existence is the supreme reality, but the supreme transcendent eternal Being, Self and Spirit, — an infinite Person, we may say, because his being is the essence and source of all personality, — is the reality and meaning of self-existence: so too the cosmic Self, Spirit, Being, Person is the reality and meaning of cosmic existence; the same Self, Spirit, Being or Person manifesting its multiplicity is the reality and meaning of individual existence.” The Life Divine
"But this cosmic self is spiritual in essence and in experience; it must not be confused with the collective existence, with any group soul or the life and body of a human society or even of all mankind.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"It is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in the universe — although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga*
cosmic Spirit ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Cosmic Spirit or Self contains everything in the cosmos — it upholds cosmic Mind, universal Life, universal Matter as well as the overmind. The Self is more than all these things which are its formulations in Nature.” *Letters on Yoga
"[The Divine in one of its three aspects] . . . is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in the universe - although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
". . . the cosmic spirit, the one self inhabiting the universe, . . . .” *The Life Divine
"For the cosmic Spirit inhabits each and all, but is more than all; . . . .”The Life Divine
CRITICISM. ::: The habit of criticism — mostly ignorant criti- cism of others — mixed with alJ sorts of iujagmstions, inferences, exaggerations, false interpretations, even gross inventions is one of the universal illnesses. It is a disease of the vital aided by the physical mind which makes itself an instrument of the plea- sure taken in this barren and harmful pursuit of the vital. Control of speech, refusal of this disease and the itch of the vital is very necessary, if inner experience has to have any true effect of transformation in the outer life.
\-crsaliscd consciousness, be aware of their movements, live in harmony with them in the Divine All, but not allow or call their presence within the personal aJhira. Very often that leads to (fitf invasion of the consciousness by vital powers or presences which assume the forms of those who are so admitted >— and that is most undesirable.
CRUELTY. ::: Cruelty and falsehood are the two things that separate most from the Divine.
CUNA. ::: Quality. The three primal qualities that form the nature of things ::: sativa, the quality that illumines, clarity ; rajas, the quality that drives to action, energy ; tamos, the quality that hides or darkens, inertia.
dark ::: adj. 1. Lacking or having very little light. 2. Concealed or secret; mysterious. 3. Difficult to understand; obscure. 4. Characterized by gloom; dismal. 5. Fig. Sinister; evil; absent moral or spiritual values. 6. (used of color) Having a dark hue; almost black. 7. Showing a brooding ill humor. 8. Having a complexion that is not fair; swarthy. darker, darkest, dark-browed, dark-robed.* n. 9. Absence of light; dark state or condition; darkness, esp. that of night. 10. A dark place: a place of darkness. 11. The condition of being hidden from view, obscure, or unknown; obscurity. *in the dark: in concealment or secrecy.
Death has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there already — it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable ; if one could have the ’necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into the whole of the material nature is the most diflicult thing of all — at any rate, in such a way as to annul the decay principle.
deep ::: n. 1. A vast extent, as of space or time; an abyss. 2. Fig. Difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge; as an unfathomable thought, idea, esp. poetic. Deep, deep"s, deeps. adj. 3. Extending far downward below a surface. 4. Having great spatial extension or penetration downward or inward from an outer surface or backward or laterally or outward from a center; sometimes used in combination. 5. Coming from or penetrating to a great depth. 6. Situated far down, in, or back. 7. Lying below the surface; not superficial; profound. 8. Of great intensity; as extreme deep happiness, deep trouble. 9. Absorbing; engrossing. 10. Grave or serious. 11. Profoundly or intensely. 12. Mysterious; obscure; difficult to penetrate or understand. 13. Low in pitch or tone. 14. Profoundly cunning, crafty or artful. 15. The central and most intense or profound part; "in the deep of night”; "in the deep of winter”. deeper, deepest, deep-browed, deep-caved, deep-concealed, deep-etched, deep-fraught, deep-guarded, deep-hid, deep-honied, deep-pooled, deep-thoughted. *adv. *16. to a great depth psychologically or profoundly.
delight ::: “… the divine Ananda, the principle of Bliss [is that] from which, in the Vedic conception, the existence of Man, this mental being, is drawn. A secret Delight is the base of existence, its sustaining atmosphere and almost its substance. This Ananda is spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the ethereal atmosphere of bliss without which nothing could remain in being. In the Aitareya Upanishad Soma, as the lunar deity, is born from the sense-mind in the universal Purusha and, when man is produced, expresses himself again as sense-mentality in the human being. For delight is the raison d’être of sensation, or, we may say, sensation is an attempt to translate the secret delight of existence into the terms of physical consciousness.” The Secret of the Veda
Descent into the most physical ::: It brings light, consciousness, force, Ananda into the cells and all the physical movements. The body becomes conscious and vi^ant and performs the right movements, obeying the higher will or else automatically by the force of the consciousness that has come into iL It becomes more possible to control the functions of the body and set right any> thing that is mong, to deal with illness and pain etc. A greater control comes over the actions of the body and even ov'er bap> penings to it from outside, e.g. minimising of aeddents and small happenings. The body becomes a more effective instrument for work. It becomes possible to mimmise fatigue. Peace, happiness, strength, lightness come in the whole system. There is also the unity with the earth-consdousness, the constant sense of the
"Destruction is always a simultaneous or alternate element which keeps pace with creation and it is by destroying and renewing that the Master of Life does his long work of preservation. More, destruction is the first condition of progress. Inwardly, the man who does not destroy his lower self-formations, cannot rise to a greater existence. Outwardly also, the nation or community or race which shrinks too long from destroying and replacing its past forms of life, is itself destroyed, rots and perishes and out of its debris other nations, communities and races are formed. By destruction of the old giant occupants man made himself a place upon earth. By destruction of the Titans the gods maintain the continuity of the divine Law in the cosmos. Whoever prematurely attempts to get rid of this law of battle and destruction, strives vainly against the greater will of the World-Spirit.” Essays on the Gita
“Destruction is always a simultaneous or alternate element which keeps pace with creation and it is by destroying and renewing that the Master of Life does his long work of preservation. More, destruction is the first condition of progress. Inwardly, the man who does not destroy his lower self-formations, cannot rise to a greater existence. Outwardly also, the nation or community or race which shrinks too long from destroying and replacing its past forms of life, is itself destroyed, rots and perishes and out of its debris other nations, communities and races are formed. By destruction of the old giant occupants man made himself a place upon earth. By destruction of the Titans the gods maintain the continuity of the divine Law in the cosmos. Whoever prematurely attempts to get rid of this law of battle and destruction, strives vainly against the greater will of the World-Spirit.” Essays on the Gita
DISCUSSIONS. ::: They usually bring on the sadhaka a stress of the opposing atmosphere and cannot be helpful to his pro- gress. Reserve is the best attitude.
Divine is already there immanent mthin us, ourselves are that in our inmost reality and it is this reality that we have to mani- fest *, 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,
DIVINE LIFE. ::: A divine Ufe must be first and foremost an inner life. The divine life will reject nothing that is capable of divinbation ; all is to be seized, exalted, made utterly perfect.
There are always two methods of living in the Supreme. One b to draw away the participation of the consciousness from things altogether and go so much inwards as to be separated from existence and live in contact with that which is beyond it. The other is to gel to that which is the true Essence of all things, not allowing oneself to be absorbed and entangled by the external forms.
".. . 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; . . . . ” The Synthesis of Yoga
“.. . 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; …” The Synthesis of Yoga
“ . . . 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. The Synthesis of Yoga
Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences p indispensable for the Supramental realisation, — most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda which flows from a supreme divine lx>ve, the
divine Mother ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates.” *The Mother
Divine Power, Light, Ananda may descend and work behind the veil, but we shall feel nothing and only sec certain results after a long time. Or at most we feel a certain clarity and peace in the mind, a joy in the vital, a happy state in the physical and infer the touch of the Divine. But if we are aware in the physical, we shall feel the I^t, power or Ananda flowing through the body, the limbs, nerves, blood, breath and, through
dogmas ::: “Only those thoughts are true the opposite of which is also true in its own time and application; indisputable dogmas are the most dangerous kind of falsehoods.” Essays Divine and Human
Dreams irom the subconscient ::: It is one of the most embar- rassing elements of yogic experience to find how obstinately the subconscient retains what has been settled and done with in the upper layers of the consciousness. But just for that reason these dreams are often a useful indication as they enable us to pursue things to their obscure roots in this underworld and excise them.
DREAMS. ::: Sometimes they are the formations of your own mind or vital ; sometimes they are the formations of other minds wth an exact or modified transcription in yours ; sometimes for- mations come that are made by the non-human forces or beings of these other planes. These things are not true and need not become true in the physical world, but they may still have effects on the physical if they are framed wlh that purpose or that tendency and, if they are allowed, they may realise their events or their meaning — for they are most often symbolic or sche- ‘ matic — in the inner or the outer life.
EFFORT. ::: It is not advisable in the early stages of the sadhana to leave everything to the Divine or expect everything from it without the need of one’s own endeavour. That is only possible when the psychic being is in front and influencing the whole action (and even then vigilance and a constant assent is necessary), or else later on in the ultimate stages of the yoga when a direct or almost direct supramental force b taking up the consciousness.
Egocentriclty ::: The main idea in it is always one’s own sadhana, one’s own endeavour, one’s own development, perfec- tion, siddhi. It is inevitable for most, for without that personal endeavour there would not be sufficient will or push to bring about the first necessary changes. But none of these things — development, perfection or siddhi — can really come in any degree of completeness or unmixed finality until this egocentric attitude changes into the God-centric, until it becomes the deve- lopment, perfection, siddhi of the Divine Consciousness, its will and its instrumentarion in this body — and that can only be when these things become secondary, and bhakti for the Divine,
emotion ::: “Emotion itself is not a bad thing; it is a necessary part of the nature, and psychic emotion is one of the most powerful helps to the sadhana. Psychic emotion, bringing tears of love for the Divine or tears of Ananda, ought not to be suppressed: …” Letters on Yoga
enmity ::: a feeling or condition of hostility; hatred; ill will; animosity; antagonism.
Environmental consciousness ::: The extension of ourselves into the general or universal Nature ; surrounding atmosphere which we carry about with us and by which we communicate with the universal forces.
EPILEPSY. ::: Epilepsy is not possession ; it is an attack or at most a temporary seizure. Insanity always indicates posses- sion. The hereditary conditions create a predisposition. It is not possible for a vital Force or Being to invade or take possession unless there are doors open for it to enter. The door may be a vital consent or affinity or a physical defect in the being.
ether ::: 1. The regions of space beyond the earth"s atmosphere; the heavens. 2. The element believed in ancient and medieval civilizations to fill all space above the sphere of the moon and to compose the stars and planets. 3. A hypothetical medium formerly believed to permeate all space, and through which light and other electromagnetic radiation were thought to move. ether"s.
Every sadbaka Is faced with two elements in him, the inner being which wants the Divine and the sadhana and the outer mainly vital and physical being which does not want them but remains attached to the things of the ordinary life. The mind is sometimes led by one, someUoves by the other. One of the most important things he has to do, therefore, is to decide fundamentally the quarrel between these two parts and to persuade or compel by psychic aspiration, by steadiness of the mind’s thought and will, by the choice of the higher vital in his emotional being, the opposing elements to be first quiescent and then consenting. So long as he is not able to do that his progress must be either very slow or fluctuating and chequered as the aspiration within cannot have a continuous action or a continuous result. Besides so long as thb is so, there are likely to be periodical revolts of the vita! repining at the slow progress, des- pairing, desponding, declaring the Adhar unfit ; calls from old life will come ; circumstances will be attracted which seem to justify it, suggestions will come from men and unseen powers pressing the sadhaka away from the sadhana and pointing back- ward to the former life. And yet in that life he is not likely to get any real satisfaction.
EVIL PERSONA. ::: A person greatly endowed for the work has, always or almost alway's, — pwrhaps one ought not to make a too rigid universal rule about these things — a being attached to him, sometimes appearing like a part of him, which is just the contradiction of the thing he centrally represents in the work to be done. Or, if it is not there at first, not bound to his per- sonality, a force of this kind enters into his environment as soon as he begins his movement to realise. Its business seems to be to oppose, to create stumblings and wrong conditions, in a word, to set before him the whole problem of the w’ork he has started to do. It would seem as if the problem could not, in the occult
External worship ::: If it is purely external, then of course it is the lowest form ; but if done with the true consciousness, it can bring the greatest possible completeness to the adoration by allowing the body and the most external consciousness to share in the spirit and act of worship.
extreme ::: n. 1. The greatest or utmost degree or point. 2. Either of the two things situated at opposite ends of a range; extremes. adj. 3. Being in or attaining the greatest or highest degree; very intense.
extremity ::: 1. The farthest or outermost region, point or section. 2. The greatest or most intense degree. extremities.
fear ::: “Fear is a creation of the vital plane, an instinct of the ignorance, a sense of danger with a violent vital reaction that replaces and usually prevents or distorts the intelligence of things. It might almost be considered as an invention of the hostile forces.” Letters on Yoga
flame ::: “The true soul secret in us,—subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil,—this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” The Life Divine
FOOD. ::: The importance of sativic food from the spiritual point of view has been exaggerated. Spiritually, the effect of food depends more on the occult stmosphere and influences that come with it than on anything in the food itself. ■
force, universal ::: Sri Aurobindo: "This force that we feel is the universal Force of the Divine, which, veiled or unveiled, acting directly or permitting the use of its powers by beings in the cosmos, is the one Energy that alone exists and alone makes universal or individual action possible. For this force is the Divine itself in the body of its power; all is that, power of act, power of thought and knowledge, power of mastery and enjoyment, power of love. Conscious always and in everything, in ourselves and in others, of the Master of Works possessing, inhabiting, enjoying through this Force that is himself, becoming through it all existences and all happenings, we shall have arrived at the divine union through works and achieved by that fulfilment in works all that others have gained through absolute devotion or through pure knowledge.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
forefront ::: 1. The foremost part or area; or place; position of greatest importance or prominence. Also fig.
"For if evolution is the progressive manifestation by Nature of that which slept or worked in her, involved, it is also the overt realisation of that which she secretly is. We cannot, then, bid her the right to condemn with the religionist as perverse and presumptuous or with the rationalist as a disease or hallucination any intention she may evince or effort she may make to go beyond. If it be true that Spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is secret God, then the manifestation of the divine in himself and the realisation of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to man upon earth.” The Life Divine
“For if evolution is the progressive manifestation by Nature of that which slept or worked in her, involved, it is also the overt realisation of that which she secretly is. We cannot, then, bid her the right to condemn with the religionist as perverse and presumptuous or with the rationalist as a disease or hallucination any intention she may evince or effort she may make to go beyond. If it be true that Spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is secret God, then the manifestation of the divine in himself and the realisation of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to man upon earth.” The Life Divine
"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.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“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.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.” The Synthesis of Yoga
FREUD’S PSYCHO-ANALYSIS. ::: The last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealtbiest part of the nature, the lower vital sub-consctous layer. Isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in 'the nature.
From the subliminal come all the greater aspirations, ideals, strivings tow’ards a better self and better humanity without which man svould be only a thinking animal — as also most of the art, , philosophy, poetry, thirst for knowledge which relieve, if they do not yet dispel, the ignorance.
front ::: n. 1. That part or side that is forward, prominent, or most often seen or used. 2. Outward aspect or bearing as when dealing with a situation. 3. Demeanour or bearing, especially in the presence of danger or difficulty. 4. At a position before, in advance of, facing, or confronting; at the head of. 5. The most forward line of a combat force. 6. A position of leadership in a particular endeavour or field. front"s, fronts. v. 7. To look out on; face. 8. To meet face to face; in opposition; confront. fronts, fronted, fronting.
gators or creators often of vast and formidable inner upheavals or of action that overpass the normal human measure. There may also be an awareness of influences, presences, beings that do not seem to belong to other worlds beyond us but are here as a hidden element behind the veil in terrestrial nature. As contact wth the supraphysical is possible, a contact can also take place subjective or objective — or at_ least objectivised — between our own consciousness and the consciousness of other once embodied beings who have passed into a supraphysicaj status in these other regions of existence. It is possible also to pass beyond a subjective contact or a sahiie-scnse perception and, in certain subliminal states of consciousness, to enter actually into other worlds and know something of their secrets, ft is the wore objective order of other-worldly experience that seized most the imagination of mankind in the past, but it was put by popular belief into a gross objective statement which unduly assimilated these phenomena to those of the physical world with which we are familiar for it is the normal tendency of our mind to turn everything into forms or symbols proper to its own kind and terms of expericoce.
gif: is not a freak or an abnormaiity ; it is a universal faculty present in all human beings, but latent in most, in some rarely or intermittently active, occurring as if by accident in others, frequent or normally active in a few. But just as anyone can, uith some training, learn science and do things which would have seemed miracles to his forefathers, so almost anyone, if he wants, can with a little concentration and training develop the faculty of supraphjsical vision. When one starts Yoga, this power is often, though not in\'ariably — for some find it difficult — one of the first to come out from its latent condition and manifest itself, most often without any efTori, Intention or previous know- ledge on the part of the sadhaka. It comes more easily with the eyes shut than with the eyes open, but it does come in both ways. Tlic first sign of its opening in the externalised way is very often that seeing of “sparkles’* or small luminous dots, shapes, etc. ; a second is, often enough, most easily, round lumi- nous objects like a star ; seeing of colours 1$ a third initial experi- cnee — but (hey do not alw'ay's come in that order.
gift is not a freak or an abnonnality ; it is a universal faculty present in all human beings, but latent In most, in some rarely or intermittently active, occurring as if by accident in others, frequent or normally active in a few. But just as aayoas can, with some training, learn sdence and do things which would have seemed miracles to his forefathers, so almost anyone, if he wants, can with a little concentration and training develop the faculty of supraphysical rision. When one starts Yoga, this power is often, though not invariably — for some find it diScult — one of the first to come out from its latent condition and manifest itself, most often without any effort, intention or previous know- ledge on the part of the sadbaka. It comes more easily with the eyes shut than with the eyes open, but it does come in both ways. The first sign of its opening in the externalised way is very often that seeing of “ sparkles ” or small luminous dots, shapes, etc. ; a second is, often enough, most easily, round lumi- nous objects like a star ; seeing of colours is a third initial experi- ence'— but they do not always come in that order.
Gnosis ::: “Gnosis or true supermind is a power above mind working in its own law, out of the direct identity of the supreme Self, his absolute self-conscious Truth knowing herself by her own power of absolute Light without any need of seeking, even the most luminous seeking.” The Upanishads (footnote)
godhead ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe. The Gita lays stress first on his supracosmic existence. For otherwise the mind would miss its highest goal and remain turned towards the cosmic only or else attached to some partial experience of the Divine in the cosmos. It lays stress next on his universal existence in which all moves and acts. For that is the justification of the cosmic effort and that is the vast spiritual self-awareness in which the Godhead self-seen as the Time-Spirit does his universal works. Next it insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic. Finally, it insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one Godhead.” *Essays on the Gita
Godhead ::: “… the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe. The Gita lays stress first on his supracosmic existence. For otherwise the mind would miss its highest goal and remain turned towards the cosmic only or else attached to some partial experience of the Divine in the cosmos. It lays stress next on his universal existence in which all moves and acts. For that is the justification of the cosmic effort and that is the vast spiritual self-awareness in which the Godhead self-seen as the Time-Spirit does his universal works. Next it insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic. Finally, it insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one Godhead.” Essays on the Gita
god ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the Absolute, the Spirit, the Self spaceless and timeless, the Self manifest in the cosmos and Lord of Nature, — all this is what we mean by God, . . . .” *The Life Divine
god ::: “… the Absolute, the Spirit, the Self spaceless and timeless, the Self manifest in the cosmos and Lord of Nature,—all this is what we mean by God, …” The Life Divine
Guiding Unv of experience ::: The guiding law of spiritual experience can only come by an opening of human conscious~ ness 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 tbs guidance. But the surrender is not sure, there is so absolute certitude of the guidance so long as we are besieged by mind fonnaljons and life impulses and instigations of ego which may easily betray us into the bands 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. That is the inner light we must Uberate ; for the light of thb inmost soul is our one sure illumioation so long as we walk still amidst the siege of the Ignorance and the Truth-
hate ::: n. 1. Intense animosity or dislike; hatred. hates. v. 2. To dislike intensely or passionately; feel aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest. hates.
Hathayogic ^-stem its devices of mana and pran^-amz, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process suffidcnl for its own imme- diate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful eOicacy of its methods for the control of the body and the sital functions and for the awakening of that interual dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty’, typified in Yogic lenninologj’ by the kuru^alini, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Bnergy within.
haze ::: 1. An aggregation in the atmosphere of very fine, widely dispersed, solid or liquid particles, or both, giving the air an opalescent appearance that subdues colours. 2. Reduced visibility in the air as a result of condensed water vapour, dust, etc., in the atmosphere. 3. Vagueness of obscurity, as of the mind or perception; confused or vague thoughts, feelings, etc.
height ::: 1. A high point or position. 2. Elevation above a given level, as of the sun or a star above the horizon; altitude. Also fig. 3. The highest or most advanced degree, material or immaterial; the zenith. heights.
hinduism. An avatar of Vishnu and one of the most popular of Indian deities, who appears in the Bhagavad-Gita as the teacher of Arjuna.
How the being receives the higher dynamism depends on the condition of the body or rather of the physical and most material consciousness. In one condition it is tamasic, inert, unopen and cannot bear or cannot receive or cannot contain the force ; in another rajas predominates and tries to seize on the dynamism, but wastes and spills and loses it ; in another, there is receptivity, harmony, balance and the result is a harmonious action without strain or eflort.
"Human speech is only a secondary expression and at its highest a shadow of the divine Word, of the seed-sounds, the satisfying rhythms, the revealing forms of sound that are the omniscient and omnipotent speech of the eternal Thinker, Harmonist, Creator. The highest inspired speech to which the human mind can attain, the word most unanalysably expressive of supreme truth, the most puissant syllable or mantra can only be its far-off representation.” The Upanishads
“Human speech is only a secondary expression and at its highest a shadow of the divine Word, of the seed-sounds, the satisfying rhythms, the revealing forms of sound that are the omniscient and omnipotent speech of the eternal Thinker, Harmonist, Creator. The highest inspired speech to which the human mind can attain, the word most unanalysably expressive of supreme truth, the most puissant syllable or mantra can only be its far-off representation.” The Upanishads
HYSTERIA. ::: It is due to a pressure from the vital world and there may be momentary possessions also.
In cases of hysteria usually nothing is gained by humouring or indulgence ; firmness generally pays better, because most often there is something there that wants ito be interesting and get sympathy and have a fuss made over the person. As for the cure, the subjective cause has to be got rid of.
(I) An actual contact with the soul of a human being in its subtle body and transcribed to our mind by the appearance of an image or the hearing of a voice. (2) A mental formation stamped by the thoughts and fccBngs of a departed human being on the atmosphere of a pbee or locality, wandering about there or repeating itself, till that formation either exhausts itself or is dissolved by one means or another- This is the explanation of such phenomena as the haunted house in which the scenes attend- ing or surrounding or preceding a murder are repeated over and over again and many other similar phenomena. (3) A being
ideal ::: “… ideals and idealists are necessary; ideals are the savour and sap of life, idealists the most powerful diviners and assistants of its purposes.” The Human Cycle
"Ideals are truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a higher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation. To the pragmatical intellect which takes its stand upon the ever-changing present, ideals are not truths, not realities, they are at most potentialities of future truth and only become real when they are visible in the external fact as work of force accomplished. But to the mind which is able to draw back from the flux of force in the material universe, to the consciousness which is not imprisoned in its own workings or carried along in their flood but is able to envelop, hold and comprehend them, to the soul that is not merely the subject and instrument of the world-force but can reflect something of that Master-Consciousness which controls and uses it, the ideal present to its inner vision is a greater reality than the changing fact obvious to its outer senses. The Supramental Manifestation*
“Ideals are truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a higher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation. To the pragmatical intellect which takes its stand upon the ever-changing present, ideals are not truths, not realities, they are at most potentialities of future truth and only become real when they are visible in the external fact as work of force accomplished. But to the mind which is able to draw back from the flux of force in the material universe, to the consciousness which is not imprisoned in its own workings or carried along in their flood but is able to envelop, hold and comprehend them, to the soul that is not merely the subject and instrument of the world-force but can reflect something of that Master-Consciousness which controls and uses it, the ideal present to its inner vision is a greater reality than the changing fact obvious to its outer senses. The Supramental Manifestation
"I don"t know [‘what plane is spoken of by Virgil"], but purple is a light of the Vital. It may have been one of the vital heavens he was thinking of. The ancients saw the vital heavens as the highest and most of the religions also have done the same. I have used the suggestion of Virgil to insert a needed line.” *Letters on Savitri
“I don’t know [‘what plane is spoken of by Virgil’], but purple is a light of the Vital. It may have been one of the vital heavens he was thinking of. The ancients saw the vital heavens as the highest and most of the religions also have done the same. I have used the suggestion of Virgil to insert a needed line.” Letters on Savitri
If wc Jive only in the outward physical consciousness, we do not usually know that we are going to be ill until the symptoms of the malady declare themselves in the body. But if we develop the inward physical consciousness, we become aware of a subtle environmental physical atmosphere and can feel the forces of illness coming towards us through it, feel them even at a distance, and, if we have learnt how to do it, we can stop them by the will or otherwise. We sense too around us a vital physical or nervous envelope which radiates from the body and protects it, and we can feel the adverse forces trying to break through it and can interfere, stop them or reinforce the nervous envelope.
I know by wWch the taking up of sadbaoa by the Dmne becomes a sensible fact before the preparation of the nature is done. In other methods the Divine action may be felt from time to time, but it remains mostly behind the veil till all is ready. In some the ditioe action Is not recognised ; all must be done by (apioya. In most there is a mixing of the two ::: the iapas>3 finally calling the direct help and intervention. The idea and experience of the Divine doing all belong to the Yoga based on surrender. But whatever way is followed, the one thing to be done is to be faithful and go on to the end.
impressions left in it by our past inner and outer life, Nvoven in a fantastic way which docs not easily yield any due of meaning to the waking mind's remembrance, or arc fragmentary records, mostly distorted, of experiences which arc going on behind the
Inactivity is an atmosphere in which sex easily rises.
inmost ::: 1. Farthest within; innermost. 2. Most intimate or secret.
inconscience ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Inconscience is an inverse reproduction of the supreme superconscience: it has the same absoluteness of being and automatic action, but in a vast involved trance; it is being lost in itself, plunged in its own abyss of infinity.” *The Life Divine
"All aspects of the omnipresent Reality have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Thus even the aspect or power of Inconscience, which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, yet corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. It is, when we look closely at it, the Infinite"s power of plunging the consciousness into a trance of self-involution, a self-oblivion of the Spirit veiled in its own abysses where nothing is manifest but all inconceivably is and can emerge from that ineffable latency. In the heights of Spirit this state of cosmic or infinite trance-sleep appears to our cognition as a luminous uttermost Superconscience: at the other end of being it offers itself to cognition as the Spirit"s potency of presenting to itself the opposites of its own truths of being, — an abyss of non-existence, a profound Night of inconscience, a fathomless swoon of insensibility from which yet all forms of being, consciousness and delight of existence can manifest themselves, — but they appear in limited terms, in slowly emerging and increasing self-formulations, even in contrary terms of themselves; it is the play of a secret all-being, all-delight, all-knowledge, but it observes the rules of its own self-oblivion, self-opposition, self-limitation until it is ready to surpass it. This is the Inconscience and Ignorance that we see at work in the material universe. It is not a denial, it is one term, one formula of the infinite and eternal Existence.” *The Life Divine
"Once consciousnesses separated from the one consciousness, they fell inevitably into Ignorance and the last result of Ignorance was Inconscience.” Letters on Yoga
*inconscience.
inconscient ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Inconscient and the Ignorance may be mere empty abstractions and can be dismissed as irrelevant jargon if one has not come in collision with them or plunged into their dark and bottomless reality. But to me they are realities, concrete powers whose resistance is present everywhere and at all times in its tremendous and boundless mass.” *Letters on Savitri
". . . in its actual cosmic manifestation the Supreme, being the Infinite and not bound by any limitation, can manifest in Itself, in its consciousness of innumerable possibilities, something that seems to be the opposite of itself, something in which there can be Darkness, Inconscience, Inertia, Insensibility, Disharmony and Disintegration. It is this that we see at the basis of the material world and speak of nowadays as the Inconscient — the Inconscient Ocean of the Rigveda in which the One was hidden and arose in the form of this universe — or, as it is sometimes called, the non-being, Asat.” Letters on Yoga
"The Inconscient itself is only an involved state of consciousness which like the Tao or Shunya, though in a different way, contains all things suppressed within it so that under a pressure from above or within all can evolve out of it — ‘an inert Soul with a somnambulist Force".” Letters on Yoga
"The Inconscient is the last resort of the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
"The body, we have said, is a creation of the Inconscient and itself inconscient or at least subconscient in parts of itself and much of its hidden action; but what we call the Inconscient is an appearance, a dwelling place, an instrument of a secret Consciousness or a Superconscient which has created the miracle we call the universe.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga :::
"The Inconscient is a sleep or a prison, the conscient a round of strivings without ultimate issue or the wanderings of a dream: we must wake into the superconscious where all darkness of night and half-lights cease in the self-luminous bliss of the Eternal.” The Life Divine
"Men have not learnt yet to recognise the Inconscient on which the whole material world they see is built, or the Ignorance of which their whole nature including their knowledge is built; they think that these words are only abstract metaphysical jargon flung about by the philosophers in their clouds or laboured out in long and wearisome books like The Life Divine. Letters on Savitri :::
"Is it really a fact that even the ordinary reader would not be able to see any difference between the Inconscient and Ignorance unless the difference is expressly explained to him? This is not a matter of philosophical terminology but of common sense and the understood meaning of English words. One would say ‘even the inconscient stone" but one would not say, as one might of a child, ‘the ignorant stone". One must first be conscious before one can be ignorant. What is true is that the ordinary reader might not be familiar with the philosophical content of the word Inconscient and might not be familiar with the Vedantic idea of the Ignorance as the power behind the manifested world. But I don"t see how I can acquaint him with these things in a single line, even with the most. illuminating image or symbol. He might wonder, if he were Johnsonianly minded, how an Inconscient could be teased or how it could wake Ignorance. I am afraid, in the absence of a miracle of inspired poetical exegesis flashing through my mind, he will have to be left wondering.” Letters on Savitri
**inconscient, Inconscient"s.**
"Indian devotion has especially seized upon the most intimate human relations and made them stepping-stones to the supra-human. God the Guru, God the Master, God the Friend, God the Mother, God the Child, God the Self, each of these experiences — for to us they are more than merely ideas, — it has carried to its extreme possibilities.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“Indian devotion has especially seized upon the most intimate human relations and made them stepping-stones to the supra-human. God the Guru, God the Master, God the Friend, God the Mother, God the Child, God the Self, each of these experiences—for to us they are more than merely ideas,—it has carried to its extreme possibilities.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
(In later Hinduism) “The Preserver.” The second member of the Trimurti, along with Brahma the Creator and Shiva the Destroyer. 2. (In popular Hinduism) a deity believed to have descended from heaven to earth in several incarnations, or avatars, varying in number from nine to twenty-two, but always including animals. His most important human incarnation is the Krishna of the Bhagavad-Gita. 3. “The Pervader,” one of a half-dozen solar deities in the Rig-Veda, daily traversing the sky in three strides, morning, afternoon, and night.
Inner consciousness ::: means the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical and behind them the psychic which is their inmost being. But the inner mind is not the higher mind ; ft is more in touch with the universal forces and more open to the higher consciousness and capable of an immensely deeper and larger range of action than the outer or surface mind — but it is of the same essential nature.
In orthodox Buddhism it does mean a disintegration, not of the soul — for that does not exist — but of a mental compound or stream of associations or samskaras which we mistake for our self. In illusionist Vedanta it means not a disintegration but a disappearance of a false and unreal individual self into the one real Self or Brahman j it is the idea and experience of indivi- duality that so disappears and ceases — we may say a false light that is extinguished {nirvana) in the true Light. In spiritual experience it is sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic consciousness ; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel for the flow of a cosmic consciousness and cosmic force and action. Or it may be the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and consciousness in which the sense of the cosmos as well as the individual disappears. Or again, it may be in a transcend- ence which is aware of and supports the cosmic action. But what do we mean by the individual ? What we usually call by that name is a natural ego, a device of nature which holds together her action in the mind and body. This ego has to be extinguished, otherwise there is no complete liberation possible ; but the individual self is not this ego. The individual soul Is a spiritual being which is sometimes described as an eternal por- tion of the Divine but can also be described as the Divine him- self supporting his manifestation as the Many. This is the true spiritual individual which appears in its complete truth when we get rid of the ego and our false separative sense of individuality, realise our oneness with the transcendent and cosmic Divine and with all beings. It is this which makes possible the Divine Life.
"In spiritual experience it [nirvana]is sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic consciousness; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel for the flow of a cosmic consciousness and a cosmic force and action. Or it may be the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and consciousness in which the sense of cosmos as well as the individual disappears. Or again, it may be in a transcendence which is aware of and supports the cosmic action. . . Nirvana is a step towards it; the disappearance of the false separative individuality is a necessary condition for our realising and living in our true eternal being, living divinely in the Divine. But this we can do in the world and in life.” Letters on Yoga
“In spiritual experience it [nirvana]is sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic consciousness; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel for the flow of a cosmic consciousness and a cosmic force and action. Or it may be the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and consciousness in which the sense of cosmos as well as the individual disappears. Or again, it may be in a transcendence which is aware of and supports the cosmic action. . . Nirvana is a step towards it; the disappearance of the false separative individuality is a necessary condition for our realising and living in our true eternal being, living divinely in the Divine. But this we can do in the world and in life.” Letters on Yoga
INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.
Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.
Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.
Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.
Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.
Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.
The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.
Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.
Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.
Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.
Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.
Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.
Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.
The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.
This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.
Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.
Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.
The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.
Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.
It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.
If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.
(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.
Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.
It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.
Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.
intuition ::: direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process. intuition"s, intuitions, half-intuition.
Sri Aurobindo: "Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude.” *The Life Divine
"Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings"". When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"I use the word ‘intuition" for want of a better. In truth, it is a makeshift and inadequate to the connotation demanded of it. The same has to be said of the word ‘consciousness" and many others which our poverty compels us to extend illegitimately in their significance.” *The Life Divine - Sri Aurobindo"s footnote.
"For intuition is an edge of light thrust out by the secret Supermind. . . .” The Life Divine
". . . intuition is born of a direct awareness while intellect is an indirect action of a knowledge which constructs itself with difficulty out of the unknown from signs and indications and gathered data.” The Life Divine
"Intuition is above illumined Mind which is simply higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration.” Letters on Yoga
"Intuition sees the truth of things by a direct inner contact, not like the ordinary mental intelligence by seeking and reaching out for indirect contacts through the senses etc. But the limitation of the Intuition as compared with the supermind is that it sees things by flashes, point by point, not as a whole. Also in coming into the mind it gets mixed with the mental movement and forms a kind of intuitive mind activity which is not the pure truth, but something in between the higher Truth and the mental seeking. It can lead the consciousness through a sort of transitional stage and that is practically its function.” Letters on Yoga
“Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings’’. When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” The Life Divine
Inward opening ::: An opening inwards of the inner mind, vital, physical to the inmost part of us, the psychic.
“Is it really a fact that even the ordinary reader would not be able to see any difference between the Inconscient and Ignorance unless the difference is expressly explained to him? This is not a matter of philosophical terminology but of common sense and the understood meaning of English words. One would say ‘even the inconscient stone’ but one would not say, as one might of a child, ‘the ignorant stone’. One must first be conscious before one can be ignorant. What is true is that the ordinary reader might not be familiar with the philosophical content of the word Inconscient and might not be familiar with the Vedantic idea of the Ignorance as the power behind the manifested world. But I don’t see how I can acquaint him with these things in a single line, even with the most. illuminating image or symbol. He might wonder, if he were Johnsonianly minded, how an Inconscient could be teased or how it could wake Ignorance. I am afraid, in the absence of a miracle of inspired poetical exegesis flashing through my mind, he will have to be left wondering.” Letters on Savitri
“It could be affirmed as a consequence that there is one all-pervading Life or dynamic energy—the material aspect being only its outermost movement—that creates all these forms of the physical universe, Life imperishable and eternal which, even if the whole figure of the universe were quite abolished, would itself still go on existing and be capable of producing a new universe in its place, must indeed, unless it be held back in a state of rest by some higher Power or hold itself back, inevitably go on creating. In that case Life is nothing else than the Force that builds and maintains and destroys forms in the world; it is Life that manifests itself in the form of the earth as much as in the plant that grows upon the earth and the animals that support their existence by devouring the life-force of the plant or of each other. All existence here is a universal Life that takes form of Matter. It might for that purpose hide life-process in physical process before it emerges as submental sensitivity and mentalised vitality, but still it would be throughout the same creative Life-principle.” The Life Divine
"It [death] has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there already — it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into the whole of the material nature is the most difficult thing of all — at any rate, in such a way as to annul the decay principle.” Letters on Yoga
“It [death] has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there already—it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into the whole of the material nature is the most difficult thing of all—at any rate, in such a way as to annul the decay principle.” Letters on Yoga
It is not easy to overcome gloom, depression, grief and suffer- ing, because something in the human vital clings to it and almost needs it as part of the drama of life.
It is only the ordinaiy vital emotions which waste the energy and disturb the concentration and peace that have to be dis- couraged. Emotion itself is not a bad thing ; it is a necessary part of nature and psychic emoiion is one of the most powerful helps to the sadhana. Psychic emotion, bringing tears of love for the Divine or tears of Ananda, ought not to be suppressed ::: it is only a vital mixture that brings disturbance in the sadhana.
It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe Is supported. It is from the SUence that the peace comes ; when the peace deepens and deepens, it becomes more and more the Silence.
"It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported.
“It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported.
It is this expectation in the mind that helps most to maintain
“It might be said again that, even so, in Sachchidananda itself at least, above all worlds of manifestation, there could be nothing but the self-awareness of pure existence and consciousness and a pure delight of existence. Or, indeed, this triune being itself might well be only a trinity of original spiritual self-determinations of the Infinite; these too, like all determinations, would cease to exist in the ineffable Absolute. But our position is that these must be inherent truths of the supreme being; their utmost reality must be pre-existent in the Absolute even if they are ineffably other there than what they are in the spiritual mind’s highest possible experience. The Absolute is not a mystery of infinite blankness nor a supreme sum of negations; nothing can manifest that is not justified by some self-power of the original and omnipresent Reality.” The Life Divine
I would myself say that bliss and oneness are the essential condition of the absolute reality, and love as the most characteristic dynamic power of bliss and oneness must support fundamentally and colour their activities; …” Letters on Yoga
Jhumur: “Intolerance and selfishness that are sometimes expressions of human passions—all the violence that accompanies them. It is the nature of the vital that we destroy what we love most.”
Jhumur: “The spirit that has taken birth sometimes does not reach the goal. There is a kind of a witness consciousness that puts a cross against it and you go back to the beginning all over again. It’s like the game snakes and ladders that we used to play as children. You have to go back to the first square and start all over again. You almost reach the goal and then you fall back and have to start all over again.”
Jhumur: “Throughout Savitri I have noticed all the different times of the day and the position of the sun in relation to the earth. It runs through the book, the symbol dawn, night, not only that but there are different states of illumination, awakening of the consciousness progressively. Sometimes it falls into the darkness, sometimes twilight when one is caught between two states, and at the end it is the everlasting day. So the kingdoms of the rising sun represent states of being where the light is the most important. Mother always says that the sun is the symbol of the supreme truth, the supreme, the supreme wisdom. It is the world where the supreme truth and supreme wisdom rule, govern. Whereas In many other worlds this light gets covered, it gets clouded over but here there are the kingdoms of the rising sun because they are the godheads of the mind and the mind is an instrument of light. But it is a small early instrument, little mind, so it is just rising, it hasn’t come to its full glory. The kingdoms are the planes of consciousness where you have a little light, a little clarity, a little illumination. That is how I understand the main function of the mind, to seek for light. It is an instrument for seeking light although it often dodges light where the perversity comes in.”
Jhumur: “We have legends, the Greek legends and the Indian legends of the divine child, either Krishna or Hercules, who is also a son of Zeus, and there are attempts to kill the child in his cradle. I think this is a reference to the supreme force that even in its most latent and seed form is still the supreme force and can’t be destroyed.”
Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god. His identifying implement is the thunderbolt, and his primary sacred animal is the eagle,[1] which held precedence over other birds in the taking of auspices[2] and became one of the most common symbols of the Roman army (see Aquila). The two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins.[3] As the sky-god, he was a divine witness to oaths, the sacred trust on which justice and good government depend. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline (“Capitol Hill”), where the citadel was located. He was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus.[4] In the later Capitoline Triad, he was the central guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva. His sacred tree was the oak.
Knowledge, Power, Purity, Peace, Ananda, of which we become aware and which descends into the being and progressively replaces the ordinary consciousness itself by its own mos’cments
Krishna ::: Hinduism. An avatar of Vishnu and one of the most popular of Indian deities, who appears in the Bhagavad-Gita as the teacher of Arjuna.
land-locked ::: entirely or almost entirely surrounded by land.
leaf ::: 1. A usually green, flattened, lateral structure attached to a stem and functioning as a principle organ of photosynthesis and transpiration in most plants. 2. A page of a book or manuscript. lotus-leaf. (See also gold-leaf.)
::: "Liberty in one shape or another ranks among the most ancient and certainly among the most difficult aspirations of our race: it arises from a radical instinct of our being and is yet opposed to all our circumstances, it is our eternal good and our condition of perfection, but our temporal being has failed to find its key. That perhaps is because true freedom is only possible if we live in the infinite, live, as the Vedanta bids us, in and from our self-existent being; but our natural and temporal energies seek for it first not in ourselves, but in our external conditions. This great indefinable thing, liberty, is in its highest and ultimate sense a state of being; it is self living in itself and determining by its own energy what is shall be inwardly and, eventually, by the growth of a divine spiritual power within determining too what it shall make of its external circumstances and environment." War and Self-Determination
“Liberty in one shape or another ranks among the most ancient and certainly among the most difficult aspirations of our race: it arises from a radical instinct of our being and is yet opposed to all our circumstances, it is our eternal good and our condition of perfection, but our temporal being has failed to find its key. That perhaps is because true freedom is only possible if we live in the infinite, live, as the Vedanta bids us, in and from our self-existent being; but our natural and temporal energies seek for it first not in ourselves, but in our external conditions. This great indefinable thing, liberty, is in its highest and ultimate sense a state of being; it is self living in itself and determining by its own energy what is shall be inwardly and, eventually, by the growth of a divine spiritual power within determining too what it shall make of its external circumstances and environment.” War and Self-Determination
limit ::: n. 1. A boundary or frontier, as of a country, area, etc. 2. The final, utmost, or furthest boundary or point as to extent, amount, continuance, procedure, etc.; the point, edge, or line beyond which something cannot or may not proceed. limits. v. 2. To restrict or confine, as to area, extent, time, etc. limits, limited.
"Love is the power and passion of the divine self-delight and without love we may get the rapt peace of its infinity, the absorbed silence of the Ananda, but not its absolute depth of richness and fullness. Love leads us from the suffering of division into the bliss of perfect union, but without losing that joy of the act of union which is the soul"s greatest discovery and for which the life of the cosmos is a long preparation. Therefore to approach God by love is to prepare oneself for the greatest possible spiritual fulfilment. ” The Synthesis of Yoga
“Love is the power and passion of the divine self-delight and without love we may get the rapt peace of its infinity, the absorbed silence of the Ananda, but not its absolute depth of richness and fullness. Love leads us from the suffering of division into the bliss of perfect union, but without losing that joy of the act of union which is the soul’s greatest discovery and for which the life of the cosmos is a long preparation. Therefore to approach God by love is to prepare oneself for the greatest possible spiritual fulfilment.” The Synthesis of Yoga
MAHASAKTI ::: Original Power, supreme Nature, holding in herself infinite existence and creating the wonders of the cosmos.
* mal thought-mind (budd/ii) h apt to fall silent or abate most of its activities and when it does, very often either this vital mind can rush in, if one is not on one’s guard or else a kind of mechanical physical or random subconscient mind can begin to come up and act ; these are the chief disturbers of the silence.
Man alive, your proposed emendations are an admirable exposition of the art of bringing a line down the steps till my poor "slow miraculous” above-mind line meant to give or begin the concrete portrayal of an act of some hidden Godhead finally becomes a mere metaphor thrown out from its more facile mint by a brilliantly imaginative poetic intelligence. First of all, you shift my "dimly” out of the way and transfer it to something to which it does not inwardly belongs make it an epithet of the gesture or an adverb qualifying its epithet instead of something that qualifies the atmosphere in which the act of the Godhead takes place. That is a preliminary havoc which destroys what is very important to the action, its atmosphere. I never intended the gesture to be dim, it is a luminous gesture, but forcing its way through the black quietude it comes dimly. Then again the bald phrase "a gesture came” without anything to psychicise it becomes simply something that "happened”, "came” being a poetic equivalent for "happened”, instead of the expression of the slow coming of the gesture. The words "slow” and "dimly” assure this sense of motion and this concreteness to the word"s sense here. Remove one or both whether entirely or elsewhere and you ruin the vision and change altogether its character. That is at least what happens wholly in your penultimate version and as for the last its "came” gets another meaning and one feels that somebody very slowly decided to let out the gesture from himself and it was quite a miracle that it came out at all! "Dimly miraculous” means what precisely or what "miraculously dim” — it was miraculous that it managed to be so dim or there was something vaguely miraculous about it after all? No doubt they try to mean something else — but these interpretations come in their way and trip them over. The only thing that can stand is the first version which is no doubt fine poetry, but the trouble is that it does not give the effect I wanted to give, the effect which is necessary for the dawn"s inner significance. Moreover, what becomes of the slow lingering rhythm of my line which is absolutely indispensable? Letters on Savitri
Man alive, your proposed emendations are an admirable exposition of the art of bringing a line down the steps till my poor”slow miraculous” above-mind line meant to give or begin the concrete portrayal of an act of some hidden Godhead finally becomes a mere metaphor thrown out from its more facile mint by a brilliantly imaginative poetic intelligence. First of all, you shift my”dimly” out of the way and transfer it to something to which it does not inwardly belongs make it an epithet of the gesture or an adverb qualifying its epithet instead of something that qualifies the atmosphere in which the act of the Godhead takes place. That is a preliminary havoc which destroys what is very important to the action, its atmosphere. I never intended the gesture to be dim, it is a luminous gesture, but forcing its way through the black quietude it comes dimly. Then again the bald phrase”a gesture came” without anything to psychicise it becomes simply something that”happened”,”came” being a poetic equivalent for”happened”, instead of the expression of the slow coming of the gesture. The words”slow” and”dimly” assure this sense of motion and this concreteness to the word’s sense here. Remove one or both whether entirely or elsewhere and you ruin the vision and change altogether its character. That is at least what happens wholly in your penultimate version and as for the last its”came” gets another meaning and one feels that somebody very slowly decided to let out the gesture from himself and it was quite a miracle that it came out at all!”Dimly miraculous” means what precisely or what”miraculously dim”—it was miraculous that it managed to be so dim or there was something vaguely miraculous about it after all? No doubt they try to mean something else—but these interpretations come in their way and trip them over. The only thing that can stand is the first version which is no doubt fine poetry, but the trouble is that it does not give the effect I wanted to give, the effect which is necessary for the dawn’s inner significance. Moreover, what becomes of the slow lingering rhythm of my line which is absolutely indispensable? Letters on Savitri
"Man is a transitional being, he is not final. He is too imperfect for that, too imperfect in capacity for knowledge, too imperfect in will and action, too imperfect in his turn towards joy and beauty, too imperfect in his will for freedom and his instinct for order. Even if he could perfect himself in his own type, his type is too low and small to satisfy the need of the universe. Something larger, higher, more capable of a rich all embracing universality is needed, a greater being, a greater consciousness summing up in itself all that the world set out to be. He has, as was pointed out by a half blind seer, to exceed himself; man must evolve out of himself the divine superman: he was born for transcendence. Humanity is not enough, it is only a strong stepping stone; the need of the world is a superhuman perfection of what the world can be, the goal of consciousness is divinity. The inmost need of man is not to perfect his humanity, but to be greater than himself, to be more than man, to be divine, even to be the Divine.” Essays Divine and Human
“Man is a transitional being, he is not final. He is too imperfect for that, too imperfect in capacity for knowledge, too imperfect in will and action, too imperfect in his turn towards joy and beauty, too imperfect in his will for freedom and his instinct for order. Even if he could perfect himself in his own type, his type is too low and small to satisfy the need of the universe. Something larger, higher, more capable of a rich all embracing universality is needed, a greater being, a greater consciousness summing up in itself all that the world set out to be. He has, as was pointed out by a half blind seer, to exceed himself; man must evolve out of himself the divine superman: he was born for transcendence. Humanity is not enough, it is only a strong stepping stone; the need of the world is a superhuman perfection of what the world can be, the goal of consciousness is divinity. The inmost need of man is not to perfect his humanity, but to be greater than himself, to be more than man, to be divine, even to be the Divine.” Essays Divine and Human
masterpiece ::: the most outstanding work of a creative artist or craftsman.
Material consciousness ::: It is mostly subconscienl, but part of it that is conscious is mechanical, inertly moved by habits or by the forces of the lower nature- Always repeating the same unintelligent and unenlightened movements, it is attached to the routine and established rule of what already exists, unwilling to change, unwilling to receive the Light or obey the higher Force.
Max Muller: “Though Savitri is a name applied to the sun in general, it is most frequently used as the name of the rising and life-giving-and-light-giving sun. Nor must it be supposed that Savitri is simply an appellative of the solar globe. Savitri has become a divine name or a divine nomen as full of life and personality as any other Deva.” Auld Lang Syne
Meditation is the easiest process for the human mind, but the narrtyftest in its results ; contemplation more difficult, but greater; self-observation and liberation from the chains of Thought the most difficult of all, but the widest and greatest in its fruits.
MEDIUMS. ::: They are most of them in contact with the vital-physical or subtle physical worlds and do not receive any- thing higher at aii.
miasma ::: pollution in the atmosphere, esp. noxious vapours from decomposing organic matter.
mil. The foremost position in an army or fleet advancing into battle.
minaret (s) ::: a tall slender tower attached to a mosque, having one or more projecting balconies from which a muezzin summons the people to prayer.
"Mind, life and body, the soul in the succession of Time, the conscient, subconscient and superconscient, — these in their various relations and the result of their relations are cosmos and are Nature.” The Life Divine
“Mind, life and body, the soul in the succession of Time, the conscient, subconscient and superconscient,—these in their various relations and the result of their relations are cosmos and are Nature.” The Life Divine
MIND. ::: Part of the nature which has to do with cognillon and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reactions of thought to things, siith the truly mental mos’c- ments and formations, mental visions and will etc. that arc part of the intelligence.
mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The ‘Mind" in the ordinary use of the word covers indiscriminately the whole consciousness, for man is a mental being and mentalises everything; but in the language of this yoga the words ‘mind" and ‘mental" are used to connote specially the part of the nature which has to do with cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reactions of thought to things, with the truly mental movements and formations, mental vision and will, etc., that are part of his intelligence.” *Letters on Yoga
"Mind in its essence is a consciousness which measures, limits, cuts out forms of things from the indivisible whole and contains them as if each were a separate integer.” The Life Divine
"Mind is an instrument of analysis and synthesis, but not of essential knowledge. Its function is to cut out something vaguely from the unknown Thing in itself and call this measurement or delimitation of it the whole, and again to analyse the whole into its parts which it regards as separate mental objects.” The Life Divine
"The mind proper is divided into three parts — thinking Mind, dynamic Mind, externalising Mind — the former concerned with ideas and knowledge in their own right, the second with the putting out of mental forces for realisation of the idea, the third with the expression of them in life (not only by speech, but by any form it can give).” Letters on Yoga
"The difference between the ordinary mind and the intuitive is that the former, seeking in the darkness or at most by its own unsteady torchlight, first, sees things only as they are presented in that light and, secondly, where it does not know, constructs by imagination, by uncertain inference, by others of its aids and makeshifts things which it readily takes for truth, shadow projections, cloud edifices, unreal prolongations, deceptive anticipations, possibilities and probabilities which do duty for certitudes. The intuitive mind constructs nothing in this artificial fashion, but makes itself a receiver of the light and allows the truth to manifest in it and organise its own constructions.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"He [man] 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.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Our mind is an observer of actuals, an inventor or discoverer of possibilities, but not a seer of the occult imperatives that necessitate the movements and forms of a creation. . . .” *The Life Divine
"The human mind is an instrument not of truth but of ignorance and error.” Letters on Yoga
"For Mind as we know it is a power of the Ignorance seeking for Truth, groping with difficulty to find it, reaching only mental constructions and representations of it in word and idea, in mind formations, sense formations, — as if bright or shadowy photographs or films of a distant Reality were all that it could achieve.” The Life Divine
The Mother: "The true role of the mind is the formation and organization of action. The mind has a formative and organizing power, and it is that which puts the different elements of inspiration in order for action, for organizing action. And if it would only confine itself to that role, receiving inspirations — whether from above or from the mystic centre of the soul — and simply formulating the plan of action — in broad outline or in minute detail, for the smallest things of life or the great terrestrial organizations — it would amply fulfil its function. It is not an instrument of knowledge. But is can use knowledge for action, to organize action. It is an instrument of organization and formation, very powerful and very capable when it is well developed.” Questions and Answers 1956, MCW Vol. 8.*
mist ::: 1. A cloudlike aggregation of minute globules of water suspended in the atmosphere at or near the earth"s surface reducing the visibility to a lesser degree than fog. 2. Something that dims, obscures or blurs. mists.
mitred ::: wearing a liturgical headdress like one worn by a bishop or abbot, in most western churches consisting of a tall pointed cleft cap with two bands hanging down at the back as a symbol of great holiness or dignity.
mother ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates.” The Mother ::: "The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine.
"That which we call Nature or Prakriti is only her [the Mother"s] 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.” *The Mother
: "The Mother comes in order to bring down the Supramental and it is the descent which makes her full manifestation here possible.” *Letters on the Mother
"When one does sadhana, the inner consciousness begins to open and one is able to go inside and have all kinds of experiences there. As the sadhana progresses, one begins to live more and more in this inner being and the outer becomes more and more superficial. At first the inner consciousness seems to be the dream and the outer the waking reality. Afterwards the inner consciousness becomes the reality and the outer is felt by many as a dream or delusion, or else as something superficial and external. The inner consciousness begins to be a place of deep peace, light, happiness, love, closeness to the Divine or the presence of the Divine, the Mother.” Letters on Yoga ::: **mighty Mother, World-Mother, World-Mother"s.**
Mother ::: “The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates.” The Mother
muse ::: myth. Any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, each of whom presided over a different art or science.
Nature ::: “An active force of conscious-being which realises itself in its powers of self-experience, its powers of knowledge, will, self-delight, self-formulation with all their marvellous variations, inversions, conservations and conversions of energy, even perversions, is what we call Prakriti or Nature, in ourselves as in the cosmos.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Nature and kept within the narrow bounds of her normal ope- rations. Id the ancient tradition of Hatha Yoga it has always been supposed that this conquest could be pushed so far even as to conquer to a great extent the force of gravitation. By various subsidiary but elaborate processes the Hatha Yogin next contrives to keep the body free from all impurities and the ner- vous system unclogged for those exercises of respiration which are his most important instruments. These are called prana- yama, the control of the breath or vital power ; for breathing is the chief physical functioning of the vital forces. Prdnayaina, for the Hatha Yogin, serves a double purpose. First, it completes the perfection of the body. The vitality is liberated from many of the ordinary necessities of physical Nature ; robust health, prolonged youth, often an extraordinary longevity arc attained.
"Nature, because she is a power of spirit, is essentially qualitative in her action. One may almost say that Nature is only the power in being and the development in action of the infinite qualities of the spirit, . . . .” *The Synthesis of Yoga
“Nature, because she is a power of spirit, is essentially qualitative in her action. One may almost say that Nature is only the power in being and the development in action of the infinite qualities of the spirit, …” The Synthesis of Yoga
nature ::: Sri Aurobindo: "An active force of conscious-being which realises itself in its powers of self-experience, its powers of knowledge, will, self-delight, self-formulation with all their marvellous variations, inversions, conservations and conversions of energy, even perversions, is what we call Prakriti or Nature, in ourselves as in the cosmos.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
Next, as a consequence, it follows that only a limited part of the action of the vital or other higher plane is concerned with the earth-existence. But even this creates a mass of possibilities which is far greater than the earth can at one time mainfest or contain in its own less plastic formulas. All these possibilities do not realise themselves ; some fail altogether and leave at the most an idea that comes to nothing ; some try seriously and are repelled and defeated and, even if in action for a time, come to nothing. Others effectuate a half manifestation, and this is the most usual result, the more so as these vital or other supraphysical forces come Into conflict and have not only to overcome the resistance of the physical consciousness and of matter, but their own internecine resistance to each other. A certain number succeed in precipitating their results in a more complete and successful creation, so that if you compare this creation with its original in the higher plane, there is something
next of kin ::: the person or persons most closely related by blood to another person.
nigh ::: nearly; almost.
Night dreams are involuntary upsurgings of the sex impres- sions from the subconscient ; most, even when they are not indulging in the sex act, have it from time to time though it varies in period from a week, a fortnight, a month to three or four months or even less. To have it more frequently indicates either indulgence in sex-imaginaiions which stimulate the sex-centre or else a neivous weakness in that part due to past indulgence.
no-gestures ::: the gestures or movements of a classical drama of Japan, with music and dance performed in a highly stylised manner by elaborately dressed performers on an almost bare stage.
“Non-Being is only a word. When we examine the fact it represents, we can no longer be sure that absolute non-existence has any better chance than the infinite Self of being more than an ideative formation of the mind. We really mean by this Nothing something beyond the last term to which we can reduce our purest conception and our most abstract or subtle experience of actual being as we know or conceive it while in this universe. This Nothing then is merely a something beyond positive conception. And when we say that out of Non-Being Being appeared, we perceive that we are speaking in terms of Time about that which is beyond Time.” The Life Divine
non-Being ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Non-Being is only a word. When we examine the fact it represents, we can no longer be sure that absolute non-existence has any better chance than the infinite Self of being more than an ideative formation of the mind. We really mean by this Nothing something beyond the last term to which we can reduce our purest conception and our most abstract or subtle experience of actual being as we know or conceive it while in this universe. This Nothing then is merely a something beyond positive conception. And when we say that out of Non-Being Being appeared, we perceive that we are speaking in terms of Time about that which is beyond Time.” The Life Divine ::: Non-Being"s, Non-being"s, non-being, non-being"s,
"Nothing can be more remarkable and suggestive than the extent to which modern Science confirms in the domain of Matter the conceptions and even the very formulae of language which were arrived at, by a very different method, in the Vedanta, — the original Vedanta, not of the schools of metaphysical philosophy, but of the Upanishads. And these, on the other hand, often reveal their full significance, their richer contents only when they are viewed in the new light shed by the discoveries of modern Science, — for instance, that Vedantic expression which describes things in the Cosmos as one seed arranged by the universal Energy in multitudinous forms.(1) Significant, especially, is the drive of Science towards a Monism which is consistent with multiplicity, towards the Vedic idea of the one essence with its many becomings.” The Life Divine
“Nothing can be more remarkable and suggestive than the extent to which modern Science confirms in the domain of Matter the conceptions and even the very formulae of language which were arrived at, by a very different method, in the Vedanta,—the original Vedanta, not of the schools of metaphysical philosophy, but of the Upanishads. And these, on the other hand, often reveal their full significance, their richer contents only when they are viewed in the new light shed by the discoveries of modern Science,—for instance, that Vedantic expression which describes things in the Cosmos as one seed arranged by the universal Energy in multitudinous forms.(1) Significant, especially, is the drive of Science towards a Monism which is consistent with multiplicity, towards the Vedic idea of the one essence with its many becomings.” The Life Divine
oestrus ::: a regularly occurring period of sexual receptivity in most female mammals, except humans, during which ovulation occurs and copulation can take place; heat. [from Latin oestrus gadfly, hence frenzy, from Greek oistros]
of things. It might almost be considered as an invention of the hostile forces.
On all sides runs as if in a cosmic mosque
One that contrives, devises, or constructs something: “The labyrinth . . . was built by Daedalus, a most skillful artificer” (Thomas Bulfinch).
ORDER. ::: In most physical things you have to fix a pro- gramme in order to deal with them, otherwise all becomes a sea of confusion and haphazard.
overmind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The overmind is a sort of delegation from the supermind (this is a metaphor only) which supports the present evolutionary universe in which we live here in Matter. If supermind were to start here from the beginning as the direct creative Power, a world of the kind we see now would be impossible; it would have been full of the divine Light from the beginning, there would be no involution in the inconscience of Matter, consequently no gradual striving evolution of consciousness in Matter. A line is therefore drawn between the higher half of the universe of consciousness, parardha , and the lower half, aparardha. The higher half is constituted of Sat, Chit, Ananda, Mahas (the supramental) — the lower half of mind, life, Matter. This line is the intermediary overmind which, though luminous itself, keeps from us the full indivisible supramental Light, depends on it indeed, but in receiving it, divides, distributes, breaks it up into separated aspects, powers, multiplicities of all kinds, each of which it is possible by a further diminution of consciousness, such as we reach in Mind, to regard as the sole or the chief Truth and all the rest as subordinate or contradictory to it.” *Letters on Yoga
"The overmind is the highest of the planes below the supramental.” *Letters on Yoga
"In its nature and law the Overmind is a delegate of the Supermind Consciousness, its delegate to the Ignorance. Or we might speak of it as a protective double, a screen of dissimilar similarity through which Supermind can act indirectly on an Ignorance whose darkness could not bear or receive the direct impact of a supreme Light.” The Life Divine
"The Overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit; its energy is an all-dynamism as well as a principle of separate dynamisms: it is a sort of inferior Supermind, — although it is concerned predominantly not with absolutes, but with what might be called the dynamic potentials or pragmatic truths of Reality, or with absolutes mainly for their power of generating pragmatic or creative values, although, too, its comprehension of things is more global than integral, since its totality is built up of global wholes or constituted by separate independent realities uniting or coalescing together, and although the essential unity is grasped by it and felt to be basic of things and pervasive in their manifestation, but no longer as in the Supermind their intimate and ever-present secret, their dominating continent, the overt constant builder of the harmonic whole of their activity and nature.” The Life Divine
"The overmind sees calmly, steadily, in great masses and large extensions of space and time and relation, globally; it creates and acts in the same way — it is the world of the great Gods, the divine Creators.” *Letters on Yoga
"The Overmind is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis which is not limited by rules and canons, it sees a universal and an eternal beauty while it takes up and transforms all that is limited and particular. It is besides concerned with things other than beauty or aesthetics. It is concerned especially with truth and knowledge or rather with a wisdom that exceeds what we call knowledge; its truth goes beyond truth of fact and truth of thought, even the higher thought which is the first spiritual range of the thinker. It has the truth of spiritual thought, spiritual feeling, spiritual sense and at its highest the truth that comes by the most intimate spiritual touch or by identity. Ultimately, truth and beauty come together and coincide, but in between there is a difference. Overmind in all its dealings puts truth first; it brings out the essential truth (and truths) in things and also its infinite possibilities; it brings out even the truth that lies behind falsehood and error; it brings out the truth of the Inconscient and the truth of the Superconscient and all that lies in between. When it speaks through poetry, this remains its first essential quality; a limited aesthetical artistic aim is not its purpose.” *Letters on Savitri
"In the overmind the Truth of supermind which is whole and harmonious enters into a separation into parts, many truths fronting each other and moved each to fulfil itself, to make a world of its own or else to prevail or take its share in worlds made of a combination of various separated Truths and Truth-forces.” Letters on Yoga
*Overmind"s.
PATH. ::: Rising to a station above the mind and opening out of the cosmic consciousness ; psychic opening ; descent of a higher consciousness with its peace, light, force, knowledge, Ananda etc. into all the planes of the being down to the most physical. All this has to be done by the working of the Mother’s force aided by your aspiration, devotion and surrender.
::: "Peace is a calm deepened into something that is very positive amounting almost to a tranquil waveless Ananda.” Letters on Yoga
“Peace is a calm deepened into something that is very positive amounting almost to a tranquil waveless Ananda.” Letters on Yoga
PEACE. ::: Peace is a calm deepened into something that is very positive amounting almost to a tranquil waveless Ananda.
peak ::: 1. The pointed top of a mountain or ridge. 2. The highest or most important point or level. peaks, peaked, peak-climb, low-peaked, highpeaked, eagle-peaks.
peripheries ::: 1. Outside boundaries or surfaces of things. 2. The outermost boundaries of an area.
PHYSICAL OPENING. ::: The opening of the physical and the subconscient always takes a long time as it is a thing of habits and constant repetition of the old movements, obscure and stiff and not plastic, yielding only little by little. The physical mind can be more easily opened and converted than the rest but the vital-physical and the mental-physical arc obstinate. The old things are always recurring there without reason and by force of habit. Much of the vital-physical and most of the material are in the subconsciencc or depend upon it. U needs a strong and sustained action to progress there.
plasm ::: the protoplasm of the germ cells that contains chromosomes and genes.
powers ::: Sri Aurobindo: "These are the forces and beings that are interested in maintaining the falsehoods they have created in the world of the Ignorance and in putting them forward as the Truth which men must follow. In India they are termed Asuras, Rakshasas, Pishachas (beings respectively of the mentalised vital, middle vital and lower vital planes) who are in opposition to the Gods, the Powers of Light. These too are Powers, for they too have their cosmic field in which they exercise their function and authority and some of them were once divine Powers (the former gods, purve devah , as they are called somewhere in the Mahabharata) who have fallen towards the darkness by revolt against the divine Will behind the cosmos.” Letters on Yoga
powers ::: “These are the forces and beings that are interested in maintaining the falsehoods they have created in the world of the Ignorance and in putting them forward as the Truth which men must follow. In India they are termed Asuras, Rakshasas, Pishachas (beings respectively of the mentalised vital, middle vital and lower vital planes) who are in opposition to the Gods, the Powers of Light. These too are Powers, for they too have their cosmic field in which they exercise their function and authority and some of them were once divine Powers (the former gods, purve devah , as they are called somewhere in the Mahabharata) who have fallen towards the darkness by revolt against the divine Will behind the cosmos.” Letters on Yoga
PRAYER. ::: The life of man is a life of wants and needs and therefore of desires, not only in his physical and vital, but in his mental and spiritual being. When he becomes conscious of a greater Power governing the world, he approaches it through prayer for the fulfilment of his needs, for help in his rough journey, for protection and aid in his struggle. Whatever crudi- ties there may be in the ordinary religious approach to God by prayer, and there are many, especially that attitude which ima- gines the Divine as if capable of being propitiated, bribed, flat- tered into acquiescence or indulgence by praise, entreaty and gifts and has often little te^td to the spirit in which he is approached, still this way of turning to the Divine is an essen- tial movement of our religious being and reposes on a universal truth.
The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and prayer itself supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. It is true that the universal will executes always its aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic propitiation and entreaty, it is true of the Transcendent who expresses himself in the universal order that, being omniscient, his larger knowledge must foresee the thing to be done and it does not need direction or stimulation by human thought and that the individual's desires are not and cannot be in any world-order the true determining factor. But neither is that order or the execution of the universal will altogether effected by mechanical Law, but by powers and forces of which for human life at least, human will, aspiration and faith are not among the least important. Prayer is only a particular form given to that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are very often crude and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but childish; but still it has a real power and significance. Its power and sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of man into touch with the divine Will as that of a conscious Being with whom we can enter into conscious and living relations. For our will and aspiration can act either by our own strength and endeavour, which can no doubt be made a thing great and effective whether for lower or higher purposes, -and there are plenty of disciplines which put it forward as the one force to be used, -- or it can act in dependence upon and with subordination to the divine or the universal Will. And this latter way, again, may either look upon that Will as responsive indeed to our aspiration, but almost mechanically, by a sort of law of energy, or at any rate quite impersonally, or else it may look upon it as responding consciously to the divine aspiration and faith of the human soul and consciously bringing to it the help, the guidance, the protection and fruition demanded, yogaksemam vahamyaham. ~ TSOY, SYN
Prayer helps to prepare this relation for us at first on the lower plane even while it is (here consistent with much that is mere egoism and self-delusion; but afterwards we can draw towards the spiritual truth which is behind it. It is not then the givinc of the thing asked for that matters, but the relation itself, the contact of man’s life with God, the conscious interchange.
In spiritual matters and in the seeking of spiritual gains, this conscious relation is a great power; it is a much greater power than our own entirely self-reliant struggle and effort and it brings a fuller spiritual growth and experience. Necessarily, in the end prayer either ceases in the greater thing for which it prepared us, -- in fact the form we call prayer is not itself essential so long as the faith, the will, the aspiration are there, -- or remains only for the joy of the relation. Also its objects, the artha or interest it seeks to realise, become higher and higher until we reach the highest motiveless devotion, which is that of divine love pure and simple without any other demand or longing.
Prayer for others ::: The fact of praying and the attitude it brings, especially unselfish prayer for others, itself opens you to the higher Power, even if there is no corresponding result in the person prayed for. 'Nothing can be positively said about that, for the result must necessarily depend on the persons, whe- ther they arc open or receptive or something in them can res- pond to any Force the prayer brings down.
Prayer must well up from the heart on a crest of emotion or aspiration.
Prayer {Ideal)'. Not prayer insisting on immediate fulfilment, but prayer that is itself a communion of the mind and heart with the Divine*and can have the joy and satisfaction of itself, trusting for fulfilment by the Divine in his own time.
presence ::: 1. The state or fact of being present; current existence or occurrence. 2. A divine, spiritual, or supernatural spirit or influence felt or conceived as present. 3. The immediate proximity of someone or something.
Sri Aurobindo: "It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one"s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any further qualification or description. Thus, of the ‘ineffable Presence" it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance, — the essential perception of the essential Presence supporting everything else.” *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.” Essays Divine and Human
"But if we learn to live within, we infallibly awaken to this presence within us which is our more real self, a presence profound, calm, joyous and puissant of which the world is not the master — a presence which, if it is not the Lord Himself, is the radiation of the Lord within.” *The Life Divine
"The true soul secret in us, — subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, — this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” *The Life Divine
"If we need any personal and inner witness to this indivisible All-Consciousness behind the ignorance, — all Nature is its external proof, — we can get it with any completeness only in our deeper inner being or larger and higher spiritual state when we draw back behind the veil of our own surface ignorance and come into contact with the divine Idea and Will behind it. Then we see clearly enough that what we have done by ourselves in our ignorance was yet overseen and guided in its result by the invisible Omniscience; we discover a greater working behind our ignorant working and begin to glimpse its purpose in us: then only can we see and know what now we worship in faith, recognise wholly the pure and universal Presence, meet the Lord of all being and all Nature.” *The Life Divine
"The presence of the Spirit is there in every living being, on every level, in all things, and because it is there, the experience of Sachchidananda, of the pure spiritual existence and consciousness, of the delight of a divine presence, closeness, contact can be acquired through the mind or the heart or the life-sense or even through the physical consciousness; if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the farthest chambers of the outer being.” *The Life Divine
"There is a secret divine Will, eternal and infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, that expresses itself in the universality and in each particular of all these apparently temporal and finite inconscient or half-conscient things. This is the Power or Presence meant by the Gita when it speaks of the Lord within the heart of all existences who turns all creatures as if mounted on a machine by the illusion of Nature.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time He conceals Himself, and then in His own right time He will reveal His Presence.” *Letters on Yoga
"They [the psychic being and the Divine Presence in the heart] are quite different things. The psychic being is one"s own individual soul-being. It is not the Divine, though it has come from the Divine and develops towards the Divine.” *Letters on Yoga
"For it is quietness and inwardness that enable one to feel the Presence.” *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.” *Essays Divine and Human
The Mother: "For, in human beings, here is a presence, the most marvellous Presence on earth, and except in a few very rare cases which I need not mention here, this presence lies asleep in the heart — not in the physical heart but the psychic centre — of all beings. And when this Splendour is manifested with enough purity, it will awaken in all beings the echo of his Presence.” Words of the Mother, MCW, Vol. 15.
prevail ::: 1. To be or become effective; become dominant. 2. To be most common or frequent; be predominant; to predominate. 3. To be in force, use, or effect; be current. prevails, prevailed.
progress ::: “A spiritual atmosphere is more important than outer conditions; if one can get that and also create one’s own spiritual air to breathe in and live in it, that is the true condition of progress.” Letters on Yoga
Psychic being is quite di/Terent from the mind or vital; it stands behind them where they meet in the heart. Its central place is there, but behind the heart rather than in the heart ; for what men call usually the heart is the seat of emotion, and human emotions are mental-vital impulses, not ordinarily psychic in their nature. This mostly secret power behind, other than the mind and the life-force, is the true soul, the psychic being in us. The power of the psychic, however, can act upon the mind and vital and body, purifying thought and perception and emotion (which then becomes psychic feeling) and sensaUon and action and everything else in us and preparing them to be divine movements. The psychic being may be described in Indian lan- guage as the Purusha in the heart or the Chaitya Purusha, but the inner or secret heart must be understood, hrdaye guhayom, not the outer vital-emotional centre. The supramental change can take place only if the psychic is awake and is made the chief support of the descending supramental power.
Psychic centre is behind the heart and it is through the puri- fied emotions that the psychic most easily finds an outlet.
Psychic expression ::: It is through the emotional being that the psychic most easily expresses, for it stands just behind it in the heart.
Psychic love and spiriitial ::: The true love for the Divine is in its fundamental nature psychic and spiritual. The psychic element is the need of the inmost being for self-giving, love, adoration, union which can only be fully satisfied by the Divine
PSYCHIC POWERS. ::: The range of the psychic consciousness and its experiences is almost illimitable and the variety and com- plexity of its phenomena almost infinite The first and most prominent is the activity of the psychic senses of which the sight is the most developed ordinarily and the first to manifest itself with any largeness when the veil of the absorption in the surface consciousness which prevents the inner vision is broken. But all the physical senses have their corresponding powers in the psychical being, there is a p^hical hearing, touch, smell, taste ::: indeed the physical senses are themselves in reality only a pro- jection of the inner sense into a limited and externalised opera- tion in and through and upon the phenomena of gross matter.
quagmire ::: Madhav: “Quagmire is almost the same as a bog, it is a little deeper, a little larger, where if you once get caught you can only move round and round, you cannot get out.” The Book of the Divine Mother
quest ::: “The quest of man for God, which becomes in the end the most ardent and enthralling of all his quests, begins with his first vague questionings of Nature and a sense of something unseen both in himself and her. Even if, as modern Science insists, religion started from animism, spirit-worship, demon-worship, and the deification of natural forces, these first forms only embody in primitive figures a veiled intuition in the subconscient, an obscure and ignorant feeling of hidden influences and incalculable forces, or a vague sense of being, will, intelligence in what seems to us inconscient, of the invisible behind the visible, of the secretly conscious spirit in things distributing itself in every working of energy. The obscurity and primitive inadequacy of the first perceptions do not detract from the value or the truth of this great quest of the human heart and mind, since all our seekings,—including Science itself,—must start from an obscure and ignorant perception of hidden realities and proceed to the more and more luminous vision of the Truth which at first comes to us masked, draped, veiled by the mists of the Ignorance. Anthropomorphism is an imaged recognition of the truth that man is what he is because God is what He is and that there is one soul and body of things, humanity even in its incompleteness the most complete manifestation yet achieved here and divinity the perfection of what in man is imperfect.” The Life Divine
RaDHA. ::: Personification of the absolute love for the Divine, total and integral in all parts of the being from the highest spiri- tual to the physical, bringing the absolute self-giving and total consecration of all the being and calling down into the body and the most material nature the supreme Ananda.
Radha ::: “Radha is the personification of the absolute love for the Divine, total and integral in all parts of the being from the highest spiritual to the physical, bringing the absolute self-giving and total consecration of all the being and calling down into the body and the most material nature the supreme Ananda.” Letters on Yoga
ramp ::: of animals: The action of standing or moving with the forelegs or arms raised, as in animosity or excitement.
realm ::: “Mind has its own realms and life has its own realms just as matter has. In the mental realms life and substance are entirely subordinated to Mind and obey its dictates. Here on earth there is the evolution with matter as the starting-point, life as the medium, mind emerging from it. There are many grades, realms, combinations in the cosmos—there are even many universes. Ours is only one of many.” Letters on Yoga
reconcile ::: “True reconciliation proceeds always by a mutual comprehension leading to some sort of intimate oneness. It is therefore through the utmost possible unification of Spirit and Matter that we shall best arrive at their reconciling truth and so at some strongest foundation for a reconciling practice in the inner life of the individual and his outer existence.” The Life Divine
rent regard for the other members of the great series. Thus, if we regard the vital or the subtle physical plane, we see great ranges of it, (most of it), existing in themselves, without any relation with the material world and with no movement to affect or influence it, still less to precipitate a corresponding manifes- tation in the physical formula. At most we can say that the existence of anything in the vital, subtle physical or any other plane creates a possibility for a corresponding movement of manifestation in the physical world. But something more is needed to turn that static or latent possibility into a dynamic potentiality or an actual urge towards a material creation. That something may be a call from the material plane, e.g., some force or some one on the physical existence entering into touch with a supraphysical power or world or part of it and moved to bring it down into the earth-life. Or it may be an impulse in the vital or other plane itself, e.g., a vital being moved to extend his action towards the earth and establish there a kingdom for himself or the play of the forces for which he stands in his own domain.
rose ::: “The rose is not the only beautiful flower, there are hundreds of others; most flowers are beautiful. There are degrees and kinds of beauty, that is all. The rose is among the first of flowers because of the richness of its colour, the intensity of sweetness of its scent and the grace and magnificence of its form.” Letters on Yoga , Volume—22 , SABCL
Samadbi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths accord* lag as it dran^ farther and farther away from the nonnal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or calf back the soul that has receded into them ; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the sj'stem owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a lime cannot return ; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had rnhahifed it. finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary pheno- mena of death, by an act of will, or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current
SAMANA. ::: Life-current which regulates interchange of prdtia and apana, equalises them and is the most important agent in maintaining the equilibrium of the vital forces and their func- tions.
Seeking for occulf powers is looked on with disfavour for the most part by spiritual teachers in India, because it belongs to the inferior planes and usually pushes the seeker on a path which may lead him very far from the Divine. Especially, a contact mth the forces and beings of the astral (or, as we term it, the vital) plane is attended with great dangers. The beings of this plane are often bosiQc to the true aim of spiritual life and establish contact with the seeker and offer him powers and occult experiences only in order that they may lead him away from the spiritual path or else that they may establish their own control over him or take possession of him for their owm pur- pose. Often, representing themselves as Divine powers they mis- lead, give erring suggestions and impulsions and pervert the inner life. Many are those who, attracted by these powers and beings of the vital plane, bave ended in a definitive spiritual fall or in mental and physical perversion and disorder. One comes ineritably into contact with the vital plane and enters into it in the expansion of consriousness which results from an inner opening, but one ought never to put oneself into the hands of these beings and forces or allow oneself to be led by their sug- gestions and impulsions. This is one of the chief dangers of the spiritual life and to be on one’s guard against it is a necessity for the seeTer if he wishes to arrive at his goal. It is true that many supraphysical or supernonnal powers come with the expansion of the consciousness in the yoga ; to rise out of the body consciousness, to act by subtle means on the supraphysical planes, etc. are natural activities for the yogi- But these powers are not sought after, they come naturally, and they have not the astral character. Also, Aey have to be used on purely spiritual
self-knowledge ::: knowing of oneself, without help from another.
Sri Aurobindo: The possibility of a cosmic consciousness in humanity is coming slowly to be admitted in modern Psychology, like the possibility of more elastic instruments of knowledge, although still classified, even when its value and power are admitted, as a hallucination. In the psychology of the East it has always been recognised as a reality and the aim of our subjective progress. The essence of the passage over to this goal is the exceeding of the limits imposed on us by the ego-sense and at least a partaking, at most an identification with the self-knowledge which broods secret in all life and in all that seems to us inanimate. *The Life Divine
"Therefore the only final goal possible is the emergence of the infinite consciousness in the individual; it is his recovery of the truth of himself by self-knowledge and by self-realisation, the truth of the Infinite in being, the Infinite in consciousness, the Infinite in delight repossessed as his own Self and Reality of which the finite is only a mask and an instrument for various expression.” The Life Divine
"The Truth-Consciousness is everywhere present in the universe as an ordering self-knowledge by which the One manifests the harmonies of its infinite potential multiplicity.” The Life Divine
serpent ::: A snake. Serpent, serpents, serpent-force, serpent-watched. (Sri Aurobindo most often employs the word as an adj.)
serpent ::: a snake. Serpent, serpents, serpent-force, serpent-watched. (Sri Aurobindo most often employs the word as an adj.)
shadow ::: n. 1. A dark figure or image cast on the ground or some surface by a body intercepting light. 2. Shade or comparative darkness, as in an area. 3. Darkness that is caused by the interception of light. 4. A phantom; a ghost. 5. An obscure indication; a symbol, type; a prefiguration, foreshadowing. 6. A hint or faint, indistinct image or idea; intimation. 7. A mere semblance. 8. A mirrored image or reflection. 9. Shelter; protection. 10. A dominant or pervasive threat, influence, or atmosphere, esp. one causing gloom, fear, doubt, or the like. Shadow, shadow"s, shadows. v. 11. To represent faintly, prophetically; to indicate obscurely or in slight outline; to symbolize, typify, prefigure. (Often followed by forth.) shadowed. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.) shadowlike, shadow-hung, shadow-self, shadow-soul, shadow-Sphinx.
shadow ::: n. 1. A dark figure or image cast on the ground or some surface by a body intercepting light. 2. Shade or comparative darkness, as in an area. 3. Darkness that is caused by the interception of light. 4. A phantom; a ghost. 5. An obscure indication; a symbol, type; a prefiguration, foreshadowing. 6. A hint or faint, indistinct image or idea; intimation. 7. A mere semblance. 8. A mirrored image or reflection. 9. Shelter; protection. 10. A dominant or pervasive threat, influence, or atmosphere, esp. one causing gloom, fear, doubt, or the like. Shadow, shadow’s, shadows. v. 11. To represent faintly, prophetically; to indicate obscurely or in slight outline; to symbolize, typify, prefigure. (Often followed by forth.) shadowed. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.) shadowlike, shadow-hung, shadow-self, shadow-soul, shadow-Sphinx.
Shakti, containing the world and pervading it as well as trans- cending it, manifesting all cosmic aspects. But what is most important for us is that it manifests as a transcending Light,
Shiva ::: “The ‘auspicious one’; a name of the third deity of the Hindu Trinity; . . . represented mostly as ‘the pure and white, the ascetic, the still, contemplative Yogin’. The name Shiva is not found in the Vedas; however, the name Rudra occurs both in the singular and the plural. This Rudra of the Vedas developed in the course of time into Shiva, considered in the Puranic tradition mainly as the destroying or dissolving Power. He has a third eye in the middle of the forehead, a fiery glance from which once reduced Kamadeva to ashes. In his creative aspect he is represented as a Linga (phallus), symbolising the male procreative energy in nature. It is under the form of the Linga that Shiva is mostly worshipped. His abode is on Mt. Kailash, Parvati is his spouse and the Trisula (the trident) his weapon.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
shiva ::: "The ‘auspicious one"; a name of the third deity of the Hindu Trinity; . . . represented mostly as ‘the pure and white, the ascetic, the still, contemplative Yogin". The name Shiva is not found in the Vedas; however, the name Rudra occurs both in the singular and the plural. This Rudra of the Vedas developed in the course of time into Shiva, considered in the Puranic tradition mainly as the destroying or dissolving Power. He has a third eye in the middle of the forehead, a fiery glance from which once reduced Kamadeva to ashes. In his creative aspect he is represented as a Linga (phallus), symbolising the male procreative energy in nature. It is under the form of the Linga that Shiva is mostly worshipped. His abode is on Mt. Kailash, Parvati is his spouse and the Trisula (the trident) his weapon.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
sleet-drift ::: a drift of snow which has been partially thawed by falling through an atmosphere of a temperature a little above freezing-point, usually accompanied by rain or snow.
"Soma is the Gandharva, the Lord of the hosts of delight, and guards the true seat of the Deva, the level or plane of the Ananda; gandharva itthâ padam asya rakshati. He is the Supreme, standing out from all other beings and over them, other than they and wonderful, adbhuta, and as the supreme and transcendent, present in the worlds but exceeding them, he protects in those worlds the births of the gods, pâti devânâm janimâni adbhutah. The ‘births of the gods" is a common phrase in the Veda by which is meant the manifestation of the divine principles in the cosmos and especially the formation of the godhead in its manifold forms in the human being.” The Secret of the Veda
“Soma is the Gandharva, the Lord of the hosts of delight, and guards the true seat of the Deva, the level or plane of the Ananda; gandharva itthâ padam asya rakshati. He is the Supreme, standing out from all other beings and over them, other than they and wonderful, adbhuta, and as the supreme and transcendent, present in the worlds but exceeding them, he protects in those worlds the births of the gods, pâti devânâm janimâni adbhutah. The ‘births of the gods’ is a common phrase in the Veda by which is meant the manifestation of the divine principles in the cosmos and especially the formation of the godhead in its manifold forms in the human being.” The Secret of the Veda
“Soma is the Gandharva, the Lord of the hosts of delight, and guards the true seat of the Deva, the level or plane of the Ananda; gandharvaitthâpadamasyarakshati. He is the Supreme, standing out from all other beings and over them, other than they and wonderful, adbhuta, and as the supreme and transcendent, present in the worlds but exceeding them, he protects in those worlds the births of the gods, pâtidevânâmjanimâniadbhutah. The ‘births of the gods’ is a common phrase in the Veda by which is meant the manifestation of the divine principles in the cosmos and especially the formation of the godhead in its manifold forms in the human being.” The Secret of the Veda
Some have benefited by putting a will on the body before going to sleep at night that the dreams should not happen • — though it may not succeed at the beginning, it tells in most cases after a time by fixing a certain inhibitory force on the subconscient from which these dreams arise.
soul ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The word ‘soul", as also the word ‘psychic", is used very vaguely and in many different senses in the English language. More often than not, in ordinary parlance, no clear distinction is made between mind and soul and often there is an even more serious confusion, for the vital being of desire — the false soul or desire-soul — is intended by the words ‘soul" and ‘psychic" and not the true soul, the psychic being.” *Letters on Yoga
"The word soul is very vaguely used in English — as it often refers to the whole non-physical consciousness including even the vital with all its desires and passions. That was why the word psychic being has to be used so as to distinguish this divine portion from the instrumental parts of the nature.” *Letters on Yoga
"The word soul has various meanings according to the context; it may mean the Purusha supporting the formation of Prakriti, which we call a being, though the proper word would be rather a becoming; it may mean, on the other hand, specifically the psychic being in an evolutionary creature like man; it may mean the spark of the Divine which has been put into Matter by the descent of the Divine into the material world and which upholds all evolving formations here.” *Letters on Yoga
"A distinction has to be made between the soul in its essence and the psychic being. Behind each and all there is the soul which is the spark of the Divine — none could exist without that. But it is quite possible to have a vital and physical being supported by such a soul essence but without a clearly evolved psychic being behind it.” *Letters on Yoga
"The soul and the psychic being are practically the same, except that even in things which have not developed a psychic being, there is still a spark of the Divine which can be called the soul. The psychic being is called in Sanskrit the Purusha in the heart or the Chaitya Purusha. (The psychic being is the soul developing in the evolution.)” *Letters on Yoga
"The soul or spark is there before the development of an organised vital and mind. The soul is something of the Divine that descends into the evolution as a divine Principle within it to support the evolution of the individual out of the Ignorance into the Light. It develops in the course of the evolution a psychic individual or soul individuality which grows from life to life, using the evolving mind, vital and body as its instruments. It is the soul that is immortal while the rest disintegrates; it passes from life to life carrying its experience in essence and the continuity of the evolution of the individual.” *Letters on Yoga
". . . for the soul is seated within and impervious to the shocks of external events. . . .” *Essays on the Gita
". . . the soul is at first but a spark and then a little flame of godhead burning in the midst of a great darkness; for the most part it is veiled in its inner sanctum and to reveal itself it has to call on the mind, the life-force and the physical consciousness and persuade them, as best they can, to express it; ordinarily, it succeeds at most in suffusing their outwardness with its inner light and modifying with its purifying fineness their dark obscurities or their coarser mixture. Even when there is a formed psychic being able to express itself with some directness in life, it is still in all but a few a smaller portion of the being — ‘no bigger in the mass of the body than the thumb of a man" was the image used by the ancient seers — and it is not always able to prevail against the obscurity or ignorant smallness of the physical consciousness, the mistaken surenesses of the mind or the arrogance and vehemence of the vital nature.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
". . . the soul is an eternal portion of the Supreme and not a fraction of Nature.” The Life Divine
"The true soul secret in us, — subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, — this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” The Life Divine
*Soul, soul"s, Soul"s, souls, soulless, soul-bridals, soul-change, soul-force, Soul-Forces, soul-ground, soul-joy, soul-nature, soul-range, soul-ray, soul-scapes, soul-scene, soul-sense, soul-severance, soul-sight, soul-slaying, soul-space,, soul-spaces, soul-strength, soul-stuff, soul-truth, soul-vision, soul-wings, world-soul, World-Soul.
Speech is a thing which in most people is largely automatic and not under control. It is the vigllanoe that establishes the control, so one must be on guard. Only, the more it
Spirituality can only come by opening of the mind, vital and physical to the inmost soul, to the higher Self, to the Divine, and their subordination to the spiritual forces and instrumentation as channels of the inner Light, the higher Knowledge and Power.
*Sri Aurobindo: "Action is the first power of life. Nature begins with force and its works which, once conscious in man, become will and its achievements; therefore it is that by turning his action Godwards the life of man best and most surely begins to become divine.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "A spiritual atmosphere is more important than outer conditions; if one can get that and also create one"s own spiritual air to breathe in and live in it, that is the true condition of progress.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: A symbol, as I understand it, is the form on one plane that represents a truth of another. For instance, a flag is the symbol of a nation…. But generally all forms are symbols. This body of ours is a symbol of our real being and everything is a symbol of some higher reality. There are, however, different kinds of symbols: 1. Conventional symbols, such as the Vedic Rishis formed with objects taken from their surroundings. The cow stood for light because the same word `go ‘ meant both ray and cow, and because the cow was their most precious possession which maintained their life and was constantly in danger of being robbed and concealed. But once created, such a symbol becomes alive. The Rishis vitalised it and it became a part of their realisation. It appeared in their visions as an image of spiritual light. The horse also was one of their favourite symbols, and a more easily adaptable one, since its force and energy were quite evident. 2. What we might call Life-symbols, such as are not artificially chosen or mentally interpreted in a conscious deliberate way, but derive naturally from our day-to-day life and grow out of the surroundings which condition our normal path of living. To the ancients the mountain was a symbol of the path of yoga, level above level, peak upon peak. A journey, involving the crossing of rivers and the facing of lurking enemies, both animal and human, conveyed a similar idea. Nowadays I dare say we would liken yoga to a motor-ride or a railway-trip. 3. Symbols that have an inherent appositeness and power of their own. Akasha or etheric space is a symbol of the infinite all-pervading eternal Brahman. In any nationality it would convey the same meaning. Also, the Sun stands universally for the supramental Light, the divine Gnosis. 4.* Mental symbols, instances of which are numbers or alphabets. Once they are accepted, they too become active and may be useful. Thus geometrical figures have been variously interpreted. In my experience the square symbolises the supermind. I cannot say how it came to do so. Somebody or some force may have built it before it came to my mind. Of the triangle, too, there are different explanations. In one position it can symbolise the three lower planes, in another the symbol is of the three higher ones: so both can be combined together in a single sign. The ancients liked to indulge in similar speculations concerning numbers, but their systems were mostly mental. It is no doubt true that supramental realities exist which we translate into mental formulas such as Karma, Psychic evolution, etc. But they are, so to speak, infinite realities which cannot be limited by these symbolic forms, though they may be somewhat expressed by them; they might be expressed as well by other symbols, and the same symbol may also express many different ideas. Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "But if the individual is a persistent reality, an eternal portion or power of the Eternal, if his growth of consciousness is the means by which the Spirit in things discloses its being, the cosmos reveals itself as a conditioned manifestation of the play of the eternal One in the being of Sachchidananda with the eternal Many.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: " . . . 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. The Synthesis of Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "Emotion itself is not a bad thing; it is a necessary part of the nature, and psychic emotion is one of the most powerful helps to the sadhana. Psychic emotion, bringing tears of love for the Divine or tears of Ananda, ought not to be suppressed: . . . .” Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "Experience is a word that covers almost all the happenings in yoga; only when something gets settled, then it is no longer an experience but part of the siddhi; e.g. peace when it comes and goes is an experience — when it is settled and goes no more it is a siddhi.” Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "Fear is a creation of the vital plane, an instinct of the ignorance, a sense of danger with a violent vital reaction that replaces and usually prevents or distorts the intelligence of things. It might almost be considered as an invention of the hostile forces.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Finally, we have the goddess Dakshina who may well be a female form of Daksha, himself a god and afterwards in the Purana one of the Prajapatis, the original progenitors, — we have Dakshina associated with the manifestation of knowledge and sometimes almost identified with Usha, the divine Dawn, who is the bringer of illumination. I shall suggest that Dakshina like the more famous Ila, Saraswati and Sarama, is one of four goddesses representing the four faculties of the Ritam or Truth-consciousness, — Ila representing truth-vision or revelation, Saraswati truth-audition, inspiration, the divine word, Sarama intuition, Dakshina the separative intuitional discrimination.” *The Secret of the Veda
Sri Aurobindo: "Gnosis or true supermind is a power above mind working in its own law, out of the direct identity of the supreme Self, his absolute self-conscious Truth knowing herself by her own power of absolute Light without any need of seeking, even the most luminous seeking.” The Upanishads (footnote)
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . *ideals and idealists are necessary; ideals are the savour and sap of life, idealists the most powerful diviners and assistants of its purposes.” The Human Cycle
Sri Aurobindo: "It could be affirmed as a consequence that there is one all-pervading Life or dynamic energy — the material aspect being only its outermost movement — that creates all these forms of the physical universe, Life imperishable and eternal which, even if the whole figure of the universe were quite abolished, would itself still go on existing and be capable of producing a new universe in its place, must indeed, unless it be held back in a state of rest by some higher Power or hold itself back, inevitably go on creating. In that case Life is nothing else than the Force that builds and maintains and destroys forms in the world; it is Life that manifests itself in the form of the earth as much as in the plant that grows upon the earth and the animals that support their existence by devouring the life-force of the plant or of each other. All existence here is a universal Life that takes form of Matter. It might for that purpose hide life-process in physical process before it emerges as submental sensitivity and mentalised vitality, but still it would be throughout the same creative Life-principle.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "It might be said again that, even so, in Sachchidananda itself at least, above all worlds of manifestation, there could be nothing but the self-awareness of pure existence and consciousness and a pure delight of existence. Or, indeed, this triune being itself might well be only a trinity of original spiritual self-determinations of the Infinite; these too, like all determinations, would cease to exist in the ineffable Absolute. But our position is that these must be inherent truths of the supreme being; their utmost reality must be pre-existent in the Absolute even if they are ineffably other there than what they are in the spiritual mind"s highest possible experience. The Absolute is not a mystery of infinite blankness nor a supreme sum of negations; nothing can manifest that is not justified by some self-power of the original and omnipresent Reality.” The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "Mind has its own realms and life has its own realms just as matter has. In the mental realms life and substance are entirely subordinated to Mind and obey its dictates. Here on earth there is the evolution with matter as the starting-point, life as the medium, mind emerging from it. There are many grades, realms, combinations in the cosmos — there are even many universes. Ours is only one of many.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Only those thoughts are true the opposite of which is also true in its own time and application; indisputable dogmas are the most dangerous kind of falsehoods.” Essays Divine and Human
::: Sri Aurobindo: "Radha is the personification of the absolute love for the Divine, total and integral in all parts of the being from the highest spiritual to the physical, bringing the absolute self-giving and total consecration of all the being and calling down into the body and the most material nature the supreme Ananda.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: “Radha is the personification of the absolute love for the Divine, total and integral in all parts of the being from the highest spiritual to the physical, bringing the absolute self-giving and total consecration of all the being and calling down into the body and the most material nature the supreme Ananda.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The Absolute cannot indeed be bound in its nature to manifest a cosmos of relations, but neither can it be bound not to manifest any cosmos. It is not itself a sheer emptiness; for 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: it bears in itself some ineffable essentiality of all that is and all that can be; and since it holds in itself this essentiality and this possibility, it must also hold in itself in some way of its absoluteness either the permanent truth or the inherent, even if latent, realisable actuality of all that is fundamental to our or the world"s existence.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The cosmic consciousness is that of the universe, of the cosmic spirit and cosmic Nature with all the beings and forces within it. All that is as much conscious as a whole as the individual separately is, though in a different way. The consciousness of the individual is part of this, but a part feeling itself as a separate being. Yet all the time most of what he is comes into him from the cosmic consciousness. But there is a wall of separative ignorance between. Once it breaks down he becomes aware of the cosmic Self, of the consciousness of the cosmic Nature, of the forces playing in it, etc. He feels all that as he now feels physical things and impacts. He finds it all to be one with his larger or universal self.” *Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the divine Ananda, the principle of Bliss [is that] from which, in the Vedic conception, the existence of Man, this mental being, is drawn. A secret Delight is the base of existence, its sustaining atmosphere and almost its substance. This Ananda is spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the ethereal atmosphere of bliss without which nothing could remain in being. In the Aitareya Upanishad Soma, as the lunar deity, is born from the sense-mind in the universal Purusha and, when man is produced, expresses himself again as sense-mentality in the human being. For delight is the raison d"être of sensation, or, we may say, sensation is an attempt to translate the secret delight of existence into the terms of physical consciousness.” The Secret of the Veda
Sri Aurobindo: "The quest of man for God, which becomes in the end the most ardent and enthralling of all his quests, begins with his first vague questionings of Nature and a sense of something unseen both in himself and her. Even if, as modern Science insists, religion started from animism, spirit-worship, demon-worship, and the deification of natural forces, these first forms only embody in primitive figures a veiled intuition in the subconscient, an obscure and ignorant feeling of hidden influences and incalculable forces, or a vague sense of being, will, intelligence in what seems to us inconscient, of the invisible behind the visible, of the secretly conscious spirit in things distributing itself in every working of energy. The obscurity and primitive inadequacy of the first perceptions do not detract from the value or the truth of this great quest of the human heart and mind, since all our seekings, — including Science itself, — must start from an obscure and ignorant perception of hidden realities and proceed to the more and more luminous vision of the Truth which at first comes to us masked, draped, veiled by the mists of the Ignorance. Anthropomorphism is an imaged recognition of the truth that man is what he is because God is what He is and that there is one soul and body of things, humanity even in its incompleteness the most complete manifestation yet achieved here and divinity the perfection of what in man is imperfect.” The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "There are some who often or almost invariably have the contact whenever they worship, the Deity may become living to them in the picture or other image they worship, may move and act through it; others may feel him always present, outwardly, subtle-physically, abiding with them where they live or in the very room, but sometimes this is only for a period. Or they may feel the Presence with them, see it frequently in a body (but not materially except sometimes), feel its touch or embrace, converse with it constantly — that is also a kind of milana. The greatest milana is one in which one is constantly aware of the Deity abiding in oneself, in everything in the world, holding all the world in him, identical with existence and yet supremely beyond the world — but in the world too one sees, hears, feels nothing but him, so that the very senses bear witness to him alone — . . . .” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The true soul secret in us, — subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, — this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "This idea of universality, of oneness not only with God or the eternal Self in me, but with all humanity and other beings, is growing to be the most prominent strain in our minds and it has to be taken more largely into account in any future idea or computation of the significance of rebirth and karma.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "This truth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in another; but to the Buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the clearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In the West too the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary glimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as an ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength of man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of law, vague ideas of some superior caprice or of some divine jealousy, — that was a notion of the Greeks, — a blind Fate or inscrutable Necessity, Ananke, or, later, the mysterious ways of an arbitrary, though no doubt an all-wise Providence.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga *Ananke"s.
Sri Aurobindo: “This truth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in another; but to the Buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the clearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In the West too the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary glimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as an ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength of man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of law, vague ideas of some superior caprice or of some divine jealousy,—that was a notion of the Greeks,—a blind Fate or inscrutable Necessity, Ananke, or, later, the mysterious ways of an arbitrary, though no doubt an all-wise Providence.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "True reconciliation proceeds always by a mutual comprehension leading to some sort of intimate oneness. It is therefore through the utmost possible unification of Spirit and Matter that we shall best arrive at their reconciling truth and so at some strongest foundation for a reconciling practice in the inner life of the individual and his outer existence.” The Life Divine*
Sri Aurobindo: "We mean by the Absolute something greater than ourselves, greater than the cosmos which we live in, the supreme reality of that transcendent Being which we call God, something without which all that we see or are conscious of as existing, could not have been, could not for a moment remain in existence. Indian thought calls it Brahman, European thought the Absolute because it is a self-existent which is absolved of all bondage to relativities . . . The Absolute is for us the Ineffable.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "What we call unconsciousness is simply other-consciousness; it is the going in of this surface wave of our mental awareness of outer objects into our subliminal self-awareness and into our awareness too of other planes of existence. We are really no more unconscious when we are asleep or stunned or drugged or ``dead"" or in any other state, than when we are plunged in inner thought oblivious of our physical selves and our surroundings. For anyone who has advanced even a little way in Yoga, this is a most elementary proposition and one which offers no difficulty whatever to the thought because it is proved at every point by experience.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Yet all the time the universal forces are pouring into him without his knowing it. He is aware only of thoughts, feelings, etc., that rise to the surface and these he takes for his own. Really they come from outside in mind waves, vital waves, waves of feeling and sensation, etc., which take particular form in him and rise to the surface after they have got inside. But they do not get into his body at once. He carries about with him an environmental consciousness (called by the Theosophists the Aura) into which they first enter. If you can become conscious of this environmental self of yours, then you can catch the thought, passion, suggestion or force of illness and prevent it from entering into you. If things in you are thrown out, they often do not go altogether but take refuge in this environmental atmosphere and from there they try to get in again. Or they go to a distance outside but linger on the outskirts or even perhaps far off, waiting till they get an opportunity to attempt entrance.” *Letters on Yoga
steal ::: 1. To take (the property or any possession, of another) or steal without right or permission something dear to one. Also fig. 2. To move or convey stealthily or quietly or unobtrusively. 3. To come upon stealthily to attack or steal from. 4. To glide, or move gently and almost imperceptibly. steals, stole, stolen, stealing.
Still what is important is to develop the psychic within and bring down the higher consciousness from above. The psychic, as it grows and manifests, detects immediately all wrong move- ments or elements and at the same lime supplies almost auto- matically the true element or movement which will replace them ; this process is much easier and more effective than that of a severe tapasy& of purification. The higher consciousness In des-
storm ::: 1. An atmospheric disturbance manifested in strong winds accompanied by rain, snow, or other precipitation and often by thunder and lightning. Also fig. 2. A passionate manifestation of a particular feeling or quality. 3. takes by storm. Captures or overruns by a violent assault; overwhelms. storms, storm-charge, storm-haired, storm-licked, storm-sweeps, storm-troubled, storm-winged.
strain ::: n. 1. A passage of melody, music, or songs as rendered or heard. 2. Kind, type or sort. strains. v. 3. To force to extreme effort, exert to the utmost (one"s limbs, organs, powers). 4. To make an extreme or excessive effort at or after some object of attainment. 5. Fig. To purify or refine by filtration. strains, strained, straining.
stratosphere ::: 1. The region of the Earth"s atmosphere extending from the tropopause to about 50 km (31 mi) above the Earth"s surface. The stratosphere is characterized by the presence of ozone gas (in the ozone layer) and by temperatures which rise slightly with altitude, due to the absorption of ultraviolet radiation. 2. An extremely high or the highest point or degree on a ranked scale.
sunbelts ::: lands where the sun shines almost throughout the year.
superconscience ::: “But a third power or possibility of the Infinite Consciousness can be admitted, its power of self-absorption, of plunging into itself, into a state in which self-awareness exists but not as knowledge and not as all-knowledge; the all would then be involved in pure self-awareness, and knowledge and the inner consciousness itself would be lost in pure being. This is, luminously, the state which we call the Superconscience in an absolute sense,—although most of what we call superconscient is in reality not that but only a higher conscient, something that is conscious to itself and only superconscious to our own limited level of awareness.” The Life Divine
superconscience ::: Sri Aurobindo: "But a third power or possibility of the Infinite Consciousness can be admitted, its power of self-absorption, of plunging into itself, into a state in which self-awareness exists but not as knowledge and not as all-knowledge; the all would then be involved in pure self-awareness, and knowledge and the inner consciousness itself would be lost in pure being. This is, luminously, the state which we call the Superconscience in an absolute sense, — although most of what we call superconscient is in reality not that but only a higher conscient, something that is conscious to itself and only superconscious to our own limited level of awareness.” The Life Divine
superfluity ::: overabundance or excess in the most positive sense.
(supported by the lowest part of the vital proper) is therefore the agent of most of the lesser movements of our external life ; its habitual reactions and obstinate pettinesses are the chief stumbling-block in the way of transformation of the outer cons- ciousness by the yoga. It is also largely responsible for most of the suffering and disease of mind or body to which the physical being is subject in Nature.
surface ::: n. **1. The outer face, outside, or exterior boundary of a thing; outermost or uppermost layer or area. 2. The superficial, outward or external aspect or appearance. 3. The upper layer of a body of water or other liquids. surfaces. adj. 4. Of, on, or pertaining to the surface; external. 5. Apparent rather than real; superficial. surface-clear.**
Surrender and vital *. The ordinary vital is never willing to surrender. The true inmost vital is different — surrender to the
symbol ::: A symbol, as I understand it, is the form on one plane that represents a truth of another. For instance, a flag is the symbol of a nation…. But generally all forms are symbols. This body of ours is a symbol of our real being and everything is a symbol of some higher reality. There are, however, different kinds of symbols: 1. Conventional symbols, such as the Vedic Rishis formed with objects taken from their surroundings. The cow stood for light because the same word `go ‘ meant both ray and cow, and because the cow was their most precious possession which maintained their life and was constantly in danger of being robbed and concealed. But once created, such a symbol becomes alive. The Rishis vitalised it and it became a part of their realisation. It appeared in their visions as an image of spiritual light. The horse also was one of their favourite symbols, and a more easily adaptable one, since its force and energy were quite evident. 2. What we might call Life-symbols, such as are not artificially chosen or mentally interpreted in a conscious deliberate way, but derive naturally from our day-to-day life and grow out of the surroundings which condition our normal path of living. To the ancients the mountain was a symbol of the path of yoga, level above level, peak upon peak. A journey, involving the crossing of rivers and the facing of lurking enemies, both animal and human, conveyed a similar idea. Nowadays I dare say we would liken yoga to a motor-ride or a railway-trip. 3. Symbols that have an inherent appositeness and power of their own. Akasha or etheric space is a symbol of the infinite all-pervading eternal Brahman. In any nationality it would convey the same meaning. Also, the Sun stands universally for the supramental Light, the divine Gnosis. 4. Mental symbols, instances of which are numbers or alphabets. Once they are accepted, they too become active and may be useful. Thus geometrical figures have been variously interpreted. In my experience the square symbolises the supermind. I cannot say how it came to do so. Somebody or some force may have built it before it came to my mind. Of the triangle, too, there are different explanations. In one position it can symbolise the three lower planes, in another the symbol is of the three higher ones: so both can be combined together in a single sign. The ancients liked to indulge in similar speculations concerning numbers, but their systems were mostly mental. It is no doubt true that supramental realities exist which we translate into mental formulas such as Karma, Psychic evolution, etc. But they are, so to speak, infinite realities which cannot be limited by these symbolic forms, though they may be somewhat expressed by them; they might be expressed as well by other symbols, and the same symbol may also express many different ideas. Letters on Yoga
Tapasya. Not only so, but in fact a double process of Tapasya and increasing surrender persists for a long time even when the surrender has fairly well begun. But a time comes when one feels the Presence and the force constantly and more and more feels ’that that is doing everylhmg — so that the worst difficul- ties cannot disturb this sense and personal effort is no longer necessary, hardly even possible. That is the sign of the full surrender of the nature into the bands of the Divine. There are some who take this position in faith even before there is this experience and if the Bhakti and the faith are strong it carries them through till the experience is there. But all cannot take this position from the beginning — and for some it would be dangerous since they might pul themselves into the hand of a wrong Force thinking it to be the Divine. For most it is neces- sary to grow through Tapasya into surrender.
termite ::: any of numerous pale-colored, usually soft-bodied social insects of the order Isoptera that live mostly in warm regions and many species of which feed on wood, often destroying trees and wooden structures. Also called white ant.
tessellated ::: arranged in or having the appearance of a mosaic; chequered.
“That which we call Nature or Prakriti is only her [the Mother’s] 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.” The Mother
The action of the animal sex-energy in Nature is a device for a particular purpose in the economy of the matcriaJ creation in the Ignorance. But the vital excitement that accompanies it makes the most favourable opportuni^ and vibration in the atmosphere for the inrush of those vital forces and beings whose ' whole business is to prevent the descent of the suprarnentaJ Light.
"The animal is satisfied with a modicum of necessity; the gods are content with their splendours. But man cannot rest permanently until he reaches some highest good. He is the greatest of living beings because he is the most discontented, because he feels most the pressure of limitations. He alone, perhaps, is capable of being seized by the divine frenzy for a remote ideal.” The Life Divine
“The animal is satisfied with a modicum of necessity; the gods are content with their splendours. But man cannot rest permanently until he reaches some highest good. He is the greatest of living beings because he is the most discontented, because he feels most the pressure of limitations. He alone, perhaps, is capable of being seized by the divine frenzy for a remote ideal.” The Life Divine
The most important thing for this purifiration of the heart is an absolute sincerity. No pretence with oneself, no conceal- ment from the Divine, or oneself, or the Guru, a straight look at one’s movements, a straight will to make them strai^t.
The most notable of these more powerful but rarer phenomena are those which attend the power of exterioration of our cons- ciousness for various lands of action otherwise and elsewhere than in the physical body, communication in the psychical body or some emanation or reproduction of it, oftenest, though by no means necessarily, during sleep or trance and the setting up of relations or communtcatioo by various means rvith the denizens of another plane of existence.
::: "The most usual form of power is control over things, person, events, forces.” The Mother
“The most usual form of power is control over things, person, events, forces.” The Mother
The centre of the psychic being is behind the centre of the emotional being ; it is the emotional that is nearest dynamically to the psychic and in most men it is through the emotional centre that the psychic can be most easily reached and through the psychicised emotion that it can be most easily e;tpressed.
"The cosmic consciousness is that in which the limits of ego, personal mind and body disappear and one becomes aware of a cosmic vastness which is or filled by a cosmic spirit and aware also of the direct play of cosmic forces, universal mind forces, universal life forces, universal energies of Matter, universal overmind forces. But one does not become aware of all these together; the opening of the cosmic consciousness is usually progressive. It is not that the ego, the body, the personal mind disappear, but one feels them as only a small part of oneself. One begins to feel others too as part of oneself or varied repetitions of oneself, the same self modified by Nature in other bodies. Or, at the least, as living in the larger universal self which is henceforth one"s own greater reality. All things in fact begin to change their nature and appearance; one"s whole experience of the world is radically different from that of those who are shut up in their personal selves. One begins to know things by a different kind of experience, more direct, not depending on the external mind and the senses. It is not that the possibility of error disappears, for that cannot be so long as mind of any kind is one"s instrument for transcribing knowledge, but there is a new, vast and deep way of experiencing, seeing, knowing, contacting things; and the confines of knowledge can be rolled back to an almost unmeasurable degree. The thing one has to be on guard against in the cosmic consciousness is the play of a magnified ego, the vaster attacks of the hostile forces — for they too are part of the cosmic consciousness — and the attempt of the cosmic Illusion (Ignorance, Avidya) to prevent the growth of the soul into the cosmic Truth. These are things that one has to learn from experience; mental teaching or explanation is quite insufficient. To enter safely into the cosmic consciousness and to pass safely through it, it is necessary to have a strong central unegoistic sincerity and to have the psychic being, with its divination of truth and unfaltering orientation towards the Divine, already in front in ::: —the nature.” Letters on Yoga*
“The cosmic consciousness is that in which the limits of ego, personal mind and body disappear and one becomes aware of a cosmic vastness which is or filled by a cosmic spirit and aware also of the direct play of cosmic forces, universal mind forces, universal life forces, universal energies of Matter, universal overmind forces. But one does not become aware of all these together; the opening of the cosmic consciousness is usually progressive. It is not that the ego, the body, the personal mind disappear, but one feels them as only a small part of oneself. One begins to feel others too as part of oneself or varied repetitions of oneself, the same self modified by Nature in other bodies. Or, at the least, as living in the larger universal self which is henceforth one’s own greater reality. All things in fact begin to change their nature and appearance; one’s whole experience of the world is radically different from that of those who are shut up in their personal selves. One begins to know things by a different kind of experience, more direct, not depending on the external mind and the senses. It is not that the possibility of error disappears, for that cannot be so long as mind of any kind is one’s instrument for transcribing knowledge, but there is a new, vast and deep way of experiencing, seeing, knowing, contacting things; and the confines of knowledge can be rolled back to an almost unmeasurable degree. The thing one has to be on guard against in the cosmic consciousness is the play of a magnified ego, the vaster attacks of the hostile forces—for they too are part of the cosmic consciousness—and the attempt of the cosmic Illusion (Ignorance, Avidya) to prevent the growth of the soul into the cosmic Truth. These are things that one has to learn from experience; mental teaching or explanation is quite insufficient. To enter safely into the cosmic consciousness and to pass safely through it, it is necessary to have a strong central unegoistic sincerity and to have the psychic being, with its divination of truth and unfaltering orientation towards the Divine, already in front in—the nature.” Letters on Yoga
“The cosmic consciousness is that of the universe, of the cosmic spirit and cosmic Nature with all the beings and forces within it. All that is as much conscious as a whole as the individual separately is, though in a different way. The consciousness of the individual is part of this, but a part feeling itself as a separate being. Yet all the time most of what he is comes into him from the cosmic consciousness. But there is a wall of separative ignorance between. Once it breaks down he becomes aware of the cosmic Self, of the consciousness of the cosmic Nature, of the forces playing in it, etc. He feels all that as he now feels physical things and impacts. He finds it all to be one with his larger or universal self.” Letters on Yoga
“The Cosmic Spirit or Self contains everything in the cosmos—it upholds cosmic Mind, universal Life, universal Matter as well as the overmind. The Self is more than all these things which are its formulations in Nature.” Letters on Yoga
The course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they have strong family resemblance. One can even- tually overcome If one begins to realise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of observing them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf, finally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and refusing the mind's sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl and the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions. In the end, these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature ; the recurrence becomes feeble, or has no power to last ; even, if the detach- ment is strong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once.
“The difference between the ordinary mind and the intuitive is that the former, seeking in the darkness or at most by its own unsteady torchlight, first, sees things only as they are presented in that light and, secondly, where it does not know, constructs by imagination, by uncertain inference, by others of its aids and makeshifts things which it readily takes for truth, shadow projections, cloud edifices, unreal prolongations, deceptive anticipations, possibilities and probabilities which do duty for certitudes. The intuitive mind constructs nothing in this artificial fashion, but makes itself a receiver of the light and allows the truth to manifest in it and organise its own constructions.” The Synthesis of Yoga
The difficulties in the nature alwas-s rise again and again till sou osetcome them ; they most be faced with both strength and patience.
The difficulty comes when either the vital with its desires or the physical with its past habitual movements comes in — as they do with almost everyone. It is then that the dryness and diffi-
The direct power of mind-force or life-force upon matter can be extended to an almost illimitable decree. It must be remem- bered that Energy is fundamentally one in all the planes, only , taking more and more dense forms, so there is nothing a priori impossible in mind-energy or Jifc-cncrgy acting directly on mate- rial energy aird substance ; if they do they can make a material object do things or rather can do things with a material object which wiould be to that object in its ordinary poise 'or ‘law* unhabitual and therefore apparently impossible.
The Divine reveals himself in the world around us when we look upon that with a spiritual desire of delight that seeks him in all things. There is often a sudden opening by which the veil of forms is itself turned Into a revelation. A universal spiri- tual Presence, a universal peace, a universal infinite Delight has manifested, immanent, embracing, aU-penetraling. This Presence by our love of It, our delight in it, our constant thought of It returns and grows upon us ; it becomes the thing that we see and all else is only its habitation, form and symbol. Even all that is most outward, the body, the form, the sound, "whatever our senses seize, are seen as this Presence ; they cease to be physical and are changed into a substance of spirit. This trans- formation means a transformation of our own inner conscious- ness ; we are taken by the surrounding Presence into itself and
The gestures or movements of a classical drama of Japan, with music and dance performed in a highly stylised manner by elaborately dressed performers on an almost bare stage.
The ghost or spirit who turns up at seances js not the psychic being. What comes tlirough the medium is a mixture of the medium’s subconscient (using subconscient in the ordinary, not in the yogic sense) and that ot the sitters, vital sheaths left by the departed or perhaps occupied or used by some spirit or some vital being, the departed himself in his vital sheath or else something assumed for the occasion (but it is the vital part that communicates), elementals, spirits of the lowest vital physical world near earth etc. A horrible confusion for the most part — a hotch-potch of all sorts of things coming through a medium of
"The Gods are the great undying Powers and immortal Personalities who consciously inform, constitute, preside over the subjective and objective forces of the cosmos.” Essays on the Gita
“The Gods are the great undying Powers and immortal Personalities who consciously inform, constitute, preside over the subjective and objective forces of the cosmos.” Essays on the Gita
"The inner vision is an open door on higher planes of consciousness beyond the physical mind which gives room for a wider truth and experience to enter and act upon the mind. It is not the only or the most important door, but it is one which comes readiest to very many if not most and can be a very powerful help.” Letters on Yoga
“The inner vision is an open door on higher planes of consciousness beyond the physical mind which gives room for a wider truth and experience to enter and act upon the mind. It is not the only or the most important door, but it is one which comes readiest to very many if not most and can be a very powerful help.” Letters on Yoga
The leader of the journey, the captain of the march, the first and most ancient priest of our sacrifice is the Will. This Will is not the wish of the heart or the demand or preference of the mind to which we often give the name. It is that inmost, dominant and often veiled conscious force of our being and of all being, Tapas, Sbakti, Shraddha, that sovereignly determines our orientation and of which the intellect and the heart are more or less blind and automatic servants and instruments. The Self that is quiescent, at rest, vacant of things and happenings is n support and background to existence, a silent channel or a hypostasis of something Supreme ::: it is not itself the one entirely real existence, not itself the Supreme. The Eternal, the Supreme is the Lord and the all-originating Spirit. Superior to all activi- ties and not bound by any of them, it is the source, sanction, material, efficient power, master of all activities. All activities proceed from this supreme Self and are determined by it ; all are its operations, processes of its own conscious force and not ot something alien to Self, some power other than this Spirit.
"The leader of the journey, the captain of the march, the first and most ancient priest of our sacrifice is the Will. This Will is not the wish of the heart or the demand or preference of the mind to which we often give the name. It is that inmost, dominant and often veiled conscious force of our being and of all being, Tapas, Shakti, Sraddha, that sovereignly determines our orientation and of which the intellect and the heart are more or less blind and automatic servants and instruments.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
“The leader of the journey, the captain of the march, the first and most ancient priest of our sacrifice is the Will. This Will is not the wish of the heart or the demand or preference of the mind to which we often give the name. It is that inmost, dominant and often veiled conscious force of our being and of all being, Tapas, Shakti, Sraddha, that sovereignly determines our orientation and of which the intellect and the heart are more or less blind and automatic servants and instruments.” The Synthesis of Yoga
::: "The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force-Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; he is Space and all that is in Space; he is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe.” The Life Divine*
“The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force-Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; he is Space and all that is in Space; he is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe.” The Life Divine
The Mother: “For, in human beings, here is a presence, the most marvellous Presence on earth, and except in a few very rare cases which I need not mention here, this presence lies asleep in the heart—not in the physical heart but the psychic centre—of all beings. And when this Splendour is manifested with enough purity, it will awaken in all beings the echo of his Presence.” Words of the Mother, MCW, Vol. 15.
::: The Mother: "Of all the aspects of the Mother, Kali most powerfully expresses vibrant and active love, and despite her sometimes terrible aspect, she carries in herself the golden splendour of an all-powerful love.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15*.
The Mother: “Of all the aspects of the Mother, Kali most powerfully expresses vibrant and active love, and despite her sometimes terrible aspect, she carries in herself the golden splendour of an all-powerful love.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
— the nervous being — as well as the vital proper ; and both are largely conditioned by tbe gross material bodily part which is almost entirely subconscient to our experience.
“The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates.” The Mother
“The Overmind is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis which is not limited by rules and canons, it sees a universal and an eternal beauty while it takes up and transforms all that is limited and particular. It is besides concerned with things other than beauty or aesthetics. It is concerned especially with truth and knowledge or rather with a wisdom that exceeds what we call knowledge; its truth goes beyond truth of fact and truth of thought, even the higher thought which is the first spiritual range of the thinker. It has the truth of spiritual thought, spiritual feeling, spiritual sense and at its highest the truth that comes by the most intimate spiritual touch or by identity. Ultimately, truth and beauty come together and coincide, but in between there is a difference. Overmind in all its dealings puts truth first; it brings out the essential truth (and truths) in things and also its infinite possibilities; it brings out even the truth that lies behind falsehood and error; it brings out the truth of the Inconscient and the truth of the Superconscient and all that lies in between. When it speaks through poetry, this remains its first essential quality; a limited aesthetical artistic aim is not its purpose.” Letters on Savitri
The overmind is the region of the gods, the beings of divine origin who have been charged with supervising, directing and organising the evolution of the universe; and more specifically, since the formation of the earth they have served as messengers and intermediaries to bring to the earth the aid of the higher regions and to preside over the formation of the mind and its progressive ascension. It is usually to the gods of the overmind that the prayers of the various religions are addressed. These religions most often choose, for various reasons, one of these gods and transform him for their personal use into the supreme God.
::: "The perfect cosmic vision & cosmic sentiment is the cure of all error & suffering; but most men succeed only in enlarging the range of their ego.” Essays Divine and Human
“The perfect cosmic vision & cosmic sentiment is the cure of all error & suffering; but most men succeed only in enlarging the range of their ego.” Essays Divine and Human
The possibility of a cosmic consciousness in humanity is coming slowly to be admitted in modern Psychology, like the possibility of more elastic instruments of knowledge, although still classified, even when its value and power are admitted, as a hallucination. In the psychology of the East it has always been recognised as a reality and the aim of our subjective progress. The essence of the passage over to this goal is the exceeding of the limits imposed on us by the ego-sense and at least a partaking, at most an identification with the self-knowledge which broods secret in all life and in all that seems to us inanimate. The Life Divine
" . . . the psyche, the soul, the inmost entity in us, . . .” The Life Divine
“… the psyche, the soul, the inmost entity in us, …” The Life Divine
::: "The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind — to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms — runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
“The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind—to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms—runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
There are some who often or almost invariably have the contact whenever they worship, the Deity may become living to them in the picture or other image they worship, may move and act through it ; others may feel him always present, outwardly, subtle- physically, abiding with them where they live or in the very room, but sometimes this is only for a period. Or they may feel the Presence with them, see it frequently in a body (but not materially except sometimes), feel its touch or embrace, converse with it constantly — that is also a kind of miian. The
“There are some who often or almost invariably have the contact whenever they worship, the Deity may become living to them in the picture or other image they worship, may move and act through it; others may feel him always present, outwardly, subtle-physically, abiding with them where they live or in the very room, but sometimes this is only for a period. Or they may feel the Presence with them, see it frequently in a body (but not materially except sometimes), feel its touch or embrace, converse with it constantly—that is also a kind of milana. The greatest milana is one in which one is constantly aware of the Deity abiding in oneself, in everything in the world, holding all the world in him, identical with existence and yet supremely beyond the world—but in the world too one sees, hears, feels nothing but him, so that the very senses bear witness to him alone—….” Letters on Yoga
"There results an integral vision of the Divine Existent at once as the transcendent Reality, supracosmic origin of cosmos, as the impersonal Self of all things, calm continent of the cosmos, and as the immanent Divinity in all beings, personalities, objects, powers and qualities, the Immanent who is the constituent self, the effective nature and the inward and outward becoming of all existences.” Essays on the Gita*
“There results an integral vision of the Divine Existent at once as the transcendent Reality, supracosmic origin of cosmos, as the impersonal Self of all things, calm continent of the cosmos, and as the immanent Divinity in all beings, personalities, objects, powers and qualities, the Immanent who is the constituent self, the effective nature and the inward and outward becoming of all existences.” Essays on the Gita
The right attitude is neither to worry always about the sex weakness and be obsessed by its importance so as to be in constant struggle and depression over it, nor to be too careless as to allow it to grow'. It is perhaps the most difficult of all to get rid of entirely ; one has to recogjise quietly its importance and its difficulty nod go quietly and steadily about the control of it.
These are perhaps the most salient definitions along with relevant poems by two great poets, Walt Whitman and William Wordsworth.
"The sense of free will, illusion or not, is a necessary machinery of the action of Nature, necessary for man during his progress, and it would be disastrous for him to lose it before he is ready for a higher truth. If it be said, as it has been said, that Nature deludes man to fulfil her behests and that the idea of a free individual will is the most powerful of these delusions, then it must also be said that the delusion is for his good and without it he could not rise to his full possibilities.” Essays on the Gita
“The sense of free will, illusion or not, is a necessary machinery of the action of Nature, necessary for man during his progress, and it would be disastrous for him to lose it before he is ready for a higher truth. If it be said, as it has been said, that Nature deludes man to fulfil her behests and that the idea of a free individual will is the most powerful of these delusions, then it must also be said that the delusion is for his good and without it he could not rise to his full possibilities.” Essays on the Gita
“… the soul is at first but a spark and then a little flame of godhead burning in the midst of a great darkness; for the most part it is veiled in its inner sanctum and to reveal itself it has to call on the mind, the life-force and the physical consciousness and persuade them, as best they can, to express it; ordinarily, it succeeds at most in suffusing their outwardness with its inner light and modifying with its purifying fineness their dark obscurities or their coarser mixture. Even when there is a formed psychic being able to express itself with some directness in life, it is still in all but a few a smaller portion of the being—‘no bigger in the mass of the body than the thumb of a man’ was the image used by the ancient seers—and it is not always able to prevail against the obscurity or ignorant smallness of the physical consciousness, the mistaken surenesses of the mind or the arrogance and vehemence of the vital nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
The state of grace ” is often prepared by a long tapasyii or purification in which nothing decisive seems to happen, only touches or glimpses or passing experiences at the most, and comes suddenly without warning. When it comes the fundamental difficulties can in a moment and generally do disappear.
The subconscient retains (he impression of all our past experi- ences of life and they can come up from there in dream forms ; most dreams in ordinary sleep arc foimaiions made from sub- conscient impressions. The habit of strong recurrence of the same things in our physical consciousness so that it is difScult to gel rid of its habits is largely due to a subconscient support.
the subtle body, affecting the most material cells and making them conscious and blissful and wc shall sense directly the
The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being. It is not enough that the psychic should respond and the higher mental accept or even the inner vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be in no part of the being,' even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges, anything that revolts or refuses.
The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power bom out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed In the heart and not constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally — the silent word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken — precisely for the work of creation. The Mantra can not only Create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our p^chical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can pro- duce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical place. ’
"The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally — the silent word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken — precisely for the work of creation. The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane.” The Upanishads
“The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally—the silent word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken—precisely for the work of creation. The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane.” The Upanishads
“The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally—the silent word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken—precisely for the work of creation. The Mantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our psychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mentaland vital atmosphere which result ineffects, in actions and even in theproduction of material forms on the physical plane.” The Upanishads
“The true soul secret in us,—subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil,—this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” The Life Divine
"The Veda is a book of esoteric symbols, almost of spiritual formulae, which masks itself as a collection of ritual poems.” The Secret of the Veda
“The Veda is a book of esoteric symbols, almost of spiritual formulae, which masks itself as a collection of ritual poems.” The Secret of the Veda
The vita! is the being behind the Force of Life ; in its outer form in the ignorance it generates the desire-soul which governs most men and which they mistake often for the soul. The vital as the desire-soul and desire-nature controls the consciousness to a large extent in most men because men are governed by desire.
The vital as the desire-soul and desire-nature controls the consciousness to a large extent in most men, because men are governed by desire.” Letters on Yoga
The vital beings (possessing men) take a delight In struggle and suffering and disorder; it is their natural atmosphere. They want besides to get the taste of the physical world without being under the obligation of taking on birth and developing the psychic being and evolving towards the Divine. They wish to remain what they are and yet amuse themselves svith the physical world and physical body,
“The vital is the. . . being behind the Force of Life; in its outer form in the Ignorance it generates the desire-soul which governs most men and which they mistake often for the real soul.
"The vital is the. . . being behind the Force of Life; in its outer form in the Ignorance it generates the desire-soul which governs most men and which they mistake often for the real soul. ::: The vital as the desire-soul and desire-nature controls the consciousness to a large extent in most men, because men are governed by desire.” Letters on Yoga
the whole of created or existing things regarded collectively; all things (including the earth, the heavens, and all the phenomena of space) considered as constituting a systematic whole, esp. as created or existing by Divine power; the whole world or creation; the cosmos. universe"s, universes.
This decisive touch comes most easily to the baby cat ” people, those who have at some point between the psychic and the emotional vital a quick and decisive movement of surrender to the Guru or the Divine. I have seen that when that is there and there is the conscious central dependence compelling the mind also and the rest of the vital, then the fundamental diffi- culty disappears. If others remain they are not felt as difficulties, but simply as things that have just to be done and need cause no worry. Sometimes no tapasya is necessary — one just refers things to the Power that one feels guiding or doing the sadhana and assents to its action, rejecting all that is contrary to it, and the Power removes what has to be removed or changes what
“This force that we feel is the universal Force of the Divine, which, veiled or unveiled, acting directly or permitting the use of its powers by beings in the cosmos, is the one Energy that alone exists and alone makes universal or individual action possible. For this force is the Divine itself in the body of its power; all is that, power of act, power of thought and knowledge, power of mastery and enjoyment, power of love. Conscious always and in everything, in ourselves and in others, of the Master of Works possessing, inhabiting, enjoying through this Force that is himself, becoming through it all existences and all happenings, we shall have arrived at the divine union through works and achieved by that fulfilment in works all that others have gained through absolute devotion or through pure knowledge.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"This integral knowledge is the knowledge of the Divine present in the individual; it is the entire experience of the Lord secret in the heart of man, revealed now as the supreme Self of his existence, the Sun of all his illumined consciousness, the Master and Power of all his works, the divine Fountain of all his soul"s love and delight, the Lover and Beloved of his worship and adoration. It is the knowledge too of the Divine extended in the universe, of the Eternal from whom all proceeds and in whom all lives and has its being, of the Self and Spirit of the cosmos, of Vasudeva who has become all this that is, of the Lord of cosmic existence who reigns over the works of Nature. It is the knowledge of the divine Purusha luminous in his transcendent eternity, the form of whose being escapes from the thought of the mind but not from its silence; it is the entire living experience of him as absolute Self, supreme Brahman, supreme Soul, supreme Godhead: for that seemingly incommunicable Absolute is at the same time and even in that highest status the originating Spirit of the cosmic action and Lord of all these existences.” Essays on the Gita*
“This integral knowledge is the knowledge of the Divine present in the individual; it is the entire experience of the Lord secret in the heart of man, revealed now as the supreme Self of his existence, the Sun of all his illumined consciousness, the Master and Power of all his works, the divine Fountain of all his soul’s love and delight, the Lover and Beloved of his worship and adoration. It is the knowledge too of the Divine extended in the universe, of the Eternal from whom all proceeds and in whom all lives and has its being, of the Self and Spirit of the cosmos, of Vasudeva who has become all this that is, of the Lord of cosmic existence who reigns over the works of Nature. It is the knowledge of the divine Purusha luminous in his transcendent eternity, the form of whose being escapes from the thought of the mind but not from its silence; it is the entire living experience of him as absolute Self, supreme Brahman, supreme Soul, supreme Godhead: for that seemingly incommunicable Absolute is at the same time and even in that highest status the originating Spirit of the cosmic action and Lord of all these existences.” Essays on the Gita
This tenn inner is used in l«o different senses. Sometimes it denotes the consciousness behind the veil of the outer being, the mental or vital or physical within, which is in direct touch with the universal mind, the universal life-forces, universal phy- sical forces. Sometimes, on the other hand, we mean an inmost mental, vital, phyucal, more specifically called the true mind, the true vital, the true physical consciousness which is nearer to the soul and can most easily and directly respond to the
tinge ::: n. **1. A trace, or slight amount, most of as of a colour. Also fig. v. 2. To apply a trace of color to; tint. 3. To affect as in thought or feeling. tinged, tinging, fire-tinged, many-tinged.**
Titan ::: “In Greek mythology, one of a family of gigantic beings, the twelve primordial children of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth); also certain of the offspring of these Titans. The names of the twelve Titans, the ancestors of the Olympian gods, were Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Cronos. Cronos, the youngest of them, ruled the world after overthrowing and castrating Uranus. He swallowed each of his own children at birth but Zeus escaped. Cronos was made to vomit up the others (including Hera, Demeter, Poseidon, and Hades) and, after a protracted struggle, he and the other Titans were vanquished, all of them but Atlas imprisoned in Tartarus, and the reign of Zeus was established. More broadly, the word Titan may be applied to any being of a colossal force or grandiose and lawless self-assertion, or even to whatever is huge or mighty.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works.
titan ::: "In Greek mythology, one of a family of gigantic beings, the twelve primordial children of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth); also certain of the offspring of these Titans. The names of the twelve Titans, the ancestors of the Olympian gods, were Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Cronos. Cronos, the youngest of them, ruled the world after overthrowing and castrating Uranus. He swallowed each of his own children at birth but Zeus escaped. Cronos was made to vomit up the others (including Hera, Demeter, Poseidon, and Hades) and, after a protracted struggle, he and the other Titans were vanquished, all of them but Atlas imprisoned in Tartarus, and the reign of Zeus was established. More broadly, the word Titan may be applied to any being of a colossal force or grandiose and lawless self-assertion, or even to whatever is huge or mighty.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works.
Tldnking mind is concerned with ideas and knowledge in their own right. It does not lead men, does not influence them raost — it is the vital propensities and the vital mind that pre- dominate. The thinking mind with most men is, in matters of life, only an instrument of the vital.
To dwell solely on the subconsclent and the aspect of imper- fection creates depression and should be avoided. One has to keep a right balance and stress on the positive side most, recog- nising the other but only to reject and change it.
tone ::: 1. Sound with reference to quality, pitch, or volume. 2. The characteristic quality or timbre of a particular instrument or voice. 3. (US and Canadian) Another word for note. 4. A color variation with more variations than a shade—having to do with the value (brightness) of a hue (position in the spectrum) or its chroma (saturation or purity).5. A general quality, effect, or atmosphere. tones, many-toned, hundred-toned, sweet-toned.
tongue ::: 1. The fleshy, movable, muscular organ, attached in most vertebrates to the floor of the mouth, that is the principal organ of taste, an aid in chewing and swallowing, and, in humans, an important organ of speech. 2. A spoken language or dialect. 3. Style or quality of utterance 4. Any long thin projection that is transient, as a flame. 5. A long and narrow projecting strip of something. tongues.
TRANSCENDENT. ::: That which is above Ihc cosmos, not included in the universal maaifestatlon ; above our cosmos of mind, life and body. In that sense the supramental is part of the
treasure-chest ::: -chest. A box, a coffer; now mostly applied to a large box of strong construction, used for the safe custody of articles of value.
tree of cosmos ::: the tree with its roots above (in the heavens) and its branches spread downward. A common metaphor in many spiritual traditions.
Truth-consciousness, but this truth is something beyond mind and tliis consciousness is far above the highest mind-conscious- ness. For truth of mind is always relative, uncertain "and partial, but this greater Truth is peremptory and whole. Truth of mind is a representation, always an inadequate, most often a misleading representation, and even when roost accurate, only a reflection,
TVall of obscKriiy ::: Most people live in their ordinary outer ignorant personality which does not easily open to the Divine ; but there is an Inner being within them of which they do not know, which can easily open to the Truth and the Light.
twilight ::: n. 1. The diffused light from the sky during the early evening or early morning when the sun is below the horizon and its light is refracted by the earth"s atmosphere. 2. A state of uncertainty, vagueness or gloom. twilight"s. adj. 3. Lighted by or as if by twilight.
Two things render that culmination more facile than it would otherwise be. Overmind in the descent towards material creation has originated modifications of itself,—Intuition especially with its penetrative lightning flashes of truth lighting up local points and stretches of country in our consciousness,—which can bring the concealed truth of things nearer to our comprehension, and, by opening ourselves more widely first in the inner being and then as a result in the outer surface self also to the messages of these higher ranges of consciousness, by growing into them, we can become ourselves also intuitive and overmental beings, not limited by the intellect and sense, but capable of a more universal comprehension and a direct touch of truth in its very self and body. In fact flashes of enlightenment from these higher ranges already come to us, but this intervention is mostly fragmentary, casual or partial; we have still to begin to enlarge ourselves into their likeness and organise in us the greater Truth activities of which we are potentially capable. But, secondly, Overmind, Intuition, even Supermind not only must be, as we have seen, principles inherent and involved in the Inconscience from which we arise in the evolution and inevitably destined to evolve, but are secretly present, occult actively with flashes of intuitive emergence in the cosmic activity of Mind, Life and Matter. It is true that their action is concealed and, even when they emerge, it is modified by the medium, material, vital, mental in which they work and not easily recognisable. Supermind cannot manifest itself as the Creator Power in the universe from the beginning, for if it did, the Ignorance and Inconscience would be impossible or else the slow evolution necessary would change into a rapid transformation scene. Yet at every step of the material energy we can see the stamp of inevitability given by a supramental creator, in all the development of life and mind the play of the lines of possibility and their combination which is the stamp of Overmind intervention. As Life and Mind have been released in Matter, so too must in their time these greater powers of the concealed Godhead emerge from the involution and their supreme Light descend into us from above. …
unconsciousness ::: “What we call unconsciousness is simply other-consciousness; it is the going in of this surface wave of our mental awareness of outer objects into our subliminal self-awareness and into our awareness too of other planes of existence. We are really no more unconscious when we are asleep or stunned or drugged or ``dead’’ or in any other state, than when we are plunged in inner thought oblivious of our physical selves and our surroundings. For anyone who has advanced even a little way in Yoga, this is a most elementary proposition and one which offers no difficulty whatever to the thought because it is proved at every point by experience.” The Synthesis of Yoga
::: "Universal forces means all forces good or bad, favourable or hostile, of light and darkness that move in the cosmos.” *Letters on Yoga
“Universal forces means all forces good or bad, favourable or hostile, of light and darkness that move in the cosmos.” Letters on Yoga
universality ::: “This idea of universality, of oneness not only with God or the eternal Self in me, but with all humanity and other beings, is growing to be the most prominent strain in our minds and it has to be taken more largely into account in any future idea or computation of the significance of rebirth and karma.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
vishnu ::: 1. (In later Hinduism) "The Preserver.” The second member of the Trimurti, along with Brahma the Creator and Shiva the Destroyer. 2. (In popular Hinduism) a deity believed to have descended from heaven to earth in several incarnations, or avatars, varying in number from nine to twenty-two, but always including animals. His most important human incarnation is the Krishna of the Bhagavad-Gita. 3. "The Pervader,” one of a half-dozen solar deities in the Rig-Veda, daily traversing the sky in three strides, morning, afternoon, and night.
Vital insincerity ::: The thing which enjoys the suffering and wants it is part of the human vital — it is these things that \se describe as the insincerity and pcrs'crsc nrist of the vital, it cries out against sorrow and trouble and accuses the Dirine and life and everybody else of torturing it, but for the most pan the sorrow and the trouble come and remain because the perverse something in the vital wants them ! That element in the vital has lo be got rid of altogether.
void ::: “The Absolute cannot indeed be bound in its nature to manifest a cosmos of relations, but neither can it be bound not to manifest any cosmos. It is not itself a sheer emptiness; for 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: it bears in itself some ineffable essentiality of all that is and all that can be; and since it holds in itself this essentiality and this possibility, it must also hold in itself in some way of its absoluteness either the permanent truth or the inherent, even if latent, realisable actuality of all that is fundamental to our or the world’s existence.” The Life Divine
"We. . . become conscious, in our physical movements, in our nervous and vital reactions, in our mental workings, of a Force greater than body, mind and life which takes hold of our limited instruments and drives all their motion. There is no longer the sense of ourselves moving, thinking or feeling but of that moving, feeling and thinking in us. This force that we feel is the universal Force of the Divine, which, veiled or unveiled, acting directly or permitting the use of its powers by beings in the cosmos, is the one Energy that alone exists and alone makes universal or individual action possible. For this force is the Divine itself in the body of its power; all is that, power of act, power of thought and knowledge, power of mastery and enjoyment, power of love.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“We. . . become conscious, in our physical movements, in our nervous and vital reactions, in our mental workings, of a Force greater than body, mind and life which takes hold of our limited instruments and drives all their motion. There is no longer the sense of ourselves moving, thinking or feeling but of that moving, feeling and thinking in us. This force that we feel is the universal Force of the Divine, which, veiled or unveiled, acting directly or permitting the use of its powers by beings in the cosmos, is the one Energy that alone exists and alone makes universal or individual action possible. For this force is the Divine itself in the body of its power; all is that, power of act, power of thought and knowledge, power of mastery and enjoyment, power of love.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"We have laid down that the origin, the continent, the initial and the ultimate reality of all that is in the cosmos is the triune principle of transcendent and infinite Existence, Consciousness and Bliss which is the nature of divine being.” The Life Divine
“We have laid down that the origin, the continent, the initial and the ultimate reality of all that is in the cosmos is the triune principle of transcendent and infinite Existence, Consciousness and Bliss which is the nature of divine being.” The Life Divine
::: "We have to face the future"s offer of death as well as its offer of life, and it need not alarm us, for it is by constant death to our old names and forms that we shall live most vitally in greater and newer forms and names.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“We have to face the future’s offer of death as well as its offer of life, and it need not alarm us, for it is by constant death to our old names and forms that we shall live most vitally in greater and newer forms and names.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"We imagine that the soul is in the body, almost a result and derivation from the body; even we so feel it: but it is the body that is in the soul and a result and derivation from the soul.” Essays on the Gita
“We imagine that the soul is in the body, almost a result and derivation from the body; even we so feel it: but it is the body that is in the soul and a result and derivation from the soul.” Essays on the Gita
“When one has the cosmic consciousness, one can feel the cosmic Self as one’s own self, one can feel one with other beings in the cosmos, one can feel all the forces of Nature as moving in oneself, all selves as one’s own self. There is no why except that it is so, since all is the One.” Letters on Yoga (See also Cosmic Spirit)
When the human ego realises that its will is a tool, its wisdom ignorance and childishness, its power an infant’s groping, its virtue a pretentious impurity, and learns to trust itself to that which transcends it, that is its salvation. The apparent freedom and self-assertion of our personal being to which we arc so profoundly attached, conceal a most pitiable subjection to a thousand suggestions, impulsions, forces which we have made extraneous to our little person. Our ego, boasting of freedom, is at every moment the slave, toy and puppet of countless beings, powers, forces, influences in uniwrsal Nature. The self-abnega- tion of the ego in the Divine is its self-fulfilment ; its surrender to that which transcends it is its liberation from bonds and limits and its perfect freedom.
When there is something in the nature that has to be got over, it is always drawing on itself incidents that put it to the test till the sadhaka has overcome and is free. At least it is a thing that often happens especially if the person is making a sincere effort to overcome. One docs not always know whether it is the hostiles who are trying to break the resolution or putting it to the test (for they claim the right to do it) or whether it is, let us say, the gods who are doing it so as to press and hasten the progress or insisting on the surety and thoroughness of the change aspired after. Perhaps it helps most when' one can take it from the latter standpoint.
When 'we go very deeply asleep, we have what appears to us as a dreamless slumber; but in fact dreams arc going on, but they are either too deep dowu to toeh the recordmg surface or am forgotten ail recollection of their having existed even rs wiped oS fa Se transition to the waling eo^etousness. Ordmary dreams are for the most part or semn to be mcobemnt, h^use they are either woven by the snbeonsceat out of dcep-lymc
Will to illness ::: There is something in the body that accepts the illness and has certain reactions that make this acceptance effective ; so there must be a contrary will in the conscious parts of the being to get rid of this most physical acceptance.
wing ::: n. **1. Either of the two forelimbs of most birds and of bats, corresponding to the human arms, that are specialized for flight. 2. Something likened to a bird"s wing. 3. Theatr. The space offstage to the right or left of the acting area in a theatre. 4. In one"s care or tutelage. wings, god-wings, moth-wings, soul-wings. v. 5. To travel on or as if on wings, fly; soar. 6. Fig. To enable to fly, move rapidly, etc.; lend speed or celerity to. wings, winged, far-winging.**
KEYS (10k)
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
16 Tori Amos
11 Anonymous
6 Kate Moss
6 John Green
5 Laozi
5 Jane Austen
4 Moses
4 Amos Lee
3 William Shakespeare
3 Sappho
3 Ovid
3 George Herbert
3 Aesop
2 Vanessa Diffenbaugh
2 Ursula K Le Guin
2 Robert Browning
2 Plato
2 Oscar Wilde
2 Nancy Moser
2 Mos Def
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Beef is not what Jay said to Nas; ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
2:Hip-hop is the last true folk art. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
3:Aria Over 1. Mos, Iii, 6-24
~ Ambrosius Stub,#NFDB
4:Man, I smashed her like an Idaho Potato ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
5:Reckless capitalism kills black people. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
6:Live now for the promise of the Infinite ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
7:Why did one straw break the camel's back? ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
8:I've always loved rhyming. I love language. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
9:Crack mothers, crack babies and AIDS patients ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
10:Hip-Hop went from selling crack to smoking it ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
11:Peace before everything, God before anything, ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
12:At its heart, music is all higher mathematics. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
13:All the things that are worth doing, take time. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
14:I got my first exposure to Islam when I was 13. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
15:My presence speaks volumes before I say a word. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
16:I'm blacked than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
17:There's just some dysfunctionalism with artists. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
18:I'm just an artist and I'm doin' what I like to do. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
19:I'd bet a million dollars on DOOM against Lil' Wayne ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
20:Yo, it's 1 universal law but 2 sides to every story, ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
21:We blasted holes in the night until she bled sunshine ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
22:Make today's solid ground out of yesterday's quicksand. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
23:Breathe in...inhale vapors from bright stars that shine, ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
24:But even creeps deserve to live someplace halfway decent. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
25:I don't rap like nobody, I don't try to sound like nobody. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
26:And from the moment that I saw you, I knew you was trouble, ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
27:«¿De qué estrellas caímos para encontrarnos aquí?» ~ Guadalupe Nettel, #NFDB
28:This thing called rhymin' is no different than coal minin'; ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
29:Hip-hop is rock & roll. What the hell is Wu-Tang but Motorhead? ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
30:I'm retiring the Mos Def name after 2011. I'm actually doing it. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
31:It mean you once mo’ been fucked mos’ righteous, honeychile ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
32:We can be beautiful and feel beautiful about who we are everyday. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
33:Restlessness is my nemesis. It's hard to just chill and sit still. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
34:Why do I need I.D. to get I.D.? If I had I.D. I wouldn't need I.D. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
35:You have to experience life, make observations, and ask questions. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
36:Young bloods can't spell but they could rock you in PlayStation... ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
37:Speech is my hammer bang the world into shape now let it fall - HUNGH ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
38:E assim avançámos rumo à morte, pela frescura do crepúsculo ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
39:You want to know how to rhyme, then learn how to add. It's mathematics. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
40:To me, it's like happiness is about happiness, but happiness is a fight. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
41:Don't look down, it's an impossible view; Fly like an eagle whatever you do. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
42:Fear not of men because men must die. Mind over matter and soul before flesh. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
43:Mëso të mos e shkatërrosh me fjalë atë çfarë ke ndërtuar me heshtje. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
44:Good art provides people with a vocabulary about things they can't articulate. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
45:I ain't no perfect man I'm tryna do the best that I can with what it is I have. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
46:My Umi said shine your light on the world, shine your light for the world to see ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
47:Twitter freaks me out. You have followers? It feels so obsessive and proprietary. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
48:I like to read the 'Financial Times' when I'm traveling. 'Economist.' 'Ad Busters.' ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
49:I'm trying to get low. People's personalities can get in the way of their own work. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
50:I feel like being into the beat of your own drum has become too prominent in the culture. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
51:The new moon rode high in the crown of the metropolis. Shinin', like "Who on top of this? ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
52:If 'Life in Marvelous Times' can't get on the radio, then I don't need to be on the radio. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
53:É necessário sair da ilha para ver a ilha, que não nos vemos se não nos saímos de nós. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
54:I thought everybody got into rock 'n' roll because they didn't want to follow instructions. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
55:I know what it feels like to have the door slammed firmly in my face, so I'm cool with that. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
56:I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18. ~ Talib Kweli, #NFDB
57:A democracia é um barómetro que nos diz qual o partido errado: foi aquele em que votámos. ~ Afonso Cruz, #NFDB
58:And remember don't high post when you're far from home, and high posting when you're all alone. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
59:Nós dois caímos na gargalhada. Quando você está quase louco de dor, você ri do que puder. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
60:I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
61:I give a damn if any fan recalls my legacy, I'm trying to live life in the sight of GOD's memory. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
62:That's what I've been trying to strive for - to draw a clear picture, to open up a new dimension. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
63:I never had any ambitions of being a movie star or anything like that, but you know, this is nice. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
64:I seen her on the ave, spotted her more than once. Ass so fat that you could see it from the front. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
65:Sólo vemos lo que queremos ver y oímos lo que queremos oír. No percibimos las cosas tal como son. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
66:Every time you ask yourself where hip-hop's going, ask yourself where you're going; how are you doing? ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
67:[...] Penso que não cegámos, penso que estamos cegos, Cegos que veem, Cegos que, vendo, não veem. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
68:They say that when a man faces his destiny, the destiny ends and he becomes the man that he really is. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
69:What I take from writers I like is their economy - the ability to use language to very effective ends. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
70:I don't want to waste anyone's time or money. I want to give people some truth and positive heart lift. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
71:I was taught when there's somethin' you can change around keep quiet, you got nothin' to complain about. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
72:Pero ya no lloramos (excepto en el baño cuando nadie nos oye), ni sonreímos (solo a nuestros hijos). ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
73:There are a lot of people who call themselves teachers or leaders, but they're really just propagandists. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
74:A infância é uma coisa assim bonita: caímos juntos na relva, magoamo-nos um bocadinho, mas sobretudo rimos. ~ Ondjaki, #NFDB
75:To me, playing an instrument and singing, all of these different things are just as natural to me as rhyming. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
76:Mos Eisley spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious. ~ George Lucas, #NFDB
77:You can positively affect and change a social circumstance with art, and it’s vital that a change happens now. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
78:Eso pasa mucho; el mote mismo que damos a alguien nos suena muy de otro modo cuando se lo oímos a otro ~ Miguel de Unamuno, #NFDB
79:I just don't think it's very dignified to ask people to like you. You can just wind up being somebody's ottoman. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
80:Quando amamos o espelho não construímos nada, porque procuramos no outro mundo uma imagem de nós. ~ Margarida Rebelo Pinto, #NFDB
81:I don't hate nobody. I hate certain conditions that are inflicted upon the people - and they're helpless with it. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
82:I'm growing as an individual, but your always growing. All of my albums are snapshots of where I am artistically. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
83:Nos sonreímos el uno al otro, como si ambos supiéramos algo que ninguno de los dos tenía el valor de decir. ~ Alyson Richman, #NFDB
84:O medo cega (...) já éramos cegos no momento em que cegámos. O medo nos cegou. O medo nos fará continuar cegos. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
85:I don't care about what brand you are, I'm concerned what type of man you are, what your principles and standards are. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
86:I want to be necessary and do good works. I ain't here to waste nobody's time, because I don't want you to waste mine. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
87:I guess something that you love to do, you gotta ease up off it and give it a little space, come back and be fresh to it. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
88:Costuma-se dizer, dêmos tempo ao tempo, mas aquilo que sempre nos esquecemos de perguntar é se haverá tempo para dar. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
89:If Islam's sole interest is the welfare of mankind, then Islam is the strongest advocate of human rights anywhere on Earth. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
90:Focused. I'm a hustler. And my hustle is trying to figure out the best ways to do what I like without having to do much else. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
91:Antiguo oficio humano, este de querer apagar la luz. ¿Te acordás de la última vez que creímos poder iluminar la noche?. ~ Gioconda Belli, #NFDB
92:I don't mind being black. I'm black out loud. It's more than the people that they are, it's the condition that they represent. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
93:Fame is like getting across the street. It's like, if there's nothing to be across the street for, it's a pointless destination. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
94:Hip-hop is a beautiful culture. It's inspirational, because it's a culture of survivors. You can create beauty out of nothingness. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
95:The moment you start thinking it's hopeless, then it is. [But], if you think it's gonna get better, it really does. Life is a test. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
96:I'm inspired by playwrights, novelists, poets: The value of language has been a lifelong passion of mine. I enjoy it. I'm good at it. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
97:Record companies are not necessarily interested in you realizing your artistic dream. The bottom line is that they got to sell records. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
98:That idea of peace and love toward humanity shouldn't be nationalistic or denominational. It should be a chief concern for all mankind. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
99:Éramos duas garças na costa, de asas húmidas na areia. A (oc)cisão veio e levou-nos. Incubámos. Morremos. De(xis)istimos. ~ C lia Correia Loureiro, #NFDB
100:I'm an independent thinker. And I'm not the poster child for any movement. I'm trying to support whatever's right no matter where it is. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
101:Saímos pelo mundo em busca de nossos sonhos e ideais. Muitas vezes colocamos nos lugares inacessíveis o que está ao alcance das mãos. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
102:Às vezes atribuímos ao demônio certas coisas que não entendemos, sem cuidar que podem ser coisas que não entendemos de Deus. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
103:Solo por esto sobre la muerte descargo la rabia que almacena mi corazón; ha separado tanto nuestras vidas que ya no nos oímos hablar ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
104:Bem, percebi que nunca saímos em um encontro romântico de verdade. – É, o caos e a destruição costumam prejudicar a vida amorosa das pessoas. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
105:I don't have advice for people on how to dress. People should dress based on what they find beautiful. My best advice: Keep your clothes clean. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
106:If you're going to do Chuck Berry, you got to, you know, go all out, and the duck walk is just kind of you know, cursory. That's like standing. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
107:a vida ri-se das previsões e põe palavras onde imaginámos silêncios, e súbitos regressos quando pensámos que não voltaríamos a encontrar-nos. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
108:Deixar entrar alguém na nossa vida é deitar abaixo as paredes que construímos para nos protegermos, não ficando à espera que o outro as derrube! ~ Marc Levy, #NFDB
109:Victor Frankenstein, el doctor que la crea, aunque todos pensemos siempre en esta criatura cuando oímos el apellido del doctor alemán. ~ Santiago Posteguillo, #NFDB
110:I dreamt that I could paint you with words, but there were no colors bright enough, black or white enough, blue or green enough...they didn't mean enough ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
111:I get reminded a lot of the time that my life is a little bit different, but I'm just trying to keep it as regular as possible because I like it that way ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
112:com a mentira se colhe a verdade. É assim que nós, as pessoas entendidas, empregâmos a miudo o embuste e a falsidade para descobrir a verdade. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
113:Y él había suspirado entonces y ella le había dicho <>. Y él le había respondido <>, cómo respondemos cuando estámos pensando <>. ~ Ernesto Sabato, #NFDB
114:Everything's got space between it, the planets, trees, your eyes. Your eyes get too close together, it's a whole different world. You can lose perspective. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
115:A memória como uma maldição. Caímos na eternidade e a memória é um peso, continua a prender-nos em qualquer ponto para onde nunca poderemos voltar. ~ Jos Lu s Peixoto, #NFDB
116:Mos t peopl e think the y want mor e mone y than the y r eal l y do, and the y s e t t l e for a lot l e s s than the y could ge t . ” Ea r l Night inga l e ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
117:People consider Black Star a great album, and I think it's a classic album. But the fact is, both me and Mos Def have made better albums since Black Star. ~ Talib Kweli, #NFDB
118:Por muito que me esforce, não consigo desprezar todos esses séculos durante os quais nos dedicámos unicamente a dar uma última demão na definição de Deus. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
119:If it's just fame for the sake of being famous, no one even cares about you - and you don't even care about yourself because you're like, "This is so ridiculous." ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
120:Aqueles que matámos, por mais estranhos e inimigos que sejam, tornam-se nossos parentes para sempre. Nunca mais se retiram, permanecem mais presentes que os vivos. ~ Mia Couto, #NFDB
121:I have no confidence issues with the impact or the quality of the music. No one in hip-hop, before this point and to this point, with all due respect, has done this. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
122:It’s one thing to be the greatest; it’s another thing to be necessary. The best are the most necessary: those who take less than they give and love more than they hate. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
123:O medo cega, disse a rapariga dos óculos escuros, São palavras certas, já éramos cegos no momento em que cegámos, o medo nos cegou, o medo nos fará continuar cegos ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
124:Ao chegar-mos a velhos apenas nos resta a certeza de que em breve seremos ainda mais velhos. Dizer a alguém que é jovem não me parece uma expressão correcta. ~ Jos Eduardo Agualusa, #NFDB
125:It wouldn't be fair to cast aspersions on an entire cultural movement based on the actions of a few. To quote my grandfather, 'One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch.' ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
126:You've got to validate every day. There are those who just put a stamp on it and say, "This is gonna be a good day and I'm not gonna let anything else make it a bad day." ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
127:Quer dizer que temos palavras a mais, Quero dizer que temos sentimentos a menos, Ou temo-los, mas deixámos de usar as palavras que os expressam, E portanto perdemo-los ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
128:With guys I revere, like Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X, their look is less about style than purpose and the expression of beauty. It wasn't just about being noticed, you know? ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
129:I'm not shy about heated debate or passionate discourse, but when people get crazy or rude, that's a buzz kill. There's got to be a better code of conduct, some basic etiquette. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
130:[...] passámos pela Terra e vivemos mergulhados no fluxo do mesmo tempo. Talvez essa coincidência seja a maior intimidade que se possa ter neste mundo. E essa tivemo-la nós. ~ L dia Jorge, #NFDB
131:Envoltos por uma agradável sensação de intimidade, conversámos acerca de tudo e mais alguma coisa. Quem me dera, também a mim, que a chuva continuasse eternamente a cair. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
132:- Tome cuidado - disse Delaura. - Às vezes atribuímos ao demônio certas coisas que não entendemos, sem cuidar que podem ser coisas que não entendemos de Deus. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
133:Rakstīšana vislabāk veidoties zināmos burzmas apstākļos. Šo apgalvojumu esmu dzirdējis no tik daudziem intellektuāļiem, ka tas man jau sen ir apnicis… Saprotams, es tam neticu. ~ An lavs Egl tis, #NFDB
134:La marca del verdadero héroe consiste en que el más heroico de sus actos se realiza en secreto. Nunca oímos hablar de él. Y sin embargo, de una forma u otra, amigos míos, lo sabemos. ~ Erika Johansen, #NFDB
135:It's possible and available to any artist to be himself or herself on their own terms, to be accepted and embraced by black people. You don't have to be a thug to get love from black people. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
136:I could see it in your eyes, that you honestly believed that i didn't want you anymore. The mos t absurd ridiculous concept as if there were any way I could exist without needing you. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
137:I began to fear that Mos Def was being treated as a product, not a person, so I've been going by Yasiin since '99. At first it was just for friends and family, but now I'm declaring it openly. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
138:The test in life nowadays is just trying to keep yourself charged up with enough good feeling. It's like, "OK what am I going to do to feel really good today?" Not like, some chick or a drink. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
139:African art is functional, it serves a purpose. It's not a dormant. It's not a means to collect the largest cheering section. It should be healing, a source a joy. Spreading positive vibrations. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
140:A un alma infeliz, maltratada por la adversidad, le pedimos que se calme cuando oímos sus lamentos. Pero si padeciéramos un dolor como el suyo, nos lamentaríamos tanto o más que ella. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
141:Como já alguém disse, tudo o que possa suceder, sucederá, é uma mera questão de tempo, e, se não chegámos a vê-lo enquanto cá andávamos, terá sido só porque não tínhamos vivido o suficiente. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
142:I don't wanna get into that space where a lot of guys now, their solo album is like eight or 10 songs with other people, you don't get an idea of who this guy is. I just wasn't interested in that. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
143:So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you're talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent. ~ Talib Kweli, #NFDB
144:Lumos (noun; lu-mos): 1. A spell to create light, also known as the Wand-Lighting Charm. (Origin: the Harry Potter series) 2. A nonprofit working to end the institutionalization of children. It ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
145:E tu, sincero, a dizeres apenas um olhar suplicante, um olhar para eu nunca mais esquecer. Pai. À hora, mandaram-nos sair. Quando saímos, agarrados como náufragos, a luz abundante bebia-nos ~ Jos Lu s Peixoto, #NFDB
146:Hacemos hombres sin corazón y esperamos de ellos virtud e iniciativa. Nos reímos del honor y nos extrañamos de ver traidores entre nosotros. Castramos y exigimos a los castrados que sean fecundos. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
147:Pero el problema es que, como dices, oímos hablar tanto del amor en todas partes, a todo el mundo, que al final le quitamos todo su valor y nos conformamos con el primer sucedáneo que nos llega. ~ Javier Ruescas, #NFDB
148:Having a baby is the single mos joyous co-experience that two human beings can share, and he wasn't going to miss a second of it.
He got one of the Secret Service men to videotape it for him. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
149:Porque foi que cegámos, Não sei, talvez um dia se chegue a conhecer a razão, Queres que te diga o que penso, Diz, Penso que não cegámos, penso que estamos cegos, Cegos que vêm, Cegos que, vendo, não vêm ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
150:As andorinhas vinham agora em sentido contrário, ou não seriam as mesmas. Nós é que éramos os mesmos; ali ficámos, somando as nossas ilusões, os nossos temores, começando já a somar as nossas saudades. ~ Machado de Assis, #NFDB
151:[...] cuando somos niños oímos y soñamos, albergamos ideas a medio cuajar y, cuando al hacernos hombres intentamos recordar, nos vemos estorbados y convertidos en seres prosaicos por el veneno de la vida. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
152:I'm a passionate person. I'm a lot of things, like most people are. Most people are dynamic. The focus is not on me though, I'm a screen. The aim is to always keep myself in the position where the screen is clear. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
153:Chegando a qualquer nova cidade o viajante reencontra o seu passado que já não sabia que tinha: a estranheza do que já não somos ou já não possuímos espera-nos ao caminho nos lugares estranhos e não possuídos. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
154:Aquele que morre é imediatamente mudado para o passado. Tudo aquilo que se relaciona com essa pessoa torna-se uma recordação que lutámos para reter, e é traição esquecer isso. Mas ainda assim esquece-se. ~ J n Kalman Stef nsson, #NFDB
155:Michael Jordan on the court is a completely different guy. If the play requires him to leap out all the way and grab the ball, that's what he'll do. He may be a completely shy, withdrawn sort of person [off the court]. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
156:You're not gonna get through life without being worshipful or devoted to something. You're either devoted to your job, or to your desires. So the best way to spend your life is to try to be devoted to prayer, to Allah. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
157:When people say I don't see you enough, well just because you don't see me don't mean I don't exist or just 'cause you haven't heard me don't mean I haven't been making noise. But if I keep making noise, you'll pick up. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
158:In the early '90s, when I really started to find my voice, I was reading a lot of books, and I was moved by the writers, like Chinua Achebe, and I wanted to be able to write rhymes that were as potent as what I was reading. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
159:A vida é tão estranha: queremos uma coisa e fartámos-nos de esperar por ela, sentindo que nunca mais chega. Por fim, ela acontece e a espera acaba, e nessa altura só queremos regressar ao momento antes de as coisas mudarem. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
160:History has proven that it's impossible to crush the artist. There's always gonna be a need for somebody to write a poem or sing a song about something, about life - that makes it real. There's the word that goes beyond the word. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
161:I believe the projects were a social experiment; we were laboratory rats stacked on top of each other, and people just knew, inherently, that there was something wrong. There's not a lot of regard for the property by the residents. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
162:To me, the job of the artist is to provide a useful and intelligent vocabulary for the world to be able to articulate feelings they experience everyday, and otherwise wouldn't have the means to express in a meaningful and useful way. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
163:Një njeri, në zotëroftë dijen e vërtetë mund ta shijojë krejt spektaklin e botës ulun mbi një karrige, pa ditë me lexue, pa folë me askënd, veç me anë të përdorimit të shqisave dhe faktit që shpirti të mos dijë me qenë i trishtë. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
164:Whoa! If I'm gonna be a doorman, I gonna be the mos sabotagin doorman ever guarded a plantation. Ooo-wee. The cotton fiel be burn to the groun before I'm through."
Watch out, Jones. Don be getting yourself in no trouble."
Whoa! ~ John Kennedy Toole,#NFDB
165:I've been fortunate with my acting career. A lot of scripts come to me. I don't mind auditioning if something that requires that, but I haven't had to in awhile, which is a nice place to be 'cause I've been on quite a lot of auditions in my life. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
166:I think that Mos Def is the best actor, but when you talk about rappers in films, I don't really think the quality of the acting is most important because most rappers are put in movies because of the personality and people want to see that. ~ Morris Chestnut, #NFDB
167:Un gato es el único animal que puede vivir como un parásito y conservar plenamente su capacidad de cuidar de sí mismo. Oímos hablar de perros perdidos, pero nunca de gatos perdidos. Los gatos no se pierden porque los gatos no son de niguna parte. ~ Theodore Sturgeon, #NFDB
168:I tell people all the time, I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater. But, I didn't wanna do all of this. I would've been satisfied to do it, like, on the weekends among friends, and to have a regular job. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
169:Ti je produkt i mënyrës së menduarit dhe i pritshmërive që ke për veten. Ai që ka frikë nga lugetërit, i sheh ato. Ai që pret të mirën, i vjen. Jini optimistë dhe e mira do u ndjekë pas. Në kushtet më të vështira, mos u fokusoni tek problemi, por tek zgjidhja. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
170:A alma dos homens não está nas palavras. Amamo-nos mais quando não escrevemos porque todas as palavras são uma mentira. Quando falamos traímos a nossa alma. Bastava olharmo-nos. Sentirmos coisas, mas só o esforço que se faz para as exprimir já é uma traição. ~ Antonin Artaud, #NFDB
171:What I take from writers I like is their economy - the ability to use language to very effective ends. The ability to have somebody read something and see it, or for somebody to paint an entire landscape of visual imagery with just sheets of words - that's magical. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
172:Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. [But] it's time to expand and move on. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
173:nosotros, incluso más que nosotros mismos, a utilizarlos correctamente. A veces, sentía una gran melancolía al pensar en el uso tan mediocre que hacemos de nuestras facultades, aun cuando nuestro entendimiento está iluminado por la gran llama de la instrucción, ~ Daniel Defoe, #NFDB
174:Escravos cardíacos das estrelas,
Conquistámos todo o mundo antes de nos levantar da cama;
Mas acordámos e ele é opaco,
Levantámo-nos e ele é alheio,
Saímos de casa e ele é a terra inteira,
Mais o sistema solar e a Via Láctea e o Indefinido. ~ Fernando Pessoa,#NFDB
175:Pai, ter a tua memória dentro da minha é como carregar uma saca às costas com uma vingança guardada para este mundo que nos castiga, cruel, este mundo que pisa aquele outro que pudemos viver juntos, que sempre nos orgulharemos, que amámos para nunca esquecer. ~ Jos Lu s Peixoto, #NFDB
176:I can't control what people think. I'm not trying to manipulate people's thoughts or sentiments. I write all the time. You have to experience life, make observations, and ask questions. It's machine-like how things are run now in hip-hop, and my ambitions are different. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
177:I 'uz mos' to de foot er de islan' b'fo' I found' a good place. I went into de woods en jedged I wouldn' fool wid raffs no mo', long as dey move de lantern roun' so. I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg, en some matches in my cap, en dey warn't wet, so I 'uz all right. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
178:A vida, que parece uma linha recta, não o é. Construímos a nossa vida só nuns cinco por cento, o resto é feito pelos outros, porque vivemos com os outros e às vezes contra os outros. Mas essa pequena percentagem, esses cinco por cento, é o resultado da sinceridade consigo mesmo. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
179:I think hip-hop is actually one of the most challenging things that's happened in music in a long time. The people who are in charge of what people see or hear are afraid. What you hear on top 40 or what you see on BET or MTV is not a fair representation of what is really going on... ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
180:Si bien la regeneración es invisible, debemos tener presente que Jesús dijo que podemos ver los efectos de ella, tal como vemos, oímos y sentimos los efectos del viento. ¿Dónde buscamos las manifestaciones tangibles del nuevo nacimiento? Lo vemos en los frutos de una vida cambiada. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
181:Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
182:El mundo nos llena de suce dáneos e intenta convencernos de que nada falta, pero nada tiene la capacidad de llenar el vacío que sentimos en nuestro interior, de manera que tenemos que ir sustituyendo y modificando lo que inventa mos mientras nuestro vacío proyecta su sombra sobre nuestra vida ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
183:A saudade não é tristeza, é comoção.
A saudade é o que fica do amor quando perdemos todo o seu lado físico, deixámos de estar, deixámos de tocar, há uma barreira inultrapassável de espaço ou de tempo, mas o amor continua, permanece. A saudade é esse tipo de amor.
A saudade é o amor. ~ Jos Lu s Peixoto,#NFDB
184:(...) Então lá o enforcámos, mas só ficou pendurado por alguns segundos, que a corda rompeu-se e ele caiu ao chão, mas logo veio a si e se pôs a gritar para mim: «Senhor general, vou para casa, já me enforcaram, e de acordo com a lei não posso ser enforcado duas vezes pela mesma coisa.»(...) ~ Jaroslav Ha ek, #NFDB
185:Humbësit ashtu si autodidaktët kanë gjithnjë njohuri më të mëdha se fitimtarët. Nëse dëshiron të jesh fitimtar, duhet të dish vetëm një gjë e të mos humbasësh kohën për të mësuar gjithçka. Kënaqësia e erudicionit është vetëm për humbësit. Sa më shumë të dish, aq më keq mund të të shkojnë gjërat. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
186:I'm doing exactly what I was supposed to do. Yeah. I didn't exactly choose this. My own life, if it were up to me, would be very, very quiet. I'd be like a shopkeeper, a book collector, or something like that. I'm not like this. Myself as a performer and an artist is totally different from who I am. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
187:You have to be an extremist to believe that you're gonna be the president of the United States and your name is Barack Hussein Obama! And he's using extreme methods, but his application is very smooth. Michelle Obama is extreme, her presence is extreme. And it's an extreme good. Extreme is not negative. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
188:Si nos detenemos cada vez que oímos dar con el pie en alguna puerta a esa viajera que nunca se detiene, no haríamos mucho ruido en el mundo. ¡No! ¡Adelante! Por los malos caminos si no hay otros, por los buenos si se puede; pero ¡adelante! Saltemos por encima de todos los obstáculos para llegar a la meta. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
189:¿Por qué sonreímos? ¿Por qué reímos? ¿Por qué nos sentimos solos? ¿Por qué estamos tristes y confundidos? ¿Por qué leemos poesía? ¿Por qué lloramos cuando vemos una pintura? ¿Por qué se alborota nuestro corazón cuando amamos? ¿Por qué sentimos vergüenza? ¿Qué es esa cosa en las entrañas llamada "deseo"? ~ Benjamin Alire S enz, #NFDB
190:-Por consiguiente, el que mejor sepa combinar gimnástica y música y aplicarlas a su alma con arreglo a la más justa proporción, ése será el hombre a quien podamos considerar como el más perfecto y armonioso músico con mucha más razón que a quien no hace otra cosa que armonizar entre sí las cuerdas de un instrumento. ~ Plato, #NFDB
191:So rather than really have, like a close relationship to anything that's coming out today, people are just, they've got it on as background music. It's kind of the same way the cabdrivers use music; it's very disposable. But, that doesn't mean there aren't a great number of artists who are doing things to change that. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
192:Pese a que la Sociedad nos ha arrebatado muchas cosas, todavía oímos murmullos de música, susurros de poesía; todavía vemos vestigios de arte en el mundo que nos rodea. Nunca han logrado apartarnos de él por completo. Lo hemos asimilado, a veces sin saberlo, y muchos aún suspiramos por hallar un modo de expresarlo. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
193:A viagem nos ensina algumas coisas. Que a vida é o caminho e não o ponto fixo no espaço. Que nós somos feito a passagem dos dias e dos meses e dos anos, como escreveu o poeta japonês Matsuo Bashō num diário de viagem, e aquilo que possuímos de fato, nosso único bem, é a capacidade de locomoção. É o talento para viajar. ~ Adriana Lisboa, #NFDB
194:El hecho de que millones de personas compartan los mis - mos vicios no convierte esos vicios en virtudes; el hecho de que compartan muchos errores no convierte a éstos en verdades, y el hecho de que millones de personas padezcan las mismas formas de patología mental no hace de esas per- sonas gentes equilibradas”. (Erich Fromm) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
195:Unë dua të jetoj, dhe jetoj qoftë edhe në kundërshtim me logjikën e gjërave. Le të mos kem fort besim në rregullat e pranuara nga të gjithë, por më pëlqejnë gjethet e sapoçelura, e dua qiellin e kaltër; ndodh të më pëlqejë dikush pa ndonjë shkak. Më pëlqen heroizmi i njerëzve, tek i cili mbase nuk beson më prej kohësh. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
196:-No todos sentimos igual. Ni oímos lo mismo cuando nos lo dicen o cuando suena en el aire. Algunos se ponen a bailar con una canción y otros cambian de emisora.
-Exactamente así funciona la vida. -Tenía frente a mí a un joven poeta que se había llevado un chasco y, sin embargo, se lo tomaba con una filosofía estremecedora. ~ Benito Taibo,#NFDB
197:Recuerdo la balanza entre nosotros: cuando yo solo puedo rayarme como un disco, caminar de un lado a otro y retorcer las manos, él consigue mantenerse sereno y calmar la situación. El equilibrio perfecto. Me he dado cuenta de que así funciona(mos), y me gusta, porque me tranquiliza por dentro de una manera que no me esperaba. ~ Clara Cort s, #NFDB
198:Perguntamo-nos o que viemos cá fazer, que lágrima foi que guardámos para verter aqui, e porquê, se as não chorámos em tempo próprio, talvez por ter sido então menor a dor que o espanto, só depois é que ela veio, surda, como se todo o corpo fosse um único músculo pisado por dentro, sem nódoa negra que de nós mostrasse o lugar do luto. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
199:Fame is like getting across the street. It's like, if there's nothing to be across the street for, it's a pointless destination. It's like, "I gotta get across the street, man! I gotta be there! I gotta be there!" Then you get across the street and you're like, "Yeah I'm here!" And then, that's it. Fame doesn't make you particularly happy. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
200:fazia-mos coisas muito simples, como atirar estrelas-do.mar ao mar ou partilhar um hambúrguer, e já nessa altura eu sabia que era uma afortunada. Eras o primeiro tipo que não estava sempre a tentar impressionar-me. Aceitaras-te como eras, mas, mais do que isso, aceitavas-me por aquilo que eu era. O que importava era só nós os dois. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
201:Naquela noite, quando saímos do tribunal, a srta. Gates estava descendo a escada na nossa frente [...] Ouvi quando ela disse que estava na hora de alguém dar uma lição neles, que estavam indo longe demais, daqui a pouco iam querer casar com os brancos. Jem, como uma pessoa pode detestar tanto Hitler e depois falar isso de alguém daqui mesmo? ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
202:- Falhámos a vida, menino! - Creio que sim... Mas todo o mundo mais ou menos a falha. Isto é falha-se sempre na realidade aquela vida que se planeou com a imaginação. Diz-se: «vou ser assim, porque a beleza está em ser assim». E nunca se é assim, é-se invariavelmente assado, como dizia o pobre marquês. Ás vezes melhor, mas sempre diferente. ~ E a de Queir s, #NFDB
203:(...) o artista, quando olhava para a sua infância, sofria uma saudade tão grande, um enternecimento tão comovido... Só nessa época ele fora feliz - tivera tudo. E porquê? Percebera-o nitidamente nesse instante (...): É que, na infância, não possuímos ainda o sentido da impossibilidade; tanto podemos cavalgar um leão como uma abelha... ~ M rio de S Carneiro, #NFDB
204:I'm really quite bipolar, and the depressed times, when everything felt like night, sometimes you get to such a low point that you physically beat at it until it bleeds - as you would say - bleeds till sunshine. You get to a point where you say, 'I will not take it anymore! I'm gonna do something drastic if I stay this depressed. I've got to break out of there!' ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
205:Não sei do que falámos. O sol entrava pela janela e traçava uma torrente certa de luz que atravessava o ar, que iluminava pó a agitar-se e que se fixava de encontro aos mosaicos. A minha mulher, a temperar a salada, a procurar guardanapos, a correr com o prato de plástico do Simão, atravessava essa torrente de luz, desorientava o movimento do pó e sorria. ~ Jos Lu s Peixoto, #NFDB
206:Uma vez mortos, os segredos que tão cuidadosamente acalentámos, quais plantas carnívoras no meio de um jardim florido, ficam com frequência expostos à luz, onde têm oportunidade de se desenvolver. Cultivados pela verdade, fertilizados pelo rumor, florescem, mas as flores são tóxicas para quem quiser conhecê-las mais de perto e cheirar o seu perfume venenoso ~ Bradford Morrow, #NFDB
207:- É por essa janela que costuma voar?
Joana Ofélia sorriu.
- Qualquer janela serve. Foi Demérita que me ensinou. Basta olharmos através dos vidros, e somos mais livres do que pássaros. As pessoas podem continuar a ver-nos, mas só nós sabemos que há muito que ali não estamos, que voámos com as aves, com o vento, com a poeira da estrada, com a água da chuva. ~ Alice Vieira,#NFDB
208:Quantas vezes contamos a história da nossa vida? Quantas vezes adaptamos, embelezamos, fazemos cortes matreiros? E, quanto mais a vida avança, menos são os que à nossa volta desafiam o nosso relato, para nos lembrar que a nossa vida não é a nossa vida, é só a história que contámos sobre a nossa vida. Que contámos aos outros mas — principalmente — a nós próprios. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
209:There was a time when hip-hop was its own musical principle, aside from sampling. Like the entire Wild Style break is instrumental. Kurtis Blow's earliest stuff was studio musicians playing. Whodini had a real clear sound, things like "five minutes of funk," stuff that you could write really beautiful, lush string and horn arrangements around, stuff that was just music. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
210:Tot zijn verbazing schoot Renn een pijl af, en even later plofte een sneeuwhoen op het mos neer.
Toraks mond viel open. 'Hoe deed je dat?'
Renn bloosde. 'Nou ja, ik oefen veel.'
'Maar... Ik heb nog nooit iemand zo goed zien schieten. Ben je de beste schutter van je stam?'
Ze keek niet erg op haar gemak.
'Is er iemand die beter is?'
'Eh, niet echt. ~ Michelle Paver,#NFDB
211:- Já passámos por tanta coisa juntos, acho que podíamos ser namorados. Tu queres?
- Não sei.
- Não sabes porquê?
- Ora, se calhar chateia-te eu ser preto.
- És parvo? A ti chateia-te eu ser ruiva?
- Não, acho lindo.
- Eu também acho lindo a tua cara pretusca, com olhos verdes.
- Então está bem, vamos ser namorados. Não temos de dar beijos, pois não? ~ Rosa Lobato de Faria,#NFDB
212:It's difficult to really be an artist nowadays. People are just on another page. You have a society that needs you to say something, but they don't want to give you the environment to be able to be just a functioning, happy, normal person. It's like, the industry is at odds with you, the society is at odds with you. You start to live in this very confined box where it's like, It's "me" and "them." ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
213:oímos cada vez con mayor claridad la promesa de que la salvación de Dios llegará a todos los pueblos. Oímos cada vez más claramente que el Dios de Israel, que es el mismo único Dios, el verdadero Dios, el creador del cielo y de la tierra, el Dios de todos los pueblos y de todos los hombres, en cuyas manos está su destino, en definitiva que ese Dios no quiere abandonar a los pueblos a su suerte. ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
214:Começava a compreender, então, o poder do passado. O passado pode corroer o presente e minar o futuro; é o passado que nos afoga a cara na lama quando já caímos na terra, e que regressa nos momentos mais inesperados para tirar de nós aquilo que já não temos, o sabor das coisas que não tornam a acontecer, porque cada minuto que acontece se perde no precipício ao qual tudo vai, irrevogavelmente, parar. ~ Jo o Tordo, #NFDB
215:Flisni te verteten njerezimit
dhe te panjerezishmit do tju sulmojne.
Flisni me kuptim dhe te drejten,
dhe ju do sulmoheni nga te palogjikshmit.
Flisni te verteten dhe ju do te sulmoheni nga genjeshtaret.
Mos flisni absolutisht aspak dhe asgje nuk do te ndryshoje,
dhe absolutisht asgje dhe asnje nuk do te flase.
Por atehere asgje, asnjehere nuk do te ndryshoje .
Suzy Kassem ~ Suzy Kassem,#NFDB
216:Sylvi,” katamu. ”Kamu nggak inget, ya?”
”Inget apa?”
”Kita kan satu kelompok waktu MOS dulu.”
Apa?
”Kita lari keliling lapangan bola di belakang sekolah. Kamu pingsan.”
Apa?
”Kamu menarik-narik bajuku waktu aku menggendongmu ke tim PMR.”
Apa?
Kamu menunduk ragu-ragu, seolah agak tidak enak. ”Dan kamu bilang kamu cinta padaku. Ingat?”
Apa?
Lalu kamu tergelak kuat-kuat. ~ Miranda Malonka,#NFDB
217:Como Adam, algunas veces no oímos la llamada de aviso, subimos a toda marcha y terminamos patas arriba en la arena. Cuando recobramos el conocimiento, nos sacude el polvo, nos ayuda a ponernos de pie y nos oye decir: «Simplemente espectacular». Más de una vez, cuando me he estrellado y quemado, he sentido que se acerca a mí tras recoger los pedazos de mi vida y me susurra: «¿Sabes una cosa? Ciertamente lo ha sido». ~ Bob Goff, #NFDB
218:Cuando el remedio ya no es posible, la pena /
resulta inútil ante lo inevitable que puso fin /
a la esperanza. ¿De qué sirve llorar por lo pasado? /
Sólo para abrir nuevo camino al dolor. /
Cuando ha ocurrido ya lo que Fortuna nos depara, /
que Paciencia haga burla de sus heridas. /
Si al robarnos nos reímos, robémosle al ladrón /
Quien en dolor vano se hunde, a sí mismo se roba
{Othello} ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
219:espantei-me tanto e ficámos em silêncio um tempo, descobertos perante as coisas inexplicáveis, como se tivéssemos as cabeças abertas por cima e todos os seres do céu ou do inferno pudessem, afinal, ver claramente o que pensávamos. no meio das coisas inexplicáveis éramos assim uns recipientes de pensamentos sem tampa, e quem voasse ou viesse nas aragens haveria de ter visibilidade perfeita para dentro das nossas cabeças. ~ Valter Hugo M e, #NFDB
220:Gostamos de continuar a acreditar naquilo que nos habituámos a aceitar como verdade, e os ressentimentos despertos quando se lançam dúvidas sobre qualquer um dos nossos pressupostos levam-nos a procurar todo o tipo de desculpas para nos agarramos a eles. O resultado é o facto de grande parte daquilo a que chamamos racionalização consistir em descobrir argumentos para continuarmos a acreditar naquilo em que já acreditamos. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
221:quando os nossos corpos se separaram olhámo-nos quase a desejar
[ser felizes.
vesti-me devagar, o corpo a ser ridículo. disse espero que encontres
[um homem
que te ame, e ambos baixámos o olhar por sabermos que esse
[homem não existe.
despedimo-nos. tu ficaste para sempre deitada na cama e nua, eu saí
[para sempre
na noite. olhámo-nos pela última vez e despedimo-nos sem sequer
[nos conhecermos. ~ Jos Lu s Peixoto,#NFDB
222:there’s nothing better after a gruelling day of work than to have multiple orgasms. Now, as we all know, most guys aren’t capable of giving us MOs and, just quietly, they really should fucking teach that shit in high school Sex Ed. But,” she sighed, disappointedly, “they don’t, and because it’s a skill possessed by the unicorns of the world, we need to have with us—at all times—a BOB. So please, for me, pack your fucking vibrator. ~ K M Golland, #NFDB
223:Despi-a á luz de uma vela.Tirei-lhe os sapatos,impregnados de água empoçada,o vestido ensopado e as meias rasgadas.Enxuguei-lhe o corpo e o cabelo com uma toalha lavada.Ainda tremia de frio quando a deitei na cama e me estendi ao seu lado,abraçando-a para a aquecer.Ficámos assim durante muito tempo,em silêncio,a ouvir a chuva.Lentamente senti que o corpo amornava sob as minhas mãos e a respiração começava a tornar-se profunda. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
224:People don't like the music that's out now, that's on their radio stations, and they want to hear something different, but they're just the audience. You know, people will keep the TV on even if a show is on that they hate - because, unfortunately, they've been programmed to do that. [But] they are really looking for something that's gonna speak to the world that they're living in. That's what people are looking for, but they're not finding it. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
225:I learned [playing Chuck Berry] that there's something to be said for the courage of conviction, that sense of belief, being bold enough to believe in your vision. And there's a quote that really fits his particular energy. It says - they say don't go where the path may lead, but go where there's no path and leave a trail. I think that's exactly what Chuck did, you know. It's an inspiration to a lot of folks, not just musicians, but people everywhere. ~ Mos Def, #NFDB
226:I might ask about the first time a person heard a song that they really responded to, like when I asked Mos Def when he first "got" hip-hop and he went into this memory about how hearing someone rap really affected him. He wasn't simply remembering the event. It was almost like he was occupying that space again. When you can really transport an interview subject like that, your readers can feel it and it helps them to connect with the artist. ~ Anthony DeCurtis, #NFDB
227:Remembe r tha t the r e is only one impor t ant t ime and tha t is now. The pr e s ent moment is the only t ime ove r whi ch we have dominion. The mos t impor t ant pe r son is a lways the pe r son you a r e wi th, who is r ight be for e you, for who knows if you will have dealings wi th any othe r pe r son in the futur e ? The mos t impor t ant pur sui t is making the pe r son s t anding a t your side happy, for tha t a lone is the pur sui t of life. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
228:Tudo era tão casual. Apaixonei-me por Mario quando jovem, mas poderia ter me apaixonado por qualquer um, um corpo qualquer ao qual atribuímos sabe-se lá quais significados. Um longo pedaço de vida juntos, e você já acredita que ele é o único homem com quem pode se sentir bem, atribui-lhe sabe-se lá quais virtudes decisivas, e em vez disso ele é só uma flauta que emite sons de falsidade, você não sabe realmente quem é, nem ele mesmo. Somos ocasiões. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
229:...E nós sabemos Deus. E o que precisamos Dele, extraímos. (Não sei o que chamo de Deus, mas assim pode ser chamado.) Se só sabemos muito pouco de Deus, é porque precisamos pouco: só temos Dele o que fatalmente nos basta, só temos de Deus o que cabe em nós. (A nostalgia não é do Deus que nos falta, é a nostalgia de nós mesmos que não somos bastante; sentimos falta de nossa grandeza impossível - minha atualidade inalcançável é o meu paraíso perdido.) ~ Clarice Lispector, #NFDB
230:—Claro que a lo mejor por eso nos hacemos fotos —continuó Harry—. Para obtener pruebas falsas con las que poder fundamentar la afirmación falsa de que éramos felices. Porque pensar que nunca hemos sido felices se nos hace insoportable. Los adultos obligan a los niños a sonreír cuando les hacen fotos, los incluyen en la mentira; por eso sonreímos, fingimos felicidad. Pero Oleg nunca fue capaz de sonreír si no lo sentía, no era capaz de mentir, no tenía ese don. ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
231:Todos miramos con indignación al abogado o al juez que, a raíz de la búsqueda de riquezas particulares, distorsionan la verdad al atacar la reputación y las posesiones personales de la gente, a medida que las reducen a la pobreza. Respondemos con una indignación parecida ante el médico farsante que, por incompetente, pone en peligro la salud y la vida de alguien en busca de ganancias financieras. Esas personas merecen ser consideradas como criminales; ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
232:The thing that give me the mos' trouble was, it didn't make no sense. You don't look for no sense when lightnin' kill a cow, or it comes up a lood. That's jus' the way things is. But when a bunch of men take an' lock you up four years, it ought to have some meaning. Men is supposed to think things out. Here they put me in an' keep me an' feed me four years. That ought to either make me so I won't do her again or else punish me so I'll be afraid to do her again ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
233:Entender os outros não é uma tarefa que comece nos outros. O início somos sempre nós próprios, a pessoa em que acordámos nesse dia. Entender os outros é uma tarefa que nunca nos dispensa. Ser os outros é uma ilusão. Quando estamos lá, a ver aquilo que os outros veem, a sentir na pele a aragem que os outros sentem, somos sempre nós próprios, são os nossos olhos, é a nossa pele. Não somos nós a sermos os outros, somos nós a sermos nós. Nós nunca somos os outros. ~ Jos Lu s Peixoto, #NFDB
234:Corremos pelo passeio de mãos dadas. A minha mão a envolver a mão fina dela: a força dos seus dedos dentro dos meus. Na noite, os nossos corpos a correrem lado a lado. Quando parámos: as nossas respirações, os nossos rostos admirados um com o outro: olhámo-nos como se nos estivéssemos a ver para sempre. Quando os meus lábios se aproximaram devagar dos lábios dela e nos beijámos, havia reflexos de brilho, como pó lançado ao ar, a caírem pela noite que nos cobria. ~ Jos Lu s Peixoto, #NFDB
235:¿Qué oímos en esas conferencias y qué leemos en esos libros? La lista de las cajas que se llevaban, las fechorías del perrito de a bordo y, mezcladas con las anécdotas, migajas insípidas de información que deambulan por todos los manuales desde hace un siglo, y que una dosis de desvergüenza poco común —pero en justa relación con la ingenuidad e ignorancia de los consumidores— no titubea en presentar como un testimonio, ¡qué digo!, como un descubrimiento original. ~ Claude L vi Strauss, #NFDB
236:Angel Miss, she ain't complainin'. She jist gonna fidget long as Mausa James fidget. What you speck?" John leaned on his long poker to look at her. "Ah tells ya what I speck. Ah speck dem two white folks be pert' near as fixed up together as we be, Larney." "To be niggahs, we'se de mos' blessed critters on God's earth." He slipped his arm around her waist. "Ah's glad ah's a niggah, Larney. Ah couldn't sleep 'longside you at night effen ah wasn't no niggah. ~ Eugenia Price, #NFDB
237:Es una cosa dolorosa mirar dentro de ti mismo y ver los porqués y los cómos de tu reloj. Eres mucho más feo de lo que piensas, mucho más egoísta de lo que alguna vez puedas admitir. Por lo tanto, ignoras lo que hay dentro de ti. Pensando que si no lo reconoces, no está realmente allí. Hasta que alguien poco improbable viene y te abre. Ellos ven cada rincón oscuro, y lo consiguen. Y te dicen que está bien tener rincones oscuros, en vez de hacer que te sientas avergonzado de ellos. ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
238:- Os "desejos de estrelas" podem ser falados?
- Sim. Sentes um?
- Mas não é fácil. Desejava um arco-íris mesmo, agora.
- Eu acho escuro ninguém consegue desenhar um arco-íris.
- Eu acho que os anjos que roubam vozes conseguem... Eu queria um arco-íris, de presença bem noturna, tipo uma ponte.
- Uma ponte?
- Para o outro mundo. E vice-versa. Para chamar-mos quem tivesse partido ainda em hora de cá estar. Assim o teu pai podia voltar. E também as crianças de todas as guerras. ~ Ondjaki,#NFDB
239:Como todo, las palabras tienen sus qués, sus cómos, sus porqués. Algunas, solemnes, nos interpelan con aire pomposo, dándose importancia, como si estuvieran destinadas a grandes cosas y, ya se verá más tarde, no son nada más que una brisa leve que no conseguiría mover el aspa de un molino, otras, de las más comunes, de las habituales, de las de todos los días, acabarán teniendo consecuencias que nadie se atrevería a pronosticar, no habían nacido para eso y, sin embargo, sacudieron al mundo. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
240:As pessoas são feitas de porcelana, concluiu. Lascam com facilidade, instigam em nós a urgência de não as deixar cair. Partem-se em pedaços se as largamos. E esses pedaços são inconsoláveis. É impossível tornarmos a juntá-los e, se o tentamos, ficaremos para sempre a observar as rachas que inadvertidamente lhes causámos, cicatrizes que não passam. Por mais que as pessoas jurem que são feitas de outro material, acredite em mim quando lhe digo que são feitas de porcelana, da mais frágil e dispendiosa. ~ Jo o Tordo, #NFDB
241:El prejuicio humano es universal. Su fundamento es la humana necesidad de respeto. Son muchos los medios por los cuales la mente humana puede esquivar los hechos; no existen, en cambio, recursos que permitan anular el deseo individual de aprobación. Los hombres y las mujeres necesitan tener elevada opinión de sí mismos. Y con el fin de alcanzar este objetivo es preciso que nos disimule-mos de mil modos distintos la realidad de los hechos. Negamos, olvidamos y justificamos nuestras propias faltas y exageramos las faltas ajenas. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
242:Mindenkinek, akit illet: Körülbelül ennyi ember élte túl San Lorenzón a tenger befagyását követő szeleket. Ezek az emberek elfogták a Bokonon nevezetű ál-szentembert. Idehozták, a középre állították, és ráparancsoltak: magyarázza meg nekik, de pontosan, miben sántikált a Mindenható Isten, és most mitévők legyenek. A szélhámos pedig tudtukra adta, hogy Isten nyilvánvalóan meg akarja ölni őket, valószínűleg azért, mert torkig van velük, és hogy ha van bennük egy csipetnyi jóérzés, meg is halnak. És mint látható, ezt meg is tették. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
243:Se oyeron disparos en la calle mayor. A ver así, susurraste. Y de pronto comprendí que en las máquinas que fabrican los hombres hay unos circuitos de ingenio que se pueden compartir, que unas mentes comparten con otras. Igual que se comparte la poesía. Lo vi en el dorso de tus manos. Ninguna palabra me ha tranquilizado tanto como lo hicieron tus manos en ese momento. Oímos las órdenes que voceaban por el megáfono abajo en la calle. Alzaste la vista y me miraste, asentiste y entonces me hiciste un guiño con uno de tus ojos doloridos. ~ John Berger, #NFDB
244:Az e-könyv ma elsősorban kiegészítő formátum, a tömeges piacon egy az opciók közül, kivéve azokat, az egyre növekvő számú műveket, amelyeket szerzőik közvetlenül az elektronikus terjesztési csatornákon juttatnak el az olvasókhoz. Ha az olvasók csak a kényelmüket nézik, és az árakat tekintik meghatározónak, akkor el is feledkezhetnek róla, hogy az e-könyvek nem kerülnek a tulajdonukba. Számos jómódú és gyakran olvasó fogyasztó már beszerzett és ki is dobott nagyszámú „egyszer használatos” könyvet. Nekik tényleg megfelel az e-könyv forma. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
245:Pensa-se de dia – a – dia. Se começamos a pensar no futuro, no nosso futuro pessoal, perdemos a coragem. E, de repente, lembramo-nos de todas as coisas que fizemos e que foram um desperdício de tempo… os minutos que desperdiçámos e que nunca podemos reaver. E apercebemo-nos de que o tempo é a coisa mais preciosa de todas. Porque o tempo é a vida. É a única coisa que nunca podemos recuperar. É possível perder uma rapariga e quem sabe voltar a conquistá-la… ou encontrar outra. Mas um segundo, este segundo, quando se vai, é irreversível. ~ Jacqueline Susann, #NFDB
246:Llenamos la apariencia física del ser que está ante nosotros con todas las nociones que respecto a él tenemos, y el aspecto total que de una persona nos formamos está integrado en su mayor parte por dichas nociones. Y ellas acaban por inflar tan cabalmente las mejillas, por seguir con tan perfecta adherencia la línea de la nariz, y por matizar tan delicadamente la sonoridad de la voz, como si ésta no fuera más que una transparente envoltura, que cada vez que vemos ese rostro y oímos esa voz, lo que se mira y lo que se oye son aquellas nociones. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
247:as fotografias não mentem - esse instante existiu mesmo. Porém, a mentira consiste em pensa que esse instante é eterno, que dois amantes felizes e abraçados numa fotografia ficaram para sempre felizes e abraçados.
(...) fotografias antigas: se alguma coisa que elas reflectem, não é a felicidade, mas sim a traição - quanto mais não seja, a traição do tempo, a traição daquele mesmo instante em que ali ficámos aprisionados no tempo. Suspensos e felizes, como se a felicidade se pudesse suspender carregando no botão "pausa" do filme da vida. ~ Miguel Sousa Tavares,#NFDB
248:Não basta amar alguém. É preciso amar com coragem. É peciso amar de tal modo que nenhum ladrão, ou má intenção, ou lei, lei divina ou deste mundo, possa seja o que for contra esse amor. Não nos amámos com coragem...foi esse o mal. E a culpa é tua, porque a coragem dos homens é ridícula em matéria de amor. É trabalho vosso, o amor...Só nisso sois grandes. Foi aí que falhaste, e, contigo, falhou tudo o que poderiam ter sido as nossas obrigações, os deveres e sentido da vida. Não é verdade que os homens sejam responsáveis pelo seu amor. Deveis ser vós a amar heroicamente. ~ S ndor M rai, #NFDB
249:Diante deste edifício aprendo uma coisa sobre o medo. Aprendo que não se trata de fantasias ociosas de alguém que talvez queira que lhe aconteça algo de importante, mesmo que a coisa importante seja horrível. Não é o nojo de ver um estranho morto (...) . Este medo não tem comparação com qualquer medo por que alguma vez tenha passado. Esta é a emoção mais primária, o sentimento que estava connosco antes mesmo de existir-mos (...). Foi este medo que fez os peixes saírem para a terra seca e desenvolverem pulmões, o medo que nos ensina a correr, o medo que nos leva a enterrar os mortos. ~ John Green, #NFDB
250:Hace 40 años creímos que había triunfado la libertad y estábamos en una orgía consumista. Todo parecía posible mediante el crédito: que quieres una casa, un coche… ya lo pagarás después. Ha sido un despertar muy amargo el de 2008, cuando se acabó el crédito fácil. La catástrofe que vino, el colapso social, fue para la clase media, que fue arrastrada rápidamente a lo que llamamos precariado. La categoría de los que viven en una precariedad continuada: no saber si su empresa se va a fusionar o la va a comprar otra y se van a ir al paro, no saber si lo que ha costado tanto esfuerzo les pertenece... ~ Zygmunt Bauman, #NFDB
251:Nata po zhdukej; yjtë po shuheshin; ishte ora e flladit mëngjesor. Hëna, gjithnjë në zbritje, po bëhej gati të zhytej në det, tërë sipërfaqes të së cilit po i jepte ngjyrën e sedefit.
…
Dhe ja, qielli mori një ngjyrë trandafili, një trandafili të çelët e të gëzuar, të ëmbël, të mrekullueshme. Ajo vështronte e habitur tani si përpara një ngjarjeje të jashtëzakonshme, atë ag të shkëlqyeshëm të ditës, duke thënë me vete: a ishte e mundur që mbi këtë tokë, ku shpërthenin të tilla agime, të mos kishte as gëzim, as lumturi.
Gi Dë Mopasan (“Një jetë”, përkthyer nga Enver Fico, Tiranë 1994) ~ Guy de Maupassant,#NFDB
252:...de vermos qualquer coisa de sólido em vez deste vazio pavoroso neste espaço cuja extensão atroz nunca ousámos imaginar enquanto vivíamos no nosso buraco, porque é como um poço sem fundo; debruçamo-nos cada vez mais, a tal ponto que acabamos por cair, e uma vez caídos, continuamos a cair toda a vida sem termos outra coisa para viver além dessa queda sem fim, até ao dia em que morremos em plena queda sem jamais chegarmos a atingir fundo algum, porque somos aniquilados durante a nossa própria queda e devorados pelo vazio depois de termos desesperadamente tentando dar-lhes sentido esforçando-nos para chegar ao fundo ~ Stig Dagerman, #NFDB
253:Seríamos peores de lo que somos sin los buenos libros que leímos, más conformistas, menos inquietos e insumisos y el espíritu crítico, motor del progreso, ni siquiera existiría. Igual que escribir, leer es protestar contra las insuficiencias de la vida. Quien busca en la ficción lo que no tiene, dice, sin necesidad de decirlo, ni siquiera saberlo, que la vida tal como es no nos basta para colmar nuestra sed de absoluto, fundamento de la condición humana, y que debería ser mejor. Inventamos las ficciones para poder vivir de alguna manera las muchas vidas que quisiéramos tener cuando apenas disponemos de una sola ~ Mario Vargas Llosa, #NFDB
254:El amor es siempre nuevo. No importa que amemos una, dos, diez veces en la vida: siempre estamos ante una situación que no conocemos. El amor puede llevarnos al infierno o al paraíso, pero siempre nos lleva a algún sitio. Es necesario aceptarlo, pues es el alimento de nuestra existencia. Si nos nega-mos, moriremos de hambre viendo las ramas del árbol de la vida cargadas, sin coraje para estirar la mano y coger los frutos. Es necesario buscar el amor donde esté, aunque eso signifique horas, días, semanas de decepción y tristeza. Porque en el momento en que salimos en busca del amor, el amor también sale a nuestro encuentro. Y nos salva. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
255:MOS: And besides, sir, You are not like a thresher that doth stand With a huge flail, watching a heap of corn, And, hungry, dares not taste the smallest grain, But feeds on mallows, and such bitter herbs; Nor like the merchant, who hath fill'd his vaults With Romagnia, and rich Candian wines, Yet drinks the lees of Lombard's vinegar: You will not lie in straw, whilst moths and worms Feed on your sumptuous hangings and soft beds; You know the use of riches, and dare give now From that bright heap, to me, your poor observer, Or to your dwarf, or your hermaphrodite, Your eunuch, or what other household-trifle Your pleasure allows maintenance. ~ Ben Jonson, #NFDB
256:Nehemías recorre los muros de la ciudad y los inspecciona. En medio de la noche, con la única ayuda de un pequeño grupo, sale para inspeccionar personalmente los daños. A diferencia de Paul Revere, Nehemías no quiere llamar la atención. Todo buen líder es capaz de comprender lo que estaba haciendo Nehemías. Estaba realizando su labor previa. Estaba comprobando el trasfondo de la situación. Este es el aspecto del liderazgo del cual nunca oímos hablar: es la parte solitaria de la labor. La preparación, la comprobación de datos y la investigación no tienen nada de encantadoras ni de emocionantes. Pero sin ellas el plan está condenado al fracaso. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
257:The thing that give me the mos' trouble was, it didn' make no sense. You don't look for no sense when lightnin' kills a cow, or it comes up a flood. That's jus' the way things is. But when a bunch of men take an' lock you up four years, it ought to have some meaning. Men is supposed to think things out. Here they put me in, an' keep me an feed me four years. That ought to either make me so I won't do her again or else punish me so I'll be afraid to do her again"- he paused- "but if Herb or anybody else come for me, I'd do her again. Do her before I could figure her out. Specially if I was drunk. That sort of senselessness kind a worries a man. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
258:Cada um de nós tem dentro de si alguma coisa que não pode ser negada, ainda que nos faça grita, gritar, até ao fim. Somos o que somos, e pronto. Como a velha lenda celta do pássaro com o espinho no peito que canta até morrer, porque precisa de fazê-lo, porque é levado a isso. Podemos saber que vamos errar até antes de cometermos o erro, mas o conhecimento de nós mesmos não afecta nem altera o resultado. Cada qual entoa o seu cântico, convencido de que é o mais maravilhoso que o mundo já ouviu. Não vês? Criámos os nossos espinhos e nunca nos detivemos para avaliar o custo. A única coisa que podemos fazer é sofrer a dor e dizer intimamente que valeu a pena. ~ Colleen McCullough, #NFDB
259:Cada um de nós tem dentro de si alguma coisa que não pode ser negada, ainda que nos faça grita, gritar, até ao fim. Somos o que somos, e pronto. Como a velha lenda celta do pássaro com o espinho no peito que canta até morrer, porque precisa de fazê-lo, porque é levado a isso. Podemos saber que vamos errar até antes de cometermos o erro, mas o conhecimento de nós mesmos não afecta nem altera o resultado. Cada qual entoa o seu cântico, convencido de que �� o mais maravilhoso que o mundo já ouviu. Não vês? Criámos os nossos espinhos e nunca nos detivemos para avaliar o custo. A única coisa que podemos fazer é sofrer a dor e dizer intimamente que valeu a pena. ~ Colleen McCullough, #NFDB
260:36. El cuidado de los ecosistemas supone una mirada que vaya más allá de lo inmediato, porque cuando sólo se busca un rédito económico rápido y fácil, a nadie le interesa realmente su preserva-ción. Pero el costo de los daños que se ocasionan por el descuido egoísta es muchísimo más alto queel beneficio económico que se pueda obtener. Enel caso de la pérdida o el daño grave de algunas es-pecies, estamos hablando de valores que exceden todo cálculo. Por eso, podemos ser testigos mu-dos de gravísimas inequidades cuando se pretendeobtener importantes beneficios haciendo pagar alresto de la humanidad, presente y futura, los altísi-mos costos de la degradación ambiental. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
261:A minha mãe pousou a mão sobre a minha. Sentir a sua mão nas costas da minha mão, o peso e o calor da sua mão, foi sentir que também eu gostava muito dela. Levantei a cabeça para a olhar e, nesse momento, sentimos tanta vontade de nos abraçarmos, porque soubemos mesmo que éramos duas pessoas a ser a mesma pessoa, porque soubemos que a beleza do amor que sentíamos, o afecto, era sentido exactamente da mesma maneira, com as mesmas formas, pelo outro. A minha mãe e eu sentíamos exactamente a mesma coisa quando nos olhámos a ser mãe e filho. E eu, como se descobrisse, senti toda força infinita do amor, que nunca muda, do amor que permanece igual depois de anos e anos. ~ Jos Lu s Peixoto, #NFDB
262:Në kohë të turbullta, gjithmonë qarkullojnë gjithfarë njerëzish. Nuk e kam fjalën për të ashtuquajturit “përparimtarë”, që dynden të parët të parashtrojnë qëllimet e veta, në të shumtën e herëve të parëndësishme, por që, sipas tyre, jetike. E kam fjalën për ca të paudhë e cipëplasur, që gjenden në çdo shoqëri, të cilët çajnë përpara me bërryla duke mos patur kurrfarë qëllimi, madje as kurrfarë mendimi, por që digjen nga padurimi e gjongla. Pa e vënë re as vetë, kjo kategori njerëzish bien nën ndikimin e të ashtuquajturve “përparimtarë”, që veprojnë në emër t qëllimit; këta bëjnë ç’u shkrepet me fundërrinat dështake, kuptohet, kur vetë nuk janë idiotë, e kjo ndodh shpesh. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
263:Então, de uma forma literal, os homens governam o mundo. Isso fazia sentido há mil anos. Os seres humanos viviam num mundo onde a força física era o atributo mais importante para a sobrevivência; quanto mais forte a pessoa, mais chances ela tinha de liderar. E os homens, de uma maneira geral, são fisicamente mais fortes. Hoje, vivemos num mundo completamente diferente. A pessoa mais qualificada para liderar não é a pessoa fisicamente mais forte. É a mais inteligente, a mais culta, a mais criativa, a mais inovadora. E não existem hormônios para esses atributos. Tanto um homem como uma mulher podem ser inteligentes, inovadores, criativos. Nós evoluímos. Mas nossas ideias de gênero ainda deixam a desejar. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
264:Ahora, imagínese lo que es la realidad de los seres humanos, con sus complicaciones y recovecos, contradicciones y además cambiantes. Porque cambia a cada instante que pasa, y lo que éramos hace un momento no lo somos más. ¿Somos, acaso, siempre la misma persona? ¿Tenemos, acaso, siempre los mismos sentimientos? Se puede querer a alguien y de pronto desestimarlo y hasta detestarlo. Y si cuando lo desestimamos cometemos el error de decírselo, eso es una verdad, pero una verdad momentánea, que no será más verdad dentro de una hora o al otro día, o en otras circunstancias. Y en cambio el ser a quien se la decimos creerá que ésa es la verdad, la verdad para siempre y desde siempre. Y se hundirá en la desesperación. ~ Ernesto Sabato, #NFDB
265:Alguém deve deixar alguma coisa para trás quando morre, dizia o meu avô. Um filho, ou um livro, ou um quadro, ou uma casa, ou uma parede construída ou um par de sapatos feitos à mão. Ou um jardim plantado. Alguma coisa em que a nossa alma tenha para onde ir quando morremos e, quando as pessoas olharem para essa árvore ou flor que plantámos, nós estamos lá. Não interessa aquilo que fazemos, dizia ele, desde que mudemos alguma coisa antes de lhe tocarmos e a transformarmos numa coisa que seja semelhante a nós depois de afastarmos as mãos. A diferença entre o homem que apenas apara relvados e um verdadeiro jardineiro está no toque, dizia ele. O cortador de relva pode não ter lá estado; o jardineiro ficará lá uma vida inteira. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
266:That was the first. There were more. Rarely on U.S. soil, the cases he worked were quiet, involved and deadly. Different killers, different MOs. Killing zones and sprees that needed to be kept as quiet as possible, that needed to be solved through back channels. These weren’t the men who made it onto Court TV, or even made it to court. These killers were protected. The governments of various countries kept silent assassins on the payrolls. Men and women paid to kill, trained to be sociopaths, sometimes broke from their proscribed paths, headed out on their own to satiate their burgeoning needs. Developed a bloodlust that their government targets couldn’t sate. Tracking these assets was a vital function, one not left to everyday agents. ~ J T Ellison, #NFDB
267:Vai chegar um dia em que todos vamos estar mortos. Todos nós. Vai chegar um dia em que não vai sobrar nenhum ser humano sequer para lembrar que alguém já existiu ou que nossa espécie fez qualquer coisa nessa mundo. Não vai sobrar ninguém para se lembrar de Aristóteles ou de Cleópatra, quanto mais de você. Tudo o que fizemos, construímos, escrevemos, pensamos e descobrimos vai ser esquecido e tudo isso aqui vai ter sido inútil. Pode ser que esse dia chegue logo e pode ser que demore milhões de anos, mas, mesmo que o mundo sobreviva a uma explosão do Sol, não vamos viver para sempre. Houve um tempo antes do surgimento da consciência nos organismos vivos, e vai haver outro depois. E se a inevitabilidade do esquecimento humano preocupa você, sugiro que deixe esse assunto para lá. Deus sabe que é isso o que todo mundo faz - Hazel Grace Lancaster ~ John Green, #NFDB
268:No hace falta mirar atrás para ver esos niños; una parte de tu mente los verá siempre, vivirá con ellos para siempre, amará con ellos para siempre. No son, precisamente, la mejor parte de ti, pero alguna vez fueron el depósito de todo lo que podías llegar a ser. Por eso: aléjate pronto, aléjate pronto, mientras la última luz se escurre, echa tierra entre tú y los recuerdos, pero no entre tú y el deseo. Eso queda: el reluciente camafeo de todo lo que fuimos y creímos cuando niños, de todo cuanto brillaba en nuestros ojos, aun cuando estábamos perdidos y el viento soplaba en la noche. Echa tierra por medio y trata de mantener la sonrisa. Pon algo de Rock and Roll en la radio y ve hacia toda la vida que existe con todo el valor que puedas reunir y toda la fe que logres invocar. Sé leal, aguanta."
El resto es oscuridad.
Stephen King - IT (Eso) ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
269:Eis o que acontece: alguém, normalmente rapariga, tem um espírito livre, não se dá lá muito bem com os pais. Esses miúdos são como balões de hélio amarrados ao chão. Vão puxando pelo fio, e puxando, e puxando, até que alguma coisa acontece, o fio parte-se e eles flutuam para longe. (...) Esse fio está sempre a partir se. (...) O problema desses balões é que há muitos. O céu está carregado deles, a roçarem uns nos outros enquanto flutuam para aqui e para ali (...) balões por todo o lado (...) Ao fim de algum tempo, já não se consegue vê-los individualmente. Olha-se para cima, para todos os balões que estão no céu, e vê-se todos os balões, mas não se consegue ver nenhum deles. (...) Mas depois falamos com um miúdo (...) e sentimo-nos mal por esse miúdo porque a única coisa pior que o céu cheio que vê-mos é o que ele vê: um dia de céu azul, limpo, interrompido por aquele único balão. ~ John Green, #NFDB
270:Se tivesse sido lúcida, se tivesse tido mil vidas a mais, teria sabido, ao contrário, que aquele dia estranho, de confissões e bizarrices, me trouxera uma lição que depois levei anos, e muitos erros, para aprender. Em cada detalhe, o que eu havia feito naquelas horas - e escutado, e dito, e visto - estava me ensinando que são os corpos a ditar a vida - todo o resto é uma consequência. Eu não podia acreditar nisso, naquele momento, porque como todos, na juventude, esperava algo mais complexo, ou sofisticado. Mas agora não conheço história, minha ou de outrem, que não se tenha iniciado no movimento animal de um corpo - uma inclinação, uma ferida, uma torcedura, às vezes um gesto brilhante, com frequência instintos obscenos que vêm de longe. Tudo já está escrito ali. Os pensamentos vêm depois, e são sempre um mapa tardio, ao qual atribuímos, por convenção e cansaço, uma precisão qualquer. ~ Alessandro Baricco, #NFDB
271:Hallom Amerika dalát, hallom sokféle szent énekét,
a kézművesekét, mindegyik aszerint dalolja a magáét, hogy jókedvű-e vagy komoly,
a magáét dalolja az ács, miközben a deszkáját vagy a gerendáját méri,
azt dalolja a kőműves, amikor munkájához készülődik vagy abbahagyja a munkáját,
azt a révész, ami az életéhez vagy a csónakjához tartozik, dalol a fedélzeti matróz a gőzhajón.
Dalol a cipész, miközben a munkaszékén ül, a kalapos, miközben áll,
hallom a favágó dalát, a szántó béreslegényt, ahogy reggel elindul,
vagy ahogy délben megpihen, vagy amikor lemegy a nap,
az anyag gyönyörű dalát, vagy a dolgozó fiatal asszonyét, vagy a leányét, aki varr vagy mos,
mindegyik azt dalolja, ha férfi, ha nő, amihez köze van, és nem egyebet,
napközben azt, ami a nappalé – és éjjel hallom a robosztus, vidám sihederek csapatát:
erőteljes, zengő dalaikat dalolják, ahogy csak a torkukon kifér. ~ Walt Whitman,#NFDB
272:– Muito obrigada dona Amélia, mas não há nada a dizer – pus-me de pé, solícita. – Quer que ligue aos seus netos a pedir que a venham ver este fim-de-semana? Podemos dizer que teve o princípio de uma trombose.
– Ó filha – riu-se a velha, com gosto. O seu humor é negro o bastante para me deliciar. – Já jogámos essa carta uma vez. Além disso os meus netos são muito mais ávidos do que os meus filhos, à hipótese de me verem morta já sonham com a herança. Vão comprar telefones e computadores e motas com ela. Não vale a pena sobreexcitá-los para nada, não é?
Sorri-lhe:
– Não lhe importa que eles desbaratem o que lhe custou tanto a juntar, pois não?
Com um suspiro triste de desprendimento, a dona Amélia apoiou as mãos nos joelhos para se pôr de pé e se erguer à minha altura.
– Que tenho eu a perder, Manuela? Nada. Então, levem-me tudo. Mas eu acho que conheces esse sentimento tão bem quanto eu, o de nos agarrar-nos mais ao nada do que ao tudo. ~ C lia Correia Loureiro,#NFDB
273:Se estamos aqui, isso se deve a uma inverosímil conjunção de acasos, e de que não se pode protestar contra o fim disso. As pessoas julgam que têm direito à vida. Mais, isso é reconhecido pelas religiões e pelas leis em quase toda a parte, quando não pelas Constituições (...). Como é que havemos de ter direito ao que não construímos nem ganhámos? (...) Ninguém se pode queixar de não ter nascido, ou de não ter estado antes no mundo, ou de não ter estado sempre nele, e assim porque é que alguém havia de se queixar de morrer, ou de não estar depois no mundo, ou de não permanecer sempre nele? (...) Ninguém tem objecções contra a data do seu nascimento, portanto também não as devia ter contra a da sua morte, igualmente devida a um acaso. Até as violentas, até os suicídios, se devem a um acaso. Para quem já esteve no nada, ou na não existência, não é muito estranho nem grave a ela regressar, embora agora haja um termo de comparação e conheçamos a faculdade de nostalgia. ~ Javier Mar as, #NFDB
274:As profissões de fé e as cruzadas, as hierarquias e as terríveis perseguições não foram organizadas, como ignorantemente se afirma, para a supressão da razão: foram organizadas para a difícil defesa da razão. O homem, por um instinto cego, sabia que, se alguma vez as coisas fossem avidamente interrogadas, a razão podia ser interrogada primeiro. A autoridade dos padres para absolverem, a autoridade dos papas para definirem a mesma autoridade, a própria autoridade dos inquisidores para aterrorizarem, foram apenas sombrias defesas erguidas ao redor de uma autoridade central, mais indemonstrável e mais sobrenatural do que todas: a autoridade do homem para pensar. [...] A razão acompanha a religião porque ambas são da mesma natureza primária e autoritária. Ambas são métodos de prova não prováveis em si mesmos. E ao destruirmos a ideia da Autoridade Divina, destruímos, em grande parte, a ideia daquela autoridade humana por intermédio da qual fazemos uma conta de dividir. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
275:Kushdo qofte, edhe njeriu i vogel, nga ata qe nuk e turbullojne ujin, qe askujt s'i bien me qafe, qe rrojne me friken e perendise, por edhe me friken per veten, shkojne me mendjen te mos ngacmojne njeri se keshtu as ate vete nuk do ta ngacmojne, do ta lene te qete ne hallet e tij, nuk deshiron qe te tjeret te futin hundet ne jeten e perditshme qe ben, nuk ia ka enda te flasin ne e ka te ri apo te vjeter jelekun, ne i ka te reja apo me mballoma çizmet, nuk ia ka enda te marrin vesh te tjeret ç'eshte duke ngrene, çfare po shkruan?... E ç'te keqe paska, moj zemer, qe une, kur shoh xhadene te prishur, eci ne maje te gishtave, shkel me kujdes per te ruajtur çizmet? Pse duhet shkruar per tjetrin qe ndonjehere nuk ka para as per te pire nje gote çaj? Sikur qenka e thene dhe e vulosur qe njerezit, te gjithe sa jane, patjeter duhet te pine çaj. Po pse e udhes qenka te shohesh ne gojen e tjetrit per te ditur ç'cope eshte duke pertypur? A fyhet njeriu keshtu? Jo, shpirti im! Perse u dashka fyer tjetri kur ai s'te ngacmon? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
276:Boy And His Stomach
What's the matter with you- ain't I always been your friend?
Ain't I been a pardner to you? All my pennies don't I spend
In gettin' nice things for you? Don't I give you lots of cake?
Say, stummick, what's the matter, that you had to go an' ache?
Why, I loaded you with good things yesterday, I gave you more
Potatoes, squash an' turkey than you'd ever had before.
I gave you nuts an' candy, pumpkin pie an' chocolate cake,
An' las' night when I got to bed you had to go an' ache.
Say, what's the matter with you- ain't you satisfied at all?
I gave you all you wanted, you was hard jes' like a ball,
An' you couldn't hold another bit of puddin', yet las' night
You ached mos' awful, stummick; that ain't treatin' me jes' right.
I've been a friend to you, I have, why ain't you a friend o' mine?
They gave me castor oil last night because you made me whine.
I'm awful sick this mornin' an' I'm feelin' mighty blue,
'Cause you don't appreciate the things I do for you.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
277:Motërzimi femëror i "Këngës së Urës së Qabesë"
Ka ca kohë që shtysa për diçka të tillë më vjen si detyrim, trokitje në ndërgjegjje, për të mos thënë në trajtë pengese (Pengesë e çuditshme që s'të lë të shkruash tjetër gjë, pa e shlyer detyrimin e hershëm.).
A janë borxh kombet e botës ndaj vajzave dhe grave të tyre? A është në detyrim të tillë kombi shqiptar, krijuesi i "Këngës së Urës së Qabesë"?
Ja motërzimi për vajzat e sotme shqiptare, ato që në heshtje dhe pikëllim durojnë atë që meshkujve u qëllon më rrallë.
Mbeta, moj vajza, kësaj ane
Në trotuare, n'Itali.
Në Western Union merrni dollarët
Se unë vetë nuk do vij.
Në pyette nëna, ç'fat më doli,
I thoni se një burrë kam marrë.
Im atë në pyettë, i tregoni
Se u martova me një varr.
Në pyettë shoku i shkollës, Bledi,
Nga klasa fqinje, "E treta B",
I thoni se një peng më mbeti,
Që nuk u putha dot me të.
Më pas vinte vazhdimi me krushqit apo korbat që shkojnë në dasmë a në varrim, e padurueshme zakonisht.
Në pyettë se ç'krushq i vanë
Policë belgë a italianë... ~ Ismail Kadare,#NFDB
278:nflujo de Proclo No e s , en suma, sorprendente, que Proclo haya ejercido sobre el pensamiento cristiano una larga influencia. En todo caso, es e l único de los últimos paganos que ha poseído esta irradiación.Damascio, por ejemplo, parece carecer de e l l a , aunque estuvo entregado como él al antiguo culto. El misticismo poético de Proclo ha sido fác i lmente asimilado por los defensores de la Iglesia, al igual que sus distin ciones escolásticas han podido incorporarse a su filosofía. Proclo abre l a Edad Media. Sin embargo, se puede j uzgar que valía más que sus sucesore s , enzarzados en abstracciones estériles y en verbalis mos, al igual que sus antecesores valían más que é l . Hay que esperar a la época moderna para ve r cómo el pensamiento filosófico se reincorpora y vuelve a hallar la fuerza que había poseído en la Grecia an tigua. En esta época Proclo irá cayendo poco a poco en el olvido. Pero l e queda la gloria de haber asegu rado una transición entre la luz antigua y la penum bra medieval, ayudando a esta última a conservar un resto de calor.P.BASTID, Proclus et le crépuscule de la pensée grecque, París, 1 9 6 9 , 4 5 8 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
279:No podemos escoger más que entre verdades irrespirables y supercherías saludables.
Sólo las verdades que nos impiden vivir merecen el nombre de verdades, pues,
superiores a las exigencias de los vivos, no condescienden a ser cómplices nuestros. Son verdades "inhumanas", verdades de vértigo que rechazamos porque nadie puede prescindir de apoyos disfrazados de slogans o de dioses. Lo triste es observar que son los iconoclastas, o aquellos que pretenden serlo, quienes en todas las épocas recurren con más frecuencia a la ficción y a la mentira. Muy enfermo debía de estar el mundo antiguo para necesitar un antídoto tan burdo como el que le administró el cristianismo. En la misma situación se encuentra el mundo moderno, a juzgar por los remedios de los que espera milagros. Epicuro, el menos fanático de los sabios, fue entonces y es todavía hoy el gran perdedor. Con asombro y hasta con espanto, oímos hablar a los hombres de liberar al Hombre. ¿Cómo podrían los esclavos liberar al Esclavo? ¿Y cómo creer que la historia -procesión de desatinos- podrá durar aún mucho tiempo? La hora de cierre sonará pronto en los jardines de todo el mundo. ~ Emil M Cioran,#NFDB
280:«Andar a pé por uma cidade antiquíssima, como Lisboa, é meio-caminho andado para se sentir uma tristeza profunda pela efemeridade do nosso próprio mundo: onde estão os nossos sítios, os nossos mortos, esses pontos de contacto entre o nosso coração e o território? Como continuar a caminhar, quando grande parte do que amámos já se foi embora? Quem estuda a história não se pode dar ao luxo de ser nostálgico, mas eu não sou historiador, sou escritor e por isso posso ser nostálgico à vontade. E nem toda a tristeza é má. Continuam perto de nós, essas âncoras de osso e pedra, de palavra e memória - camufladas no território, como um vasto sistema nervoso sob os músculos. Continua-se a caminhar, porque o território é tudo o que existe: é tudo o que sempre existiu e continuará a existir; mesmo depois das mortes daqueles de quem gostamos e da ruína dos locais onde vivemos. Somos sílabas e iluminuras num texto redigido pelo tempo sobre a terra que nos viu nascer, como tinta sobre um pedaço de papel. Nós secamos, como a tinta - embaciamos. O território fica - mas nós ficamos nele. Ressequidos. Translúcidos. Como folhas mortas. Não há nada mais para além disso.» ~ David Soares, #NFDB
281:Refleti no que o progresso já tem feito. Noutro tempo, as primeiras raças humanas viam com terror passar diante de si a hidra soprando as águas, o dragão vomitando chamas, o grifo, que era o monstro do ar, voando com asas de águia e garras de tigre; animais terríveis que estavam acima do homem. O homem, porém, armou os seus laços, os sagrados laços da inteligência, e conseguiu, afinal, apanhar neles os monstros. A hidra já a subjugámos, e chama-se vapor; já subjugámos o dragão, que se chama locomotiva; e estamos em vésperas de subjugar o grifo, que já temos seguro e que se chama balão. No dia em que terminar esta obra prometaica e em que o homem tiver definitivamente ligada à sua vontade a tríplice Quimera antiga, a hidra, o dragão e o grifo, ficará senhor da água, do fogo e do ar, e será para o resto da criação animada o que outrora eram para ele os antigos deuses. Ânimo e avante! Cidadãos, para onde vamos? Para a ciência feita governo, para a força das coisas tornada única força pública, para a lei natural com a sua sanção e a sua penalidade em si mesma e promulgando-se pela evidência, para um alvorecer de verdade correspondente ao alvorecer do dia. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
282:In the movie Star Wars, the malign aspect of technology is the Death Star. It is an object huge and disconnected from humanness that reduces its clients to clones-recognizably human, but all identically in thrall to the machine, all drained of color and drained of will. Its protagonist, Darth Vader, is not a full human being either. He is constructed-part technology, part human body. The heroes, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, by contrast are fully human. They have individuality, they have will, and they hang with creatures in a haunt called the Mos Eisley Cantina-creatures that are strange, distorted, and perverse, but that brim with messy vitality. If you look at the heroes, they have technology as well. But their technology is different. It is not hidden and dehumanizing; their starships are rickety and organic and have to be kicked to get running. This is crucial. Their technology is human. It is an extension of their natures, fallible, human, individual, and therefore beneficent. They have not traded their humanness for technology, nor surrendered their will to technology. Technology has surrendered to them. And in doing so it extends their naturalness. ~ W Brian Arthur, #NFDB
283:Injun Summah
De Injun summah's comin',
De bees is all froo hummin',
De watah-mellon thumbin'
Has passed long time ago.
De ole clock in de kitchen
Is tickin' mos' bewitchin',
While Gabe is out unhitchin'
Just kase it looks like snow.
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De lambs is runnin' over
De aftahmath ob clovah,
An' yondah comes de drovah;
I 'spec he' got a yahn
About de ole bell-weddah
Dat's wand'rin roun' de meddah
An' wants ter git togeddah
Wid de sheep up roun' de bahn.
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Some days de sun is shinin',
Some days de win' is whinin',
An' den I'se after fin'in'
Big pippins on de groun';
De birds hab all stopped singin',
Wil' geese is soufward wingin',
Jes' look an' see 'em stringin'
Whar warmah weddah's foun'.
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De yaller cat is nappin'
En layin' roun' an' gappin';
Bimeby he will be slappin'
Some tom-cat on de wall.
Dar's a mellah, yellah glory
Kase de yeah is ol' an' ho'ry,
An' a melancholy story
So't o' hangin' roun' us all.
~ Benjamin Franklin King,#NFDB
284:Unë nuk jam ithtar i një arti tepër subjektiv. Poezia ime ka qenë për mua një mjet për të zotëruar vetveten. Ajo më jepte mundësinë të shikoja ku kalonte vija matanë së cilës falsiteti i tonit dëshmon falsitetin e qëndrimit dhe të bëja të gjitha përpjekjet për të mos e shkelur. Përvoja e viteve të luftës më mësoi se nuk është e udhës ta marrësh penën me qëllimin e vetëm për t’u komunikuar të tjerëve hidhërimin vetjak dhe sfilitjen e brendshme – sepse kjo është një lëndë e dobët, përftimi i së cilës kërkon aq pak mund sa që ky akt nuk të jep të drejtën e respektimit të vetvetes. Kushdo që ka parë të bëhet hi një qytet me një milion banorë dhe kilometra të tëra rrugësh të tij pa asnjë gjurmë jete, madje as edhe një mace, as edhe një qen pa zot, i kujton me ironi përshkrimet prej poetëve bashkëkohorë të ferrit të qyteteve të mëdha - në të vërtetë ferri i shpirtit të tyre. Wasteland i vërtetë është shumë më i tmerrshëm se ai imagjinari. Kush nuk ka jetuar mes tmerreve të luftës e të terrorit nuk e di sa e egër është revolta kundër vetvetes e atij që i ka parë ose ka marrë pjesë në to - ajo revoltë kundër moskokëçarjes dhe egoizmit të vet. Rrënimi dhe vuajtjet janë një shkollë ku farkëtohet sensi shoqëror, ~ Czes aw Mi osz, #NFDB
285:Era uma coisa estranha experimentar tão grande sensação de afecto, não devido a determinada coisa ou pessoa, mas a plenitude do que se pode chamar amor. Importa unicamente sondar a sua própria profundidade, não com a pequena mente tonta mais os incessantes murmúrios do pensamento, mas com o silêncio. O silêncio é o único instrumento que pode penetrar aquele algo que escapa a uma mente contaminada. Não sabemos o que seja esse amor; conhecemos os seus sintomas, o prazer, a ansiedade, o pesar, etc. E tentamos resolver esses sintomas mas isso torna-se um vagar pelas trevas. Gastamos os nossos dias nisso e a breve trecho isso culmina na morte(...)
Na verdade estropiamos o sentido da palavra carregando-a de significado sem sentido, o significado dos nossos próprios eus mesquinhos e estreitos; nesse estreito contexto tentamos nós encontrar o outro para depois dolorosamente tornarmos á nossa confusão e tristeza de todos os dias. O silêncio é a única coisa que dará resposta a todos os nossos problemas. Resposta não é o termo porque nesse caso não haveria problemas. Possuímos problemas de todo o género e tratamos de os
resolver sem esse amor, de modo que assim, eles só crescem e multiplicam-se. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti,#NFDB
286:Era uma coisa estranha experimentar tão grande sensação de afecto, não devido a determinada coisa ou pessoa, mas a plenitude do que se pode chamar amor. Importa unicamente sondar a sua própria profundidade, não com a pequena mente tonta mais os incessantes murmúrios do pensamento, mas com o silêncio. O silêncio é o único instrumento que pode penetrar aquele algo que escapa a uma mente contaminada. Não sabemos o que seja esse amor. Conhecemos os seus sintomas, o prazer, a ansiedade, o pesar, etc. E tentamos resolver esses sintomas, mas isso torna-se um vagar pelas trevas. Gastamos os nossos dias nisso e o breve trecho isso culmina na morte (...)
Na verdade estropiamos o sentido da palavra carregando-a de significado sem sentido. O significado dos nossos próprios 'eus' mesquinhos e estreitos. Nesse estreito contexto tentamos nós encontrar o outro para depois dolorosamente tornarmos á nossa confusão e tristeza de todos os dias. O silêncio é a única coisa que dará resposta a todos os nossos problemas. Resposta não é o termo porque nesse caso não haveria problemas. Possuímos problemas de todo o gênero e tratamos de os resolver sem esse amor, de modo que assim, eles só crescem e multiplicam-se. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti,#NFDB
287:Hay cosas que uno debe saber de inmediato para no andar por el mundo ni un solo minuto en una creencia tan equivocada que el mundo es otro por ellas. No es admisible pensar que todo sigue como estaba cuando todo está ya alterado o ha dado un vuelco, y es verdad que el periodo durante el que se permaneció en el error se nos hace luego insoportable. Qué tonto fui, pensamos, y en realidad eso no debería dolernos tanto. Vivir en el engaño o ser engañado es fácil, y aún más, es nuestra condición natural: nadie está libre de ello y nadie es tonto por ello, no deberíamos oponernos mucho ni debería amargarnos. Sin embargo nos parece intolerable, cuando por fin sabemos. Lo que nos cuesta, lo malo, es que el tiempo en el que creímos lo que no era queda convertido en algo extraño, flotante o ficticio, en una especie de encantamiento o sueño que debe ser suprimido de nuestro recuerdo; derepente es como si ese periodo no lo hubiéramos vivido del todo, ¿verdad?, como si tuviéramos que volver a contarnos la historia o a releer un libro, y entonces pensamos que nos habríamos comportado de distinta manera o habríamos empleado de otro modo ese tiempo que pasa a pertenecer al limbo. Eso puede desesperarnos. Y además ese tiempo a veces no se queda en el limbo, sino en el infierno. ~ Javier Mar as, #NFDB
288:To De Witt Miller
Dear Miller: You and I despise
The cad who gathers books to sell 'em,
Be they but sixteen-mos in cloth
Or stately folios garbed in vellum.
But when one fellow has a prize
Another bibliophile is needing,
Why, then, a satisfactory trade
Is quite a laudable proceeding.
There's precedent in Bristol's case
The great collector--preacher-farmer;
And in the case of that divine
Who shrives the soul of P.D. Armour.
When from their sapient, saintly lips
The words of wisdom are not dropping,
They turn to trade--that is to say,
When they're not preaching they are swapping!
So to the flock it doth appear
That this a most conspicuous fact is:
That which these godly pastors do
Must surely be a proper practice.
Now, here's a pretty prize, indeed,
On which De Vinne's art is lavished;
Harkee! the bonny, dainty thing
Is simply waiting to be ravished!
And you have that for which I pine
As you should pine for this fair creature:
Come, now, suppose we make a trade-You take this gem, and send the Beecher!
Surely, these graceful, tender songs
(In samite garb with lots of gilt on)
Are more to you than those dull tome?
Her pastor gave to Lizzie Tilton!
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~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
289:A arte é o produto da acção do homem, quando ele tenta transcender a sua condição animal e passar de criatura a criador. Ao pintar uma cena na floresta, o homem torna-se Deus porque cria numa tela a natureza, ao contar uma história num romance o homem torna-se Deus porque cria no papel a vida das pessoas. Deus é um artista, pelo que a arte é um acto divino.
... a arte tem sido sobretudo uma incessante busca pelo sentido da vida. A experiência da beleza é o que nos faz acreditar que o mundo tem um propósito, que as coisas desempenham uma função e ocupam um lugar próprio. Quando contemplamos a miríade de diamantes estrelares que mancham o céu nocturno, ou o pissitar melodioso do estorninho entre as folhas de um plátano... o espanto maravilhado que sentimos confirma-nos que o mundo é um lugar especial e que, enquanto elementos desse mundo, também nós somos especiais, abençoados pelo toque divino como se nós próprios fossemos divinos. O universo que abraça estas maravilhas também nos abraça a nós e nós fundimo-nos nele como se todos fôssemos um. A beleza confirma-nos subtilmente que a vida tem um sentido. Podemos não saber que sentido é esse mas intuímos pela tangibilidade da beleza que ele existe... Quando procuramos a beleza, estamos na verdade a procurar o propósito da nossa existência. ~ Jos Rodrigues dos Santos,#NFDB
290:Aproximávamo-nos agora da floresta enquanto a estrada ia descrevendo uma volta quando demos pelas pegadas de um homem. Depois de outro homem que trazia botas. As marcas mostravam ligeiros sinais de chuva e parámos o carro para ver melhor a pé.
- Tu e eu – disse a Ngui.
- Sim – disse ele com um sorriso – Um deles tem pés grandes e caminha como se estivesse cansado.
- Um está descalço e anda como se a espingarda fosse pesada demais para ele. Pára o carro – disse a Mthuka. Descemos.
- Olha – disse Ngui. – Um anda como se fosse muito velho e mal pudesse ver. O que está calçado.
- Olha – disse eu – O que está descalço anda como quem tem cinco mulheres e vinte vacas. Gastou uma fortuna em cerveja.
- Não vão chegar a lado nenhum – disse Ngui – Olha, o que vai calçado anda como se fosse morrer de um momento para o outro. Vai a cambalear com o peso da espingarda.
- Que achas que andam a fazer por estes lados?
- Como é que hei-de saber? Olha, o dos sapatos agora está mais forte.
- Está a pensar na shamba – disse Ngui.
- Kwenda na shamba.
- Ndio – confirmou Ngui – Que idade dás tu ao mais velho, o dos sapatos?
- Não tens nada com isso – disse eu. Dirigimo-nos para o carro e quando ele se aproximou subimos e eu indiquei a Mthuka a orla da floresta. O condutor ria-se e abanava a cabeça.
- Que é que andavam os dois ali a fazer a seguir as vossas pegadas? – disse Miss Mary – Já sei que era muito engraçado porque todos se estavam a rir. Mas pareceu-me bastante parvo ~ Ernest Hemingway,#NFDB
291:I provova gjithandej forcat. Ju ma këshillat këtë "për të njohur vetveten". Tregova forca të pashtershme në këto sprova: në sytë tuaj durova shpullën e tët vëllai; pranova sy të gjithëve lidhjen martesore. Veç, zbatim të këtyre forcave nuk gjeta, as tani nuk po gjej, ndonëse pikësynimet m'i miratuat, kur ishim në Zvicër, dhe erdha i mbushur me gatishmëri. Si dhe më parë, orvatem të bëj punë të mira dhe me kënaqësi e bëj, por po aq i dëshiroj edhe të keqen dhe edhe këtu ndiej kënaqësi. Dhe, si dhe më parë, në çdo rast më mungon thellësia e ndjenjës, kurrë nuk ndiej shumë dëshirë, dhe, meqë dëshirat s'i kam të forta, ato s'kanë si m'i drejtojnë veprimet. Mbi një tra mund të dalësh matanë lumit, mbi një ashkël nuk del dot. Mos pandehni, pra, se jam duke shkuar në Uri i mbushur ploteperplot me shpresa.
S'bëj me faj njeri. Provova laperdhite më të peshtira dhe i lashe aty forcat, por as i dua e as i kam lakmuar laperdhite. Jeni ju ajo, që më mirë se kushdo tjetër, ma njeh jetën që kam bërë. Po këtë e dini, që edhe kundershtaret i kam parë me urrejtje vetëm e vetëm ngaqë ua kisha zili shpresat që ushqenin! Veç, më kot trembeshin; s'kisha si të behesha shok me ta, se nuk më bashkonte asgjë me ta. Ashtu thjesht, vetëm sa për t'u tallur, jam lidhur me ta; nga inati për ta asgjë s'kam bërë, sepse më udheheqin zakone të njeriut për të qenë; më ndjell krupen bashkimi me ta. Veç, po të kisha me teperi ligesi e smire, mund edhe të bashkohesha me ta. Mund ta beja fare lehtë, por sa shumë më brejti mëdyshja! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,#NFDB
292:Era um peixe pequeno, um peixinho, com o comprimento de meio dedo, com escamas prateadas e nadadeiras delicadas, branquiadas, espelhadas e trêmulas. Um olho de peixe redondo e arregalado ao máximo mirou os dois por um instante como se sugerisse a Maia e Mati que todos nós, todos os seres vivos sobre este planeta, pessoas e animais, aves, répteis, larvas e peixes, na realidade nós estamos bem próximos uns dos outros, apesar de todas as muitas diferenças entre nós: pois quase todos nós temos olhos para ver formas, movimentos e cores, e quase todos nós ouvimos vozes e ecos, ou pelo menos sentimos a passagem da luz e da escuridão através da nossa pele. E todos nós captamos, sem parar, cheiros, gostos e sensações.
Isso e mais: todos nós sem exceção nos assustamos às vezes e até mesmo ficamos apavorados, e às vezes todos ficamos cansados, ou com fome, e cada um de nós gosta de certas coisas e detesta outras, que nos inspiram temor ou aversão. Além disso, todos nós, pessoas répteis insetos e peixes, todos nós nos empenhamos muito para que fique tudo bem para nós, não muito quente nem frio, todos nós sem exceção tentamos a maior parte do tempo nos preservar e nos guardar de tudo que corta, morde e fura. Pois cada um de nós pode ser amassado com facilidade. E todos nós, pássaro e minhoca, gato menino e lobo, todos nós nos esforçamos a maior parte do tempo em tomar o máximo cuidado possível contra a dor e o perigo, e apesar disso nós nos arriscamos muito sempre que saímos para correr atrás de comida, atrás de uma brincadeira e também atrás de aventuras emocionantes. ~ Amos Oz,#NFDB
293:Os amigos nunca são para as ocasiões. São para sempre. A ideia utilitária da amizade, como entreajuda, pronto-socorro mútuo, troca de favores, depósito de confiança, sociedade de desabafos, mete nojo. A amizade é puro prazer. Não se pode contaminar com favores e ajudas, leia-se dívidas. Pede-se, dá-se, recebe-se, esquece-se e não se fala mais nisso.
A decadência da amizade entre nós deve-se à instrumentalização que tem vindo a sofrer. Transformou-se numa espécie de maçonaria, uma central de cunhas, palavrinhas, cumplicidades e compadrios. É por isso que as amizades se fazem e desfazem como se fossem laços políticos ou comerciais. Se alguém «falta» ou «não corresponde», se não cumpre as obrigações contratuais, é logo condenado como «mau» amigo e sumariamente proscrito. Está tudo doido. Só uma miséria destas obriga a dizer o óbvio: os amigos são as pessoas de que nós gostamos e com quem estamos de vez em quando. Podemos nem sequer darmo-nos muito, ou bem, com elas. Ou gostar mais delas do que elas de nós. Não interessa. A amizade é um gosto egoísta, ou inevitabilidade, o caminho de um coração em roda-livre.
Os amigos têm de ser inúteis. Isto é, bastarem só por existir e, maravilhosamente, sobrarem-nos na alma só por quem e como são. O porquê, o onde e o quando não interessam. A amizade não tem ponto de partida, nem percurso, nem objectivo. É impossível lembrarmo-nos de como é que nos tornámos amigos de alguém ou pensarmos no futuro que vamos ter.
A glória da amizade é ser apenas presente. É por isso que dura para sempre; porque não contém expectativas nem planos nem ansiedade.
Miguel Esteves Cardoso, in 'Explicações de Português ~ Miguel Esteves Cardoso,#NFDB
294:Mindenki tudja, hogy nélküle is minden folytatódik, hogy semmi sem áll meg, csak mert ő eltűnik. De az „azután” őt már nem érinti. Az a lényeg, hogy az ember élete megáll, következésképp minden megáll a számára, s a világ olyan marad, amilyen abban a pillanatban volt, amikor annak véget ért, aki véget ért, még ha valójában nem is marad úgy azután. De ez a „valójában” már nem számít. Ez az egyetlen olyan pillanat, amikor már nincs jövő, amikor a jelen öröknek és megmásíthatatlannak tűnik fel előttünk, mert már nem vehetünk részt semmilyen történésben vagy változásban. Vannak olyan írók, akik megpróbálták előbbre hozni a könyvük kiadását, hogy az édesapjuk nyomtatott formában lássa, és azzal a gondolattal búcsúzzék, hogy a fia beteljesítette a hivatását, még ha később egyetlen sort sem vetett többé papírra. Számos olyan elkeseredett próbálkozás van, hogy pillanatnyilag összebékítenek két embert és elhitetik a haldoklóval, hogy minden rendben van és a helyére került; ugyan mit számít, hogy az ellenségek már két nappal a haláleset után újra kígyót-békát szórnak egymás fejére – csak az számít, ami a halált megelőzően igaznak tűnt. Vannak, akik megbocsátást színlelnek egy halott előtt, hogy békében vagy nyugalomban távozzék, és nem számít, hogy ugyanaz az ember a belső ítélőszéke előtt másnap már a pokolba kívánja azt, akinek megbocsátott. Vannak, akik a feleségük vagy a férjük halálos ágya mellett úgy hazudnak, mint a vízfolyás, és meggyőzik, hogy sosem voltak hűtlenek hozzá, hogy állhatatosan és zökkenőmentesen szerették; egy hónapon belül pedig már vígan élnek veterán szeretőjük oldalán. Az egyetlen igaz, sőt meghatározó dolog az, amit a haldokló közvetlenül a távozása előtt hisz vagy lát, mert számára nincs tovább. ~ Javier Mar as, #NFDB
295:Eleinte azt hittem, hogy a mai nevek csak azért maradnak fenn, hogy azokat még ezer év múlva is leköpjék. De túl jól ismerem a magyarokat. Azonnal elkezdtek mentségeket koholni, elkezdtek sugdolózni, hogy mennyire szenvednek, miközben vastag összegeket gyúrtak zsebükbe, a libapecsenyén hízott vértanúk. Fogadok, hogy a történelembe mint mártírokat jegyzik fel őket, e koszos és ripők söpredéket, dicsőítik egymást, és bevezetik egymást a történelembe, óvatosan Berzsenyi és Csokonai, Petőfi, Bartók, Csontváry, Arany és Kemény közé, ahelyett, hogy rémpéldaként mutatgatnák őket a panoptikumban: íme, akiknek drágább volt a selyemnyakkendő, mint ezerkilencszázötvenhat. Mintha életnek lehetne tartani azt, amit ezek élnek, mintha költészet és zene és dráma lenne az, amit ezek csinálnak, mintha lehetne ilyen feltételek között élni akárcsak hivatalban, vagy gyárban.
Persze, élni csak kell. Nagyon nehéz. De ha nagyon nehéz, hát nagyon nehéz. Elrejtőzni és hallgatni, és napszámos munkát vállalni, és fogakat összeszorítani, és nem lázadni, vagyis igenis lázadni, és nem engedni, és átkozott és bőszült görcsben élni, és nem engedni. Hol van ma az a név, börtönökön kívül, amely nem ragad a mocsoktól?
„Semmi szent nincs, amit ez a nép ne gyalázott volna meg, ne süllyesztett volna hitvány eszközzé, és ami a barbárok között is égi tiszta marad, azt ezek a huncut vadak iparként űzik, és nem is tudnak mást, – ahol az embert megalázzák, ott már nem tud másként élni, mint saját érdekéért, saját hasznát keresi, és nincsen benne többé szív, még akkor sem, ha ünnepel, vagy ha szeret, vagy ha imádkozik” (Hölderlin).
Majd igazolják őket. Lemosogatják őket, bekerülnek a lexikonba, az irodalom és a kultúrtörténetbe, mint akik magas esztétikai értékeket valósítottak meg. Milyen történelem lesz ez? ~ B la Hamvas,#NFDB
296:les rogué que me dieran acceso al patio de atrás, si todavía existía, que lindaba con los fondos de otra finca, de la que la nuestra estaba separada por un cerco vivo de rosas trepadoras y ligustros y un tejido de alambre de trama romboidal. La enredadera de rosas y los ligustros no existían pero sí el cerco de alambre a través del cual ella y yo pasábamos los brazos para tocarnos y conocernos, como si fuésemos ciegos. Imposible determinar cuál era el rombo por el que, muchos años atrás, pasé mi mano para el otro lado y atravesando la trama de hojas y de pequeñas rosas estuve a punto de alcanzar su rostro. Elegí uno al azar imaginándome que como entonces ella estaba al otro lado, y me costó meter la mano, tuve que estirar los dedos adelgazándola; pero al llegar al codo se acabó el intento. Aquella vez en cambio, aunque el codo encajado en el rombo me impidió seguir avanzando, ella acercó su rostro infantil atravesando las hojas y rosas trepadoras y lo puso al alcance de las yemas de mis dedos; acariciaba sus mejillas sintiendo que el olor intenso de los ligustros aplastados penetraba en nosotros a través de nuestra respiración agitada. Entre las hojas verdes y las pequeñas rosas pálidas le brillaban unos ojos grandes y celestes.“Ahora yo”, dijo en un español que venía del otro lado del mar, estiró los dedos y pasó la mano por el mismo rombo; su brazo se deslizó sin tocar los alambres y al llegar a la altura del codo éste pasó rozándolos apenas. Me acarició la cara diciéndome “me llamo Eugenia y tú eres Juan”, en su lengua transoceánica. Retiró el brazo, soltó una risita breve y me sacó la lengua. Era plena siesta. El alambrado tiritaba ante el paso, muy cercano, de uno de esos trenes largos que viajan hacia el sur. Cuando el ruido cesó oímos que al otro lado de las vías, donde acababa la ciudad y empezaba la pampa interminable, cantaban las palomas ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
297:Relato recibido de Rhonda y Bob Baines De: Rhonda y Bob Baines Para: T. Harv Eker Asunto: ¡Nos sentimos libres! Fuimos al Mente Millonaria Intensivo sin saber realmente lo que podíamos esperar. Quedamos muy impresionados con los resultados. Antes de asistir al seminario estábamos teniendo muchos problemas de dinero. Parecía que nunca progresábamos. Continuamente estábamos endeudados y no sabíamos por qué. Liquidábamos los gastos de nuestras tarjetas de crédito (por lo general, con el dinero de una bonificación grande obtenida en el trabajo) sólo para volver a endeudarnos al cabo de seis meses. No importaba cuánto dinero ganásemos. Estábamos muy frustrados y discutíamos mucho. Entonces asistimos al Mente Millonaria. Mientras te escuchábamos, mi marido y yo no dejábamos de apretarnos mutuamente la pierna y de sonreír y mirarnos. Oímos una gran cantidad de información que nos hacía decir: «No me extraña», «Ah, es por eso», «Ahora todo tiene sentido». Estábamos muy emocionados. Aprendimos lo distinto que pensamos él y yo en lo referente al dinero; él gastaba y yo ahorraba: ¡qué horrible combinación! Después de oír la información, dejamos de culparnos uno al otro, empezamos a comprendernos mutuamente y, a la larga, comenzamos a apreciarnos y amarnos más. Ha pasado casi un año y seguimos sin discutir por el dinero: sólo hablamos de lo que aprendimos. Ya no estamos endeudados; de hecho, tenemos dinero ahorrado, por primera vez en dieciséis años: ¡sí! Ahora no sólo tenemos dinero para nuestro futuro, sino que también tenemos el suficiente para nuestros gastos normales de cada día, para juegos, educación, ahorros a largo plazo para una casa, e incluso para compartir y dar. Es una sensación maravillosa saber que podemos emplear dinero en esas áreas y no sentirnos culpables por haberlo destinado y dedicado a esos fines. Nos sentimos libres. Muchas gracias, Harv. ~ T Harv Eker, #NFDB
298:Double Ballade Of Primitive Man
He lived in a cave by the seas,
He lived upon oysters and foes,
But his list of forbidden degrees,
An extensive morality shows;
Geological evidence goes
To prove he had never a pan,
But he shaved with a shell when he chose, 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man.
He worshipp'd the rain and the breeze,
He worshipp'd the river that flows,
And the Dawn, and the Moon, and the trees,
And bogies, and serpents, and crows;
He buried his dead with their toes
Tucked-up, an original plan,
Till their knees came right under their nose, 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man.
His communal wives, at his ease,
He would curb with occasional blows;
Or his State had a queen, like the bees
(As another philosopher trows):
When he spoke, it was never in prose,
But he sang in a strain that would scan,
For (to doubt it, perchance, were morose)
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!
On the coasts that incessantly freeze,
With his stones, and his bones, and his bows;
On luxuriant tropical leas,
Where the summer eternally glows,
He is found, and his habits disclose
(Let theology say what she can)
That he lived in the long, long agos,
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!
From a status like that of the Crees,
Our society's fabric arose, Develop'd, evolved, if you please,
68
But deluded chronologists chose,
In a fancied accordance with Mos
es, 4000 B. C. for the span
When he rushed on the world and its woes, 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!
But the mild anthropologist,--HE'S
Not RECENT inclined to suppose
Flints Palaeolithic like these,
Quaternary bones such as those!
In Rhinoceros, Mammoth and Co.'s,
First epoch, the Human began,
Theologians all to expose, 'Tis the MISSION of Primitive Man.
ENVOY.
MAX, proudly your Aryans pose,
But their rigs they undoubtedly ran,
For, as every Darwinian knows,
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!
~ Andrew Lang,#NFDB
299:For folks who have that casual-dude energy coursing through their bloodstream, that's great. But gays should not grow up alienated just for us to alienate each other. It's too predictable, like any other cycle of abuse. Plus, the conformist, competitive notion that by "toning down" we are "growing up" ultimately blunts the radical edge of what it is to be queer; it truncates our colorful journey of identity.
Said another way, it's like living in West Hollywood and working a gay job by day and working it in the gay nightlife, wearing delicate shiny shirts picked from up the gay dry cleaners, yet coquettishly left unbuttoned to reveal the pec implants purchased from a gay surgeon and shown off by prancing around the gay-owned-and-operated theater hopped up on gay health clinic steroids and wheat grass purchased from the friendly gay boy who's new to the city, and impressed by the monstrous SUV purchased from a gay car dealership with its rainbow-striped bumper sticker that says "Celebrate Diversity." Then logging on to the local Gay.com listings and describing yourself as "straight-acting."
Let me make myself clear. This is not a campaign for everyone to be like me. That'd be a total yawn. Instead, this narrative is about praise for the prancy boys. Granted, there's undecided gender-fucks, dagger dykes, faux-mos, po-mos, FTMs, fisting-top daddies, and lezzie looners who also need props for broadening the sexual spectrum, but they're telling their own stories.
The Cliff's Notes of me and mine are this: the only moments I feel alive are when I'm just being myself - not some stiff-necked temp masquerading as normal in the workplace, not some insecure gay boy aspiring to be an overpumped circuit queen, not some comic book version of swank WeHo living. If that's considered a political act in the homogenized world of twenty-first century homosexuals, then so be it.
— excerpt of "Praise For The Prancy Boys," by Clint Catalyst
appears in first edition (ISBN # 1-932360-56-5) ~ Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore,#NFDB
300:- Quando foi da sementeira, o patrão Arnaldo disse-me: «Ó Bailote, tu já não tens a mesma mão para semear.» Porque eu, senhor doutor, tive sempre uma mão funda, assim grande, como um cocho de cortiça. Eu metia a mão ao saco e vinha cheia de semente. Atirava-a à terra e semeava uma jeira num ar.
Conta, bom homem, conta o teu sonho perdido. Tinhas, pois, uma boa mão de semeador bíblico. Atiravas a semente e a vida nascia a teus pés. Eras senhor da criação e o universo cumpria-se no teu gesto. E, enquanto o homem falava, eu olhava-lhe a face escurecida dos séculos, os olhos doridos da sua divindade morta. Imaginava-o outrora dominando a planície com a sua mão poderosa. A terra abria-se à sua passagem como à passagem de um deus. A terra conhecia-o seu irmão como à chuva e ao sol […].
E mostrava a sua desgraçada mão, envelhecida, carbonizada de anos e soalheira. […]
- Olhe. Faça ginástica aos dedos. Assim.
E exemplificava. De olhos escorraçados, o homem lamentou-se:
- Tenho feito, senhor doutor. Mas o patrão Arnaldo diz que eu já não tenho mão. Veja, senhor doutor, então isto não será ainda uma mão de homem? […]
- Então que quer que eu lhe faça?
- Dê-me um remédio, senhor doutor. Um remédio que me ponha a mão como a tinha. Assim grande, assim funda, assim…
E moldava no ar a capacidade de uma mão de Jeová. Fios de sol escorriam de uma azinheira perto da estrada. Os campos repousavam no grande e plácido Outono. E pelo vasto céu azul, sem a mancha de uma nuvem, ecoava levemente a memória de Verão. Moura pôs o motor a trabalhar.
- Então passe muito bem – disse ao semeador.
E o carro arrancou, erguendo o pó do caminho.
Mas a visita à doente foi breve. […] Regressámos enfim pelo mesmo caminho. Quando, porém, chegámos ao monte do semeador, saltou-nos à frente um grupo de pessoas […]. Moura saiu do carro e o magote de gente seguiu-o. Fiquei só. Mas o médico regressava daí a pouco, pálido, transtornado.
- Que aconteceu?
Ele não respondeu logo, conduzindo o carro aos tropeções. E só quando o monte se não via já me declarou:
- O homem enforcou-se. ~ Verg lio Ferreira,#NFDB
301: Así, pues, la injusticia se nos muestra con un poder especial de tal índole que a aquello en que se introduce, sea una ciudad o un linaje o un ejército a otro ser cualquiera, lo deja impotente para conseguir nada en concordia consigo mismo a causa de la reyerta y disensión y además lo hace tan enemigo de sí mismo como de su contrario el justo; ¿no es así? Bien de cierto. E igualmente creo que, cuando se asienta en una sola persona, produce todo aquello que por su naturaleza ha de producir: lo deja impotente para obrar, en reyerta y discordia consigo mismo, y lo hace luego tan enemigo de sí mismo como de los justos; ¿no es esto? ¿Y no son justos, oh, amigo, también los dioses? Conforme replicó. Por lo tanto, ¡oh, Trasímaco!, para los dioses el injusto será odioso; y el justo, amigo. Goza sin miedo dijo del banquete de lo argumentación; yo no he de contradecirte para no indisponerme con éstos. Ea, pues dije yo , complétame el resto del banquete contestándome como lo hacías ahora; porque los justos se nos muestran como más discretos, mejores y más dotados para obrar, y los injustos, como incapaces para toda acción en común, y así, cuando decimos que siendo injustos hacen algo eficazmente en compañía, no decimos la verdad. En efecto, si fueran totalmente injustos no se perdonarían unos a otros; evidentemente, hay en ellos cierta justicia que les impide hacerse injuria recíprocamente al mismo tiempo que van a hacerla a los demás, y por esta justicia consiguen lo que consiguen, y se lanzan a sus atropellos corrompidos sólo a medias por la injusticia, ya que los totalmente malvados y completamente injustos son también completamente impotentes para obrar. Así entiendo que es esto y no como tú en primer término sentaste. Y en cuanto a aquello de si los justos viven mejor que los injustos y son más felices que ellos, cosas que nos propusimos examinar después, habrá que probarlo. Tales se nos muestran ya desde ahora, me parece, en virtud de lo que llevamos dicho; no obstante, habrá que examinarlo mejor, porque la discusión no es sobre un asunto cualquiera, sino sobre el modo como se debe vivir. ~ Plato, #NFDB
302:Bel m'es quant ilh m'enfolhetis
E·m fai badar e·n vau muzan!
De leis m'es bel si m'escarnis
O·m gaba dereir'o denan,
Qu'apres lo mal me venra bes
Be leu, s'a lieys ven a plazer."
full poetry
De dezir mos cor no fina
Vas selha ren qu'ieu pus am;
E cre que volers m'enguana
Si cobezeza la'm tol;
Que pus es ponhens qu'espina
La dolor que ab joi sana;
Don ja non vuelh qu'om m'en planha.
Totz trassalh e bran et fremis
Per s'Amor, durmen o velhan.
Tal paor ai qu'ieu mesfalhis
No m'aus pessar cum la deman,
Mas servir l'ai dos ans o tres,
E pueys ben leu sabra·n lo ver.
Ni muer ni viu ni no guaris,
Ni mal no·m sent e si l'ai gran,
Quar de s'Amor no suy devis,
Non sai si ja l'aurai ni quan,
Qu'en lieys es tota la merces
Que·m pot sorzer o decazer.
Bel m'es quant ilh m'enfolhetis
E·m fai badar e·n vau muzan!
De leis m'es bel si m'escarnis
O·m gaba dereir'o denan,
Qu'apres lo mal me venra bes
Be leu, s'a lieys ven a plazer.
Translation
The desire of my heart is endless and only devoted to her, beloved among all others. And my will, I guess, abuses me, if lust deprives me of her. For it's keener than a thorn, this pain that heals with joy, and for which I don't want to be pitied.
I’m all quivering shaking and shuddering from the love I feel for her, either when I sleep or when I stay up. Such is my fear of dying from this love that I can’t envision how to speak to her. I will remain her servant two or three years perhaps, before letting her know my feeling.
Neither dying nor living nor healing, I don’t feel any pain of my sickness, despite its tremendous intensity. I’m unable to scrutinize the mystery of her love, I don’t know whether she will agree to my passion, and even less when that could occur. For in her lies the entire Mercy that can lead me to enhance or to decay.
And I find magnificent that she panics me to this point, leaves me with a gaping mouth and bewildered! I enjoy when she scorns me, makes fun of me in my absence or even in front of me. For after the evil will come the good. And that can be soon, if such is her pleasure. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
303:Joana Ofélia sorria:
—Não ligue, é feitio dela.
—Não ligo. Só ligo à cor dos seus olhos, que ainda não consegui descobrir qual é.
—Verdes. Os meus olhos são verdes — dizia Joana Ofélia.
—Depende.
—De muitas coisas — respondia Pedro Ruiz. — Da luz do dia. Da cortina a balançar na janela. Das palavras que disser. Das palavras que imaginar. Dos sonhos que tiver.
Uma tarde estava Joana Ofélia a olhar pela janela, perguntou Pedro Ruiz:
— É por essa janela que costuma voar?
Joana Ofélia sorriu.
— Qualquer janela serve. Foi Demétria quem me ensinou. Basta olharmos através dos vidros, e somos mais livres do que pássaros. As pessoas podem continuar a ver-nos, mas só nós sabemos que há muito que ali não estamos, que voámos com as aves, com o vento, com a poeira da estrada, com a água da chuva.
—Palavras sábias lhe ensina Demétria — murmurou Pedro Ruiz, mudando de novo a cor dos seus olhos. («Verdes, definitivamente verdes.»)
—Demétria diz que o meu coração só sabe gostar de palavras... — continuou Joana Ofélia.
Pedro Ruiz mudou de tinta, mudou de pincéis, olhou várias vezes para o rosto que tinha na sua frente.
—...que o meu coração está fechado para as pessoas..
Uma brisa ligeira fazia dançar a cortina de renda. No parapeito da janela, bagas da erva-das-sete-sangrias secavam há muito, num velho boião de vidro.
—Um dia — disse Pedro Ruiz, quase num sopro de voz — alguém vai chegar para a levar daqui, porque é esse o destino das pessoas.
—...que o meu coração não nasceu para ser ligado, e que tudo está no 'Livro de São Cipriano'...
Eram dois murmúrios na tarde a cair, duas estradas paralelas para lá da janela, duas sombras na parede da sala.
—E há de procurar a cor certa dos seus olhos...
(azuis, definitivamente azuis)
—... e não há-de encontrá-la, nem aos seus olhos. Porque os seus olhos nasceram com asas, e os olhos que nascem com asas ninguém consegue aprisionar.
—...e que um dia hão-de ir à minha procura e eu já terei voado.
—Não têm poiso certo, não pertencem a ninguém.
Pedro Ruiz estremeceu de repente. Como se acordasse.
—Gosto das suas palavras. Lembram as palavras de Demétria — disse Joana Ofélia.
—Eu não estava a dizer nada — murmurou Pedro Ruiz — Procurava apenas o tom certo dos seus olhos.
—Verde.
—Vioeta. Definitivamente violeta. ~ Alice Vieira,#NFDB
304:Es lo malo que tiene cuanto nos sucede y no es registrado, o aún peor, ni siquiera sabido ni visto ni oído, porque luego no hay forma de recuperarlo. El día que no estuvimos juntos ya no habremos estado juntos, o lo que se nos iba a decir por teléfono cuando nos llamaron y no respondimos no será nunca dicho, no lo mismo ni con el mismo espíritu; y todo será levemente distinto o del todo distinto por nuestra falta de atrevimiento que nos disuadió de hablaros. Pero incluso si aquel día estuvimos juntos, o estábamos en casa cuando nos telefonearon, o nos atrevimos a hablaros venciendo el temor y olvidando el riesgo, aun así nada de ello se volverá a repetir, y por consiguiente llegará un momento en el que haber estado juntos será como no haberlo estado, y haber descolgado el teléfono como no haberlo hecho, y habernos atrevido a hablaros como haber callado. Hasta las cosas más imborrables tienen una duración, como las que no dejan huella o ni siquiera suceden, y si estamos prevenidos y las anotamos o las grabamos o las filmamos, y nos llenamos de recordatorios e incluso tratamos de sustituir lo ocurrido por la mera constancia y registro y archivo de que ocurrió, de modo que lo que en verdad ocurra desde el principio sea nuestra anotación o nuestra grabación o nuestra filmación, sólo eso; aun en ese perfeccionamiento infinito de la repetición habremos perdido el tiempo en que las cosas acontecieron de veras (aunque sea el tiempo de la anotación); y mientras tratamos de revivirlo o reproducirlo y hacerlo volver e impedir que sea pasado, otro tiempo distinto estará aconteciendo, y en ese, sin duda, no estaremos juntos ni cogeremos ningún teléfono ni nos atreveremos a nada ni podremos evitar ningún crimen ni ninguna muerte (aunque tampoco lo cometeremos ni las causaremos), porque lo estaremos dejando pasar de lado como si no fuera nuestro en nuestro intento enfermizo de que no termine y regrese lo que ya pasó. Así, lo que vemos y oímos acaba por asemejarse y aun igualarse con lo que no vimos ni oímos, es sólo cuestión de tiempo, o de que desaparezcamos. Y a pesar de todo no podemos dejar de encaminar nuestras vidas hacia el oír y el ver y el presenciar y el saber, con el convencimiento de que esas vidas nuestras dependen de estar juntos un día o responder a una llamada, o de atrevernos, o de cometer un crimen o causar una muerte y saber que fue así. ~ Javier Mar as, #NFDB
305:Tant Ai Mo Cor
Tant ai mo cor ple de joya,
tot me desnatura.
Flor blancha, vermeilh'e groya
me par la frejura,
c'ab lo ven et ab la ploya
me creis l'aventura,
per que mos chans mont' e poya
e mos pretz melhura.
Tan ai al cor d'amor,
de joi e de doussor,
per qu'el gels me sembla flor
e la neus verdura.
Anar posc ses vestidura,
nutz en ma chamiza,
car fin'amors m'asegura
de la freja biza.
Mas es fols qui.s desmezura,
e no.s te de guiza,
Per qu'eu ai pres de me cura,
deis c'agui enquiza
la plus bela d'amor,
don aten tan d'onor,
car en loc de sa ricor
non volh aver Piza.
Eu n'ai la bon'esperansa.
Mas petit m'aonda,
c'atressi.m ten en balansa
com la naus en l'onda.
Del mal pes que.m desenansa,
non sai on m'esconda.
Tota noih me vir'e.m lansa
desobre l'esponda.
Plus trac pena d'amor
de Tristan l'amador
que.n sofri manta dolor
per Izeut la blonda.
30
Mas fals lauzengier engres
m'an lunhat de so pais
que tals s'en fai esdevis
qu'eu cuidera qu'ens celes
saubes ams d'un coratge.
(My heart is so full of joy that everything is changed for me. The cold season
seems like a flower, white, vermillion, and yellow. For with the wind and the rain
my good fortune grows, so that my singing rises up, and my worth augments. I
have so much love in my heart, so much joy and sweetness, that the ice seems
like flowers, and the snow like greenery.
I go around without clothes, naked under my nightshirt, for true love protects me
from the cold wind. But he is mad who goes beyond measure and does not
behave according to custom. And so I have been on my guard since I have
sought the love of the most beautiful lady, from whom I expect much honor. For
I would not give up all her riches for Pisa itself.
I have good hope. But that's of little help, because she holds me in balance like a
ship on the waves. From the bad thoughts that depress me I do not know how to
escape. Every night I toss and turn on my bed. I have more pain from love than
Tristan the lover, who suffered many woes for Iseult, the Blond.
(But the false intriguers have distanced me from her country; and that one has
become a spy whom / thought would have helped us, if he knew our souls had
one will.)
~ Bernard de Ventadorn,#NFDB
306:Lo Gens Temps De Pascor
Lo gens temps de pascor
ab la frescha verdor
nos adui folh'e flor
de diversa color,
per que tuih amador
son gai e chantador
mas eu, que planh e plor
c'us jois no m'a sabor
a totz me clam, senhor
de midons e d'Amor,
c'aicist dui traïdor,
car me fiav' en lor
me fan viur'a dolor
per ben e per onor
c'ai faih a la gensor,
que no.m val ni.m acor.
Pois fom amdui efan
l'am ades e la blan;
e.s vai m'amors doblan
a chascu jorn del an.
E si no.m fai enan
amor e bel semblan,
cant er velha,.m deman
que l'aya bo talan.
Las! e viure que.m val,
s'eu no vei a jornal
mo fi joi natural
en leih, sotz fenestral,
cors blanc tot atretal
com la neus a nadal,
si c'amdui comunal
mesuram s'em egal?
Be fór'oimais sazos,
bela domna e pros,
que. m fos datz a rescos
19
en baizan guizardos,
si ja per als no fos,
mas car sui enveyos,
c'us bes val d'autres dos,
can per fors'es faihz dos.
Bel Vezer, si no fos
mos enans totz en vos
laissat agra chansos
per mal dels enoyos.
(The fair season of Easter, with new green, brings us leaves and flowers of
various colors, so that all lovers are gay, and sing, except for me, weeping and
lamenting, for I taste of no joy. I make my case to you all, gentlefolk, against my
lady and Love; for these two traitors, in whom I had trusted, make me live in
sorrow, for all the good and honor I have done for the fair one, who neither
values nor succors me.
Since the time when we were both children I love and court her. And my love
doubles evey day of the year. And if we don't make love now and aren't friendly,
she can just try asking later on, when we are old, if I feel like it.
Alas! What is life worth to me, if I cannot see every day my true, natural joy in
bed, under the window, her body all white like the Christmas snow, so that in
common we can take measure to see if we are equal?
It's the season henceforth, fair and precious lady, that in secret you give me a
kiss as recompense, for no other reason than that I desire it. For such a kiss is
worth two of the other kind, those that are given by constraint.
Fair-to-See, if my welfare were not entirely dependent on you, I would have left
off singing because of the meanness of the bluestockings.
~ Bernard de Ventadorn,#NFDB
307:The Bench-Legged Fyce
Speakin' of dorgs, my bench-legged fyce
Hed most o' the virtues, an' nary a vice.
Some folks called him Sooner, a name that arose
From his predisposition to chronic repose;
But, rouse his ambition, he couldn't be beat Yer bet yer he got thar on all his four feet!
Mos' dorgs hez some forte - like huntin' an' such,
But the sports o' the field didn't bother him much;
Wuz just a plain dorg, an' contented to be
On peaceable terms with the neighbors an' me;
Used to fiddle an' squirm, and grunt "Oh, how nice!"
When I tickled the back of that bench-legged fyce!
He wuz long in the bar'l, like a fyce oughter be;
His color wuz yaller as ever you see;
His tail, curlin' upward, wuz long, loose, an' slim When he didn't wag it, why, the tail it wagged him!
His legs wuz so crooked, my bench-legged pup
Wuz as tall settin' down as he wuz standin' up!
He'd lie by the stove of a night an' regret
The various vittles an' things he had et;
When a stranger, most likely a tramp, come along,
He'd lift up his voice in significant song You wondered, by gum! how there ever wuz space
In that bosom o' his'n to hold so much bass!
Of daytimes he'd sneak to the road an' lie down,
An' tackle the country dorgs comin' to town;
By common consent he wuz boss in St. Joe,
For what he took hold of he never let go!
An' a dude that come courtin' our girl left a slice
Of his white flannel suit with our bench-legged fyce!
He wuz good to us kids - when we pulled at his fur
Or twisted his tail he would never demur;
He seemed to enjoy all our play an' our chaff,
For his tongue 'u'd hang out an' he'd laff an' he'd laff;
287
An' once, when the Hobart boy fell through the ice,
He wuz drug clean ashore by that bench-legged fyce!
We all hev our choice, an' you, like the rest,
Allow that the dorg which you've got is the best;
I wouldn't give much for the boy 'at grows up
With no friendship subsistin' 'tween him an' a pup!
When a fellow gits old - I tell you it's nice
To think of his youth and his bench-legged fyce!
To think of the springtime 'way back in St. Joe Of the peach-trees abloom an' the daisies ablow;
To think of the play in the medder an' grove,
When little legs wrassled an' little han's strove;
To think of the loyalty, valor, an' truth
Of the friendships that hallow the season of youth!
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
308:Ego autem sum quasi vas inane,’ he began awkwardly, stuttering along the lines of meaningless prose like a small child. ‘Ego donavit corpus meum ad dominum meum in exercitu magno Cardinalis Balthazar De La Senza,’ he continued, quickly becoming surprisingly fluent despite his vaguely cockney tone. ‘Tempore domini Inquisitoris magni voluntatis esse, aequo animo et scissa animam meam a fundamentis et suspensi in abyssum quasi stercora, nihil prorsus in aeternum damnatus egisse,’ he went on, oblivious to something stirring in the small box behind him. Wisps of purple drifted from it like steam from a cooling kettle. ‘Ego Christophorus Baxtere accipe usitata res est, uti et magnis La Senza caput meum corium et nervorum et magnifici primum genus dentium,’ Baxter continued, strangely enjoying himself. Far away in another place, the bound and trapped Cardinal La Senza had begun to whisper the words in unison beneath the folds of his hooded cloak. Oblivious, Baxter was flying now, quite unaware of the sinister coaching he was receiving. ‘O magnum La Senza, cum venerit, et ad hoc bonum esse propter tempus, quia ego miser!’ Baxter read on. A coiling snake-like tendril of purple had fingered its way through the lock of the cabinet and was creeping menacingly towards its target. It advanced up Baxter’s legs, body and neck until finally, it crept imperceptibly into his ears. ‘Ego Christophorus Baxtere immolare volens alumnam cerebrum meum et animam, ut vos mos postulo ut enable uariat possessione tua ...’ Pleased beyond measure by what he had fondled and explored, La Senza went still. Content for now, he drew back his sensing vines and they fell away from Baxter, unnoticed. His jailors had seen nothing. La Senza now had the chance he’d been craving for centuries, so many lifetimes of plotting and scheming. He knew nothing of the young man he had inspected so intimately – frankly, he didn’t care. It was the body, oh his body, so young and fit; teeth clean like white mice, no trace of Popery, no hint of Lutheran, Baptist, Jew, Muslim or Buddhist within his empty soul, nothing to restrain or inhibit the Inquisitor’s foul purposes. La Senza knew that his escape was mere days away. Immobile, he marshalled dark reserves for the events to come. ‘Nunc me vacua est anima mea praeparata et redditur supersunt, La Senza venit, et possident me! Sincere vestrum, Christopher Baxter,’ finished Chris, with a flourish. ‘Bravo Mr Baxter,’ said Ascot McCauley, standing as he clapped enthusiastically. ‘Bravo! ~ T J Brown, #NFDB
309:Lancan Vei Per Mei La Landa
Lancan vei per mei la landa
dels arbres chazer la fòlha,
ans frejura s'espanda
ni.l gens termini s'esconda,
m'es bel que si' auzitz mos chans,
qu'estat n' aurai mais de dos ans,
e cové que.n fass' esmenda.
Mout m'es greu que ja reblanda
celeis que vas me s'orgòlha
car si mos cors demanda,
platz que mot m'i responda.
Be m'auci mos nescis talans,
car sec d' amor los bels semblans
e no ve c' amors lh' atenda.
Deus, que tot lo mon garanda,
li met' en cor que m'acòlha,
c' a me no te pro vianda
ni negus bes no.m aonda.
Tan sui vas la bela doptans,
per qu' e.m ren a leis merceyans:
platz, que.m don o que.m venda!
Mal o fara, si no.m manda
venir lai on se despòlha,
qu'eu sia per sa comanda
pres del leih, josta l'esponda,
sotlars be chaussans,
a genolhs e umilians,
platz que sos pes me tenda.
Faihz es lo vers tot a randa,
si que motz no.i deschapdòlha,
outra la terra normanda,
part la fera mar prionda;
e si.m sui de midons lonhans,
vas se.m tira com azimans
la bela cui Deus defenda.
17
Si.l reis engles e.l ducs normans
o vol, eu la veira abans
que l'iverns nos sobreprenda.
(parlé)Pel rei sui engles e normans,
e si no fos Mos Azimans,
restera tro part calenda.
(When I see the leaves of the trees fall off in the middle of the fields, before the
cold spreads and the good season disappears, it seems good to me that my song
be heard, for I have not done so in over two years, and I should atone for that.
It is painful for me to serve still the one who is so haughty towards me, for if my
heart demands something of her she doesn't wish to speak even a word. My
foolish desire kills me, because it pursues the fair appearance of love, and does
not see that love awaits.
May God, who guards the universe, place in her heart a welcome for me, for no
food is of benefit to me, and no bounty consoles me. I am so uncertain
concerning the fair one that I deliver myself, pleading for mercy, to her. So if she
wishes, she can give me away, or sell me.
She would do a wrong if she did not invite me to come to the place where she
undresses, so that I may be at her command, next to her, at the edge of the
bed, and I would take off her graceful slippers, on my knees and humble, if it
pleased her to extend to me her feet.
This poem is perfectly made, without a single badly-made word, beyond the land
of Normandy, beyound the wild and deep sea. And although I am far from my
lady, I am drawn to her like a magnet, she whom God may protect.
If the English king and the Norman duke wish it, I shall see her before the winter
takes us by surprise. By grace of the king I am English, and Norman, and if it
were not for My Magnet, I would remain here until after Christmas.)
~ Bernard de Ventadorn,#NFDB
310:Bel M'Es Can Eu Vei La Brolha
Bel m'es can eu vei la bròlha
reverdir per mei lo brolh
ram son cubert de folha
e.l rossinhols sotz de folh
chanta d'amor, don me dolh;
e platz me qued eu m'en dolha,
ab sol qued amar me volha
cela qu'eu desir e volh.
Eu la volh can plus s'orgolha
vas me, mas oncas orgolh
n'ac va lei. Per so m'acolha
ma domna, pois tan l'acolh
c'a tota autras me tolh
per lei, cui Deus no me tolha.
Ans li do cor qu'en grat colha
so que totz jorns s'amor colh.
S'amor colh, qui m'empreizona,
per lei que mala preizo
me fai, c'ades m'ochaizona
d'aisso don ai ochaizo.
Tort n'a, mas eu perdo,
e mos cors li reperdona,
car tan la sai bel'e bona
que tuih li mal m'en son bo.
Bo son tuih li mal que.m dona;
mas per Deu li quer un do:
que ma bocha, que jeona,
d'un douz baizar dejeo.
Mas trop quer gran guizerdo
celei que tan guizardona;
e can eu l'en arazona,
ilh me chamja ma razo.
Ma razo chamja e vira;
mas eu ges de lei no.m vir
mo fi cor, que la dezira
aitan que tuih mei dezir
son de lei per cui sospir.
E car ela no sospira,
sai qu'en lei ma mortz se mira,
can sa gran beutat remir.
Ma mort remir, que jauzir
no.n posc ni no.n sui jauzire;
mas eu sui tan bos sofrire
c'atendre cuit per sofrir.
(It pleases me to see the trees turning green in the middle of the forest, when
the branches are covered with leaves and the nightingale under the leaves sings
of love, that from which I suffer. And it pleases me to suffer from love, if only
she whom I desire wants to love me.
I want her, though she is haughty towards me, but I have never been haughty
towards her. May thus my lady welcome me, since I welcome her so well that I
abandon all the others for her, provided that God does not abandon me. May it
inspire in her rather the desire to acknowledge the fact that I acknowledge each
day her love in me.
I acknowledge her love that imprisons me, for her who casts me into a bad
prison. Now she reproaches me things for which I bear her she is, but I pardon
her, and my heart pardons her, for I know the season to be fair and good, and
that all wrongs to me are good.
Good are all the wrongs she does me, but I ask God one gift: that my mouth,
which is fasting, receive from her a sweet kiss as break-fast. I demand too great
a reward of she who rewards so generously; and when I reason to her, she
changes my reasons.
My reason changes and shifts, but I hardly change at all my faithful heart, which
desires her so much that all my desires are for her for whom I sigh. And since
she does not sigh [for me], I know that in her my death is contemplated, when I
contemplate her great beauty.
I contemplate my death, since I cannot pleasure in her and am not pleasured.
But I am such a good patient that I can await in patience.)
~ Bernard de Ventadorn,#NFDB
311:Hapi veshët mirë dhe dëgjoje këtë që do të them, është ide e madhe: Një herë e një kohë mu në zemër të tokës qëndronin tre kryqe. Një besimtar fanatik i tha shoku të vet: "Sot ti do jesh me mua në parajse". Dita u shua, që të dy vdiqën, u nisën për rrugë, por as parajsë gjetën e as ringjallje nuk gjetën. Profecia këtij besimtari fanatik nuk i doli. E pra, ishte më i lartësuari i të gjithëve ky njëri, me i lartësuari i tokës ishte, ishte qenia, për të cilën edhe qe selitur toka. Se planeti mbarë, pa këtë njeri asnjë kuptim nuk mund si të kishte. Kurrë më parë, por edhe më pas planeti s'kishte parë të tillë njeriu, çudi e shkuar çudisë ishte! Të tillë njeriu kurrë nuk ka për të patur! Në qenka kështu, që ligjet e natyrës nuk e mëshirokan as një të tillë, as Mesinë e shfaqur në tokë, dhe e detyruan edhe këtë të rronte në mes të gënjeshtrës dhe të vdiste për gënjeshtrën, atëherë del që mbarë planeti qenka gënjeshtër, u mbaka në këmbë me gënjeshtër, vetëm e bëka që u tallka me njeriun në mënyrën më përçmuese. Pra, del që ligjet e planetit tonë janë të rreme, janë lodër e djallit! E përse u dashka jetuar atëherë? Përgjigjmu kësaj pyetje, ne qofsh njëri!
- Kjo që po thoni është tjetër gjë. Për mendimin tim, në gjykim u përzien dy shkaqe. Veprimin tuaj kjo e bën të pashpresë. Po mirë, në qofshi ju Zot, atëherë si i bëhet? Në mbaroftë gënjeshtra dhe ju u bindet që shkatar i saj ishte Zoti i mëparshëm, atëherë si i bëhet?
- E kuptove, më në fund! - thirri Kirillovi i entusiazmuar. - Pra, mund t'u kuptoka, në qoftë se një i tillë si ti arriti ta kuptonte! Pra, e kuptove, ku gjendet shpetimi i të gjithëve? Në vertetimin e drejtësise së këtij gjykimi gjendet! Po kush do t'ua vertetoje njerezve? Unë! S'arrij do ta kuptoj si mund ta dije deri më sot ateisti që nuk ka Zot, dhe të mos jetë i ndergjegjesuar, në të njëjtën kohë, që kështu vetë ai u bë Zot? E si të mos e vrase veten ky pas kësaj? Se të jesh i vetedijshem që Zot nuk ka dhe të mos jesh i ndergjegjshem, ndërkohë, që, me këtë, ti vetë u bërë Zot, ky është një absurditet; pas kësaj, s'ke nga ia mban, domosdo, do vesh dorë mbi veten. Veç, në qofsh i vetedijshem për këtë, ti vetë je mbret i gjithëfuqishem, veten ti s'ke pse e vret, ke për të rrojtur me breroren e lavdise mbi krye. Ama, s'ke ç'bën, më i pari i shpallur patjetër duhet të vrase veten, ndryshe, kush do ta vertetoje që kjo kështu është? Unë ndaj dhe do ta vras veten, pa një pa dy do ta vras, që të jem i pari që e vertetoj. Unë jam ende Zot padashje dhe jam fatkeq, sepse e kam për detyrë të shpalose vetevullnetin. Që të gjithë janë fatkeqe, ngaqë të gjithë kanë frikë ta shpalosin vetevullnetin. Njerëzit ndaj dhe janë aq fatkeqe, aq të varfer; ata kanë frikë ta shpallin thelbin e vetevullnetit, gjithepushtetin. Jam tmerresisht fatkeq, sepse jam tmerresisht i frikesuar. Frika është mallkim për njeriun... Kurse unë po e shpall vetëvullnetin, e kam për detyrë t'i bind të tjerët që nuk besoj. Jam unë që do ta nis e do ta bitis, që do hap i pari deren. Jam unë që do t'i shpëtoj njerëzit. Vetëm kështu shpetohen të gjithë, kurse brezi tjetër do të jetë i përterire fizikisht; në gjendjen e sotme fizike, sipas mendimit Tim, njeriu s'ka si rron pa Zotin e mëparshem. Kam tre vjet që e kërkoj thelbin e besimit Tim dhe ja, më në fund, e gjeta: thelbi i besimit Tim është Vetëvullneti! Këtu mund ta shfaq mosnenshtrimin dhe lirinë time të tmerrshme. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,#NFDB
312:Papritmas, sikur një fat kirurg të më paskej operue për një verbni të kahershme tue pasë sukses të plotë e të menjëhershëm, ngre kryet nga jeta jeme anonime drejt vetdijes së kjartë të mënyrës si ekzistoj. Dhe shoh se gjithë çka kam ba, çka kam mendue, çka kam qenë, asht njëfarë mashtrimi dhe marrije. Habitem me atë që nuk kam arritë të shoh. Çuditem me sa kam qenë tue vu re se në fund të fundit nuk jam. Shoh, si në një pllajë diellin që thyen retë, jetën teme të shkueme; dhe vërej, me habi metafizike, sesi të gjitha gjestet e mia ma të sigurta, idetë e mia ma të kjarta dhe qëllimet ma logjike s’kenkan tjetër përpos një dehje e lindun me ne, një çmenduni natyrore, një injorancë madhore. Mirpo as nuk kam recitue. Më kanë recitue. Nuk kam qenë aktori, por gjestet e tij.
Gjithë ç’kam ba, mendue e qenë, asht një shumë nënshtrimi, qoftë ndaj një miti kallp që kam pandehë temin pse kam veprue nisë nga ai, qoftë ndaj një peshe rrethanash që kam ngatërrue për ajrin që frymëmerrja. Në ktë çast të të pamit, jam një vetmitar i menjëhershëm që e njeh veten azilant në vendin ku e kam pandehë veten prore qytetar. Në ma të thellën brendësi t’asaj që kam mendue nuk kam qenë un.
Më ngërthen këtbotë një terror sarkastik i jetës, një ligështim që shkon përtej kufijve t’individualitetit të ndërgjegjshëm. E di se kam qenë një gabim dhe një humbje rruge, se nuk kam jetue kurr, se kam ekzistue veç pse kam mbushë kohë me ndërgjegje e mendim. Dhe ndjesia jeme për vedin asht ajo që zgjohet mbas një gjumi plot andrra reale, ase t’atij që asht lirue, falë një tërmeti, nga drita e pakët e burgut me të cilën qe mësue.
Asht kaq e vështirë me e përshkrue atë që ndihet kur ndien se ekziston përnjëmend, dhe se shpirti asht një entitet real, sa nuk di cilat janë fjalët njerzore me të cilat mund ta përcaktojmë. S’e di në kam ethe, si ndiej, në kam reshtë së pasi ethet e të qenit njeri që flen jetën. Po, e përsëris, jam si një udhëtar që papritmas gjendet në një qytet të huej pa e ditur si ka mbërritë aty; dhe më vijnë në mendje rastet e atyne që humbasin kujtesën, dhe janë tjetërkush për shum kohë. Kam qenë një tjetër për shum kohë (që nga lindja te ndërgjegja), dhe zgjohem tash në mes t’urës, kthye me fytyrë kah lumi, tue ditë se ekziston në mënyrë ma të qendrueshme sesa ai që un kam qenë deri tash. Por qyteti m’asht i panjohun, rrugët të reja, dhe sëmundja pa shërim. Pres pra tue hedhë vështrimin prej urës, se mos kalon e vërteta, dhe se mos ristabilizohem i asgjashëm dhe i sajuem, inteligjent e natyror.
Kje një çast, dhe kaloi sakaq. Shoh tashma mobiljet që më rrethojnë, dizajnin e letrës së vjetër të mureve, diellin përmes xhameve të pluhunt. Pashë të vërtetën për një çast. Kjeshë për një çast, vetdijshëm, çka njerzit e mëdhenj janë përballë jetës. Kujtoj aktet e tyne dhe fjalët e tyre, dhe nuk e di a kjenë tundue edhe ata në mënyrë fitimtare nga Demoni i Realitetit. Mos me ditë për veten d.m.th. me jetue. Me ditë ndopak për veten d.m.th. me mendue. Me u ba me ditë për veten, papritmas, si në ktë moment shëlbyes, d.m.th. me e pasë qilembyll sytë nocionin e monadës intime, të fjalës magjike të shpirtit. Por një dritë e papritun djeg gjithçka, konsumon gjithçka. Na zhvesh deri edhe nga vetja e jonë.
Kje vetëm një çast, dhe un e pashë veten. Mandej, s’di ma me thanë çka kjeshë. Dhe në fund, kam gjumë, pse, s’di pse, mendoj se kuptimi asht me fjetë.
Fernando Pessoa – “Libri i shqetsimit nga Bernardo Soares”
(shqipëroi: Astrit Cani) ~ Fernando Pessoa,#NFDB
313:Kushtim
Mëngjezi erdh, dhe hapi i tij i lehtë
Ma ngriti gjumin që më kish në gji,
Unë ika malit nga kasoll’ e qetë,
Duke u endur me një shpirt të ri;
Ma mbushe zemrën me dëfrim e jetë
Lulja e vesuar gjithë njomështi;
Një dritë hareje befas niste e ndrinte
Përtërinte botën që të më përtërinte.
Dhe si po ngjitesha nga lumi i dëlirë
Pluskonte larg një mjegull pa pushim.
Ajo më futi në një mugëtirë,
Ma vrenjti rretheqark vështrimin tim;
S’do ta shijoja pamjen aq me hirë,
Ngaqë u mblodh një muzg, një turbullim;
Pastaj prej resh u gjenda si i sulmuar,
I vetëm e mes territ i mbuluar.
Menj’herë dielli u duk të depërtojë,
Në mjegull u ndërpa një qartësi.
Këtej zu muzgu tatëpjetë të shkojë;
Andej të ngjitë pyll e lartësi.
Si desh ky syri im që ta vështrojë,
Pas territ diellin, më me bukuri!
Luftë e tejdukshme s’kishte përfunduar,
Erdh një shkëlqim, dhe mbeta i verbuar.
Nuk ta them emrin. Shumëkush mbi tokë
Ta thotë shpesh, të quan si të tij,
Sikush për shenjë ty të ka në kokë,
Po drita jote i sjell vështirësi.
Ah, kur gaboja, kisha shumë shokë,
Sot që të njoh, jetoj krejt në vetmi;
Se lumturinë e ndiej vetëm fare,
S’ia shfaq asnjërit dritën magjistare.
Ajo po qeshte, e tha: - Tani kupton
Pse ta zbulova aq pak këtë pëlhurë!
Sapo shikon që rëndë më s’gabon,
Sapo më s’je çunak ti, si moskurrë,
Dhe nuk përmbush detyrën posi burrë!
Sa shquhesh ti ngado për ndonjë vlerë?
Kupto, jeto në paqe me të tjerë!
Më fal, bërtita, s’kisha keqmendim;
T’i hap se koti sytë e mi përherë?
Vullnet gazmor jeton në gjakun tim,
E njoh dhuratën tënde plot me vlerë!
Të tjerët do t’i mbush me atë bekim;
Më s’do ta fsheh talentin asnjëherë!
Kërkova rrugën aq me dashuri,
Dhe mos t’ua them vëllezërve të mi?
Dhe siç po flisja, qenia e mrekulluar
Më pas me zemër dhe me mëshirim;
Në sytë e saj sakaq para lexuar
Çfarë kisha bërë drejt e çfarë gabim.
Më qeshi, e ndjeva veten të shëruar,
Për gaz të ri m’u ngrit mendimi im;
Tani, pra, mundja, me besim pa anë,
T’i qasesha, ta shihja më nga pranë.
Ajo e zgjati dorën që ta kapë
Të lehtë si dhe pahun avullor;
Dhe duk’e prekur fillmëndafshtën napë
Kjo shkriu, u zhduk rrethimi mjegullor.
E shtija syrin mbi luginë prapë,
Mund ta sodisja qiellin madhështor;
Asaj i derdhej cipa m’e kulluar
Rreth shtatit t’hijshëm duke valëzuar.
- Të njoh, ta di çdo dobësi të kotë,
T’i di të mirat që ti ke gjithnjë, -
Më tha kështu, përjetë e ndiej si thotë, -
Pra, merr ç’të taksa prej qëkuri: asgjë
Nuk i mungon të lumturit në botë,
Që merr këtë dhuratë që u përbë
Me muzg mëngjesi e diell qartësie:
Prej së vërtetës - cipë poezie.
Kur ti dhe miqtë ndieni zagushi
Në mes të ditës, hidheni në erë!
Sakaq ju mvesh me ledha një freski,
Një afsh e duf prej lulesh plot me erë,
Pushon t’ju shqetësojë dheu i zi,
Si shtrat i butë bëhet varri i mjerë,
Qetohet vala e jetës së tërbuar
Dhe dita e nara ndritin pa pushuar.
Pra, eni shokë, kur duke rënduar
Ngarkesë e jetës shumë ju mundon,
Kur udhën tuaj fati i mrekulluar
Me lule e pemë t’arta jua bekon,
Drejt ditës s’ardhme shkojmë të bashkaur!
Ajo në jetën vjen na lumturon
Dhe nipërve, kur t’ikim përgjithmonë,
Iu bëftë gaz kjo dashuria jonë!
E përktheu: L. Poradeci
(nga: J.V. Gëte, Vepra të zgjedhura 3 - Poezi, Botimet Rilindja, 1989) ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,#NFDB
314:Tour Abroad Of Wilfrid The Great
By Jean Baptiste Trudeau.
W'en Queen Victoria calls her peup's
For mak' some Jubilee,
She sen' for men from all de worl' -And from her colonie.
But mos' of all, she sen' dis word
To dis Canadian shore,
"If Wilfrid Laurier do not come,
I will be glad no more."
Den Wilfrid not hard-hearted, he
Lif' w'at you call de hat,
An' say, "Ma reine, you mus' not fret,
For little t'ing lak' dat.
"To Londres, on de day in June
You mention, I will come,
And show you w'at is lak' de FrenchCanadian gentilhomme."
So Wildred sailed across de sea,
An' Queen Victoria met,
An' w'en she's see him, ah! she is
Jus' tickle half to deat'!
An' w'en he's kneel, as etiquette
Demand, for be correc',
She tak' a sword into her han'
An' hit him on de neck.
An' w'en she do, she smile on him,
An' dese de words she say:
"Rise up, my true Canadian Knight -Sir Wilfrid Laurier!
"An' on dose grand Imperial plans
14
Which I have now in view,
For guidance, counsel, an' advice
I'll always look to you."
Den Wilfrid kiss de Royal han',
An' back off on de door,
An' bow as only Frenchman can,
An' smile an' bow some more.
Nex' day, it was a glorious sight,
At half-pas' twelve o'clock,
To see Sir Wilfrid ride in state,
An' in chapeau de coque.
Lords Solsby, Roberts, and Cecil Rhodes,
An' Chamberlain an' dose
Were w'at you call "not in it," for
Sir Wilfrid was de boss.
Oui, certainement, excep' de Queen
Herself dat glorious day,
De greates' man on Angleterre
Was Wilfrid Laurier.
VISITS PARIS.
Sir Wilfrid cross de Channel den,
Mak' visit La Patrie,
An' mak' fine speeches two or three
In de city of Paree.
An' shak' de han', an' drink de vin
Mit Faure de Presiden',
An' show him what de kin' of man
Dis contrie represen'.
An' w'en Dir Wilfrid's voice dey hear,
An' his fine shape dey see,
De men of France was hall surprise,
De ladies hall epris.
15
Den Monsieur Faure he rise an say,
"Sir Wilfrid Laurier,
In de Legion d'Honneur you are
Un grand officier."
An' to Sir Wilfrid, front dem hall,
He mak' some fine address,
An' den ribbon wit' de star
He pin upon his breas'.
En bref, our Wilfrid capture France,
He's capture Anglan', too;
I t'ink he will annex dem both
To Canada -- don' you?
SIR WILFRID'S RETURN.
Sir Wilfrid, tired of Jubilee
An' glorie an' eclat,
He says, "Dese contrie dey ees not
Lak' my own Canada.
"I wan' my own dear lan' for see
An' de St. Laurent gran',
An' hear again de French he spik
Mon bonhomme habitan!"
Den to the Queen an' Monsieur Faure
Hees "au revoirs" he say,
"I mus' go back on ole Kebec,
An' Mo'real dis day.
"An' I mus go an help toujours,
Lor' Aberdeen mak' law,
An' keep dem Tory boodler from
De safe in Ottawa.
"An' help Sir Olivair, Sir Deek
An' Tarte mak' politique,
An' keep Sir Tuppair an' hees gang
From play some crooked trique."
16
So, on de "Labrador" he sail,
On Canada he come,
We hall be glad his face to see,
An' he ees glad be home.
An' hall de Angleesh, Ireesh, Franch
'Roun hees triomphan' car,
Say, "Bienvenu! Come, spok to us
Upon de Champ de Mars."
Sir Wilfrid tole us dat he drink
Dose vins mit' Monsieur Faure,
An' dine on Windsor -- so he tole
Us on de Champ de Mars.
Den hall de peup' dey mak' big cheer,
De cannon dey mak' shoot,
We hall be on one grand hoorau,
De steamboats on a toot.
So we hall sing, "God bless de Queen!
An' Monsieur Faure, alway!
Because dey treat all same lak' prince,
Our Wilfrid Laurier."
~ Alexander MacGregor Rose,#NFDB
315:- Oh, Nastenjka, Nastenjka! Ju as që mund ta merrni me mend sa shumë po më ngazëlleni! Po më pajtoni me vetveten! Nuk kam për të menduar kurrë keq për veten, siç më ka ndodhur rëndomë më parë! Se ku i dihet, mua dhe brenga sfilitëse, që jam treguar armik i vetes, ndoshta do më daravitet! Se jo një herë ia kam nxitur vetes mendimin që jeta e jetuar ka qenë mëkatare dhe deri kriminale. Dhe mos pandehni që po i zmadhoj gjërat. Kam kaluar e jo pak çaste trishtimi të pangushëllueshëm!... Më ka rënduar si plumb në zemër vetëdija e pazotësisë për të jetuar me të tashmen, me realen; e kam katandisur veten deri në atë farë feje, sa e kam mallkuar fatin tim, e kam sikterisur veten... Se mua, Nastenjka, ja se ç'më ka ndodhur pas netëve të kaluar me fantazime: jam kthyer në realitet, ku gjërat shihen esëll. Gjendje e padurueshme! Sheh tollovinë njerëzore, sheh dhe dëgjon si pulson jeta, vë re që dhe jeta e të tjerëve nuk është e përsosur, e jetojnë ashtu si u vjen, kapen fort pas çdo të mire që kjo u ofron, e përballojnë, kur ju shtie me shkelma, vë re që përtërihen e mëkëmben pas fatkeqsive, deri dhe rilinden; habitesh që asnjë minutë e jetës nuk ngjason me të mëparshmet, ndërkohë që fantazimet janë mërzindjellëse në monotoninë e tyre, janë frikamane para pengesave, skllave të vegimeve dhe të hijeve, të ideve dhe të hamendjeve të nxehta, ato janë skllave të resë, që e mbulon befas diellin dhe e mbush me pikëllim zemrën e vërtetë petërburgase, e cila, ngaqë e çmon aq shumë ndaj dhe drithërohet po aq shumë, kur e sheh t'i fshihet. Se fantazia në pikëllim ngjizet e harbon! Mirëpo vjen një çast që e ndien si venitet, si kapitet e deri vdiret në tendosjen e saj të pandërprerë, pa të cilën s'ka si bën, e sheh këtë dhe bindesh që fantazimet nuk janë të pashtershme, pale që edhe vetë ti zë e burrërohesh, i braktis ëndërrimet dhe përsiatjet e dikurshme... Vjen një çast, që fantazia bëhet copë e çikë dhe, në mos paç tjetër jetë, s'ke nga ia mban, do s'do detyrohesh dhe sajon nga rrënojat, bashkon mbeturinat e së parës. E pra, shpirti të do një të re! Ëndërrimtari i gjorë më kot zë e rrëmon në hirin e fantazisë së shkrumuar, për të gjetur aty ndonjë kongjill të ndezur, që t'i fryjë e t'i fryjë, me shpresën mos ndizet zjarri i ri, ku të ngrohë zemrën e kallkanosur, dhe të rimëkëmbë atë që dikur ishte aq hamngjitëse dhe joshëse, që ia rrëmbente shpirtin dhe ia vlonte gjakun, ia rrëmbushte sytë, duke e mashtruar me aq marifet! Dhe e dini, Nastenjka, sa keq u katandisa? S'më mbeti tjetër veç të festoja përvjetorin e ndijimeve të para fantastike, të atyre që pandehja se i pata përjetuar, kurse në vërtetë nuk i pata përjetuar, sepse edhe vetë përvjetori si i tillë imagjinar ishte, pjellë fantazie qe. Iu drejtova përkujtimit, ngaqë më mungonin fantazi të reja, nuk kisha nga i shtrydhja! Se ëndërrimet shtrydhen, Nastenjka! Ma kishte fort ënda të vizitoja ato vende, që lidheshin me lumturinë time të dikurshme, ta përshtasja të tashmen në përputhje me të atëhershmen. U ënda në ato rrugë të zymta pa ndonjë synim apo qëllim real, të përcaktuar, u sorollata sa desha nëpër Petërburgun aspak gazmor dhe kujtova e kujtova sa u enjta të përjetuarat asohere. Shihja me sytë e mendjes si ecja i vetmuar në po atë trotuar, si më mbyste pikëllimi dhe angështia, i rënduar nga ato fantazime aq të lemerishme. Nuk them se atëherë isha në gjendje më të mirë shpirterore, ama më i qetë se tani isha. Atëherë jetohej më këndshëm, s'i kisha tërë ato mendime të zeza për të cilët sapo ju fola, por as këtë vrasje ndërgjegje që po provoj tani. Endesha në atë përvjetor dhe thosha me vetë: "Sa shpejt që fluturojnë vitet!" dhe pas gjithë kësaj, përsëri ajo pyetja brengë: "Po ti ç'je duke bërë, ndërkohe që vitet fluturojne? A po e jeton jetën? Se vitet ikin e shkojnë dhe të troket pleqeria, bashkë me të dhe pafuqia, po edhe lloj-lloj mënxyrash! Se bota e fantazisë një ditë prej ditësh do të vdiret, ëndërrimet do shuhen e fashiten, do bien në tokë si gjethet në vjeshtë!..." O Nastenjka! Sa ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
316:Athelston
Lord that is off myghtys most,
Fadyr and Sone and Holy Gost,
Bryng us out of synne
And lene us grace so for to wyrke
To love bothe God and Holy Kyrke
That we may hevene wynne.
Lystnes, lordyngys, that ben hende,
Of falsnesse, hou it wil ende
A man that ledes hym therin.
Of foure weddyd bretheryn I wole yow tell
That wolden yn Yngelond go dwel,
That sybbe were nought of kyn.
And all foure messangeres they were,
That wolden yn Yngelond lettrys bere,
As it wes here kynde.
By a forest gan they mete
With a cros, stood in a strete
Be leff undyr a lynde,
And, as the story telles me,
Ylke man was of dyvers cuntrie
In book iwreten we fynde —
For love of here metyng thare,
They swoor hem weddyd bretheryn for evermare,
In trewthe trewely dede hem bynde.
The eldeste of hem ylkon,
He was hyght Athelston,
The kyngys cosyn dere;
He was of the kyngys blood,
Hys eemes sone, I undyrstood;
Therefore he neyghyd hym nere.
And at the laste, weel and fayr,
The kyng him dyyd withouten ayr.
Thenne was ther non hys pere
But Athelston, hys eemes sone;
To make hym kyng wolde they nought schone,
To corowne hym with gold so clere.
58
Now was he kyng semely to se:
He sendes afftyr his bretheryn thre
And gaff hem here warysoun.
The eldest brothir he made Eerl of Dovere —
And thus the pore man gan covere —
Lord of tour and toun.
That other brother he made Eerl of Stane —
Egelond was hys name,
A man of gret renoun —
And gaff him tyl hys weddyd wyff
Hys owne sustyr, Dame Edyff,
With gret devocyoun.
The ferthe brothir was a clerk,
Mekyl he cowde of Goddys werk.
Hys name it was Alryke.
Cauntyrbury was vacant
And fel into that kyngys hand;
He gaff it hym that wyke,
And made hym bysschop of that stede,
That noble clerk, on book cowde rede —
In the world was non hym lyche.
Thus avaunsyd he hys brother thorwgh Goddys gras,
And Athelston hymselven was
A good kyng and a ryche.
And he that was Eerl of Stane —
Sere Egeland was hys name —
Was trewe, as ye schal here.
Thorwgh the myght off Goddys gras,
He gat upon the countas
Twoo knave-chyldren dere.
That on was fyfftene wyntyr old,
That other thryttene, as men me told:
In the world was non here pere —
Also whyt so lylye-flour,
Red as rose off here colour,
As bryght as blosme on brere.
Bothe the Eerl and hys wyff,
The kyng hem lovede as hys lyff,
And here sones twoo;
59
And offtensythe he gan hem calle
Bothe to boure and to halle,
To counsayl whenne they scholde goo.
Therat Sere Wymound hadde gret envye,
That Eerle of Dovere, wyttyrlye.
In herte he was ful woo.
He thoughte al for here sake
False lesyngys on hem to make,
To don hem brenne and sloo.
And thanne Sere Wymound hym bethoughte:
'Here love thus endure may noughte;
Thorwgh wurd oure werk may sprynge.'
He bad hys men maken hem yare;
Unto Londone wolde he fare
To speke with the kynge.
Whenne that he to Londone come,
He mette with the kyng ful sone.
He sayde, 'Welcome, my derelyng.'
The kyng hym fraynyd seone anon,
By what way he hadde igon,
Withouten ony dwellyng.
'Come thou ought by Cauntyrbury,
There the clerkys syngen mery
Bothe erly and late?
Hou faryth that noble clerk,
That mekyl can on Goddys werk?
Knowest thou ought hys state?
And come thou ought be the Eerl of Stane,
That wurthy lord in hys wane?
Wente thou ought that gate?
Hou fares that noble knyght,
And hys sones fayr and bryght
My sustyr, yiff that thou wate?'
'Sere,' thanne he sayde, 'withouten les,
Be Cauntyrbery my way I ches;
There spak I with that dere.
Ryght weel gretes thee that noble clerk,
That mykyl can of Goddys werk;
In the world is non hys pere.
60
And also be Stane my way I drowgh;
With Egelond I spak inowgh,
And with the countesse so clere.
They fare weel, is nought to layne,
And bothe here sones.' The king was fayne
And in his herte made glad chere.
'Sere kyng,' he saide, 'yiff it be thi wille
To chaumbyr that thou woldest wenden tylle,
Consayl for to here,
I schal thee telle a swete tydande,
There comen nevere non swyche in this lande
Of all this hundryd yere.'
The kyngys herte than was ful woo
With that traytour for to goo;
They wente bothe forth in fere;
And whenne that they were the chaumbyr withinne,
False lesyngys he gan begynne
On hys weddyd brother dere.
'Sere kyng,' he saide, 'woo were me,
Ded that I scholde see thee,
So moot I have my lyff!
For by Hym that al this worl wan,
Thou has makyd me a man,
And iholpe me for to thryff.
For in thy land, sere, is a fals traytour.
He wole doo thee mykyl dyshonour
And brynge thee of lyve.
He wole deposen thee slyly,
Sodaynly than schalt thou dy
By Chrystys woundys fyve!'
Thenne sayde the kyng, 'So moot thou the,
Knowe I that man, and I hym see?
His name thou me telle.'
'Nay,' says that traytour, 'that wole I nought
For al the gold that evere was wrought —
Be masse-book and belle —
But yiff thou me thy trowthe will plyght
That thou schalt nevere bewreye the knyght
That thee the tale schal telle.'
61
Thanne the kyng his hand up raughte,
That false man his trowthe betaughte,
He was a devyl of helle!
'Sere kyng,' he sayde, 'thou madyst me knyght,
And now thou hast thy trowthe me plyght
Oure counsayl for to layne:
Sertaynly, it is non othir
But Egelane, thy weddyd brothir —
He wolde that thou were slayne;
He dos thy sustyr to undyrstand
He wole be kyng of thy lande,
And thus he begynnes here trayne.
He wole thee poysoun ryght slyly;
Sodaynly thanne schalt thou dy,
By Him that suffryd payne.'
Thanne swoor the kyng be Cros and Roode:
'Meete ne drynk schal do me goode
Tyl that he be dede;
Bothe he and hys wyf, hys soones twoo,
Schole they nevere be no moo
In Yngelond on that stede.'
'Nay,' says the traytour, 'so moot I the,
Ded wole I nought my brother se;
But do thy beste rede.'
No lengere there then wolde he lende;
He takes hys leve, to Dovere gan wende.
God geve hym schame and dede!
Now is that traytour hom iwent.
A messanger was afftyr sent
To speke with the kyng.
I wene he bar his owne name:
He was hoten Athelstane;
He was foundelyng.
The lettrys were imaad fullyche thare,
Unto Stane for to fare
Withouten ony dwellyng,
To fette the eerl and his sones twoo,
And the countasse alsoo,
Dame Edyve, that swete thyng.
62
And in the lettre yit was it tolde,
That the kyng the eerlys sones wolde
Make hem bothe knyght;
And therto his seel he sette.
The messanger wolde nought lette;
The way he rydes ful ryght.
The messanger, the noble man,
Takes hys hors and forth he wan,
And hyes a ful good spede.
The eerl in hys halle he fande;
He took hym the lettre in his hande
Anon he bad hym rede:
'Sere,' he sayde also swythe,
'This lettre oughte to make thee blythe:
Thertoo thou take good hede.
The kyng wole for the cuntas sake
Bothe thy sones knyghtes make —
To London I rede thee spede.
The kyng wole for the cuntas sake
Bothe thy sones knyghtes make,
The blythere thou may be.
Thy fayre wyff with thee thou bryng —
And ther be ryght no lettyng —
That syghte that sche may see.'
Thenne sayde that eerl with herte mylde,
'My wyff goth ryght gret with chylde,
And forthynkes me,
Sche may nought out of chaumbyr wyn,
To speke with non ende of here kyn
Tyl sche delyveryd be.'
But into chaumbyr they gunne wende,
To rede the lettrys before that hende
And tydingys tolde here soone.
Thanne sayde the cuntasse, 'So moot I the,
I wil nought lette tyl I there be,
Tomorwen or it be noone.
To see hem knyghtes, my sones fre,
63
I wole nought lette tyl I there be;
I schal no lengere dwelle.
Cryst foryelde my lord the kyng,
That has grauntyd hem here dubbyng.
Myn herte is gladyd welle.'
The eerl hys men bad make hem yare;
He and hys wyff forth gunne they fare,
To London faste they wente.
At Westemynstyr was the kyngys wone;
There they mette with Athelstone,
That afftyr hem hadde sente.
The goode eerl soone was hent
And feteryd faste, verrayment,
And hys sones twoo.
Ful lowde the countasse gan to crye,
And sayde, 'Goode brothir, mercy!
Why wole ye us sloo?
What have we ayens yow done,
That ye wole have us ded so soone?
Me thynkith ye arn ourn foo.'
The kyng as wood ferde in that stede;
He garte hys sustyr to presoun lede —
In herte he was ful woo.
Thenne a squyer, was the countasses frende,
To the qwene he gan wende,
And tydyngys tolde here soone.
Gerlondes of chyryes off sche caste,
Into the halle sche come at the laste,
Longe or it were noone.
'Sere kyng, I am before thee come
With a child, doughtyr or a sone.
Graunte me my bone,
My brothir and sustyr that I may borwe
Tyl the nexte day at morwe,
Out of here paynys stronge;
That we mowe wete by comoun sent
In the playne parlement.'
'Dame,' he saide, 'goo fro me!
64
Thy bone shall nought igraunted be,
I doo thee to undyrstande.
For, be Hym that weres the corowne of thorn,
They schole be drawen and hangyd tomorn,
Yyff I be kyng of lande!'
And whenne the qwene these wurdes herde,
As sche hadde be beten with yerde,
The teeres sche leet doun falle.
Sertaynly, as I yow telle,
On here bare knees doun she felle,
And prayde yit for hem alle.
'A, dame,' he sayde, 'verrayment
Hast thou broke my comaundement
Abyyd ful dere thou schalle.'
With hys foot — he wolde nought wonde —
He slowgh the chyld ryght in here wombe;
She swownyd amonges hem alle.
Ladyys and maydenys that there were,
The qwene to here chaumbyr bere,
And there was dool inowgh.
Soone withinne a lytyl spase
A knave-chyld iborn ther wase,
As bryght as blosme on bowgh.
He was bothe whyt and red;
Of that dynt was he ded —
His owne fadyr hym slowgh!
Thus may a traytour baret rayse
And make manye men ful evele at ayse,
Hymselff nought afftyr it lowgh.
But yit the qwene, as ye schole here,
Sche callyd upon a messangere,
Bad hym a lettre fonge.
And bad hym wende to Cauntyrbery,
There the clerkys syngen mery
Bothe masse and evensonge.
'This lettre thou the bysschop take,
And praye hym for Goddys sake,
Come borewe hem out off here bande.
He wole doo more for hym, I wene,
65
Thanne for me, though I be qwene —
I doo thee to undyrstande.
An eerldom in Spayne I have of land;
Al I sese into thyn hand,
Trewely, as I thee hyght,
And hundryd besauntys of gold red.
Thou may save hem from the ded,
Yyff that thyn hors be wyght.'
'Madame, brouke weel thy moregeve,
Also longe as thou may leve.
Therto have I no ryght.
But of thy gold and of thy fee,
Cryst in hevene foryelde it thee;
I wole be there tonyght.
Madame, thrytty myles of hard way
I have reden syth it was day.
Ful sore I gan me swynke;
And for to ryde now fyve and twenti thertoo
An hard thyng it were to doo,
Forsothe, ryght as me thynke.
Madame, it is nerhande passyd prime,
And me behoves al for to dyne,
Bothe wyn and ale to drynke.
Whenne I have dynyd, thenne wole I fare.
God may covere hem of here care,
Or that I slepe a wynke.'
Whenne he hadde dynyd, he wente his way,
Also faste as that he may,
He rod be Charynge-cross
And entryd into Flete-strete
And sithen thorwgh Londone, I yow hete,
Upon a noble hors.
The messanger, that noble man,
On Loundone-brygge sone he wan —
For his travayle he hadde no los —
From Stone into Steppyngebourne,
Forsothe, his way nolde he nought tourne;
Sparyd he nought for myre ne mos.
66
And thus hys way wendes he
Fro Osprynge to the Blee.
Thenne myghte he see the toun
Of Cauntyrbery, that noble wyke,
Therin lay that bysschop ryke,
That lord of gret renoun.
And whenne they runggen undernbelle,
He rod in Londone, as I yow telle:
He was non er redy;
And yit to Cauntyrbery he wan,
Longe or evensong began;
He rod mylys fyffty.
The messanger nothing abod;
Into the palays forth he rod,
There that the bysschop was inne.
Ryght welcome was the messanger,
That was come from the qwene so cleer,
Was of so noble kynne.
He took hym a lettre ful good speed
And saide, 'Sere bysschop, have this and reed,'
And bad hym come with hym.
Or he the lettre hadde halff iredde,
For dool, hym thoughte hys herte bledde;
The teeres fyl ovyr hys chyn.
The bysschop bad sadele hys palfray:
'Also faste as thay may,
Bydde my men make hem yare;
And wendes before,' the bysschop dede say,
'To my maneres in the way;
For nothyng that ye spare,
And loke at ylke fyve mylys ende
A fresch hors that I fynde,
Schod and nothing bare;
Blythe schal I nevere be,
Tyl I my weddyd brother see,
To kevere hym out of care.'
On nyne palfrays the bysschop sprong,
Ar it was day, from evensong —
67
In romaunce as we rede.
Sertaynly, as I yow telle,
On Londone-brygge ded doun felle
The messangeres stede.
'Allas,' he sayde, 'that I was born!
Now is my goode hors forlorn,
Was good at ylke a nede;
Yistyrday upon the grounde,
He was wurth an hundryd pounde,
Ony kyng to lede.'
Thenne bespak the erchebysschop.
Oure gostly fadyr undyr God,
Unto the messangere:
'Lat be thy menyng of thy stede,
And thynk upon oure mykyl nede,
The whylys that we ben here;
For yiff that I may my brother borwe
And bryngen hym out off mekyl sorwe,
Thou may make glad chere;
And thy warysoun I schal thee geve,
And God have grauntyd thee to leve
Unto an hundryd yere.'
The bysschop thenne nought ne bod:
He took hys hors, and forth he rod
Into Westemynstyr so lyght;
The messanger on his foot alsoo:
With the bysschop come no moo,
Nether squyer ne knyght.
Upon the morwen the kyng aros,
And takes the way, to the kyrke he gos,
As man of mekyl myght.
With hym wente bothe preest and clerk,
That mykyl cowde of Goddys werk,
To praye God for the ryght.
Whenne that he to the kyrke com;
Tofore the Rode he knelyd anon,
And on hys knees he felle:
'God, that syt in Trynyt鼯nobr>
A bone that thou graunte me,
68
Lord, as Thou harewyd helle —
Gyltless men yiff thay be,
That are in my presoun free,
Forcursyd there to yelle,
Of the gylt and thay be clene,
Leve it moot on hem be sene,
That garte hem there to dwelle.'
And whenne he hadde maad his prayer,
He lokyd up into the qweer;
The erchebysschop sawgh he stande.
He was forwondryd of that caas,
And to hym he wente apas,
And took hym be the hande.
'Welcome,' he sayde, 'thou erchebysschop,
Oure gostly fadyr undyr God.'
He swoor be God levande,
'Weddyd brother, weel moot thou spede,
For I hadde nevere so mekyl nede,
Sith I took cros on hande.
Goode weddyd brother, now turne thy rede;
Doo nought thyn owne blood to dede
But yiff it wurthy were.
For Hym that weres the corowne of thorn,
Lat me borwe hem tyl tomorn,
That we mowe enquere,
And weten alle be comoun asent
In the playne parlement
Who is wurthy be schent.
And, but yiff ye wole graunte my bone,
It schal us rewe bothe or none,
Be God that alle thyng lent.'
Thanne the kyng wax wrothe as wynde,
A wodere man myghte no man fynde
Than he began to bee:
He swoor othis be sunne and mone:
'They scholen be drawen and hongyd or none —
With eyen thou schalt see!
Lay doun thy cros and thy staff,
Thy mytyr and thy ryng that I thee gaff;
69
Out of my land thou flee!
Hyghe thee faste out of my syght!
Wher I thee mete, thy deth is dyght;
Non othir then schal it bee!'
Thenne bespak that erchebysschop,
Oure gostly fadyr undyr God,
Smertly to the kyng:
'Weel I wot that thou me gaff
Bothe the cros and the staff,
The mytyr and eke the ryng;
My bysschopryche thou reves me,
And Crystyndom forbede I thee!
Preest schal ther non syngge;
Neyther maydynchyld ne knave
Crystyndom schal ther non have;
To care I schal thee brynge.
I schal gare crye thorwgh ylke a toun
That kyrkys schole be broken doun
And stoken agayn with thorn.
And thou shalt lygge in an old dyke,
As it were an heretyke,
Allas that thou were born!
Yiff thou be ded, that I may see,
Assoylyd schalt thou nevere bee;
Thanne is thy soule in sorwe.
And I schal wende in uncouthe lond,
And gete me stronge men of hond;
My brothir yit schal I borwe.
I schal brynge upon thy lond
Hungyr and thyrst ful strong,
Cold, drougthe, and sorwe;
I schal nought leve on thy lond
Wurth the gloves on thy hond
To begge ne to borwe.'
The bysschop has his leve tan.
By that his men were comen ylkan:
They sayden, 'Sere, have good day.'
He entryd into Flete-strete;
70
With lordys of Yngelond gan he mete
Upon a noble aray.
On here knees they kneleden adoun,
And prayden hym of hys benysoun,
He nykkyd hem with nay.
Neyther of cros neyther of ryng
Hadde they non kyns wetyng;
And thanne a knyght gan say.
A knyght thanne spak with mylde voys:
'Sere, where is thy ryng? Where is thy croys?
Is it fro thee tan?'
Thanne he sayde, 'Youre cursyd kyng
Hath me refft of al my thyng,
And of al my worldly wan;
And I have entyrdytyd Yngelond:
Ther schal no preest synge Masse with hond,
Chyld schal be crystenyd non,
But yiff he graunte me that knyght,
His wyff and chyldryn fayr and bryght:
He wolde with wrong hem slon.'
The knyght sayde, 'Bysschop, turne agayn;
Of thy body we are ful fayn;
Thy brothir yit schole we borwe.
And, but he graunte us oure bone,
Hys presoun schal be broken soone,
Hymselff to mekyl sorwe.
We schole drawe doun both halle and boures,
Bothe hys castelles and hys toures,
They schole lygge lowe and holewe.
Though he be kyng and were the corown,
We scholen hym sette in a deep dunjoun:
Oure Crystyndom we wole folewe.'
Thanne, as they spoken of this thyng,
Ther comen twoo knyghtes from the kyng,
And sayden, 'Bysschop, abyde,
And have thy cros and thy ryng,
And welcome whyl that thou wylt lyng,
It is nought for to hyde.
Here he grauntys thee the knyght,
71
Hys wyff and chyldryn fayr and bryght;
Again I rede thou ryde.
He prayes thee pur charyt鼯nobr>
That he myghte asoylyd be,
And Yngelond long and wyde.'
Hereof the bysschop was ful fayn,
And turnys hys brydyl and wendes agayn —
Barouns gunne with hym ryde —
Unto the Brokene-cros of ston;
Thedyr com the kyng ful soone anon,
And there he gan abyde.
Upon hys knees he knelyd adoun,
And prayde the bysschop of benysoun,
And he gaff hym that tyde.
With holy watyr and orysoun,
He asoylyd the kyng that weryd the coroun,
And Yngelond long and wyde.
Than sayde the kyng anon ryght:
'Here I graunte thee that knyght,
And hys sones free,
And my sustyr hende in halle.
Thou hast savyd here lyvys alle:
Iblessyd moot thou bee.'
Thenne sayde the bysschop also soone:
'And I schal geven swylke a dome —
With eyen that thou schalt see!
Yiff thay be gylty off that dede,
Sorrere the doome thay may drede,
Thanne schewe here schame to me.'
Whanne the bysschop hadde sayd soo,
A gret fyr was maad ryght thoo,
In romaunce as we rede —
It was set, that men myghte knawe,
Nyne plowgh-lengthe on rawe,
As red as ony glede.
Thanne sayde the kyng: 'What may this mene?'
'Sere, of gylt and thay be clene,
This doom hem thar nought drede.'
Thanne sayde the good Kyng Athelston:
72
'An hard doome now is this on:
God graunte us alle weel to spede.'
They fetten forth Sere Egelan —
A trewere eerl was ther nan —
Before the fyr so bryght.
From hym they token the rede scarlet,
Bothe hosyn and schoon that weren hym met,
That fel al for a knyght.
Nyne sythe the bysschop halewid the way
That his weddyd brother scholde goo that day,
To praye God for the ryght.
He was unblemeschyd foot and hand;
That sawgh the lordes of the land,
And thankyd God of Hys myght.
They offeryd him with mylde chere
Unto Saint Powlys heyghe awtere,
That mekyl was of myght.
Doun upon hys knees he felle,
And thankyd God that harewede helle
And Hys modyr so bryght.
And yit the bysschop tho gan say:
'Now schal the chyldryn gon the way
That the fadyr yede.'
Fro hem they tooke the rede scarlete,
The hosen and schoon that weren hem mete,
And al here worldly wede.
The fyr was bothe hydous and rede,
The chyldryn swownyd as they were ded;
The bysschop tyl hem yede;
With careful herte on hem gan look;
Be hys hand he hem up took:
'Chyldryn, have ye no drede.'
Thanne the chyldryn stood and lowgh:
'Sere, the fyr is cold inowgh.'
Thorwghout they wente apase.
They weren unblemeschyd foot and hand:
That sawgh the lordys of the land,
And thankyd God of His grace.
73
They offeryd hem with mylde chere
To Seynt Poulys hyghe awtere
This myracle schewyd was there.
And yit the bysschop efft gan say:
'Now schal the countasse goo the way
There that the chyldryn were.'
They fetten forth the lady mylde;
Sche was ful gret igon with chylde
In romaunce as we rede —
Before the fyr whan that sche come,
To Jesu Cryst he prayde a bone,
That leet His woundys blede:
'Now, God lat nevere the kyngys foo
Quyk out of the fyr goo.'
Therof hadde sche no drede.
Whenne sche hadde maad here prayer,
Sche was brought before the feer,
That brennyd bothe fayr and lyght.
Sche wente fro the lengthe into the thrydde;
Stylle sche stood the fyr amydde,
And callyd it merye and bryght.
Hard schourys thenne took here stronge
Bothe in bak and eke in wombe;
And sithen it fell at syght.
Whenne that here paynys slakyd was,
And sche hadde passyd that hydous pas,
Here nose barst on bloode.
Sche was unblemeschyd foot and hand:
That sawgh the lordys of the land,
And thankyd God on Rode.
They comaundyd men here away to drawe,
As it was the landys lawe;
And ladyys thanne tyl here yode.
She knelyd doun upon the ground
And there was born Seynt Edemound:
Iblessed be that foode!
And whanne this chyld iborn was,
It was brought into the plas;
It was bothe hool and sound
74
Bothe the kyng and bysschop free
They crystnyd the chyld, that men myght see,
And callyd it Edemound.
'Halff my land,' he sayde, 'I thee geve,
Also longe as I may leve,
With markys and with pounde;
And al afftyr my dede —
Yngelond to wysse and rede.'
Now iblessyd be that stounde!
Thanne sayde the bysschop to the Kyng:
'Sere, who made this grete lesyng,
And who wroughte al this bale?'
Thanne sayde the kyng, 'So moot I thee,
That schalt thou nevere wete for me,
In burgh neyther in sale;
For I have sworn be Seynt Anne
That I schal nevere bewreye that manne,
That me gan telle that tale.
They arn savyd thorwgh thy red;
Now lat al this be ded,
And kepe this counseyl hale.'
Thenne swoor the bysschop, 'So moot I the,
Now I have power and dignyt鼯nobr>
For to asoyle thee as clene
As thou were hoven off the fount-ston.
Trustly trowe thou therupon,
And holde it for no wene:
I swere bothe be book and belle,
But yiff thou me his name telle,
The ryght doom schal I deme:
Thyselff schalt goo the ryghte way
That thy brother wente today,
Though it thee evele beseme.'
Thenne sayde the kyng, 'So moot I the,
Be schryffte of mouthe telle I it thee;
Therto I am unblyve.
Sertaynly, it is non othir
But Wymound, oure weddyd brother;
He wole nevere thryve.'
75
'Allas,' sayde the bysschop than,
I wende he were the treweste man,
That evere yit levyd on lyve.
And he with this ateynt may bee,
He schal be hongyd on trees three,
And drawen with hors fyve.'
And whenne that the bysschop the sothe hade
That that traytour that lesyng made,
He callyd a messangere,
Bad hym to Dovere that he scholde founde,
For to fette that Eerl Wymounde:
(That traytour has no pere!)
Sey Egelane and hys sones be slawe,
Bothe ihangyd and to-drawe.
(Doo as I thee lere!)
The countasse is in presoun done;
Schal sche nevere out of presoun come,
But yiff it be on bere.'
Now with the messanger was no badde;
He took his hors, as the bysschop radde,
To Dovere tyl that he come.
The eerl in hys halle he fand:
He took hym the lettre in his hand
On hygh, wolde he nought wone:
'Sere Egelane and his sones be slawe,
Bothe ihangyd and to-drawe:
Thou getyst that eerldome.
The countasse is in presoun done;
Schal sche nevere more out come,
Ne see neyther sunne ne mone.'
Thanne that eerl made hym glade,
And thankyd God that lesyng was made:
'It hath gete me this eerldome.'
He sayde, 'Felawe, ryght weel thou bee!
Have here besauntys good plent鼯nobr>
For thyn hedyr-come.'
Thanne the messanger made his mon:
'Sere, of youre goode hors lende me on:
Now graunte me my bone;
76
For yystyrday deyde my nobyl stede,
On youre arende as I yede,
Be the way as I come.'
'Myn hors be fatte and cornfed,
And of thy lyff I am adred.'
That eerl sayde to him than,
'Thanne yiff min hors sholde thee sloo,
My lord the kyng wolde be ful woo
To lese swylk a man.'
The messanger yit he broughte a stede,
On of the beste at ylke a nede
That evere on grounde dede gange,
Sadelyd and brydelyd at the beste.
The messanger was ful preste,
Wyghtly on hym he sprange.
'Sere,' he sayde, 'have good day;
Thou schalt come whan thou may;
I schal make the kyng at hande.'
With sporys faste he strook the stede;
To Gravysende he come good spede,
Is fourty myle to fande.
There the messanger the traytour abood,
And sethyn bothe insame they rod
To Westemynstyr wone.
In the palays there thay lyght;
Into the halle they come ful ryght,
And mette with Athelstone.
He wolde have kyssyd his lord swete.
He sayde: 'Traytour, nought yit! lete!
Be God and be Seynt Jhon!
For thy falsnesse and thy lesyng
I slowgh myn heyr, scholde have ben kyng,
When my lyf hadde ben gon.'
There he denyyd faste the kyng,
That he made nevere that lesyng,
Among hys peres alle.
The bysschop has hym be the hand tan;
Forth insame they are gan
77
Into the wyde halle.
Myghte he nevere with crafft ne gynne,
Gare hym shryven of hys synne,
For nought that myghte befalle.
Thenne sayde the goode Kyng Athelston:
'Lat hym to the fyr gon,
To preve the trewthe with alle.'
Whenne the kyng hadde sayd soo,
A gret fyr was maad thoo,
In romaunce as we rede.
It was set, that men myghten knawe,
Nyne plowgh-lenge on rawe,
As red as ony glede.
Nyne sythis the bysschop halewes the way
That that traytour schole goo that day:
The wers him gan to spede.
He wente fro the lengthe into the thrydde,
And doun he fell the fyr amydde:
Hys eyen wolde hym nought lede.
Than the eerlys chyldryn were war ful smerte,
And wyghtly to the traytour sterte,
And out of the fyr him hade;
And sworen bothe be book and belle:
'Or that thou deye, thou schalt telle
Why thou that lesyng made.'
'Certayn, I can non other red,
Now I wot I am but ded:
I telle yow nothyng gladde —
Certayn, ther was non other wyte:
He lovyd him to mekyl and me to lyte;
Therfore envye I hadde.'
Whenne that traytour so hadde sayde,
Fyve good hors to hym were tayde,
Alle men myghten see with yghe —
They drowen him thorwgh ylke a strete,
And sethyn to the Elmes, I yow hete,
And hongyd him ful hyghe.
Was ther nevere man so hardy,
That durste felle hys false body:
78
This hadde he for hys lye.
Now Jesu, that is Hevene-kyng,
Leve nevere traytour have betere endyng,
But swych dome for to dye.
Explicit
~ Anonymous Olde English,#NFDB
1677 Integral Yoga
674 Poetry
258 Occultism
182 Philosophy
149 Christianity
147 Fiction
96 Yoga
79 Psychology
70 Mysticism
37 Science
32 Kabbalah
26 Hinduism
22 Education
19 Mythology
16 Integral Theory
15 Philsophy
12 Theosophy
11 Sufism
8 Cybernetics
8 Buddhism
6 Baha i Faith
1 Zen
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
986 The Mother
767 Sri Aurobindo
554 Satprem
282 Nolini Kanta Gupta
122 Aleister Crowley
103 William Wordsworth
89 H P Lovecraft
81 Carl Jung
65 Friedrich Nietzsche
64 Percy Bysshe Shelley
62 Walt Whitman
62 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
56 William Butler Yeats
56 James George Frazer
53 John Keats
48 Sri Ramakrishna
41 Robert Browning
36 Plotinus
34 Saint Augustine of Hippo
32 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
26 A B Purani
24 Swami Krishnananda
24 Aldous Huxley
23 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
22 Swami Vivekananda
22 Saint Teresa of Avila
22 Jorge Luis Borges
19 Vyasa
19 Saint John of Climacus
19 Rudolf Steiner
19 Franz Bardon
18 Lucretius
18 Edgar Allan Poe
17 Li Bai
15 Ralph Waldo Emerson
15 Friedrich Schiller
14 Aristotle
13 Ovid
12 Plato
12 Peter J Carroll
12 Nirodbaran
11 George Van Vrekhem
11 Anonymous
10 Paul Richard
9 Rabindranath Tagore
8 Rainer Maria Rilke
8 Norbert Wiener
7 Sri Ramana Maharshi
7 Saint Francis of Assisi
7 Jalaluddin Rumi
7 Henry David Thoreau
7 Baha u llah
6 Thubten Chodron
6 Kabir
6 Joseph Campbell
6 Jordan Peterson
6 Hafiz
5 Bokar Rinpoche
5 Al-Ghazali
4 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
4 Lewis Carroll
4 Bulleh Shah
3 R Buckminster Fuller
3 Patanjali
3 Ken Wilber
3 Alice Bailey
2 Wang Wei
2 Thomas Merton
2 Symeon the New Theologian
2 Shiwu (Stonehouse)
2 Saint Hildegard von Bingen
2 Omar Khayyam
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jetsun Milarepa
2 Jean Gebser
2 Italo Calvino
2 Hakim Sanai
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Farid ud-Din Attar
2 Allama Muhammad Iqbal
201 Record of Yoga
136 The Synthesis Of Yoga
103 Wordsworth - Poems
89 Lovecraft - Poems
76 Magick Without Tears
69 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
67 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
64 Shelley - Poems
61 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
60 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
59 Whitman - Poems
58 Agenda Vol 01
57 Prayers And Meditations
56 Yeats - Poems
56 The Golden Bough
54 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
53 Keats - Poems
51 Agenda Vol 10
51 Agenda Vol 04
49 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
49 Agenda Vol 08
49 Agenda Vol 03
48 The Life Divine
47 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
46 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
43 Questions And Answers 1956
43 Letters On Yoga IV
43 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
43 Agenda Vol 02
41 Liber ABA
41 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
41 Browning - Poems
40 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
40 Agenda Vol 09
38 Letters On Yoga II
36 Questions And Answers 1953
36 Agenda Vol 13
35 Agenda Vol 06
33 Questions And Answers 1955
32 Questions And Answers 1954
32 General Principles of Kabbalah
32 Agenda Vol 12
31 Mysterium Coniunctionis
28 Agenda Vol 11
27 Agenda Vol 07
26 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
26 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
26 Agenda Vol 05
25 Essays On The Gita
24 Words Of Long Ago
24 The Study and Practice of Yoga
24 The Perennial Philosophy
24 The Human Cycle
22 The Practice of Psycho therapy
22 Letters On Yoga III
22 City of God
21 The Future of Man
21 On Education
21 Letters On Yoga I
20 Labyrinths
19 Vishnu Purana
19 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
19 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
18 Of The Nature Of Things
17 The Bible
17 Poe - Poems
17 Li Bai - Poems
17 Faust
17 Essays Divine And Human
16 Let Me Explain
15 Schiller - Poems
15 Savitri
15 Letters On Poetry And Art
15 Emerson - Poems
14 The Phenomenon of Man
14 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
14 Some Answers From The Mother
14 Poetics
14 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
14 Aion
13 The Way of Perfection
13 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
13 Metamorphoses
12 Twilight of the Idols
12 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
12 The Secret Of The Veda
12 Liber Null
12 Bhakti-Yoga
11 Words Of The Mother II
11 Vedic and Philological Studies
11 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
11 Preparing for the Miraculous
11 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
11 Initiation Into Hermetics
11 Hymn of the Universe
10 The Divine Comedy
10 Talks
10 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
10 On the Way to Supermanhood
10 Collected Poems
10 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
9 The Problems of Philosophy
9 Theosophy
9 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
9 Tagore - Poems
9 Isha Upanishad
8 Words Of The Mother III
8 The Practice of Magical Evocation
8 Rilke - Poems
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
8 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
8 Cybernetics
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
7 Walden
7 Raja-Yoga
7 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
7 Kena and Other Upanishads
7 Crowley - Poems
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
6 Maps of Meaning
6 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
6 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
6 Hafiz - Poems
6 Goethe - Poems
6 Dark Night of the Soul
5 The Red Book Liber Novus
5 The Alchemy of Happiness
5 Tara - The Feminine Divine
5 Songs of Kabir
5 Rumi - Poems
4 Words Of The Mother I
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
4 Alice in Wonderland
4 5.1.01 - Ilion
3 The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
3 The Book of Certitude
3 The Blue Cliff Records
3 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
3 Song of Myself
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
3 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
3 Amrita Gita
2 The Integral Yoga
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Essentials of Education
2 The Castle of Crossed Destinies
2 Symposium
2 Selected Fictions
2 Notes On The Way
2 Milarepa - Poems
2 Agenda Vol 1
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
She were making fun of us, then loving us in secret), She told us, 'I have the feeling that ALL we have lived, ALL we have known, ALL we have done is a perfect illusion ... When I had the spiritual experience that material life is an illusion, personally I found that so marvelously beautiful and happy that it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, but now it is the entire spiritual structure as we have lived it that is becoming an illusion! - Not the same illusion, but an illusion far worse. And I am no baby: I have been here for forty-seven years now!' Yes, She was eighty-three years old then. And that day, we ceased being 'the enemy of our own conception of the Divine,' for this entire Divine was shattered to pieces - and we met Mother, at last. This mystery we call
Mother, for She never ceased being a mystery right to her ninety-fifth year, and to this day still, challenges us from the other side of a wall of invisibility and keeps us floundering fully in the mystery - with a smile. She always smiles. But the mystery is not solved.
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Mystic realities cannot be reached by the scientific consciousness, because they are far more subtle than the subtlest object that science can contemplate. The neutrons and positrons are for science today the finest and profoundest object-forces; they belong, it is said, al most to a borderl and where physics ends. Nor for that reason is a mystic reality something like a mathematical abstraction, -n for example. The mystic reality is subtler than the subtlest of physical things and yet, paradoxical to say, more concrete than the most concrete thing that the senses apprehend.
Furthermore, being so, the mystic domain is of infinitely greater potency than the domain of intra-atomic forces. If one comes, all on a sudden, into contact with a force here without the necessary preparation to hold and handle it, he may get seriously bruised, morally and physically. The adventure into the mystic domain has its own toll of casualtiesone can lose the mind, one can lose one's body even and it is a very common experience among those who have tried the path. It is not in vain and merely as a poetic metaphor that the ancient seers have said
--
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."
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #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 brea the 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 men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
00.02 - Mystic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When a Mystic refers to the Solar Light or to the Fire the light, for example, that struck down Saul and transformed him into Saint Paul or the burning bush that visited moses, it is not the physical or material object that he means and yet it is that in a way. It is the materialization of something that is fundamentally not material: some movement in an inner consciousness precipitates itself into the region of the senses and takes from out of the material the form commensurable with its nature that it finds there.
And there is such a commensurability or parallelism between the various levels of consciousness, in and through all the differences that separate them from one another. Thus an object or a movement apprehended on the physical plane has a sort of line of re-echoing images extended in a series along the whole gradation of the inner planes; otherwise viewed, an object or movement in the inner most consciousness translates itself in varying modes from plane to plane down to the most material, where it appears in its grossest form as a concrete three-dimensional object or a mechanical movement. This parallelism or commensurability by virtue of which the different and divergent states of consciousness can portray or represent each other is the source of all symbolism.
A symbol symbolizes something for this reason that both possess in common a certain identical, at least similar, quality or rhythm or vibration, the symbol possessing it in a grosser or more apparent or sensuous form than the thing symbolized does. Sometimes it may happen that it is more than a certain quality or rhythm or vibration that is common between the two: the symbol in its entirety is the thing symbolized but thrown down on another plane, it is the embodiment of the latter in a more concrete world. The light and the fire that Saint Paul and moses saw appear to be of this kind.
Thus there is a great diversity of symbols. At the one end is the mere metaphor or simile or allegory ('figure', as we have called it) and at the other end is the symbol identical with the thing symbolized. And upon this inner character of the symbol depends also to a large extent its range and scope. There are symbols which are universal and intimately ingrained in the human consciousness itself. Mankind has used them in all ages and climes al most in the same sense and significance. There are others that are limited to peoples and ages. They are made out of forms that are of local and temporal interest and importance. Their significances vary according to time and place. Finally, there are symbols which are true of the individual consciousness only; they depend on personal peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, on one's environment and upbringing and education.
0 0.02 - Topographical Note, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
From 1957, Mother received us twice a week in the office of Pavitra, the most senior of the
French disciples, on the second floor of the main Ashram building, on some pretext of work or other. She listened to our queries, spoke to us at length of yoga, occultism, her past experiences in
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It may be asked why the dog has been chosen as the symbol of Intuition. In the Vedas, the cow and the horse also play a large part; even the donkey and the frog have their own assigned roles. These objects are taken from the environment of ordinary life, and are those that are most familiar to the external consciousness, through which the inner experiences have to express themselves, if they are to be expressed at all. These material objects represent various kinds of forces and movements and subtle and occult and spiritual dynamisms. Strictly speaking, however, symbols are not chosen in a subtle or spiritual experience, that is to say, they are not arbitrarily selected and constructed by the conscious intelligence. They form part of a dramatization (to use a term of the Freudian psychology of dreams), a psychological alchemy, whose method and process and rationale are very obscure, which can be penetrated only by the vision of a third eye.
I. The Several Lights
--
The Sun is the first and the most immediate source of light that man has and needs. He is the presiding deity of our waking consciousness and has his seat in the eyecakusa ditya, ditya caku bhtvakii prviat. The eye is the representative of the senses; it is the sense par excellence. In truth, sense-perception is the initial light with which we have to guide us, it is the light with which we start on the way. A developed stage comes when the Sun sets for us, that is to say, when we retire from the senses and rise into the mind, whose divinity is the Moon. It is the mental knowledge, the light of reason and intelligence, of reflection and imagination that govern our consciousness. We have to proceed farther and get beyond the mind, exceed the derivative light of the Moon. So when the Moon sets, the Fire is kindled. It is the light of the ardent and aspiring heart, the glow of an inner urge, the instincts and inspirations of our secret life-will. Here we come into touch with a source of knowledge and realization, a guidance more direct than the mind and much deeper than the sense-perception. Still this light partakes more of heat than of pure luminosity; it is, one may say, incandescent feeling, but not vision. We must probe deeper, mount higherreach heights and profundities that are serene and transparent. The Fire is to be quieted and silenced, says the Upanishad. Then we come nearer, to the immediate vicinity of the Truth: an inner hearing opens, the direct voice of Truth the Wordreaches us to lead and guide. Even so, however, we have not come to the end of our journey; the Word of revelation is not the ultimate Light. The Word too is clothing, though a luminous clothinghiramayam ptram When this last veil dissolves and disappears, when utter silence, absolute calm and quietude reign in the entire consciousness, when no other lights trouble or distract our attention, there appears the Atman in its own body; we stand face to face with the source of all lights, the self of the Light, the light of the Self. We are that Light and we become that Light.
II. The Four Oblations
--
Svh is the offering and invocation. One must dedicate everything to the Divine, cast all one has or does into the Fire of Aspiration that blazes up towards the most High, and through the tongue of that one-pointed flame call on the Divinity.
In doing so, in invoking the Truth and consecrating oneself to it, one begins to ascend to it step by step; and each step means a tearing of another veil and a further opening of the I passage. This graded mounting is vaakra.
--
Earth represents the material world itself, Matter or existence in its most concrete, its grossest form. It is the basis of existence, the world that supports other worlds (dhar, dharitri),the first or the lowest of the several ranges of creation. In man it is his body. The principle here is that of stability, substantiality, firmness, consistency.
Water represents the next rung the vital world, the world life-force (pra). Physiologically also we know that water is the element forming three-fourths of the constituents of a living body and that dead and dry are synonymous terms; it is the medium in which the living cells dwell and through which they draw their sustenance. Water is the veritable sap of lifeit is the emblem of life itself. The principle it represents is that of movement, continuity, perpetuity.
--
Now, this is the All, the Universal. One has to realise it and possess in one's consciousness. And that can be done only in one way: one has to identify oneself with it, be one with it, become it. Thus by losing one's individuality one lives the life universal; the small lean separate life is enlarged and moulded in the rhythm of the Rich and the Vast. It is thus that man shares in the consciousness and energy that inspire and move and sustain the cos mos. The Upanishad most emphatically enjoins that one must not decry this cosmic godhead or deny any of its elements, not even such as are a taboo to the puritan mind. It is in and through an unimpaired global consciousness that one attains the All-Life and lives uninterruptedly and perennially: Sarvamanveti jyok jvati.
Still the Upanishad says this is not the final end. There is yet a higher status of reality and consciousness to which one has to rise. For beyond the Cos mos lies the Transcendent. The Upanishad expresses this truth and experience in various symbols. The cosmic reality, we have seen, is often conceived as a septenary, a unity of seven elements, principles and worlds. Further to give it its full complex value, it is considered not as a simple septet, but a threefold heptad the whole gamut, as it were, consisting of 21 notes or syllables. The Upanishad says, this number does not exhaust the entire range; I for there is yet a 22nd place. This is the world beyond the Sun, griefless and deathless, the supreme Selfhood. The Veda I also sometimes speaks of the integral reality as being represented by the number 100 which is 99 + I; in other words, 99 represents the cosmic or universal, the unity being the reality beyond, the Transcendent.
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Art at its highest tends to become also the simplest and the most unconventional; and it is then the highest art, precisely because it does not aim at being artistic. The aesthetic motive is totally absent in the Upanishads; the sense of beauty is there, but it is attendant upon and involved in a deeper strand of consciousness. That consciousness seeks consciousness itself, the fullness of consciousness, the awareness and possession of the Truth and Reality,the one thing which, if known, gives the knowledge of all else. And this consciousness of the Truth is also Delight, the perfect Bliss, the Immortality where the whole universe resolves itself into its original state of rasa, that is to say, of essential and inalienable harmony and beauty.
***
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attri bute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty in heavenkavi kavitv divi rpam sajat.1Thus the essence of poetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly forms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and embodies? HeavenDyaushas a very definite connotation in the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind 2the mind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the external senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording faithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a perfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra is the lord of this world and he can be approached only with an enkindled intelligence, ddhay man,3a faultless understanding, sumedh. He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic power,Tash, the maker of perfect forms, surpa ktnum.4 All the gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets, attain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty.5 Indra is also the master of the senses, indriyas, who are his hosts. It is through this mind and the senses that the poetic creation has to be manifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet's weaving;6 the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right thinking in the sacrificial labour of creation.7 But that creation is made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses that are alive to the subtle formation of a vaster knowledge.8 The poet envisages the golden forms fashioned out of the very profundity of the consciousness.9 For the substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.10 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation-the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth.11The form of beauty is the body of the Truth.
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his,nigam, pracetas; his is the eye of the Sun,srya caku.13 He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.14 In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer; he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, ncak;15 he is the Seer-Will,kavikratu.16 He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-Iuminousness.17 The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, srya satyasava, satyya satyaprasavya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator,savit, he is also the builder or fashioner,ta, and he is the organiser,vedh is personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara, of the Truth.18 As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,19 the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;20 it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice.21 He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward;22 he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond 23into the world of felicity.
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
It is ironic that a period of the most tremendous technological advancement known to recorded history should also be labeled the Age of Anxiety. Reams have been written about modern man's frenzied search for his soul-and, indeed, his doubt that he even has one at a time when, like castles built on sand, so many of his cherished theories, long mistaken for verities, are crumbling about his bewildered brain.
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 al most 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.
--
A good many attri butions in other symbolic areas, I feel are subject to the same criticism. The Egyptian Gods have been used with a good deal of carelessness, and without sufficient explanation of motives in assigning them as I did. In a recent edition of Crowley's masterpiece Liber 777 (which au fond is less a reflection of Crowley's mind as a recent critic claimed than a tabulation of some of the material given piecemeal in the Golden Dawn knowledge lectures), he gives for the first time brief explanations of the motives for his attri butions. I too should have been far more explicit in the explanations I used in the case of some of the Gods whose names were used many times, most inadequately, where several paths were concerned. While it is true that the religious coloring of the Egyptian Gods differed from time to time during Egypt's turbulent history, nonetheless a word or two about just that one single point could have served a useful purpose.
Some of the passages in the book force me today to emphasize that so far as the Qabalah is concerned, it could and should be employed without binding to it the partisan qualities of any one particular religious faith. This goes as much for Judaism as it does for Christianity. Neither has much intrinsic usefulness where this scientific scheme is concerned. If some students feel hurt by this statement, that cannot be helped. The day of most contemporary faiths is over; they have been more of a curse than a boon to mankind. Nothing that I say here, however, should reflect on the peoples concerned, those who accept these religions. They are merely unfortunate. The religion itself is worn out and indeed is dying.
The Qabalah has nothing to do with any of them. Attempts on the part of cultish-partisans to impart higher mystical meanings, through the Qabalah, etc., to their now sterile faiths is futile, and will be seen as such by the younger generation. They, the flower and love children, will have none of this nonsense.
--
Some modern Nature-worshippers and members of the newly-washed and redeemed witch-cult have complimented me on this closing chapter which I entitled 'The Ladder." I am pleased about this. For a very long time I was not at all familiar with the topic of witchcraft. I had avoided it entirely, not being attracted to its literature in any way. In fact, I only became slightly conversant with its theme and literature just a few years ago, after reading "The Anatomy of Eve" written by Dr. Leopold Stein, a Jungian analyst. In the middle of his study of four cases, he included a most informative chapter on the subject. This served to stimulate me to wider reading in that area.
In 1932, at the suggestion of Thomas Burke, the novelist, I submitted my manuscript to one of his publishers, Messrs. Constable in London. They were unable to use it, but made some encouraging comments and advised me to submit it to Riders. To my delight and surprise, Riders published it, and throughout the years the reaction it has had indicated other students found it also fulfilled their need for a condensed and simplified survey of such a vast subject as the Qabalah.
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
commanded the line of most efficient high seas supply would become the masters
of world wealth. Ships could carry cargoes that overland caravans could not.
--
like our political system, but we are convinced that we have the fairest, most
logical, and ingenious method of coping with the inherent inadequacy of terrestrial
--
national departments of defense with their priority of access to the most advanced
science and technology. The military took command of all the highest performance
--
It is the most highly classified of military and private enterprise secrets. Industry
now converts the ever-increasing work capacity per pound of materials invested
--
that science has ever found out is that the Universe consists of the most reliable
technology. They think of technology as something new; they regard it as
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
SRI RAMAKRISHNA, the God-man of modern India, was born at Kamarpukur. This village in the Hooghly District preserved during the last century the idyllic simplicity of the rural areas of Bengal. Situated far from the railway, it was untouched by the glamour of the city. It contained rice-fields, tall palms, royal banyans, a few lakes, and two cremation grounds. South of the village a stream took its leisurely course. A mango orchard dedicated by a neighbouring zemindar to the public use was frequented by the boys for their noonday sports. A highway passed through the village to the great temple of Jagannath at Puri, and the villagers, most of whom were farmers and craftsmen, entertained many passing holy men and pilgrims. The dull round of the rural life was broken by lively festivals, the observance of sacred days, religious singing, and other innocent pleasures.
About his parents Sri Ramakrishna once said: "My mother was the personification of rectitude and gentleness. She did not know much about the ways of the world; innocent of the art of concealment, she would say what was in her mind. People loved her for her open-heartedness. My father, an orthodox brahmin, never accepted gifts from the sudras. He spent much of his time in worship and meditation, and in repeating God's name and chanting His glories. Whenever in his daily prayers he invoked the Goddess Gayatri, his chest flushed and tears rolled down his cheeks. He spent his leisure hours making garlands for the Family Deity, Raghuvir."
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^No definite information is available as to the origin of this name. most probably it was given by Mathur Babu, as Ramlal, Sri Ramakrishna's nephew, has said, quoting the authority of his uncle himself.
^Hriday's mother was the daughter of Sri Ramakrishna's aunt (Khudiram's sister). Such a degree of relationship is termed in Bengal that of a "distant nephew".
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, most of the time unconscious of the world. He al most gave up food; and sleep left him altogether.
But he did not have to wait very long. He has thus described his first vision of the Mother: "I felt as if my heart were being squeezed like a wet towel. I was overpowered with a great restlessness and a fear that it might not be my lot to realize Her in this life. I could not bear the separation from Her any longer. Life seemed to be not worth living. Suddenly my glance fell on the sword that was kept in the Mother's temple. I determined to put an end to my life. When I jumped up like a madman and seized it, suddenly the blessed Mother revealed Herself. The buildings with their different parts, the temple, and everything else vanished from my sight, leaving no trace whatsoever, and in their stead I saw a limitless, infinite, effulgent Ocean of Consciousness. As far as the eye could see, the shining billows were madly rushing at me from all sides with a terrific noise, to swallow me up! I was panting for breath. I was caught in the rush
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Sri Ramakrishna welcomed the visitor with great respect, described to her his experiences and visions, and told her of people's belief that these were symptoms of madness. She listened to him attentively and said: "My son, everyone in this world is mad. Some are mad for money, some for creature comforts, some for name and fame; and you are mad for God." She assured him that he was passing through the al most unknown spiritual experience described in the scriptures as mahabhava, the most exalted rapture of divine love. She told him that this extreme exaltation had been described as manifesting itself through nineteen physical symptoms, including the shedding of tears, a tremor of the body, horripilation, perspiration, and a burning sensation. The Bhakti scriptures, she declared, had recorded only two instances of the experience, namely, those of Sri Radha and Sri Chaitanya.
Very soon a tender relationship sprang up between Sri Ramakrishna and the Brahmani, she looking upon him as the Baby Krishna, and he upon her as mother. Day after day she watched his ecstasy during the kirtan and meditation, his samadhi, his mad yearning; and she recognized in him a power to transmit spirituality to others. She came to the conclusion that such things were not possible for an ordinary devotee, not even for a highly developed soul. Only an Incarnation of God was capable of such spiritual manifestations. She proclaimed openly that Sri Ramakrishna, like Sri Chaitanya, was an Incarnation of God.
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But the most remarkable experience during this period was the awakening of the Kundalini Sakti, the "Serpent Power". He actually saw the Power, at first lying asleep at the bottom of the spinal column, then waking up and ascending along the mystic Sushumna canal and through its six centres, or lotuses, to the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus in the top of the head. He further saw that as the Kundalini went upward the different lotuses bloomed. And this phenomenon was accompanied by visions and trances. Later on he described to his disciples and devotees the various movements of the Kundalini: the fishlike, birdlike, monkeylike, and so on. The awaken- ing of the Kundalini is the beginning of spiritual consciousness, and its union with Siva in the Sahasrara, ending in samadhi, is the consummation of the Tantrik disciplines.
About this time it was revealed to him that in a short while many devotees would seek his guidance.
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There are two stages of bhakti. The first is known as vaidhi-bhakti, or love of God qualified by scriptural injunctions. For the devotees of this stage are prescribed regular and methodical worship, hymns, prayers, the repetition of God's name, and the chanting of His glories. This lower bhakti in course of time matures into para-bhakti, or supreme devotion, known also as prema, the most intense form of divine love. Divine love is an end in itself. It exists potentially in all human hearts, but in the case of bound creatures it is misdirected to earthly objects.
To develop the devotee's love for God, Vaishnavism humanizes God. God is to be regarded as the devotee's Parent, Master, Friend, Child, Husband, or Sweetheart, each succeeding relationship representing an intensification of love. These bhavas, or attitudes toward God, are known as santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, and madhur. The rishis of the Vedas, Hanuman, the cow-herd boys of Vrindavan, Rama's mother Kausalya, and Radhika, Krishna's sweetheart, exhibited, respectively, the most perfect examples of these forms. In the ascending scale the-glories of God are gradually forgotten and the devotee realizes more and more the intimacy of divine communion. Finally he regards himself as the mistress of his Beloved, and no artificial barrier remains to separate him from his Ideal. No social or moral obligation can bind to the earth his soaring spirit. He experiences perfect union with the Godhead. Unlike the Vedantist, who strives to transcend all varieties of the subject-object relationship, a devotee of the Vaishnava path wishes to retain both his own individuality and the personality of God. To him God is not an intangible Absolute, but the Purushottama, the Supreme Person.
While practising the discipline of the madhur bhava, the male devotee often regards himself as a woman, in order to develop the most intense form of love for Sri Krishna, the only purusha, or man, in the universe. This assumption of the attitude of the opposite sex has a deep psychological significance. It is a matter of common experience that an idea may be cultivated to such an intense degree that every idea alien to it is driven from the mind. This peculiarity of the mind may be utilized for the subjugation of the lower desires and the development of the spiritual nature. Now, the idea which is the basis of all desires and passions in a man is the conviction of his indissoluble association with a male body. If he can inoculate himself thoroughly with the idea that he is a woman, he can get rid of the desires peculiar to his male body. Again, the idea that he is a woman may in turn be made to give way to another higher idea, namely, that he is neither man nor woman, but the Impersonal Spirit. The Impersonal Spirit alone can enjoy real communion with the Impersonal God. Hence the highest est realization of the Vaishnava draws close to the transcendental experience of the Vedantist.
A beautiful expression of the Vaishnava worship of God through love is to be found in the Vrindavan episode of the Bhagavata. The gopis, or milk-maids, of Vrindavan regarded the six-year-old Krishna as their Beloved. They sought no personal gain or happiness from this love. They surrendered to Krishna their bodies, minds, and souls. Of all the gopis, Radhika, or Radha, because of her intense love for Him, was the closest to Krishna. She manifested mahabhava and was united with her Beloved. This union represents, through sensuous language, a supersensuous experience.
Sri Chaitanya, also known as Gauranga, Gora, or Nimai, born in Bengal in 1485 and regarded as an Incarnation of God, is a great prophet of the Vaishnava religion. Chaitanya declared the chanting of God's name to be the most efficacious spiritual discipline for the Kaliyuga.
Sri Ramakrishna, as the monkey Hanuman, had already worshipped God as his Master. Through his devotion to Kali he had worshipped God as his Mother. He was now to take up the other relationships prescribed by the Vaishnava scriptures.
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Sri Ramakrishna now devoted himself to scaling the most inaccessible and dizzy heights of dualistic worship, namely, the complete union with Sri Krishna as the Beloved of the heart. He regarded himself as one of the gopis of Vrindavan, mad with longing for her divine Sweetheart. At his request Mathur provided him with woman's dress and jewelry. In this love-pursuit, food and drink were forgotten. Day and night he wept bitterly. The yearning turned into a mad frenzy; for the divine Krishna began to play with him the old tricks He had played with the gopis. He would tease and taunt, now and then revealing Himself, but always keeping at a distance. Sri Ramakrishna's anguish brought on a return of the old physical symptoms: the burning sensation, an oozing of blood through the pores, a loosening of the joints, and the stopping of physiological functions.
The Vaishnava scriptures advise one to propitiate Radha and obtain her grace in order to realize Sri Krishna. So the tortured devotee now turned his prayer to her. Within a short time he enjoyed her blessed vision. He saw and felt the figure of Radha disappearing into his own body.
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Totapuri, a monk of the most orthodox type, never stayed at a place more than three days. But he remained at Dakshineswar eleven months. He too had something to learn.
Totapuri had no idea of the struggles of ordinary men in the toils of passion and desire. Having maintained all through life the guilelessness of a child, he laughed at the idea of a man's being led astray by the senses. He was convinced that the world was maya and had only to be denounced to vanish for ever. A born non-dualist, he had no faith in a Personal God. He did not believe in the terrible aspect of Kali, much less in Her benign aspect. Music and the chanting of God's holy name were to him only so much nonsense. He ridiculed the spending of emotion on the worship of a Personal God.
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Pratap Chandra Mazumdar, the right-hand man of Keshab and an accomplished Brahmo preacher in Europe and America, bitterly criticized Sri Ramakrishna's use of uncultured language and also his austere attitude toward his wife. But he could not escape the spell of the Master's personality. In the course of an article about Sri Ramakrishna, Pratap wrote in the "Theistic Quarterly Review": "What is there in common between him and me? I, a Europeanized, civilized, self-centred, semi-sceptical, so-called educated reasoner, and he, a poor, illiterate, unpolished, half-idolatrous, friendless Hindu devotee? Why should I sit long hours to attend to him, I, who have listened to Disraeli and Fawcett, Stanley and Max Muller, and a whole host of European scholars and divines? . . . And it is not I only, but dozens like me, who do the same. . . . He worships Siva, he worships Kali, he worships Rama, he worships Krishna, and is a confirmed advocate of Vedantic doctrines. . . . He is an idolater, yet is a faithful and most devoted meditator on the perfections of the One Formless, Absolute, Infinite Deity. . . . His religion is ecstasy, his worship means transcendental insight, his whole nature burns day and night with a permanent fire and fever of a strange faith and feeling. . . . So long as he is spared to us, gladly shall we sit at his feet to learn from him the sublime precepts of purity, unworldliness, spirituality, and inebriation in the love of God. . . . He, by his childlike bhakti, by his strong conceptions of an ever-ready Motherhood, helped to unfold it [God as our Mother] in our minds wonderfully. . . . By associating with him we learnt to realize better the divine attributes as scattered over the three hundred and thirty millions of deities of mythological India, the gods of the Puranas."
The Brahmo leaders received much inspiration from their contact with Sri Ramakrishna. It broadened their religious views and kindled in their hearts the yearning for God-realization; it made them understand and appreciate the rituals and symbols of Hindu religion, convinced them of the manifestation of God in diverse forms, and deepened their thoughts about the harmony of religions. The Master, too, was impressed by the sincerity of many of the Brahmo devotees. He told them about his own realizations and explained to them the essence of his teachings, such as the necessity of renunciation, sincerity in the pursuit of one's own course of discipline, faith in God, the performance of one's duties without thought of results, and discrimination between the Real and the unreal.
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-melting love of the Purana. Twenty hours out of twenty-four he would speak without out rest or respite. He gave to all his sympathy and enlightenment, and he touched them with that strange power of the soul which could not but melt even the most hardened. And people understood him according to their powers of comprehension.
^The word is generally used in the text to denote one devoted to God, a worshipper of the Personal God, or a follower of the path of love. A devotee of Sri Ramakrishna is one who is devoted to Sri Ramakrishna and follows his teachings. The word "disciple", when used in connexion with Sri Ramakrishna, refers to one who had been initiated into spiritual life by Sri Ramakrishna and who regarded him as his guru.
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Balaram Bose came of a wealthy Vaishnava family. From his youth he had shown a deep religious temperament and had devoted his time to meditation, prayer, and the study of the Vaishnava scriptures. He was very much impressed by Sri Ramakrishna even at their first meeting. He asked Sri Ramakrishna whether God really existed and, if so, whether a man could realize Him. The Master said: "God reveals Himself to the devotee who thinks of Him as his nearest and dearest. Because you do not draw response by praying to Him once, you must not conclude that He does not exist. Pray to God, thinking of Him as dearer than your very self. He is much attached to His devotees. He comes to a man even before He is sought. There is none more intimate and affectionate than God." Balaram had never before heard God spoken of in such forceful words; every one of the words seemed true to him. Under the Master's influence he outgrew the conventions of the Vaishnava worship and became one of the most beloved of the disciples. It was at his home that the Master slept whenever he spent a night in Calcutta.
--- MAHENDRA OR M.
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Mahimacharan and Pratap Hazra were two devotees outstanding for their pretentiousness and idiosyncrasies. But the Master showed them his unfailing love and kindness, though he was aware of their shortcomings. Mahimacharan Chakravarty had met the Master long before the arrival of the other disciples. He had had the intention of leading a spiritual life, but a strong desire to acquire name and fame was his weakness. He claimed to have been initiated by Totapuri and used to say that he had been following the path of knowledge according to his guru's instructions. He possessed a large library of English and Sanskrit books. But though he pretended to have read them, most of the leaves were uncut. The Master knew all his limitations, yet enjoyed listening to him recite from the Vedas and other scriptures. He would always exhort Mahima to meditate on the meaning of the scriptural texts and to practise spiritual discipline.
Pratap Hazra, a middle-aged man, hailed from a village near Kamarpukur. He was not altogether unresponsive to religious feelings. On a moment's impulse he had left his home, aged mother, wife, and children, and had found shelter in the temple garden at Dakshineswar, where he intended to lead a spiritual life. He loved to argue, and the Master often pointed him out as an example of barren argumentation. He was hypercritical of others and cherished an exaggerated notion of his own spiritual advancement. He was mischievous and often tried to upset the minds of the Master's young disciples, criticizing them for their happy and joyous life and asking them to devote their time to meditation. The Master teasingly compared Hazra to Jatila and Kutila, the two women who always created obstructions in Krishna's sport with the gopis, and said that Hazra lived at Dakshineswar to "thicken the plot" by adding complications.
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The Europeanized Kristodas Pal did not approve of the Master's emphasis on renunciation and said; "Sir, this cant of renunciation has al most ruined the country. It is for this reason that the Indians are a subject nation today. Doing good to others, bringing education to the door of the ignorant, and above all, improving the material conditions of the country — these should be our duty now. The cry of religion and renunciation would, on the contrary, only weaken us. You should advise the young men of Bengal to resort only to such acts as will uplift the country." Sri Ramakrishna gave him a searching look and found no divine light within, "You man of poor understanding!" Sri Ramakrishna said sharply. "You dare to slight in these terms renunciation and piety, which our scriptures describe as the greatest of all virtues! After reading two pages of English you think you have come to know the world! You appear to think you are omniscient. Well, have you seen those tiny crabs that are born in the Ganges just when the rains set in? In this big universe you are even less significant than one of those small creatures. How dare you talk of helping the world? The Lord will look to that. You haven't the power in you to do it." After a pause the Master continued: "Can you explain to me how you can work for others? I know what you mean by helping them. To feed a number of persons, to treat them when they are sick, to construct a road or dig a well — isn't that all? These, are good deeds, no doubt, but how trifling in comparison with the vastness of the universe! How far can a man advance in this line? How many people can you save from famine? Malaria has ruined a whole province; what could you do to stop its onslaught? God alone looks after the world. Let a man first realize Him. Let a man get the authority from God and be endowed with His power; then, and then alone, may he think of doing good to others. A man should first be purged of all egotism. Then alone will the Blissful Mother ask him to work for the world." Sri Ramakrishna mistrusted philanthropy that presumed to pose as charity. He warned people against it. He saw in most acts of philanthropy nothing but egotism, vanity, a desire for glory, a barren excitement to kill the boredom of life, or an attempt to soothe a guilty conscience. True charity, he taught, is the result of love of God — service to man in a spirit of worship.
--- MONASTIC DISCIPLES
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In a state of mental conflict and torture of soul, Narendra came to Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar. He was then eighteen years of age and had been in college two years. He entered the Master's room accompanied by some light-hearted friends. At Sri Ramakrishna's request he sang a few songs, pouring his whole soul into them, and the Master went into samadhi. A few minutes later Sri Ramakrishna suddenly left his seat, took Narendra by the hand, and led him to the screened verandah north of his room. They were alone. Addressing Narendra most tenderly, as if he were a friend of long acquaintance, the Master said: "Ah! You have come very late. Why have you been so unkind as to make me wait all these days? My ears are tired of hearing the futile words of worldly men. Oh, how I have longed to pour my spirit into the heart of someone fitted to receive my message!" He talked thus, sobbing all the time. Then, standing before Narendra with folded hands, he addressed him as Narayana, born on earth to remove the misery of humanity. Grasping Narendra's hand, he asked him to come again, alone, and very soon. Narendra was startled. "What is this I have come to see?" he said to himself. "He must be stark mad. Why, I am the son of Viswanath Dutta. How dare he speak this way to me?"
When they returned to the room and Narendra heard the Master speaking to others, he was surprised to find in his words an inner logic, a striking sincerity, and a convincing proof of his spiritual nature. In answer to Narendra's question, "Sir, have you seen God?" the Master said: "Yes, I have seen God. I have seen Him more tangibly than I see you. I have talked to Him more intimately than I am talking to you." Continuing, the Master said: "But, my child, who wants to see God? People shed jugs of tears for money, wife, and children. But if they would weep for God for only one day they would surely see Him." Narendra was amazed. These words he could not doubt. This was the first time he had ever heard a man saying that he had seen God. But he could not reconcile these words of the Master with the scene that had taken place on the verandah only a few minutes before. He concluded that Sri Ramakrishna was a monomaniac, and returned home rather puzzled in mind.
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Two more young men, Sarada Prasanna and Tulasi, complete the small band of the Master's disciples later to embrace the life of the wandering monk. With the exception of the elder Gopal, all of them were in their teens or slightly over. They came from middle-class Bengali families, and most of them were students in school or college. Their parents and relatives had envisaged for them bright worldly careers. They came to Sri Ramakrishna with pure bodies, vigorous minds, and uncontaminated souls. All were born with unusual spiritual attributes. Sri Ramakrishna accepted them, even at first sight, as his children, relatives, friends, and companions. His magic touch unfolded them. And later each according to his measure reflected the life of the Master, becoming a torch-bearer of his message across land and sea.
--- WOMAN DEVOTEES
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At Syampukur the devotees led an intense life. Their attendance on the Master was in itself a form of spiritual discipline. His mind was constantly soaring to an exalted plane of consciousness. Now and then they would catch the contagion of his spiritual fervour. They sought to divine the meaning of this illness of the Master, whom most of them had accepted as an Incarnation of God. One group, headed by Girish with his robust optimism and great power of imagination, believed that the illness was a mere pretext to serve a deeper purpose. The Master had willed his illness in order to bring the devotees together and promote solidarity among them. As soon as this purpose was served, he would himself get rid of the disease. A second group thought that the Divine Mother, in whose hand the Master was an instrument, had brought about this illness to serve Her own mysterious ends. But the young rationalists, led by Narendra, refused to ascribe a
supernatural cause to a natural phenomenon. They believed that the Master's body, a material thing, was subject, like all other material things, to physical laws. Growth, development, decay, and death were laws of nature to which the Master's body could not but respond. But though holding differing views, they all believed that it was to him alone that they must look for the attainment of their spiritual goal.
0.00 - Publishers Note C, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The present volume consists of three books: Light of Lights, Eight Talks and Sweet Mother; there are also translations from Sanskrit, Pali, Bengali and French. These, along with the translations of the Dhammapada and Charyapada, have been mostly serialised in Ashram journals.
His original writings in French have also been included here. We are grateful to the Government of India for a grant towards meeting the cost of publication of this volume.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The chapter many therefore be considered as the most complete
treatise on existence ever written.
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adumbration of the most daring thesis in this book-
Father and Son are not really two, but one; their unity
--
There was mosheh.
There was Dionysus.(7)
--
mosheh, moses, the founder of the Hebrew system.
Dionysus, probably an ecstatic from the East.
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this is the cause of most religious controversies.
Paragraph 1, however, is Frater Perdurabo's formula-
--
understood in the most ordinary and commonplace
way, without any mystical sense.
--
The chapter should be read most carefully in connection with
the 10th Aethyr. It is to that dramatic experience that it refers.
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been the most acceptable offerings to all the gods, but
especially the Christian God.
--
In paragraphs 7 and 8 we find a most important
statement, a practical aspect of the fact that all truth
--
The last of these facts is the one of which I am most
certain.
--
Master of the Temple, Liber 418 will explain most of the
allusions in this chapter.
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discover the most formidable secret of that degree con-
cealed in the paragraph.
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most of all of every herald of the Dawn!
O ye who dwell in the City of the Pyramids beneath
--
Of that most "high" and that most holy game,
Shemhamphorash!
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ear, identifying the vastness of the most Holy with the obscene worm that
gnaws the bowels of the damned.
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commentary. But it does so, or my most gifted Chela
and myself would hardly have been at the pains to
--
of many most worthy brethren that we have yielded up
that time and thought which gold could not have bought,
--
favourite Chela), yet policemen, unless most severely
repressed, would be dangerous wild beasts.
--
Any yet again! Do we not find that the most robust
of men express no thoughts at all? They eat, drink,
--
Also there is a souffle most exquisite of Chow-Chow.
These did I devise.
--
Then said the fore most and most foolish; Master, it
is nothing; but here is an hundred thousand
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
But, all doctrinal writing is in some measure formal and impersonal, while the autobiographer tends to omit what he regards as trifling matters and suffers from the further disadvantage of being unable to say how he strikes other people and in what way he affects their lives. Moreover, most saints have left neither writings nor self-portraits, and for knowledge of their lives, their characters and their teachings, we are forced to rely upon the records made by their disciples who, in most cases, have proved themselves singularly incompetent as reporters and biographers. Hence the special interest attaching to this enormously detailed account of the daily life and conversations of Sri Ramakrishna.
"M", as the author modestly styles himself, was peculiarly qualified for his task. To a reverent love for his master, to a deep and experiential knowledge of that master's teaching, he added a prodigious memory for the small happenings of each day and a happy gift for recording them in an interesting and realistic way. Making good use of his natural gifts and of the circumstances in which he found himself, "M" produced a book unique, so far as my knowledge goes, in the literature of hagiography. No other saint has had so able and indefatigable a Boswell. Never have the small events of a contemplative's daily life been described with such a wealth of intimate detail. Never have the casual and unstudied utterances of a great religious teacher been set down with so minute a fidelity. To Western readers, it is true, this fidelity and this wealth of detail are sometimes a trifle disconcerting; for the social, religious and intellectual frames of reference within which Sri Ramakrishna did his thinking and expressed his feelings were entirely Indian. But after the first few surprises and bewilderments, we begin to find something peculiarly stimulating and instructive about the very strangeness and, to our eyes, the eccentricity of the man revealed to us in "M's" narrative. What a scholastic philosopher would call the "accidents" of Ramakrishna's life were intensely Hindu and therefore, so far as we in the West are concerned, unfamiliar and hard to understand; its "essence", however, was intensely mystical and therefore universal. To read through these conversations in which mystical doctrine alternates with an unfamiliar kind of humour, and where discussions of the oddest aspects of Hindu mythology give place to the most profound and subtle utterances about the nature of Ultimate Reality, is in itself a liberal, education in humility, tolerance and suspense of judgment. We must be grateful to the translator for his excellent version of a book so curious and delightful as a biographical document, so precious, at the same time, for what it teaches us of the life of the spirit.
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The book contains many songs sung either by the Master or by the devotees. These form an important feature of the spiritual tradition of Bengal and were for the most part written by men of mystical experience. For giving the songs their present form I am grateful to Mr. John Moffitt, Jr.
In the preparation of this manuscript I have received ungrudging help from several friends. Miss Margaret Woodrow Wilson and Mr.Joseph Campbell have worked hard in editing my translation. Mrs.Elizabeth Davidson has typed, more than once, the entire manuscript and rendered other valuable help. Mr.Aldous Huxley has laid me under a debt of gratitude by writing the Foreword. I sincerely thank them all.
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He was an educationist all his life both in a spiritual and in a secular sense. After he passed out of College, he took up work as headmaster in a number of schools in succession Narail High School, City School, Ripon College School, Metropolitan School, Aryan School, Oriental School, Oriental Seminary and Model School. The causes of his migration from school to school were that he could not get on with some of the managements on grounds of principles and that often his spiritual mood drew him away to places of pilgrimage for long periods. He worked with some of the most noted public men of the time like Iswar Chandra Vidysgar and Surendranath Banerjee. The latter appointed him as a professor in the City and Ripon Colleges where he taught subjects like English, philosophy, history and economics. In his later days he took over the Morton School, and he spent his time in the staircase room of the third floor of it, administering the school and preaching the message of the Master. He was much respected in educational circles where he was usually referred to as Rector Mahashay. A teacher who had worked under him writes thus in warm appreciation of his teaching methods: "Only when I worked with him in school could I appreciate what a great educationist he was. He would come down to the level of his students when teaching, though he himself was so learned, so talented. Ordinarily teachers confine their instruction to what is given in books without much thought as to whether the student can accept it or not. But M., would first of all gauge how much the student could take in and by what means. He would employ aids to teaching like maps, pictures and diagrams, so that his students could learn by seeing. Thirty years ago (from 1953) when the question of imparting education through the medium of the mother tongue was being discussed, M. had already employed Bengali as the medium of instruction in the Morton School." (M The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda Part I. P. 15.)
Imparting secular education was, however, only his profession ; his main concern was with the spiritual regeneration of man a calling for which Destiny seems to have chosen him. From his childhood he was deeply pious, and he used to be moved very much by Sdhus, temples and Durga Puja celebrations. The piety and eloquence of the great Brahmo leader of the times, Keshab Chander Sen, elicited a powerful response from the impressionable mind of Mahendra Nath, as it did in the case of many an idealistic young man of Calcutta, and prepared him to receive the great Light that was to dawn on him with the coming of Sri Ramakrishna into his life.
--
The life of Sdhan and holy association that he started on at the feet of the Master, he continued all through his life. He has for this reason been most appropriately described as a Grihastha-Sannysi (householder-Sannysin). Though he was forbidden by the Master to become a Sannysin, his reverence for the Sannysa ideal was whole-hearted and was without any reservation. So after Sri Ramakrishna's passing away, while several of the Master's householder devotees considered the young Sannysin disciples of the Master as inexperienced and inconsequential, M. stood by them with the firm faith that the Master's life and message were going to be perpetuated only through them. Swami Vivekananda wrote from America in a letter to the inmates of the Math: "When Sri Thkur (Master) left the body, every one gave us up as a few unripe urchins. But M. and a few others did not leave us in the lurch. We cannot repay our debt to them." (Swami Raghavananda's article on M. in Prabuddha Bharata vol. XXX P. 442.)
M. spent his weekends and holidays with the monastic brethren who, after the Master's demise, had formed themselves into an Order with a Math at Baranagore, and participated in the intense life of devotion and meditation that they followed. At other times he would retire to Dakshineswar or some garden in the city and spend several days in spiritual practice taking simple self-cooked food. In order to feel that he was one with all mankind he often used to go out of his home at dead of night, and like a wandering Sannysin, sleep with the waifs on some open verandah or footpath on the road.
--
Besides the prompting of his inherent instinct, the main inducement for M. to keep this diary of his experiences at Dakshineswar was his desire to provide himself with a means for living in holy company at all times. Being a school teacher, he could be with the Master only on Sundays and other holidays, and it was on his diary that he depended for 'holy company' on other days. The devotional scriptures like the Bhagavata say that holy company is the first and most important means for the generation and growth of devotion. For, in such company man could hear talks on spiritual matters and listen to the glorification of Divine attri butes, charged with the fervour and conviction emanating from the hearts of great lovers of God. Such company is therefore the one certain means through which Sraddha (Faith), Rati (attachment to God) and Bhakti (loving devotion) are generated. The diary of his visits to Dakshineswar provided M. with material for re-living, through reading and contemplation, the holy company he had had earlier, even on days when he was not able to visit Dakshineswar. The wealth of details and the vivid description of men and things in the midst of which the sublime conversations are set, provide excellent material to re-live those experiences for any one with imaginative powers. It was observed by M.'s disciples and admirers that in later life also whenever he was free or alone, he would be pouring over his diary, transporting himself on the wings of imagination to the glorious days he spent at the feet of the Master.
During the Master's lifetime M. does not seem to have revealed the contents of his diary to any one. There is an unconfirmed tradition that when the Master saw him taking notes, he expressed apprehension at the possibility of his utilising these to publicise him like Keshab Sen; for the Great Master was so full of the spirit of renunciation and humility that he disliked being lionised. It must be for this reason that no one knew about this precious diary of M. for a decade until he brought out selections from it as a pamphlet in English in 1897 with the Holy Mother's blessings and permission. The Holy Mother, being very much pleased to hear parts of the diary read to her in Bengali, wrote to M.: "When I heard the Kathmrita, (Bengali name of the book) I felt as if it was he, the Master, who was saying all that." ( Ibid Part I. P 37.)
--
In 1905 he retired from the active life of a Professor and devoted his remaining twenty-seven years exclusively to the preaching of the life and message of the Great Master. He bought the Morton Institution from its original proprietors and shifted it to a commodious four-storeyed house at 50 Amherst Street, where it flourished under his management as one of the most efficient educational institutions in Calcutta. He generally occupied a staircase room at the top of it, cooking his own meal which consisted only of milk and rice without variation, and attended to all his personal needs himself. His dress also was the simplest possible. It was his conviction that limitation of personal wants to the minimum is an important aid to holy living. About one hour in the morning he would spend in inspecting the classes of the school, and then retire to his staircase room to pour over his diary and live in the divine at mosphere of the earthly days of the Great Master, unless devotees and admirers had already gathered in his room seeking his holy company.
In appearance, M. looked a Vedic Rishi. Tall and stately in bearing, he had a strong and well-built body, an unusually broad chest, high forehead and arms extending to the knees. His complexion was fair and his prominent eyes were always tinged with the expression of the divine love that filled his heart. Adorned with a silvery beard that flowed luxuriantly down his chest, and a shining face radiating the serenity and gravity of holiness, M. was as imposing and majestic as he was handsome and engaging in appearance. Humorous, sweet-tongued and eloquent when situations required, this great Maharishi of our age lived only to sing the glory of Sri Ramakrishna day and night.
0.00 - The Wellspring of Reality, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
We are not seeking a license to ramble wordily. We are intent only upon being adequately concise. General systems science discloses the existence of minimum sets of variable factors that uniquely govern each and every system. Lack of knowledge concerning all the factors and the failure to include them in our integral imposes false conclusions. Let us not make the error of inadequacy in examining our most comprehensive inventory of experience and thoughts regarding the evoluting affairs of all humanity.
There is an inherently minimum set of essential concepts and current information, cognizance of which could lead to our operating our planet Earth to the lasting satisfaction and health of all humanity. With this objective, we set out on our review of the spectrum of significant experiences and seek therein for the greatest meanings as well as for the family of generalized principles governing the realization of their optimum significance to humanity aboard our Sun circling planet Earth.
--
As Korzybski, the founder of general semantics, pointed out, the consequence of its single-tagging is that the rose becomes reflexively considered by man only as a red, white, or pink device for paying tribute to a beautiful girl, a thoughtful hostess, or last night's deceased acquaintance. The tagging of the complex biological process under the single title rose tends to detour human curiosity from further differentiation of its integral organic operations as well as from consideration of its interecological functionings aboard our planet. We don't know what a rose is, nor what may be its essential and unique cosmic function. Thus for long have we inadvertently deferred potential discovery of the essential roles in Universe that are performed complementarily by many, if not most, of the phenomena we experience.
But, goaded by youth, we older ones are now taking second looks at al most everything. And that promises many ultimately favorable surprises. The oldsters do have vast experience banks not available to the youth. Their memory banks, integrated and reviewed, may readily disclose generalized principles of eminent importance.
--
Living upon the threshold between yesterday and tomorrow, which threshold we reflexively assumed in some long ago yesterday to constitute an eternal now, we are aware of the daily-occurring, vast multiplication of experience generated information by which we potentially may improve our understanding of our yesterdays' experiences and therefrom derive our most farsighted preparedness for successive tomorrows.
Anticipating, cooperating with, and employing the forces of nature can be accomplished only by the mind. The wisdom manifest in the omni-interorderliness of the family of generalized principles operative in Universe can be employed only by the highest integrity of engagement of the mind's metaphysical intuiting and formulating capabilities.
--
Intellectually advantaged with no more than the child's facile, lucid eagerness to understand constructively and usefully the major transformational events of our own times, it probably is synergetically advantageous to review swiftly the most comprehensive inventory of the most powerful human environment transforming events of our totally known and reasonably extended history. This is especially useful in winnowing out and understanding the most significant of the metaphysical revolutions now recognized as swiftly tending to reconstitute history. By such a comprehensively schematic review, we might identify also the unprecedented and possibly heretofore overlooked pivotal revolutionary events not only of today but also of those trending to be central to tomorrow's most cataclysmic changes.
It is synergetically reasonable to assume that relativistic evaluation of any of the separate drives of art, science, education, economics, and ideology, and their complexedly interacting trends within our own times, may be had only through the most comprehensive historical sweep of which we are capable.
There could be produced a synergetic understanding of humanity's cosmic functioning, which, until now, had been both undiscovered and unpredictable due to our deliberate and exclusive preoccupation only with the separate statistics of separate events. As a typical consequence of the latter, we observe our society's persistent increase of educational and employment specialization despite the already mentioned, well-documented scientific disclosure that the extinctions of biological species are always occasioned by overspecialization. Specialization's preoccupation with parts deliberately forfeits the opportunity to apprehend and comprehend what is provided exclusively by synergy.
Today's news consists of aggregates of fragments. Anyone who has taken part in any event that has subsequently appeared in the news is aware of the gross disparity between the actual and the reported events. The insistence by reporters upon having advance "releases" of what, for instance, convocation speakers are supposedly going to say but in fact have not yet said, automatically discredits the value of the largely prefabricated news. We also learn frequently of prefabricated and prevaricated events of a complex nature purportedly undertaken for purposes either of suppressing or rigging the news, which in turn perverts humanity's tactical information resources. All history becomes suspect. Probably our most polluted resource is the tactical information to which humanity spontaneously reflexes.
Furthermore, today's hyperspecialization in socioeconomic functioning has come to preclude important popular philosophic considerations of the synergetic significance of, for instance, such historically important events as the discovery within the general region of experimental inquiry known as virology that the as-yet popularly assumed validity of the concepts of animate and inanimate phenomena have been experimentally invalidated. Atoms and crystal complexes of atoms were held to be obviously inanimate; the protoplasmic cells of biological phenomena were held to be obviously animate. It was deemed to be common sense that warm- blooded, moist, and soft-skinned humans were clearly not to be confused with hard, cold granite or steel objects. A clear-cut threshold between animate and inanimate was therefore assumed to exist as a fundamental dichotomy of all physical phenomena. This seemingly placed life exclusively within the bounds of the physical.
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
that even the most objective of their observations are steeped in
the conventions they adopted at the outset and by forms or
--
that what stares us in the face is the most difficult to perceive.
The child has to learn to separate out the images which assail
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, #Integral Yoga
This period of outer retirement was one of intense Sadhana and of intellectual activity it was also one during which he acted on external events, though he was not dedicated outwardly to a public cause. About his own retirement he writes: "But this did not mean, as most people supposed, that he [Sri Aurobindo] had retired into some height of spiritual experience devoid of any further interest in the world or in the fate of India. It could not mean that, for the very principle of his Yoga was not only to realise the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take all life and all world activity into the scope of this spiritual consciousness and action and to base life on the Spirit and give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened, whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there are other forces and powers that can and do act from behind and from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in spiritual consciousness, though all do not care to possess or, possessing, to use it and this power is greater than any other and more effective. It was this force which, as soon as he attained to it, he used at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards in a constant action upon the world forces."[1]
Twice he found it necessary to go out of his way to make public pronouncements on important world-issues, which shows distinctly that renunciation of life is not a part of his Yoga. "The first was in relation to the Second World War. At the beginning he did not actively concern himself with it, but when it appeared as if Hitler would crush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate the world, he began to intervene."[2]
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
as the two most popular figures in India. On the contrary it
is outside India that they are most popular; and for foreigners
these two men seem to be the only ones who represent Indian
--
India has far greater geniuses than these and in the most
varied fields, scientific, literary, philosophic, spiritual. It is true
--
which the most dangerous forces of destruction do their work.
Even here, in this poor little nook, we have not escaped the
0.01 - Life and Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the profoundest reason of its being in that general truth and that unceasing aim of Nature which it represents, and find by virtue of this new self-knowledge and self-appreciation its own recovered and larger synthesis. Reorganising itself, it will enter more easily and powerfully into the reorganised life of the race which its processes claim to lead within into the most secret penetralia and upward to the highest altitudes of existence and personality.
In the right view both of life and of Yoga all life is either consciously or subconsciously a Yoga. For we mean by this term a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the secret potentialities latent in the being and - highest condition of victory in that effort - a union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cos mos. But all life, when we look behind its appearances, is a vast Yoga of Nature who attempts in the conscious and the subconscious to realise her perfection in an ever-increasing expression of her yet unrealised potentialities and to unite herself with her own divine reality. In man, her thinker, she for the first time upon this Earth devises selfconscious means and willed arrangements of activity by which this great purpose may be more swiftly and puissantly attained.
--
God. Therefore we see in India that a sharp incompatibility has been created between life in the world and spiritual growth and perfection, and although the tradition and ideal of a victorious harmony between the inner attraction and the outer demand remains, it is little or else very imperfectly exemplified. In fact, when a man turns his vision and energy inward and enters on the path of Yoga, he is popularly supposed to be lost inevitably to the great stream of our collective existence and the secular effort of humanity. So strongly has the idea prevailed, so much has it been emphasised by prevalent philosophies and religions that to escape from life is now commonly considered as not only the necessary condition, but the general object of Yoga. No synthesis of Yoga can be satisfying which does not, in its aim, reunite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life or, in its method, not only permit but favour the harmony of our inner and outer activities and experiences in the divine consummation of both. For man is precisely that term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the forms of the lower. To avoid the life which is given him for the realisation of that possibility, can never be either the indispensable condition or the whole and ultimate object of his supreme endeavour or of his most powerful means of self-fulfilment. It can only be a temporary necessity under certain conditions or a specialised extreme effort imposed on the individual so as to prepare a greater general possibility for the race. The true and full object and utility of Yoga can only be accomplished when the conscious
Yoga in man becomes, like the subconscious Yoga in Nature, outwardly conterminous with life itself and we can once more, looking out both on the path and the achievement, say in a more perfect and luminous sense: "All life is Yoga."
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
suggestion that acts in these cases - most often a suggestion
in the subconscient mind; but it is made stronger by becoming
--
body consciousness being most often and in al most everybody
subconscious.
--
Which activity will most fully utilise all the energies?
The one that is done in the most perfect spirit of consecration.
20 August 1932
--
the "stores", and I was most surprised to see that you did not
ask for anything on the first. You would do well to ask strictly
--
confusion, sometimes producing the most unfortunate results as
in this case. I will explain: the idea of a big frame is excellent
--
(The Mother underlined most of the remarks above
in red pencil.)
--
conscientious) is the most difficult to achieve.
Several times we have spoken in a general way about reducing the number of workers. I have always said Yes, and I would
--
This is what I see most clearly at the moment.
5 June 1934
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And these self-exceedings are the revelation of that in her which is most divine or else most diabolical, but in either case the most puissant to bring her rapidly forward towards her goal.
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 fundamentally 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
0.03 - III - The Evening Sittings, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo was never a social man in the current sense of the term and definitely he was not a man of the crowd. This was due to his grave temperament, not to any feeling of superiority or to repulsion for men. At Baroda there was an Officers' Club which was patronised by the Maharajah and though Sri Aurobindo enrolled himself as a member he hardly went to the Club even on special occasions. He rather liked a small congenial circle of friends and spent most of his evenings with them whenever he was free and not occupied with his studies or other works. After Baroda when he went to Calcutta there was hardly any time in the storm and stress of revolutionary politics to permit him to lead a 'social life'. What little time he could spare from his incessant activities was spent in the house of Raja Subodh Mallick or at the Grey Street house. In the Karmayogin office he used to sit after the office hours till late chatting with a few persons or trying automatic writing. Strange dictations used to be received sometimes: one of them was the following: "Moni [Suresh Chakravarty] will bomb Sir Edward Grey when he will come as the Viceroy of India." In later years at Pondicherry there used to be a joke that Sir Edward took such a fright at the prospect of Moni's bombing him that he never came to India!
After Sri Aurobindo had come to Pondicherry from Chandernagore, he entered upon an intense period of Sadhana and for a few months he refused to receive anyone. After a time he used to sit down to talk in the evening and on some days tried automatic writing. Yogic Sadhan, a small book, was the result. In 1913 Sri Aurobindo moved to Rue Franois Martin No. 41 where he used to receive visitors at fixed times. This was generally in the morning between 9 and 10.30.
--
But there were occasions when he did give his independent, personal views on some problems, on events or other subjects. Even then it was never an authoritarian pronouncement. most often it appeared to be a logically worked out and al most inevitable conclusion expressed quite impersonally though with firm and sincere conviction. This impersonality was such a prominent trait of his personality! Even in such matters as dispatching a letter or a telegram it would not be a command from him to a disciple to carry out the task. most often during his usual passage to the dining room he would stop on the way, drop in on the company of four or five disciples and, holding out the letter or the telegram, would say in the most amiable and yet the most impersonal way: "I suppose this has to be sent." And it would be for someone in the group instantly to volunteer and take it. The expression he very often used was "It was done" or "It happened", not "I did."
From 1918 to 1922, we gathered at No. 41, Rue Franois Martin, called the Guest House, upstairs, on a broad verandah into which four rooms opened and whose main piece of furniture was a small table 3' x 1' covered with a blue cotton cloth. That is where Sri Aurobindo used to sit in a hard wooden chair behind the table with a few chairs in front for the visitors or for the disciples.
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
With my most affectionate blessings.
1931
--
stories are not true) is one of the most innocent pursuits of
this restless mind. Of course, it must become calm and quiet
--
mechanical thoughts of the most material mind make in their
own domain.
--
You are right; nothing is better than to realise our most beautiful
dreams and nothing makes us stronger and happier!
--
beautiful. The sari too will be the most beautiful one in
Your collection of saris embroidered by us.
--
Her blouse is truly the most beautiful one.
I cannot say whether it is the most beautiful or not. Each of
the embroidered saris has its own beauty; but it is true that this
--
My dear child, this is certainly a most unexpected way of interpreting this vision. I hadn't given it that meaning at all. The
images in these visions are always symbolic and should be taken
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is possible also to give the material man and his life a moderate spirituality by accustoming him to regard in a religious spirit all the institutions of life and its customary activities. The creation of such spiritualised communities in the East has been one of the greatest triumphs of Spirit over Matter. Yet here, too, there is a defect; for this often tends only to the creation of a religious temperament, the most outward form of spirituality.
Its higher manifestations, even the most splendid and puissant, either merely increase the number of souls drawn out of social life and so impoverish it or disturb the society for a while by a momentary elevation. The truth is that neither the mental effort nor the spiritual impulse can suffice, divorced from each other, to overcome the immense resistance of material Nature.
She demands their alliance in a complete effort before she will suffer a complete change in humanity. But, usually, these two great agents are unwilling to make to each other the necessary concessions.
--
In India, for the last thousand years and more, the spiritual life and the material have existed side by side to the exclusion of the progressive mind. Spirituality has made terms for itself with Matter by renouncing the attempt at general progress. It has obtained from society the right of free spiritual development for all who assume some distinctive symbol, such as the garb of the Sannyasin, the recognition of that life as man's goal and those who live it as worthy of an absolute reverence, and the casting of society itself into such a religious mould that its most customary acts should be accompanied by a formal reminder of the spiritual symbolism of life and its ultimate destination. On the other hand, there was conceded to society the right of inertia and immobile self-conservation. The concession destroyed much of the value of the terms. The religious mould being fixed, the formal reminder tended to become a routine and to lose its living sense. The constant attempts to change the mould by new sects and religions ended only in a new routine or a modification of the old; for the saving element of the free and active mind had been exiled. The material life, handed over to the Ignorance, the purposeless and endless duality, became a leaden and dolorous yoke from which flight was the only escape.
The schools of Indian Yoga lent themselves to the compromise. Individual perfection or liberation was made the aim, seclusion of some kind from the ordinary activities the condition, the renunciation of life the culmination. The teacher gave his knowledge only to a small circle of disciples. Or if a wider movement was attempted, it was still the release of the individual soul that remained the aim. The pact with an immobile society was, for the most part, observed.
The utility of the compromise in the then actual state of the world cannot be doubted. It secured in India a society which lent itself to the preservation and the worship of spirituality, a country apart in which as in a fortress the highest spiritual ideal could maintain itself in its most absolute purity unoverpowered by the siege of the forces around it. But it was a compromise, not an absolute victory. The material life lost the divine impulse to growth, the spiritual preserved by isolation its height and purity, but sacrificed its full power and serviceableness to the world. Therefore, in the divine Providence the country of the Yogins and the Sannyasins has been forced into a strict and imperative contact with the very element it had rejected, the element of the progressive Mind, so that it might recover what was now wanting to it.
We have to recognise once more that the individual exists not in himself alone but in the collectivity and that individual perfection and liberation are not the whole sense of God's intention in the world. The free use of our liberty includes also the liberation of others and of mankind; the perfect utility of our perfection is, having realised in ourselves the divine symbol, to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in others.
0.04 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
them. The ropes may not be tight, but most probably they will
spoil the nose of the bullocks. There again it seems to me that it
--
The bullocks seem to like this man and this is the most important
point.
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Nature and kept within the narrow bounds of her normal operations. In the ancient tradition of Hathayoga it has always been supposed that this conquest could be pushed so far even as to conquer to a great extent the force of gravitation. By various subsidiary but elaborate processes the Hathayogin next contrives to keep the body free from all impurities and the nervous system unclogged for those exercises of respiration which are his most important instruments. These are called pran.ayama, the control of the breath or vital power; for breathing is the chief physical functioning of the vital forces. Pranayama, for the Hathayogin, serves a double purpose. First, it completes the perfection of the body. The vitality is liberated from many of the ordinary necessities of physical Nature; robust health, prolonged youth, often an extraordinary longevity are attained.
On the other hand, Pranayama awakens the coiled-up serpent of the Pranic dynamism in the vital sheath and opens to the Yogin fields of consciousness, ranges of experience, abnormal faculties denied to the ordinary human life while it puissantly intensifies such normal powers and faculties as he already possesses.
--
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 ut most 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
--
Love and Joy and a full acceptance of the works of That which is known; dedicated Works to the entire love of the Master of the Sacrifice and the deepest knowledge of His ways and His being. It is in this triple path that we come most readily to the absolute knowledge, love and service of the One in all beings and in the entire cosmic manifestation.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I envelop you always in peace and force, but most of the
time you close yourself and refuse what I give you.
--
realisation of the Divine - must be the most important thing to
you, the only thing worth living for.
--
(The following letters are undated. most were written
between 1932 and 1938 during the sadhak's first stay in
--
The most important [thing] is a steady, quiet endurance that
does not allow any upsetting or depression to interfere with your
--
There is a depression. And most often I feel that my
mind is tired. I don't know why. Today, my vital too is
--
The vital is a most bothersome character who prefers to be
bad rather than to go unnoticed. You must teach him that he is
--
to do, and the most important if you want to conquer the
difficulty, is to obey.
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Hathayoga and Rajayoga are thus successively practised. And in a recent unique example, in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity first driving straight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were, the kingdom of heaven by violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after another and extracting the substance out of it with an incredible rapidity, always to return to the heart of the whole matter, the realisation and possession of God by the power of love, by the extension of inborn spirituality into various experience and by the spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge. Such an example cannot be generalised. Its object also was special and temporal, to exemplify in the great and decisive experience of a master-soul the truth, now most necessary to humanity, towards which a world long divided into jarring sects and schools is with difficulty labouring, that all sects are forms and fragments of a single integral truth and all disciplines labour in their different ways towards one supreme experience. To know, be and possess
42
--
Strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for our weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It "makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills." The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet, in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of
--
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in
Nature, in the other it becomes swift and self-conscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
impresses indelibly upon the mind the fundamental concept of this most sublime of
all purgations. Marvellous, indeed, are its effects, from the first enkindlings and
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What we want to bring to the earth can hardly be called a revolution, although it will be the most marvellous change ever seen;
in any case this cannot be compared at all with the bloody revolutions which quite uselessly tear up countries without bringing
--
chronologically. The replies here were written between 1933 and 1949 - most of them
between 1933 and 1935.
--
Presence is one of the most important points of the sadhana.
Ask X, he will tell you that the Presence is not a matter of faith
--
as real and tangible to the consciousness as the most material
phenomenon.
--
Tell me what you fear most to tell me, and immediately you will
feel yourself closer to me.
--
My most beloved Mother, the idea of separation opens
between You and me like a frightening abyss. I am not
--
My most beloved Mother, an introspection has revealed
to me many things. There is a jealousy in me which blinds
--
practice, and for this the most important thing to avoid is useless
talking. It is not work but useless talk which takes us away from
--
Of all things the most difficult is to bring the divine consciousness into the material world. Must the endeavour then be
given up because of this?
--
think much. The most obvious sign of the action of an
adverse force - it is this that I want to learn to see in
--
these so-called vital beings, most of them would be immediately
dissolved.
--
sorts of influences, most of which are hardly commendable.
A yogi ought to accept and digest all dirt with a perfect
--
It is just when one is innocent that one ought to be most indifferent to ill-treatment, because there is nothing to blame oneself
for and one has the approbation of one's conscience to console
--
My most beloved Mother, I think it would be better to
avoid a party of this kind.
--
The most important is to master yourself and never lose your
temper. If you don't have control over yourself, how can you
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, you are my child and it is true that of all things it is the most
important.... Dear child, I am always with you and my love and
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
must choose the way that comes to him most naturally.
But each way has its demands in order to be truly effective.
--
that the prayers of the various religions are addressed. These religions most often choose, for various reasons, one of these gods
and transform him for their personal use into the supreme God.
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
to us. But most often, the picture we succeed in making of our
visitor is more like a caricature than a portrait.
--
the most opaque substances and acts even in the unconsciousness.
But then its action is slow and takes a very long time to
--
How can one most effectively call this wonderful
world of delight?
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
From a certain point of view, from the point of view of essentials and inner realities, it would appear that spirituality is, at least, the basis of the arts, if not the highest art. If art is meant to express the soul of things, and since the true soul of things is the divine element in them, then certainly spirituality, the discipline of coming in conscious contact with the Spirit, the Divine, must be accorded the regal seat in the hierarchy of the arts. Also, spirituality is the greatest and the most difficult of the arts; for it is the art of life. To make of life a perfect work of beauty, pure in its lines, faultless in its rhythm, replete with strength, iridescent: with light, vibrant with delightan embodiment of the Divine, in a wordis the highest ideal of spirituality; viewed the spirituality that Sri Aurobindo practisesis the ne plus ultra of artistic creation
The Gita, II. 40
01.01 - Sri Aurobindo - The Age of Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The ideal or perhaps one should say the policy of Real-politick is the thing needed in this world. To achieve something actually in the physical and material field, even a lesser something, is worth much more than speculating on high flaunting chimeras and indulging in day-dreams. Yes, but what is this something that has to be achieved in the material world? It is always an ideal. Even procuring food for each and every person, clothing and housing all is not less an ideal for all its concern about actuality. Only there are ideals and ideals; some are nearer to the earth, some seem to be in the background. But the mystery is that it is not always the ideal nearest to the earth which is the easiest to achieve or the first thing to be done first. Do we not see before our very eye show some very simple innocent social and economic changes are difficult to carry outthey bring in their train quite disproportionately gestures and movements of violence and revolution? That is because we seek to cure the symptoms and not touch the root of the disease. For even the most innocent-looking social, economic or political abuse has at its base far-reaching attitudes and life-urgeseven a spiritual outlook that have to be sought out and tackled first, if the attempt at reform is to be permanently and wholly successful. Even in mundane matters we do not dig deep enough, or rise high enough.
Indeed, looking from a standpoint that views the working of the forces that act and achieve and not the external facts and events and arrangements aloneone finds that things that are achieved on the material plane are first developed and matured and made ready behind the veil and at a given moment burst out and manifest themselves often unexpectedly and suddenly like a chick out of the shell or the young butterfly out of the cocoon. The Gita points to that truth of Nature when it says: "These beings have already been killed by Me." It is not that a long or strenuous physical planning and preparation alone or in the largest measure brings about a physical realisation. The deeper we go within, the farther we are away from the surface, the nearer we come to the roots and sources of things even most superficial. The spiritual view sees and declares that it is the Brahmic consciousness that holds, inspires, builds up Matter, the physical body and form of Brahman.
The highest ideal, the very highest which God and Nature and Man have in view, is not and cannot be kept in cold storage: it is being worked out even here and now, and it has to be worked out here and now. The ideal of the Life Divine embodies a central truth of existence, and however difficult or chimerical it may appear to be to the normal mind, it is the preoccupation of the inner being of manall other ways or attempts of curing human ills are faint echoes, masks, diversions of this secret urge at the source and heart of things. That ideal is a norm and a force that is ever dynamic and has become doubly so since it has entered the earth at mosphere and the waking human consciousness and is labouring there. It is always safer and wiser to recognise that fact, to help in the realisation of that truth and be profited by it.
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And the new society will be based not upon competition, nor even upon co-operation. It will not be an open conflict, neither will it be a convenient compromise of rival individual interests. It will be the organic expression of the collective soul of humanity, working and achieving through each and every individual soul its most wide-winging freedom, manifesting the godhead that is, proper to each and every one. It will be an organisation, most delicate and subtle and supple, the members of which will have no need to live upon one another but in and through one another. It will be, if you like, a henotheistic hierarchy in which everyone will be the greatest, since everyone is all and all everyone simultaneously.
The New Humanity will be something in the mould that we give to the gods. It will supply the link that we see missing between gods and men; it will be the race of embodied gods. Man will attain that thing which has been his first desire and earliest dream, for which he coveted the gods Immortality, amritatwam. The mortalities that cut and divide, limit and bind man make him the sorrowful being he is. These are due to his ignorance and weakness and egoism. These are due to his soul itself. It is the soul that requires change, a new birth, as Christ demanded. Ours is a little soul that has severed itself from the larger and mightier self that it is. And therefore does it die every moment and even while living is afraid to live and so lives poorly and miserably. But the age is now upon us when the god-like soul anointed with its immortal royalties is ready to emerge and claim our salutation.
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The first contact that one has with this static supra-reality is through the higher ranges of the mind: a direct and closer communion is established through a plane which is just above the mind the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it. The Overmind dissolves or transcends the ego-consciousness which limits the being to its individualised formation bounded by an outward and narrow frame or sheath of mind, life and body; it reveals the universal Self and Spirit, the cosmic godhead and its myriad forces throwing up myriad forms; the world-existence there appears as a play of ever-shifting veils upon the face of one ineffable reality, as a mysterious cycle of perpetual creation and destructionit is the overwhelming vision given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita. At the same time, the initial and most intense experience which this cosmic consciousness brings is the extreme relativity, contingency and transitoriness of the whole flux, and a necessity seems logically and psychologically imperative to escape into the abiding substratum, the ineffable Absoluteness.
This has been the highest consummation, the supreme goal which the purest spiritual experience and the deepest aspiration of the human consciousness generally sought to attain. But in this view, the world or creation or Nature came in the end to be looked upon as fundamentally a product of Ignorance: ignorance and suffering and incapacity and death were declared to be the very hallmark of things terrestrial. The Light that dwells above and beyond can be made to shed for a while some kind of lustre upon the mortal darkness but never altogether to remove or change itto live in the full light, to be in and of the Light means to pass beyond. Not that there have not been other strands and types of spiritual experiences and aspirations, but the one we are considering has always struck the major chord and dominated and drowned all the rest.
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is the world that Sri Aurobindo sees and creates? Poetry is after all passion. By passion I do not mean the fury of emotion nor the fume of sentimentalism, but what lies behind at their source, what lends them the force they have the sense of the "grandly real," the vivid and pulsating truth. What then is the thing that Sri Aurobindo has visualised, has endowed with a throbbing life and made a poignant reality? Victor Hugo said: Attachez Dieu au gibet, vous avez la croixTie God to the gibbet, you have the cross. Even so, infuse passion into a thing most prosaic, you create sublime poetry out of it. What is the dead matter that has found life and glows and vibrates in Sri Aurobindo's passion? It is something which appears to many poetically intractable, not amenable to aesthetic treatment, not usually, that is to say, nor in the supreme manner. Sri Aurobindo has thrown such a material into his poetic fervour and created a sheer beauty, a stupendous reality out of it. Herein lies the greatness of his achievement. Philosophy, however divine, and in spite of Milton, has been regarded by poets as "harsh and crabbed" and as such unfit for poetic delineation. Not a few poets indeed foundered upon this rock. A poet in his own way is a philosopher, but a philosopher chanting out his philosophy in sheer poetry has been one of the rarest spectacles.1 I can think of only one instance just now where a philosopher has al most succeeded being a great poet I am referring to Lucretius and his De Rerum Natura. Neither Shakespeare nor Homer had anything like philosophy in their poetic creation. And in spite of some inclination to philosophy and philosophical ideas Virgil and Milton were not philosophers either. Dante sought perhaps consciously and deliberately to philosophise in his Paradiso I Did he? The less Dante then is he. For it is his Inferno, where he is a passionate visionary, and not his Paradiso (where he has put in more thought-power) that marks the nee plus ultra of his poetic achievement.
And yet what can be more poetic in essence than philosophy, if by philosophy we mean, as it should mean, spiritual truth and spiritual realisation? What else can give the full breath, the integral force to poetic inspiration if it is not the problem of existence itself, of God, Soul and Immortality, things that touch, that are at the very root of life and reality? What can most concern man, what can strike the deepest fount in him, unless it is the mystery of his own being, the why and the whither of it all? But mankind has been taught and trained to live merely or mostly on earth, and poetry has been treated as the expression of human joys and sorrows the tears in mortal things of which Virgil spoke. The savour of earth, the thrill of the flesh has been too sweet for us and we have forgotten other sweetnesses. It is always the human element that we seek in poetry, but we fail to recognise that what we obtain in this way is humanity in its lower degrees, its surface formulations, at its minimum magnitude.
We do not say that poets have never sung of God and Soul and things transcendent. Poets have always done that. But what I say is this that presentation of spiritual truths, as they are in their own home, in other words, treated philosophically and yet in a supreme poetic manner, has always been a rarity. We have, indeed, in India the Gita and the Upanishads, great philosophical poems, if there were any. But for one thing they are on dizzy heights out of the reach of common man and for another they are idolised more as philosophy than as poetry. Doubtless, our Vaishnava poets sang of God and Love Divine; and Rabindranath, in one sense, a typical modern Vaishnava, did the same. And their songs are masterpieces. But are they not all human, too human, as the mad prophet would say? In them it is the human significance, the human manner that touches and moves us the spiritual significance remains esoteric, is suggested, is a matter of deduction. Sri Aurobindo has dealt with spiritual experiences in a different way. He has not clothed them in human symbols and allegories, in images and figures of the mere earthly and secular life: he presents them in their nakedness, just as they are seen and realised. He has not sought to tone down the rigour of truth with contrivances that easily charm and captivate the common human mind and heart. Nor has he indulged like so many poet philosophers in vague generalisations and colourless or too colourful truisms that do not embody a clear thought or rounded idea, a radiant judgment. Sri Aurobindo has given us in his poetry thoughts that are clear-cut, ideas beautifully chiselledhe is always luminously forceful.
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So the problem that concerns man, the riddle that humanity has to solve is how to find out and follow the path of creativity. If we are not to be dead matter nor mere shadowy illusions we must be creative. A misconception that has vitiated our outlook in general and has been the most potent cause of a sterilising atavism in the moral evolution of humanity is that creativity is an aristocratic virtue, that it belongs only to the chosen few. A great poet or a mighty man of action creates indeed, but such a creator does not appear very frequently. A Shakespeare or a Napoleon is a rare phenomenon; they are, in reality, an exception to the general run of mankind. It is enough if we others can understand and follow themMahajano yena gatahlet the great souls initiate and create, the common souls have only to repeat and imitate.
But this is not as it should be, nor is it the truth of the matter. Every individual soul, however placed it may be, is by nature creative; every individual being lives to discover and to create.
--
In one's own soul lies the very height and profundity of a god-head. Each soul by bringing out the note that is his, makes for the most wondrous symphony. Once a man knows what he is and holds fast to it, refusing to be drawn away by any necessity or temptation, he begins to uncover himself, to do what his in most nature demands and takes joy in, that is to say, begins to create. Indeed there may be much difference in the forms that different souls take. But because each is itself, therefore each is grounded upon the fundamental equality of things. All our valuations are in reference to some standard or other set up with a particular end in view, but that is a question of the practical world which in no way takes away from the intrinsic value of the greatness of the soul. So long as the thing is there, the how of it does not matter. Infinite are the ways of manifestation and all of them the very highest and the most sublime, provided they are a manifestation of the soul itself, provided they rise and flow from the same level. Whether it is Agni or Indra, Varuna, Mitra or the Aswins, it is the same supreme and divine inflatus.
The cosmic soul is true. But that truth is borne out, effectuated only by the truth of the individual soul. When the individual soul becomes itself fully and integrally, by that very fact it becomes also the cosmic soul. The individuals are the channels through which flows the Universal and the Infinite in its multiple emphasis. Each is a particular figure, aspectBhava, a particular angle of vision of All. The vision is entire and the figure perfect if it is not refracted by the lower and denser parts of our being. And for that the individual must first come to itself and shine in its opal clarity and translucency.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
is just on the borderland: it has succeeded in leaving behind the mystic domain, but has not yet entered the city of the Spiritat the most, it has turned the corner and approached the gate. Listen now,
My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,
--
There have been other philosophical poets, a good number of them since thennot merely rationally philosophical, as was the vogue in the eighteenth century, but metaphysically philosophical, that is to say, inquiring not merely into the phenomenal but also into the labyrinths of the noumenal, investigating not only what meets the senses, but also things that are behind or beyond. Amidst the earlier efflorescence of this movement the most outstanding philosopher poet is of course Dante, the Dante of Paradiso, a philosopher in the mediaeval manner and to the extent a lesser poet, according to some. Goe the is another, al most in the grand modern manner. Wordsworth is full of metaphysics from the crown of his head to the tip of his toe although his poetry, perhaps the major portion of it, had to undergo some kind of martyrdom because of it. And Shelley, the supremely lyric singer, has had a very rich undertone of thought-content genuinely metaphysical. And Browning and Arnold and Hardyindeed, if we come to the more moderns, we have to cite the whole host of them, none can be excepted.
We left out the Metaphysicals, for they can be grouped as a set apart. They are not so much metaphysical as theological, religious. They have a brain-content stirring with theological problems and speculations, replete with scintillating conceits and intricate fancies. Perhaps it is because of this philosophical burden, this intellectual bias that the Metaphysicals went into obscurity for about two centuries and it is precisely because of that that they are slowly coming out to the forefront and assuming a special value with the moderns. For the modern mind is characteristically thoughtful, introspective"introvert"and philosophical; even the exact physical sciences of today are rounded off in the end with metaphysics.
--
Man's consciousness is further to rise from the mental to over-mental regions. Accordingly, his life and activities and along with that his artistic creations too will take on a new tone and rhythm, a new mould and constitution even. For this transition, the higher mentalwhich is normally the field of philosophical and idealistic activitiesserves as the Paraclete, the Intercessor; it takes up the lower functionings of the consciousness, which are intense in their own way, but narrow and turbid, and gives, by purifying and enlarging, a wider frame, a more luminous pattern, a more subtly articulated , form for the higher, vaster and deeper realities, truths and harmonies to express and manifest. In the old-world spiritual and mystic poets, this intervening medium was overlooked for evident reasons, for human reason or even intelligence is a double-edged instrument, it can make as well as mar, it has a light that most often and naturally shuts off other higher lights beyond it. So it was bypassed, some kind of direct and immediate contact was sought to be established between the normal and the transcendental. The result was, as I have pointed out, a pure spiritual poetry, on the one hand, as in the Upanishads, or, on the other, religious poetry of various grades and denominations that spoke of the spiritual but in the terms and in the manner of the mundane, at least very much coloured and dominated by the latter. Vyasa was the great legendary figure in India who, as is shown in his Mahabharata, seems to have been one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer, to forge and build the missing link of Thought Power. The exemplar of the manner is the Gita. Valmiki's represented a more ancient and primary inspiration, of a vast vital sensibility, something of the kind that was at the basis of Homer's genius. In Greece it was Socrates who initiated the movement of speculative philosophy and the emphasis of intellectual power slowly began to find expression in the later poets, Sophocles and Euripides. But all these were very simple beginnings. The moderns go in for something more radical and totalitarian. The rationalising element instead of being an additional or subordinate or contri buting factor, must itself give its norm and form, its own substance and manner to the creative activity. Such is the present-day demand.
The earliest preoccupation of man was religious; even when he concerned himself with the world and worldly things, he referred all that to the other world, thought of gods and goddesses, of after-death and other where. That also will be his last and ultimate preoccupation though in a somewhat different way, when he has passed through a process of purification and growth, a "sea-change". For although religion is an aspiration towards the truth and reality beyond or behind the world, it is married too much to man's actual worldly nature and carries always with it the shadow of profanity.
--
This is religious poetry, pure and simple, expressing man's earliest and most elementary feeling, marked by a broad candour, a rather shallow monotone. But that feeling is raised to a pitch of fervour and scintillating sensibility in Vaughan's
They are all gone into the world of light
01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
European science is conquering Nature in a way. It has attained to a certain kind and measure, in some fields a great measure, of control and conquest; but however great or striking it may be in its own province, it does not touch man in his more intimate reality and does not bring about any true change in his destiny or his being. For the most vital part of nature is the region of the life-forces, the powers of disease and age and death, of strife and greed and lustall the instincts of the brute in man, all the dark aboriginal forces, the forces of ignorance that form the very groundwork of man's nature and his society. And then, as we rise next to the world of the mind, we find a twilight region where falsehood masquerades as truth, where prejudices move as realities, where notions rule as ideals.
This is the present nature of man, with its threefold nexus of mind and life and body, that stands there to be fought and conquered. This is the inferior nature, of which the ancients spoke, that holds man down inexorably to a lower dharma, imperfect mode of life the life that is and has been the human order till today. No amount of ceaseless action, however selflessly done, can move this wheel of Nature even by a hair's breadth away from the path that it has carved out from of old. Human nature and human society have been built up and are run by the forces of this inferior nature, and whatever shuffling and reshuffling we may make in its apparent factors and elements, the general scheme and fundamental form of life will never change. To displace earth (and to conquer nature means nothing less than that) and give it another orbit, one must find a fulcrum outside earth.
01.04 - Motives for Seeking the Divine, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Him is not the proper attitude; but if it were absolutely forbidden to seek Him for these things, most people in the world would not turn towards Him at all. I suppose therefore it is allowed so that they may make a beginning - if they have faith, they may get what they ask for and think it a good thing to go on and then one day they may suddenly stumble upon the idea that this is after all not quite the one thing to do and that there are better ways and a better spirit in which one can approach the
Divine. If they do not get what they want and still come to the
--
Divine will bring Ananda, therefore it must be for the Ananda that we seek the union, is not true and has no force. One who loves a queen may know that if she returns his love it will bring him power, position, riches and yet it need not be for the power, position, riches that he seeks her love. He may love her for herself and could love her equally if she were not a queen; he might have no hope of any return whatever and yet love her, adore her, live for her, die for her simply because she is she. That has happened and men have loved women without any hope of enjoyment or result, loved steadily, passionately after age has come and beauty has gone. Patriots do not love their country only when she is rich, powerful, great and has much to give them; their love for country has been most ardent, passionate, absolute when the country was poor, degraded, miserable, having nothing to give but loss, wounds, torture, imprisonment, death as the wages of her service; yet even knowing that they would never see her free, men have lived, served and died for her - for her own sake, not for what she could give. Men have loved Truth for her own sake and for what they could seek or find of her, accepted poverty, persecution, death itself; they have been content even to seek for her always, not finding, and yet never given up the search.
That means what? That men, country, Truth and other things besides can be loved for their own sake and not for anything else, not for any circumstance or attendant quality or resulting enjoyment, but for something absolute that is either in them or behind their appearance and circumstance. The Divine is more than a man or woman, a stretch of land or a creed, opinion, discovery or principle. He is the Person beyond all persons, the
--
I have written all that only to explain what we mean when we 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.
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.
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The three or four major orders I speak of in reference to conscious artistry are exampled characteristically in the history of the evolution of Greek poetry. It must be remembered, however, at the very outset that the Greeks as a race were nothing if not rational and intellectual. It was an element of strong self-consciousness that they brought into human culture that was their special gift. Leaving out of account Homer who was, as I said, a primitive, their classical age began with Aeschylus who was the first and the most spontaneous and intuitive of the Great Three. Sophocles, who comes next, is more balanced and self-controlled and pregnant with a reasoned thought-content clothed in polished phrasing. We feel here that the artist knew what he was about and was exercising a conscious control over his instruments and materials, unlike his predecessor who seemed to be completely carried away by the onrush of the poetic enthousias mos. Sophocles, in spite of his artistic perfection or perhaps because of it, appears to be just a little, one remove, away from the purity of the central inspiration there is a veil, although a thin transparent veil, yet a veil between which intervenes. With the third of the Brotherhood, Euripides, we slide lower downwe arrive at a predominantly mental transcription of an experience or inner conception; but something of the major breath continues, an aura, a rhythm that maintains the inner contact and thus saves the poetry. In a subsequent age, in Theocritus, for example, poetry became truly very much 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought', so much of virtuosity and precocity entered into it; in other words, the poet then was an excessively self-conscious artist. That seems to be the general trend of all literature.
But should there be an inherent incompatibility between spontaneous creation and self-consciousness? As we have seen, a harmony and fusion can and do happen of the superconscious and the normally conscious in the Yogi. Likewise, an artist also can be wakeful and transparent enough so that he is conscious on both the levels simultaneouslyabove, he is conscious of the source and origin of his inspiration, and on the level plain he is conscious of the working of the instrument, how the vehicle transcribes and embodies what comes from elsewhere. The poet's consciousness becomes then divalent as it werethere is a sense of absolute passivity in respect of the receiving apparatus and coupled and immisced with it there is also the sense of dynamism, of conscious agency as in his secret being he is the master of his apparatus and one with the Inspirerin other words, the poet is both a seer (kavih) and a creator or doer (poits).
Not only so, the future development of the poetic consciousness seems inevitably to lead to such a consummation in which the creative and the critical faculties will not be separate but form part of one and indivisible movement. Historically, human consciousness has grown from unconsciousness to consciousness and from consciousness to self-consciousness; man's creative and artistic genius too has moved pari passu in the same direction. The earliest and primitive poets were mostly unconscious, that is to say, they wrote or said things as they came to them spontaneously, without effort, without reflection, they do not seem to know the whence and wherefore and whither of it all, they know only that the wind bloweth as it listeth. That was when man had not yet eaten the fruit of knowledge, was still in the innocence of childhood. But as he grew up and progressed, he became more and more conscious, capable of exerting and exercising a deliberate will and initiating a purposive action, not only in the external practical field but also in the psychological domain. If the earlier group is called "primitives", the later one, that of conscious artists, usually goes by the name of "classicists." Modern creators have gone one step farther in the direction of self-consciousness, a return upon oneself, an inlook of full awareness and a free and alert activity of the critical faculties. An unconscious artist in the sense of the "primitives" is al most an impossible phenomenon in the modern world. All are scientists: an artist cannot but be consciously critical, deliberate, purposive in what he creates and how he creates. Evidently, this has cost something of the old-world spontaneity and supremacy of utterance; but it cannot be helped, we cannot comm and the tide to roll back, Canute-like. The feature has to be accepted and a remedy and new orientation discovered.
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 sentimental 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 al most 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.
--
Whether the original and true source of the poet's inspiration lies deep within or high above, all depends upon the mediating instrument the mind (in its most general sense) and speech for a successful transcription. Man's ever-growing consciousness demanded also a conscious development and remoulding of these two factors. A growth, a heightening and deepening of the consciousness meant inevitably a movement towards the spiritual element in things. And that means, we have said, a twofold change in the future poet's make-up. First as regards the substance. The revolutionary shift that we notice in modern poets towards a completely new domain of subject-matter is a signpost that more is meant than what is expressed. The superficialities and futilities that are dealt with do not in their outward form give the real trend of things. In and through all these major and constant preoccupation of our poets is "the pain of the present and the passion for the future": they are, as already stated, more prophets than poets, but prophets for the moment crying in the wildernessalthough some have chosen the path of denial and revolt. They are all looking ahead or beyond or deep down, always yearning for another truth and reality which will explain, justify and transmute the present calvary of human living. Such an acute tension of consciousness has necessitated an overhauling of the vehicle of expression too, the creation of a mode of expressing the inexpressible. For that is indeed what human consciousness and craft are aiming at in the present stage of man's evolution. For everything, al most everything that can be normally expressed has been expressed and in a variety of ways as much as is possible: that is the history of man's aesthetic creativity. Now the eye probes into the unexpressed world; for the artist too the Upanishadic problem has cropped up:
By whom impelled does the mind fall to its target, what is the agent that is behind the eye and sees through the eyes, what is the hearing and what the speech that their respective sense organs do not and cannot convey and record adequately or at all?
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What most she needs, what most exceeds her scope,
A Mind unvisited by illusion's gleams,
--
He makes the most of the little that she gives
And all she does drapes with his own delight.
--
But conquering her, then is he most her slave;
He is her dependent, all his means are hers;
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But the pressure upon his dynamic and heated brain the fiery zeal in his mindwas already proving too much and he was advised medically to take complete rest. Thereupon followed what was known as Pascal's mundane lifea period of distraction and dissipation; but this did not last long nor was it of a serious nature. The inner fire could brook no delay, it was eager and impatient to englobe other fields and domains. Indeed, it turned to its own field the heart. Pascal became initiated into the mystery of Faith and Grace. Still he had to pass through a terrible period of dejection and despair: the life of the world had given him no rest or relaxation, it served only to fill his cup of misery to the brim. But the hour of final relief was not long postponed: the Grace came to him, even as it came to moses or St. Paul as a sudden flare of fire which burnt up the Dark Night and opened out the portals of Morning Glory.
Pascal's place in the evolution of European culture and consciousness is of considerable significance and importance. He came at a critical time, on the mounting tide of rationalism and scepticism, in an age when the tone and temper of human mentality were influenced and fashioned by Montaigne and Rochefoucauld, by Bacon and Hobbes. Pascal himself, born in such an at mosphere of doubt and disbelief and disillusionment, had sucked in a full dose of that poison; yet he survived and found the Rock of Ages, became the clarion of Faith against Denial. What a spectacle it was! This is what one wrote just a quarter of a century after the death of Pascal:
"They can no longer tell us that it is only small minds that have piety. They are shown how it has grown best in one of the the greatest geometricians, one of the subtlest metaphysicians, one of the most penetrating minds that ever existed on earth. The piety of such a philosopher should make the unbeliever and the libertine declare what a certain Diocles said one day on seeing Epicurus in a temple: 'What a feast, what a spectacle for me to see Epicurus in a temple! All my doubts vainsh, piety takes its place again. I never saw Jupiter's greatness so well as now when I behold Epicurus kneeling down!"1
What characterises Pascal is the way in which he has bent his brainnot rejected it but truly bent and forced even the dry "geometrical brain" to the service of Faith.
--
Man then, according to Pascal, is by nature a sinful thing. He can lay no claim to noble virtue as his own: all in him is vile, he is a lump of dirt and filth. Even the greatest has his full share of this taint. The greatest, the saintliest, and the meanest, the most sinful, all meet, all are equal on this common platform; all have the same feet of clay. Man is as miserable a creature as a beast, as much a part and product of Nature as a plant. Only there is this difference that an animal or a tree is unconscious, while man knows that he is miserable. This knowledge or perception makes him more miserable, but that is his real and only greatness there is no other. His thought, his self-consciousness, and his sorrow and repentance and contrition for what he is that is the only good partMary's part that has been given to him. Here are Pascal's own words on the subject:
"The greatness of man is great in this that he knows he is miserable. A tree does not know that it is miserable.
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The French Revolution wanted to remould human society and its ideal was liberty, equality and fraternity. It pulled down the old machinery and set up a new one in its stead. And the result? "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" remained always in effect a cry in the wilderness. Another wave of idealism is now running over the earth and the Bolshevists are its most fiercely practical exponents. Instead of dealing merely with the political machinery, the Socialistic Revolution tries to break and remake, above all, the social machinery. But judged from the results as yet attained and the tendencies at work, few are the reasons to hope but many to fear the worst. Even education does not seem to promise us anything better. Which nation was better educatedin the sense we understood and still commonly understand the wordthan Germany?
And yet we have no hesitation today to call them Huns and Barbarians. That education is not giving us the right thing is proved further by the fact that we are constantly changing our programmes and curriculums, everyday remodelling old institutions and founding new ones. Even a revolution in the educational system will not bring about the desired millennium, so long as we lay so much stress upon the system and not upon man himself. And finally, look to all the religions of the worldwe have enough of creeds and dogmas, of sermons and mantras, of churches and templesand yet human life and society do not seem to be any the more worthy for it.
--
No doubt this is a most dismal kind of pessimism. But it is the logical conclusion of all optimism that bases itself upon a particular view of human nature. If we question that pessimism, we have to question the very grounds of our optimism also. As a matter of fact, all our idealism has been so long infructuous and will be so in the future, if we do not shift our foundation and start from a different IntuitionWeltanschauung.
Our ideals have been mental constructions, rather than spiritual realitiesrealities of the deepest and highest being. And the power by which we sought to realise those ideals was mainly the insistence of our emotional urges, rather than Nature's Truth-Power. For this must be understood that the mental, the vital and the physical form a nexus of reality which works in its own inexorable law and so long as we are within them we cannot but obey the laws that guide them. Of these three strata which form the human adhara, it is the vital which holds the key to man's nature. It is the executive power, the force that fashions the realities on the physical plane; it is what creates the character. The power of thought and sentiment is often much too exaggerated, even so the power of the body, that of physical and external rules and regulations. The mental or the physical or both together can mould the vital only to a limited extent, to the extent which is allowed by the inherent law of the vital. If the demands of the mental and the physical are stretched too far and are not suffered by the vital, a crash and catastrophe is bound to come in the end.
--
What then is required is a complete spiritual regeneration in man, a new structure of his soul and substancenot merely the realisation of the highest and supreme Truth in mental and emotional consciousness, but the translation and application of the law of that truth in the power of the vital. It is here that failed all the great spiritual or rather religious movements of the past. They were content with evoking the divine in the mental being, but left the vital becoming to be governed by the habitual un-divine or at the most to be just illumined by a distant and faint glow which served, however, more to distort than express the Divine.
The Divine Nature only can permanently reform the vital nature that is ours. Neither laws and institutions, which are the results of that vital nature, nor ideas and ideals which are often a mere revolt from and more often an auxiliary to it, can comm and the power to regenerate society. If it is thought improbable for any group of men to attain to that God Nature, then there is hardly any hope for mankind. But improbable or probable, that is the only way which man has to try and test, and there is none other.
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are some primary desires that seek satisfaction in man. They are the vital urges of life, the most prominent among them being the instinct of self-preservation and that of self-reproduction or the desire to preserve one's body by defensive as well as by offensive means and the desire to multiply oneself by mating. These are the two biological necessities that are inevitable to man's existence as a physical being. They give the minimum conditions required to be fulfilled by man in order that he may live and hence they are the strongest and the most fundamental elements that enter into his structure and composition.
It would have been an easy matter if these vital urges could flow on unhindered in their way. There would have been no problem at all, if they met satisfaction easily and smoothly, without having to look to other factors and forces. As a matter of fact, man does not and cannot gratify his instincts whenever and wherever he chooses and in an open and direct manner. Even in his most primitive and barbarous condition, he has often to check himself and throw a veil, in so many ways, over his sheer animality. In the civilised society the check is manifold and is frankly recognised. We do not go straight as our sexual impulsion leads, but seek to hide and camouflage it under the institution of marriage; we do not pounce upon the food directly we happen to meet it and snatch and appropriate whatever portion we get but we secure it through an elaborate process, which is known as the economic system. The machinery of the state, the cult of the kshatriya are roundabout ways to meet our fighting instincts.
What is the reason of this elaboration, this check and constraint upon the natural and direct outflow of the animal instincts in man? It has been said that the social life of man, the fact that he has to live and move as member of a group or aggregate has imposed upon him these restrictions. The free and unbridled indulgence of one's bare aboriginal impulses may be possible to creatures that live a separate, solitary and individual life but is disruptive of all bonds necessary for a corporate and group life. It is even a biological necessity again which has evolved in man a third and collateral primary instinct that of the herd. And it is this herd-instinct which naturally and spontaneously restrains, diverts and even metamorphoses the other instincts of the mere animal life. However, leaving aside for the moment the question whether man's ethical and spiritual ideals are a mere dissimulation of his animal instincts or whether they correspond to certain actual realities apart from and co-existent with these latter, we will recognise the simple fact of control and try to have a glimpse into its mechanism.
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the Eastern and Western approach to Divine Love, the Christian and the Vaishnava, for example. Indian spirituality, whatever its outer form or credal formulation, has always a background of utter unity. This unity, again, is threefold or triune and is expressed in those great Upanishadic phrases,mahvkyas,(1) the transcendental unity: the One alone exists, there is nothing else than theOneekamevdvityam; (2) the cosmic unity: all existence is one, whatever exists is that One, thereare no separate existences:sarvam khalvidam brahma neha nnsti kincaa; (3) That One is I, you too are that One:so' ham, tattvamasi; this may be called the individual unity. As I have said, all spiritual experiences in India, of whatever school or line, take for granted or are fundamentally based upon this sense of absolute unity or identity. Schools of dualism or pluralism, who do not apparently admit in their tenets this extreme monism, are still permeated in many ways with that sense and in some form or other take cognizance of the truth of it. The Christian doctrine too says indeed, 'I and my Father in Heaven are one', but this is not identity, but union; besides, the human soul is not admitted into this identity, nor the world soul. The world, we have seen, according to the Christian discipline has to be altogether abandoned, negatived, as we go inward and upward towards our spiritual status reflecting the divine image in the divine company. It is a complete rejection, a cutting off and casting away of world and life. One extreme Vedantic path seems to follow a similar line, but there it is not really rejection, but a resolution, not the rejection of what is totally foreign and extraneous, but a resolution of the external into its inner and in most substance, of the effect into its original cause. Brahman is in the world, Brahman is the world: the world has unrolled itself out of the Brahmansi, pravttiit has to be rolled back into its, cause and substance if it is to regain its pure nature (that is the process of nivitti). Likewise, the individual being in the world, "I", is the transcendent being itself and when it withdraws, it withdraws itself and the whole world with it and merges into the Absolute. Even the Maya of the Mayavadin, although it is viewed as something not inherent in Brahman but superimposed upon Brahman, still, has been accepted as a peculiar power of Brahman itself. The Christian doctrine keeps the individual being separate practically, as an associate or at the most as an image of God. The love for one's neighbour, charity, which the Christian discipline enjoins is one's love for one's kind, because of affinity of nature and quality: it does not dissolve the two into an integral unity and absolute identity, where we love because we are one, because we are the One. The highest culmination of love, the very basis of love, according to the Indian conception, is a transcendence of love, love trans-muted into Bliss. The Upanishad says, where one has become the utter unity, who loves whom? To explain further our point, we take two examples referred to in the book we are considering. The true Christian, it is said, loves the sinner too, he is permitted to dislike sin, for he has to reject it, but he must separate from sin the sinner and love him. Why? Because the sinner too can change and become his brother in spirit, one loves the sinner because there is the possibility of his changing and becoming a true Christian. It is why the orthodox Christian, even such an enlightened and holy person as this mediaeval Canon, considers the non-Christian, the non-baptised as impure and potentially and fundamentally sinners. That is also why the Church, the physical organisation, is worshipped as Christ's very body and outside the Church lies the pagan world which has neither religion nor true spirituality nor salvation. Of course, all this may be symbolic and it is symbolic in a sense. If Christianity is taken to mean true spirituality, and the Church is equated with the collective embodiment of that spirituality, all that is claimed on their behalf stands justified. But that is an ideal, a hypothetical standpoint and can hardly be borne out by facts. However, to come back to our subject, let us ow take the second example. Of Christ himself, it is said, he not only did not dislike or had any aversion for Judas, but that he positively loved the traitor with a true and sincere love. He knew that the man would betray him and even when he was betraying and had betrayed, the Son of Man continued to love him. It was no make-believe or sham or pretence. It was genuine, as genuine as anything can be. Now, why did he love his enemy? Because, it is said, the enemy is suffered by God to do the misdeed: he has been allowed to test the faith of the faithful, he too has his utility, he too is God's servant. And who knows even a Judas would not change in the end? Many who come to scoff do remain to pray. But it can be asked, 'Does God love Satan too in the same way?' The Indian conception which is basically Vedantic is different. There is only one reality, one truth which is viewed differently. Whether a thing is considered good or evil or neutral, essentially and truly, it is that One and nothing else. God's own self is everywhere and the sage makes no difference between the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant. It is his own self he finds in every person and every objectsarvabhtsthitam yo mm bhajati ekatvamsthitah"he has taken his stand upon oneness and loves Me in all beings."2
This will elucidate another point of difference between the Christian's and the Vaishnava's love of God, for both are characterised by an extreme intensity and sweetness and exquisiteness of that divine feeling. This Christian's, however, is the union of the soul in its absolute purity and simplicity and "privacy" with her lord and master; the soul is shred here of all earthly vesture and goes innocent and naked into the embrace of her Beloved. The Vaishnava feeling is richer and seems to possess more amplitude; it is more concrete and less ethereal. The Vaishnava in his passionate yearning seeks to carry as it were the whole world with him to his Lord: for he sees and feels Him not only in the in most chamber of his soul, but meets Him also in and I through his senses and in and through the world and its objects around. In psychological terms one can say that the Christian realisation, at its very source, is that of the in most soul, what we call the "psychic being" pure and simple, referred to in the book we are considering; as: "His sweet privy voice... stirreth thine heart full stilly." Whereas the Vaishnava reaches out to his Lord with his outer heart too aflame with passion; not only his in most being but his vital being also seeks the Divine. This bears upon the occult story of man's spiritual evolution upon earth. The Divine Grace descends from the highest into the deepest and from the deepest to the outer ranges of human nature, so that the whole of it may be illumined and transformed and one day man can embody in his earthly life the integral manifestation of God, the perfect Epiphany. Each religion, each line of spiritual discipline takes up one limb of manone level or mode of his being and consciousness purifies it and suffuses it with the spiritual and divine consciousness, so that in the end the whole of man, in his integral living, is recast and remoulded: each discipline is in charge of one thread as it were, all together weave the warp and woof in the evolution of the perfect pattern of a spiritualised and divinised humanity.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
far from what You ask of us, at least I am. It is a most
arduous task and it will take time, a long time, but what
--
are most silent and calm.
31 January 1963
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picture he sees. He is most vulnerable.
That happens when he has not taken care to organise his conscious being around the psychic centre, which is the Truth of his
--
that even the most "insignificant" individual has come
upon earth to fulfil a mission? That is not my conception
--
"Law cannot save the world, therefore moses' ordinances are dead for humanity
and the Shastra of the Brahmins is corrupt and dying. Law released into freedom is the
--
has not made the most out of what is given to us.
That proves that life is too easy here and that for the most part
you are all too tamasic to make an effort unless goaded by the
--
at most an idea and not an experience, the whole thing remains
purely mental. But if one makes a sincere and repeated effort, one
--
which seem to you most shocking in others.
Later on, you come to understand that others are a mirror
--
Since the most ancient times, each system of yoga has developed
its own discipline in all its details. All that can be studied, learned
--
What is the most effective way of overcoming desires
and attachments: to cut them off all at one stroke, even
--
governs the development of the individual, but the most developed individualities are not necessarily those in whom the ego is
strongest - on the contrary. As the individuality perfects itself,
--
seek a career or to study; and they are mostly those
who have been here since childhood. There is a kind
--
You will then see that he seems to have said the most contradictory things. But when one has read everything and understood
a little, one sees that all the contradictions complement one
--
You have written: "Of all renunciations, the most
difficult is to renounce one's good habits." What exactly
--
"something one hears about" for most people here.
When shall we feel and see this supreme and radical
--
and his most urgent work is to purify himself of it by a constant
aspiration.
--
It is an ironic way of saying that the most difficult cases, from
the standpoint of transformation, are gathered here to concretise
--
There is a tendency among most of us here to conduct our lives and programmes according to the customs
of society. We say: "We must also think of the opinion of
--
If most people here think and feel like that, it is an obvious proof
that most are not at all ready for the new life, nor even ready to
prepare for the new life. And to tell the truth, they would do far
--
I feel it is most shameful on our part to waste the
Divine Grace, to misuse this unique privilege granted to
--
several virtues. Which is the most necessary?
SINCERITY.
--
The things that shock you most in others are those that you are
struggling against in yourself or trying to suppress in yourself.
--
as the most memorable or most important in a lifetime, but
the moments when the psychic has participated - consciously
--
Certainly, the most important occupation is to develop and perfect oneself, but that can be done very well, and even better, while
working. It is for you to know what work it is that most interests
you, the one that opens for you a path towards perfection. It
01.10 - Principle and Personality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We do not speak like politicians or banias; but the very truth of the matter demands such a policy or line of action. It is very well to talk of principles and principles alone, but what are principles unless they take life and form in a particular individual? They are airy nothings, notions in the brain of logicians and metaphysicians, fit subjects for discussion in the academy, but they are devoid of that vital urge which makes them creative agencies. We have long lines of philosophers, especially European, who most scrupulously avoided all touch of personalities, whose ut most care was to keep principles pure and unsullied; and the upshot was that those principles remained principles only, barren and infructuous, some thing like, in the strong and puissant phrase of BaudelaireLa froide majest de la femme strile. And on the contrary, we have had other peoples, much addicted to personalitiesespecially in Asiawho did not care so much for abstract principles as for concrete embodiments; and what has been the result here? None can say that they did not produce anything or produced only still-born things. They produced living creaturesephemeral, some might say, but creatures that lived and moved and had their days.
But, it may be asked, what is the necessity, what is the purpose in making it all a one man show? Granting that principles require personalities for their fructuation and vital functioning, what remains to be envisaged is not one personality but a plural personality, the people at large, as many individuals of the human race as can be consciously imbued with those principles. When principles are made part and parcel of, are concentrated in a single solitary personality, they get "cribbed and cabined," they are vitiated by the idiosyncrasies of the man, they come to have a narrower field of application; they are emptied of the general verities they contain and finally cease to have any effect.
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"To its heights we can always come. For those of us who are still splashing about in the lower ooze, the phrase has a rather ironical ring. Nevertheless, in the light of even the most distant acquaintance with the heights and the fullness, it is possible to understand what its author means. To discover the Kingdom of God exclusively within oneself is easier than to discover it, not only there, but also in the outer worlds of minds and things and living creatures. It is easier because the heights within reveal themselves to those who are ready to exclude from their purview all that lies without. And though this exclusion may be a painful and mortificatory process, the fact remains that it is less arduous than the process of inclusion, by which we come to know the fullness as well as the heights of spiritual life. Where there is exclusive concentration on the heights within, temptations and distractions are avoided and there is a general denial and suppression. But when the hope is to know God inclusivelyto realise the divine Ground in the world as well as in the soul, temptations and distractions must not be avoided, but submitted to and used as opportunities for advance; there must be no suppression of outward-turning activities, but a transformation of them so that they become sacramental."
The neatness of the commentary cannot be improved upon. Only with regard to the "ironical ring" of which Huxley speaks, it has just to be pointed out, as he himself seems to understand, that the "we" referred to in the phrase does not mean humanity in general that 'splashes about in the lower ooze' but those who have a sufficiently developed inner spiritual life.
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In India the spirit of renascence came very late, late al most by three centuries; and even then it could not flood the whole of the continent in all its nooks and corners, psychological and physical. There were any number of pockets (to use a current military phrase) left behind which guarded the spirit of the past and offered persistent and obdurate resistance. Perhaps, such a dispensation was needed in India and inevitable also; inevitable, because the religious spirit is closest to India's soul and is its most direct expression and cannot be uprooted so easily; needed, because India's and the world's future demands it and depends upon it.
Only, the religious spirit has to be bathed and purified and enlightened by the spirit of the renascence: that is to say, one must learn and understand and realize that Spirit is the thing the one thing needfulTamevaikam jnatha; 'religions' are its names and forms, appliances and decorations. Let us have by all means the religious spirit, the fundamental experience that is the in most truth of all religions, that is the matter of our soul; but in our mind and life and body let there be a luminous catholicity, let these organs and instruments be trained to see and compare and appreciate the variety, the numberless facets which the one Spirit naturally presents to the human consciousness. Ekam sat viprh bahudh vadanti. It is an ancient truth that man discovered even in his earliest seekings; but it still awaits an adequate expression and application in life.
--
The first extremes that met in India and fought and gradually coalesced to form a single cultural and social whole were, as is well known, the Aryan and the non-Aryan. Indeed, the geologists tell us, the land itself is divided into two parts structurally quite different and distinct, the Deccan plateau and the Himalayan ranges with the Indo-Gangetic plain: the former is formed out of the most ancient and stable and, on the whole, horizontally bedded rocks of the earth, while the latter is of comparatively recent origin, formed out of a more flexible and weaker belt (the Himalayan region consisting of a colossal flexing and crumpling of strata). The disparity is so much that a certain group of geologists hold that the Deccan plateau did not at all form part of the Asiatic continent, but had drifted and dashed into it:in fact the Himalayas are the result of this mighty impact. The usual division of an Aryan and a Dravidian race may be due to a memory of the clash of the two continents and their races.
However, coming to historical times, we see wave after wave of the most heterogeneous and disparate elementsSakas and Huns and Greeks, each bringing its quota of exotic materialenter into the oceanic Indian life and culture, lose their separate foreign identity and become part and parcel of the common whole. Even so,a single unitary body was formed out of such varied and shifting materialsnot in the political, but in a socio-religious sense. For a catholic religious spirit, not being solely doctrinal and personal, admitted and embraced in its supple and wide texture al most an infinite variety of approaches to the Divine, of forms and norms of apprehending the Beyond. It has been called Hinduism: it is a vast synthesis of multiple affiliations. It expresses the characteristic genius of India and hence Hinduism and Indianism came to be looked upon as synonymous terms. And the same could be defined also as Vedic religion and culture, for its invariable basis the bed-rock on which it stood firm and erectwas the Vedas, the Knowledge seen by the sages. But there had already risen a voice of dissidence and discord that of Buddha, not so much, perhaps, of Buddha as of Buddhism. The Buddhistic enlightenment and discipline did not admit the supreme authority of the Vedas; it sought other bases of truth and reality. It was a great denial; and it meant and worked for a vital schism. The denial of the Vedas by itself, perhaps, would not be serious, but it became so, as it was symptomatic of a deeper divergence. Denying the Vedas, the Buddhistic spirit denied life. It was quite a new thing in the Indian consciousness and spiritual discipline. And it left such a stamp there that even today it stands as the dominant character of the Indian outlook. However, India's synthetic genius rose to the occasion and knew how to bridge the chasm, close up the fissure, and present again a body whole and entire. Buddha became one of the Avataras: the discipline of Nirvana and Maya was reserved as the last duty to be performed at the end of life, as the culmination of a full-length span of action and achievement; the way to Moksha lay through Dharma and Artha and Kama, Sannyasa had to be built upon Brahmacharya and Garhasthya. The integral ideal was epitomized by Kalidasa in his famous lines about the character of the Raghus:
They devoted themselves to study in their boyhood, in youth they pursued the objects of life; when old they took to spiritual austerities, and in the end they died united with the higher consciousness.
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Satan proposes to lead man down into hell through a sure means, nothing more sure, according to him, viz., love for a woman and a woman's love in return. Nothing like that to make man earth-bound or hell-bound and force out of him the nostalgic cry, "Time must have a stop." A most simple, primal and primeval lyric love will most suit Satan's purpose. Hence the Margaret episode. Love=Passion=Lust=Hell; that is the inevitable equation sequence, and through which runs the magic thread of infatuation. And that charm is invincible. Satan did succeed and was within an ace, as they say, of the final and definitive triumph: but that was not to be, for he left out of account an incalculable element. Love, even human love has, at least can have, a wonderful power, the potency of reversing the natural decree and bring about a supernatural intervention. Human love can at a crucial momentin extremiscall down the Divine Grace, which means God's love for man. And the soul meant for perdition and about to be seized and carried away by Satan finds itself suddenly free and lifted up and borne by Heaven's messengers. Human Jove is divine love itself in earthly form and figure and whatever its apparent aberrations it is in soul and substance that thing. Satan is hoisted with his own petard. That is God's irony.
But Goethe's Satan seems to know or feel something of his fate. He knows his function and the limit too of his function. He speaks of the doomsday for people, but it is his doomsday also, he says in mystic terms. Yes, it is his doomsday, for it is the day of man's liberation. Satan has to release man from the pact that stands cancelled. The soul of man cannot be sold, even if he wanted it.
01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Vivekananda said that if human society is to be remodelled, one must first of all learn not to think and act in terms of claims and rights but in terms of duties and obligations. Fulfil your duties conscientiously, the rights will take care of themselves; it is such an attitude that can give man the right poise, the right impetus, the right outlook with regard to a collective living. If instead of each one demanding what one considers as one's dues and consequently scrambling and battling for them, and most often not getting them or getting at a ruinous pricewhat made Arjuna cry, "What shall I do with all this kingdom if in regaining it I lose all my kith and kin dear to me?"if, indeed, instead of claiming one's right, one were content to know one's duty and do it as it should be done, then not only there would be peace and amity upon earth, but also each one far from losing anything would find miraculously all that one most needs and must have,the necessary, the right rights and all.
It might be objected here however that actually in the history of humanity the conception of Duty has been no less pugnacious than that of Right. In certain ages and among certain peoples, for example, it was considered the imperative duty of the faithful to kill or convert by force or otherwise as many as possible belonging to other faiths: it was the mission of the good shepherd to burn the impious and the heretic. In recent times, it was a sense of high and solemn duty that perpetrated what has been termed "purges"brutalities undertaken, it appears, to purify and preserve the integrity of a particular ideological, social or racial aggregate. But the real name of such a spirit is not duty but fanaticism. And there is a considerable difference between the two. Fanaticism may be defined as duty running away with itself; but what we are concerned with here is not the aberration of duty, but duty proper self-poised.
--
We may perhaps view the three terms Right, Duty and Dharma as degrees of an ascending consciousness. Consciousness at Its origin and in its primitive formulation is dominated by the principle of inertia (tamas); in that state things have mostly an undifferentiated collective existence, they helplessly move about acted upon by forces outside them. A rise in growth and evolution brings about differentiation, specialisation, organisation. And this means consciousness of oneself of the distinct and separate existence of each and everyone, in other words, self-assertion, the claim, the right of each individual unit to be itself, to become itself first and fore most. It is a necessary development; for it signifies the growth of self consciousness in the units out of a mass unconsciousness or semi-consciousness. It is the expression of rajas, the mode of dynamism, of strife and struggle, it is the corrective of tamas.
In the earliest and primitive society men lived totally in a mass consciousness. Their life was a blind obedienceobedience to the chief the patriarch or pater familiasobedience to the laws and customs of the collectivity to which one belonged. It was called duty; it was called even dharma, but evidently on a lower level, in an inferior formulation. In reality it was more of the nature of the mechanical functioning of an automaton than the exercise of conscious will and deliberate choice, which is the very soul of the conception of duty.
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,16
Our poet is too self-conscious, he himself feels that he has not the perfect voice. A Homer, even a Milton possesses a unity of tone and a wholeness of perception which are denied to the modern. To the modern, however, the old masters are not subtle enough, broad enough, psychological enough, let us say the word, spiritual enough. And yet the poetic inspiration, more than the religious urge, needs the injunction not to be busy with too many things, but to be centred upon the one thing needful, viz., to create poetically and not to discourse philosophically or preach prophetically. Not that it is impossible for the poet to swallow the philosopher and the prophet, metabolising them into the substance of his bone and marrow, of "the trilling wire in his blood", as Eliot graphically expresses. That perhaps is the consummation towards which poetry is tending. But at present, in Eliot, at least, the strands remain distinct, each with its own temper and rhythm, not fused and moulded into a single streamlined form of beauty. Our poet flies high, very high indeed at times, often or often he flies low, not disdaining the perilous limit of bathos. Perhaps it is all wilful, it is a mannerism which he cherishes. The mannerism may explain his psychology and enshrine his philosophy. But the poet, the magician is to be looked for elsewhere. In the present collection of poems it is the philosophical, exegetical, discursive Eliot who dominates: although the high lights of the subject-matter may be its justification. Still even if we have here doldrums like
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All teachers journeyed to the mountains. The higher knowledge, the most inspired songs, the most superb sounds and colours are created in the mountains. On the highest mountains there is the Supreme: the highest mountains stand as witnesses of Great Reality.
Indeed, Roerich considers the Himalayas as the very abode, the tabernacle itself thesanctum sanctorumof the Spirit, the Light Divine. Many of Roerich's paintings have mountain ranges, especially snow-bound mountain ranges, as their theme. There is a strange kinship between this yearning artistic soul, which seems solitary in spite of its ardent humanism, and the silent heights, rising white tier upon tier reflecting prism like the fiery glowing colours, the vast horizons, the wide vistas vanishing beyond.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
of being of increasing density, down to the most material; it is
inside the body, within the solar plexus, so to say.2 These states
--
Yes, the two states are complementary, but that does not necessarily mean that they are simultaneous. most often, "to live for
Thee" comes first and if the being is unified and sincere, "to live
--
down to the most material, bringing the Divine Force with it so
that the Force can transform the whole being and finally divinise
--
Because most people, when they hear the word "unity", understand uniformity and nothing can be further from the truth.
25 September 1967
--
most material to the most subtle.
Integral means horizontally in all the different and often
--
Politics and so-called justice are still, in humanity, what is most
closed to the Truth. But their turn for conversion will also come,
--
What is the most effective way to overcome the ego?
The simplest and most effective way is to offer it to the Divine;
the more sincere and radical this offering is, the more quickly
--
For most people, in their sleep, it is precisely what has been
recorded in the subconscient during the day or previously which
--
These "instantaneous" conversions are most often the result
of many lives of preparation.
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All the remedies suggested by the mind, even the most
enlightened mind, are only palliatives and not a true cure.
--
that is why most people do not talk.
But your mind seems to remain in your body, so you must
--
exists between man and the most advanced ape; but what this
difference will be we can hardly know until the new species
0.13 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
can most help the one who has departed.
Blessings.
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
life ought to give them. most human beings want other human
beings to conform to their expectations and circumstances to
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I knew you would ask me this question because it is indeed the most interesting thing in the whole passageso my answer is ready, along with my answer to another question. But first let me read you this one.
You asked, What is this Personality and when will She come? Here is my answer (Mother reads):
--
As soon as I found outand no one told me, I found out through an experienceas soon as I found out that there was a discovery to be made within myself, well, it became THE mosT IMPORTANT thing in the world. It took precedence over everything else!
And when, as I told you, I chanced upon a book or an individual that could give me just a little clue and tell me, Here. If you do such and such, you will find your pathwell I charged into it like a cyclone and nothing could have stopped me.
0 1955-06-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Your case is not unique; there are others (and among the best and the most faithful) who are likewise a veritable battlefield for the forces opposing the advent of the truth. They feel powerless in this battle, sorrowful witnesses, victims without the strength to fight, for this is taking place in that part of the physical consciousness where the supramental forces are not yet fully active, although I am confident they soon will be. Meanwhile, the only remedy is to endure, to go through this suffering and to await patiently the hour of liberation.
While reading your prayer, I too prayed that it be heard.
0 1956-04-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognize it.
***
0 1956-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
This is what I wanted to take with me to my super-heaven, as the most precious thing in the human heart.
***
0 1956-10-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
So far, your whole life has revolved around yourself; all you have done, even the apparently most disinterested or least egoistic act, has been done with a view to your own personal growth or illumination. It is time to live for something other than yourself, something other than your own individuality.
Open a new chapter in your existence. Live, no longer for your own realization or the realization of your ideal, however exalted it may be, but to serve an eternal work that transcends your individuality on all sides.
0 1956-12-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I feel that this Truth of my being, this self most intensely felt, is independent from any form or institution. As far back as I can reach in my consciousness, this thing has been there; it was what drove me at an early age to liberate myself from my family, my religion, my country, a profession, marriage or society in general. I feel this thing to be a kind of absolute freedom, and I have been feeling within me this same profound drive for more than a year. Is this need for freedom wrong? And yet is it not because of this that the best in me has blossomed?
This is actually what is happening in me: I never really accepted the W solution, and the solution of Somalil and doesnt appeal to me. But I feel drawn by the idea of Turkestan, as I already told you, and this is why:
0 1957-07-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
It went something like this: somewhere, in the center of this enormous edifice, there was a room reservedas it seemed in the story for a mother and her daughter. The mother was a lady, an elderly lady, a very influential matron who had a great deal of authority and her own views concerning the entire organization. Her daughter seemed to have a power of movement and activity enabling her to be everywhere at once while at the same time remaining in her room, which was well, a bit more than a roomit was a kind of apartment which, above all, had the characteristic of being very central. But she was constantly arguing with her mother. The mother wanted to keep things just as they were, with their usual rhythm, which precisely meant the habit of tearing down one thing to rebuild another, then again tearing down that to build still another, thus giving the building an appearance of frightful confusion. But the daughter did not like this, and she had another plan. most of all, she wanted to bring something completely new into the organization: a kind of super-organization that would render all this confusion unnecessary. Finally, as it was impossible for them to reach an understanding, the daughter left the room to go on a kind of general inspection She went out, looked everything over, and then wanted to return to her room to decide upon some final measures. But this is where something rather peculiar began happening.
She clearly remembered where her room was, but each time she set out to go there, either the staircase disappeared or things were so changed that she could no longer find her way! So she went here and there, up and down, searched, went in and out but it was impossible to find the way to her room! Since all of this assumed a physical appearanceas I said, a very familiar and very common appearance, as is always the case in these symbolic visions there was somewhere (how shall I put it?) the hotels administrative office and a woman who seemed to be the manager, who had all the keys and who knew where everyone was staying. So the daughter went to this person and asked her, Could you show me the way to my room?But of course! Easily! Everyone around the manager looked at her as if to say, How can you say that? However, she got up, and with authority asked for a key the key to the daughters roomsaying, I shall take you there. And off she went along all kinds of paths, but all so complicated, so bizarre! The daughter was following along behind her very attentively, you see, so as not to lose sight of her. But just as they should have come to the place where the daughters room was supposed to be, suddenly the manageress (let us call her the manageress), both the manageress and her key vanished! And the sense of this vanishing was so acute that at the same time, everything vanished!
So to help you understand this enigma, let me tell you that the mother is physical Nature as she is, and the daughter is the new creation. The manageress is the worlds organizing mental consciousness as Nature has developed it thus far, that is, the most advanced organizing sense to have manifested in the present state of material Nature. This is the key to the vision.
Naturally, when I awoke, I immediately knew what could resolve this problem which appeared so absolutely insoluble. The vanishing of the manageress and her key was an obvious sign that she was altogether incapable of leading what could be called the creative consciousness of the new world to its true place.
--
Yet it is one of the most common types of human collectivityto group together, band together, unite around a common ideal, a common action, a common realization but in an absolutely artificial way. In contrast to this, Sri Aurobindo tells us that a true communitywhat he terms a gnostic or supramental communitycan be based only upon the INNER REALIZATION of each one of its members, each realizing his real, concrete oneness and identity with all the other members of the community; that is, each one should not feel himself a member connected to all the others in an arbitrary way, but that all are one within himself. For each one, the others should be as much himself as his own bodynot in a mental and artificial way, but through a fact of consciousness, by an inner realization.
(silence)
This means that before hoping to realize such a gnostic collectivity, each one must first of all become (or at least start to become) a gnostic being. It is obvious that the individual work must take the lead and the collective work follow; but the fact remains that spontaneously, without any arbitrary intervention of will the individual progress IS restrained or CHECKED, as It were, by the collective state. Between the collectivity and the individual, there exists an interdependence from which one cannot be totally free, even if one tries. And even he who might try, in his yoga, to free himself totally from the human and terrestrial state of consciousness, would be at least subconsciously bound by the state of the whole, which impedes and PULLS BACKWARDS. One can attempt to go much faster, one can attempt to let all the weight of attachments and responsibilities fall off, but in spite of everything, the realization of even the most advanced or the leader in the march of evolution is dependent upon the realization of the whole, dependent upon the state in which the terrestrial collectivity happens to be. And this PULLS backwards to such an extent that sometimes one has to wait centuries for the earth to be ready before being able to realize what is to be realized.
This is why Sri Aurobindo has also written somewhere else that a double movement is necessary: the effort for individual progress and realization must be combined with the effort of trying to uplift the whole so as to enable it to make a progress indispensable for the greater progress of the individual: a mass progress, if you will, that allows the individual to take a further step forward.
0 1957-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
These three categories of tests are: those conducted by the forces of Nature, those conducted by the spiritual and divine forces, and those conducted by the hostile forces. This latter category is the most deceptive in its appearance, and a constant state of vigilance, sincerity and humility is required so as not to be caught by surprise or unprepared.
The most commonplace circumstances, people, the everyday events of life, the most seemingly insignificant things, all belong to one or another of these three categories of examiners. In this considerably complex organization of tests, those events generally considered the most important in life are really the easiest of all examinations to pass, for they find you prepared and on your guard. One stumbles more easily over the little pebbles on the path, for they attract no attention.
The qualities more particularly required for the tests of physical Nature are endurance and plasticity, cheerfulness and fearlessness.
--
To conclude, a final recommendation: never pose as an examiner. For while it is good to remember constantly that perhaps one is passing a very important test, it is, on the other hand, extremely dangerous to imagine oneself entrusted with applying tests to others, for that is an open door to the most absurd and harmful vanities. It is not an ignorant human will that decides these things but the Supreme Wisdom.
***
0 1957-12-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Now, I recently had a very striking experience: a discrepancy occurred between my physical consciousness and the consciousness of the world. In some instances decisions made in the Light and the Truth produced unexpected results, upheavals in the consciousness of others that were neither foreseen nor desired, and I did not understand. No matter how hard I tried, I could not understand and I emphasize this word understand. At last, I had to leave my highest consciousness and pull myself down into the physical consciousness to find out what was happening. And there, in my head, I saw what appeared to be a little cell bursting, and suddenly I understood: the recording had been defective. The physical consciousness had neglected to register certain of your lower reactions. It could not have been through preference or through personal will (these things were eliminated from my consciousness long, long ago). But I saw that this most material consciousness was already completely permeated with the transforming supramental truth, and it could no longer follow the rhythm of normal life. It was much more attuned to the true consciousness than to the world! I couldnt possibly blame it for lagging behind; on the contrary, it was in front, too far ahead! There was a discrepancy between the rhythm of the transformation of my being and the worlds own rhythm. The supramental action on the world is slow, it does not act directlyit acts by infiltration, by traversing the successive layers, and the results are slow to come about. So I had to pull myself violently down in order to wait for the others.
One must at times know how not to know.
--
Humility, a perfect humility, is the condition for all realization. The mind is so cocksure. It thinks it knows everything, understands everything. And if ever it acts through idealism to serve a cause that appears noble to it, it becomes even more arrogant more intransigent, and it is al most impossible to make it see that there might be something still higher beyond its noble conceptions and its great altruistic or other ideals. Humility is the only remedy. I am not speaking of humility as conceived by certain religions, with this God that belittles his creatures and only likes to see them down on their knees. When I was a child, this kind of humility revolted me, and I refused to believe in a God that wants to belittle his creatures. I dont mean that kind of humility, but rather the recognition that one does not know, that one knows nothing, and that there may be something beyond what presently appears to us as the truest, the most noble or disinterested. True humility consists in constantly referring oneself to the Lord, in placing all before Him. When I receive a blow (and there are quite a few of them in my sadhana), my immediate, spontaneous reaction, like a spring, is to throw myself before Him and to say, Thou, Lord. Without this humility, I would never have been able to realize anything. And I say I only to make myself understood, but in fact I means the Lord through this body, his instrument. When you begin living THIS kind of humility, it means you are drawing nearer to the realization. It is the condition, the starting point.
***
0 1958-02-03b - The Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I found myself upon an immense ship, which is the symbolic representation of the place where this work is being carried out. This ship, as big as a city, is thoroughly organized, and it had certainly already been functioning for quite some time, for its organization was fully developed. It is the place where people destined for the supramental life are being trained. These people (or at least a part of their being) had already undergone a supramental transformation because the ship itself and all that was aboard was neither material nor subtle-physical, neither vital nor mental: it was a supramental substance. This substance itself was of the most material supramental, the supramental substance nearest the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a blend of red and gold, forming a uniform substance of luminous orange. Everything was like that the light was like that, the people were like thateverything had this color, in varying shades, however, which enabled things to be distinguished from one another. The overall impression was of a shadowless world: there were shades, but no shadows. The at mosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything worked smoothly and silently. At the same time, I could see all the details of the education, the training in all domains by which the people on board were being prepared.
This immense ship had just arrived at the shore of the supramental world, and a first batch of people destined to become the future inhabitants of the supramental world were about to disembark. Everything was arranged for this first landing. A certain number of very tall beings were posted on the wharf. They were not human beings and never before had they been men. Nor were they permanent inhabitants of the supramental world. They had been delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of all this since the beginning and throughout. I myself had prepared all the groups. I was standing on the bridge of the ship, calling the groups forward one by one and having them disembark on the shore. The tall beings posted there seemed to be reviewing those who were disembarking, allowing those who were ready to go ashore and sending back those who were not and who had to continue their training aboard the ship. While standing there watching everyone, that part of my consciousness coming from here became extremely interested: it wanted to see, to identify all the people, to see how they had changed and to find out who had been taken immediately as well as those who had to remain and continue their training. After awhile, as I was observing, I began to feel pulled backwards and that my body was being awakened by a consciousness or a person from here1and in my consciousness, I protested: No, no, not yet! Not yet! I want to see whos there! I was watching all this and noting it with intense interest It went on like that until, suddenly, the clock here began striking three, which violently jerked me back. There was the sensation of a sudden fall into my body. I came back with a shock, but since I had been called back very suddenly, all my memory was still intact. I remained quiet and still until I could bring back the whole experience and preserve it.
--
As for the people I saw aboard ship, I recognized them all. Some were here in the Ashram, some came from elsewhere, but I knew them as well. I saw everyone, but as I realized that I would not remember everyone when I came back, I decided not to give any names. Besides, it is unnecessary. Three or four faces were very clearly visible, and when I saw them, I understood the feeling that I have had here, on earth, while looking into their eyes: there was such an extraordinary joy On the whole, the people were young; there were very few children, and their ages were around fourteen or fifteen, but certainly not below ten or twelve (I did not stay long enough to see all the details). There were no very old people, with the exception of a few. most of the people who had gone ashore were of a middle ageagain, except for a few. Several times before this experience, certain individual cases had already been examined at a place where people capable of being supramentalized are examined; I had then had a few surprises which I had noted I even told some people. But those whom I disembarked today I saw very distinctly. They were of a middle age, neither young children nor elderly people, with only a few rare exceptions, and this quite corresponded to what I expected. I decided not to say anything, not to give any names. As I did not stay until the end, it would be impossible for me to draw an exact picture, for it was neither absolutely clear nor complete. I do not want to say things to some and not say them to others.
What I can say is that the criterion or the judgment was based EXCLUSIVELY on the substance constituting the peoplewhe ther they belonged completely to the supramental world or not, whether they were made of this very special substance. The criterion adopted was neither moral nor psychological. It is likely that their bodily substance was the result of an inner law or an inner movement which, at that time, was not in question. At least it is quite clear that the values are different.
--
But one thing and I wish to stress this point to youwhich now seems to me to be the most essential difference between our world and the supramental world (and it is only after having gone there consciously, with the consciousness that ordinarily works here, that this difference appeared to me in what might be called its enormity): everything here, except for what happens within and at a very deep level, seemed absolutely artificial to me. Not one of the values of ordinary physical life is based upon truth. Just as we have to buy cloth, sew it together, then put it on our backs in order to dress ourselves, likewise we have to take things from outside and then put them inside our bodies in order to feed ourselves. For everything, our life is artificial.
A true, sincere, spontaneous life, as in the supramental world, is a springing forth of things through the fact of conscious will, a power over substance that shapes this substance according to what we decide it should be. And he who has this power and this knowledge can obtain whatever he wants, whereas he who does not has no artificial means of getting what he desires.
0 1958-05-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
From the negative point of view I mean the difficulties to be overcomeone of the most serious obstacles is that the ignorant and falsifying outer consciousness, the ordinary consciousness legitimizes all the so-called physical laws, causes, effects and consequences, all that science has discovered physically and materially. All this is an unquestionable reality to the consciousness, a reality that remains independent and absolute even in the face of the eternal divine Reality.
And it is so automatic that it is unconscious.
--
And the proof I have the proof because I experienced it myselfis that from the minute you are in the other consciousness, the true consciousness, all these things which appear so real, so concrete, change INSTANTLY. There are a number of things, certain material conditions of my bodymaterial that changed instantly. It did not last long enough for everything to change, but some things changed and never returned, they remained changed. In other words, if that consciousness were kept constantly, it would be a perpetual miracle (what we would call a miracle from our ordinary point of view), a fantastic and perpetual miracle! But from the supramental point of view, it would not be a miracle at all, it would be the most normal of things.
Therefore, if we do not want to oppose the supramental action by an obscure, inert and obstinate resistance, we have to admit once and for all that none of these things should be legitimized.
0 1958-05-11 - the ship that said OM, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
One of the things that most gives me the feeling of the miraculous is when these obscure throngs1really tamasic2 beings, in fact, with children crying, people coughingwhen all that is gathered there, and then suddenly silence.
Each time that happens, I have truly the feeling of a miracle! I immediately say, Oh, Lord! Your Grace is infinite!
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
As for the latest experience,1 I cant say for sure that no one has ever had it, because someone like Ramakrishna, individuals like that, could have had it. But I am not sure, for when I had this experience (not of the divine Presence, which I had already felt in the cells for a long time, but the experience that the Divine ALONE is acting in the body, that He has BECOME the body, yet all the while retaining his character of divine omniscience and omnipotence) well, the whole time it remained actively like that, it was absolutely impossible to have the LEAST disorder in the body, and not only in the body, but IN ALL THE SURROUNDING MATTER. It was as if every object obeyed without even needing to decide to obey: it was automatic. There was a divine harmony in EVERYTHING (it took place in my bathroom upstairs, certainly to demonstrate that it exists in the most trivial things), in everything, constantly. So if that is established in a permanent way, there CAN NO LONGER be illness it is impossible. There can no longer be accidents, there can no longer be illness, there can no longer be disorders, and everything should harmonize (probably in a progressive way) just as that was harmonized: all the objects in the bathroom were full of a joyful enthusiasmeverything obeyed, everything!
As it was the first experience, it started to fade slightly when I began having contact with people; but I really had the feeling that it was a first experience, new upon earth. For I have experienced an absolute identity of the will with the divine Will ever since 1910, it has never left me. It isnt that, its SOMETHING ELSE. It is MATTER BECOMING THE DIVINE. And it really came with the feeling that this thing was happening for the first time upon earth. It is difficult to say for sure, but Ramakrishna died of cancer, and now that I have had the experience, I know in an ABSOLUTE way that this is impossible. If he had decided to go because the Divine wanted him to go, it would have been an orderly departure, in total harmony and with a total will, whereas this illness is a means of disorder.
--
It is likely that the greatest resistance will be in the most conscious beings due to a lack of mental receptivity, due to the mind itself which wants things to continue (as Sri Aurobindo has written) according to its own mode of ignorance. So-called inert matter is much more easily responsive, much moreit does not resist. And I am convinced that among plants, for example, or among animals, the response will be much quicker than among men. It will be more difficult to act upon a very organized mind; beings who live in an entirely crystallized, organized mental consciousness are as hard as stone! It resists. According to my experience, what is unconscious will certainly follow more easily. It was a delight to see the water from the tap, the mouthwash in the bottle, the glass, the spongeit all had such an air of joy and consent! There is much less ego, you see, it is not a conscious ego.
The ego becomes more and more conscious and resistant as the being develops. Very primitive, very simple beings, little children will respond first, because they dont have an organized ego. But these big people! People who have worked on themselves, who have mastered themselves, who are organized, who have an ego made of steel, it will be difficult for them.
0 1958-07-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
No, but I know all these people, I know them thoroughly! I know Chaitanya, Ramakrishna and Ramdas thoroughly. They are utterly familiar to me. It doesnt bother them. These are people who live with a certain feeling, who have an entirely concrete experience and live in this experience, but they dont care at all if their formation they have not even crystallized it, they leave it like that, vaguecontains things that are mutually contradictory, because, in appearance, they reconcile them. They do not raise any questions, they do not have the need for an absolutely clear vision; their feeling is absolutely clear, and thats enough for them. Ramakrishna was like that; he said the most contradictory things without being bothered in the least, and they are all exactly and equally true.
But this crystal clear vision Sri Aurobindo had, where everything is in its place, where contradictions no longer existthey never soared to that height. This was the thing, this really crystalline, perfect supramental vision, even from the standpoint of understanding and knowledge. They never went that far.
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
But yesterday, in fact, I was looking (with all these mantras and these prayers and this whole vibration that has descended into the at mosphere, creating a state of constant calling in the at mosphere), and I remembered the old movements and how everything now has changed! I was also thinking of the old disciplines, one of which is to say, I am That.7 People were told to sit in meditation and repeat, I am That, to reach an identification. And it all seemed to me so obsolete, so childish, but at the same time a part of the whole. I looked, and it seemed so absurd to sit in meditation and say, I am That! I, what is this I who is That; what is this I, where is it? I was trying to find it, and I saw a tiny, microscopic point (to see it would al most require some gigantic instrument), a tiny, obscure point in an im-men-sity of Light, and that little point was the body. At the same timeit was absolutely simultaneous I saw the Presence of the Supreme as a very, very, very, VERY immense Being, within which was I in an attitude of (I was only a sensation, you see), an attitude (gesture of surrender) like this. There were no limits, yet at the same time, one felt the joy of being permeated, enveloped and of being able to widen, widen, widen indefinitelyto widen the whole being, from the highest consciousness to the most material consciousness. And then, at the same time, to look at this body and to see every cell, every atom vibrating with a divine, radiant Presence with all its Consciousness, all its Power, all its Will, all its Loveall, all, really and a joy! An extraordinary joy. And one did not disturb the other, nothing was contradictory and everything was felt at the same time. That was when I said, But truly! This body had to have the training it has had for more than seventy years to be able to bear all that without starting to cry out or dance or leap up or whatever it might be! No, it was calm (it was exultant, but it was very calm), and it remained in control of its movements and its words. In spite of the fact that it was really living in another world, it could apparently act normal due to this strenuous training in self-control by the REASONby the reasonover the whole being, which has tamed it and given it such a great cohesive power that I can BE in the experience, I can LIVE this experience, and at the same time respond with the most amiable of smiles to the most idiotic questions!
And then, it always ends in the same way, by a canticle to the action of the grace: O, Lord! You are truly marvelous! All the experiences I have needed to pass through You have given to me, all the things I needed to do to make this body ready You have made me do, and always with the feeling that it was You who was making me do itand with the universal disapproval of all the right-minded humanity!
0 1958-09-16 - OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
My experience is that, individually, we are in relationship with that aspect of the Divine which is not necessarily the most in conformity with our natures, but which is the most essential for our development or the most necessary for our action. For me, it was always a question of action because, personally, individually, each aspiration for personal development had its own form, its own spontaneous expression, so I did not use any formula. But as soon as there was the least little difficulty in action, it sprang forth. Only long afterwards did I notice that it was formulated in a certain way I would utter it without even knowing what the words were. But it came like this: Dieu de bont et de misricorde. It was as if I wanted to eliminate from action all aspects that were not this one. And it lasted for I dont know, more than twenty or twenty-five years of my life. It came spontaneously.
Just recently one day, the contact became entirely physical, the whole body was in great exaltation, and I noticed that other lines were spontaneously being added to this Dieu de bont et de misricorde, and I noted them down. It was a springing forth of states of consciousness not words.
--
For the moment, of all the formulas or mantras, the one that acts most directly on this body, that seizes all the cells and immediately does this (vibrating motion) is the Sanskrit mantra: OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH.
As soon as I sit for meditation, as soon as I have a quiet minute to concentrate, it always begins with this mantra, and there is a response in the body, in the cells of the body: they all start vibrating.
--
So for these mantras, everything depends upon what you want to do with them. I am in favor of a short mantra, especially if you want to make both numerous and spontaneous repetitionsone or two words, three at most. Because you must be able to use them in all cases, when an accident is about to happen, for example. It has to spring up without thinking, without calling: it should issue forth from the being spontaneously, like a reflex, exactly like a reflex. Then the mantra has its full force.
For me, on the days when I have no special preoccupations or difficulties (days I could call normal, when I am normal), everything I do, all the movements of this body, all, all the words I utter, all the gestures I make, are accompanied and upheld by or lined, as it were, with this mantra:
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
When you asked me if X4 were thinking of me, I consulted my at mosphere and saw that it was true, that even many times a day Xs thoughts were coming. So I know that he is concentrating on me, or something: it simply passes through me, and I answer automatically. But I dont particularly pay attention to X, unless you ask me a question about him, in which case I deliberately tune into him, then observe and determine whether its like this or like that. Whereas this vision the other day was something that thrust itself on me; I was in another region altogether, in my inner contemplation, my concentrationa very strong concentrationwhen I was forced to enter into contact with this being whose vision I had and who was obviously a very powerful being. After telling me what he had to tell me, he went away in a very peculiar way, not at all suddenly as most people appear and disappear, not at all like that. When I first saw him, there was a living form the being himself was there but upon leaving (probably to see the effect, to find out whether he had truly succeeded in making himself understood), he left behind a kind of image of himself. Afterwards, this image blurred and it left only a silhouette, an outline, then it disappeared altogether leaving only an impression. That was the last thing I saw. So I kept the impression and analyzed it to find out exactly what was involved; all this was filed away, and then it was over. I began my concentration once again.
I intentionally carry everybody in my active consciousness for the work, and I do the work consciously; but the extent to which people in the world, or those who are here in the Ashram, are conscious of this or receive the results depends upon them, though not exclusively.
--
Money is not meant to generate money; money should generate an increase in production, an improvement in the conditions of life and a progress in human consciousness. This is its true use. What I call an improvement in consciousness, a progress in consciousness, is everything that education in all its forms can providenot as its generally understood, but as we understand it here: education in art, education in from the education of the body, from the most material progress, to the spiritual education and progress through yoga; the whole spectrum, everything that leads humanity towards its future realization. Money should serve to augment that and to augment the material base for the earths progress, the best use of what the earth can giveits intelligent utilization, not the utilization that wastes and loses energies. The use that allows energies to be replenished.
In the universe there is an inexhaustible source of energy that asks only to be replenished; if you know how to go about it, it is replenished. Instead of draining life and the energies of our earth and making of it something parched and inert, we must know the practical exercise for replenishing the energy constantly. And these are not just words; I know how its to be done, and science is in the process of thoroughly finding outit has found out most admirably. But instead of using it to satisfy human passions, instead of using what science has found so that men may destroy each other more effectively than they are presently doing, it must be used to enrich the earth: to enrich the earth, to make the earth richer and richer, more active, generous, productive and to make all life grow towards its maximum efficiency. This is the true use of money. And if its not used like that, its a vicea short circuit and a vice.
But how many people know how to use it in this way? Very few, which is why they have to be taught. What I call teach is to show, to give the example. We want to be the example of true living in the world. Its a challenge I am placing before the whole financial world: I am telling them that they are in the process of withering and ruining the earth with their idiotic system; and with even less than they are now spending for useless thingsmerely for inflating something that has no inherent life, that should be only an instrument at the service of life, that has no reality in itself, that is only a means and not an end (they make an end of something that is only a means)well then, instead of making of it an end, they should make it the means. With what they have at their disposal they could oh, transform the earth so quickly! Transform it, put it into contact, truly into contact, with the supramental forces that would make life bountiful and, indeed, constantly renewedinstead of becoming withered, stagnant, shrivelled up: a future moon. A dead moon.
0 1958-10-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Mother added: 'The most beautiful part of the experience is missing... When I try to formulate something in too precise a way, all the vastness of the experience evaporates. The entire world is being revealed in all its organization down to the minutest details but everything simultaneouslyhow can that be explained? It's not possible.'
***
0 1958-10-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
10) When an abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature immediately fills it with all the hostile suggestions, of which the most deadly is fear and the most pernicious, doubt.
I wrote that before reading Sri Aurobindos aphorism on the sentinels of Nature.1 I found it very interesting and I said to myself, Well! Thats exactly what came to me!
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
To understand the workings of universal life, and even those of terrestrial life, one must know that in their own realms these are all living beings, each with his own independent reality. They would exist even if men did not exist! most of these gods existed before man.
They are beings who belong to the progressive creation of the universe and who have themselves presided over its formation from the most etheric or subtle regions to the most material regions. They are a descent of the divine creative Spirit that came to repair the mischief in short, to repair what the Asuras had done. The first makers created disorder and darkness, an unconsciousness, and then it is said that there was a second lineage of makers to repair that evil, and the gods gradually descended through realities that were ever moreone cant say dense because it isnt really dense, nor can one even say material, since matter as we know it does not exist on these planesthrough more and more concrete substances.
All these zones, these planes of reality, received different names and were classified in different ways according to the occult schools, according to the different traditions, but there is an essential similarity, and if we go back far enough into the various traditions, hardly anything but words differ, depending upon the country and the language. The descriptions are quite similar. Moreover, those who climb back up the ladderor in other words, a human being who, through his occult knowledge, goes out of one of his bodies (they are called sheaths in English) and enters into a more subtle bodyin order to ACT in a more subtle body and so forth, twelve times (you make each body come out from a more material body, leaving the more material body in its corresponding zone, and then go off through successive exteriorizations), what they have seen, what they have discovered and seen through their ascensionwhe ther they are occultists from the Occident or occultists from the Orientis for the most part analogous in description. They have put different words on it, but the experience is very analogous.
There is the whole Chaldean tradition, and there is also the Vedic tradition, and there was very certainly a tradition anterior to both that split into two branches. Well, all these occult experiences have been the same. Only the description differs depending upon the country and the language. The story of creation is not told from a metaphysical or psychological point of view, but from an objective point of view, and this story is as real as our stories of historical periods. Of course, its not the only way of seeing, but it is just as legitimate a way as the others, and in any event, it recognizes the concrete reality of all these divine beings. Even now, the experiences of Western occultists and those of Eastern occultists exhibit great similarities. The only difference is in the way they are expressed, but the manipulation of the forces is the same.
--
There are subtle bodies and subtle worlds that correspond to these bodies; it is what the psychological method calls states of consciousness, but these states of consciousness really correspond to worlds. The occult process consists in becoming aware of these various inner states of being, or subtle bodies, and of mastering them sufficiently to be able to make one come out of the other, successively. For there is a whole hierarchy of increasing subtletiesor decreasing, depending upon the direction and the occult process consists in making a more subtle body come out from a denser body, and so forth, right to the most ethereal regions. You go out through successive exteriorizations into more and more subtle bodies or worlds. Each time it is rather like passing into another dimension. In fact, the fourth dimension of the physicists is only the scientific transcription of an occult knowledge.
To give another comparison, it could be said that the physical body is at the centerit is the most material and the most condensed, as well as the smallestand the more subtle inner bodies increasingly overlap the limits of this central physical body; they pass through it and extend further and further out, like water evaporating from a porous vase which creates a kind of steam all around it. And the more subtle it is, the more its extension tends to fuse with that of the universe: you finally become universal. It is an entirely concrete process that makes the invisible worlds an objective experience and even allows you to act in those worlds.
In Sri Aurobindo's and Mother's terminology, 'psychic' or 'psychic being' means the soul or the portion of the Supreme in man which evolves from life to life until it becomes a fully self-conscious being. The soul is a special capacity or grace of human beings on earth.
0 1958-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling, I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless Vast, generator of all creation.
And it is again one more proof. The experience was absolutely the English word genuine says it.
--
At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid Because generally, the inconscience gives the impression, precisely, of something amorphous, inert, formless, drab and gray (when formerly I entered the zones of the inconscient, that was the first thing I encountered). But this was an inconscience it was hard, rigid, COAGULATED, as if coagulated to resist: all effort slides off it, doesnt touch it, cannot penetrate it. So I am putting, most hard and rigid and narrow (the idea of something that compresses, compresses, compresses you) and stiflingyes, stifling is the word.
I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless vast, generator of all creation. It was yes, I have the feeling that it was not the ordinary creation, the primordial creation, but the SUPRAMENTAL creation, for it bore no similarity to the experience of returning to the Supreme, the origin of everything. I had utterly the feeling of being cast into the origin of the supramental creation something that is already (how can it be expressed?) objectified from the Supreme, with the explicit goal of the supramental creation.
0 1958-11-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Yes. Because at the very bottom of the Inconscient is the Supreme. It is the same idea as the highest height touching the deepest depth. The universe is like a circleit is represented by the serpent biting its tail, its head touching its tail. It means that the supreme height touches the most material matter, without any intermediary. I have already said this several times. But that was the experience. I didnt know what was happening. I expected nothing and it was stupendousin a single bound, I sprang up! If someone had had his eyes open, I assure you he would have had to laugh: I was bent over, like this, more and more, more and more, more and more, my head was just about to touch my knees when suddenlyvrrrm! Straight, straight up, my head upright in a single bound!
But as soon as you want to express it, it escapes like water running through your fingers; all the fluidity is lost, it evaporates. A rather vague, poetic or artistic expression is much truer, much nearer to the truth something hazy, nebulous, undefined. Something not concretized like a rigid mental expressionthis rigidity that the mind has introduced right down into the Inconscient.
0 1958-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
The experience of November 7 was a further step in the building of the link between the two worlds. Where I was cast was clearly into the origin of the supramental creationall this warm gold, this tremendous living power, this sovereign peace. And once again I saw that the values governing the supramental world have nothing to do with our values here, even the values of our highest wisdom, even those we consider the most divine when we live constantly in a divine Presence: it is utterly different.
Not only in our state of adoration and surrender to the Supreme, but even in our state of identification, the QUALITY of the identification is different depending upon whether we are on this side, progressing in this hemisphere, or have passed to the other side and have emerged into the other world, the other hemisphere, the higher hemisphere.
0 1958-11-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I had two visions which are certainly related to this. The most recent one was yesterday, and it concerned a past life in India. It is something that took place in India about one thousand years ago, perhaps a little more (I am not yet sure about this). And it contains both things. Its strange, both things together the origin of the power of realization in this life and the obstacle to be conquered.
I had the last vision yesterday evening. You were much taller than you are now; you were wearing the orange robe, and you were backed up against a door of bronze, a bronze door like the door of a temple or a palace but at the same time it was symbolic (it was a fact, it actually took place like this, but at the same time it was symbolic). And unfortunately, it didnt last because I was disturbed. But it contained the key.
0 1958-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Oh, the most terrible of all is when one does not have the strength, the courage, something indomitable! How many times do they come to tell me, I want to die, I want to flee, I want to die.I say, But die, then, die to yourself! No one is asking you to let your ego survive! Die to yourself since you want to die! Have that courage, the true courage, to die to your egoism.
But because it is karma, one must, one must DO something oneself. Karma is the construction of the ego; the ego MUST DO something, everything cannot be done for it. This is it, THIS is the thing: karma is the result of the egos actions, and only when the ego abdicates is the karma dissolved. One can help it along, one can assist it, give it strength, bestow courage upon it, but the ego must then make use of it.
--
Only, and this is what I wrote to you the other day which you did not understand: it is precisely at the most painful point, at the time when the suggestions are strongest, that one must hold on. Otherwise, it has always to be done all over again, always to be reconfronted. There comes a day, a moment, when it has to be done. And now, there is truly an opportunity on earth that is offered only once in thousands of years, a conscious help, with the necessary Power
But thats about all I know.
--
The disciple wanted to leave for the forest, the Congo, to do the most unlikely things there.
***
0 1958-12-15 - tantric mantra - 125,000, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I have just received your letter of the 15th. Yes, I know that the hour is critical. It has been grave here as well. I had to stop everything, for the attack upon my body was too violent. Now it is better but I have not yet resumed any of my outer activities, and I remain in my room upstairs. The battle continues in the invisible and I consider it decisive. You are a very intimate part of this battle. This is to tell you that I am with you in the most integral sense of these words. I know what you are suffering, I feel it but you must hold on. The Grace is there, all-powerful. As soon as it is possible and without going through one minute more than needed to transform that which has to be transformed, the trial will reach its end and we shall emerge into the light and joy. So never forget that I am with youin youand that WE SHALL TRIUMPH:
With all that love can bring of solace and endurance,
0 1958-12-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I have just now received your letter of the 28th. On that day I definitely felt that there was a decisive change in the situation and I understood right away that you had spoken to Swami and also that what I had written to you gave you the opportunity to take a great step. I am very happy and can say with certitude that the worst is over. However, from several points of view, I infinitely appreciate Xs offer. And although I do not think it necessary, or even desirable, that they both come here (it would create a veritable revolution and perhaps even a panic among the ashramites), I am sure that their intervention in Rameswaram itself would not only be useful but most effective
Yes, everything has changed since you now understand that your battle is not only a personal battle and that by winning it, it is a real service you are rendering to the Divine Work.
0 1958 12 - Floor 1, young girl, we shall kill the young princess - black tent, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Two or three days after I retired to my room upstairs,1 early in the night I fell into a very heavy sleep and found myself out of the body much more materially than I do usually. This degree of density in which you can see the material surroundings exactly as they are. The part that was out seemed to be under a spell and only half conscious. When I found myself at the first floor where everything was absolutely black, I wanted to go up again, but then I discovered that my hand was held by a young girl whom I could not see in the darkness but whose contact was very familiar. She pulled me by the hand telling me laughingly, No, come, come down with me, we shall kill the young princess. I could not understand what she meant by this young princess and, rather unwillingly, I followed her to see what it was. Arriving in the anteroom which is at the top of the staircase leading to the ground floor, my attention was drawn in the midst of all this total obscurity to the white figure of Kamala2 standing in the middle of the passage between the hall and Sri Aurobindos room. She was as it were in full light while everything else was black. Then I saw on her face such an expression of intense anxiety that to comfort her I said, I am coming back. The sound of my voice shook off from me the semi-trance in which I was before and suddenly I thought, Where am I going? and I pushed away from me the dark figure who was pulling me and in whom, while she was running down the steps, I recognized a young girl who lived with Sri Aurobindo and me for many years and died five years back. This girl during her life was under the most diabolical influence. And then I saw very distinctly (as through the walls of the staircase) down below a small black tent which could scarcely be perceived in the surrounding darkness and standing in the middle of the tent the figure of a man, head and face shaved (like the sannyasin or the Buddhist monks) covered from head to foot with a knitted outfit following tightly the form of his body which was tall and slim. No other cloth or garment could give an indication as to who he could be. He was standing in front of a black pot placed on a dark red fire which was throwing its reddish glow on him. He had his right arm stretched over the pot, holding between two fingers a thin gold chain which looked like one of mine and was unnaturally visible and bright. Shaking gently the chain he was chanting some words which translated in my mind, She must die the young princess, she must pay for all she has done, she must die the young princess.
Then I suddenly realized that it was I the young Princess and as I burst into laughter, I found myself awake in my bed.
0 1959-01-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
His action here has been very effective and really very interesting. I still do not know whether someone has really done black magic, and the villain has yet to appear before me. But already several days ago the malefic influence completely disappeared without leaving any trace in the at mosphere. Also their mantric intervention did not stop at that, for it has had another most interesting result. I am preparing a long letter for Swami to explain all this to him
The pain on the left side has not entirely gone and there have been some complications which have delayed things. But I feel much better. In fact, I am rebuilding my health, and I am in no hurry to resume the exhausting days as before. It is quiet upstairs for working, and I am going to take advantage of this to prepare the Bulletin1 at leisure. As I had not read over the pages on the message that we had prepared for the 31st, I have revised and transformed them into an article. It will be the first one in the February issue. I am now going to choose the others. I will tell you which ones I have chosen and in what order I will put them.
0 1959-01-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
This morning, X told me that he would be most happy to continue his action upon you if it would help your work; he has continued it anyway, even after knowing that the malefic influence was expelled from the Ashram. By the way, X told me that this evil spirit is continuing to circle around the Ashram, but beyond its borders. Therefore, if you agree, it would be necessary for him to come to Pondicherry one of these days to come to grips directly with the evil one and finish him off in such a way that he can no longer come to disturb the sadhaks, or your work, upon the slightest pretext. Then X could force this spirit to appear before him, and thereby free the at mosphere from its influence. Anyway, this trip to Pondicherry would not take place in the near future, and it would be easy to give him an official excuse: seminars on the Tantra Shastra that will interest all the Sanskritists at the Ashram. Moreover, Xs work would be done quietly in his room when he does his daily puja. From here, from Rameswaram, it is rather difficult to attract Pondicherrys at mosphere and do the work with precision. Of course, nothing will be done without your express consent. Swami is writing you on his own to tell you of the revelation that X received from his [deceased] guru concerning your experience and the schemings of certain Ashram members.
In this regard, perhaps you know that X is the tenth in the line of Bhaskaraya (my spelling of this name is perhaps not correct), the great Tantric of whom you had a vision, who could comm and the coming of Kali along with all her warriors. It is from X that Swami received his initiation.
0 1959-01-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I will therefore give you initiation this Friday or Saturday, on the day of the full moon or the day before. This first stage will last three months during which you will have to repeat 1 lakh2 times the mantra that I will give you. At the end of three months, I will come to see you in Pondicherryor you will come here for a fortnight, and as soon as I have received the message from my guru, I will give you the second stage that will last three months as well. At the end of these three months, you will receive the full initiation. X warned me that the first stage I am to receive provokes attacks and tests but that all this disappears with the second stage. Forewarned is forearmed. For what reason I do not know, but X told me that the particular nature of my initiation should remain secret and that he will say nothing about it to Swami, and he added (in speaking of the speed of the process), But you will not be less than the Swami. (!!) There, I wanted you to knowbesides, you were present in Xs vision. All this happened at a time when I was in the most desperate crisis I have ever known. Sweet Mother, there is no end to expressing my gratitude to you, and yet with the least trial, I am reduced to nothing. Why have you so much grace for me?
I would like very much to return to Pondicherry for the February Darshan and once again begin working for you. Today I am sending a second lot to Pavitra and tomorrow I will start on the Aphorisms, for I do not want to make you wait any longer. I will send a third and final lot to Pavitra by the end of the month, in time for printing. I am very touched, sweet Mother, by your attention and the money you are sending me.
0 1959-03-10 - vital dagger, vital mass, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And I express this in my own way when I say1 that thoughts come and go, flow in and out. But thoughts concerning material things are formations originating in that world, they are kinds of wills coming from the vital plane which try to express themselves, and most often they are truly deadly. If you are annoyed, for example, if someone says something unpleasant to you and you react It always happens in the same way; these little entities are there waiting, and when they feel its the right moment, they introduce their influence and their suggestions. This is what is vitally symbolized by the being with his dagger rushing forward to stab youand in the back, at that! Not even face to face! This then expresses itself in the human consciousness by a movement of anger or rage or indignation: How intolerable! How ! And the other fellow says, Yes! We shall put an end to it!
It is quite interesting to watch it once, but it isnt very pleasant.
0 1959-03-26 - Lord of Death, Lord of Falsehood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
(Concerning Satprem's most recent peregrinations and his fundamental rebelliousness, which periodically makes him take to the road)
Behind the Titan attacking us particularly now, there is something else. This Titan has been delegated by someone else. He has been there since my birth, was born with me. I felt him when I was very young, but only gradually, as I became conscious of myself, did I understand WHO he was and what was behind him.
--
This Asura of Falsehood is the one who delegated the Titan that is always near me. He chose the most powerful Titan there is on earth and sent him specially to attack this body. So even if one manages to enchain or kill this Titan, it is likely that the Lord of Falsehood will delegate another form, and still another, and still another, in order to achieve his aim.
In the end, only the Supramental will have the power to destroy it. When the hour comes, all this will disappear, without any need to do anything.
0 1959-04-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
P.S. Perhaps it would be good to tell you of the two supports that this force found in me during the most recent attack:
1) The fact that I am plagued by a lack of time and, occasionally, a certain repugnance for mental work. Then the ensuing suggestion: to have a hut in Rameswaram and devote myself exclusively to inner development.
0 1959-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
He did not give me any further details about this war, except to say that the countries which will suffer the most will be the countries of the North and the East, and he cited Burma, Japan, China and Russia. He said rather categorically that Russia would be swept away and that America would triumph.
2) X gave me certain details about his powers of prediction, but perhaps it would be better not to speak of this in a letter. On that occasion, he told me that he did not want to keep any secrets from me: I want you to know everything. I want you to be chief disciple in my tradition. When the time comes, you will understand what I mean. With you I have full connection, not only connection in my mind, but in my blood and body.
0 1960-01-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
To the most stubborn goes the victory.
When I started my japa one year ago, I had to struggle with every possible difficulty, every contradiction, prejudice and opposition that fills the air. And even when this poor body began walking back and forth for japa, it used to knock against things, it would start breathing all wrong, coughing; it was attacked from all sides until the day I caught the Enemy and said, Listen carefully. You can do whatever you want, but Im going right to the end and nothing will stop me, even if I have to repeat this mantra ten crore1 times. The result was really miraculous, like a cloud of bats flying up into the light all at once. From that moment on, things started going better.
--
Of all forms of ego, you might think that the physical ego is the most difficult to conquer (or rather, the body ego, because the work was already done long ago on the physical ego). It might be thought that the form of the body is a point of concentration, and that without this concentration or hardness, physical life would not be possible. But thats not true. The body is really a wonderful instrument; its capable of widening and of becoming vast in such a way that everything, everything the slightest gesture, the least little taskis done in a wonderful harmony and with a remarkable plasticity. Then all of a sudden, for something quite stupid, a draft, a mere nothing, it forgetsit shrinks back into itself, it gets afraid of disappearing, afraid of not being. And everything has to be started again from scratch. So in the yoga of matter you start realizing how much endurance is needed. I calculated it would take 200 years to say ten crore of my japa. Well, Im ready to struggle 200 years if necessary, but the work will be done.
Sri Aurobindo had made it clear to me when I was still in France that this yoga in matter is the most difficult of all. For the other yogas, the paths have been well laid, you know where to tread, how to proceed, what to do in such-and-such a case. But for the yoga of matter, nothing has ever been done, never, so at each moment everything has to be invented.
Of course, things are now going better, especially since Sri Aurobindo became established in the subtle physical, an al most material subtle physical.2 But there are still plenty of question marks The body understands once, and then it forgets. The Enemys opposition is nothing, for I can see clearly that it comes from outside and that its hostile, so I do whats necessary. But where the difficulty lies is in all the small things of daily material lifesuddenly the body no longer understands, it forgets.
0 1960-04-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
The following passage, taken from the Revue des Deux Mondes of March 1960, was part of a course taught by Dimitri Manowilski in 1931 at the Lenin School of Political Warfare in moscow:
Our turn will come in twenty to thirty years. To win, we need an element of surprise. The bourgeoisie should be lulled to sleep. Therefore, we must first launch the most spectacular peace movement that has ever existed, replete with inspiring proposals and extraordinary concessions. The stupid and decadent capitalist countries will cooperate joyfully in their own destruction. They will jump at this new opportunity for friendship. As soon as their guard is down, we shall crush them beneath our closed fist.
(Quoted in the Revue Militaire d Information, December 1959.)
0 1960-05-24 - supramental flood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Words cannot express it. No translation, none, not even the most subtle mental translation can express this. It was Even now the memory I have of it is inexpressible. You have to be in it to feel it, otherwise
However, to the consciousness it was very, very clear. It was neither mysterious nor incomprehensible, it was absolutely obviousthough untranslatable to our mental consciousness. For they were contradictory, yet they existed simultaneously, indistinguishable: they were not stacked one upon anotherit was all simultaneous. How can you explain that?! Its too difficult. It must be experienced.
--
After all that, towards the end of the night, at two in the morning, only a kind of faint suggestion was left: How can this statewhich I knew in trance, in samadhi, and which necessitates lying downbecome constant in a physical body which moves about? There is something to discover there. And what form will it take? For in my consciousness, you see, it is constantly like that, this universal flood, but the problem is IN THE BODY: its the problem of the Force in its most material form.
And during the time my experience lasted, I had no feeling of anything exceptional, but rather simply the fact that after all its preparation, the body consciousness was ready for a total identification with Thatin my consciousness its always the same, a perpetual, constant and eternal state in that it never leaves me. Its like that, and it never varies. What diminishes the immensity of the Vibration are the limitations of the material consciousness which can color it and even sometimes change it by giving it a personal appearance. Thus, when I see someone and speak to him, for example, when my eyes concentrate on the person, I have al most the sensation of this flood flowing from me towards the person or of it passing through me to go onto the person. There is an awareness of the eyes, the body. And it is this which limits or even changes a little the immensity of the thing But already this feeling has al most disappeared; this immensity seems to be acting al most constantly. There are moments when I am less interiorized, when I am more on the surface, and it feels like its passing through a bodymoments when the body consciousness comes back a little. And this is what diminishes the thing.
0 1960-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
There would be many interesting things to tell about sleep, because its one of the things Ive studied the mostto speak of how I became conscious of my nights, for instance. (I learned this with Theon, and now that I know all these things of India, I realize that he knew a GREAT deal.) But it bothers me a lot to say II this, I that. Id rather speak of these things in the form of a treatise or an essay on sleep, for example. Sri Aurobindo always spoke of his experiences but rarely did he say Iit always sounds like boasting.
Sri Aurobindo said that the true or yogic reason for sleep is to put the consciousness back into contact with Sat-Chit-Ananda (I used to do this without knowing it). For some people the contact is established immediately, while for others it takes eight, nine, ten hours to do it. But really, normally you should not wake up till the contact has been established, and thats why its very bad to wake up in an artificial way (with an alarm clock, for example), because then the night is wasted.
0 1960-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but thats so much better! Much better. That is the very obstacle for most people: they want to see me as I am but as I am, as my body is, its stupid. Its absolutely stupid.
No, no thats not what I mean. Im speaking of the relationship I have with you, the true onewhat I was telling you about just a moment ago. Because, you see, Im going to tell you everything! (Mother laughs) I have the impression that it would go much faster if I could pick you up, put you here (Mother touches her heart), carry you here and tell you, Calm yourself, listen! But its not possible (alas). Youre always fast on your feet with your head touching this very low ceiling. Myself, I cant be like that. Im not even sure (laughing) if my feet would get in!
0 1960-07-12 - Mothers Vision - the Voice, the ashram a tiny part of myself, the Mothers Force, sparkling white light compressed - enormous formation of negative vibrations - light in evil, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And there are hundreds and hundreds of little experiences like that, like so many little stones marking the way. Then you see that the two things are ALWAYS together: the destructive and the constructive. You cant see one without seeing the other. A time comes when the effort is to conquer the negative parts of creation and death (as at the end of Savitri), and when you have conquered that, then youre above. And then if you look at all these things, even those which seem the most opposed to the Divine, even acts of cruelty done for the pleasure of cruelty, you see the Presence the Presence that annuls their effects. And its absolutely marvelous.
I had a startling experience one day when X was doing his pujas to encircle the titans. He was in difficulty and I was about to intervene to help him when I was abruptly stopped. I was faced by a massive blackness (blacker than the blackest physical thing) and suddenly, right at its center, I saw the Divine Love shining with such a splendor I had never seen it so splendid.
0 1960-07-23 - The Flood and the race - turning back to guide and save amongst the torrents - sadhana vs tamas and destruction - power of giving and offering - Japa, 7 lakhs, 140000 per day, 1 crore takes 20 years, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And this vehicle was going faster than the flood (I saw and felt it by its motion)a formidable flood, but the vehicle was going still faster. It was so wonderful. In places there were some especially difficult and dangerous spots, but I ALWAYS got there before the water, just before the water barred the way. And we kept going and going and going. Then, with a final effort (there was no effort, really, it was willed), with a final push, we made it to the other side and the water came rushing just behind! It rushed down at a fantastic speed. We had made it. Then, just on the other side, it changed color. It was it changed in color to a predominant blue, this powerful blue which is the force, the organizing force in the most material world. So there we were, and the vehicle stopped. And then, after having been looking straight ahead the whole time we were speeding along, I turned around and said, Ah, now I can start helping those who are behind.
Here, Ill draw you a little sketch:
--
The water was flowing off towards the right. From time to time there were these fissured dips or depressions along the vehicles path where the water rushed through, and in fact it must have rushed through each one just as soon as I had sped past. It was most dangerous, for if you had reached there a second too late, the water would already have flooded in and you would no longer have been able to get across; it was such that with even only a few drops, you would no longer get across. Not that they were very wide, but And the water was pouring in (pouring in our words are very small), it was pouring in, and I could see it ahead, but then the vehicle would arrive at full speed and instead of stopping, in a wild roller coaster-like movement it would plunge through, vroom!just in time, exactly like a roller coaster. I always arrived just in time to get through. And then again the same thing, broken here and there (in this way there were many fissures, though Ive only drawn two; there were quite a few, five or six at least), and again we would dart across, then race on until we would reach the spot where I have drawn the water turning.
Right at the end, there was a place where the water had to turn to run downthis was the Great Passage. If you got caught in that, it was all over. You had to reach this spot and cross over before the water came. It was the only place you could get across. Then a last plunge, and like an arrow shot from a bow, full speed ahead, I crossed over and there I was.
0 1960-08-10 - questions from center of Education - reading Sri Aurobindo, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
What is so interesting in it is this insistence on the divinity of man If thatthis feeling of the inner divinitycould be established in oneself in a constant way (Ive seen this for most people I know), so MANY things would There is no need for any effort at all, things fall away from you like dust.
There is no need to react against difficulties; you are immediately pulled out of them, as if you were taken out like this (gesture of pulling someone out of a difficulty with her two fingers).
0 1960-08-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
You know, someone who appreciates this work tremendously is Nolini. Once he timidly asked me, Could I have a copy9? Fine, I said. Oh, he really appreciates it. And when I have something amusing like these most recent notes, I give him a copy. With that, hes happy. So he blesses you! (Mother laughs) Oh! Without you, this would never have been doneyou can be quite sure. Never.
***
0 1960-08-27, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
We should not allow all this to upset us. There is but one thing to doremain in a state of constant peace, constant equanimity, for things are not they are not very pleasant. Oh, if you only knew all the letters they write me if you knew, first of all, the tremendous pile of stupidities that need never be written at all; then, added to that, such a display of ignorance, egoism, bad will, total incomprehension and unequalled ingratitude, and all this so candid, my child! They heap all this on me daily, you know, and it comes from the most unexpected quarters.
If this were to affect me (Mother laughs), I would long ago have been who knows where. I dont care at all, not at all, really not at allit doesnt bother me, it makes me smile.
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
X has spoken to me several times of his lack of esteem for most people in the Ashram: Why does Mother keep all these empty pots? he says.
If he imagines for one moment that I believe all the people here are doing sadhana, he is grossly mistaken!
--
Along the way, I once went down into this physical mind for awhile to try to set it right, to organize it a little (it was done rather quickly, I didnt stay there long). So when I went inside X, I saw It was rather curious, for its the opposite of the method we follow. In his material consciousness (physical and vital), he has trained himself to be impersonal, open, limitless, in communication with all the universal forces. In the physical mind, silence, immobility. But in the speculative mind, the one there at the very top of the head what an organization, phew! All the tradition in its most superb organization, but such a ri-gi-dity! And it had a pretty quality of light, a silver blueVERY pretty. Oh, it was very calm, wonderfully calm and quiet and still. But what a ceiling it had!the outer form resembled rigid cubes. Everything inside was beautiful, but that There was a very large cube right at the top, I recall, bordered by a purple line, which is a line of powerall this was quite luminous. It looked like a pyramid; the smaller cubes formed a kind of base, the lower part of which faded into something cloudy, and then this passed imperceptibly downwards to a more material realm, or in other words, the physical mind. The cube on top was the largest and most luminous, and the least yieldingeven inflexible, you could say. The others were somewhat less defined, and at the bottom it was very blurred. But up at the top!thats where I wanted to go, right to the top.
When I got there, I felt a moment of anguish; my feeling was that nothing could be done. Not for him in particular, but universally, for all those in his categoryit seemed hopeless.6 If that was perfection, then nothing more could be done. This lasted only a second, but it was painful. And then I tried that is, I wanted to bring my consciousness down into the highest cubethis eternal, universal and infinite consciousness which is the first and fore most expression of the manifestation but nothing doing. It was impossible. I tried for several minutes and saw that it was absolutely impossible. So I had to make a curious movement (I couldnt get through it, it was impassable), I had to come back down into the so-called lower consciousness (not lower, actuallyit was vast and impersonal), and from there I came out and regained my equilibrium. This is what gave me that splitting headache I told you about. I came out of there as if I were carrying the weight the weight of an irreducible absoluteit was dreadful. Unfortunately, I was unable to rest afterwards, and as people were waiting to see me, I had to talkwhich is very tiring for me. And this produced a bubbling in my head, like a this dark blue light of power in matter was there, shot through with streaks of white and gold, and all this was flashing back and forth in my head, this way and that way I thought I was going to have a stroke! (Mother laughs)
--
The most recent incident took place a few days ago, for there was a general excitement in the factory due to the expected visit of a government minister during the day. That afternoon, exactly at half past three, I felt that I had to make a little concentration. So I paid attention and saw poor L11 praying to me. He was praying, praying, calling mesuch a strong call that it pulled me. I was having my bath (you know what happens when Im very strongly pulled Im stopped right in the very midst of a gesture, then the consciousness goes wandering off! And I cant do anything, it stops me dead. Thats exactly what happened to me in the bathroom). When I saw what was happening, I straightened things out. Then they must have had their ceremony, for suddenly I felt, Ah, now it has calmed down, its all right. And I went on to something else.
The next day, L came to see me. He told me that shortly before 3:30, the machine had stopped once again, but this time it was quickly set right; they found out right away what had to be done. And then he told me that at 3:45 he had started praying to me that all should go well. Oh, I know! I said.
0 1960-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
For the placement of words is not the same in English and in French. In English, for example, the place an adverb occupies is of major importance for the precise meaning. In French also, but generally its not the same! If at least it were exactly the opposite of English it would be easier, but its not exactly the opposite. Its the same thing for the word order in a series of modifiers or any string of words; usually in English, for example, the most important word comes first and the least important last. In French, its usually the opposite but it doesnt always work!
The spirit of the two languages is not the same. Something always escapes. This must surely be why revelations (as Sri Aurobindo calls them) sometimes come to me in one language and sometimes in the other. And it does not depend on the state of consciousness Im in, it depends on what has to be said.
0 1960-10-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And I see it all the time now. If someone is speaking or if Im doing something, I see the two things at the same time I see the physical thing, his words or my action, and then this colored, luminous transcription at the same time. The two things are superimposed. For example, when someone speaks to me, it gets translated into some kind of picture, a play of light or color (which is not always so luminous!)this is why most of the time, in fact, I dont even know what has been said to me. I recall the first time this phenomenon happened, I said to myself, Ah, so thats what these modern artists see! Only, as they themselves arent very coherent, what they see is not very coherent either!
And thats how it worksit is translated by patches and moving forms, which is how it gets registered in the earths memory. So when things from this realm enter into peoples active consciousness, they get translated into each ones language and the words and thoughts that each one is accustomed tobecause that doesnt belong to any language or to any idea: it is the exact IMPRINT of what is happening.
--
Yesterday, I suddenly saw a huge living head of blue lightthis blue light which is the force, the powerful force in material Nature (this is the light the tantrics use). The head was made entirely of this light, and it wore a sort of tiaraa big head, so big (Mother indicates the length of her forearm); its eyes werent closed, but rather lowered, like this. The immobility of eternity, absolutely the repose, the immobility of eternity. A magnificent head, quite similar to the way the gods here are represented, but even better; something between certain heads of the Buddha and (these heads most probably come to the artists). Everything else was lost in a kind of cloud.
I felt that this kind of yes, immobility came from there: everything stops, absolutely everything stops. Silence, immobility truly, you enter into eternity.I told him it wasnt time!
--
The experience I havewhat I mean by I is this aggregate here (Mother indicates her body), this particular individualityis that the more quiet and calm it is, the more work it can do and the faster the work can be done. What is most disturbing and time consuming are all these agitated vibrations that fall on me (truly speaking, each person who comes throws them on me). And this is what makes the work difficultit stirs up a whirlwind. And you cant do anything in this whirlwind, its impossible. If you try to do something material, your fingers stumble; if you try to do something intellectual, your thoughts get all entangled and you no longer see clearly. Ive had the experience, for example, of wanting to look up a word in the dictionary while this agitation was in the at mosphere, and everything jumps up and down (yet the lighting is the same and Im using the same magnifying glass), I no longer see a thing, its all jumping! I go page by page, but the word simply doesnt exist in the dictionary! Then I remain quiet, I do this (Mother makes a gesture of bringing down the Peace) and after half a minute I open the dictionary: the very spot, and the word leaps out at me! And I see clearly and distinctly. Consequently I have now the indisputable proof that if you want to do anything properly, you must FIRST be calm but not only be calm yourself; you must either isolate yourself or be capable of imposing a calm on this whirlwind of forces that comes upon you all the time from all around.
All the teachers are wanting to quit the schoolweary! Which means theyll begin the year with half the teachers gone. They live in constant tension, they dont know how to relax thats really what it is. They dont know how to act without agitation.
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Only, there is all that comes from outside thats what is most dangerous. Constantly, constantlywhen you eat, you catch it oh, what a mass of vibrations! The vibrations of the thing you eat when it was living (they always remain), the vibrations of the person who cooked it, vibrations of All the time, all the time, they never stopyou breathe, they enter. Of course, when you start talking to someone or mixing with people, then you become a bit more conscious of what is coming, but even just sitting still, uninvolved with othersit comes! There is an al most total interdependenceisolation is an illusion. By reinforcing your own at mosphere (Mother gestures, as if building a wall around her), you can hold these things off TO A CERTAIN EXTENT, but simply this effort to keep them at a distance creates (Im thinking in English and speaking in French) disturbances.8 Anyway, now all this has been SEEN.
But I know in an absolute way that once this whole mass of the physical mind is mastered and the Brahmic consciousness is brought into it in a continuous way, you CAN you become the MASTER of your health.
--
During the last two years, Ive been accumulating experiences IN THEIR MINUTEST DETAILS, things that might seem most useless. You have to consent to that and not have a mania for greatness; you must know that where the key is found is in the tiniest effort to create a true attitude in a few cells.
The problem is that when you enter into the ordinary consciousness, these things become so subtle and require such a scrupulous observance that people are justified (they FEEL justified) in having the attitude, Oh, its Nature, its Fate, its the Divine Will! But with that conviction, the Yoga of Perfection is impossible and appears as a mere utopian fantasy but this is FALSE. The truth is something else entirely.
--
And even if at the moment you dont feel very good, you are able to say, It doesnt matter; what we have to do, well do (this fear of not being able to do what has to be done is the most irksome), if at that moment you can sincerely say to yourself, No, I trust in the Divine Grace no, I will do what I have to do, and Ill be given the power to do it, or the power to do it will be created in me then that is the true attitude.
I feel thats what you give me.
0 1960-10-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And this lasted quite long (its what I saw most clearly and what I best remember). But there were many, many thingsold things that I know and certainly a VERY INTIMATE relationship which we had in the days of Egypt, at Thebes.
Its the first time I saw this for youit was very, very
0 1960-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
He lives in a region which is largely a kind of vital vibration which penetrates the mind and makes use of the imagination (essentially its the same region most so-called cultured men live in). I dont mean to be severe or critical, but its a world that likes to play to itself. Its not really what we could call histrionics, not thatits rather a need to dramatize to oneself. So it can be an heroic drama, it can be a musical drama, it can be a tragic drama, or quite simply a poetic drama and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, its a romantic drama. And then, these soul states (!) come replete with certain spoken expressions (laughing) Im holding myself back from saying certain things!You know, its like a theatricals store where you rent scenery and costumes. Its all ready and waitinga little call, and there it comes, ready-made. For a particular occasion, they say, Youre the woman of my life (to be repeated as often as necessary), and for another they say Its a whole world, a whole mode of human life which I suddenly felt I was holding in my arms. Yes, like a decoration, an ornament, a nicetyan ornament of existence, to keep it from being flat and dull and the best means the human mind has found to get out of its tamas. Its a kind of artifice.
So for persons who are severe and grave (there are two such examples here, but its not necessary to name them) There are beings who are grave, so serious, so sincere, who find it hypocritical; and when it borders on certain (how shall I put it?) vital excesses, they call it vice. There are others who have lived their entire lives in a yogic or religious discipline, and they see this as an obstacle, illusion, dirtyness (Mother makes a gesture of rejecting with disgust), but above all, its this terrible illusion that prevents you from nearing the Divine. And when I saw the way these two people here reacted, in fact, I said to myself, but you see, I FELT So strongly that this too is the Divine, it too is a way of getting out of something that has had its place in evolution, and still has a place, individually, for certain individuals. Naturally, if you remain there, you keep turning in circles; it will always be (not eternally, but indefinitely) the woman of my life, to take that as a symbol. But once youre out of it, you see that this had its place, its utilityit made you emerge from a kind of very animal-like wisdom and quietude that of the herd or of the being who sees no further than his daily round. It was necessary. We mustnt condemn it, we mustnt use harsh words.
--
The most senior disciple in the Ashram.
***
0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Speaking of which, I looked at Ts most recent questions on the Aphorisms again. All these children havent the least sense of humor, so Sri Aurobindos paradoxes throw them into a kind of despair! The last aphorism went something like this: When I could read a wearisome book from one end to the other with pleasure, then I knew I had conquered my mind.2 So T asked me How can you read a wearisome book with pleasure?!! I had to explain it to her. And on top of that, I have to take on a rather serious tone, for were I to reply in the same ironic fashion, they would be totally drowned! It throws them into a terrible confusion!
Its a lack of plasticity in the mind, and they are bound by the expression of things; for them, words are rigid. Sri Aurobindo explained it so well in The Secret of the Veda; he shows how language evolves and how, before, it was very supple and evocative. For example, one could at once think of a river and of inspiration. Sri Aurobindo also gives the example of a sailboat and the forward march of life. And he says that for those of the Vedic age it was quite natural, the two could go together, superimposed; it was merely a way of looking at the same thing from two sides, whereas now, when a word is said, we think only of this word all by itself, and to get a clear picture we need a whole literary or poetic imagery (with explanations to boot!). Thats exactly the case with these children; theyre at a stage where everything is rigid. Such is the product of modern education. It even extracts the subtlest nuance between two words and FIXES it: And above all, dont make any mistake, dont use this word for that word, for otherwise your writings no good. But its just the opposite.
--
Yes, everything is getting mildewed, everything you touch. Im sleeping in a damp bed; to walk on the woolen carpets upstairs is like walking on mossin the forest! For myself, I dont mind.
Theres a certain sensibility which makes any increase in humidity felt. Before it starts raining, even several hours before, it feels like there are drops falling on my body. I can always say when its going to rain. Its entirely physical, actually, merely a heightened sensitivity. It feels like very tiny drops (you know, like drizzle), the feeling of a very fine spray falling on the body. And yet the sky is clear; I say, Hmm, its going to rain. And it rains I felt it. I feel the water, and it never fails to come a few hours later.
0 1960-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
But I (how can I put this?) I lived their experience, I lived it; and even events which seem quite extraordinary when seen from afar, which is the way they appear to most people, even historical things which have furthered the earths transformation and its upheavals the crucial events, the great works, you might sayare woven from the SAME fabric, they are the SAME thing! When you look at all this from afar, on the whole it can make an impression, but the life of each minute, of each hour, of each second is woven from this SAME fabric, drab, dull, insipid, WITHOUT ANY TRUE LIFEa mere reflection of life, an illusion of lifepowerless, void of any light or anything that resembles joy in the least. Oh! if it has always to remain like that, then we dont want any of it.
Such is the feeling it gives.
--
Its quite odd, for this was not a personal consciousness, it was not someone remembering his lifethis is what I found most interesting; what came were pieces, little chunks of lifes construction, a collection of people and circumstances. And it is impossible to separate the individual from all that is around him, its clear! It all holds together like (if you change one thing, everything is changed) it holds together like an agglomerated mass.
I had seen this earlier from another angle. In the beginning, when I started having the consciousness of immortality and when I brought together this true consciousness of immortality and the human conception of it (which is entirely different), I saw so clearly that when a human (even quite an ordinary human, one who is not a collectivity in himselfas is a writer, for example, or a philosopher or statesman) projects himself through his imagination into what he calls immortality (meaning an indefinite duration of time) he doesnt project himself alone but rather, inevitably and always, what is projected along with himself is a whole agglomeration, a collectivity or totality of things which represent the life and the consciousness of his present existence. And then I made the following experiment on a number of people; I said to them, Excuse me, but lets say that through a special discipline or a special grace your life were to continue indefinitely. What you would most likely extend into this indefinite future are the circumstances of your life, this formation you have built around yourself that is made up of people, relationships, activities, a whole collection of more or less living or inert things.
But that CANNOT be extended as it is, for everything is constantly changing! And to be immortal, you have to follow this perpetual change; otherwise, what will naturally happen is what now happensone day you will die because you can no longer follow the change. But if you can follow it, then all this will fall from you! Understand that what will survive in you is something you dont know very well, but its the only thing that can survive and all the rest will keep falling off all the time Do you still want to be immortal?Not one in ten said yes! Once you are able to make them feel the thing concretely, they tell you, Oh no! Oh no! Since everything else is changing, the body might as well change too! What difference would it make! But what remains is THAT; THAT is what you must truly hold on to but then you must BE THAT, not this whole agglomeration. What you now call you is not THAT, its a whole collection of things..
0 1960-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Not last night but the night before, I touched at least one of the causes (at that time it felt like THE cause) of a certain powerlessness to act directly on Matter You see, when the Will and the Power come, they are extremely effective everywhere UP TO A CERTAIN REGION (in other words, whether people are receptive or not, open or not, makes no differencewhen the Will is applied it is all-powerful UP TO a certain region) but once it arrives here, at the most material material, its efficacy depends on many thingsand a power which depends on something is no power! For a long, long time I have been searching for the reasons behind this powerlessness. Ive located a few, one after another, and upon these points there was an immediate effect. But some things resisted (oh, quite a number, in a number of ways), for example it had difficulty acting on illnesses, on the cells, on doubt (not mental doubt, but rather the doubt of the physical consciousness which cant accept certain things that seem impossible to itwhat Sri Aurobindo calls disbelief,1 not a mental doubt, but the disbelief of the physical consciousness which cant accept what is contrary to its own nature and its own working). And as for illnesses, sometimes it has an immediate effect, but sometimes it drags on and has to follow its so-called normal course. On all these three points, I clearly felt that something was hampering it. These are the Enemys strongholds; all that doesnt want the Divine seizes upon it and even the working of the Power coming from above is obstructed, for when it must work here in the body, it is stopped or deformed or altered or diminished.
All this goes on in the subconscient; these are things that were pushed out of the physical consciousness down into the subconscient, so theyre there and they come back up whenever they please.
--
And then, at the same time, some rather interesting things are happening. Imagine, X is starting to understand certain things that is, in his own way he is discovering the progress I am making; hes discovering it as a received teaching (through subtle channels). He wrote a letter to Amrita two or three days ago in which he translates in his own language, with his own words and his own way of speaking, exactly my most recent experiencesthings that I have conquered in a general way.
This interests me, for these things do not at all enter through the mind (he doesnt receive a thing there, hes closed there). So in his letter he says that this thing or that is necessary (he describes it in his own words), and he adds, This is why we must be so grateful to have among us the the great Mother7 (as he puts it), the great Mother who knows these things.Good! I said to myself. (It had to do with something specific concerning the capacity for discrimination in the outside world, the different qualities and different functions of different beings, all of which depends on ones inner construction, as it were.) So I see that even this, even these physical experiences, is received (and yet I hadnt tried, I had never tried to make him receive it); it merely works like this, you see (gesture of a widespread diffusion), and the experience is veryhow should I say?drastic, with a kind of (power of radiation). Imperative.
0 1960-12-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Its what Sri Aurobindo calls disbelief, and its located in the most material physical consciousness it isnt doubt (which mainly belongs to the mind), it is al most like a refusal to accept the obvious as soon as it doesnt belong to the little daily routine of ordinary sensations and reactionsa sort of incapacity to accept and recognize the exceptional.
This disbelief is the bedrock of the consciousness. And it comes with a (thought is too big a word for such an ordinary thing) a mental-physical activity which makes you (I am forced to use the word) think things and which always foresees, imagines or draws conclusions (depending on the case) in a way which I myself call DEFEATIST. In other words, it automatically leads you to imagine all the bad things that can happen. And this occurs in a realm which is absolutely run-of-the-mill, in the most ordinary, restricted, banal activities of lifesuch as eating, moving in short, the coarsest of things.
Its fairly easy to manage and control this in the realm of thought, but when it comes to those reactions that rise up from the very bottom theyre so petty that you can barely express them to yourself. For example, if someone mentions that so-and-so ate such-and-such a thing, immediately something somewhere starts stealing in: Ah, hes going to get a stomach-ache! Or you hear that someone is going somewhereOh, hes going to have an accident! And it applies to everything; its swarming down below. Nothing to do with thought as such!
Its quite a nasty habit, for it keeps the most material state in a condition of disharmony, disorder, ugliness and difficulty.
I tried every possible way To get out of it is relatively easy. But then it doesnt change.
0 1960-12-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Even stones are beautiful; they are always beautiful in one way or another. When life appeared, there were some forms that were a little difficult, but not to that extent, not like certain human mental creations. Of course, there may have been some animal species which were rather but they were more monstrous than actually ugly. And most probably, it only seems like that to our consciousness. But the mind And its the same for all these ideas of sin, of wrong, of all thatits a falsehood. But it was man who invented falsehood, wasnt it? The mind invented falsehood: to deceive! to deceive! And its a curious fact that animals domesticated by man have also learned to lie!
The curve
--
But you cannot get out as long as it all seems quite natural to you. Whats most unfortunate is when you resign yourself to it. You realize this when you go back to earlier states of consciousness; you see that it all seemed, if not quite natural, at least al most inevitable thats how things are, you must take them as they are. And you dont even think about it; you take things as they are, you EXPECT them to be what they are; its the stuff of our daily lives, and it keeps repeating itself endlessly. And the only thing you learn is to hold on, hold on, not let yourself be shaken, to go right through it alland it feels endless, interminable, al most eternal. (However, once you understand what eternal is, you see that this CANNOT be eternal, for otherwise )
But this particular state of endurancethis endurance that nothing can upsetis very dangerous. And yet its indispensable; for you must first accept everything before having the power to transform anything.
0 1960-12-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And now, all these different attitudes which individuals, groups and categories of men hold are coming from every direction (while Im walking upstairs) to assert their own points of view as the true thing. And I see that for myself, Im being forced to deal with a whole mass of things, most of which are quite futile from an ordinary point of viewnot to mention the things of which these moral or religious types disapprove. Quite interestingly, all kinds of mental formations come like arrows while Im walking for my japa upstairs (Mother makes a gesture of little arrows in the air coming into her mental at mosphere from every direction); and yet, Im entirely in what I could call the joy and happiness of my japa, full of the energy of walking (the purpose of walking is to give a material energy to the experience, in all the bodys cells). Yet in spite of this, one thing after another comes, like this, like that (Mother draws little arrows in the air): what I must do, what I must answer to this person, what I must say to that one, what has to be done All kinds of things, most of which might be considered most futile! And I see that all this is SITUATED in a totality, and this totality I could say that its nothing but the body of the Divine. I FEEL it, actually, I feel it as if I were touching it everywhere (Mother touches her arms, her hands, her body). And all these things neither veil nor destroy nor divert this feeling of being entirely this a movement, an action in the body of the Divine. And its increasing from day to day, for it seems that He is plunging me more and more into entirely material things with the will that THERE TOO it must be done that all these things must be consciously full of Him; they are full of Him, in actual fact, but it must become conscious, with the perception that it is all the very substance of His being which is moving in everything
It was quite beautiful on the balcony this morning
--
Its a FACT. Its not a thought, not something you observeyou arent a witness: its A FACT which is LIVED. So if you want to translate the experience, youd have to say the most paradoxical of things, like Sri Aurobindoso paradoxical that they are al most offensive to reason! Yes, more, far more than paradoxical.
***
0 1960-12-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
But whats most surprising is that with me, not a word, nothing, neither he nor I. And it seems to be just as comfortable for him as it is for me!
(silence)
--
Ill tell you about that Wait, we still have three minutes; I want to tell you one of my most recent visions (but its al most the same thing every night):
I was in my home, somewherea world whose light is like a sun (golden with scarlet reflections); it was very beautiful. It was in a town, and my house was in that town. I wanted to take to someone some not presents, but things he needed. So I got everything together, prepared it all, and then loaded my arms with all the packages (I had taken my own time to arrange everything nicely), and I went out when the whole town was completely deserted there was not a soul on the streets. A complete solitude. And such a sense of well-being, of light and force! Yes, really a kind of felicity, for no reason. And instead of weighing me down, it seemed as if my packages were pulling me! They pulled me on in such a way that each step was a joy, like a dance.
0 1961-01-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Put this way, there is no need to bring the principle of love into our explanation. But if we want to know or understand the nature of the Force or Power that permits and accomplishes this transformation (specially in the case of evil, but for ugliness to some extent as well), we see that of all powers, Love is obviously the mightiest, the most integralintegral in that it applies to all cases. Its even mightier than the power of purification which dissolves bad wills and is, in a way, master over the adverse forces, but which doesnt have the direct transforming power; because the power of purification Must FIRST dissolve in order to form again later. It destroys one form to make a better one from it, while Love doesnt need to dissolve in order to transform: it has the direct transforming power. Love is like a flame changing the hard into the malleable, then sublimating even the malleable into a kind of purified vapor. It doesnt destroy: it transforms.
Love, in its essence and in its origin, is like a white flame obliterating ALL resistances. You can have the experience yourself: whatever the difficulty in your being, whatever the weight of accumulated mistakes, the ignorance, incapacity, bad will, a single SECOND of this Lovepure, essential, suprememelts everything in its almighty flame. One single moment and an entire past can vanish. One single TOUCH of That in its essence and the whole burden is consumed.
0 1961-01-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The title of the folder is the line from Savitri that gave me the most overpowering experience of the entire book (because, as I told you, as I read, I would LIVE the experiencesreading brought, instantly, a living experience). And when I came to this particular line I was as if suddenly swept up and engulfed in (the is wrong, an is wrongits neither one nor the other, its something else) eternal Truth. Everything was abolished except this:
For ever love, O beautiful slave of God3
0 1961-01-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then last night I saw the symbol, the image of the thing. But what was it? It was an element in the most material Matter,3 because it was deep down below; yet despite it all, Mother Nature was in charge there: she was familiar with everything, knew everything and it was all at her disposalabsolutely the most material Nature. And she herself had no light, but was very, very she had a concealed power that was completely invisible.
Each time I set out to leave her domain and ascend above, it triggered a hurricane. I would pass this way and the storm started up, pass that way, unleash a gale. Finally she approached me and said very gently, very sweetly, in a most unassuming way, No, dont go there, dont go! Dont try to return to your home. They have set up a dreadful hurricane! And artificial: there were explosions like bombs everywhere, and even worse, like thunderbolts. One could see the artificial tricks and electrical effects they were using to create their thunder, but it was on a tremendous scale!
It isnt over.
0 1961-01-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At midnight I was lying in bed. (And I remained there from midnight until I oclock fully awake. I dont know if my eyes were open or closed, but I was wide awake, NOT IN TRANCEI could hear all the noises, the clocks, and so forth.) Then, lying flat, my entire body (but a slightly enlarged body, exceeding the purely physical form) became ONE vibration, extremely rapid and intense but immobile. I dont know how to explain this, because it did not move in space but was a vibration (that is, it wasnt motionless); yet it was motionless in space. And the exact form of my body was absolutely the most brilliant white Light of the supreme Consciousness, the consciousness OF the Supreme. It was IN the body and it was as though in EACH cell there was a vibration, and it was all part of a single BLOCK of vibration. It extended this much beyond the body (gesture indicating about six centimeters). I was absolutely immobile in my bed. Then, WITHOUT MOVING, without shifting, it began consciously to rise upwithout moving, you understand: I remained like this (Mother holds her two joined and motionless hands at the level of her forehead, as if her entire body were mounting in prayer)consciously like an ascension of this consciousness6 towards the supreme Consciousness.
The body was stretched out flat.
--
And it went on like that. After this, Slowly, Still WITHOUT MOVING, everything went back into each of the different centers of the being. (Ah, let me say parenthetically that it wasnt AT ALL the ascent of a force like the ascent of the Kundalini! It had absolutely nothing to do with the Kundalini movement and the centers, it wasnt that at all.) But while re-descending, it was as though WITHOUT LEAVING THIS STATE, without leaving this state which remained conscious ALL the time, this supreme Consciousness began to reactivate the different centers: first here (Mother points to the center above the head and then touches the crown of the head, the forehead, throat, chest, etc.) then there, there, there. At each there was a pause while this new realization organized everything. It organized and made the necessary decisions, sometimes down to the most minute details: what had to be done in this case or said in that case; and all of that TOGETHER, at once, not one by one but seen entirely as a whole. It kept on descending I noted many things, it was extremely interestingdown and down, farther and farther, right to the depths. Everything went on at the same time,7 simultaneously, and at the same time this supreme Consciousness was organizing everything separately.8
This descending reorganization ended exactly when the clock struck one. At that moment I knew that I had to go into trance for the work to be perfected, but until then I was wide awake.
--
This entire experience and Mother's insistence that it all happened 'without moving,' unlike the experience of the ascent of the Kundalini, suggests that it is the supramental consciousness concealed in the depths of the cells, that somehow emerges and traverses all the layers until the junction is made with the most material body-consciousness.
Later, Mother added: 'The Power that was acting was no longer the power that had been acting previously.'
0 1961-01-31, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At the moment of my coming out of the trance, I had a very concrete, positive perception (not a mental understanding, it didnt come from the beings intellectual part, the part that understands and explains everything and Is symbolized, I think, by Indra; it wasnt in any way conveyed through that higher intelligence, it wasnt mental). A kind of perception (not really a sensation, it was more than a sensation) of the al most total unimportance of the external, material expression of the bodys condition: the consciousness OF THE BODY was absolutely indifferent to external, physical signs, whether they were like this or like that (the BODYS consciousness was what had experienced the identity). And this body-consciousness had the perception of the EXTREME RELATIVITY of the most material expression.
I am translating it to make myself understoodit wasnt like that at the time of the experience. Suppose, for example, that there was a disorder here or there in the body, not actually an illness (because illness implies some important inner factor such as an attack or the necessity for some transformation, many different things), but the outer expression of a disorder, such as swollen legs or a malfunctioning liver not an illness, a disorder, a functional disorder. Well, it was all utterly unimportant: IT IN NO WAY CHANGES THE BODYS TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS. Although we are in the habit of thinking that the body is very disturbed when its ill, when something is going wrong, its not so. It isnt disturbed in the way we understand it.
--
This was a very important experience. Afterwards (especially yesterday afternoon and this morning), I gradually began to realize that this kind of indifferent detachment is the ESSENTIAL condition for the establishment of true Harmony in the most material Matter the most external, physical Matter (Mother pinches the skin of her hand).
This experience has been like a stagean indispensable stage for establishing this complete detachment; an indispensable stage so that the harmony of the body-consciousness (which came with the bodys experience of the Divine) might have its effect upon the most external, superficial part of the body.
(silence)
0 1961-02-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A formidable concentration of vitalityof all animals, the serpent has the most vitality. Its tremendous! And energy progressive energy, energy of movement (progressive in the mechanical sense). Its meaning has been changed to a psychological one, but its a force of movement.
Then why do these creatures always seem so evil to us?
--
One could al most say that of all animals, the serpent is the most sensitive to hypnotic or magnetic power. If you have it (magnetic power comes from the most material vital), you can easily gain a mastery over snakes; all the people who like snakes have it and use it to make snakes obey them. Thats how I got out of my encounter with the cobra at Tlemcen7do you know the story? Theon had told me about this power and I was aware of it in myself, so I was able to make the cobra obey and he left. Afterwards (Ive told this story, too), I was visited by the King of Serpents I mean the spirit of the species. He came to me in Tlemcen after this and another incident when I helped a cat overpower a little asp (there are asps over there like Cleopatras, very dangerous)a big russet angora cat. At first it started to play with the asp, but then naturally grew furious. The asp struck at the cat, but the cat leapt aside with such swiftness that the asp missed it (I watched this going on for more than ten minutes, it was extraordinary). Just as the snake darted by, the cat would swat at it with all his claws outand the asp got scratched each time, so that little by little it ran out of energy, and at the end. I stopped the cat from eating it that part was disgusting!
Then after these two incidents, I received a visit one night from the King of Serpents. He was wearing a superb crown on his headsymbolic, of course, but anyway, he was the spirit of the species. He had the appearance of a cobra, and he was wonderful! A formidable beast, and wonderful! He said he had come to make a pact with me: I had demonstrated my power over his species, so he wanted to come to an understanding. All right, I said, what do you propose? I not only promise that serpents wont harm you, he replied, but that they will obey you. But you must promise me something in return: never to kill one of them. I thought it over and said, No, I cant make this promise, because if ever one of yours attacks one of mine (a being that depends upon me), my pact with you could not stop me from protecting him. I can assure you that I have no bad feelings and no intention of killingkilling is not on my program! But I cant commit myself, because it would restrict my freedom of decision. He left without replying, so it remains status quo.
0 1961-02-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The other is to find something worth concentrating upon that diverts your attention from your small, personal self. The most effective is a big ideal, but there are innumerable things that enter into this category. most commonly, people choose marriage, because it is the most easily available (Mother laughs). To love somebody and to love children makes you busy and compels you to forget your own self a little. But it is rarely successful, because love is not a common thing.
Others turn to art, others to science; some choose a social or a political life, etc., etc.
0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The most violent attack came immediately after that experience [of January 24]. But of all the experiences in my life, this was the most wonderful for the simple reason that it was NOT EVEN preceded by an aspiration, not even an aspiration from the body it came directly as the Supreme Will, bang! (Mother bangs down her hands in an irresistible gesture) And then there was nothing, nothing but THE thing, WITHOUT ANY PERSONAL PARTICIPATION WHATSOEVER: no will, no aspiration, not even the satisfaction of itnothing. It was. I was (in my higher consciousness) filled with wonder at the ABSOLUTENESS of the experience. It came, a thing DECREED and eternallike that (same irresistible gesture).
(silence)
--
To realize what one has to realize, it is absolutely indispensable to be TOTALLY free of all ties with the ordinary, false consciousness common to material body-consciousness the consciousness of the body-substancederiving from the subconscient and the inconscient. This must not only be mastered (it has been mastered for a long time)but there must be complete independence so that it no longer has the power to provoke any reaction at all. But we arent there yet, its still not like that, and as long as it isnt, we are not on the safe side. But when all the bodys cells, even in their most subconscious reactions, will come to know what I myself know, that the Supreme alone exists, when they will know that, it will be goodnot before. As I told you just now, they still have ordinary reactions: If I have to stay on my feet, (this isnt a thought; Im obliged to use words, but it isnt a thought), If I have to stay on my feet, Im going to get tired; if I do too much, Ill be tired, if I do this, it will have that consequence, if. This stupid, automatic little mechanism. its not yet THAT, not yet That!
Of course, theres the constant difficulty of all the thoughts coming from outside and from the people you live with. But now the consciousness is such that these outer things are seen objectively (Mother makes a gesture of seeing vibrations coming and stopping before her eyes)automatically I see everything that comes from the surrounding vibrations objectively: far, near, above, below, everywhere. The vibration comes WITH THE KNOWLEDGE. In other words, its not that you see what it is only after it has been received and absorbed: it comes with the knowledge, and this is a great help. This type of perception has considerably increased and become much more precise since that experience [of January 24], much more; it has made a big difference.
--
Thats how it works. Because all substance is ONE. All is onewe constantly forget that! We always have a sense of separation, and that is total, total falsehood; its because we rely on what our eyes see, on (Mother touches her hands and arms, as if to indicate a separate body, cut off from other bodies). That is truly Falsehood. As soon as your consciousness changes a little, you realize that what we see is like an image plastered over something. But its not true, NOT TRUE AT ALL. Even in the most material Matter, even a stoneeven in a stoneas soon as ones consciousness changes, all this separation, all this division, completely vanishes. These are (how to put it?) modes of concentration (something akin to yet not quite that), vibratory modes WITHIN THE SAME THING.8
(The clock strikes) Oh, now I must go!
0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A great deal has been brought to light since that experience. It has been the starting point for such turmoil, even physically, such strong jolts that I might have wondered, Was I dreaming or was it real?. And more and more I am coming to understand that this is the INDISPENSABLE preparation in the most material world for that experience to become definitively established, to express itself outwardly, constantlythis is obvious.
If the experience remained permanently, it would be something very close to omnipotence. I felt at the time that there was no such thing as an impossibility: it was truly the sensation of omnipotence. It is not omnipotence, because there is always a greater Omnipotence (one knows this only in the higher realms). But in terms of the material world, it was clearly something very, very different from all that has ever been seen or heard or told by all extant traditionsit all seems like the babbling of a child in comparison. At that moment itself there was only the Something which sees, decidesand it is done.
0 1961-02-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The second sign is a sense of ABSOLUTENESS in knowledge. As I have already told you, I had this with my experience of January 24. This state CANNOT be obtained through any region of the mind, even the most illumined and exalted. Its not a certainty, its (Mother lowers both hands like an irresistible block descending), a kind of absoluteness, without even any possibility of hesitation (theres no question of doubt), or anything like that. Without (how to say it ?). All mental knowledge, even the highest, is a conclusive knowledge, as it were: it comes as a conclusion of something elsean intuition, for instance (an intuition gives you a particular knowledge, and this knowledge is like the conclusion of the intuition). Even revelations are conclusions. Theyre all conclusions the word conclusion comes to me, but I dont know how to express it. This isnt the case, however, with the supramental experiencea kind of absolute. The feeling it gives is altogether uniquefar beyond certainty, it is (Mother again makes the same irresistible gesture) it is a FACT, things are FACTS. It is very, very difficult to explain. But with that one naturally has a complete power the two things always go together. (In my reply to this man I didnt speak of power because the power is al most a consequence and I didnt want to speak of consequences.) But the fact remains: a kind of absoluteness in knowledge springing from identityone is the thing one knows and experiences: one is it. One knows it because one is it.
When these two signs are present (both are necessary, one is incomplete without the other), when a person possesses both, then you can be sure he has been in contact with the Supermind. So people who speak about receiving the Light well, (laughing) its a lot of hot air! But when both signs are present, you can be sure of your perception.12
--
Now the body has a kind of extraordinary smile for everything. At the end of the day, with the accumulation of everything coming from the people I have seen and the work I have done, when I have to push and pull myself just to climb the stairs because my legs are like iron rods, without any will (thats the most terrible part: they dont respond to the will), even at times like these, when my arms are what pull me up the stairs (no longer my legs), the body doesnt protest, doesnt protest. Then it begins walking back and forth for japa. And after half an hour of walking, things are infinitely better (Mother makes a gesture of the Force descending into her body).
(silence)
--
How clearly one sees and knows that even the HIGHEST, the most luminous intelligence can understand nothing, nothingit is idiotic to try.
(silence)
0 1961-03-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother begins the work. A mosquito bites her and she remarks:)
Oh, I dont like that! You know, I have filariasis in my legs. Yes, I think sotheres every reason to believe it! (Mother laughs) But it doesnt matter, it will go away I think. I dont like to be bitten on account of the germs; but during the day theres nothing for them to pick upthey only pick up germs around midnight.
There are no mosquitoes upstairs.
(Mother resumes the work.)
0 1961-03-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I knew when I caught it: it was at the Playground.4 Certain people poisoned me with a mosquito bite the instant the mosquito bit me, I knew, because it so happens I am a little bit conscious! But I controlled it like this (gesture of holding the disease in abeyance and under control), so it couldnt stir. Probably it would never have stirred if I hadnt had that experience of January 24 and the body didnt need to be made ready. For the body to be ready, a host of things belonging to the dasyus, as the Vedas say, cant be stored inside it! These are very nasty little dasyus (laughing), they have to be chased away!
When the disease came back, I said to myself, Very well, this means it must be dealt with in a new way.
--
All the same, wasnt it a mosquito that bit you?
Yes, it was a mosquito.
It was a mosquito but there was an INSTANTANEOUS, localized poisoning. It was hideous! I knew it when I got the bite and I tried but it was at the Playground, I was busy and I couldnt do anything about it until an hour or an hour and a half later. Then it was too late, it was already circulating in the blood.
I have had three bites like that, but not of the same thing; I knew this last bite was filariasis. It was on the arm. Since my legs are covered when I am outside they dont get bitten; but my arms.
Long ago when Sri Aurobindo was still here, I was once bitten by a mosquito that had just come from a leper. He was sitting on the street corner, although I didnt know it at the time (I was in my bathroom, just opposite the corner). Suddenly I was bitten here, on the chin, and I knew IMMEDIATELY: Leprosy! Within a few seconds it became terriblehideous! I did what was necessary at once (as I was in the bathroom, I had what I needed). Then I suddenly got the impulse to go and look out the window there was the leper. And I understood: the mosquito had been kind enough to fly from him to me! But in that instance I was able to check it right away (it lasted three or four days)I say check because they claim leprosy sometimes takes fifteen years to surface, so. But now it has been more than fifteen years (Mother laughs), so its finished!
No, the difference, the great difference, is that when one is conscious, the thing is KNOWN immediately and one can react.
0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A time comes when all these disputesAh, no, this is like this, that is like thatseem so silly, so silly! And there is nothing more comical than this spontaneous reply so many people give: Oh, thats impossible! Because with even the most rudimentary intellectual development, you would know you couldnt even think of something if it werent possible!
(silence)
--
This is the origin of such legends as Shangri-la. But 'psychics' most often confuse two planes of reality, attri buting to their SUBTLE vision a physical reality which it does not have or no longer has: they have merely entered into contact with the memory of a place for places, like beings, have a memory.
At first, Mother had said, 'But it's impossible.' Then, laughing, she had the word deleted.
0 1961-03-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Along with the mind came individualization, an acute sense of separation and a more or less precise feeling of a freedom of choiceall of that, all these psychological states, are the natural consequences of mental life and open the door to everything we see now, from the worst aberrations to the most rigorous principles. Mans impression of being free to choose between one thing and another is the deformation of a true principle that will be totally realizable only when the soul or psychic being becomes conscious in him; were the soul to govern the being, mans life would truly be a conscious expression of the supreme Will translated individually. But in the normal human state, such a case is still extremely rare and doesnt seem at all natural to ordinary human consciousness it seems al most supernatural!
Man questions himself because the mental instrument is made for seeing all possibilities and because the human being feels he has freedom of choice and the immediate consequences are the notions of good and evil, right and wrong, and all the ensuing miseries. This cant be called a bad thing: its an intermediate stagenot a very pleasant stage, but nevertheless it was certainly inevitable for a total development.
--
When I told you last time about that experience [of March 11, with Pavitra] the night I met you and was saying good-bye, I neglected to mention one very important point, the most important, in fact: I was leaving the subjection to mental functioning permanently behind That was the meaning of my departure.
For a very long time now I have been watching all the phases of the subjection to mental functioning come undone, one after another for a very long time. That night was the end of it, the last phase: I was leaving this subjection behind and rising up into a realm of freedom. You had been very, very helpful, as I told you. Well, this latest experience was something else! It came to make me look squarely at the fact of our incapacity!
--
A sort of power over circumstances does come to me, however, as if I could rise above it all and give the subconscient a bit of a work-over. Naturally this has some results: entire areas are brought under control. Thats the most important thing. Individuals get the repercussions later because they are very very coagulated, a bit hard! A lack of plasticity.
Take the case of this man Im not naming Ive been training him, working with him, for more than thirty years and I still havent managed to get him to do things spontaneously, according to the needs of the moment, without all his preconceived ideas. Thats the point where he resists: when things have to be done quickly he follows his usual rule and it takes forever! This was illustrated strikingly that night. I told him, Just look: its there its THEREhurry up and warm it a little and Ill go. Ah! He didnt protest, didnt say anything, but he did things exactly according to his own preconceptions.
--
And it all exists PRIMARILY because each individual is shut up in his own little personal formation (Mother forms an eggshell), a formation of the most ordinary mind, the mind that fabricates the details of everyday life; its like being cramped into a narrow prison.
Satprem later asked if this 'on earth' wasn't superfluous and Mother replied: 'This precision is not superfluous; I said "on earth" meaning that man does not belong only to the earth: in his essence, man is a universal being, but he has a special manifestation on earth.'
0 1961-03-21, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then I woke up (I always wake up three or four times during the night) and when I went back to bed I had an attack of what the doctor and I have taken to be filariasis but a strange type of filariasis, for as soon as I master it in one spot it appears in another, and when I master it there it reappears somewhere else. Last night it was in the arms (it lasted quite a while, between 2:30 and 4 a.m.); but I was fully conscious, and each time the attack came, I went like this (gestures over the arms, to drive away the attack) and my arms were not affected at all. When it was over, I consciously entered the most material subtle physical, just beyond the body. I was sitting in my room there (an immense, cubic room) reading or writing something, when I heard the door open and close, but I was busy and didnt pay attention, presuming it was one of the people usually around me. Then suddenly I had such an unpleasant sensation in my body that I raised my head and looked, and I saw someone there. Do you know how the magicians in Europe dress, in short satin breeches and a shirt? He was wearing something like that. He was Indian, tall and rather dark, with slicked-down hairwhat you would normally call a handsome young man. He seemed to have been drawn1 there becausehe was standing in front of me staring into space, not looking at me. And the moment I saw him, there was the same sensation in all my cells as I have with what Ive been calling filariasis (its a special, minute kind of pain) and simultaneously all the cells felt disgusta tremendous will of rejection. Then I sat up straight (I didnt stand up) and said to him as forcefully as possible, How do you dare to come in here! I said it so loudly that the noise woke me up! I dont know what happened then, but things went much better afterwards.
The moment I saw this person I knew he was only an instrument, but a well-paid instrumentsomeone paid a great deal to have him do that! I would recognize him again among hundreds I can still see him I see him more clearly than with physical eyes. He is an unintelligent man with no personal ani mosity, merely a very well-paid instrumentsomeone is hiding behind him, using him as a screen.
0 1961-03-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was mainly on your right side I banged on it. But strangely enough, it didnt break it became supple, but then it lost its beauty. (It was so beautiful, as though sculptured!) I tried to pass through it, but to do so (this is what I found interesting), instead of passing through at this level (the chest), the psychic plane the level of the souls vibration I had to climb up above and then descend; and finally, without even realizing it, I found myself inside I had entered through sheer force of concentration. There, at the vital level, the emotional vital (solar plexus), I put two flowers: one very large Endurance in the most Material Vital [zinnia] and another flower like the one X just gave me [cos mos] but bigger and pure white (it concerns sexual movements, light in sexual movements). But curiously enough, I passed inside through a trance; I was quite busy trying to make it more fluid when all at once, poof! I found myself inside. But since I entered through a trance it became completely objective: no more thought, nothing. And I saw I had put these two flowers there (at the levels of the abdomen and chest), one more active, a very large, dark purple Endurance flower, and another much smaller, pure white, slightly lower down. While I was watching this I think the clock must have struck something pulled me and it all faded away.
And I found it interesting that when I received your letter yesterday evening I concentrated for a moment, al most out of curiosity: Why doesnt he ever feel he has an experience? Why doesnt he feel anything? I wanted to know precisely what type of experience would give you the feeling of having an experience!
0 1961-04-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Vedas, after all, were written by people who remembered a radical experience, which must have taken place on earth at a given moment, as an example of what was to come. (This always happens in the yoga: a first radical experience comes like a herald of the future realization.) So in the terrestrial yogain the yoga of the earth, of the planet earththere was a moment when it came; they who are called the forefa thers must have created, through their effort and their yoga, at least an image of the supramental realization. And those who wrote the Vedas, who composed all these hymns, remembered or kept the tradition of that experience. And oh, mon petit, it had the same effect on me as when I read the Yoga of Self-Perfection in The Synthesis of Yoga (Mother catches her breath): there is such a gulf between what we are, what life on earth and human consciousness now are, even among the most enlightened, the most advanced, and THAT!
I dont know if its because I have been so violently attackedbludgeonedby all these malevolent energies, but in any case, I sensed acutely the FORMIDABLE immensity of what has to be done in order for THAT to be realized.
--
The world as it is, really say what you like, even upon the most perfect heights, its woeful. It is woeful.
There have been moments, you know, in supreme experiences of perfect union in a wondrous Love, when I have turned towards the worldsimply turned the consciousness for a second towards the world as it is (with the aspiration, I remember, for EVERYTHING to participate) and in that state of ecstasy, really, there were tears of burning sorrow. It happened just like that.
--
And to come to this experience I had to pass through a state of the most supreme indifference, where the whole terrestrial manifestation is an illusion; I passed through that, I had my experience BEYOND that. And beyond that at the moment of supreme ecstasy came fiery tears of grief.
(silence)
--
But the indispensable foundation is truly an indomitable courage and unflinching endurancefrom the most material cells of the body to the highest consciousness, from top to bottom, entirely. Without that, were pretty useless.
And I am really in the most favorable conditions, because my body says yes. It says yes, yes, yesit doesnt complain. This may be the sense behind all this illness and difficulty. Not a single day of complaint.
The night before last I was again awakened at midnight (not awakened: I came out of my trance) with those stings burning from inside out, from the tips of the feet up to here, everywhere, in the back it lasted four hours, non-stop. Well, my body didnt once complain. Not once did it ask for it to stop; it just kept quiet, saying: Thy Will be done. And not only saying it but FEELING it, quietlyfour hours of minuscule tortures. It didnt say a thing.
0 1961-04-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And this aspiration depends neither on the state of health nor. Its absolutely independent of all circumstances I have felt this aspiration in the cells of my body at the very moment when things were at their most disorganized, when, from an ordinary medical standpoint, the illness was serious. The cells THEMSELVES aspire. And this aspiration has to be everywhere.
When one is in this state, there is no need to worrynothing else matters (Mother bursts into laughter).
0 1961-04-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Soon afterwards, concerning X, who had stated that the most recent attacks against Mother, and even those of two years earlier when she had been forced to withdraw to her room, were the result of black magic, and that certain members of the Ashram were DIRECTLY responsible for them, or in any case, had served as intermediariesas a switchboard, to quote himin connection with an outside magician.)
I have been racking my brains, but really, I cant hit on who, IN THE ASHRAM, could be doing magic against me! Having bad thoughts is very widespread, but that doesnt matter in the least.
0 1961-04-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
After this, I received the draft of the Sri Aurobindo Societys brochure to be distributed among all disciples, all society members, in order to encourage them. Well, that was the last straw! Oh, the most asinine propaganda! And plump in the middle of a bunch of other things (which had nothing to do with me), I come across this: We have the great fortune to have the Mother among us, and we propose to be the intermediary for all who wish to come into direct contact with her! They wanted to print this and distribute it, just like that! So I took my brightest red ink and wrote: I do not accept this responsibility, you cannot make this promise. And that was that. I cut it. And now heres A., doing the same thing!
(silence)
--
No, for the least little thing, the whole mechanism has to be discovered, and discovered in a realm of the most total ignorance, where, really, unconsciousness is the most unconscious and ignorance the most ignorant.
(silence)
--
Now a kind of absoluteness prevails at each and every second, in each movement, from the most subtle, the most spiritual, to the most material. The sense of linking has disappeared: that isnt the cause of this, and this isnt done for that; there is no there one is heading towardsit all seems.
(silence)
--
What is most interesting is that everything stays the same. Everything stays the same. You see how it is I can do anything, I talk to you, I joke. Everything stays the same, it doesnt make a change in anything.
My problem begins when I ask myself how its going to change!
--
Portulaca grandiflora (rose moss).
Mother gradually goes into trance and 'follows the experience.'
0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In churches, I dont know. I havent been to them very often. I have been to mosques and templesJewish temples. The Jewish temples in Paris have such beautiful music; oh, what beautiful music! I had one of my first experiences in a temple. It was at a marriage, and the music was wonderfulSaint-Saens, I later learned; organ music, the second best organ in Pariswonderful! I was 14 years old, sitting high up in the galleries with my mother, and this music was being played. There were some leaded-glass windowswhite, with no designs. I was gazing at one of these windows, feeling uplifted by the music, when suddenly through the window came a flash like a bolt of lightning. Just like lightning. It enteredmy eyes were openit entered like this (Mother strikes her breast violently), and then I I had the feeling of becoming vast and all-powerful. And it lasted for days.
Of course, my mother was such an out-and-out materialist, thank God, that it was impossible to speak to her of invisible thingsshe took them as evidence of a deranged brain! Nothing counted for her but what could be touched and seen. But this was a divine grace I had no opportunity to say anything. I kept my experience to myself. But it was one of my first contacts with. I learned later that it was an entity from the past who had come back into me through the aspiration arising from the music.
--
One of my most terrible experiences took place in Venice (the cathedrals there are so beautifulmagnificent!). I remember I was painting they had let me settle down in a corner to paintand nearby there was a (what do they call it?) a confessional. And a poor woman was kneeling there in distresswith such a dreadful sense of sin! So piteous! She wept and wept. Then I saw the priest coming, oh, like a monster, a hard-hearted monster! He went inside; he was like an iron bar. And there was this poor woman sobbing, sobbing; and the voice of the other one, hard, curt. I could barely contain myself.
I dont know why, but I have had this kind of experience so very often: either a hostile force lurking behind and swallowing up everything, or else manruthless man abusing the Power.
--
I could say many other things which would be al most the opposite of all Ive just said! It all depends on the orientation. If I really started talking, you know, I would seem like I dont know what, something like a lunatic, because with equal sincerity and equal truth, I could say the most opposing things.
And experiences! I have had the most contradictory experiences! Only one thing has been continuous from my childhood on (and the more I look, the more I see how continuous it has been): this divine Presence and in someone who, in her EXTERNAL LIFE, might very well have said, God? What is this foolishness! God doesnt exist! So you understand, you see the picture.
You know, its a marvelous, marvelous grace to have had this experience so CONSTANTLY, So POWERFULLY, like something holding out against everything, everything: this Presence. And in my outward consciousness, a total negation of it all. Even later on, I used to say, Well, if God exists, hes a real scoundrel! Hes a wretch and I want nothing to do with this Creator of ours. You know, the idea of God sitting placidly in his heaven, creating the world and amusing himself by watching it, then telling you, How well done! Oh! I said, I want nothing to do with that monster!
0 1961-05-19, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This feeling was so warm, so intimate, so I dont know how to express it. At once so soft and so powerful and so. Oh, it was concrete! The whole at mosphere, the whole at mosphere became solidall, all had the taste of the Lord. I dont know how to make it clear. It was quite material, as if you had a mouthful of it, everything was full of itit was like that. In such a PHYSICAL way! Like. You might compare it to the most delicious taste you could ever haveit was the sense of touch and of tastevery, very material. It was like closing your hand on something solidsuch a warm, soft vibration, and SO STRONG, so powerful, so concrete!
It is evidently proof of an evolution in this direction, within this whole cluster of cells, but.
--
But this experience of taste was completely new. It didnt last long, only a few minutes, because it amazed me so! It was as if I had a mouthful of the most marvelous foods one could imagine. And my hands were gathering it up in the at mosphere it was so funny!
The body is obviously being prepared for something.
0 1961-06-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
D. asked me if changing the time of her japa had much importance. I told her she can change the time if she has to, provided she remains sincere thats the most important thing.
These are small details. I myself am unable to do it at fixed hours; I had always hoped to do it between 5 and 6 in the afternoon, but I usually cant manage to go upstairs before ten to six! So so I do it from 6 to 7.
0 1961-06-06, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is such a strong impression of facing something which completely escapes comprehension, reason, intelligence, everything mental or intellectual (even the most elevated); its not that, its. And then truly, if you stand back from it and employ big words, you would say, All this (Mother tilts her hand to one side) is Truth, and all that (she tilts her hand to the other side) is Falsehood but its the SAME thing! In one case, you have the sense of being carriednot only the body but the entire world, all circumstancescarried, floating in a beatific light towards an eternal Realization; and in the other case, its like this (Mother makes a gesture of being burdened), deadening, heavy, sorrowfulexactly the same thing! Al most the same material vibrations.
And its so subtle, so incomprehensible theres a distinct impression of it TOTALLY eluding even the highest conscious will. What is it? What is it?
--
You see, all the things that have been told, even all the things Sri Aurobindo has said (he has said the most in Savitri), all that is necessarily (what can it be called?) mental, the super-intellectual spiritualized mind. But it is not THAT! Its a form, its an image, its not the concrete fact.
(silence)
0 1961-06-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its one of the most ironic things Sri Aurobindo has written.
Ive known that and have always taken great care to avoid it, for it opens the door to all deformations. Lele3 was like thatLele did the same thing: he behaved like a lout; he said it wasnt himself, it was Naturehe had nothing to do with it. This is all very well, but still theres a sort of affinity between your physical comportment and what you are inside, isnt there?!
0 1961-06-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is all Xs work. The most unexpected people, people youd think would rather be cursed than come to a place like this, are coming from everywhere, from the most diverse milieus the most materialistic materialists, fanatical communists, as well as all sorts of sannyasis, bhikkus, swamis, priestsoh! People who previously were not at all they werent so much disinterested as actually displeased with the Ashram.
We have a disciple here who returns to his birthplace from time to time, and after the first year X began to do his puja to get people interested in the Ashram, he said it was extraordinary. He had previously been looked at askance and had to argue with people, but now everyone came to call on him as soon as he arrived! He wrote that he was completely astonished (he wasnt aware of Xs work); hundreds of people came to ask him to hold huge meetings; sadhus, monks and priests came to him for information on the Ashram. Things have developed so rapidly and completely that they now have some land where they have built a center and hold meetings.
0 1961-06-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, no, no! The past IN ITSELF. In itself. Not through its consequences, thats something elsein itself. And within the TERRESTRIAL at mosphere (not on the most material plane, but very near; very, very near).
I have what could be called a tactile sensation that the contents of the subtle at mosphere are increasing. This at mosphere is not part of material space as we conceive of or see it physically, where one thing has to give place to another (Mother changes the position of an eraser on the table)and even that (laughing) I believe is an illusion! It only SEEMS like that to us! Its not on the wholly material plane, but just behind or within (how to put it?), and its contents are increasing. And as its happening within inner dimensions, it can augment, so to speak, indefinitely; things become more and more interwoven, if you see what I meanwhere there was one phenomenon of consciousness there may now be hundreds, interwoven with each other in the inner dimensions; which means, for example, considering only our tiny planet, that the earth is becoming more and more compact and rich with all that has been since the beginning of its formationbecause its all there, it is all still there.
0 1961-07-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Last night or the night before you were associated with an experience. Following my reading [On Himself] I had a sense of how very small we are and of how to expand. You were associated, very intimately associated with this expansion. Sri Aurobindo was there (you know he has adopted you as his biographer; I have told you this and I repeat it because I have evidence of it all the time), and he was giving a kind of practical demonstrationnot intellectual, practicalof how to expand not only the consciousness but the whole being, down to its most material parts. You were there, associated with this, and he was showing you as well as me what had to be done. (Mother makes a gesture of breaking through limits.)
This made me very glad.
0 1961-07-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats not how it is, mon petit! This is precisely how the modern Western attitude has become twisted compared to the ancient attitude, the attitudeit isnt exactly ancientof the Gita. Its extremely difficult for the Western mind to comprehend vividly and concretely that ALL is the Divine. It is so impregnated with the Christian spirit, with the idea of a Creator the creation on one side and God on the other! Upon reflection, one rejects this, but it has entered into our sensations and feelings, and sospontaneously, instinctively, al most subconsciouslyone credits God with all one considers to be the best, the most beautiful, and especially with what one wishes to attain, to realize. (Each individual, of course, changes the content of his God according to his own consciousness, but its always what he considers to be the best.) And just as instinctively, spontaneously and subconsciously, one is shocked by the idea that things one doesnt like or doesnt approve of or which dont seem to be the best, could also be God.
I am putting this purposely into rather childish terms so that it will be clearly understood. But this is the way it is. I am sure of it because I have observed it in myself for a VERY long time, and I had to. Due to the whole subconscious formation of childhoodenvironment, education, and so forthwe have to DRUM into this (Mother touches her body) the consciousness of Unity : the absolute, EXCLUSIVE unity of the Divineexclusive in the sense that nothing exists apart from this Unity, even the things which seem most repulsive.
Sri Aurobindo also had to struggle against this because he too received a Christian education. And these Aphorisms are the result the floweringof the necessity to struggle against the subconscious formation which has produced such questions (Mother takes on a scandalized tone): How can God be weak? How can God be foolish? How. But there is nothing but God! He alone exists, there is nothing outside of Him. And whatever seems repugnant to us is something He no longer wishes to existHe is preparing the world so that this no longer manifests, so that the manifestation can pass beyond this state to something else. So of course we violently reject everything in us that is destined to leave the active manifestation. There is a movement of rejection.
0 1961-07-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But Perfection is only one side, one special way of approaching the Divine. There are innumerable sides, angles, aspectsinnumerable ways to approach the Divine. When I am walking, for example, doing japa, I have the sense of Unity (I have spoken to you of all the things I mention when I am upstairs walking: will, truth, purity, perfection, unity, immortality, eternity, infinity, silence, peace, existence, consciousness the list goes on). And when one follows a particular tack and does succeed in reaching or approaching or contacting the Divine, one realizes through experience that these many approaches differ only in their most external forms the contact itself is identical. Its like looking through a kaleidoscopeyou revolve around a center, a globe, and see it under various aspects; but as soon as the contact is established, its identical.
The number of approaches is practically infinite. Each one senses the path which accords with his temperament.
0 1961-07-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo always said that cruelty was one of the things most repugnant to him, but he explained it as the deformation of an intensity. We could al most call it the deformation of an intensity of love something not satisfied with half-measures, something driven to extremes (which is legitimate)its the deformation of the need for extremely strong sensations.
I have always known that cruelty, like sadism, is the need to cut through a thick layer of totally insensitive tamas1 by means of extremely violent sensationan extreme is needed if anything is to be felt through that tamas. I was always told, for example (in Japan it was strongly emphasized to me), that the people of the Far East are very tamasic physically. The Chinese in particular are said to be the remnants of a race that inhabited the moon before it froze over and forced them to seek refuge on earth (this is supposed to account for their round faces and the shape of their eyes!). Anyway (laughing), its a story people tell! But theyre extremely tamasic; their physical sensibility is al most nilappalling things are required to make them feel anything! And since they naturally presume that what applies to them applies to everyone, they are capable of appalling cruelty. Not all of them, of course! But this is their reputation. Have you read Mirbeaus book? (I believe thats his name.) I read it sixty years ago something on Chinese torture.
--
The notion of sin is something I dont understand, that I have never understood. To me, original sin seemed to be one of the most monstrous ideas people have ever hadsin and I just dont go together!
So, of course, I fully agree with Sri Aurobindo when he says theres no such thing as sin thats understood, but.
--
This is quite interesting to me because Sri Aurobindo says the same thing: that nothing is bad, simply things are not in their placetheir place not only in space but in time, their place in the universe, beginning with the planets and stars, each thing exactly in its place. Then when each thing, from the most colossal to the most microscopic, is exactly in place, the whole Will PROGRESSIVELY express the Supreme, without having to be withdrawn and emanated anew. On this also, Sri Aurobindo based the fact that this present creation, this present universe, will be able to manifest the perfection of a divine worldwhat Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind.
Equilibrium is the essential law of this creationit is what permits perfection to be realized in the manifestation.
--
One thing must inevitably cease: the Deformation, the veil of falsehood covering Truth, because all we see existing here is due to that. If the veil is removed, things will necessarily be completely different, completely: they will be as we experience them when we emerge individually from that deformed consciousness. When one comes out of that consciousness and enters the Truth-Consciousness, one is incredulous that such things as suffering, misery and death can exist; its amazing, in the sense that (when one is truly on the other side) one doesnt understand how all this can be happening. And, although this state of consciousness is habitually associated with the experience of the unreality of the world as we know it, Sri Aurobindo tells us that this perception of the worlds unreality need not exist for the supramental consciousness: only Falsehood is unreal , not the world. And this is most interesting the world has its own reality, independent of Falsehood.
I suppose this will be the first effect of the Supermindperhaps even its first effect in the individual, because it will begin in individuals first.
--
What I myself have seen was a plan that came complete in all details, but that doesnt at all conform in spirit and consciousness with what is possible on earth now (although, in its most material manifestation, the plan was based on existing terrestrial conditions). It was the idea of an ideal city, the nucleus of a small ideal country, having only superficial and extremely limited contacts with the old world. One would already have to conceive (its possible) of a Power sufficient to be at once a protection against aggression or bad will (this would not be the most difficult protection to provide) and a protection (which can just barely be imagined) against infiltration and admixture. From the social or organizational standpoint, these problems are not difficult, nor from the standpoint of inner life; the problem is the relationship with what is not supramentalizedpreventing infiltration or admixture, keeping the nucleus from falling back into an inferior creation during the transitional period.
(silence)
--
This eye [hemorrhage], for instance, resulted from such a disorder, a very dark force that someone allowed to enter, not deliberately, not knowingly, but through weakness and ignorance, always mingled, of course, with desire and ego and all the rest. (Without desire and ego, such things would find no access but desire and ego are very widespread.) At any rate, that was plainly the cause and I sensed it immediately. Sometimes when it comes, it creeps up like this (Mother brings her hand to her throat), a black shadow strangling you. Yet inwardly nothing is affected at all, to such an extent that if I didnt pay attention to the purely external reaction, I wouldnt know anything had happened (its the great Play); but externally the indication is immediate: half an hour later I had this eye hemorrhage. I was struggling against a wholly undesirable intrusion, and I knew italthough from an outer point of view, the cause was insignificant. Its not always the events we consider serious or important that produce the most harmful effectsfar from it. Sometimes its an altogether INSIGNIFICANT intrusion of falsehood, for some quite insignificant reasonwhat is commonly labeled a stupidity. This stems from the fact that the adverse forces are always lying in wait, ready to rush in at the least sign of weakness.
The incomprehension generated by doubt (the kind of doubt that always results from an egoistic movement) is very dangerous. Very dangerous. Its not even necessary to be in a psychic consciousness even for an enlightened vital consciousness, it produces no effect; but HERE, in this material swarm.
--
It makes you sense so clearly that things in themselves dont count. What we call things in themselves are of no true importance! What really counts is the relationship of consciousness to these things. And theres a formidable power in this, since in one instance you touch something and drop or mishandle it, while in the other its so lovely, it works so smoothly. Even the most difficult movements are made without difficulty. Its an unheard-of power! We dont give it importance because it has no grandiose effects, its not spectacular. Yes, there are indeed states of grace when one is in the presence of a great difficulty and suddenly has all the power needed to face ityes, but thats something else. I am speaking of a power active in ordinary life.
There was an instance of this the other day: someone in a completely detestable mood wrote me a letter; it was impossible, I couldnt reply I didnt know what to say. I simply applied the Force and remained like this (gesture of an offering to the Light). I said, We shall see. Several hours later (I knew I was going to see this person) I didnt even know if I was going to say I had read the letteror rather if what I was going to say would result from having read it. I had come to that pointnothing. But that very morning a little circumstance occurred that changed everything! And when I met the person I knew immediately what had to be said, what had to be done, and everything worked out.
--- Overview of noun mo
The noun mo has 3 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
1. moment, mo, minute, second, bit ::: (an indefinitely short time; "wait just a moment"; "in a mo"; "it only takes a minute"; "in just a bit")
2. molybdenum, Mo, atomic number 42 ::: (a polyvalent metallic element that resembles chromium and tungsten in its properties; used to strengthen and harden steel)
3. Missouri, Show Me State, MO ::: (a midwestern state in central United States; a border state during the American Civil War, Missouri was admitted to the Confederacy without actually seceding from the Union)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun mo
3 senses of mo
Sense 1
moment, mo, minute, second, bit
=> time
=> time period, period of time, period
=> fundamental quantity, fundamental measure
=> measure, quantity, amount
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
molybdenum, Mo, atomic number 42
=> metallic element, metal
=> chemical element, element
=> substance
=> matter
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> part, portion, component part, component, constituent
=> relation
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 3
Missouri, Show Me State, MO
INSTANCE OF=> American state
=> state, province
=> administrative district, administrative division, territorial division
=> district, territory, territorial dominion, dominion
=> region
=> location
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun mo
1 of 3 senses of mo
Sense 1
moment, mo, minute, second, bit
=> blink of an eye, flash, heartbeat, instant, jiffy, split second, trice, twinkling, wink, New York minute
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun mo
3 senses of mo
Sense 1
moment, mo, minute, second, bit
=> time
Sense 2
molybdenum, Mo, atomic number 42
=> metallic element, metal
Sense 3
Missouri, Show Me State, MO
INSTANCE OF=> American state
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun mo
3 senses of mo
Sense 1
moment, mo, minute, second, bit
-> time
=> day
=> dead
=> hard times
=> incarnation
=> wee
=> while, piece, spell, patch
=> moment, mo, minute, second, bit
=> ephemera
=> space age
Sense 2
molybdenum, Mo, atomic number 42
-> metallic element, metal
=> heavy metal
=> base metal
=> noble metal
=> aluminum, aluminium, Al, atomic number 13
=> americium, Am, atomic number 95
=> antimony, Sb, atomic number 51
=> barium, Ba, atomic number 56
=> berkelium, Bk, atomic number 97
=> beryllium, Be, glucinium, atomic number 4
=> bismuth, Bi, atomic number 83
=> cadmium, Cd, atomic number 48
=> calcium, Ca, atomic number 20
=> californium, Cf, atomic number 98
=> cerium, Ce, atomic number 58
=> cesium, caesium, Cs, atomic number 55
=> chromium, Cr, atomic number 24
=> cobalt, Co, atomic number 27
=> copper, Cu, atomic number 29
=> curium, Cm, atomic number 96
=> dysprosium, Dy, atomic number 66
=> einsteinium, Es, E, atomic number 99
=> erbium, Er, atomic number 68
=> europium, Eu, atomic number 63
=> fermium, Fm, atomic number 100
=> francium, Fr, atomic number 87
=> gadolinium, Gd, atomic number 64
=> gallium, Ga, atomic number 31
=> hafnium, Hf, atomic number 72
=> holmium, Ho, atomic number 67
=> indium, In, atomic number 49
=> iridium, Ir, atomic number 77
=> iron, Fe, atomic number 26
=> lanthanum, La, atomic number 57
=> lead, Pb, atomic number 82
=> lithium, Li, atomic number 3
=> lutetium, lutecium, Lu, atomic number 71
=> magnesium, Mg, atomic number 12
=> manganese, Mn, atomic number 25
=> mercury, quicksilver, hydrargyrum, Hg, atomic number 80
=> molybdenum, Mo, atomic number 42
=> neodymium, Nd, atomic number 60
=> neptunium, Np, atomic number 93
=> nickel, Ni, atomic number 28
=> niobium, Nb, atomic number 41
=> osmium, Os, atomic number 76
=> palladium, Pd, atomic number 46
=> polonium, Po, atomic number 84
=> potassium, K, atomic number 19
=> praseodymium, Pr, atomic number 59
=> promethium, Pm, atomic number 61
=> protactinium, protoactinium, Pa, atomic number 91
=> radium, Ra, atomic number 88
=> rhenium, Re, atomic number 75
=> rhodium, Rh, atomic number 45
=> rubidium, Rb, atomic number 37
=> ruthenium, Ru, atomic number 44
=> samarium, Sm, atomic number 62
=> scandium, Sc, atomic number 21
=> sodium, Na, atomic number 11
=> strontium, Sr, atomic number 38
=> tantalum, Ta, atomic number 73
=> technetium, Tc, atomic number 43
=> terbium, Tb, atomic number 65
=> thallium, Tl, atomic number 81
=> thorium, Th, atomic number 90
=> thulium, Tm, atomic number 69
=> tin, Sn, atomic number 50
=> titanium, Ti, atomic number 22
=> tungsten, wolfram, W, atomic number 74
=> uranium, U, atomic number 92
=> vanadium, V, atomic number 23
=> ytterbium, Yb, atomic number 70
=> yttrium, Y, atomic number 39
=> zinc, Zn, atomic number 30
=> zirconium, Zr, atomic number 40
=> alkali metal, alkaline metal
=> alkaline earth, alkaline-earth metal
Sense 3
Missouri, Show Me State, MO
-> American state
=> slave state
=> free state
HAS INSTANCE=> Alabama, Heart of Dixie, Camellia State, AL
HAS INSTANCE=> Alaska, Last Frontier, AK
HAS INSTANCE=> Arizona, Grand Canyon State, AZ
HAS INSTANCE=> Arkansas, Land of Opportunity, AR
HAS INSTANCE=> California, Golden State, CA, Calif.
HAS INSTANCE=> Colorado, Centennial State, CO
HAS INSTANCE=> Connecticut, Nutmeg State, Constitution State, CT
HAS INSTANCE=> Delaware, Diamond State, First State, DE
HAS INSTANCE=> Florida, Sunshine State, Everglade State, FL
HAS INSTANCE=> Georgia, Empire State of the South, Peach State, GA
HAS INSTANCE=> Hawaii, Hawai'i, Aloha State, HI
HAS INSTANCE=> Idaho, Gem State, ID
HAS INSTANCE=> Illinois, Prairie State, Land of Lincoln, IL
HAS INSTANCE=> Indiana, Hoosier State, IN
HAS INSTANCE=> Iowa, Hawkeye State, IA
HAS INSTANCE=> Kansas, Sunflower State, KS
HAS INSTANCE=> Kentucky, Bluegrass State, KY
HAS INSTANCE=> Louisiana, Pelican State, LA
HAS INSTANCE=> Maine, Pine Tree State, ME
HAS INSTANCE=> Maryland, Old Line State, Free State, MD
HAS INSTANCE=> Massachusetts, Bay State, Old Colony, MA
HAS INSTANCE=> Michigan, Wolverine State, Great Lakes State, MI
HAS INSTANCE=> Minnesota, Gopher State, North Star State, MN
HAS INSTANCE=> Mississippi, Magnolia State, MS
HAS INSTANCE=> Missouri, Show Me State, MO
HAS INSTANCE=> Montana, Treasure State, MT
HAS INSTANCE=> Nebraska, Cornhusker State, NE
HAS INSTANCE=> Nevada, Silver State, Battle Born State, Sagebrush State, NV
HAS INSTANCE=> New Hampshire, Granite State, NH
HAS INSTANCE=> New Jersey, Jersey, Garden State, NJ
HAS INSTANCE=> New Mexico, Land of Enchantment, NM
HAS INSTANCE=> New York, New York State, Empire State, NY
HAS INSTANCE=> North Carolina, Old North State, Tar Heel State, NC
HAS INSTANCE=> North Dakota, Peace Garden State, ND
HAS INSTANCE=> Ohio, Buckeye State, OH
HAS INSTANCE=> Oklahoma, Sooner State, OK
HAS INSTANCE=> Oregon, Beaver State, OR
HAS INSTANCE=> Pennsylvania, Keystone State, PA
HAS INSTANCE=> Rhode Island, Little Rhody, Ocean State, RI
HAS INSTANCE=> South Carolina, Palmetto State, SC
HAS INSTANCE=> South Dakota, Coyote State, Mount Rushmore State, SD
HAS INSTANCE=> Tennessee, Volunteer State, TN
HAS INSTANCE=> Texas, Lone-Star State, TX
HAS INSTANCE=> Utah, Beehive State, Mormon State, UT
HAS INSTANCE=> Vermont, Green Mountain State, VT
HAS INSTANCE=> Virginia, Old Dominion, Old Dominion State, VA
HAS INSTANCE=> Washington, Evergreen State, WA
HAS INSTANCE=> West Virginia, Mountain State, WV
HAS INSTANCE=> Wisconsin, Badger State, WI
HAS INSTANCE=> Wyoming, Equality State, WY
--- Grep of noun mos
aegospotamos
amos
aristarchus of samos
book of amos
cosmos
deimos
exophthalmos
genus cosmos
genus hexagrammos
hexagrammos
hommos
hoummos
lagophthalmos
los alamos
momos
monophthalmos
mosaic
mosaic culture
mosaic gold
mosaic law
mosaicism
mosan
mosander
moschus
moschus moschiferus
moscow
moselle
moses
moses maimonides
moshav
moshe dayan
moslem
moslem calendar
mosque
mosquito
mosquito bite
mosquito boat
mosquito craft
mosquito fern
mosquito hawk
mosquito net
mosquitofish
moss
moss-trooper
moss agate
moss animal
moss campion
moss family
moss genus
moss hart
moss locust
moss phlox
moss pink
mossad
mossback
mossbauer
mossy-cup oak
mossy saxifrage
mossycup oak
most valuable player
mostaccioli
mosul
nanophthalmos
thermos
Grep of noun mo
alamo
ammo
camo
centesimo
centimo
demo
duomo
dynamo
ecce homo
eskimo
fortissimo
generalissimo
genus homo
genus salmo
geronimo
gismo
giuseppe balsamo
gizmo
guantanamo
hmo
homo
human dynamo
imo
limo
little mo connolly
machismo
major-domo
malmo
mamo
memo
mo
moa
moan
moaner
moat
mob
moban
mobcap
mobile
mobile bay
mobile canteen
mobile home
mobile phone
mobile river
mobilisation
mobility
mobilization
mobius
mobius strip
mobocracy
mobster
mobula
mobula hypostoma
mobulidae
mobuto lake
mocambique
mocassin
moccasin
moccasin flower
mocha
mocha coffee
mock
mock-heroic
mock-up
mock azalia
mock orange
mock privet
mock sun
mock turtle soup
mocker
mockernut
mockernut hickory
mockery
mocking thrush
mockingbird
mod
mod con
modal
modal auxiliary
modal auxiliary verb
modal logic
modal value
modal verb
modality
mode
model
model t
modeler
modeling
modeller
modelling
modem
moderate
moderate breeze
moderate gale
moderateness
moderation
moderationism
moderationist
moderatism
moderator
moderatorship
modern
modern ballet
modern dance
modern english
modern era
modern font
modern greek
modern hebrew
modern jazz
modern man
modern times
modern world
modernisation
modernism
modernist
modernity
modernization
modernness
modest moussorgsky
modest mussorgsky
modest petrovich moussorgsky
modest petrovich mussorgsky
modestness
modesty
modicon
modicum
modification
modified american plan
modified radical mastectomy
modifier
modifier gene
modigliani
modillion
modiolus
modishness
modiste
mods
modulation
module
modulus
modulus of elasticity
modulus of rigidity
modus operandi
modus vivendi
moehringia
moehringia lateriflora
moehringia mucosa
moeller's glossitis
mogadiscio
mogadishu
mogdad coffee
mogen david
moghul
mogul
mogul empire
mohair
mohammad
mohammed
mohammed ali
mohammed reza pahlavi
mohammed reza pahlevi
mohammedan
mohammedan calendar
mohammedanism
mohandas karamchand gandhi
moharram
mohave
mohave desert
mohawk
mohawk haircut
mohawk river
mohican
moho
mohorovicic
mohorovicic discontinuity
mohria
mohria caffrorum
mohs scale
moiety
moira shearer
moirae
moirai
moire
moistener
moistening
moistness
moisture
mojarra
mojave
mojave aster
mojave desert
mojave rattlesnake
mojo
moke
moksa
mokulu
mol
mola
mola lanceolata
molal concentration
molality
molar
molar concentration
molar pregnancy
molarity
molasses
molasses cookie
molasses kiss
molasses taffy
mold
moldavia
moldboard
moldboard plow
molded salad
moldiness
molding
moldova
moldovan monetary unit
mole
mole cricket
mole plant
mole rat
mole salamander
molech
molecular biologist
molecular biology
molecular formula
molecular genetics
molecular weight
molecule
molehill
moleskin
molestation
molester
molidae
moliere
molindone
moline
molisch's test
molisch reaction
molisch test
molise
moll
mollah
molle
mollie
mollienesia
mollification
molluga
molluga verticillata
mollusc
mollusca
molluscum
molluscum contagiosum
mollusk
mollusk family
mollusk genus
molly
molly miller
molly pitcher
mollycoddle
mollycoddler
mollymawk
molnar
moloch
moloch horridus
molokai
molokai island
molossidae
molothrus
molotov
molotov cocktail
molt
molter
molting
molucca balm
moluccas
molucella
molucella laevis
molva
molva molva
molybdenite
molybdenum
molybdenum steel
mom
mombasa
mombin
mombin tree
moment
moment magnitude scale
moment of a couple
moment of a magnet
moment of inertia
moment of truth
momentousness
momentum
momism
momma
mommsen
mommy
momordica
momordica balsamina
momordica charantia
momos
momot
momotidae
momotus
momus
mon
mon-khmer
mona
monacan
monaco
monaco-ville
monad
monadic operation
monal
monandry
monarch
monarch butterfly
monarchism
monarchist
monarchy
monarda
monarda citriodora
monarda clinopodia
monarda didyma
monarda fistulosa
monarda pectinata
monarda punctata
monardella
monardella lanceolata
monario
monas
monastery
monastic
monastic habit
monastic order
monasticism
monaul
monazite
monday
mondrian
monegasque
monel metal
monell metal
monera
moneran
moneron
moneses
moneses uniflora
monet
monetarism
monetarist
monetary fund
monetary resource
monetary standard
monetary system
monetary unit
monetary value
monetisation
monetization
money
money-spinner
money belt
money box
money changer
money cowrie
money dealer
money handler
money laundering
money market
money order
money plant
money supply
moneybag
moneyer
moneygrubber
moneylender
moneymaker
moneymaking
moneyman
moneywort
monger
mongo
mongol
mongol dynasty
mongol tatar
mongolia
mongolian
mongolian monetary unit
mongolian people's republic
mongolian race
mongolianism
mongolic
mongolic language
mongolism
mongoloid
mongoloid race
mongoose
mongrel
monic polynomial
monica seles
moniker
monilia
monilia albicans
monilia disease
moniliaceae
moniliales
moniliasis
monism
monistat
monition
monitor
monitor lizard
monitor program
monitoring
monitoring device
monitoring program
monitrice
monk
monk's cloth
monkey
monkey-bread tree
monkey-wrench
monkey bread
monkey bridge
monkey business
monkey dog
monkey jacket
monkey ladder
monkey nut
monkey pinscher
monkey pod
monkey puzzle
monkey wrench
monkeypod
monkfish
monkshood
monmouth court house
monnet
mono
mono-iodotyrosine
monoamine
monoamine neurotransmitter
monoamine oxidase
monoamine oxidase inhibitor
monobasic acid
monoblast
monoblastic leukaemia
monoblastic leukemia
monocanthidae
monocanthus
monocarp
monocarpic plant
monocarpous plant
monochamus
monochromacy
monochromasy
monochromat
monochromatic vision
monochromatism
monochrome
monochromia
monocle
monocline
monoclonal
monoclonal antibody
monocot
monocot family
monocot genus
monocotyledon
monocotyledonae
monocotyledones
monocracy
monocular vision
monoculture
monocycle
monocyte
monocytic leukaemia
monocytic leukemia
monocytosis
monod
monodon
monodon monoceros
monodontidae
monody
monofocal iol
monofocal lens implant
monogamist
monogamousness
monogamy
monogenesis
monogenic disease
monogenic disorder
monogram
monograph
monogynist
monogyny
monohybrid
monohybrid cross
monohydrate
monolatry
monolingual
monolith
monologist
monologue
monomania
monomaniac
monomer
monomorium
monomorium minimum
monomorium pharaonis
mononeuropathy
monongahela
monongahela river
mononuclear phagocyte system
mononucleosis
mononychus olecranus
monophonic music
monophony
monophthalmos
monophysite
monophysitism
monoplane
monoplane flying fish
monoplegia
monopolisation
monopoliser
monopolist
monopolization
monopolizer
monopoly
monopoly board
monopsony
monorail
monorchidism
monorchism
monosaccharide
monosaccharose
monosemy
monosodium glutamate
monosomy
monospaced font
monostotic fibrous dysplasia
monosyllabic word
monosyllable
monotheism
monotheist
monothelitism
monotone
monotony
monotremata
monotreme
monotropa
monotropa hypopithys
monotropa uniflora
monotropaceae
monotype
monounsaturated fatty acid
monoxide
monozygotic twin
monozygous twin
monro's foramen
monroe
monroe doctrine
monrovia
mons
mons pubis
mons veneris
monsieur
monsignor
monsoon
monster
monstera
monstera deliciosa
monstrance
monstrosity
mont blanc
montage
montagu
montagu's harrier
montaigne
montan wax
montana
montanan
monte
monte bianco
monte carlo
montego bay
montenegro
monterey
monterey bay
monterey cypress
monterey pine
monterrey
montespan
montesquieu
montessori
monteverdi
montevideo
montez
montezuma
montezuma's revenge
montezuma cypress
montezuma ii
montfort
montgolfier
montgomery
montgomery's tubercle
montgomery ward
month
month of sundays
monthly
montia
montia chamissoi
montia cordifolia
montia lamprosperma
montia perfoliata
montmartre
montpelier
montrachet
montreal
montserrat
montserratian
monument
moo
moo-cow
moo goo gai pan
mooch
moocher
mood
moodiness
moody
moolah
moon
moon-curser
moon-ray
moon-worship
moon blindness
moon carrot
moon curser
moon daisy
moon ray
moon shell
moon shot
moon trefoil
moonbeam
mooneye
moonfish
moonflower
moonie
moonlight
moonlighter
moonseed
moonseed family
moonshell
moonshine
moonshiner
moonstone
moonwalk
moonwort
moor
moor-bird
moor berry
moorage
moorbird
moorcock
moore
moorfowl
moorgame
moorhen
mooring
mooring anchor
mooring line
mooring mast
mooring tower
moorish
moorish arch
moorish architecture
moorland
moorwort
moose
moose-wood
moosewood
moot
moot court
mop
mop handle
mop up
mopboard
mope
moped
mopes
mopper
moppet
mopping
moquelumnan
moquette
moraceae
moraine
moral
moral certainty
moral excellence
moral force
moral hazard
moral obligation
moral philosophy
moral principle
moral sense
morale
morale booster
morale builder
morale building
moralisation
moralism
moralist
morality
morality play
moralization
moralizing
morals
moranzanist patriotic front
morass
moratorium
moravia
moray
moray eel
moray firth
morbidity
morbidness
morbilli
morceau
morchella
morchella angusticeps
morchella conica
morchella crassipes
morchella esculenta
morchella semilibera
morchellaceae
mordacity
mordant
mordecai richler
mordva
mordvin
mordvinian
more
moreau river
moreen
morel
morelia spilotes variegatus
morello
mores
moreton bay
moreton bay chestnut
moreton bay pine
moreton bay tulipwood
morgan
morgan city
morgan le fay
morganite
morgantown
morgen
morgue
morion
morlett's crocodile
morley
mormon
mormon church
mormon cricket
mormon state
mormon tabernacle
mormonism
mormons
morn
mornay sauce
morning
morning-after pill
morning-glory family
morning coat
morning dress
morning glory
morning prayer
morning room
morning sickness
morning star
morning time
moro
moro islamic liberation front
moro reflex
moroccan
moroccan dirham
moroccan monetary unit
morocco
moron
morone
morone americana
morone interrupta
moronity
moroseness
morosoph
morphallaxis
morphea
morpheme
morpheus
morphia
morphine
morphogenesis
morphological rule
morphology
morphophoneme
morphophonemic system
morphophonemics
morphophysiology
morrigan
morrigu
morris
morris chair
morris dance
morris dancer
morris dancing
morrison
morrison r. waite
morrison remick waite
morrison waite
morristown
morrow
morrow's honeysuckle
mors
morse
morse code
morsel
mortal
mortal enemy
mortal sin
mortality
mortality rate
mortality table
mortar
mortar fire
mortarboard
mortgage
mortgage-backed security
mortgage application
mortgage deed
mortgage holder
mortgage loan
mortgagee
mortgager
mortgagor
mortice
mortician
mortification
mortimer
mortise
mortise-and-tenon joint
mortise joint
mortmain
morton
mortuary
morula
morus
morus alba
morus nigra
morus rubra
mosaic
mosaic culture
mosaic gold
mosaic law
mosaicism
mosan
mosander
moschus
moschus moschiferus
moscow
moselle
moses
moses maimonides
moshav
moshe dayan
moslem
moslem calendar
mosque
mosquito
mosquito bite
mosquito boat
mosquito craft
mosquito fern
mosquito hawk
mosquito net
mosquitofish
moss
moss-trooper
moss agate
moss animal
moss campion
moss family
moss genus
moss hart
moss locust
moss phlox
moss pink
mossad
mossback
mossbauer
mossy-cup oak
mossy saxifrage
mossycup oak
most valuable player
mostaccioli
mosul
mot
mot juste
mot test
motacilla
motacillidae
mote
motel
motel room
motet
moth
moth bean
moth miller
moth mullein
moth orchid
moth plant
mothball
mother
mother's boy
mother's daughter
mother's day
mother's milk
mother's son
mother-in-law
mother-in-law's tongue
mother-in-law plant
mother-of-pearl
mother-of-pearl cloud
mother-of-thousands
mother board
mother carey's chicken
mother carey's hen
mother cell
mother country
mother figure
mother fucker
mother goose
mother hen
mother hubbard
mother jones
mother lode
mother of thyme
mother seton
mother superior
mother teresa
mother theresa
mother tongue
mother wit
motherese
motherfucker
motherhood
motherland
motherliness
motherwell
motherwort
motif
motile
motilin
motility
motion
motion-picture camera
motion-picture fan
motion-picture film
motion-picture photography
motion-picture show
motion picture
motion sickness
motion study
motionlessness
motivating
motivation
motivator
motive
motive power
motivity
motley
motley fool
motmot
motoneuron
motor
motor aphasia
motor area
motor ataxia
motor city
motor control
motor cortex
motor end plate
motor fiber
motor home
motor horn
motor hotel
motor inn
motor lodge
motor memory
motor mower
motor nerve
motor nerve fiber
motor neuron
motor oil
motor pool
motor region
motor scooter
motor torpedo boat
motor vehicle
motorbike
motorboat
motorbus
motorcade
motorcar
motorcoach
motorcycle
motorcycle cop
motorcycle policeman
motorcycling
motorcyclist
motoring
motorisation
motorist
motorization
motorized wheelchair
motorman
motormouth
motortruck
motorway
motown
motrin
mott
mottle
mottling
motto
moue
moufflon
mouflon
moujik
moukden
mould
mouldboard
mouldboard plough
moulding
moulmein
moult
moulter
moulting
mound
mound-bird
mound bird
mound builder
mount
mount adams
mount ararat
mount asama
mount athos
mount bartle frere
mount carmel
mount communism
mount cook lily
mount elbert
mount etna
mount everest
mount fuji
mount garmo
mount godwin austen
mount hubbard
mount kanchenjunga
mount kilimanjaro
mount logan
mount mckinley
mount olympus
mount orizaba
mount parnassus
mount pinatubo
mount ranier
mount ranier national park
mount rushmore
mount rushmore state
mount saint helens
mount shasta
mount sherman
mount sinai
mount st. helens
mount tacoma
mount vernon
mount vesuvius
mount whitney
mount wilson
mountain
mountain alder
mountain andromeda
mountain anemone
mountain ash
mountain avens
mountain azalea
mountain beaver
mountain bike
mountain birch
mountain blacksnake
mountain bladder fern
mountain blue berry
mountain box
mountain chain
mountain chinchilla
mountain clematis
mountain climber
mountain climbing
mountain clubmoss
mountain cranberry
mountain daisy
mountain devil
mountain ebony
mountain everlasting
mountain fern
mountain fetterbush
mountain fever
mountain four o'clock
mountain goat
mountain gorilla
mountain grape
mountain heath
mountain hemlock
mountain hollyhock
mountain lady's slipper
mountain laurel
mountain lily
mountain lion
mountain male fern
mountain man
mountain maple
mountain mint
mountain nyala
mountain oak
mountain paca
mountain parsley fern
mountain partridge
mountain pass
mountain peak
mountain phlox
mountain pine
mountain pride
mountain quail
mountain range
mountain rice
mountain rimu
mountain rose
mountain sandwort
mountain sheep
mountain sickness
mountain skink
mountain spinach
mountain spleenwort
mountain standard time
mountain starwort
mountain state
mountain sumac
mountain swamp gum
mountain tea
mountain tent
mountain time
mountain trail
mountain viscacha
mountain watercress
mountain zebra
mountaineer
mountaineering
mountainside
mountebank
mounter
mountie
mounties
mounting
mourner
mournful widow
mournfulness
mourning
mourning band
mourning cloak
mourning cloak butterfly
mourning dove
mourning ring
mouse
mouse's nest
mouse-ear chickweed
mouse-ear cress
mouse-ear hawkweed
mouse-eared bat
mouse-tooth forceps
mouse button
mouse click
mouse deer
mouse ear
mouse eared chickweed
mouse hare
mouse mat
mouse nest
mousepad
mouser
mousetrap
moussaka
mousse
mousseline de sole
moussorgsky
moustache
moustache cup
moustachio
mouth
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
mouth bow
mouth harp
mouth hole
mouth organ
mouthbreeder
mouthful
mouthpart
mouthpiece
mouthwash
mouton
movability
movable
movable barrier
movable feast
movableness
move
moveable feast
movement
movement for revenge
movement of holy warriors
mover
mover and shaker
movie
movie actor
movie camera
movie film
movie house
movie industry
movie maker
movie making
movie projector
movie star
movie theater
movie theatre
moviegoer
moviemaking
movimiento revolucionario tupac anaru
moving-coil galvanometer
moving-picture show
moving company
moving expense
moving in
moving picture
moving ridge
moving staircase
moving stairway
moving van
mow
mower
moxie
moxie plum
moynihan
mozambican
mozambique
mozambique channel
mozambique monetary unit
mozart
mozzarella
nanaimo
palermo
pianissimo
pokomo
pomo
primo
salmo
satchmo
schmo
shmo
sumo
supremo
wmo