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. Feeling or showing enmity or ill will; antagonistic. 2. Of, relating to, or characteristic of an enemy.
1. Fiendishly evil. 2. A mythical watchdog of hell.
1. Rising above what is characteristic of earth; exalted, sublime; celestial. 2. Seeming not to belong to this earth or world. 3. Not belonging to this earth; supernatural, mysterious, ghostly.
aard-vark ::: n. --> An edentate mammal, of the genus Orycteropus, somewhat resembling a pig, common in some parts of Southern Africa. It burrows in the ground, and feeds entirely on ants, which it catches with its long, slimy tongue.
abattis ::: n. --> A means of defense formed by felled trees, the ends of whose branches are sharpened and directed outwards, or against the enemy.
amyelous ::: a. --> Wanting the spinal cord.
amygdalaceous ::: a. --> Akin to, or derived from, the almond.
amygdalate ::: a. --> Pertaining to, resembling, or made of, almonds. ::: n. --> An emulsion made of almonds; milk of almonds.
A salt amygdalic acid.
amygdalic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to almonds; derived from amygdalin; as, amygdalic acid.
amygdaliferous ::: a. --> Almond-bearing.
amygdaline ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or resembling, almonds.
amygdalin ::: n. --> A glucoside extracted from bitter almonds as a white, crystalline substance.
amygdaloidal ::: a. --> Almond-shaped.
Pertaining to, or having the nature of, the rock amygdaloid.
amygdaloid ::: n. --> A variety of trap or basaltic rock, containing small cavities, occupied, wholly or in part, by nodules or geodes of different minerals, esp. agates, quartz, calcite, and the zeolites. When the imbedded minerals are detached or removed by decomposition, it is porous, like lava. ::: a.
amylaceous ::: a. --> Pertaining to starch; of the nature of starch; starchy.
amylate ::: n. --> A compound of the radical amyl with oxygen and a positive atom or radical.
amylene ::: n. --> One of a group of metameric hydrocarbons, C5H10, of the ethylene series. The colorless, volatile, mobile liquid commonly called amylene is a mixture of different members of the group.
amylic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or derived from, amyl; as, amylic ether.
amyl ::: n. --> A hydrocarbon radical, C5H11, of the paraffine series found in amyl alcohol or fusel oil, etc.
amylobacter ::: n. --> A microorganism (Bacillus amylobacter) which develops in vegetable tissue during putrefaction.
amyloid ::: a. --> Alt. of Amyloidal ::: n. --> A non-nitrogenous starchy food; a starchlike substance.
The substance deposited in the organs in amyloid degeneration.
amyloidal ::: a. --> Resembling or containing amyl; starchlike.
amylolytic ::: a. --> Effecting the conversion of starch into soluble dextrin and sugar; as, an amylolytic ferment.
amylose ::: n. --> One of the starch group (C6H10O5)n of the carbohydrates; as, starch, arabin, dextrin, cellulose, etc.
amy ::: n. --> A friend.
amyous ::: a. --> Wanting in muscle; without flesh.
amyss ::: n. --> Same as Amice, a hood or cape.
A mythological, fire-breathing monster, commonly represented with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. 2. A horrible or unreal creature of the imagination. chimaeras.
A body of mystical Jewish teachings based on an interpretation of hidden meanings in the Hebrew Scriptures. Among its central doctrines are, all creation is an emanation from the Deity and the soul exists from eternity. 2. Any secret or occult doctrine or science. 3.”Esoteric system of interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures based on the assumption that every word, letter, number, and accent in them has an occult meaning. The system, oral at first, claimed great antiquity, but was really the product of the Middle Ages, arising in the 7th century and lasting into the 18th. It was popular chiefly among Jews, but spread to Christians as well. (Col. Enc). Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
abracadabra ::: n. --> A mystical word or collocation of letters written as in the figure. Worn on an amulet it was supposed to ward off fever. At present the word is used chiefly in jest to denote something without meaning; jargon.
abraxas ::: n. --> A mystical word used as a charm and engraved on gems among the ancients; also, a gem stone thus engraved.
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
academy ::: n. --> A garden or grove near Athens (so named from the hero Academus), where Plato and his followers held their philosophical conferences; hence, the school of philosophy of which Plato was head.
An institution for the study of higher learning; a college or a university. Popularly, a school, or seminary of learning, holding a rank between a college and a common school.
A place of training; a school.
A society of learned men united for the advancement of the
academe ::: n. --> An academy.
academian ::: n. --> A member of an academy, university, or college.
academic ::: a. --> Alt. of Academical ::: n. --> One holding the philosophy of Socrates and Plato; a Platonist.
A member of an academy, college, or university; an academician.
academical ::: a. --> Belonging to the school or philosophy of Plato; as, the Academic sect or philosophy.
Belonging to an academy or other higher institution of learning; scholarly; literary or classical, in distinction from scientific.
academician ::: n. --> A member of an academy, or society for promoting science, art, or literature, as of the French Academy, or the Royal Academy of arts.
A collegian.
academicism ::: n. --> A tenet of the Academic philosophy.
A mannerism or mode peculiar to an academy.
academies ::: pl. --> of Academy
accede ::: v. i. --> To approach; to come forward; -- opposed to recede.
To enter upon an office or dignity; to attain.
To become a party by associating one&
acclaim ::: v. t. --> To applaud.
To declare by acclamations.
To shout; as, to acclaim my joy. ::: v. i. --> To shout applause.
ache ::: n. --> A name given to several species of plants; as, smallage, wild celery, parsley. ::: v. i. --> Continued pain, as distinguished from sudden twinges, or spasmodic pain. "Such an ache in my bones."
To suffer pain; to have, or be in, pain, or in continued
acherontic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Acheron; infernal; hence, dismal, gloomy; moribund.
achlamydate ::: a. --> Not possessing a mantle; -- said of certain gastropods.
achlamydeous ::: a. --> Naked; having no floral envelope, neither calyx nor corolla.
across ihc border s\hcrc the espcricncc of spiritualised mind ceases and the unmodified divine Consciousness begins the domain of the supreme Nature, Para PraJcriti. It is that Light of which the Vedte mj-slics got a glimpse and it is the opposite of the intervening darkness of the Christian mystics, for the
adenography ::: n. --> That part of anatomy which describes the glands.
adenotomy ::: n. --> Dissection of, or incision into, a gland or glands.
adenotomic ::: a. --> Pertaining to adenotomy.
adesmy ::: n. --> The division or defective coherence of an organ that is usually entire.
adust ::: a. --> Inflamed or scorched; fiery.
Looking as if or scorched; sunburnt.
Having much heat in the constitution and little serum in the blood. [Obs.] Hence: Atrabilious; sallow; gloomy.
advantage ::: n. --> Any condition, circumstance, opportunity, or means, particularly favorable to success, or to any desired end; benefit; as, the enemy had the advantage of a more elevated position.
Superiority; mastery; -- with of or over.
Superiority of state, or that which gives it; benefit; gain; profit; as, the advantage of a good constitution.
Interest of money; increase; overplus (as the thirteenth in the baker&
adversary ::: a person, group or force that opposes or attacks, or acts in a hostile manner; an opponent, antagonist; an enemy, foe. adversary"s.
adversary ::: n. --> One who is turned against another or others with a design to oppose or resist them; a member of an opposing or hostile party; an opponent; an antagonist; an enemy; a foe. ::: a. --> Opposed; opposite; adverse; antagonistic.
Having an opposing party; not unopposed; as, an
adynamy ::: n. --> Adynamia.
aegis ::: n. --> A shield or protective armor; -- applied in mythology to the shield of Jupiter which he gave to Minerva. Also fig.: A shield; a protection.
aeolian ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Aeolia or Aeolis, in Asia Minor, colonized by the Greeks, or to its inhabitants; aeolic; as, the Aeolian dialect.
Pertaining to Aeolus, the mythic god of the winds; pertaining to, or produced by, the wind; aerial.
affiliate ::: v. t. --> To adopt; to receive into a family as a son; hence, to bring or receive into close connection; to ally.
To fix the paternity of; -- said of an illegitimate child; as, to affiliate the child to (or on or upon) one man rather than another.
To connect in the way of descent; to trace origin to.
To attach (to) or unite (with); to receive into a society as a member, and initiate into its mysteries, plans, etc.; --
age ::: n. **1. A great period or stage of the history of the Earth. 2. Hist. Any great period or portion of human history distinguished by certain characters real or mythical, as the Golden Age, the Patriarchal Age, the Bronze Age, the Age of the Reformation, the Middle Ages, the Prehistoric Age. 3. A generation or a series of generations. 4. Advanced years; old age. age"s, ages, ages". v. 5.** To grow old; to become aged.
agitator ::: n. --> One who agitates; one who stirs up or excites others; as, political reformers and agitators.
One of a body of men appointed by the army, in Cromwell&
agminal ::: a. --> Pertaining to an army marching, or to a train.
"A Godhead is seated in the heart of every man and is the Lord of this mysterious action of Nature. And though this Spirit of the universe, this One who is all, seems to be turning us on the wheel of the world as if mounted on a machine by the force of Maya, shaping us in our ignorance as the potter shapes a pot, as the weaver a fabric, by some skilful mechanical principle, yet is this spirit our own greatest self and it is according to the real idea, the truth of ourselves, that which is growing in us and finding always new and more adequate forms in birth after birth, in our animal and human and divine life, in that which we were, that which we are, that which we shall be, — it is in accordance with this inner soul-truth that, as our opened eyes will discover, we are progressively shaped by this spirit within us in its all-wise omnipotence.” *Essays on the Gita
“A Godhead is seated in the heart of every man and is the Lord of this mysterious action of Nature. And though this Spirit of the universe, this One who is all, seems to be turning us on the wheel of the world as if mounted on a machine by the force of Maya, shaping us in our ignorance as the potter shapes a pot, as the weaver a fabric, by some skilful mechanical principle, yet is this spirit our own greatest self and it is according to the real idea, the truth of ourselves, that which is growing in us and finding always new and more adequate forms in birth after birth, in our animal and human and divine life, in that which we were, that which we are, that which we shall be,—it is in accordance with this inner soul-truth that, as our opened eyes will discover, we are progressively shaped by this spirit within us in its all-wise omnipotence.” Essays on the Gita
agronomy ::: n. --> The management of land; rural economy; agriculture.
agronomical ::: --> Pertaining to agronomy, of the management of farms.
agronomist ::: n. --> One versed in agronomy; a student of agronomy.
alacrity ::: n. --> A cheerful readiness, willingness, or promptitude; joyous activity; briskness; sprightliness; as, the soldiers advanced with alacrity to meet the enemy.
al- ::: A prefix. --> All; wholly; completely; as, almighty, almost.
To; at; on; -- in OF. shortened to a-. See Ad-.
The Arabic definite article answering to the English the; as, Alkoran, the Koran or the Book; alchemy, the chemistry.
alarm ::: n. --> A summons to arms, as on the approach of an enemy.
Any sound or information intended to give notice of approaching danger; a warning sound to arouse attention; a warning of danger.
A sudden attack; disturbance; broil.
Sudden surprise with fear or terror excited by apprehension of danger; in the military use, commonly, sudden apprehension of being attacked by surprise.
alchemy ::: Any magical or miraculous power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value. alchemies.
alchemy ::: any magical or miraculous power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value. alchemies.
alchemy ::: n. --> An imaginary art which aimed to transmute the baser metals into gold, to find the panacea, or universal remedy for diseases, etc. It led the way to modern chemistry.
A mixed metal composed mainly of brass, formerly used for various utensils; hence, a trumpet.
Miraculous power of transmuting something common into something precious.
alchemical ::: a. --> Of or relating to alchemy.
alchemically ::: adv. --> In the manner of alchemy.
alchemistical ::: a. --> Relating to or practicing alchemy.
alchemist ::: n. --> One who practices alchemy.
alchemistry ::: n. --> Alchemy.
alchemize ::: v. t. --> To change by alchemy; to transmute.
alchymy ::: n. --> See Alchemic, Alchemist, Alchemistic, Alchemy.
alchymic ::: n. --> Alt. of Alchymy
alchymistic ::: n. --> Alt. of Alchymy
alchymist ::: n. --> Alt. of Alchymy
alife ::: adv. --> On my life; dearly.
alisanders ::: n. --> A name given to two species of the genus Smyrnium, formerly cultivated and used as celery now is; -- called also horse parsely.
"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
allogamy ::: n. --> Fertilization of the pistil of a plant by pollen from another of the same species; cross-fertilization.
allogamous ::: a. --> Characterized by allogamy.
almagest ::: n. --> The celebrated work of Ptolemy of Alexandria, which contains nearly all that is known of the astronomical observations and theories of the ancients. The name was extended to other similar works.
Amal: “Again a reference to the psychic being with its several aspects, one of which is called ‘the Mystic courts’. I believe these ‘courts’ are where we enter first.”
Amal: “In Greek mythology the Sirens were extremely beautiful creatures who by their singing lured mariners to their land and either destroyed them or kept them captive. Ulysses had himself bound to a pole in his ship while the ship crossed the sea near this land.”
Amal: “I think it is just a general descriptive expression and does not connote any mysterious entity.”
Amal: “Several expressions seem to be used to suggest the paradisical character of the world—‘God’s yes and no’ as said in the last line of the preceding page. ‘The mystic drake’ is one of them, with its white head and black tail.”
Amal: “The priestess in the mystic cults of the ancient world used to sit on a three-legged stool which symbolised the mysterious power of the three-headed snake, the original ignorance.”
Amal: “The reference here seems to be to satchitananda in its ultimate reality. There it is one single reality with a threefold aspect on the one hand and on the other an exclusive character of its own. This character is beyond everything—and is a mystery which cannot be expressed.”
Amal: “When Ashwapati enters the occult cave he finds among other wonders hidden from the outer consciousness an orderly guide, as in an index, to all the mysteries of existence, mysteries such as the Rig Veda offers though its system of ordinary objects like those we find in outer life—especially cows which were a very important part of the Vedic peoples day to day career.”
ambrosia ::: Something especially delicious or delightful to taste or smell, divinely sweet; in Classical Mythology, the food of the gods.
ambrosia ("s) ::: something especially delicious or delightful to taste or smell, divinely sweet; in Classical Mythology, the food of the gods.
ambulance ::: n. --> A field hospital, so organized as to follow an army in its movements, and intended to succor the wounded as soon as possible. Often used adjectively; as, an ambulance wagon; ambulance stretcher; ambulance corps.
An ambulance wagon or cart for conveying the wounded from the field, or to a hospital.
ambuscade ::: v. t. --> A lying in a wood, concealed, for the purpose of attacking an enemy by surprise. Hence: A lying in wait, and concealed in any situation, for a like purpose; a snare laid for an enemy; an ambush.
A place in which troops lie hid, to attack an enemy unexpectedly.
The body of troops lying in ambush.
To post or conceal in ambush; to ambush.
ambush ::: v. t. --> A disposition or arrangement of troops for attacking an enemy unexpectedly from a concealed station. Hence: Unseen peril; a device to entrap; a snare.
A concealed station, where troops or enemies lie in wait to attack by surprise.
The troops posted in a concealed place, for attacking by surprise; liers in wait.
To station in ambush with a view to surprise an enemy.
amice ::: n. --> A square of white linen worn at first on the head, but now about the neck and shoulders, by priests of the Roman Catholic Church while saying Mass.
A hood, or cape with a hood, made of lined with gray fur, formerly worn by the clergy; -- written also amess, amyss, and almuce.
ample ::: a. --> Large; great in size, extent, capacity, or bulk; spacious; roomy; widely extended.
Fully sufficient; abundant; liberal; copious; as, an ample fortune; ample justice.
Not contracted of brief; not concise; extended; diffusive; as, an ample narrative.
amulet ::: n. --> An ornament, gem, or scroll, or a package containing a relic, etc., worn as a charm or preservative against evils or mischief, such as diseases and witchcraft, and generally inscribed with mystic forms or characters. [Also used figuratively.]
anagogical ::: a. --> Mystical; having a secondary spiritual meaning; as, the rest of the Sabbath, in an anagogical sense, signifies the repose of the saints in heaven; an anagogical explication.
anagogics ::: n. pl. --> Mystical interpretations or studies, esp. of the Scriptures.
ananke ::: "In Greek mythology, personification of compelling necessity or ultimate fate to which even the gods must yield.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
Ananke ::: “In Greek mythology, personification of compelling necessity or ultimate fate to which even the gods must yield.” (Mother India) Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
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
anatomy ::: n. --> The art of dissecting, or artificially separating the different parts of any organized body, to discover their situation, structure, and economy; dissection.
The science which treats of the structure of organic bodies; anatomical structure or organization.
A treatise or book on anatomy.
The act of dividing anything, corporeal or intellectual, for the purpose of examining its parts; analysis; as, the anatomy of a
anatomical ::: a. --> Of or relating to anatomy or dissection; as, the anatomic art; anatomical observations.
anatomies ::: pl. --> of Anatomy
anatomism ::: n. --> The application of the principles of anatomy, as in art.
The doctrine that the anatomical structure explains all the phenomena of the organism or of animal life.
anatomist ::: n. --> One who is skilled in the art of anatomy, or dissection.
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
andranatomy ::: n. --> The dissection of a human body, especially of a male; androtomy.
andromeda ::: n. --> A northern constellation, supposed to represent the mythical Andromeda.
A genus of ericaceous flowering plants of northern climates, of which the original species was found growing on a rock surrounded by water.
androtomy ::: n. --> Dissection of the human body, as distinguished from zootomy; anthropotomy.
angeiology ::: --> Alt. of Angeiotomy
angeiotomy ::: --> Same as Angiology, Angiotomy, etc.
Angel of mysterious ecstasies
**Angel of the Way *Sri Aurobindo: "Love fulfilled does not exclude knowledge, but itself brings knowledge; and the completer the knowledge, the richer the possibility of love. ‘By Bhakti" says the Lord in the Gita ‘shall a man know Me in all my extent and greatness and as I am in the principles of my being, and when he has known Me in the principles of my being, then he enters into Me." Love without knowledge is a passionate and intense, but blind, crude, often dangerous thing, a great power, but also a stumbling-block; love, limited in knowledge, condemns itself in its fervour and often by its very fervour to narrowness; but love leading to perfect knowledge brings the infinite and absolute union. Such love is not inconsistent with, but rather throws itself with joy into divine works; for it loves God and is one with him in all his being, and therefore in all beings, and to work for the world is then to feel and fulfil multitudinously one"s love for God. This is the trinity of our powers, [work, knowledge, love] the union of all three in God to which we arrive when we start on our journey by the path of devotion with Love for the Angel of the Way to find in the ecstasy of the divine delight of the All-Lover"s being the fulfilment of ours, its secure home and blissful abiding-place and the centre of its universal radiation.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
angiology ::: n. --> That part of anatomy which treats of blood vessels and lymphatics.
angiotomy ::: n. --> Dissection of the blood vessels and lymphatics of the body.
annoy ::: n. --> To disturb or irritate, especially by continued or repeated acts; to tease; to ruffle in mind; to vex; as, I was annoyed by his remarks.
To molest, incommode, or harm; as, to annoy an army by impeding its march, or by a cannonade.
A feeling of discomfort or vexation caused by what one dislikes; also, whatever causes such a feeling; as, to work annoy.
anomy ::: n. --> Disregard or violation of law.
ant-bear ::: n. --> An edentate animal of tropical America (the Tamanoir), living on ants. It belongs to the genus Myrmecophaga.
anthropotomy ::: n. --> The anatomy or dissection of the human body; androtomy.
anthropotomical ::: a. --> Pertaining to anthropotomy, or the dissection of human bodies.
anthropotomist ::: n. --> One who is versed in anthropotomy, or human anatomy.
antimonarchist ::: n. --> An enemy to monarchial government.
antinomy ::: n. --> Opposition of one law or rule to another law or rule.
An opposing law or rule of any kind.
A contradiction or incompatibility of thought or language; -- in the Kantian philosophy, such a contradiction as arises from the attempt to apply to the ideas of the reason, relations or attributes which are appropriate only to the facts or the concepts of experience.
antinomy ::: opposition between one law, principle, rule, etc., and another.
antinomies ::: pl. --> of Antinomy
ant-lion ::: n. --> A neuropterous insect, the larva of which makes in the sand a pitfall to capture ants, etc. The common American species is Myrmeleon obsoletus, the European is M. formicarius.
aplotomy ::: n. --> Simple incision.
apocryphal ::: a. --> Pertaining to the Apocrypha.
Not canonical. Hence: Of doubtful authority; equivocal; mythic; fictitious; spurious; false.
apocryphally ::: adv. --> In an apocryphal manner; mythically; not indisputably.
apogamy ::: n. --> The formation of a bud in place of a fertilized ovule or oospore.
apogamic ::: a. --> Relating to apogamy.
apologize ::: v. i. --> To make an apology or defense.
To make an apology or excuse; to make acknowledgment of some fault or offense, with expression of regret for it, by way of amends; -- with for; as, my correspondent apologized for not answering my letter. ::: v. t.
aponeurotomy ::: n. --> Dissection of aponeuroses.
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.
araguato ::: n. --> A South American monkey, the ursine howler (Mycetes ursinus). See Howler, n., 2.
army ::: n. --> A collection or body of men armed for war, esp. one organized in companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, and divisions, under proper officers.
A body of persons organized for the advancement of a cause; as, the Blue Ribbon Army.
A great number; a vast multitude; a host.
army worm ::: --> A lepidopterous insect, which in the larval state often travels in great multitudes from field to field, destroying grass, grain, and other crops. The common army worm of the northern United States is Leucania unipuncta. The name is often applied to other related species, as the cotton worm.
The larva of a small two-winged fly (Sciara), which marches in large companies, in regular order. See Cotton worm, under Cotton.
arcanes ::: of things known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric. (Employed by Sri Aurobindo as a noun.)
arcanum ::: n. --> A secret; a mystery; -- generally used in the plural.
A secret remedy; an elixir.
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.
archenemy ::: n. --> A principal enemy. Specifically, Satan, the grand adversary of mankind.
A”Remembrancer” is a Bard of the Shshi (termite) people. In the Shshi language the word is”thu’dal’zei|”—literally, one who thinks about the past, thus the keeper of the oral history and myth of this people. When Prf. Kaitrin Oliva deciphered the Shshi language, she translated the term as”Remembrancer.”
argo ::: n. --> The name of the ship which carried Jason and his fifty-four companions to Colchis, in quest of the Golden Fleece.
A large constellation in the southern hemisphere, called also Argo Navis. In modern astronomy it is replaced by its three divisions, Carina, Puppis, and Vela.
arrhytmy ::: n. --> Want of rhythm.
arteriology ::: n. --> That part of anatomy which treats of arteries.
arteriotomy ::: n. --> The opening of an artery, esp. for bloodletting.
That part of anatomy which treats of the dissection of the arteries.
arthrology ::: n. --> That part of anatomy which treats of joints.
artillery ::: n. --> Munitions of war; implements for warfare, as slings, bows, and arrows.
Cannon; great guns; ordnance, including guns, mortars, howitzers, etc., with their equipment of carriages, balls, bombs, and shot of all kinds.
The men and officers of that branch of the army to which the care and management of artillery are confided.
The science of artillery or gunnery.
aside ::: adv. --> On, or to, one side; out of a straight line, course, or direction; at a little distance from the rest; out of the way; apart.
Out of one&
A spiritual truth that is incomprehensible to reason and knowable only through divine revelation. 2. Something that is not fully understood or that baffles or eludes the understanding; an enigma. 3. A mysterious character or quality. 4. The skills, lore, practices and secret rites that are peculiar to a particular activity or group and are regarded as the special province of initiates. Mystery, mystery’s, Mystery’s, mysteries, mystery-altar’s. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.)
assapanic ::: n. --> The American flying squirrel (Pteromys volucella).
autonomy ::: 1. Independence or freedom, as of the will or one"s actions. 2. Self-government. autonomies.
"Awake, God"s ray and witness in my breast, ::: In the undying substance of my soul
“Awake, God’s ray and witness in my breast,
A word coined by Sri Aurobindo from terminus, a boundary post or stone; historically, a statue or bust of the god Terminus, the deity who presided over boundaries or landmarks in ancient Roman mythology.
babel ::: “The reference is to the mythological story of the construction of the Tower of Babel, which appears to be an attempt to explain the diversity of human languages. According to Genesis, the Babylonians wanted to make a name for themselves by building a mighty city and tower ‘with its top in the heavens’. God disrupted the work by so confusing the language of the workers that they could no longer understand one another. The tower was never completed and the people were dispersed over the face of the earth.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
babel ::: "The reference is to the mythological story of the construction of the Tower of Babel, which appears to be an attempt to explain the diversity of human languages. According to Genesis, the Babylonians wanted to make a name for themselves by building a mighty city and tower ‘with its top in the heavens". God disrupted the work by so confusing the language of the workers that they could no longer understand one another. The tower was never completed and the people were dispersed over the face of the earth.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works Sri Aurobindo: "The legend of the Tower of Babel speaks of the diversity of tongues as a curse laid on the race; but whatever its disadvantages, and they tend more and more to be minimised by the growth of civilisation and increasing intercourse, it has been rather a blessing than a curse, a gift to mankind rather than a disability laid upon it. The purposeless exaggeration of anything is always an evil, and an excessive pullulation of varying tongues that serve no purpose in the expression of a real diversity of spirit and culture is certainly a stumbling-block rather than a help: but this excess, though it existed in the past, is hardly a possibility of the future. The tendency is rather in the opposite direction. In former times diversity of language helped to create a barrier to knowledge and sympathy, was often made the pretext even of an actual antipathy and tended to a too rigid division. The lack of sufficient interpenetration kept up both a passive want of understanding and a fruitful crop of active misunderstandings. But this was an inevitable evil of a particular stage of growth, an exaggeration of the necessity that then existed for the vigorous development of strongly individualised group-souls in the human race. These disadvantages have not yet been abolished, but with closer intercourse and the growing desire of men and nations for the knowledge of each other"s thought and spirit and personality, they have diminished and tend to diminish more and more and there is no reason why in the end they should not become inoperative.” The Human Cycle
barricade ::: a structure hastily set up across a route of access to obstruct the passage of an enemy.
battalion ::: 1. An army unit typically consisting of a headquarters and two or more companies, batteries, or similar subunits. 2. A large body of organized troops in battle gear. 3. A large indefinite number of persons or things.
Belphegor ::: Amal: “This name of a star brought in by Sri Aurobindo with powerful effect has practically no place in popular astronomy and figured rarely in past literary usage. In Syrian theology, Belphegor was a deity who symbolised the Sun. The Israelites also paid homage to him sometimes.” Sri Aurobindo—The Poet
birth ::: “Birth is the first spiritual mystery of the physical universe, death is the second which gives its double point of perplexity to the mystery of birth; for life, which would otherwise be a self-evident fact of existence, becomes itself a mystery by virtue of these two which seem to be its beginning and its end and yet in a thousand ways betray themselves as neither of these things, but rather intermediate stages in an occult processus of life.” The Life Divine
bivouac ("s) ::: a temporary camp with shelters such as tents, as used by soldiers or mountaineers, often unprotected from an enemy.
bliss ::: “For from the divine Bliss, the original Delight of existence, the Lord of Immortality comes pouring the wine of that Bliss, the mystic Soma, into these jars of mentalised living matter; eternal and beautiful, he enters into these sheaths of substance for the integral transformation of the being and nature.” The Life Divine
myriad ::: n. 1. Ten thousand. 2. A very great or indefinitely great number of persons or things. myriads. *adj. 3. Constituting a very large, indefinite number; innumerable. Chiefly poet. *myriad-motioned.
myrrh ::: an aromatic gum resin obtained from several trees and shrubs of the genus Commiphora of India, Arabia, and eastern Africa, used in perfume and incense.
mysteried ::: A word coined by Sri Aurobindo. See mystery. million-mysteried.
mysteried ::: a word coined by Sri Aurobindo. See mystery. million-mysteried.
mysteries ::: Sri Aurobindo: "It is ‘Mysteries" with capital M and means ‘mystic symbolic rites" as in the Orphic and Eleusinian ‘Mysteries". When written with capital M it does not mean secret mysterious things, but has this sense, e.g. a ‘Mystery play".” Letters on Savitri **Mystery, Mystery"s.**
mysterious ::: simultaneously arousing wonder and inquisitiveness, and eluding explanation or comprehension. Also, of God, rites, etc. mysteriously.
mystery ::: 1. A spiritual truth that is incomprehensible to reason and knowable only through divine revelation. 2. Something that is not fully understood or that baffles or eludes the understanding; an enigma. 3. A mysterious character or quality. 4. The skills, lore, practices and secret rites that are peculiar to a particular activity or group and are regarded as the special province of initiates. Mystery, mystery"s, Mystery"s, mysteries, mystery-altar"s. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.)
mystery :::
mystical ::: 1. Of or having a spiritual reality, import, or union with the Divine not apparent to the intelligence or senses. 2. Mystic; occult. mystically.
mystic courts
mystic drake
mystic Fire
mystic ::: “I used the word ‘mystic’ in the sense of a certain kind of inner seeing and feeling of things, a way which to the intellect would seem occult and visionary—for this is something different from imagination and its work with which the intellect is familiar.” On Himself
mystic ::: n. **1. One who believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension and who has had spiritual experiences. mystic"s. adj. 2. Of occult character, power, or significance. 3. Of the nature of or pertaining to mysteries known only to the initiated; esoteric. 4.** Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding.
mystic ::: She communed with the mystic heart in Space.
mystique ::: an aura of mystery or mystical power surrounding a person, object, concept or pursuit.
myth ::: a traditional or legendary story, without a determinable basis of fact or natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature. myths.
mythic ::: 1. Of, relating to, or having the nature of a myth. 2. Imaginary; fictitious.
Brahman. The Shakti or Power of the Eternal becomes then a power of illusion only and the world becomes incomprehensible, a mystery of cosmic madness, an eternal delirium of the Eternal.
". . . but this divine grace . . . is not simply a mysterious flow or touch coming from above, but the all-pervading act of a divine presence which we come to know within as the power of the highest Self and Master of our being entering into the soul and so possessing it that we not only feel it close to us and pressing upon our mortal nature, but live in its law, know that law, possess it as the whole power of our spiritualised nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“… but this divine grace . . . is not simply a mysterious flow or touch coming from above, but the all-pervading act of a divine presence which we come to know within as the power of the highest Self and Master of our being entering into the soul and so possessing it that we not only feel it close to us and pressing upon our mortal nature, but live in its law, know that law, possess it as the whole power of our spiritualised nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
cabbala ::: 1 A body of mystical Jewish teachings based on an interpretation of hidden meanings in the Hebrew Scriptures. Among its central doctrines are, all creation is an emanation from the Deity and the soul exists from eternity. 2. Any secret or occult doctrine or science. 3. "Esoteric system of interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures based on the assumption that every word, letter, number, and accent in them has an occult meaning. The system, oral at first, claimed great antiquity, but was really the product of the Middle Ages, arising in the 7th century and lasting into the 18th. It was popular chiefly among Jews, but spread to Christians as well. (Col. Enc.)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
cavern in the sacred hill, the mystic
centaur ::: Amal: “In Greek mythology the centaur was figured not only as half-man and half-horse but also as singing a magical song to lure one to one’s destruction.”
centaur ::: Greek Mythology, one of a race of monsters having the head, arms, and trunk of a man and the body and legs of a horse. centaur’s, Centaur, Centaur’s.
centaur ::: greek Mythology, one of a race of monsters having the head, arms, and trunk of a man and the body and legs of a horse. centaur"s, Centaur, Centaur"s.** ::: *
centurion ::: the commander of a century (100 men) in the Roman army.
CHEIROMANCY. ::: Each man is an individual by himself with his own peculiar formation different from others and made by minute variations in the general human plan, — this is true of small physical characteristics, it is evidently equally true of psychological characteristics ; it is not unreasonable to suppose a correlation between the two. On that basis cheiromancy may very well have a truth in it, for it is a known fact that the lines in an individual hand are different from the lines in others and that this, as well as differences of physiognomy, may carry in it psychological indications is not impossible.
chimaera ::: 1. A mythological, fire-breathing monster, commonly represented with a lion"s head, a goat"s body, and a serpent"s tail. 2. A horrible or unreal creature of the imagination. chimaeras.
circe ::: 1. In Classical Mythology. the enchantress represented by Homer as turning the companions of Odysseus into swine by means of a magic drink, therefore an alluring but dangerous temptress or temptation.
Classical Terms from Mythology, History, etc.
clue ::: anything that serves to guide or direct in the solution of a problem, mystery, search, etc.; a key. clues, master-clue.
companion ::: 1. A person who accompanies or associates with another; a comrade. 2. Astronomy. The fainter of the two stars that constitute a double star. companions, companionless.
Conditions of Transformafirm ::: If you desire this transforma- tion, put yourself in the hands of the Mother and her Powers without cavil or resistance and let her do unhindered her work within you. Three things you roust have, consciousness, plasti- city, unreserved surrender. For you must be conscious in your mind and soul and heart and life and the very cells of your body, aware of the Mother and her Powers and their working ; for although she can and does work in yt)u even in your obscurity and your unconscious parts and moments, it is not the same thing as when you are in an awakened and living communion with her. All your nature must be plasUc to her touch, — • not questioning as the self-sufficient ignorant mind questions and doubts and disputes and is the enemy of its enlightenment and change ; not insisting on its own movements as the vital In man insists and persistently opposes its rcfractoiy desires and ill-wilt to every divine influence ; not obstructing and entrenched m
conjunction ::: 1. The state of being joined. 2. Astronomy: The position of two celestial bodies on the celestial sphere when they have the same celestial longitude, especially a configuration in which a planet or the Moon lies on a straight line from Earth to or through the Sun.
conquer ::: 1. To defeat or subdue by force, especially by force of arms. 2. To overcome (an enemy, army, etc.); defeat. 3. To overcome or surmount by physical, mental, or moral force. conquers, conquered, conquering.
::: ‘Consecration" generally has a more mystical sense but this is not absolute. A total consecration signifies a total giving of one"s self; hence it is the equivalent of the word ``surrender"", not of the word (soumission} which always gives the impression that one accepts'' passively. You feel a flame in the wordconsecration"", a flame even greater than in the word offering''. To consecrate oneself isto give oneself to an action""; hence, in the yogic sense, it is to give oneself to some divine work with the idea of accomplishing the divine work.” Questions and Answers, MCW Vol. 4*.
‘Consecration’ generally has a more mystical sense but this is not absolute. A total consecration signifies a total giving of one’s self; hence it is the equivalent of the word surrender’’, not of the word (soumission} which always gives the impression that oneaccepts’’ passively. You feel a flame in the word consecration’’, a flame even greater than in the wordoffering’’. To consecrate oneself is ``to give oneself to an action’’; hence, in the yogic sense, it is to give oneself to some divine work with the idea of accomplishing the divine work.” Questions and Answers, MCW Vol. 4.
constellations ::: any of the 88 groups of stars as seen from the earth and the solar system, many of which were named by the ancient Greeks after animals, objects, or mythological persons.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
cryptic ::: 1. Secret; occult. 2. Mysterious in meaning; puzzling; ambiguous.
daemon ::: 1. A guardian spirit. 2. *Mythology: A mythological being that is part-god and part-human. *3. A demigod.
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.
darken ::: 1. To make dark or darker. Also fig. **2. Fig. To make gloomy; sadden. 3. To become clouded or obscure. darkens.**
darkness ::: 1. Absence of light or illumination. 2. Fig. Absence of moral or spiritual values. 3. Obscurity; lack of knowledge or enlightenment; an unenlightened state. 4. A condition of secrecy, mystery, characterized by things hidden. 5. Wickedness or evil. Darkness, darkness", darknesses.
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.
defence ::: 1. Something that defends, as a fortification, something built to resist an enemy. 3. The act of defending against attack, danger, or injury.
demigod ::: a mythological being who is partly divine and partly human; an inferior deity. demigod"s, demigods.
Desimy
desolate ::: 1. Uninhabited, laid waste, deserted, without any sign of life, barren. 2. Devoid of inhabitants; deserted. 3. Bereft of friends or hope; sad and forlorn. 4. Wretched or forlorn. 5. Dreary, dismal, gloomy. desolately.
“Divine Love, in my view of it, is again not something ethereal, cold and far, but a love absolutely intense, intimate and full of unity, closeness and rapture using all the nature for its expression.” Letters on Yoga
DIVINE LOVE. ::: Love comes to us in many ways ; it may come as an awakening to the beauty of the Lover, by the sight of an ideal face and image of him, by his mysterious hints to us of himself behind the thousand faces of things in the world, by a slow or sudden need of the heart, by a vague thirst in the soul, by the sense of someone near us drawing us or pursuing us with love or of someone blissful and beautiful whom we must discover.
divine love ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Divine Love, in my view of it, is again not something ethereal, cold and far, but a love absolutely intense, intimate and full of unity, closeness and rapture using all the nature for its expression.” *Letters on 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
dragon ::: a mythical monster traditionally represented as a gigantic reptile having a lion"s claws, the tail of a serpent, wings, and a scaly skin. (Also employed by Sri Aurobindo as an adjective.)
dragon of the dark foundation ::: Sri Aurobindo: "All this action and struggle and ascension is supported by Heaven our Father and Earth our Mother, Parents of the Gods, who sustain respectively the purely mental and psychic and the physical consciousness. Their large and free scope is the condition of our achievement. Vayu, Master of life, links them together by the mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities, — Parjanya, giver of the rain of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine war-horse, a power of Agni; the mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trita Aptya who on the third plane of existence consummates our triple being; and more besides.” The Secret of the Veda
drake ::: a male duck. drakes. (See also mystic drake.)
dreamy ::: resembling a dream; ethereal or vague.
drear ::: sad, doleful, sorrowful; dismal, gloomy.
duality ::: the state or quality of being two or in two parts; dichotomy.
dun ::: dark and gloomy.
dusk ::: n. **1. The state or period of partial darkness between day and night; the dark part of twilight. 2. Partial darkness; shade; gloom. Dusk. adj. 3. Poetic. shady; gloomy. dusky.**
earth ::: 1. The realm of mortal existence; the temporal world. 2. The softer, friable part of land; soil, especially productive soil. **Earth, earth"s, earth-beauty"s, earth-being"s, earth-beings, earth-bounds, earth-bride, earth-fact, earth-force, Earth-Goddess, earth-hearts, earth-habit"s, earth-heart, earth-instruments, earth-kind, earth-life, earth-light, earth-made, earth-matter"s, earth-mind, earth-mind"s, earth-myth, earth-nature, earth-nature"s, Earth-Nature"s, earth-nursed, earth-pain, Earth-plasm, earth-poise, earth-scene, earth-scene"s, earth-seat, earth-shapes, earth-stage, earth-stuff, earth-time, earth-time"s, earth-use, earth-vision, earth-ways, summer-earth.
economy ::: careful, thrifty management of resources, such as money, materials, or labour. economised.
economy of things, be solved otherwise than by the predestined instrument making the difficulty his own.
ecstasy ::: 1. Intense joy or delight. 2. A state of exalted emotion so intense that one is carried beyond thought. 3. Used by mystical writers as the technical name for the state of rapture in which the body was supposed to become incapable of sensation, while the soul was engaged in the contemplation of divine things. 4. The trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation. Ecstasy, ecstasy"s, ecstasies, ecstasied, self-ecstasy, strange-ecstasied.
ecstatic ::: marked by or expressing ecstasy; in a trancelike state of great rapture or delight; mystical absorption.
Egocentric and unegoistic ::: The egocentric man feels and takes things as they affect him. Does this please me or displease, give me gladness or pain, flatter my pride, vanity, ambition or hurt it, satisfy my desires or thwart them, etc. The unegoistic man does not look at things like that. He looks to see what things arc in themselves and would be if he were not there, what is their meaniog, how tlicy get into the scheme of things
Enceladus ::: In classical mythology, a giant with a hundred arms buried under Mt. Etna, in Sicily, by the Olympian Gods.
enceladus ::: in classical mythology, a giant with a hundred arms buried under Mt. Etna, in Sicily, by the Olympian Gods.
enemy ::: n. 1. A hostile person, power, force or nation. 2. One who feels hatred toward, intends injury to, or opposes the interests of another; a foe. enemy"s *adj. *3. Of, relating to, or being a hostile power or force.
enigma ::: 1. A puzzling or mystifying saying, in which some known thing is concealed under obscure language; an obscure question; a riddle. 2. Something seemingly having no explanation; a puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation. enigma"s, Enigma, Enigma"s, enigmaed.
enigmatic ::: resembling an enigma; perplexing; mysterious.
::: "Erinyes, in Greek mythology, the goddesses of vengeance, usually represented as three winged maidens, with snakes in their hair. They pursued criminals, drove them mad, and tormented them in Hades. They were spirits of punishment, avenging wrongs done especially to kindred. In Roman literature they were called Furies.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works*
“Every man is knowingly or unknowingly the instrument of a universal Power and, apart from the inner Presence, there is no such essential difference between one action and another, one kind of instrumentation and another as would warrant the folly of an egoistic pride. The difference between knowledge and ignorance is a grace of the Spirit; the breath of divine Power blows where it lists and fills today one and tomorrow another with the word or the puissance. If the potter shapes one pot more perfectly than another, the merit lies not in the vessel but the maker. The attitude of our mind must not be ‘This is my strength’ or ‘Behold God’s power in me’, but rather ‘A Divine Power works in this mind and body and it is the same that works in all men and in the animal, in the plant and in the metal, in conscious and living things and in things apparently inconscient and inanimate.’” The Synthesis of Yoga
Eye, third mysterious
eye, third mysterious
Faithfulness to the Light and the Call — to refuse to listen to any suggestions, impulses, lures and to oppose to them all the call of the Truth, the imperative beckoning of the Light. In all doubt and depression, to say, “ I belong to the Divine, I cannot fail ” ; to all suggestions of impurity and unfitness, to reply, “ I am a child of Immortality chosen by the Divine ; I have but to be true to myself and to Him — the victory is sure ; even if I fell, I would rise again " ; to all impulses to depart and serve some smaller ideal, to reply, "This is the greatest, this is the Truth that alone can satisfy the soul within me ;
faun ::: In classical mythology, any of a group of rural deities represented as having the body of a man and the horns, ears, tail, and sometimes legs of a goat.
faun ::: in classical mythology, any of a group of rural deities represented as having the body of a man and the horns, ears, tail, and sometimes legs of a goat.
fifth-columnist ::: one who acts traitorously and subversively out of a secret sympathy with an enemy; a spy.
Flame, mystic
flame, mystic
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
foe ::: an adversary; an opponent; a personal enemy. foes.
::: Footnote: "E.g. the Russellian fear of emptiness which is the form the active mind gives to Silence. Yet it was on what you call emptiness, on the Silence, that my whole yoga was founded and it was through it that there came afterwards all the inexhaustible riches of a greater Knowledge, Will and Joy — all the experiences of greater mental, psychic and vital realms, all the ranges up to overmind and beyond. The cup has often to be emptied before it can be new-filled; the yogin, the sadhak ought not to be afraid of emptiness or silence.” Letters on Yoga
Footnote: “E.g. the Russellian fear of emptiness which is the form the active mind gives to Silence. Yet it was on what you call emptiness, on the Silence, that my whole yoga was founded and it was through it that there came afterwards all the inexhaustible riches of a greater Knowledge, Will and Joy—all the experiences of greater mental, psychic and vital realms, all the ranges up to overmind and beyond. The cup has often to be emptied before it can be new-filled; the yogin, the sadhak ought not to be afraid of emptiness or silence.” Letters on Yoga
Force ::: “Force is nothing but the power of being in motion.” Hymns to the Mystic Fire
". . . for doubt is the mind"s persistent assailant.” Letters on Yoga ::: "The enemy of faith is doubt, and yet doubt too is a utility and necessity, because man in his ignorance and in his progressive labour towards knowledge needs to be visited by doubt, otherwise he would remain obstinate in an ignorant belief and limited knowledge and unable to escape from his errors.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
form ::: “Form is the basic means of manifestation and without it it may be said that the manifestation of anything is not complete. Even if the Formless logically precedes Form, yet it is not illogical to assume that in the Formless, Form is inherent and already existent in a mystic latency, otherwise how could it be manifested?” Letters on Yoga
FORM. ::: Form is the basic means of manifestation and with- out it, it may be said that the manifestation of anything is not complete. Even if the Formless logically precedes the Form, yet it is not illogical to assume that in the Formless, Form is inherent and already existent in a mystic latency, otherwise how could it be manifested? For any other process would be the creation of the non-existent, not manifestation.
fortune ::: chance personified, commonly regarded as a mythical being distributing arbitrarily or capriciously the lots of life. Fortune.
Furies ::: Amal: “There were the Furies in Greek mythology. They would possess one and drive him in spite of himself to do things he may not want to do. They would also drive him mad. They were powerful agents of revenge.”
Furies ::: “Erinyes, in Greek mythology, the goddesses of vengeance, usually represented as three winged maidens, with snakes in their hair. They pursued criminals, drove them mad, and tormented them in Hades. They were spirits of punishment, avenging wrongs done especially to kindred. In Roman literature they were called Furies.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
Gandhamadan ::: “In Hindu mythology, a mountain and forest in Ilavrta, the central region of the world which contains Mount Meru. Gandhamadan dorms the division between Ilavrta and Bhadrasva, to the east of Meru. The forest of Gandhamadan is renowned for its fragrance. (Dow.; Enc. Br). Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works.
gandhamadan ::: "In Hindu mythology, a mountain and forest in Ilavrta, the central region of the world which contains Mount Meru. Gandhamadan dorms the division between Ilavrta and Bhadrasva, to the east of Meru. The forest of Gandhamadan is renowned for its fragrance. (Dow.; Enc. Br.)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works.
gloom ::: total or partial darkness; dimness often used to describe depression or melancholy. gloom"s, glooms, gloomy.
Gorgon ::: Greek myth any of three winged monstrous sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, who had live snakes for hair, huge teeth, and brazen claws. A glance at Medusa who was slain by Perseus) turned the beholder to stone.
gorgon ::: greek myth any of three winged monstrous sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, who had live snakes for hair, huge teeth, and brazen claws. A glance at Medusa who was slain by Perseus) turned the beholder to stone.
gossamer ::: of or like gossamer (a fine filmy substance, consisting of cobwebs, spun by small spiders, which is seen floating in the air in calm weather, esp. in autumn); thin and light.
grey ::: 1. A neutral tone, intermediate between black and white, that has no hue and reflects and transmits only a little light. 2.* Fig. Dismal or dark, esp. from lack of light; gloomy. 3. Dull, dreary or monotonous. 4. Used often in reference to twilight or a gloomy or an overcast day. greyer, grey-eyed, grey-hued, silver-grey. n. *greyness.
hardly ::: “Your ‘barely enough’, instead of the finer and more suggestive ‘hardly’, falls flat upon my ear; one cannot substitute one word for another in this kind of poetry merely because it means intellectually the same thing; ‘hardly’ is the mot juste in this context and, repetition or not, it must remain unless a word not only juste but inevitable comes to replace it… . On this point I may add that in certain contexts ‘barely’ would be the right word, as for instance, ‘There is barely enough food left for two or three meals’, where ‘hardly’ would be adequate but much less forceful. It is the other way about in this line. Letters on Savitri
Herculean ::: Herculean—after Hercules, one of the greatest heroes of classical mythology, he is supposed to have been the strongest man on earth. He was renowned for completing twelve seemingly impossible tasks—the Labors of Hercules.
hermetic ::: 1. Having to do with the occult sciences, especially alchemy; magical. 2. Made airtight by fusion or sealing. 3. Not affected by outward influence or power; isolated.
hierophant ::: an interpreter of sacred mysteries or arcane knowledge. hierophants.
HOLOCAUST OF THE DIVINE. ::: The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser tnple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nafure-b^y and Nature-force, and they exist because moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was fbere «i the possibilities of The Infinite she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow assimilate it ; avoid self-dispersion and all externalising of the consciousness.
holocaust ::: “The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nature-body and Nature-force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass though the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.” The Mother
::: "Humility before the Divine is also a sine qua non of the spiritual life, and spiritual pride, arrogance, or vanity and self-assurance press always downward. But confidence in the Divine and a faith in one"s spiritual destiny (i.e. since my heart and soul seek for the Divine, I cannot fail one day to reach Him) are much needed in view of the difficulties of the Path.” Letters on Yoga
“Humility before the Divine is also a sine qua non of the spiritual life, and spiritual pride, arrogance, or vanity and self-assurance press always downward. But confidence in the Divine and a faith in one’s spiritual destiny (i.e. since my heart and soul seek for the Divine, I cannot fail one day to reach Him) are much needed in view of the difficulties of the Path.” Letters on Yoga
“I am here with thee in thy chariot of battle revealed as the Master of Existence within and without thee and I repeat the absolute assurance, the infallible promise that I will lead thee to myself through and beyond all sorrow and evil. Whatever difficulties and perplexities arise, be sure of this that I am leading thee to a complete divine life in the universal and an immortal existence in the transcendent Spirit.” Essays on the Gita
“I certainly won’t have ‘attracted’ [in place of ‘allured’]—there is an enormous difference between the force of the two words and merely ‘attracted by the Ecstasy’ would take away all my ecstasy in the line—nothing so tepid can be admitted. Neither do I want ‘thrill’ [in place of ‘joy’] which gives a false colour—precisely it would mean that the ecstasy was already touching him with its intensity which is far from my intention.
**"I certainly won"t have ‘attracted" [in place of ‘allured"] — there is an enormous difference between the force of the two words and merely ‘attracted by the Ecstasy" would take away all my ecstasy in the line — nothing so tepid can be admitted. Neither do I want ‘thrill" [in place of ‘joy"] which gives a false colour — precisely it would mean that the ecstasy was already touching him with its intensity which is far from my intention.Your statement that ‘joy" is just another word for ‘ecstasy" is surprising. ‘Comfort", ‘pleasure", ‘joy", ‘bliss", ‘rapture", ‘ecstasy" would then be all equal and exactly synonymous terms and all distinction of shades and colours of words would disappear from literature. As well say that ‘flashlight" is just another word for ‘lightning" — or that glow, gleam, glitter, sheen, blaze are all equivalents which can be employed indifferently in the same place. One can feel allured to the supreme omniscient Ecstasy and feel a nameless joy touching one without that Joy becoming itself the supreme Ecstasy. I see no loss of expressiveness by the joy coming in as a vague nameless hint of the immeasurable superior Ecstasy.” Letters on Savitri*
(i(djna), opening for it a way through the mystic brcdimarandhra in the head. By departure from fife in the state of Samadhi he
"I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights, — yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam.” Letters on Yoga
“I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,—yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam.” Letters on Yoga
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
"I have started writing about doubt, but even in doing so I am afflicted by the ‘doubt" whether any amount of writing or of anything else can ever persuade the eternal doubt in man which is the penalty of his native ignorance. In the first place, to write adequately would mean anything from 60 to 600 pages, but not even 6000 convincing pages would convince doubt. For doubt exists for its own sake; its very function is to doubt always and, even when convinced, to go on doubting still; it is only to persuade its entertainer to give it board and lodging that it pretends to be an honest truth-seeker. This is a lesson I have learnt from the experience both of my own mind and of the minds of others; the only way to get rid of doubt is to take discrimination as one"s detector of truth and falsehood and under its guard to open the door freely and courageously to experience.” Letters on Yoga
I have started writing about doubt, but even in doing so I am afflicted by the ‘doubt’ whether any amount of writing or of anything else can ever persuade the eternal doubt in man which is the penalty of his native ignorance. In the first place, to write adequately would mean anything from 60 to 600 pages, but not even 6000 convincing pages would convince doubt. For doubt exists for its own sake; its very function is to doubt always and, even when convinced, to go on doubting still; it is only to persuade its entertainer to give it board and lodging that it pretends to be an honest truth-seeker. This is a lesson I have learnt from the experience both of my own mind and of the minds of others; the only way to get rid of doubt is to take discrimination as one’s detector of truth and falsehood and under its guard to open the door freely and courageously to experience.” Letters on Yoga
immensitudes ::: Sri Aurobindo: “I take upon myself the right to coin new words. ‘Immensitudes’ is not any more fantastic than ‘infinitudes’ to pair ‘infinity’.” immensitude, Immensitudes.
immensitudes ::: Sri Aurobindo: “I take upon myself the right to coin new words. ‘Immensitudes’ is not any more fantastic than ‘infinitudes’ to pair ‘infinity’.”
In ancient Egypt, the figure of an imaginary creature having the head of a man or an animal and the body of a lion. 2. Class. Myth. A monster, usually represented as having the head and breast of a woman, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. Seated on a rock outside of Thebes, she proposed a riddle to travellers, killing them when they answered incorrectly, as all did before Oedipus. When he answered her riddle correctly the Sphinx killed herself. (The Egyptian sphinxes usually exhibit male heads and wingless bodies; in the usual Greek type the head is female and the body winged.)
In Classical Mythology. the enchantress represented by Homer as turning the companions of Odysseus into swine by means of a magic drink, therefore an alluring but dangerous temptress or temptation.
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.**
Indefinable. I object to it because my aim is to bring the Divine into life.
"In Greek mythology, a giant with a hundred arms, a son of Uranus and Ge, who fought against the gods. He was hurled down by Athene and imprisoned beneath Mt. Aetna in Sicily. When he stirs, the mountain shakes; when he breathes, there is an eruption. (M.I.; Web.)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
“In Greek mythology, a giant with a hundred arms, a son of Uranus and Ge, who fought against the gods. He was hurled down by Athene and imprisoned beneath Mt. Aetna in Sicily. When he stirs, the mountain shakes; when he breathes, there is an eruption. (M.I.; Web). Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
iniquity ::: gross injustice or wickedness; infamy, depravity. iniquities.
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.
interned ::: restricted to or confined within prescribed limits, as prisoners of war, enemy aliens, or combat troops who take refuge in a neutral country. Also fig.
In the undying substance of my soul
". . . in the Veda, Lord of the hosts of delight; in later mythology, the Gandharvas are musicians of heaven, ‘beautiful, brave and melodious beings, the artists, musicians, poets and shining warriors of heaven". . . .” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works ::: *Gandharvas.
“… in the Veda, Lord of the hosts of delight; in later mythology, the Gandharvas are musicians of heaven, ‘beautiful, braveand melodiousbeings, the artists, musicians, poets and shining warriors of heaven’….” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works. Gandharvas
invade ::: 1. To enter forcefully as an enemy; go into with hostile intent. 2. To enter as if to take possession. 3. To permeate. 4. To penetrate; spread into or over. invades, invaded, invading.
“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 is not indispensable that the Grace should work in a way that the human mind can understand, it generally does not ; it works in. its own ‘ mysterious ’ way. At first usually it works behind the veil, preparbg things, not manifesting. Afterwards it may manifest, but the sSdhaka does not understand very well what is happening ; finally, when he is capable of it, he both feels and understands or at least begins to do so. Some feel and understand from the first or very early ; but that is not the ordinary case.
"It is true that metaphors, symbols, images are constant auxiliaries summoned by the mystic for the expression of his experiences: that is inevitable because he has to express, in a language made or at least developed and manipulated by the mind, the phenomena of a consciousness other than the mental and at once more complex and more subtly concrete.” Letters on Yoga*
“It is true that metaphors, symbols, images are constant auxiliaries summoned by the mystic for the expression of his experiences: that is inevitable because he has to express, in a language made or at least developed and manipulated by the mind, the phenomena of a consciousness other than the mental and at once more complex and more subtly concrete.” Letters on Yoga
“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: “ I think Amal and many others have talked about it. Sri Aurobindo is talking about the mind. Two powers and yet it is the same bird. At a certain level of our mental approach we perceive by opposites, we only see half the truth and only understand this half in relation only to the other. If this is white, this has to be black. And yet, it is one bird. It is fundamentally one truth, that is the mystic truth. Beyond the opposition there is the wholeness which sometimes we don’t perceive. We are so busy looking at the black head or the white tail and finding opposites.”
Jhumur: “The Book of bliss is really the ultimate Satchitananda, the everlasting day when one has moved out of all contact with the unconscious and lives no longer in between sunlight and darkness but wholly in the light, wholly in the Divine. There was once a question that somebody asked Mother when She used to take our classes. She (the person) said that in our world there is a change from lesser to greater if one tries to progress. It is a constant change. When one enters the higher plane, the upper hemisphere as you call it, will there be no change, will it always be the same? Mother said,”No, it is not that. One perfection can then be manifested later in another kind of perfection.” There is a variety of different laws of perfection, hence the myriad volumes of the Book of Bliss. Delight has so many modes of expression, perfection or delight, they are all the same and there is not just one way of manifesting the Divine. There are infinite modes of expression of that delight.”
Jhumur: “You have the same word in French, capte—like a receiver that catches signals. I believe Sri Aurobindo often uses French words with the French connotation. Particularly I have noticed that sometimes he uses the word amour instead of love. When I asked myself why did he have to use a French word here, perhaps because it was a different kind of love, not the usual, something other. Time’s amour-song he says, and not a love song. There is something different about that song. It is not just a love song. It suggests something other when he uses a word from another language. It is not love that we ordinarily understand, he has added a quality of something special or rare or unusual by utilizing the same word but in another language. It gives it another colour.”
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.
key ::: 1. A small metal instrument specially cut to fit into a lock and move its bolt. 2. Fig. Something that explains a mystery or gives an answer to a mystery, a code etc. 3. Something that is crucial in providing an explanation or interpretation. 4. Fig. Serving as an essential component; "a cardinal rule”. 5. The principal tonality of a composition. 6. Pitch of the voice. keys.
Lakshmi ::: “… in Hindu mythology, the goddess of wealth and good fortune, consort of Vishnu. According to a legend she sprang from the froth of the Ocean when it was churned, in full beauty, with a lotus in her hand. (Dow). Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
lakshmi ::: ". . . in Hindu mythology, the goddess of wealth and good fortune, consort of Vishnu. According to a legend she sprang from the froth of the Ocean when it was churned, in full beauty, with a lotus in her hand. (Dow.)” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
Madhav: “Alchemy is changing base metal into gold. So heaven experiments in changing this creature called man into a godhead. And this experiment is done on the base of nature, earth.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “All around is space, infinite space and in it is the Divine consciousness, the Divine concentration of consciousness, which is the ‘mystic heart’ of the world. The earth [She] is in communion with that ‘mystic heart’.” The Book of the Divine Mother`
Madhav: “Rose, here, signifies Divine Love. It is deathless because it is immortal. They are realms of pure Love. Read Sri Aurobindo in his sonnet, Light: . . . in my heart where blooms deathless rose.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The allusion is to the Vamana Avatar in Indian mythology. Vamana the Dwarf, Lilliputian in form, asks for a boon of three steps of land from the king. The king readily agrees. Suddenly the Dwarf assumes a stupendous shape and occupies both the worlds of earth and heaven and asks where he should place his third step. The king is obliged to offer his head. The Titan yields to the Divine in the form of Vamana.
Madhav: “The House of Flame is the plenary manifestation of Agni, the Mystic Fire of which the Seers of the Veda speak. Here blazes the Divine Consciousness in its incandescent purity.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The seat occupied by the oracle in the mysteries had three supports; it was a tripod. Here the true oracular seat is deceptively covered by the false Idol.” The Book of the Divine Mother
madonna ::: italian: My lady, a title of formal address.
maenad ::: in Grecian mythology, a priestess of Bacchus. See **Bacchante.**
magic ::: n. 1. The art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature. 2. Any extraordinary or mystical influence, charm, power, etc. magic"s. adj. 3. Of, pertaining to, or due to magic. magical, magically.
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
master of Existence ::: Sri Aurobindo: "I am here with thee in thy chariot of battle revealed as the Master of Existence within and without thee and I repeat the absolute assurance, the infallible promise that I will lead thee to myself through and beyond all sorrow and evil. Whatever difficulties and perplexities arise, be sure of this that I am leading thee to a complete divine life in the universal and an immortal existence in the transcendent Spirit.” Essays on the Gita
mastodon ::: a massive elephant-like mammal that flourished worldwide from the Myocene through the Pleistocene epochs having long, curved upper tusks and, in the male, short lower tusks.
mercy ::: compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one"s power; compassion, pity, or benevolence.
mil. The foremost position in an army or fleet advancing into battle.
Mind acts by representations and constructions, by the separa- tion and weaving together of its constructed data ; it can make a synthetic constnietlon and see it as a whole, but when it looks for the reality of things, it takes refuge in abstractions — it has not the concrete vision, experience, contact sought by the mystic and the spiritual seeker. To know Self and Reality directly or truly, It has to be silent and reflect some light of these things or undergo self-exceeding and Iransfonnation, and this is only possible either by a higher Light descending into it or by its ascent, the taking up or immcrgcncc of it into a higher Light of e^tence.
mind ::: 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.*
mire ::: 1. Deep slimy soil or mud. 2. An area of wet, soggy, muddy ground; a bog.
Mother or of my name and the Mother’s.
motion ::: 1. The action or process of changing position or place. 2. The ability or power to move. 3. A meaningful or expressive change in the position of the body or a part of the body; a gesture. motion"s, motions, motion-parable myriad-motioned.
mournful ::: gloomy, sombre, or dreary, as in appearance or character.
movement ::: 1. The act or an instance of moving; a change in place or position. A particular manner of moving. 2. Usually, movements, actions or activities, as of a person or a body of persons. ::: movement"s, movements, many-movemented.
Sri Aurobindo: "When we withdraw our gaze from its egoistic preoccupation with limited and fleeting interests and look upon the world with dispassionate and curious eyes that search only for the Truth, our first result is the perception of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that surpasses infinitely our ego or any ego or any collectivity of egos, in whose balance the grandiose products of aeons are but the dust of a moment and in whose incalculable sum numberless myriads count only as a petty swarm." *The Life Divine
". . . the purest, freest form of insight into existence as it is shows us nothing but movement. Two things alone exist, movement in Space, movement in Time, the former objective, the latter subjective.” The Life Divine
"The world is a cyclic movement (samsâra ) of the Divine Consciousness in Space and Time. Its law and, in a sense, its object is progression; it exists by movement and would be dissolved by cessation of movement. But the basis of this movement is not material; it is the energy of active consciousness which, by its motion and multiplication in different principles (different in appearance, the same in essence), creates oppositions of unity and multiplicity, divisions of Time and Space, relations and groupings of circumstance and Causality. All these things are real in consciousness, but only symbolic of the Being, somewhat as the imaginations of a creative Mind are true representations of itself, yet not quite real in comparison with itself, or real with a different kind of reality.” The Upanishads*
movement ::: “When we withdraw our gaze from its egoistic preoccupation with limited and fleeting interests and look upon the world with dispassionate and curious eyes that search only for the Truth, our first result is the perception of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that surpasses infinitely our ego or any ego or any collectivity of egos, in whose balance the grandiose products of aeons are but the dust of a moment and in whose incalculable sum numberless myriads count only as a petty swarm.” The Life Divine
mummified ::: shrivelled or dried up like a mummy.
muse ::: myth. Any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, each of whom presided over a different art or science.
Muse ::: “. The mystic Muse is more of an inspired Bacchante of the Dionysian wine than an orderly housewife.” Letters on Savitri
My bodily form from any natural thing,
“My researches first convinced me that words, like plants, like animals, are in no sense artificial products, but growths,—living growths of sound with certain seed-sounds as their basis. Out of these seed-sounds develop a small number of primitive root-words with an immense progeny which have their successive generations and arrange themselves in tribes, clans, families, selective groups each having a common stock and a common psychological history. For the factor which presided over the development of language was the association, by the nervous mind of primitive man, of certain general significances or rather of certain general utilities and sense-values with articulate sounds. The process of this association was also in no sense artificial but natural, governed by simple and definite psychological laws.” The Secret of the Veda
Mysteries ::: “It is ‘Mysteries’ with capital M and means ‘mystic symbolic rites’ as in the Orphic and Eleusinian ‘Mysteries’. When written with capital M it does not mean secret mysterious things, but has this sense, e.g. a ‘Mystery play’.” Letters on Savitri
Name ::: Jhumur: “Hold onto the Name. That is the only power. I remember Mother once told me—because there was a moment when I was attacked by a certain person. She was mad and so had a certain number of people she chose to attack with her vibrations, with her words. If she could she would throw stones. I was very, very young, about 17 or 18. I said, ‘Every time I see her, Mother, I really start to tremble. It has become something so physically terrifying. Once she (the mad person) had thrown a big paperweight, a cement paperweight in the library. It went just past my head, it could have killed me. After that I became really frightened. So Mother told me ‘Nothing will happen to you. Each time you see her just say ‘Ma, Ma, Ma.’ But it was so difficult. Each time I saw her from far I would think, ‘I have to say Ma.’ But when she came close enough I could not say the Name, for a long time, for a very long time. I was so frightened the fear would take the Name away. I knew very well I had to say the Name That is what Mother told me. And one day I could, finally I could and the mad person lost interest in me!”
Nature, of all that is not obvious on the surface. An integral knowledge demands an exploration, an unveiling of all the possible domains of consciousness and experience. For there are subjective domains of our being which lie behind the obvious surface; these have to be fathomed and whatever is ascertained must be admitted within the scope of the total reality. An inner range of spiritual experience is one very great domain of human consciousness ; it has to be entered into up to its deepest depths and its vastest reaches. The supraphysical is as real as the physical ; to know it is part of a complete knowledge. The knowledge of the supraph>'sical has been associated with mysti- efsm and occultism, and occultism has been banned as a super- stition and fantastic error. But the occult Is a part of existence ; a true occultism means no more than a research into supraphysical realities and an unveiling of the hidden Jaws of being and
nectar ::: 1. *Myth. The life-giving drink of the gods. 2. The juice of a fruit. 3. A delicious or invigorating drink. *nectar-cup.
Nolini: “A composite bird from Sri Aurobindo—not mythology.”
Nolini: “From Indian mythology, an incarnation of Vishnu.”
Nolini: “The image is that of the comoposition of an army or that of a mathematical series (e.g., arithmetical or geometrical progression). It is composed of regularised uits of different values (group of sums), but all measured and definite and precise—e.g.., in the case of an army—company, brigade, battalion, army—an ascending scale, the whole also forming one big unit, taken in at a single glance—that is the nature of overmind vision.
Note that all definitions are taken from the Lexicon of an Infinite Mind, published by the Savitri Foundation and available through Amazon and Create Space. Words that have gravitated in the English language and are well used, such as those from classical mythology, Dionysian, Circean, etc. are not included.
“ Now, that a conscious Infinite is there in physical Nature, we are assured by every sign, though it is a consciousness not made or limited like ours. All her constructions and motions are those of an illimitable intuitive wisdom too great and spontaneous and mysteriously self-effective to be described as an intelligence, of a Power and Will working for Time in eternity with an inevitable and forecasting movement in each of its steps, even in those steps that in their outward or superficial impetus seem to us inconscient. And as there is in her this greater consciousness and greater power, so too there is an illimitable spirit of harmony and beauty in her constructions that never fails her, though its works are not limited by our aesthetic canons. An infinite hedonism too is there, an illimitable spirit of delight, of which we become aware when we enter into impersonal unity with her; and even as that in her which is terrible is a part of her beauty, that in her which is dangerous, cruel, destructive is a part of her delight, her universal Ananda. Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Number of experiences ::: The quality of a sadhaka docs not depend on that ; one great spiritual realisation direct and at the centre will often make a great sadhaka or yogi, an army of intermediate yogic experiences will not.
Nymphs ::: Greek & Roman Mythology: Any of numerous minor deities represented as beautiful maidens inhabiting and sometimes personifying features of nature such as trees, waters, and mountains.
nymphs ::: greek & Roman Mythology: Any of numerous minor deities represented as beautiful maidens inhabiting and sometimes personifying features of nature such as trees, waters, and mountains.
obscure ::: 1. Not bright or lustrous; dull or darkish, as colour or appearance. 2. Hidden, secret, or remote. 3. Not clearly understood or expressed; ambiguous or vague. 4. Not readily noticed or seen; inconspicuous. 5. So faintly perceptible as to lack clear delineation; indistinct. 6. Gloomy, dark, clouded, or dim. 7. Pertaining to darkness. obscurest.
Occult powers ::: True occult spiritual forces and mysteries can be called do\vn or can come down without calling, but this must be made secondary to the one true thing, the seeking for the Divine, and if it is part of the Divine plan in you.
occult ::: “The ancient knowledge in all countries was full of the search after the hidden truths of our being and it created that large field of practice and inquiry which goes in Europe by the name of occultism,—we do not use any corresponding word in the East, because these things do not seem to us so remote, mysterious and abnormal as to the occidental mentality; they are nearer to us and the veil between our normal material life and this larger life is much thinner.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Oh, a tremendous power—tremendous. The first time I heard it … The first time I heard it … There was a certain Bernard who had spent a year in India, in the Himalayas, and he was visited by yogis whom he didn’t know (he lived in a hut in the Himalayas, all alone). One yogi came to see him; he didn’t say anything, he just sat by his side and then left. And that yogi simply told him,”Om …” Then he came back to France, recounted his experiences in India, and he said that. Me, I knew absolutely nothing of India at the time, and when he uttered the word OM … (Mother brings her arms down), it came: a Force like this, my whole, entire body, everything vibrated in an extraordinary way! It was like a revelation—everything, but everything started vibrating. Then I said,”At last, here’s the true sound!” Yet I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, neither what it meant nor anything. Mother’s Agenda, Volume 10, 1969.
Oh, a tremendous power—tremendous. The first time I heard it … The first time I heard it … There was a certain Bernard who had spent a year in India, in the Himalayas, and he was visited by yogis whom he didn"t know (he lived in a hut in the Himalayas, all alone). One yogi came to see him; he didn"t say anything, he just sat by his side and then left. And that yogi simply told him, "Om …” Then he came back to France, recounted his experiences in India, and he said that. Me, I knew absolutely nothing of India at the time, and when he uttered the word OM … (Mother brings her arms down), it came: a Force like this, my whole, entire body, everything vibrated in an extraordinary way! It was like a revelation—everything, but everything started vibrating. Then I said, "At last, here"s the true sound!” Yet I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, neither what it meant nor anything.
One who is versed in or practices alchemy. Pertaining to one who studies or practises alchemy. alchemist (employed as an adj. by Sri Aurobindo).
one who is versed in or practices alchemy. Pertaining to one who studies or practises alchemy. alchemist (employed as an adj. by Sri Aurobindo).
Oversoul ::: We might say then that there are three elements in the totality of our being: there is the submental and the subconscient which appears to us as if it were inconscient, comprising the material basis and a good part of our life and body; there is the subliminal, which comprises the inner being, taken in its entirety of inner mind, inner life, inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them; there is this waking consciousness which the subliminal and the subconscient throw up on the surface, a wave of their secret surge. But even this is not an adequate account of what we are; for there is not only something deep within behind our normal self-awareness, but something also high above it: that too is ourselves, other than our surface mental personality, but not outside our true self; that too is a country of our spirit. For the subliminal proper is no more than the inner being on the level of the Knowledge-Ignorance, luminous, powerful and extended indeed beyond the poor conception of our waking mind, but still not the supreme or the whole sense of our being, not its ultimate mystery. We become aware, in a certain experience, of a range of being superconscient to all these three, aware too of something, a supreme highest Reality sustaining and exceeding them all, which humanity speaks of vaguely as Spirit, God, the Oversoul: from these superconscient ranges we have visitations and in our highest being we tend towards them and to that supreme Spirit. There is then in our total range of existence a superconscience as well as a subconscience and inconscience, overarching and perhaps enveloping our subliminal and our waking selves, but unknown to us, seemingly unattainable and incommunicable.
pigmy ::: 1. Of very small size, capacity, or power. 2. Unusually or atypically small.
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.
prey ::: n. 1. An animal hunted or caught for food; quarry. Also fig. 2. A person or thing that is the victim of an enemy. v. 2. To hunt, catch, kill or eat as prey. Also fig. preyed.
"Progress admittedly does not march on securely in a straight line like a man sure of his familiar way or an army covering an unimpeded terrain or well-mapped unoccupied spaces. Human progress is very much an adventure through the unknown, an unknown full of surprises and baffling obstacles; it stumbles often, it misses its way at many points, it cedes here in order to gain there, it retraces its steps frequently in order to get more widely forward.” *The Renaissance in India
“Progress admittedly does not march on securely in a straight line like a man sure of his familiar way or an army covering an unimpeded terrain or well-mapped unoccupied spaces. Human progress is very much an adventure through the unknown, an unknown full of surprises and baffling obstacles; it stumbles often, it misses its way at many points, it cedes here in order to gain there, it retraces its steps frequently in order to get more widely forward.” The Renaissance in India
Prometheus ::: Gr. Myth. A Titan who stole fire from Olympus and gave it to humankind, for which Zeus chained him to a rock and sent an eagle to eat his liver, which grew back daily.
prometheus ::: gr. Myth. A Titan who stole fire from Olympus and gave it to humankind, for which Zeus chained him to a rock and sent an eagle to eat his liver, which grew back daily.
Purani: “He [Sri Aurobindo] does the same [improving spontaneously upon the original in the alchemy of his poetical process] with several Vedic symbols which he employs. It [gold-horned herds] indicates the descent of the ‘gold-horned’ Cows—symbolising the richly-laden Rays of Knowledge—into the Inconscient of the earth, its ‘cave-heart’. Generally in the Veda the action is that of breaking open the Cave of the inconscient and releasing the pen of Cows, the imprisoned Rays of Life for the conscious possessions by the seeker. Here is how a Vedic hymn speaks about it: ‘They drove upwards, the luminous ones,—the good milch-cows, in their stone-pen within the hiding cave.’ Rig Veda IV, 1-13. One sees in Savitri the process reversed and the Master’s vision lays open the original act of involution of the Light into the darkness of the Inconscient.” Sri Aurobindo’s”Savitri”: An Approach and a Study.
Purani: “The Red-Wolf is the symbol of the powers that tear the ‘being’, that suddenly fall upon it to destroy it. They are persistent, destructive, cruel, unscrupulous powers of the lower Darkness. Sri Aurobindo in his expression has made the symbol more effective, improving spontaneously upon the original in the alchemy of his poetical process by the image of ‘fordless steam’. In the original hymn there is only ‘path’. The ‘fordless stream’ brings in the needed element of danger and difficulty of the path of the aspirant when he has to cross this dangerous region.”“Savitri”—An Approach and a Study
RESISTANCE. ::: When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt — which may create mental and vital su/Tering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature ivhose principal characer is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffer- ing of the mind and vital parts. The pbj-sical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incom- prehension, an inability to respond to the higher consciousness, a habit of helplessly responding to the lower mechanically, even when it docs not want to do so ; both lital and physical suffer- ing may be the consequence. There is, moreover, the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence in the continuation of the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses, desires, feelings, responses continue even after they are thrown out and rejected, and can return like an invading army from outside, until the whole nature, given to (he
retreat ::: v. **1. To retire or withdraw, into seclusion, shelter or privacy, or into some place of safety. n. 2. A drawing back; withdrawal. 3. The forced or strategic withdrawal of an army or an armed force before an enemy. 4. A place of refuge, seclusion or privacy. retreats.**
reverie ::: 1. A state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing. 2. A daydream. reverie"s, reveries.
sacrament ::: 1. Something regarded as possessing a sacred or mysterious significance. 2. A rite believed to be a means of or visible form of grace. 3. A sign, token or symbol. 4. A pledge. sacraments.
SADHARMYA. ::: Identity in nature.
SAMYAMA. ::: Method of self-control as practised, in the system of spiritual discipline known as Raja Yoga ; a concentra- tion, directing or dwelling of the consciousness.
Satyr ::: Class. Myth. One of a class of woodland deities, attendant on Bacchus, represented as part human, part horse, and sometimes part goat, and noted for riotousness and lasciviousness. satyr’s
satyr ::: class. Myth. One of a class of woodland deities, attendant on Bacchus, represented as part human, part horse, and sometimes part goat, and noted for riotousness and lasciviousness. satyr"s.
secret ::: n. 1. Something unknown or kept hidden from others or is beyond understanding or explanation; a mystery. 2. A reason or explanation not immediately or generally apparent. secrets. adj. **3. Kept from knowledge or observation; hidden, concealed. 4. Kept from the knowledge of any but the initiated and privileged. 5. Beyond ordinary human understanding; esoteric. 6.** Secluded, remote, sheltered, or withdrawn.
seed-sounds ::: Sri Aurobindo: "My researches first convinced me that words, like plants, like animals, are in no sense artificial products, but growths, — living growths of sound with certain seed-sounds as their basis. Out of these seed-sounds develop a small number of primitive root-words with an immense progeny which have their successive generations and arrange themselves in tribes, clans, families, selective groups each having a common stock and a common psychological history. For the factor which presided over the development of language was the association, by the nervous mind of primitive man, of certain general significances or rather of certain general utilities and sense-values with articulate sounds. The process of this association was also in no sense artificial but natural, governed by simple and definite psychological laws.” *The Secret of the Veda
“Self-will in thought and action has, we have already seen, to be quite renounced if we would be perfect in the way of divine works; it has equally to be renounced if we are to be perfect in divine knowledge. This self-will means an egoism in the mind which attaches itself to its preferences, its habits, its past or present formations of thought and view and will because it regards them as itself or its own, weaves around them the delicate threads of I-ness’’ andmy-ness’’ and lives in them like a spider in its web. It hates to be disturbed, as a spider hates attack on its web, and feels foreign and unhappy if transplanted to fresh view-points and formations as a spider feels foreign in another web than its own. This attachment must be entirely excised from the mind.” The Synthesis of Yoga
sentinel ::: 1. A tower used by the military to watch for the enemy and defend a camp, etc. 2. A person or thing that watches or stands as if watching. 3. A soldier stationed as a guard to challenge all comers and prevent a surprise attack; a sentry. (Sri Aurobindo often employs the word as an adjective.) sentinels.
shadowed ::: made gloomy or dark as by shadow or shadows. Also fig.
ShaXti, she stands above the srorids and links the creation to the ever unmanifest mystery of the Supreme. Universal, the cosmic
Shruti: “The symbolic representation of the metaphysical ascending layers of creation, the mystical (Sri Yantra) symbol of creation. The symbol of diamonds and triangles leading to a single point at the top and encompassed in a square. If you look at it from above, aerially, it appears to be this symbol (from a flat perspective), but if you look at it from the side it is an ascending mountain. (Called Mount Meru but actually like the Sri Yantra).”
Shruti: “Vijnana maya purusha. The angel who holds and brings forth the occult mysteries of life, the mysterious truths of existence, the occult laws of Nature, the level of being. Hiranyagarbha, the golden embryo is also the Angel of mysterious ecstasies. He is also the man who has attained the state of Vijnana where he is now Mind, Life, Matter.”
siren ::: Classical Mythol. One of several fabulous sea nymphs, part woman, part bird, who were supposed to lure sailors to destruction by their enchanting singing. Fig. One who, or that which, sings sweetly, charms, allures, or deceives, like the Sirens. (Sri Aurobindo uses the word in its adjectival sense: Seductive, tempting.)
siren ::: classical Mythol. One of several fabulous sea nymphs, part woman, part bird, who were supposed to lure sailors to destruction by their enchanting singing. Fig. One who, or that which, sings sweetly, charms, allures, or deceives, like the Sirens. (Sri Aurobindo uses the word in its adjectival sense: Seductive, tempting.)
slippery ::: with a smooth or slimy surface that causes or tends to cause things to slip or slide.
sombre ::: 1. Dim, gloomy, shadowy. 2. Extremely serious; grave. 3. Of a colour, sober, dull, or dark. 3. Gloomy, depressing, melancholy, dismal. 4. Of persons, their appearance, etc., gloomy, lowering, dark and sullen or dejected.
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.
spare ::: v. 1. To refrain from using. 2. To give or grant out of one"s resources; afford. 3. To refrain from treating harshly; treat mercifully or leniently. spared. adj. 4. Characterized by frugality or economy. 5. Unadorned, bare, simple. 6. Small in amount, quantity, or extent; not lavish, liberal, or profuse; scanty, limited. sparing.
Speak not my secret name to hostile Time
sphinx ::: 1. In ancient Egypt, the figure of an imaginary creature having the head of a man or an animal and the body of a lion. 2. Class. Myth. A monster, usually represented as having the head and breast of a woman, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. Seated on a rock outside of Thebes, she proposed a riddle to travellers, killing them when they answered incorrectly, as all did before Oedipus. When he answered her riddle correctly the Sphinx killed herself. (The Egyptian sphinxes usually exhibit male heads and wingless bodies; in the usual Greek type the head is female and the body winged.)
spirit of Delight ::: Sri Aurobindo: " Now, that a conscious Infinite is there in physical Nature, we are assured by every sign, though it is a consciousness not made or limited like ours. All her constructions and motions are those of an illimitable intuitive wisdom too great and spontaneous and mysteriously self-effective to be described as an intelligence, of a Power and Will working for Time in eternity with an inevitable and forecasting movement in each of its steps, even in those steps that in their outward or superficial impetus seem to us inconscient. And as there is in her this greater consciousness and greater power, so too there is an illimitable spirit of harmony and beauty in her constructions that never fails her, though its works are not limited by our aesthetic canons. An infinite hedonism too is there, an illimitable spirit of delight, of which we become aware when we enter into impersonal unity with her; and even as that in her which is terrible is a part of her beauty, that in her which is dangerous, cruel, destructive is a part of her delight, her universal Ananda. Essays in Philosophy and 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: "Birth is the first spiritual mystery of the physical universe, death is the second which gives its double point of perplexity to the mystery of birth; for life, which would otherwise be a self-evident fact of existence, becomes itself a mystery by virtue of these two which seem to be its beginning and its end and yet in a thousand ways betray themselves as neither of these things, but rather intermediate stages in an occult processus of life.” *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: "Every man is knowingly or unknowingly the instrument of a universal Power and, apart from the inner Presence, there is no such essential difference between one action and another, one kind of instrumentation and another as would warrant the folly of an egoistic pride. The difference between knowledge and ignorance is a grace of the Spirit; the breath of divine Power blows where it lists and fills today one and tomorrow another with the word or the puissance. If the potter shapes one pot more perfectly than another, the merit lies not in the vessel but the maker. The attitude of our mind must not be ‘This is my strength" or ‘Behold God"s power in me", but rather ‘A Divine Power works in this mind and body and it is the same that works in all men and in the animal, in the plant and in the metal, in conscious and living things and in things apparently inconscient and inanimate."” The Synthesis of Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "Force is nothing but the power of being in motion.” Hymns to the Mystic Fire
*Sri Aurobindo: "For from the divine Bliss, the original Delight of existence, the Lord of Immortality comes pouring the wine of that Bliss, the mystic Soma, into these jars of mentalised living matter; eternal and beautiful, he enters into these sheaths of substance for the integral transformation of the being and nature.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Form is the basic means of manifestation and without it it may be said that the manifestation of anything is not complete. Even if the Formless logically precedes Form, yet it is not illogical to assume that in the Formless, Form is inherent and already existent in a mystic latency, otherwise how could it be manifested?” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "I take upon myself the right to coin new words. ‘Immensitudes" is not any more fantastic than ‘infinitudes" to pair ‘infinity".” immensitude, Immensitudes.
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: "I used the word ‘mystic" in the sense of a certain kind of inner seeing and feeling of things, a way which to the intellect would seem occult and visionary — for this is something different from imagination and its work with which the intellect is familiar.” *On Himself
Sri Aurobindo: “Love fulfilled does not exclude knowledge, but itself brings knowledge; and the completer the knowledge, the richer the possibility of love. ‘By Bhakti’ says the Lord in the Gita ‘shall a man know Me in all my extent and greatness and as I am in the principles of my being, and when he has known Me in the principles of my being, then he enters into Me.’ Love without knowledge is a passionate and intense, but blind, crude, often dangerous thing, a great power, but also a stumbling-block; love, limited in knowledge, condemns itself in its fervour and often by its very fervour to narrowness; but love leading to perfect knowledge brings the infinite and absolute union. Such love is not inconsistent with, but rather throws itself with joy into divine works; for it loves God and is one with him in all his being, and therefore in all beings, and to work for the world is then to feel and fulfil multitudinously one’s love for God. This is the trinity of our powers, [work, knowledge, love] the union of all three in God to which we arrive when we start on our journey by the path of devotion with Love for the Angel of the Way to find in the ecstasy of the divine delight of the All-Lover’s being the fulfilment of ours, its secure home and blissful abiding-place and the centre of its universal radiation.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The ancient knowledge in all countries was full of the search after the hidden truths of our being and it created that large field of practice and inquiry which goes in Europe by the name of occultism, — we do not use any corresponding word in the East, because these things do not seem to us so remote, mysterious and abnormal as to the occidental mentality; they are nearer to us and the veil between our normal material life and this larger life is much thinner.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: ". The mystic Muse is more of an inspired Bacchante of the Dionysian wine than an orderly housewife.” Letters on Savitri
Sri Aurobindo: "The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nature-body and Nature-force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass though the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.” The Mother
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 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: "Your ‘barely enough", instead of the finer and more suggestive ‘hardly", falls flat upon my ear; one cannot substitute one word for another in this kind of poetry merely because it means intellectually the same thing; ‘hardly" is the mot juste in this context and, repetition or not, it must remain unless a word not only juste but inevitable comes to replace it… . On this point I may add that in certain contexts ‘barely" would be the right word, as for instance, ‘There is barely enough food left for two or three meals", where ‘hardly" would be adequate but much less forceful. It is the other way about in this line. Letters on Savitri
SSdharmya-mukii ; liberation by the acquisition of the divine nature, by the transformation of this lower being info the human
stern ::: 1. Hard, harsh, or severe in manner or character. 2. Grim, gloomy, or forbidding in aspect, appearance or outlook.
stigmata ::: 1. Marks resembling the wounds on the crucified body of Christ, said to have been supernaturally impressed on the bodies of certain saints and other devout persons. 2. Fig. A mark of disgrace or infamy.
stormy ::: likened to a storm; powerfully.
Strength is all right for the strong — but aspiration and the Grace answering to it are not altogether myths; they are great realities of the spiritual life.” Letters on Yoga*
Strength is all right for the strong—but aspiration and the Grace answering to it are not altogether myths; they are great realities of the spiritual life.” Letters on Yoga
subtle ::: 1. So slight as to be difficult to detect or describe; elusive. 2. Fine or delicate in meaning or intent; difficult to perceive or understand. 3. Delicate or faint and mysterious. 4. Operating in a hidden, usually injurious way; insidious. 5. Characterized by skill or ingenuity; clever. 6. Insidious in operation. 7. Crafty or sly; devious; cunning. subtler, subtle-souled.
sullen ::: 1. Sombre; gloomy; dismal; sluggish; slow. 2. Gloomy or sombre in tone, color, or portent. Chiefly poet.
sunless ::: lacking sun or sunlight; dark or dull; fig. dismal; gloomy.
SUNLIT PATH ::: There Is a sunlit path as well as a gloomy one and It Is the better of the two — a path In which one goes forward In absolute reliaoce on the Mother, fearing ootWng, sorrowing over nothing. Aspiration is needed but there can be a sunlit aspiration full of light and faith and confidence and joy.
suspense ::: anxiety or apprehension resulting from an uncertain, undecided, or mysterious situation.
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
tenebrous ::: dark and gloomy.
term-posts ::: a word coined by Sri Aurobindo from terminus,** **a boundary post or stone; historically, a statue or bust of the god Terminus, the deity who presided over boundaries or landmarks in ancient Roman mythology.
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 authors also gave the example of Centaur). When such words are capitalised it refers to a divinity representing the species. Also with the word ‘Circean’ Nolini said: “Not merely a mythological story but a being representing universal forces.
“the basic syllable OM, which is the foundation of all the perfect creative sounds of the revealed word; OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases, all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak (speech, the goddess Speech) and Shabda (sound, vibration, word). The mantra of the divine consciousness brings its light of revelation, the Mantra of the divine Power, its will of effectuation, the Mantra of the divine Ananda is equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an outflowing of he great OM,—OM, the Word, the Eternal Manifest in the forms of sensible objects; manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name—it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self—existent above all manifestation in supernal being.” SABCL Volume 13—Page 315
"the basic syllable OM, which is the foundation of all the perfect creative sounds of the revealed word; OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases, all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak (speech, the goddess Speech) and Shabda (sound, vibration, word). The mantra of the divine consciousness brings its light of revelation, the Mantra of the divine Power, its will of effectuation, the Mantra of the divine Ananda is equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an outflowing of he great OM, - OM, the Word, the Eternal Manifest in the forms of sensible objects; manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name – it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self- existent above all manifestation in supernal being.” SABCL Volume 13 – Page 315*
"The mystic feels real and present, even ever present to his experience, intimate to his being, truths which to the ordinary reader are intellectual abstractions or metaphysical speculations.” Letters on Savitri
“The mystic feels real and present, even ever present to his experience, intimate to his being, truths which to the ordinary reader are intellectual abstractions or metaphysical speculations.” Letters on Savitri
“The Chhandogya,… is to be a work in the right and perfect way of devoting oneself to the Brahman; its subject is the Brahman, but the Brahman as symbolised in the OM, the sacred syllable of the Veda, not therefore, the pure state of existence only, but that existence in all its parts… OM is the symbol and the thing symbolised.”the basic syllable OM, which is the foundation of all the perfect creative sounds of the revealed word; OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases, all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak (speech, the goddess Speech) and Shabda (sound, vibration, word). The mantra of the divine consciousness brings its light of revelation, the Mantra of the divine Power, its will of effectuation, the Mantra of the divine Ananda is equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an outflowing of he great OM,—OM, the Word, the Eternal Manifest in the forms of sensible objects; manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name—it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self—existent above all manifestation in supernal being.” SABCL Volume 13—Page 315
“The enemy of faith is doubt, and yet doubt too is a utility and necessity, because man in his ignorance and in his progressive labour towards knowledge needs to be visited by doubt, otherwise he would remain obstinate in an ignorant belief and limited knowledge and unable to escape from his errors.” The Synthesis of Yoga
The Mother or myself send a force. If there is no openness, the force may be thrown back or returned (unless we put a great force which it is not always adwsablc to do) as from an obstruc- tion or resistance ::: if there is some openness, the result may be partial or slow ; if there is the full openness or receptivity, then the result may be immediate. Of course there are things that cannot be removed all at once, being an old part of the nature, but with receptivity these also can be more effectively and rapidly dealt with. Some people are so open that even by writing they get free before the book or letter reaches us.
The Mother: ‘There are four Asuras. Two have already been converted, and the other two, the Lord of Death and the Lord of Falsehood, made an attempt at conversion by taking on a physical body – they have been intimately associated with my life. The story of these Asuras would be very interesting to recount. . . the Lord of Death disappeared; he lost his physical body, and I don"t know what has become of him. As for the other, the Lord of Falsehood, the one who now rules over this earth, he tried hard to be converted but he found it disgusting!
The Mother: ‘There are four Asuras. Two have already been converted, and the other two, the Lord of Death and the Lord of Falsehood, made an attempt at conversion by taking on a physical body—they have been intimately associated with my life. The story of these Asuras would be very interesting to recount. . . the Lord of Death disappeared; he lost his physical body, and I don’t know what has become of him. As for the other, the Lord of Falsehood, the one who now rules over this earth, he tried hard to be converted but he found it disgusting!
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.
"The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine. Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the ineffable Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to be manifested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and gives them a form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and a body in the universe.” The Mother
“The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine. Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the ineffable Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to be manifested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and gives them a form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and a body in the universe.” The Mother
“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
"There is a sunlit path as well as a gloomy one and it is the better of the two — a path in which one goes forward in absolute reliance on the Mother, fearing nothing, sorrowing over nothing. Aspiration is needed but there can be a sunlit aspiration full of light and faith and confidence and joy. If difficulty comes, even that can be faced with a smile.” Letters on Yoga
“There is a sunlit path as well as a gloomy one and it is the better of the two—a path in which one goes forward in absolute reliance on the Mother, fearing nothing, sorrowing over nothing. Aspiration is needed but there can be a sunlit aspiration full of light and faith and confidence and joy. If difficulty comes, even that can be faced with a smile.” Letters on Yoga
The Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus,[5] and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune and Pluto. Each presided over one of the three realms of the universe: sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who manifested himself in the daylight, usually but not always identified with Jupiter.[6] Tinia is usually regarded as his Etruscan counterpart.[7] Wikipedia
"The sun in the yoga is the symbol of the supermind and the supermind is the first power of the Supreme which one meets across the border where the experience of spiritualised mind ceases and the unmodified divine Consciousness begins the domain of the supreme Nature, para prakrti . It is that Light of which the Vedic mystics got a glimpse and it is the opposite of the intervening darkness of the Christian mystics, for the supermind is all light and no darkness.” Letters on Yoga
“The sun in the yoga is the symbol of the supermind and the supermind is the first power of the Supreme which one meets across the border where the experience of spiritualised mind ceases and the unmodified divine Consciousness begins the domain of the supreme Nature, para prakrti . It is that Light of which the Vedic mystics got a glimpse and it is the opposite of the intervening darkness of the Christian mystics, for the supermind is all light and no darkness.” Letters on Yoga
"The sunlit path can only be followed if the psychic is constantly or usually in front or if one has a natural spirit of faith and surrender or a face turned habitually towards the sun or psychic predisposition (e.g. a faith in one"s spiritual destiny) or, if one has acquired the psychic turn. That does not mean that the sunlit man has no difficulties; he may have many, but he regards them cheerfully as all in the day's work''. If he gets a bad beating, he is capable of saying,Well, that was a queer go but the Divine is evidently in a queer mood and if that is his way of doing things, it must be the right one; I am surely a still queerer fellow myself and that, I suppose, was the only means of putting me right."" Letters on Yoga
“The sunlit path can only be followed if the psychic is constantly or usually in front or if one has a natural spirit of faith and surrender or a face turned habitually towards the sun or psychic predisposition (e.g. a faith in one’s spiritual destiny) or, if one has acquired the psychic turn. That does not mean that the sunlit man has no difficulties; he may have many, but he regards them cheerfully as all in the day’s work’’. If he gets a bad beating, he is capable of saying,Well, that was a queer go but the Divine is evidently in a queer mood and if that is his way of doing things, it must be the right one; I am surely a still queerer fellow myself and that, I suppose, was the only means of putting me right.’’ Letters on Yoga
“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
third (mysterious) eye
"This Godhead is one in all things that are, the self who lives in all and the self in whom all live and move; therefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures, to see all in the self and the self in all beings, even to see all things and creatures as himself, âtmaupamyena sarvatra, and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and living. This Godhead is the origin of all that is here or elsewhere and by his Nature he has become all these innumerable existences, abhût sarvâni bhûtâni; therefore man has to see and adore the One in all things animate and inanimate, to worship the manifestation in sun and star and flower, in man and every living creature, in the forms and forces, qualities and powers of Nature, vâsudevah sarvam iti.” Essays on the Gita ::: *godhead, godheads, godhead"s.
“This Godhead is one in all things that are, the self who lives in all and the self in whom all live and move; therefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures, to see all in the self and the self in all beings, even to see all things and creatures as himself, âtmaupamyena sarvatra, and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and living. This Godhead is the origin of all that is here or elsewhere and by his Nature he has become all these innumerable existences, abhût sarvâni bhûtâni; therefore man has to see and adore the One in all things animate and inanimate, to worship the manifestation in sun and star and flower, in man and every living creature, in the forms and forces, qualities and powers of Nature, vâsudevah sarvam iti.” Essays on the Gita
"Thought is not essential to existence nor its cause, but it is an instrument for becoming; I become what I see in myself. All that thought suggests to me, I can do; all that thought reveals in me, I can become. This should be man"s unshakable faith in himself, because God dwells in him.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“Thought is not essential to existence nor its cause, but it is an instrument for becoming; I become what I see in myself. All that thought suggests to me, I can do; all that thought reveals in me, I can become. This should be man’s unshakable faith in himself, because God dwells in him.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
through. They are the ‘ day and night ’ of the Vedic mystics.
thunderbolt ::: an imaginary bolt or dart conceived as the material destructive agent cast to earth in a flash of lightening. Myth & Legend / Norse Myth & Legend) (in mythology) the destructive weapon wielded by several gods, esp. the Greek god Zeus and the Norse god of thunder, Thor.
Thunderer ::: An epithet for Jupiter or the Deity. Jupiter (Latin: Iuppiter; /ˈjʊpɪtɛr/; genitive case: Iovis; /ˈjɔːvɪs/) or Jove is the king of the gods and the god of sky and thunder in myth. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as sacrifice.
thyrsus ::: greek myth. A staff, usually one tipped with a pine cone, borne by Dionysus (Bacchus) and his followers.
"Time presents itself to human effort as an enemy or a friend, as a resistance, a medium or an instrument. But always it is really the instrument of the soul.” The Synthesis of Yoga
TIME. ::: Time represents itself to human cfTon as an enemy or a friend, as a resistance, a medium or an instrument. But always it is really the instrument of the soul.
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.
"To me, for instance, consciousness is the very stuff of existence and I can feel it everywhere enveloping and penetrating the stone as much as man or the animal. A movement, a flow of consciousness is not to me an image but a fact. If I wrote "His anger climbed against me in a stream", it would be to the general reader a mere image, not something that was felt by me in a sensible experience; yet I would only be describing in exact terms what actually happened once, a stream of anger, a sensible and violent current of it rising up from downstairs and rushing upon me as I sat in the veranda of the Guest-House, the truth of it being confirmed afterwards by the confession of the person who had the movement. This is only one instance, but all that is spiritual or psychological in Savitri is of that character. What is to be done under these circumstances? The mystical poet can only describe what he has felt, seen in himself or others or in the world just as he has felt or seen it or experienced through exact vision, close contact or identity and leave it to the general reader to understand or not understand or misunderstand according to his capacity. A new kind of poetry demands a new mentality in the recipient as well as in the writer.” Letters on Savitri
“To me, for instance, consciousness is the very stuff of existence and I can feel it everywhere enveloping and penetrating the stone as much as man or the animal. A movement, a flow of consciousness is not to me an image but a fact. If I wrote ’His anger climbed against me in a stream’, it would be to the general reader a mere image, not something that was felt by me in a sensible experience; yet I would only be describing in exact terms what actually happened once, a stream of anger, a sensible and violent current of it rising up from downstairs and rushing upon me as I sat in the veranda of the Guest-House, the truth of it being confirmed afterwards by the confession of the person who had the movement. This is only one instance, but all that is spiritual or psychological in Savitri is of that character. What is to be done under these circumstances? The mystical poet can only describe what he has felt, seen in himself or others or in the world just as he has felt or seen it or experienced through exact vision, close contact or identity and leave it to the general reader to understand or not understand or misunderstand according to his capacity. A new kind of poetry demands a new mentality in the recipient as well as in the writer.” Letters on Savitri
"To the mystic there is no such thing as an abstraction. Everything which to the intellectual mind is abstract has a concreteness, substantiality which is more real than the sensible form of an object or of a physical event.” Letters on Savitri*
“To the mystic there is no such thing as an abstraction. Everything which to the intellectual mind is abstract has a concreteness, substantiality which is more real than the sensible form of an object or of a physical event.” Letters on Savitri
Transcendent ::: “A Transcendent who is beyond all world and all Nature and yet possesses the world and its nature, who has descended with something of himself into it and is shaping it into that which as yet it is not, is the Source of our being, the Source of our works and their Master. But the seat of the Transcendent Consciousness is above in an absoluteness of divine Existence—and there too is the absolute Power, Truth, Bliss of the Eternal—of which our mentality can form no conception and of which even our greatest spiritual experience is only a diminished reflection in the spiritualised mind and heart, a faint shadow, a thin derivate. Yet proceeding from it there is a sort of golden corona of Light, Power, Bliss and Truth—a divine Truth-Consciousness as the ancient mystics called it, a Supermind, a Gnosis, with which this world of a lesser consciousness proceeding by Ignorance is in secret relation and which alone maintains it and prevents it from falling into a disintegrated chaos.” The Synthesis of Yoga
transcendent ::: Sri Aurobindo: "A Transcendent who is beyond all world and all Nature and yet possesses the world and its nature, who has descended with something of himself into it and is shaping it into that which as yet it is not, is the Source of our being, the Source of our works and their Master. But the seat of the Transcendent Consciousness is above in an absoluteness of divine Existence — and there too is the absolute Power, Truth, Bliss of the Eternal — of which our mentality can form no conception and of which even our greatest spiritual experience is only a diminished reflection in the spiritualised mind and heart, a faint shadow, a thin derivate. Yet proceeding from it there is a sort of golden corona of Light, Power, Bliss and Truth — a divine Truth-Consciousness as the ancient mystics called it, a Supermind, a Gnosis, with which this world of a lesser consciousness proceeding by Ignorance is in secret relation and which alone maintains it and prevents it from falling into a disintegrated chaos.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"The Transcendent, the Universal, the Individual are three powers overarching, underlying and penetrating the whole manifestation; this is the first of the Trinities. In the unfolding of consciousness also, these are the three fundamental terms and none of them can be neglected if we would have the experience of the whole Truth of existence. Out of the individual we wake into a vaster freer cosmic consciousness; but out of the universal too with its complex of forms and powers we must emerge by a still greater self-exceeding into a consciousness without limits that is founded on the Absolute.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"We see then that there are three terms of the one existence, transcendent, universal and individual, and that each of these always contains secretly or overtly the two others. The Transcendent possesses itself always and controls the other two as the basis of its own temporal possibilities; that is the Divine, the eternal all-possessing God-consciousness, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, which informs, embraces, governs all existences. The human being is here on earth the highest power of the third term, the individual, for he alone can work out at its critical turning-point that movement of self-manifestation which appears to us as the involution and evolution of the divine consciousness between the two terms of the Ignorance and the Knowledge.” The Life Divine
The Transcendent
This is what is termed the Adya Shakti; she is the Supreme Consciousness and Power above the universe and it is by her that all the Gods are manifested, and even the supramental Ishwara comes into manifestation through her — the supramental Purushottama of whom the Gods are Powers and Personalities.” Letters on Yoga
**Transcendent"s.**
“‘Transformation’ is a word that I have brought in myself (like ‘supermind’) to express certain spiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral yoga. People are now taking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the significance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by the ‘influence’ of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; purification is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change—the word besides has many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose.” Letters on Yoga
transformation ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Transformation means that the higher consciousness or nature is brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower. There is a higher consciousness of the true self, which is spiritual, but it is above; if one rises above into it, then one is free as long as one remains there, but if one comes down into or uses mind, vital or body — and if one keeps any connection with life, one has to do so, either to come down and act from the ordinary consciousness or else to be in the self but use mind, life and body, then the imperfections of these instruments have to be faced and mended — they can only be mended by transformation.” *Letters on Yoga
"‘Transformation" is a word that I have brought in myself (like ‘supermind") to express certain spiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral yoga. People are now taking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the significance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by the ‘influence" of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; purification is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change — the word besides has many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose.” *Letters on Yoga
"It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit. Here a slow and tardy change need no longer be the law or manner of our evolution; it will be only so to a greater or less extent so long as a mental ignorance clings and hampers our ascent; but once we have grown into the truth-consciousness its power of spiritual truth of being will determine all. Into that truth we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit. The obscurations of earth will not prevail against the supramental truth-consciousness, for even into the earth it can bring enough of the omniscient light and omnipotent force of the spirit conquer. All may not open to the fullness of its light and power, but whatever does open must that extent undergo the change. That will be the principle of transformation.” The Supramental Manifestation
The Mother: "Transformation. The change by which all the elements and all the movements of the being become ready to manifest the supramental Truth.”
"One thing you must know and never forget: in the work of transformation all that is true and sincere will always be kept; only what is false and insincere will disappear.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
trident ::: in Greek and Roman mythology, the three-pronged spear that the sea god Poseidon (Neptune) is represented as carrying.
triple mystic cross
triple mystic heaven
"Vamana, the Dwarf, in Hindu mythology, one of the ten incarnations of Vishnu, born as a son of Kashyapa and Aditi. The titan King Bali had by his austerities acquired dominion of all the three worlds. To remedy this, Vishnu came to him in the form of a dwarf and begged of him as much land as he could step over in three paces. Bali complied. In two strides the dwarf covered heaven and earth, and with the third step, on Bali"s head, pushed him down to Patala, the infernal regions.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
“Vamana, the Dwarf, in Hindu mythology, one of the ten incarnations of Vishnu, born as a son of Kashyapa and Aditi. The titan King Bali had by his austerities acquired dominion of all the three worlds. To remedy this, Vishnu came to him in the form of a dwarf and begged of him as much land as he could step over in three paces. Bali complied. In two strides the dwarf covered heaven and earth, and with the third step, on Bali’s head, pushed him down to Patala, the infernal regions.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
Vayu, Master of life, links them together by the mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities,—Parjanya, giver of the rain of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine war-horse, a power of Agni; the mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trita Aptya who on the third plane of existence consummates our triple being; and more besides.” The Secret of the Veda
victory ::: 1. A success or triumph over an enemy in battle or war. 2. Success in a struggle against difficulties or an obstacle. victory"s, victories.
vision ::: 1. The mystical experience of seeing as if with the eyes the supernatural or a supernatural being. 2. A mystical insight. 3. Ability to see or conceive what might be attempted or achieved. 4. The faculty of sight; eyesight. 5. Something that is or has been seen. 6. A person, scene, etc., of extraordinary beauty. **Vision, vision"s, Vision"s, visions, All-vision, earth-vision, God-vision"s, seer-vision"s, self-vision, soul-vision, stress-vision, vision-plans.
war-cry ::: a cry, word, phrase, etc., shouted in charging an enemy or rallying to attack; battle cry.
"We might say then that there are three elements in the totality of our being: there is the submental and the subconscient which appears to us as if it were inconscient, comprising the material basis and a good part of our life and body; there is the subliminal, which comprises the inner being, taken in its entirety of inner mind, inner life, inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them; there is this waking consciousness which the subliminal and the subconscient throw up on the surface, a wave of their secret surge. But even this is not an adequate account of what we are; for there is not only something deep within behind our normal self-awareness, but something also high above it: that too is ourselves, other than our surface mental personality, but not outside our true self; that too is a country of our spirit. For the subliminal proper is no more than the inner being on the level of the Knowledge-Ignorance luminous, powerful and extended indeed beyond the poor conception of our waking mind, but still not the supreme or the whole sense of our being, not its ultimate mystery.” The Life Divine
“We might say then that there are three elements in the totality of our being: there is the submental and the subconscient which appears to us as if it were inconscient, comprising the material basis and a good part of our life and body; there is the subliminal, which comprises the inner being, taken in its entirety of inner mind, inner life, inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them; there is this waking consciousness which the subliminal and the subconscient throw up on the surface, a wave of their secret surge. But even this is not an adequate account of what we are; for there is not only something deep within behind our normal self-awareness, but something also high above it: that too is ourselves, other than our surface mental personality, but not outside our true self; that too is a country of our spirit. For the subliminal proper is no more than the inner being on the level of the Knowledge-Ignorance luminous, powerful and extended indeed beyond the poor conception of our waking mind, but still not the supreme or the whole sense of our being, not its ultimate mystery.” The Life Divine
wild ::: adj. 1. Occurring, growing, or living in a natural state; not domesticated, cultivated, or tamed. 2. Uninhabited; desolate; a wilderness. 3. Of great violence or intensity, as the sea, etc. 4. Unrestrained, untrammelled, or unbridled; behaving without restraint. 5. Unrestrained by reason or prudence. 6. Furiously disturbed or turbulent; stormy. wilder, wild-beast, wild-drakes.* *n. wilds. 7.* A desolate, uncultivated, or uninhabited region, esp. poetic.*
will, self ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Self-will in thought and action has, we have already seen, to be quite renounced if we would be perfect in the way of divine works; it has equally to be renounced if we are to be perfect in divine knowledge. This self-will means an egoism in the mind which attaches itself to its preferences, its habits, its past or present formations of thought and view and will because it regards them as itself or its own, weaves around them the delicate threads of I-ness'' andmy-ness"" and lives in them like a spider in its web. It hates to be disturbed, as a spider hates attack on its web, and feels foreign and unhappy if transplanted to fresh view-points and formations as a spider feels foreign in another web than its own. This attachment must be entirely excised from the mind.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
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9 Rumi
9 Kristen Ashley
8 John Green
8 Amy Tan
7 Sun Tzu
7 Stephenie Meyer
7 J K Rowling
6 Voltaire
6 Homer
6 E L James
6 Amy Lowell
5 Richelle Mead
5 Kiera Cass
5 Karina Halle
1:Lord help my poor soul. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #KEYS
2:'My life depends on my dying'." ~ -Rumi, poet, #KEYS
3:Gospel of my Son cannot be divided." ~ Our Lady , #KEYS
4:I know not what to do, my mind is divided ~ Sappho, #KEYS
5:My Lord! Increase me in knowledge! ~ Koran, 20:114, #KEYS
6:Hello darkness, my old friend
~ Simon & Garfunkel,#KEYS
7:I light my candle from their torches. ~ Robert Burton, #KEYS
8:Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup ~ Omar Khayyam, #KEYS
9:Come live in my heart, and pay no rent. ~ Samuel Lover, #KEYS
10:My library is an archive of longings.
~ Susan Sontag,#KEYS
11:All my possessions for a moment of time." ~ Elizabeth I, #KEYS
12:Pardon my sanity in a world insane.
~ Emily Dickinson,#KEYS
13:My course is set for an uncharted sea. ~ Dante Alighieri, #KEYS
14:Not now, I am trying to read my book! ~ Pino, Ergo Proxy, #KEYS
15:And when I breathed, my breath was lightning. ~ Black Elk, #KEYS
16:I am myself the matter of my book.
~ Michel de Montaigne,#KEYS
17:In my heart of hearts I have loved God completely. ~ Rabia, #KEYS
18:Scheherezade: Me. Looking at you, my love. ~ Arabien Nights, #KEYS
19:Activism is my rent for living on the planet. ~ Alice Walker, #KEYS
20:I and my Father are one. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, The Gospel According to John, 10:30, #KEYS
21:I didn't let my desire for comfort rule me." ~ David Goggins, #KEYS
22:I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
~ Socrates,#KEYS
23:My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk ~ John Keats, #KEYS
24:Beings all over the universe are My children. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
25:The thief left it behind: the moon at my window." ~ Taigu Ryokan, #KEYS
26:I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. ~ Vincent van Gogh, #KEYS
27:At the crescent moon
the silence
enters my heart. ~ Chiyo-ni,#KEYS
28:When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books. ~ John Green, #KEYS
29:Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me." ~ Carol Burnett, #KEYS
30:Blessed be you, my God, for having created me. ~ Saint Clare of Assisi, #KEYS
31:At the crescent moon the silence enters my heart. ~ Chiyo-ni, 1703-1775, #KEYS
32:If all I can see is my shadow, I'm standing in my own light." ~ Unknown, #KEYS
33:I lifted up my hands to find a lamp amidst the darkness. ~ Omar Khayyam, #KEYS
34:To Him Ramakrishna the World Teacher, my obeisance. ~ SWAMI ABHEDANANDA, #KEYS
35:Listen, my friend. He who loves understands. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
36:God be in my head,
And in my understanding.
~ Sarum Missal (1514,),#KEYS
37:New year's cards from friends colored patterns of my life. ~ Mitsu Suzuki, #KEYS
38:Am I allowed to ask my book / whether it's true I wrote it? ~ Pablo Neruda, #KEYS
39:My fear is my substance, and probably the best part of me.
~ Franz Kafka,#KEYS
40:The thief left it behind; the moon at my window. ~ Taigu Ryokan, 1758-1831, #KEYS
41:To me He is the anguish of my heart. ~ SONG from GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA, #KEYS
42:When I close my eyes my vision is even more powerful. ~ Giorgio de Chirico, #KEYS
43:Concentration is one of the happiest things in my life.
~ Haruki Murakami,#KEYS
44:I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth. ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux, #KEYS
45:As if mending socks, I repair my mind and live on. ~ Yoshino Yoshiko, b 1915., #KEYS
46:I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart. ~ Vincent van Gogh, #KEYS
47:If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself. ~ Rick Riordan, #KEYS
48:My only prayer is to be firm in my determination in pursuing the truth. ~ Daie, #KEYS
49:Autumn wind for all my walking - for all my walking. ~ Taneda Santoka 1882-1940, #KEYS
50:Live in My Deepest Hell and from There I cannot Fall Any Further.
~ Carl Jung,#KEYS
51:My longing for truth was a single prayer. ~ Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, #KEYS
52:I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it. ~ William Shakespeare, #KEYS
53:May the gratitude in my heart kiss all the universe. ~ Hafiz, #KEYS
54:This bread, which I will give for the life of the world, is My flesh. ~ Jn. 6:51, #KEYS
55:Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this.
~ Homer,#KEYS
56:My own thoughts are struggling against me. Why am I drawn to the bait? ~ Petrarca, #KEYS
57:standing inside me
naked infinite love
opening my dreaming heart ~ Ikkyu,#KEYS
58:Stillness - out of the rain, a butterfly roams into my room.
~ Enomoto Seifu Jo,#KEYS
59:My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me. ~ Benjamin Disraeli, #KEYS
60:This bread, which I will give for the life of the world, is My flesh" ~ Jn. 6:51)., #KEYS
61:Get in my lobby. Were starting the case now.
~ Major Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell,#KEYS
62:closer than my veins. ~ Hafiz, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
63:My political views are those of the Our Father." ~ Saint Avitus of Vienna, (450-519), #KEYS
64:My religion is not deceiving myself. ~ Jetsun Milarepa, #KEYS
65:I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 15:1, #KEYS
66:in my world of lovers. ~ #KEYS
67:An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished. ~ Abraham Maslow, #KEYS
68:I'm afraid a boat so small would sink with the weight of all my sorrow.
~ Li Qingzhao,#KEYS
69:My daily affairs are quite ordinary; but I'm in total harmony with them." ~ Layman Pang, #KEYS
70:This Agenda... is my gift to those who love me.
~ The Mother,#KEYS
71:I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose. ~ Stephen King, #KEYS
72:Me, poor man, my library
Was dukedom large enough. ~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest#KEYS
73:To whom do I give my new elegant little book? Cui dono lepidum novum libellum? ~ Catullus, #KEYS
74:I threw my cup away when I saw a child drinking from his hands at the trough.
~ Diogenes,#KEYS
75:Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friends. ~ John Lennon, #KEYS
76:Lost in the woods Only the sound of a leaf Falling on my head. ~ Tagami Kikusha, 1753-1826, #KEYS
77:Only memories of Father and Mother come to my mind in late autumn. ~ Yosa Buson, 1716-1784, #KEYS
78:And burn my thorn. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
79:Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.
~ C S Lewis,#KEYS
80:Child, your body is also My body. I suffer if you do not keep good health. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
81:Everything in the world was my Guru. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
82:Follow my tracks in the sand that lead Beyond thought and space. ~ Hafiz, #KEYS
83:For the thirst to possess your love,
Is worth my blood a hundred times. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi,#KEYS
84:I came to this earth so that I could find my way back to my Beloved (God). ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
85:.... my company. " ~ Imam al- Ghazali, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
86:Now the soft-voiced gentle woman of my reverent worship has all but vanished. ~ Nikola Tesla, #KEYS
87:Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough." ~ Og Mandino, #KEYS
88:If any error occurs just once repeat my name maa maa.
~ The Mother,#KEYS
89:My darling, my dying, my light, my sight,
my night my whole day long. ~ Velimir Khlebnikov,#KEYS
90:Soon drunk, I watch my cap tumble in the wind, dance in love - a guest the moon invites." ~ ?, #KEYS
91:the moon over
my hometown
brings tears ~ Kobayashi Issa,#KEYS
92:Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 119:105, #KEYS
93:Every moment this cup fills with vision. This is my wine. I drink the given moment. ~ Bahauddin, #KEYS
94:I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know. ~ Pablo Neruda,#KEYS
95:More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul! More multiform far ~ more lasting thou than they., #KEYS
96:My father used to say, Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument. ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu, #KEYS
97:I do not allow others to influence my thinking unless it is positive or uplifting." ~ Louise Hay, #KEYS
98:I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.
~ Albert Einstein,#KEYS
99:My religion is to live and die without regret.
~ Jetsun Milarepa,#KEYS
100:A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 23:1, #KEYS
101:Do you want to know my secret? This is my secret. I don't mind what happens. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #KEYS
102:I am a stranger amongst them. They cannot know my longings nor taste my sorrows.
~ Manly P Hall,#KEYS
103:I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know? ~ Ernest Hemingway, #KEYS
104:I wish my life had a reset button." ~ Douglas King, quote from "poems in a minor chord,", (2017)., #KEYS
105:On my tombstone, I really hope that someday they will write: He was true but partial. ~ Ken Wilber, #KEYS
106:The mercy of God, my son, is infinitely greater than your malice. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
107:For most of my life, one of the persons most baffled by my own work was myself. ~ Benoît Mandelbrot, #KEYS
108:I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything. ~ Venerable Bede, #KEYS
109:But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Luke 1:43) ~ Saint Elizabeth, #KEYS
110:May my life be a continual prayer, a long act of love." ~ Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, (1880-1906), #KEYS
111:My soul endures a magnificent longing. ~ Hafiz, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
112:hen in the glass of Beauty I behold, The Universe my image doth enfold." ~ Fakhr al-Dīn Ibrahīm 'Irāqī, #KEYS
113:A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?.
~ Jane Wagner,#KEYS
114:My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water. ~ Mark Twain, Notebook #KEYS
115:You make my raggedness silky." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
116:Lift me up out of this illusion, Lord. Heal my perception, so that I may know only reality. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
117:My fondness for good books was my salvation. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #KEYS
118:My primary goal of hacking was the intellectual curiosity, the seduction of adventure.
~ Kevin Mitnick,#KEYS
119:Remain sheltered in my arms, enveloped by my love and blessings.
~ The Mother,#KEYS
120:sleeping on a soft futon
I dream of my native village ~ Santoka Taneda,#KEYS
121:I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying. ~ Woody Allen, #KEYS
122:I find that the more I relinquish my old habits of thought, the happier I am. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
123:I never give answers. I lead on from one question to another. That is my leadership. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #KEYS
124:In that God who illumines the reason, desiring liberation I seek my refuge. ~ Swetaswatara Upanishad VI.18, #KEYS
125:Wave upon wave caressed my Soul!" ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
126:I saw my Lord with the eye of the heart
I asked, 'Who are You?'
He replied, 'You'. ~ Mansur al-Hallaj,#KEYS
127:I study my mind and therefore all appearances are my texts. ~ Jetsun Milarepa, #KEYS
128:From Brahma to a blade of grass all things are my Gurus." ~ Kaula Tantric Saying. Kaula Hinduism, Wikipedia., #KEYS
129:It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
~ Albert Einstein,#KEYS
130:Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my opinion, to characterize our age.
~ Albert Einstein,#KEYS
131:For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 18:20, #KEYS
132:Thou knowest, O my son, the way of regeneration. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
133:It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
134:Life and death have been lacking in my life.
~ Jorge Luis Borges, On Writing,#KEYS
135:I am going through the pangs of being born. Do not stand in the way of my coming to life. ~ Ignatius of Antioch, #KEYS
136:If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all. ~ Michelangelo, #KEYS
137:I have never agreed with my other self wholly. The truth of the matter seems to lie between us. ~ Khalil Gibran, #KEYS
138:I'm a wanderer
so, let that be my name -
the first winter rain. ~ Matsuo Basho,#KEYS
139:The plants and flowers
I raised about my hut
I now surrender
To the will
Of the wind ~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
140:Blessed be the key that turned in my heart and let loose my soul and freed it from so heavy a chain." ~ Petrarch, #KEYS
141:I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 119:11, #KEYS
142:I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. ~ Oscar Wilde, #KEYS
143:Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings. ~ Hafiz,#KEYS
144:Are you looking for the Holy One? I am in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
145:Even as men come to Me, so I accept them. It is my path that men follow from all sides,
~ Bhagavad Gita, (IV.11),#KEYS
146:I am a sleeping emerald Faintly, faintly the ring round the moon Opens within my heart. ~ Yamamura Bocho, 1884-1924, #KEYS
147:I believe it all. If I seem not to, it is only that my joy is too great to let my belief settle itself. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
148:I'm a wanderer so, let that be my name - the first winter rain. ~ Matsuo Basho, 1644-1694, #KEYS
149:My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias,#KEYS
150:The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #KEYS
151:You put your lips upon my forehead, and lit a Holy lamp inside my heart.
~ Hafiz, [T5],#KEYS
152:I am a stranger in this world, and there is a severe solitude and painful lonesomeness in my exile.
~ Khalil Gibran,#KEYS
153:I am going through the pangs of being born. Do not stand in the way of my coming to life. ~ Saint Ignatius of Antioch, #KEYS
154:in rapture my very being calls out Ali Ali." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
155:My Divine Mother has declared that She is the Brahman of the Vedanta. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
156:When I'm riding my bicycle I feel like a Buddhist who is happy just to enjoy his mundane existence." ~ Robin Williams, #KEYS
157:And come you now, O Lord my God, teach my heart where and how it may seek you, where and how it may find you. ~ Anselm, #KEYS
158:God is the only guru and my Divine Mother is the sole doer of actions. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
159:I have been born anew. I have become a self-made man in battle, that is how I came to be my own father. ~ Quetzalcoatl, #KEYS
160:The Church herself says, 'The voice of my brother is knocking on the door.' Listen to him knocking. ~ Ambrose of Milan, #KEYS
161:All my words are but chaff next to the faith of a simple man. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
162:Beyond my window snow piles everywhere and the world is white. ~ Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1828, #KEYS
163:Daily torn and tattered
turning to shreds
my robe for travelling ~ Santoka Taneda,#KEYS
164:My Beloved is watching me, wrapped in silence. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
165:You have said, "Seek my face." My heart says to you, "Your face, Lord, do I seek." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 27:8, #KEYS
166:I had no ambition to be a writer because the books I read were too good, my standards were too high.
~ Haruki Murakami,#KEYS
167:In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 18, 10 #KEYS
168:In the stream Rushing past To the dusty world, My fleeting form Casts no reflection.
~ Dogen Zenji,#KEYS
169:My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself.
~ C S Lewis, [T5],#KEYS
170:So you'll be my love in lives beyond this life. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
171:My face became all eyes, and my eyes all hands." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
172:new moon
a gift of tea
along my journey
~ Sogi, @BashoSociety#KEYS
173:Thou art my sister", and call understanding thy kinswoman. ~ Proverbs, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
174:But do not ask me where I am going As I travel in this limitless world. Where every step I take is my home." ~ Dōgen Zenji, #KEYS
175:Everything in the world displeases me: but, above all, my displeasure in everything displeases me.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#KEYS
176:In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
177:In my humble view the netherworld must be like this - autumn evening. ~ Matsuo Basho, 1644-1694, #KEYS
178:I regret many follies which sprang from my obstinacy; but without that trait I would not have reached my goal. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
179:my book
is not worm infested
autumn wind
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
180:Sparrows
sleep if you please
at my house
~ Jijun, @BashoSociety#KEYS
181:My heart within instructs me also in the night seasons. ~ Psalms. XVI.7, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
182:My Immaculate Heart is your refuge. It is given to you precisely for these times of yours." ~ Our Lady to Fr. Stefano Gobbi, #KEYS
183:Everyday, at each moment, my blessings are with you.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 03 June,#KEYS
184:Eyes, ears both forgotten, my body too is lost; alone in the void I sing a song of white clouds. ~ Natsume Soseki, 1867-1916, #KEYS
185:Jesus, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be, and becoming that person." ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux, #KEYS
186:My child, every day you are going to read Savitri
~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, [T0],#KEYS
187:Steady efforts always bring great results. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
188:how much longer
is my life?
a brief night
~ Shiki, @BashoSociety#KEYS
189:I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #KEYS
190:I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.
~ Jean-Paul Sartre,#KEYS
191:I know nothing of the niceties of scholastic learning! I know only my Mother. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
192:My children, the three acts of faith, hope, and charity contain all the happiness of man upon the earth. ~ Saint John Vianney, #KEYS
193:The activity of God, then, is not an alternative to my free activity. It is its source. ~ Herbert McCabe, Faith within Reason, #KEYS
194:Along my journey through this transitory world New Year's house cleaning. ~ Matsuo Basho, 1644-1694, #KEYS
195:Come to my Divine Mother and you will receive not only Bhakti, but also Jnana. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
196:Have confidence, I am near you.
With all my tender love. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T5],#KEYS
197:Only those who are perfectly truthful can be my true children.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
198:What is my true worth in this life?
To serve the Divine.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
199:eating bitter herbs
alone i bear
my feelings
~ Shiki, @BashoSociety#KEYS
200:in my
eyes
autumn sunset
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
201:You may come to Brahman through Vichara (deliberation) if my Mother is willing. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
202:a cicada chorus
marks the time
to take my bath
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
203:And then passed the night at ease in my state. ~ Abd al-Rahman al-Majdhüb, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
204:A steady hope helps much on the way. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 15 August,#KEYS
205:I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.
~ Voltaire,#KEYS
206:I know by myself how incomprehensible God is, seeing I cannot comprehend the parts of my own being. ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, #KEYS
207:Even though I had committed but one little sin, I should have ample reason to repent of it all my life. ~ Saint Francis of Assisi, #KEYS
208:if I am
to be alone
the moon will be my friend
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
209:If you seek the Cross of Christ, take my heart. There you will find the suffering Lord." ~ Saint Clare of Montefalco, (1268-1308), #KEYS
210:My lips shall not speak wickedness nor my tongue utter deceit, ~ Job XXVII. 4, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
211:After I had rested my wearied body for a little, I took my way over the steep slope, keeping always my lower foot firmest. ~ Dante, #KEYS
212:He who has My words and despises them has that which shall condemn him on the last day. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
213:In the core of my heart my love for you knows no limits." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
214:O my friends, plant only flowers of love in the garden of hearts. ~ Baha-ullah, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
215:ry step I take
is my home
~ Dogen Zenji, @BashoSociety#KEYS
216:But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Philippians, 4:19,#KEYS
217:The master of my stars is he
Who owns no master. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act V,#KEYS
218:thorny roses
remind me of a path
in my hometown
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
219:You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
220:red blossoms
spread over the loneliness
of my bed
~ Shiki, @BashoSociety#KEYS
221:very alone
in the fallen leaves
my friend the moon
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
222:If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 15:7, #KEYS
223:If you practise meditation and prayer it will make me happy. I look on you as my own. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
224:Let each suffering pave the wave to transformation. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother,#KEYS
225:A constant aspirations conquers all defects. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, May 21,#KEYS
226:I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's, I will not reason and compare, my business is to create. ~ William Blake, [T5], #KEYS
227:I once had a thousand desires, but in my one desire to know you, all else melted away. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
228:Jesus said to me a little while ago, would you have abandoned me, my son, if I had not crucified you. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
229:my hands as a pillow
loving myself
under a hazy moon
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
230:My son, give me thy heart and let thine eyes observe my ways. ~ Proverbs XXIII. 26, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
231:Sometimes it seems the only accomplishment my education ever bestowed on me was the ability to think in quotations. ~ Margaret Drabble, #KEYS
232:brutal heat
my mind wanders
listening to the thunder
~ Shiki, @BashoSociety#KEYS
233:greeting my
reflection
with love
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
234:in my withered field
the surprise of
flowering grass
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
235:In the aether I appear in fiery forms, And in the aer I sit in a silvery chariot; earth reigns in my black brood of puppies. ~ Porphyry, #KEYS
236:I stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. ~ Franz Kafka, #KEYS
237:It is our lack of faith that creates our limitations. With my blessings,
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother,#KEYS
238:I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help! ~ Psalms CXXI.1, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
239:My love ending
in hopelessness
empty cicada shells
~ Saigyo, @BashoSociety#KEYS
240:Praise cannot make me any betteR Blame cannot make me any worse. I am what I am before my conscience and God.
~ Paramahansa Yogananda,#KEYS
241:Speaking personally, you can have my gun, but you'll take my book when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of the binding. ~ Stephen King, #KEYS
242:The sound of rain
is my companion
in my lonely place
~ Saigyo, @BashoSociety#KEYS
243:They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price. ~ Khalil Gibran, #KEYS
244:Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 16:24, #KEYS
245:But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Micah, 7:7, #KEYS
246:If you possess even one of the eight psychic powers, you will never know My real nature. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
247:He answered: "...wherever I did not see my own self." ~ Shaikh Abul-Hasan Kharqani, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
248:I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 32:8, #KEYS
249:My motto is to learn whatever good things I may come across anywhere. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. VI. 234), #KEYS
250:picking autumn fruit
my hands are
once again fragrant
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
251:The Divine's peace must dwell constantly in our hearts. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother,#KEYS
252:To be happy all I have to do is to give up my judgments." ~ Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D. "Forgiveness: The Greatest Healer Of All,", ( 1999), #KEYS
253:All sincere prayers are granted, every call is answered. With my blessings,
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother,#KEYS
254:I meditate upon Thee, O Rama, as my Divine Master and think of myself only as Thy servant. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
255:Just sit there right now, don't do a thing. Just rest....You can use my soft words as a cushion for your head. ~ Hafiz, #KEYS
256:My insanity is the only thing preventing me from losing my mind!" ~ Sri Gawn Tu Fahr, (Jean-Pierre Gregoire) "Love's True Home.,", (2010)., #KEYS
257:When I die, I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens, I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth. ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux, #KEYS
258:According to my experience people fall into tamas when they go into solitude. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, #KEYS
259:Make my heart, o heart of the universe, a divine bird that nests only on the throne of god. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
260:My only prayer is to be firm in my determination in pursuing the truth. ~ Daie, @BashoSociety #KEYS
261:So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Revelation, 3:16, [NIV], #KEYS
262:The more we know the more we can see that we do not know. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother,#KEYS
263:The one close to me now,
even my own body-
these too
will soon become clouds,
floating in different directions. ~ Izumi Shikibu,#KEYS
264:The puppet on the right shares my beliefs, the puppet on the left is more to my liking. Hey...there's one guy holding up both! ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
265:Before my bed
moonlight glitters
like dew upon the ground
~ Rihaku, @BashoSociety#KEYS
266:I am He that is" (Ex 3,14), which is equivalent to "My nature is to be, not to be spoken." ~ Philo of Alexandria, De Mutatione Nominum 11-12, #KEYS
267:under the stars
is my home
autumn wind
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
268:Go on aspiring and the necessary progress is bound to come. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
269:I am always giving my anugraham (Grace). If you cannot apprehend it, what am I to do? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
270:I can have nothing to do with your money. For if I accept it, my mind will be always with it. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
271:I was asked to memorise what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner. ~ Aleister Crowley, #KEYS
272:my heart
wanders like a
migrating bird
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
273:Speak not my secret name to hostile Time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Vision and the Boon, #KEYS
274:While I wait for you lost in this longing suddenly there comes a stirring of my window blinds; the autumn wind is blowing. ~ Nukata c.638-710, #KEYS
275:Deep within my heart I have planted the name of Kāli,
The Wish-fulfilling Tree of heaven... ~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna#KEYS
276:I tell my heart, "Do not worry, the key to morning I've thrown away." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
277:'My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover, and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.'" ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, (1882 - 1927) Sufi., #KEYS
278:Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #KEYS
279:revealed
in candle light
my lover's face
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
280:the river
of heaven runs
through my body
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
281:alone
I have lost my way
autumn darkness
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
282:Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~ George Eliot, #KEYS
283:It is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the LORD God" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Ps. 72:28). , #KEYS
284:pressing my lips
I wept invisibly
among the yellow foliage
~ Misato, @BashoSociety#KEYS
285:quietly sipping
my lucky tea
mid-autumn
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
286:When the right person hugs you, it's like medicine. I'm so grateful for those few people in my life who are good for my soul." ~ Steve Maraboli, #KEYS
287:autumn night
by a quiet window
recalling my departed friends
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
288:Have faith in the Divine, and go deep inside yourself. My help is always with you. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, #KEYS
289:
Don't walk in front of me... I may not follow
Don't walk behind me... I may not lead
Walk beside me... just be my friend
~ Albert Camus,#KEYS
290:Thus I spoke, more and more softly; for I was afraid of my own thoughts and the thoughts behind my thoughts. ~ Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, #KEYS
291:I am stronger than death and greater than my fate
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Word of Fate,#KEYS
292:My life is a throb of Thy eternity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Bliss of Identity, #KEYS
293:So high is my Lord's palace, my heart trembles to mount its stairs: yet I must not be shy, if I would enjoy His love. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
294:I do not waste my words on tired minds.
I can only talk to those who are thirsty
for the sea ~ Jalaluddin Rumi,#KEYS
295:I put on righteousness and it clothed me; my justice was my robe and my diadem. ~ Job XXIX. 14, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
296:With trust in the Divines Grace all obstacles can be surmounted. with my blessings
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
297:In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 5:3, #KEYS
298:standing inside me
naked infinite love
opening my dreaming heart
~ Ikkyu, @BashoSociety#KEYS
299:But do not ask me where I am going, As I travel in this limitless world, Where every step I take is my home. ~ Dogen Zenji, [T5], #KEYS
300:My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath. ~ Saint John Vianney, #KEYS
301:Everything must be transformed by the knowledge of the Truth. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 6 May,#KEYS
302:I am sent not only to love God but to make Him loved. It is not enough for me to love God, if my neighbor does not love Him." ~ Saint Vincent de Paul, #KEYS
303:Whatever being shows wide powers, or majesty or vigour, be sure that in every case that is sprung from a fraction of my glory. ~ Bhagavad Gita, 10, 41 #KEYS
304:What is my true destiny?
The true destiny is to reach the Divine Consciousness.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
305:When the thieves, the five senses, intrude into my heart, are you not in my heart Arunachala! ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
306:In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 14:2, #KEYS
307:Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Micah, 7:8, #KEYS
308:Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions--not outside.
~ Marcus Aurelius, Book 9 Verse 13,#KEYS
309:... for if you were not always present in my consciousness you would be not able to think of me. ~ The Mother, Some Answers, S6, #KEYS
310:If I find, near the end of this life, to have been a mere Wizard, it is likely due to the limits of aspiration. In my desire to Know without Being. ~ JB, #KEYS
311:There is no greater bliss than that of being like a new born child in front of the Divine.
With my blessings ~ The Mother,#KEYS
312:There is no greater courage than that of recognising ones own mistakes With my blessings
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
313:I will therefore make ready to render my thought an alien to the illusion of the world. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
314:My body a dot in the soul's vast expanse. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Self's Infinity, #KEYS
315:Remember to keep in mind that all the past is nothing and that every day we should say with David, "Now I begin to love my God." ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #KEYS
316:warm afternoon sun
in the autumn wind
upon my face
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
317:You left in the morning
this evening my heart
is in a thosand pieces
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
318:But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. ~ William Butler Yeats,#KEYS
319:every morning
my tea tastes
better
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
320:In my heart's chamber lives the unworshipped God. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Omnipresence, #KEYS
321:Pure creation issues from my form of absolute knowledge, which resembles a cloudless sky or a still ocean. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
322:Renounce everything and say: "Come, my mind and let us watch together the divinity installed in my heart!" ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
323:Stop thinking of the adverse forces and they will have no power over you. My force is always there to protect you.
~ The Mother,#KEYS
324:The things I carry are my thoughts. That's it. They are the only weight. My thoughts determine whether I am free and light, or burdened." ~ Kamal Ravikant, #KEYS
325:A great joy is always deep in our heart, and always we can find it there. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
326:I shall always be with you, my dear little child, in the struggle and in the victory.
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
327:Lost in these imaginary illusions I forgot my destiny - that of the hunted.~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden Of Forking Paths, #KEYS
328:THe soul cannot think the Divine but knows Him with certitude. With my blessings. ~ The Mother, Mantras of the Mother, 26 December, #KEYS
329:vanishing
in my warm tears
autumn frost
~ Matsuo Basho, @BashoSociety#KEYS
330:When the aspiration is awake each day brings us nearer to the goal. With my blessings,
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, [T4],#KEYS
331:Who says my poems are poems?
My poems are not poems.
After you know my poems are not poems,
Then we can begin to discuss poetry! ~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
332:deep autumn
what is my neighbor
doing?
~ Matsuo Basho, @BashoSociety#KEYS
333:I've worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down and I will not let myself down." ~ Mia Hamm, #KEYS
334:May the life I live speak for me, not my religion or denomination title." ~ Dee Dee M. Scott, (c. 1978), author, playwright, film producer and entrepreneur., #KEYS
335:the bright sun
touching my face
walking in the forest
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
336:There is a great power in the simple confidence of a child. With my blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, November 17th,#KEYS
337:bees
robbing my honey
dewdrops vanish
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
338:From moment to moment, the little I need to know to live my life, I somehow happen to know. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
339:That is why I have summoned you all to enter into the intimacy of my Heart in order to work this veritable transformation in you." ~ Our Lady how this thread, #KEYS
340:unexpected moonlight
shining through my
bedroom window
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
341:When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. ~ Psalms XXVII.8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
342:In that God who illumines the reason, desiring liberation I seek my refuge. ~ Swetaswatara Upanishad VI.18, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
343:the moon over
my hometown
brings tears
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
344:The only important thing is to follow the Divine's truth with love and joy. My blessings
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 9 May,#KEYS
345:Whatever the difficulty if we keep truly quiet the solution will come. With my blessings,
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, [T5],#KEYS
346:Choose Love...
Because of the beloved
my heart is happy,
my soul illuminated. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path#KEYS
347:from my hand
she took a piece of fruit
knowing that our time was not forever
~ Saiko, @BashoSociety#KEYS
348:I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence. ~ Robert Burns, #KEYS
349:moonlight over
my hometown
then clouds
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
350:my arm
as its pillow
a butterfly sleeps
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
351:My life is a silence grasped by timeless hands; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Self's Infinity, #KEYS
352:My mind is a torch lit from the eternal sun. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real, #KEYS
353:What am I to do to get rid of these defects of my nature?
Become more and more conscious.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
354:Who am I — what kind of watchman am I? I do not stand on the pinnacle of achievement, I languish rather in the depths of my weakness. ~ Saint Gregory the Great, #KEYS
355:Arunachala! Thou blazing fire of Jnana! Deign to wrap my mother in Thy light and make her one with Thee. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
356:I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it ~ to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once. ~ , #KEYS
357:late autumn
a single quilt
close to my body
~ Matsuo Basho, @BashoSociety#KEYS
358:Those who refuse to be humble cannot be saved. They cannot say with the prophet: 'See, God comes to my aid; the Lord is the helper of my soul.' ~ Venerable Bede, #KEYS
359:When I think of the lotus feet of the Lord, I forget myself so completely that unconsciously my cloth falls off. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
360:beneath which star
is my home?
autumn sky
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
361:Daily we must aspire to conquer all mistakes, all obscurities, all ignorances. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
362:The sage is never alone... he bears in himself the Lord of all things. My Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 21 September,#KEYS
363:The words "My" and "Mine" spring from ignorance. How few of us say things came into existence by the will of God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
364:Whatever happens we must remain quiet and trust the Divine's Grace. With my blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 25 October,#KEYS
365:Yes, my child, it is quite true that the Divine is the sole refuge - with Him is absolute safety.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
366:a full moon over
my home town
brings tears
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
367:A new light shall break upon the earth, a light of Truth and Harmony. With my blessings. ~ The Mother, Mantras of the Mother, 24 December, #KEYS
368:so that my feeling of devotion overflowed, and the tears ran from eyes, and I was happy in them. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
369:The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 27:1,#KEYS
370:When my Lord is not playing His flute, He dances. And all that He does He does so beautifully. But in subduing evil, my Lord is at His most beautiful.
~ सर्वदास,#KEYS
371:If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
372:making my lawn
a vacation spot
summer trees
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
373:My child, I have not abandoned you, and I am ready to forget, to efface all revolt. My help is always with you. ~ The Mother, Agenda Vol 1, #KEYS
374:Oh, when will dawn the blessed day
When tears of joy will flow from my eyes
As I repeat Lord Hari's name? ~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna,#KEYS
375:The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully have been kindness, beauty, and truth ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
376:alone
under the fallen leaves
my ancestors
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
377:And in the heart of the worst the best shall be born by my wisdom. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion, #KEYS
378:Ocean of Nectar, Full of Grace, engulfing the universe in Thy Splendor! Open the lotus of my heart in Bliss. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
379:a butterfly
softly landing
in my tea kettle
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
380:a grassy meadow
my resting place
summer moon
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
381:If God assigns to me my place in Hell, I do not know why I should aspire to Heaven. He knows best what is for my welfare. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
382:into the ocean
I throw my sandals
rain on my head
~ Matsuo Basho, @BashoSociety#KEYS
383:My undertaking is not difficult, essentially. ... I should only have to be immortal to carry it out.
~ Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths,#KEYS
384:The enemy tried to uproot me (destroy me), unaware of the fact that God is always on my side. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
385:A bird lives
in my bedroom wall
spring evening
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
386:Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me." ~ Revelation 3:20, #KEYS
387:In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God.
~ Orson Welles,#KEYS
388:In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
389:Which of Sri Aurobindo's books should I start with?
The Life Divine.
My blessings.
11 March 1941 ~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
390:Let us constantly aspire to be a perfect instrument for the Divine's work. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 27 August,#KEYS
391:When, in our despair, we cry to the Divine, always He answers to our call. With my blessings. ~ The Mother, Mantras of the Mother, 21 December, #KEYS
392:When waking up every morning, let us pray for a day of complete consecration. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 19 June,#KEYS
393:Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, Love is knowing I am everything, and between the two my life moves.
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,#KEYS
394:for even if it had more sins than there are grains of sand in the world, all would be drowned in the unmeasurable depths of My mercy." ~ Saint Faustina Kowalska, (1059), #KEYS
395:fresh cut grass
sticking to my shoes
autumn rain
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
396:The Truth is in you - but you must want it, in order to realise it. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, August 29th, [T5],#KEYS
397:warming my hands
over a cup of tea
morning frost
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
398:I have a sweet little Mother
Who lives in my heart;
We are so happy together,
We shall never part.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
399:I have found my way, step by step, proceeding from touch points that have emerged, some through conscious choice and some through dream state discovery." ~ Leonard Nimoy, #KEYS
400:I recognize my affinity with [all beings]; I am nothing but an ability to echo them, to understand them, to respond to them. ~ Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-sense, #KEYS
401:The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply, 'Create silence'." ~ Sören Kierkegaard, #KEYS
402:We must never forget that our goal is to manifest the Supramental Reality. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 25 May, [T5],#KEYS
403:In concentration and silence we must gather strength for the right action. With my blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, November 8th,#KEYS
404:Seek my grace within the Heart. I will drive away your darkness and show you the light. This is my responsibility. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
405:The Supreme's power is infinite -it is our faith that is small. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 23 August, [T5],#KEYS
406:This is the new birth, my son, to turn one's thought from the body that has the three dimensions. ~ Hermes: On Rebirth, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
407:We must gather ourselves in a calm resolution and an unshakable certitude. With my blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, November 9th,#KEYS
408:When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind. ~ Montaigne, Les Essais #KEYS
409:It is difficult to get rid of all habits. They must be faced with a steady determination. With my blessings,
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother,#KEYS
410:Oh my soul's lute a chord was struck by Love. Transmuting all my being into love: Ages would not discharge my bounden debt Of gratitude for one short hour of love." ~ Jami, #KEYS
411:Opinions on the world and on God are many and conflicting and I know not the truth. Enlighten me, O my Master. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
412:Science will, in all probability,
be increasingly impregnated
by mysticism. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, My Universe (1924),#KEYS
413:This day shall be the best day of my life. Today I will start with a new determination to dedicate my devotion forever at the feet of omnipresence. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #KEYS
414:It is always the same question: have you really read all those books? My answer is always the same: a library is a sign of desire, not of accomplishment. ~ Jeffrey J Kripal, #KEYS
415:It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.
~ Leonardo da Vinci,#KEYS
416:Liberty, Mukti, is all my religion, and everything that tries to curb it, I will avoid by fight or flight. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. V. 72), #KEYS
417:No Joy is comparable to the feeling of the eternal Presence in one's heart. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 04 July, [T5],#KEYS
418:Awake, my dear. Be kind to your sleeping heart. Take it out into the vast fields of light and let it breathe." ~ Hafiz, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
419:In those who lack faith
Nothing positive will grow
Just as from a burnt seed
No green shoot will ever sprout.
~ Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher,#KEYS
420:O my soul, wilt thou be one day simple, one, bare, more visible than the body which envelops thee? ~ Marcus Aurelius. X.I, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
421:All souls who aspire are always under my direct care.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, The Mother, Relations with Others, 'I am with You', [T1],#KEYS
422:Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." ~ Tagore, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
423:my home
surrounded by thick foliage
pregnant with autumn
~ Matsuo Basho, @BashoSociety#KEYS
424:Oh my Lord! How true it is that whoever works for you is paid in troubles! And what a precious price to those who love you if we understand its value. ~ Saint Teresa of Jesus, #KEYS
425:Who, then, are those brothers? Jerome says that men are called brothers in many ways ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on My 12, lect 4)., #KEYS
426:A presence sits within my heart that sees
Each moment's need and finds the road to meet it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act IV,#KEYS
427:At each step we say in the language of the Sanskrit verse, "Even as I am appointed by Thee seated in my heart, so, O Lord, I act." ~ Sri Aurobindo, TSOY, The Master of the Work #KEYS
428:I'm a simple lobster, I see JBP I establish a local dominance hierarchy by clicking the like button with my lobster claw. ~ Yolo Swaggins, JRE 1208 - Jordan Peterson, Comments, #KEYS
429:Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #KEYS
430:The Grace will never fail us - such is the faith we must keep constantly in our heart. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 10 May,#KEYS
431:To my eyes the majesty of lords and princes is only a little smoke that floats in a ray of sunlight. ~ Sutra in 42 articles, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
432:Beyond words, above thoughts the flame of an intense aspiration must always burn, steady and bright. My love and blessings are with you.
~ The Mother,#KEYS
433:I am only the dust
on My Lover's Path
And
from dust
I will rise
and turn into a flower ! ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path#KEYS
434:I worship the moon...
Tell me of the soft glow of a
candle light
and the sweetness of my moon. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path#KEYS
435:Jesus loves hidden souls. A hidden flower is the most fragrant. I must strive to make the interior of my soul a resting place for the Heart of Jesus." ~ Saint Faustina Kowalska, #KEYS
436:Look into the depths of your heart and you will see the Divine Presence. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother - II, The Heart,#KEYS
437:O, Mary, my Mother, be my refuge and my shelter. Give me peace in the storm. I am tired on the journey. Let me rest in you. Shelter and protect me. ~ Saint Bernadette Soubirous, #KEYS
438:One ray of light from my Divine Mother, who is the Goddess of Wisdom, has the power to turn the most leaned scholar into a worm. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
439:You are my song, my dark blue dream
Of doves, of winter's drowsy drone,
And sleighs that slow and golden go
Through gray blue shadows on the snow. ~ Velimir Khlebnikov,#KEYS
440:Do not look behind, look always in front, at what you want to do - and you are sure of progressing With my blessings ~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, #KEYS
441:I base my teaching on the great Vedantic truth of the sameness and omnipresence of the Soul of the Universe. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. III. 194), #KEYS
442:Under the appearance of wine there is the blood of Christ when one says: "This is the chalice of My blood" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 4.64)., #KEYS
443:Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 14:13-14, #KEYS
444:I am one with God in my being and yet I can have relations with Him in my experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Eternal and the Individual, #KEYS
445:Listen and learn how you are to awaken Christ. Your soul says: I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, awaken or reawaken the love of my heart. Christ is that love. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
446:My Heart, so precious, I won't trade for a hundred thousand souls, yet your one smile takes it for Free." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
447:O garden! O garden! Let me use your roses for my rosary and I will let your flowers bloom in every heart. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
448:So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and Im still trying to figure out how that could be.
~ Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower,#KEYS
449:I am in love with no other than myself, and my very separation is my union... I am my beloved and my lover; I am my knight and my maiden. ~ Ibn Arabi, [T5], #KEYS
450:Lord, make my innermost being better than my outer look, and make my outer look true and pleasing to You." ~ Hilyatul-Auliya, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
451:My Divine Mother says that it is only when you have effaced all I-ness in you that the undifferentiated may be realized in samadhi. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
452:My love is not a hunger of the heart, My love is not a craving of the flesh; It came to me from God, to God returns.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Divine Plan,#KEYS
453:Stand up and say like a hero, "What is there that I cannot do? I am the child of Immortality: Immortality is my birthright, nothing can dispossess me of that!" ~ SWAMI VIRAJANANDA, #KEYS
454:Blessed will be the day when the earth, awaken to the Truth, lives only for the Divine. With My Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 28 August,#KEYS
455:every morning
my tea taste better
the fog is finally lifting
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
456:For where I found Truth, there found I my God, the Truth itself; which since I learnt, I have not forgotten. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, [T5], #KEYS
457:I move in an ocean of stupendous Light
Joining my depths to His eternal height. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Light,#KEYS
458:Let us never lose sight of this, my brothers, that when we depart from sincerity, we depart from the Truth. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
459:The faith of total trust allows blessings to enter you.
When the mind is free of doubt, whatever you wish can be achieved.
~ Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher,#KEYS
460:This body which was once my universe,
Is now a pittance carried by the soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Body,#KEYS
461:For all who think of him with faith
The Buddha is there in front of them
And will give empowerments and blessings.
~ Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher, [T5],#KEYS
462:I am never far from those with faith, or even from those without it, though they do not see me. My children will always, always, be protected by my compassion. ~ Guru Rinpoche, [T5], #KEYS
463:I love the dark hours of my being. My mind deepens into them.There I can find, as in old letters, the days of my life, already lived, and held like a legend, and understood. ~ Rilke, #KEYS
464:Indeed, I am a forest and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness will also find rose slopes under my cypresses. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, #KEYS
465:My brothers, when you accost each other, two things alone are fitting, instructive words or a grave silence. ~ Buddhist Scripture, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
466:My solitude doesn't depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
467:Women are but so many forms of my Divine Mother. I cannot bear to see them suffer; They are all images of the Mother of the Universe. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
468:limitations gone :::
limitations gone
since my mind fixed on the moon
clarity and serenity
make something for which
there's no end in sight ~ Saigyo,#KEYS
469:I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 116:1-2, NIV, #KEYS
470:We want to enjoy all the pleasures of the world to the full and to have the realization of God at one and the same time. Vain dream! It cannot be done, my friend. ~ SWAMI VIRAJANANDA, #KEYS
471:If your prayer is sincere, my Mother will respond to it, if you will only wait. Pray to Her if you want to realize Her impersonal self. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
472:I will rise now and go about the city in the streets and the broadways, I will seek him whom my soul loveth. ~ Songs of Songs III.2, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
473:My God is love and sweetly suffers all.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Journey in Eternal Night and the Voice of the Darkness, [T5],#KEYS
474:New words are needed to express new ideas, new forms are necessary to manifest new forces. With My blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 01 Augest,#KEYS
475:But he couldn't altogether destroy the seed of bhakti in me. No matter, where my mind wandered, it would come back to the Divine Mother. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
476:giving a fellow voyager
my place at the fire
first morning light
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
477:Well do I know myself :::
Well do I know myself, so
Your coldness
I did not think to blame, yet
My bitterness has
Soaked my sleeves, it seems ~ Saigyo,#KEYS
478:Of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 103:1-2, #KEYS
479:We must know how to give our life and also our death, our happiness and also our suffering. With my blessings. ~ The Mother, Mantras of the Mother, 28 December, #KEYS
480:Even when the thieves of the five senses break upon me, art Thou not still in my Heart, Oh Arunachala? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Akshara Mana Malai, 11, #KEYS
481:Go on. You have worked wonderfully well. We do not wait for help, we will work it out, my boy, be self-reliant, faithful and patient. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
482:Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 14:27, #KEYS
483:The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 18:2, #KEYS
484:When I used to sit in meditation in the temple of Kali, little birds would perch upon my body and move about in sport. Everybody said so. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
485:It seemed incredible that this day, a day without warnings or omens, might be that of my implacable death.~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden Of Forking Paths, #KEYS
486:Keep only my soul to adore eternally
And meet Thee in each form and soul of Thee. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Surrender,#KEYS
487:With my soul have I desired thee in the night; with my spirit within me will I seek thee early. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, XXVI.9, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
488:In the vast ocean of cause and effect, actions happen and impermanent results follow. If one takes them as 'my' actions the idea of having a free will gets stronger. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
489:My soul is a hidden orchestra; I don't know what instruments; what harps, tamboura,and drums inside me. I sound and clash inside myself. I only know myself as a symphony ~ Fernando Pessoa, #KEYS
490:I am sorry to inform you that due to medical problems this is my last tweet. I have very much enjoyed spreading the wisdom of Nisargadatta and others and reading your comments. ~ Ed Hacker, #KEYS
491:Nature is my manifestation of God. I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day's work. I follow in building the principles which nature has used in its domain" ~ Frank Lloyd Wright, #KEYS
492:Some make riches the object of their desires, others glory. For me, I desire nothing save to cling to God and put in Him alone the hope of my soul stripped of passion. ~ John of the Ladder, #KEYS
493:At each moment of our life, in all circumstance the Grace is there helping us to surmount all difficulties. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
494:No power can slay my soul; it lives in Thee.
Thy presence is my immortality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Divine Worker,#KEYS
495:Open yourself more and more to the Divine's force and your work will progress steadily towards perfection. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
496:Others boast of their love for God. My boast is that I did not love God; it was He who loved me and sought me out and forced me to belong to Him. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
497:Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
498:To whatsoever living form I turn
I see my own body with another face. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Indwelling Universal,#KEYS
499:That which God said to the rose, and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty, He said to my heart, and made it a hundred times more beautiful. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
500:When I calmed my mind And entered my heart, The Love of the Lord Leapt like a flame within me. All my old ideas and beliefs Just blew away like chaff to the wind. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
501:I couldn't live a week without a private library - indeed, I'd part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I'd let go of the 1500 or so books I possess. ~ H P Lovecraft, #KEYS
502:I no longer wish to live after the manner of men, and my desire shall be fulfilled if you consent. Be willing, then, that you also may have your desires fulfilled. ~ Saint Ignatius of Antioch, #KEYS
503:Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr., #KEYS
504:The cross to me is certain salvation. The cross is that which I ever adore. The cross of the Lord is with me. The cross is my refuge. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
505:In vain was my prison of separate body made;
His occult presence burns in every cell. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Omnipresence,#KEYS
506:Say: "O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah: for Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. ~ Koran, 39:53 (Yusuf Ali), #KEYS
507:I am beset, too, by obsessively remembered thudding guilts and scalding shames. Small potatoes, as traumas go, but intensified by my aversion to facing them. ~ Peter Schjeldahl, The Art of Dying, #KEYS
508:Some make riches the object of their desires, others glory. For me, I desire nothing save to cling to God and put in Him alone the hope of my soul stripped of passion. ~ Saint John of the Ladder, #KEYS
509:Unless one follows the principle, "That which is essential to be reformed is only my own mind", one's mind will become more and more impure by seeing the defects of others. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
510:As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #KEYS
511:Here, you will be consoled by me and you yourselves will give comfort to my soul which, especially in these times, is again being pierced by an immense sorrow." ~ Our Lady to Father Stefano Gobbi, #KEYS
512:Let me be rapt in love. Let me rise above self in great fervor and wonder. Let me sing the hymn of love, and let me follow You, my Love, to the heights. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
513:My child, austerities or worship, practice all these things right now. Will these things be possible later on? Whatever you want to achieve, achieve now; this is the right time. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
514:Naked my spirit from its vestures stands;
I am alone with my own self for space. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Self's Infinity,#KEYS
515:What are the defects in me that are coming in my way of spiritual as well as material progress?
Tamas and sluggishness.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, [T5],#KEYS
516:I, Earth, have a deeper power than Heaven;
My lonely sorrow surpasses its rose-joys. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Life Heavens,#KEYS
517:Mercy, my God, mercy! Descend, O Precious Blood, and deliver these souls from their prison. Poor souls! you suffer so cruelly, and yet you are content and cheerful. ~ Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, #KEYS
518:My child, do not give way to evil desire, for it leads to fornication. And do not use obscene language, or let your eye wander, for from all these come adulteries. ~ Didache of the Twelve Apostles, #KEYS
519:One day I had to sit down with myself and decide that I loved myself no matter what my body looked like and what other people thought about my body. I got tired of hating myself. ~ Gabourey Sidibe, #KEYS
520:[The Lord] teaches us to make prayer in common for all our brethren. For he did not say my Father who art in heaven, but our Father, offering petitions for the common body. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
521:The resistance with which we meet in the accomplishment of our work is proportional to its importance. With my blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 10 October,#KEYS
522:Thy golden Light came down into my feet;
My earth is now Thy playfield and Thy seat. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Golden Light,#KEYS
523:God cannot be taken by violence. It is only through love and harmony that you can reach God. Be in peace - my blessings are with you.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
524:The Force is there waiting to be manifested, we must discover the new forms through which it can manifest. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 12 June,#KEYS
525:This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is love." ~ The Dalai Lama, 14th, (b. 1935)., #KEYS
526:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The noisy and the silent joy; but nobler is the joy that is silent. ~ Sangiti Sutta, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
527:But I have loved too the body of my God.
I have pursued him in his earthly form. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real,#KEYS
528:How should I continue my practice (sadhana) after returning home?
Quiet yourself and in the quiet see and feel the Mother.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, [T1],#KEYS
529:Impassive, I bear each act and thought and mood:
Time traverses my hushed infinitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Cosmic Spirit,#KEYS
530:Listen! Clam up your mouth and be silent like an oyster shell, for that tongue of yours is the enemy of the soul, my friend." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
531:Let all of us, my brethren, be enlightened and made radiant by this light. Let all of us share in its splendor, and be so filled with it that no one remains in the darkness. ~ Sophronius of Jerusalem, #KEYS
532:Now, if you don't like that, Berrigan, that's the history of my family. They don't take no shit from nobody. In due time I ain't going to take no shit from nobody. You can record that. ~ Jack Kerouac, #KEYS
533:For thirty years I went in Search of God, and when I opened my eyes at the end of this time, I discovered that it was really He who sought me…" ~ Bayazid Bistami, (804-874), a Persian Sufi, Wikipedia., #KEYS
534:I wrote the books I should have liked to read. That's always been my reason for writing. People won't write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself. ~ C S Lewis, quoted by Roger Lancelyn Green, #KEYS
535:Never lose hope, my heart, miracles dwell in the invisible. If the whole world turns against you keep your eyes on the Friend." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
536:Unborn I sit, timeless, intangible:
All things are shadows in my tranquil glass. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Indwelling Universal,#KEYS
537:In this rude combat with the fate of man
Thy smile within my heart makes all my strength; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Divine Worker,#KEYS
538:Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.
~ Buddha,#KEYS
539:O my friend, hearken to the melody of the Spirit in thy heart and in thy soul and guard it as the apple of thy eyes. ~ Baha-ullah, "The Seven Valleys", the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
540:These words are hard to utter, for when I speak it is myself that I am reproaching. I do not preach as I should nor does my life follow the principles I preach so inadequately. ~ Saint Gregory the Great, #KEYS
541:43. If God assigns to me my place in Hell, I do not know why I should aspire to Heaven. He knows best what is for my welfare.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, Jnana,#KEYS
542:How can I make Sri Aurobindo's influence living and dynamic in my daily activities?
Be perfectly sincere and He will answer your call.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I,#KEYS
543:Kama (Desire)
My desire
Takes many forms; I change and wheel and race,
And with Me runs creation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Kama,#KEYS
544:My mind has left its prison-camp of brain;
It pours, a luminous sea from spirit heights. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Inner Sovereign,#KEYS
545:My vast transcendence holds the cosmic whirl;
I am hid in it as in the sea a pearl. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Indwelling Universal,#KEYS
546:Feb 6 "I had learned in my college days that one cannot imagine anything so strange or so little believable that it had not been said by one of the philosophers." ~ Descartes, Discourse on Method, part 2., #KEYS
547:My I is God, nor is any other self known to me except my God." ~ Saint Catherine of Genoa, (1447-1510) Italian Roman Catholic saint and mystic, admired for her work among the sick and the poor, Wikipedia., #KEYS
548:The things we cannot realise today we shall be able to realise tomorrow. The only necessity is to endure. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 20 August, [T5],#KEYS
549:Keep always this awareness of my constant loving presence and all will be all right.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, The Mother, Relations with Others, 'I am with You', [T1],#KEYS
550:My Child, What I want is Muscles of Iron and Nerves of Steel, inside which Dwells a Mind of the same Material as that of which the Thunderbolt is Made.
~ Swami Vivekananda,#KEYS
551:My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth. ~ John III. 18, 19, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
552:When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. ~ Mark Twain #KEYS
553:Give me an increase of love, that I may learn to taste with the inward lips of my heart how sweet it is to love, how sweet to be dissolved in love and bathe in it. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
554:Lord, I beg you in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son and my God, give me a love that cannot stumble so that my lamp can be lit but can never go out: let it burn in me and give light to others. ~ Columbanus, #KEYS
555:Do not take my words for a teaching. Always they are a force in action, uttered with a definite purpose, and they lose their true power when separated from that purpose. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
556:If you treat your children at home in the same way you treat your animals in the lab, your wife will scratch your eyes out. My wife ferociously warned me against experimenting on her babies. ~ Abraham Maslow, #KEYS
557:I hardly ever talk- words seem such a waste, and they are none of them true. No one has yet invented a language from my point of view. ~ Aleister Crowley, Diary of a Drug Fiend, #KEYS
558:My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength, inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know it exists.
~ Nikola Tesla,#KEYS
559:Thou shalt invest thyself with her as with a raiment of glory and thou shalt put her on thy head as a crown of joy. Say unto wisdom, ... "Thou art my sister", and call understanding thy kinswoman. ~ Proverbs, #KEYS
560:Light, burning Light from the Infinite's diamond heart
Quivers in my heart where blooms the deathless rose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Light,#KEYS
561:O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams." ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
562:O my God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage and strength to serve You. Enkindle Your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me." ~ Saint Benedicta of the Cross, (Edith Stein), #KEYS
563:O Thou who hast hidden thyself behind a veil, withdraw that veil at last, so that my soul may not consume itself in the search for Thee. ~ Attar of Nishapur, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
564:What torture, My daughter, for my maternal Heart! How sad I am to see that men do not change! Father's justice demands reparation, otherwise many will be lost! " ~ Our Lady to Bl. Sr. Elena Aiello (1895-1961), #KEYS
565:But because my love is as yet weak and my virtue imperfect, I must be strengthened and comforted by You. Visit me often, therefore, and teach me Your holy discipline. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
566:God is not remote from us. He is at the point of my pen, my (pick) shovel, my paint brush, my (sewing) needle - and my heart and thoughts. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
567:My dear, is it true that your mind is sometimes like a battering ram running all through the city, shouting so madly inside and out about the ten thousand things that do not matter? ~ Hafiz, #KEYS
568:That the world is a divine game and beyond good and evil: in this the Vedanta and Heraclitus are my predecessors. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Quoted in Johannes Klein, Die Dichtung Nietzsches (Munich, 1936), p. 225, #KEYS
569:The ideal reader of my novels is a lapsed Catholic and failed musician, short-sighted, color-blind, auditorily biased, who has read the books that I have read. He should also be about my age. ~ Anthony Burgess, #KEYS
570:We ought to be in a constant state of aspiration, but when we cannot aspire let us pray with the simplcity of a child. With my blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 25 July,#KEYS
571:What attitude should I keep while doing my works of daily routine? How should I act with family members, relatives and friends?
Detachment.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
572:Despair not, my son, thy desire shall be fulfilled, thy will shall have fruit; put to sleep the sensations of the body and thou shalt be born in God. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
573:Do nothing at all without the beginning of prayer. Seal all your doings, my child, with the sign of the living cross. Do not go out the door of your house till you have signed the cross. ~ Saint Ephrem of Syria, #KEYS
574:If God said, 'Rumi pay homage to everything that has helped you enter my arms,' there would not be one experience of my life, not one thought, not one feeling, nor any act, I would not bow to. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
575:The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle. ~ Stephen King, Night Shift, #KEYS
576:Bestow upon me, O Lord my God, understanding to know thee, diligence to seek thee, wisdom to find thee, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace thee. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
577:I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God. ~ Meister Eckhart, #KEYS
578:I (…) am rarely happier than when spending an entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand. ~ Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See, #KEYS
579:My protection is always with you and nothing bad can happen. But you must take the decision to shake off the fear and then my force can work fully.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
580:What torture, My daughter, for my maternal Heart! How sad I am to see that men do not change! Father's justice demands reparation, otherwise many will be lost! " ~ Our Lady to Bl. Sister Elena Aiello (1895-1961), #KEYS
581:I would hear, in my spirit's wideness solitary,
The Voice that speaks when mortal lips are mute: ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Greater Plan,#KEYS
582:1FOR GOD alone my soul waits in silence; From Him comes my salvation. 2He alone is my rock and my salvation, My defense and my strong tower; I will not be shaken or disheartened. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 62, #KEYS
583:Action Human and Divine
Keep only my soul to adore eternally
And meet Thee in each form and soul of Thee. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Surrender,#KEYS
584:A schism will tear apart the holy tunic of My Son. This will be the end of times, foretold in the Holy Scriptures and recalled to memory by Me in many places." ~ Our Lady to priest Raymond Arnette (in May of 1994), #KEYS
585:Earth and her strong winds move me, take me away, and my soul is swept up in joy." ~ Uvavnuk, 19th century Eskimo shaman woman, oral poet, Wikipedia. Trans. by Jane Hirshfield. For music see: http://bit.ly/2DPCu2U, #KEYS
586:Gesture (Mudra)
I have drunk the Infinite like a giant's wine.
Time is my drama or my pageant dream. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Transformation,#KEYS
587:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy to possess and the joy to renounce; but nobler is the joy of renunciation. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
588:When My Beloved Appears :::
When my Beloved appears,
With what eye do I see Him?
With His eye, not with mine,
For none sees Him except Himself. ~ Ibn Arabi, [T5],#KEYS
589:A million salutations at Thy petaled feet, O Lotus of Light! I pour my heart at Thy feet. I pour all my soul at Thy feet. I pour all the fragrant musk of my love at Thy feet of omnipresence. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #KEYS
590:God, who had specially chosen me while I was still in my mother's womb, called me through his grace and chose to reveal his Son in me, so that I might preach the Good News about him to the pagans ~ Galatians 1:15)., #KEYS
591:I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me-a crown of righteousness. ~ JI Timothy IV. 7. 8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
592:Two kinds of joy are there O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of the senses and the joy of the spirit; but nobler is the joy of the spirit. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
593:Advance towards God, my child; the more you go towards Him, the more peace you will get. There is no peace in anything in the world. At the feet of God alone one find the abode of peace. ~ Manapurush Swami Shivananda, #KEYS
594:Although I am a typical loner in my daily life, my awareness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has prevented me from feelings of isolation.
~ Albert Einstein,#KEYS
595:I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me! ~ Dr. Seuss, #KEYS
596:When I return upon myself and find the heart upright, although my adversaries may be a thousand or ten thousand, I would march without fear on the enemy. ~ Meng-Tse, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
597:To my eyes treasures, diamonds and precious stones are as mere charcoal and coarseness; to my eyes cloth of silk and brocades of price are but rags and tatters. ~ id, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
598:But you should have all the more confidence in your heavenly Mother! Look, with Me, at the times in which you are living and you will see the signs of my extraordinary intervention." ~ Our Lady to Father Stefano Gobbi , #KEYS
599:Free me from evil passions and cleanse my heart of all disorderly affection so that, healed and purified within, I may be fit to love, strong to suffer, and firm to persevere. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
600:... outside of the book-knowledge which is necessary to our professional training, I think I got most of my development from the good conversation to which I have always had the luck to access. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #KEYS
601:The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.~ Meister Eckhart, Sermons of Meister Eckhart, #KEYS
602:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of distraction and the joy of vigilance; but nobler is the joy that is heedful. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
603:Why think merely of your disease and ill health? Know always, and under all circumstances, 'I belong to the Lord. The Lord is my eternal treasure; He is the one Reality, the source of my well-being.' ~ SWAMI PREMANANDA, #KEYS
604:I hope that God will save me through the merits of the passion of Jesus. The more difficulties in life, the more I hope in God. By God's grace, I will not lose my soul, but I hope in his mercy. ~ Saint Paul of the Cross, #KEYS
605:In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
606:Suddenly, I saw the complete condition of my soul as God sees it. I could see clearly everything that displeases God. I did not know that even the smallest transgressions would have to be accounted for. ~ Saint Faustina, #KEYS
607:The thoughts of unknown minds exalt me with their thrill;
I carry the sorrow of millions in my lonely breast. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Cosmic Man,#KEYS
608:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of egoism and the joy to forget oneself; but nobler is the joy of self-oblivion. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
609:Great and glorious God, and Thou Lord Jesus, I pray you shed abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. Be found of me, Lord, so that in all things I may act only in accordance with Thy holy will. ~ Francis of Assissi, #KEYS
610:My ideal indeed can be put into a few words and that is : to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. VII. 501), #KEYS
611:Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure
Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word
My choicest hours
Are the hours I spend with You -
O God, I can't live in this world
Without remembering You ~ Rabia,#KEYS
612:410. Others boast of their love for God. My boast is that I did not love God; it was He who loved me and sought me out and forced me to belong to Him.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human,#KEYS
613:I am the good shepherd. I know my own - I love them - and my own know me. In plain words: those who love me are willing to follow me, for anyone who does not love the truth has not yet come to know it. ~ Gregory the Great, #KEYS
614:My eternity hid in moving Time
And my boundlessness cut by the curve of Space. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day, The Soul's Choice and the Supreme Consummation,#KEYS
615:One has to seek Beauty and Truth... As I always say to my pupils, you have to work to the finish. There's only one kind of painting. It is the painting that presents the eye with perfection... ~ William-Adolphe Bouguereau, #KEYS
616:Tell me what I long to hear. That You love me and he loves me. How foolish, You are he." ~ Margaret Stortz, " I am enough & other wisdom for daily living,", (1996), Last stanza of poem, "Come Whisper in My Ear," pp 57-58., #KEYS
617:Divine Mother, My giant enemy ego is sitting directly in my path and will not let me pass. In what manner should I fight him?
Ignore him and go through.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
618:Have I done something for society? Then I have worked for myself, to my own advantage. Let this truth be present to thy mind and labour without ceasing. ~ Marcus Aurelius, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
619:So I pray to increase my madness And to increase your sanity. My 'madness' is from the power of Love' Your sanity is from the strength of unawareness." ~ Shaykh Abu Bakr Shibli, (861-946) important Persian Sufi, Wikipedia., #KEYS
620:And the statement made nearly 2,000 years ago came to my mind:
'Not even a hair dares to fall from your head without My Father's will . . .'
To realize this means to reach the inner peace. ~ Mouni Sadhu, Concentration,#KEYS
621:How should I act to ensure that the purpose
may not be frustrated? How should I guard against
thoughtlessness? And how, I wonder,
should I ensure that my leaping across the sea
does not go in vain? ~ Ramayana,#KEYS
622:In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is signed by God's name. ~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, (1855) #KEYS
623:When it comes to obeying the commandments or enduring adversity, the words uttered by the Father should always echo in our ears: 'This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.' ~ Saint Leo the Great, #KEYS
624:At the service of the Divine we are; it is the Divine who decides, ordains and puts in motion, directs and accomplishes the action. With my blessings. ~ The Mother, Mantras of the Mother, 25 December, #KEYS
625:Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The joy of the sated senses and the joy of the equal soul; but nobler is the joy of equality. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
626:My brother, a delicate heart is like a mirror; polish it by love and detachment, that the Sun of the Reality may reflect itself in it and the divine Dawn arise. ~ Baha-ullah, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
627:Where shall I direct my gaze to bless Thee, on high, below, without, within? There is no way, no place that is outside Thee, other beings exist not; all is in Thee. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
628:All that leads you away from me in thought and feeling is bad. All that brings you closer to me and gives you the perception and joy of my presence is good.
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
629:A man my fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, (1809-1894), poet, physician, and essayist, father of the judge, Wikipedia., #KEYS
630:If you say, 'Show me your God,' I will say to you, 'Show me what kind of person you are, and I will show you my God.' Show me then whether the eyes of your mind can see, and the ears of your heart hear. ~ Theophilus of Antioch, #KEYS
631:My joy is in labouring to acquire spiritual wealth; for the riches of this world pass away, but the treasures of our spiritual earnings abide for ever. ~ Foshu-hing-tsan-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
632:God is the only Guru. My Divine Mother is the sole doer of actions, I am only an instrument in Her hands. I feel myself always to be Her child. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, Sayings of Ramakrishna Paramahasma, #KEYS
633:Love Allah for the blessings by which He nourishes you, love me for the love of Allah, and love the people of my house for the love of me." ~ The Noble Messenger of Allah ﷺ, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
634:The powers of the world will belch forth fire, and they would that the words be suffocated in the throats of the custodians of my law. That will not happen, they will do no harm but to themselves." ~ Saint John Bosco prophecies, #KEYS
635:I am the owner of my actions (kamma), inheritor of my actions, born of my actions, created by my actions, and have my own actions as my judge! Whatever I do, good or evil, I will feel the resulting effects of that … ~ The Buddha, #KEYS
636:Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 20:17, #KEYS
637:Love with my love, think with my thoughts; the rest
Leave to much older wiser men whose schemings
Have made God's world an office and a mart. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act II,#KEYS
638:Strange is my case, in strangeness I am all alone Uniqe amongst mankind, peer I have none. My time in Thee eternized, is Eternity, and from myself Thou hast extinguished me." ~ Abu Bakr Shibli, (861-946) Persian Sufi, Wikipedia., #KEYS
639:The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be The Rosary and The Sign Left by My Son. Each day recite the Prayers of the Rosary." ~ Our Lady of Akita, #KEYS
640:Although it was primarily to Peter that he said: Feed my sheep, yet the one Lord guides all the pastors in the discharge of their office and leads to rich and fertile pastures all those who come to the rock. ~ Saint Leo the Great, #KEYS
641:Sin is seducing the minds and hearts of many of my children. Many are giving in to the allurements of pleasures and falling into slavery to Satan, who has succeeded in seducing the whole earth." ~ Our Lady to Father Stefano Gobbi, #KEYS
642:I am wont to visit My elect in two ways -- by temptation and by consolation. To them I read two lessons daily -- one reproving their vices, the other exhorting them to progress in virtue. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
643:I saw you last night in the gathering,
but could not take you openly in my arms,
so I put my lips next to your cheek,
pretending to talk privately. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path#KEYS
644:It is not so much the act that matters, but the consciousness in which it is done. So all is well and do not torment yourself. My love is always with you.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, [T2],#KEYS
645:In each human being there is a beast crouching ready to manifest at the slightest unwatchfulness. The only remedy us a constant vigilance. With my blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 18 AUGUST,#KEYS
646:Whither shall I go from Thy spirit or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold Thou art there. ~ Psalms, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
647:Do not take my words for a teaching. Always they are a force in action, uttered with a definite purpose, and they lose their true power when separated from that purpose.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I,#KEYS
648:Meditation in the core of the heart is advisable. But, my dear, how deep into the heart can you really enter? Our Master said meditation on his picture would be enough. Go on doing it with all your heart and soul. ~ Swami Vijnananada, #KEYS
649:My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you attach to things and move along with them. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
650:Here 'neath veils, my Saviour darkly I behold; To my thirsting spirit all thy light unfold; Face to face in heaven let me come to thee, And the blessed vision of thy glory see. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
651:If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be it would. You see? ~ Lewis Carroll, #KEYS
652:Life in my limbs shall grow deathless, flesh with the God-glory tingle,
Lustre of Paradise, light of the earth-ways marry and mingle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ahana,#KEYS
653:The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God's people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession." ~ Our Lady of La Salette , #KEYS
654:Having thought of these things, meditating on them in my heart and having considered that I shall find immortality in the union with wisdom, I went in search of her on all sides, that I might take her for my companion. ~ Book of Wisdom, #KEYS
655:He wishes to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart in the world. I promise salvation to those who embrace it; and these souls will be beloved of God like flowers arranged by me to adorn His throne." ~ Our Lady Fatima (June 13,1917), #KEYS
656:Let us give up all this foolish talk of doing good to the world. It is not waiting for your or my help; yet we must work and constantly do good, because it is a blessings to ourselves. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
657:We must never forget that we are here to serve the Supramental Truth and Light and to prepare its manifestation in ourselves and upon the earth. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, Aug 13th,#KEYS
658:Avoid hurting any living animal, and do whatever thou likest, For in my book of laws there is no crime but this." ~ Hafiz Shirázi, (1315-1390), Persian poet, his collected works are regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature, Wikipedia, #KEYS
659:It is not possible, O my son, to be attached at once to perishable things and to things divine; the one or the other one must choose, one cannot cling to both at once. ~ Matthew. VI. 24, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
660:Not of Paradise, nor of Hell My place is the Placeless, my Trace is the Traceless, 'Tis neither body nor soul, For I belong to the soul of the Beloved." ~ Shams of Tabriz, (1185-1248) Persian Muslim, spiritual teacher of Rumi, Wikipedia., #KEYS
661:Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am out walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #KEYS
662:If a man loves, he will know the sound of this voice. For this warm affection of soul is a loud voice crying in the ears of God, and it says: My God, my love, You are all mine and I am all Yours. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
663:If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.
~ Epictetus,#KEYS
664:My family consists of myself, wife, two sons and one girl. I desire to come here and stay permanently, but my wife does not approve of it. What should I do?
Detachment.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
665:The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. Therefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoiceth; my flesh also shall rest in security. ~ Psalms XVI. 6. 9, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
666:How can I offer my work?
Usually one works for one's own profit and satisfaction; instead of that, one should work to serve the Divine and express His will.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, [T2],#KEYS
667:O Govinda, feeling Your separation, I am considering a moment to be like twelve years or more. Tears are flowing from my eyes like torrents of rain, and I am feeling all vacant in the world in the absence of You. ~ SRI CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU, #KEYS
668:21. God had opened my eyes; for I saw the nobility of the vulgar, the attractiveness of the repellent, the perfection of the maimed and the beauty of the hideous.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, Jnana,#KEYS
669:But when I call for a hero, out comes my lazy old self; so I never know who I am, nor how many I am or will be. I'd love to be able to touch a bell and summon the real me, because if I really need myself, I mustn't disappear. ~ Pablo Neruda, #KEYS
670:The other day I was down by the Hudson River, and I see two nuns in full habit rollerblading down the street holding hands. And I'm like, 'Oh, my God, I get it. The world is surreal and beautiful. And everything is fine'.
~ Regina Spektor,#KEYS
671:Write My words in your heart and meditate on them earnestly, for in time of temptation they will be very necessary. What you do not understand when you read, you will learn in the day of visitation. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
672:Ah, Lord God, my holy Lover, when You come into my heart, all that is within me will rejoice. You are my glory and the exultation of my heart. You are my hope and refuge in the day of my tribulation. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
673:... my extraordinary interventions are not accepted; on the contrary, they are often opposed and openly rejected. My soul is pierced in seeing my Church prostrate beneath the weight of a most painful agony." ~ Our Lady to Father Stefano Gobbi, #KEYS
674:The soul, since it is part of the human body, is not the whole human being: my soul is not me [anima autem cum sit pars corporis hominis, non est totus homo, et anima mea non est ego]. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, Super I Cor. Cap 15 lec. 2 n. 924, #KEYS
675:The words of language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
676:I give peace to the humble and the great,
And shed my grace on the foolish and the wise. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
677:My ear is leaned to the cry of the oppressed,
I topple down the thrones of tyrant kings. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
678:There is great battle raging: for my mouth not to harden and my jaws not to become like heavy doors of an iron safe, so my life may not be called pre-death." ~ Yehuda Amichai, (1924-2000) considered as Israel's greatest modern poet, Wikipedia., #KEYS
679:And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept. ~ Jean Cocteau, #KEYS
680:I taught the prophets from the beginning, and even to this day I continue to speak to all men. But many are hardened. Many are deaf to My voice. Most men listen more willingly to the world than to God. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
681:All my cells thrill swept by a surge of splendour,
Soul and body stir with a mighty rapture,
Light and still more light like an ocean billows
Over me, round me. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Descent,#KEYS
682:He who makes rich is made poor; he takes on the poverty of my flesh, that I may gain the riches of his divinity. He who is full is made empty; he is emptied for a brief space of his glory, that I may share in his fullness. ~ Gregory of Nazianzen, #KEYS
683:In my belief, the beloved and the lover are one: the desire, the desired and the desirer, are one I am told, 'Seek His Essence,' but …how can I seek when the sought and the seeker are one!" ~ Shah Ni'Matli'llah, (1330-1431) Sufi Master and poet., #KEYS
684:My God will be my Great Reward. I don't desire to possess other goods. I want to be set on fire with his Love. I want to see him, to unite myself to him forever. That is my Heaven...that is my destiny: Living on Love!! ~ Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, #KEYS
685:My heart feels arid, sad and gloomy, Mother.
Why don't you try to read something beautiful and interesting and turn your attention away from yourself? That is the best remedy.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
686:My native land is all lands,
In no particular direction.
My monastery is the solitary mountains,
In no particular place.
My family is all the beings of the six realms.
My name is "Hermit Protected by the Three Jewels. ~ Shabkar,#KEYS
687:My universal soul need no more be limited by my individual mind and body, than my individual consciousness is limited by the experiences of a single cell in my body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, The Isha Upanishad, #KEYS
688:O Holy Spirit grant me the gift of prayer. Come into my heart, and [grant] me the strength not to abandon it because I sometimes grow weary of it; And give me the spirit of prayer, the grace to pray continually. ~ Prayer of St. Alphonsus Liguori, #KEYS
689:He who seeks God with a longing heart can see Him, talk to Him as I am talking to you. Believe my words when I say that God can be seen. But ah! To whom am I saying these words? Who will believe me? ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
690:I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman. ~ Anaïs Nin, #KEYS
691:Knowledge of God has entered into us and at once ignorance disappears. The knowledge of joy arrives and before her, my son, sorrow shall flee away to those who can still feel her sting. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
692:Teach me, Lord, to do Your will. Teach me to live worthily and humbly in Your sight, for You are my wisdom Who know me truly, and Who knew me even before the world was made and before I was born into it. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
693:Wherefore, O my brothers, if men blame you, condemn you, persecute or attack you, you shall not be indignant, you shall not be discouraged and your spirit shall not be cast down. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
694:Water shall cleanse me from fear, Fire will purify my doubts, And the earth shall nourish me to health. All is well, all is well, all is well." ~ Zsuzanna E. Budapest, (b.1940), Hungarian author, living in U.S., writes about feminist spirituality., #KEYS
695:Grant me, O Lord my God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you, and a hope of finally embracing you." ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
696:My brothers, each of us ought surely to rejoice on this holy day. Let no one, conscious of his sinfulness, withdraw from our common celebration, nor let anyone be kept away from our public prayer by the burden of his guilt. ~ Saint Maximus of Turin, #KEYS
697:always some progress can be made anywhere
ive been fairly particular with my words and speech for a long time, the mind is harder (its a crazier mess), but I want to do that next. then probably heart, then will then body
~ JB to dad,#KEYS
698:My dear brethren, there is no doubt that the Son of God took our human nature into so close a union with himself that one and the same Christ is present, not only in the firstborn of all creation, but in all his saints as well. ~ Saint Leo the Great, #KEYS
699:Holding in my hand the rein of courage, Clad in the armor of patience, And the helmet of endurance on my head, I started on my journey to the land of love." ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, (1882 - 1927) founder of the Sufi Order in the West in 1914, Wikipedia., #KEYS
700:I ask of my readers to pardon me, where they may perceive me to have had the desire rather than the power to speak, what they either understand better themselves, or fail to understand through the obscurity of my language. ~ Saint Augustine, (DT 5.1), #KEYS
701:My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,
My body is God's happy living tool,
My spirit a vast sun of deathless light. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Transformation,#KEYS
702:O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you. ~ Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, #KEYS
703:Yes, my brother, if we think of each world, we shall find there a hundred thousand wonderful sciences. One of these worlds is Sleep.What problems it contains! what wisdom is there concealed! how many worlds it includes! ~ Baha-ullah: The Seven Valleys, #KEYS
704:MY CHILD, hear My words, words of greatest sweetness surpassing all the knowledge of the philosophers and wise men of earth. My words are spirit and life, and they are not to be weighed by man's understanding. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
705:220. Broken begging bowl,
My old begging bowl,
Now as before, bear it high,
Broken begging bowl,
My old begging bowl,
Broken begging bowl,
My old begging bowl,
Bear it high, and go begging,
All day and each day. ~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
706:A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving … ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
707:Do you know my attitude? Books, scriptures, and things like that only point out the way to reach God. After finding the way, what more need is there of books and scriptures? Then comes the time for action. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
708:My chief reason for choosing Christianity was because the mysteries were incomprehensible. What's the point of revelation if we could figure it out ourselves? If it were wholly comprehensible, then it would just be another philosophy. ~ Mortimer J Adler, #KEYS
709:The Prince, travelling through his domains, noticed a man in the cheering crowd who bore a striking resemblance to himself. He beckoned him over and asked: Was your mother ever employed in my palace? ... No, Sire, the man replied. But my father was. ~ ?, #KEYS
710:Lion, give me your caresses— My husband and guardian, my spirit magician, My Shu-Sin who gladdens the Wind-God's heart Give me your caresses because you love me." ~ One stanza of love poem, (c. 1980 BC).For poem see, (diff. trans.): http://bit.ly/2qZHBef, #KEYS
711:My father and I will come to him and make our home with him. Open wide your door to the one who comes. Open your soul, throw open the depths of your heart to see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the sweetness of grace. ~ Ambrose of Milan, #KEYS
712:My Immaculate Heart is your refuge. It is given to you precisely for these times of yours. Enter in, my dearly beloved children, and thus you will journey along the road which brings you to the God of salvation and peace." ~ Our Lady to Fr. Stefano Gobbi, #KEYS
713:Pray, pray, my children ... You will all be about to be tested: the good ones will pay for the culprits, I will protect many, especially those who have always trusted me." ~ Our Lady Marie Martel (1872-1913) / APPARITIONS OF TILLY (1896 - c. early 1900s), #KEYS
714:All my thoughts go towards Thee, all my acts are consecrated to Thee; Thy Presence is for me an absolute, immutable, invariable fact, and Thy Peace dwells constantly in my heart. ~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations, Nov 19th 1912, #KEYS
715:Everywhere something hinders me from meeting God in my brother because he has shut the doors of his inmost temple and recites the fables of his brother's god or the god of his brother's brother. ~ Emerson, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
716:My mind is awake in stirless trance,
Hushed my heart, a burden of delight;
Dispelled is the senses' flicker-dance,
Mute the body aureate with light. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Trance,#KEYS
717:My mind is sundered and torn to pieces by the many and serious things I have to think about. When I try to concentrate and gather all my intellectual resources for preaching, how can I do justice to the sacred ministry of the word? ~ Saint Gregory the Great, #KEYS
718:ONE hour to madness and joy! / O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms? / What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?) ...
~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, One Hour to Madness and Joy,#KEYS
719:My son, go hack into thy self by disentangling thyself as much as thou mayst from all things; seek purity from things below by detaching thy will and thy heart from the love of sensible objects. ~ J. Tauter, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
720:For though I have with me good men, devout brethren, faithful friends, holy books, beautiful treatises, sweet songs and hymns, all these help and please but little when I am abandoned by grace and left to my poverty. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
721:I have laboured and suffered in Matter's night
To bring the fire to man;
But the hate of hell and human spite
Are my meed since the world began. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, A God's Labour,#KEYS
722:Endure and you will triumph. Victory goes to the most enduring. And with the Grace and divine love nothing is impossible. My force and love are with you. At the end of the struggle there is Victory
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
723:
Sweet Mother, Can you hear me whenever I call you?
My dear child,
Be sure that I hear you each time you call and my help and force go straight to you.
With my blessings.
1 June 1960
~ The Mother, On Education, [T1],#KEYS
724:Though I am alive while I write to you, yet I am eager to die. My love has been crucified, and there is no fire in me desiring to be fed; but there is within me a water that lives and speaks, saying to me inwardly, Come to the Father. ~ Saint Ignatius of Antioch, #KEYS
725:Under the appearances of bread, there is the body of Christ into which the substance of the bread is converted, as is clear from the words of the consecration when one says: "This is My body" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 4.64)., #KEYS
726:When the holy Abba Anthony lived in the desert he was beset by acedia. Attacked by many sinful thoughts, he said to God 'Lord, I want to be saved but these thoughts do not leave me alone; what shall I do in my affliction? How can I be saved?' ~ Anthony the Great, #KEYS
727:The other quotation is a mantra.
OM Sri Aurobindo Mira
Open my mind, my heart, my life to your Light,
your Love, your Power. In all things may I see the Divine.
16 July 1938
On Himself, 26.512 ~ The Mother, Agenda Vol 11,#KEYS
728:This is the practical and active form of that obligation of a Master of the Temple in which it said:: 'I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul.'
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Magick, The Wand,#KEYS
729:A being appears, it has an epiphany: in that it is beautiful and makes us marvel. In appearing it gives itself, it delivers itself to us: it is good. And in giving itself up, it speaks itself, it unveils itself: it is true.... ~ Hans Urs von Balthasar, My Work 116, #KEYS
730:Our thoughts are still ignorant, they must be enlightened. Our aspiration is still imperfect, it must be purified. Our action is still powerless, it must become effective. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 25 August,#KEYS
731:What honor I have, and my bit of courage, I inherit from the little creature [the child I used to be], so mysterious to me now, scuttling through the September rain across streaming meadows, his heart heavy at the thought of going back to school. ~ George Bernanos, #KEYS
732:I drank that wine of which the soul is its vessel. Its ecstasy has stolen my intellect away. A light came and kindled a flame in the depth of my soul. A light so radiant that the sun orbits around it like a butterfly. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
733:Your being, Lord, does not desert my being, for I exist only insomuch as you are with me. And since your seeing is your being, therefore, because you regard me, I am, and if you remove your face from me, I will cease to be. ~ Nicholas of Cusa, De Visione Dei, ch. 4, #KEYS
734:I made the worlds my net, each joy a mesh.
A Hunger amorous of its suffering prey,
Life that devours, my image see in things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Journey in Eternal Night and the Voice of the Darkness,#KEYS
735:I am far from denying the real force of the arguments in proof of a God… but these do not warm me or enlighten me; they do not take away the winter of my desolation, or make the buds unfold in the leaves grow within me, and my moral being rejoice. ~ John Henry Newman, #KEYS
736:So Daniel, when he was required to worship the idol Bel, which the people and the king then worshipped, in asserting the honor of his God, broke forth with full faith and freedom, saying, "I worship nothing but the Lord my God" ~ Dn 14:5). ~ Saint Cyprian of Carthage, #KEYS
737:The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love." ~ Meister Eckhart, (c. 1260 - c. 1328), German theologian, philosopher and mystic, Wikipedia, #KEYS
738:Whatever kind of thought arises, have the same reaction: 'Not me, not my business'. It can be a good thought or a bad thought. Treat them the same way. To whom are these thoughts arising? To you. That means you are not the thought. You are the Self. ~ Annamalai Swami, #KEYS
739:You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for you. But I can never be satisfied... When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light. ~ Catherine of Siena, #KEYS
740:I cannot tell you how readable the book of nature is becoming for me: my long efforts at deciphering, letter by letter, have helped me; now all of a sudden it is having effect, and my quiet joy is inexpressive. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to Charlotte von Stein, 1786, #KEYS
741:There is a place where words are born of silence,
A place where the whispers of the heart arise.
There is a place where voices sing your beauty,
A place where every breath
carves your image
in my soul. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi,#KEYS
742:Ibrahim Ben Adham, in his prayers, said, "O God! In my eyes heaven itself is less than a gnat in comparison with the love of Thee and the joy of Thy remembrance which thou hast granted me." ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Alchemy of Happiness, #KEYS
743:Study me as much as you like, you will not know me, for I differ in a hundred ways from what you see me to be. Put yourself behind my eyes and see me as I see myself, for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi,#KEYS
744:With the littlest ones, I am attaining each day my victory over Satan and his powerful army of evil, over the satanic and masonic forces organized against God, because I am leading my children along the road of heroic faith, of sure hope and of perfect love." ~ Our Lady , #KEYS
745:Do not accept any of my words on faith, believing them just because I said them. Be like an analyst buying gold, who cuts, burns, and critically examines his product for authenticity. Only accept what passes the test by proving useful and beneficial in your life. ~ Buddha, #KEYS
746:Enter the inner chamber of your mind; shut out all thoughts. Keep only thought of God, and thoughts that can aid you in seeking him. Close your door and seek him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek your face; your face, Lord, will I seek. ~ Anselm, #KEYS
747:I looked into spiritual works and have not found anything better than giving food to people. Had the world been in my hands, I would not entertain anything except feeding the hungry" ~ Shaykh Sayyid Abdul Qadir Jilani, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
748:I shall not die.
Although this body, when the spirit tires
Of its cramped residence, shall feed the fires,
My house consumes, not I. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Triumph-Song of Trishuncou,#KEYS
749:He who has made the Buddha his refuge
Cannot be killed by ten million demons;
Though he transgress his vows or be tormented in mind,
It is certain that he will go beyond rebirth.
~ Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher, Sutra of the Heart of the Sun,#KEYS
750:I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter. ~ Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven, [T5],#KEYS
751:What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.
~ William Wordsworth,#KEYS
752:Although thinking is my act, it is not 'mine' in the sense that understanding uses the word mine. This follows from the very nature of reason, which determines the nature of thought as such. My concept, although it is my act, is thus not my private property. ~ Owen Barfield, #KEYS
753:Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." ~ Bruce Lee, #KEYS
754:Facing wine, I missed night coming on and falling blossoms filling my robe. Drunk, I rise and wade the midstream moon, birds soon gone, and people scarcer still." ~ Li Bai, (aka Li Po, 701-762), Chinese poet, acclaimed from his own day to the present as a genius, Wikipedia., #KEYS
755:I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever the cost of peril. ~ J R R Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories, #KEYS
756:The Apostles were many and to only one of them did he say Feed my sheep. May it never happen that we truly lack good shepherds! May it never happen to us! May God's loving kindness never fail to provide them! ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
757:The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning, But I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, But I did not observe it. Until this moment. Now I see that I will never find the light Unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel.
~ Bruce Lee,#KEYS
758:170. A magnificent temple towers to heaven by the Eternal Bridge.
Priests rival in its halls the sermons of rocks and streams.
I, for one, would gladly sacrifice my brows for my brethren,
But I fear I might aggravate the war, already rank as weeds. ~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
759:Even for the ordinary people, my voice sends a thrill; it awakens a hope, a love and a feeling that all is not lost. For others, it brings out the splendours that lie hidden within, and for yet others, the key to solve the mysteries of the world.
~ Mona Sarkar, The Supreme,#KEYS
760:I have broken the limits of embodied mind
And am no more the figure of a soul.
The burning galaxies are in me outlined;
The universe is my stupendous whole. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Cosmic Spirit,#KEYS
761:I have given my mind to be dug Thy channel mind,
I have offered up my will to be Thy will:
Let nothing of myself be left behind
In our union mystic and unutterable. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Surrender,#KEYS
762:I am not of the mild and later gods,
But of that elder world; Lemuria
And old Atlantis raised me crimson altars,
And my huge nostrils keep that scent of blood
For which they quiver. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Prologue,#KEYS
763:Within her presence, I had once been used to feeling-trembling-wonder, dissolution; but that was long ago. Still, though my soul, now she was veiled, could not see her directly, by way of hidden force that she could move, I felt the mighty power of old love. ~ Dante Alighieri, #KEYS
764:As long as I talked unceasingly about the Lord,The Lord stayed away, kept at a distance.But when I silenced my mouth, sat very stillAnd fixed my mind at the doorway of the Lord,I was linked to the music of the Word,And all my talking came to an end. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
765:Either miracles were performed, and then I have made my point. Or if not, then that is the greatest miracle of all, for the entire world was converted through twelve worthless fishermen ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Mt. 10, lect. 1)., #KEYS
766:flowing with water
I walked down to the village
the sunlight freely reflects off
my freshly shaven head
within life and death
snow falls ceaselessly
I walk in the winds
brightness and darkness
~ Santoka Taneda,#KEYS
767:If the mind does not become steadily fixed at the feet of Sri Sri Thakur, then pray to Him with yearning - 'O Thakur, please make my mind steady,' Know definitely that Sri Sri Thakur is hearing all your words and is able to know all your thoughts and moods. ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
768:When you lie down, speak so that the sleep of death may not steal upon you. Listen and learn how you are to speak as you lie down; I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
769:I devote my very rare free moments to... the metaphysical sense and mystery of the person. The evil of our times consists in the first place in a kind of degradation, indeed in a pulverization, of the fundamental uniqueness of each human person. ~ Karol Wojtyla to Henri de Lubac, #KEYS
770:I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.
~ Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer,#KEYS
771:There are two beings in my single self.
A Godhead watches Nature from behind
At play in front with a brilliant surface elf,
A time-born creature with a human mind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Dual Being,#KEYS
772:This interior division (at Church) is manifesting itself even among the faithful who often set themselves one against the other, in an attempt to defend and better promote the truth. Thus the truth is betrayed by even them, as the Gospel of my Son cannot be divided." ~ Our Lady , #KEYS
773:As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God! when shall I come and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread day and night, while they say to me daily: Where is thy God?" ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, xli, 2 - 4; Douay, #KEYS
774:"Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 49:15-16, #KEYS
775:I am smashed by waves of affairs and afflicted by storms of a life of tumults, so I may rightly say: I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me. And so, you who stand on the shore of virtues, stretch out the hand of your prayer to me in my danger. ~ Gregory the Great, #KEYS
776:Julian gets greater and greater in my eyes as I grow older and whereas in the old days I used to be crazy about St John of the Cross, I would not exchange him now for Julian if you gave me the world and the Indies & all the Spanish mystics rolled up in one bundle. ~ Thomas Merton, #KEYS
777:May my actions, O Divine Mother, be fewer every day till I attain Thee. May I perform, without attachment to the results, only what action is absolutely necessary for me. May I have great love for Thee as I go on with my few duties. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
778:My advice to you is not to become attached to the world. Have a friendly relationship with one another. That will be for your good and make you all happy. Do your worldly duties with a part of your mind and direct most of it to God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
779:Sometimes I would like to cry. I close my eyes. Why weren't we designed so that we can close our ears as well? (Perhaps because we would never open them.) Is there some way that I could accelerate my evolution and develop earlids?" ~ Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, #KEYS
780:Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, 6:7,#KEYS
781:The ocean is full of precious pearls,but you may not get them at the first dive. My boys, once again I enjoin you, have firm faith in the words of your Guru, & try to get absorbed in deep meditation. Be sure, sooner or later you will have a vision of the Lord. ~ SWAMI BRAHMANANDA, #KEYS
782:When I dance,I dance;when I sleep,I sleep;yes,and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard,if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time for some other part I lead them back again to the walk,the orchard,to the sweetness of this solitude,to myself. ~ Montaigne, #KEYS
783:Mary looks back to the beginning of her song where she said: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. Only that soul for whom the Lord in his love does great things can proclaim his greatness with fitting praise and encourage those who share her desire and purpose. ~ Ven. Bede, #KEYS
784:My fellow Christians, our annual celebration of a martyr's feast has brought us together. She achieved renown in the early Church for her noble victory; she is well known now as well, for she continues to triumph through her divine miracles which occur daily. ~ Methodius of Sicily, #KEYS
785:It is Thy rapture flaming through my nerves
And all my cells and atoms thrill with Thee;
My body Thy vessel is and only serves
As a living wine-cup of Thy ecstasy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Bliss of Identity,#KEYS
786:Identified with silence and boundlessness
My spirit widens clasping the universe
Till all that seemed becomes the Real,
One in a mighty and single vastness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ocean Oneness,#KEYS
787:Tell me, you whom my soul loves. This is how I address you, because your true name is above all other names; it is unutterable and incomprehensible to all rational creatures. And so the name I use for you is simply the statement of my soul's love for you.... ~ Saint Gregory of Nyssa, #KEYS
788:Too lazy to be ambitious, I let the world take care of itself. Ten days' worth of rice in my bag; a bundle of twigs by the fireplace. Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment? Listening to the night rain on my roof, I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out." ~ Taigu Ryokan, #KEYS
789:When you get up or rise again, speak of Christ, so as to fulfil what you are commanded. Listen and learn how Christ is to awaken you from sleep. Your soul says: I hear my brother knocking at the door. Then Christ says to you: Open the door to me, my sister, my spouse. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
790:I am with you because I am you or you are me.
I am with you, that signifies a world of things, because I am with you on all levels, on all planes, from the supreme consciousness down to my most physical consciousness. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T4],#KEYS
791:I housed within my heart the life of things,
All hearts athrob in the world I felt as mine;
I shared the joy that in creation sings
And drank its sorrow like a poignant wine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Life-Unity,#KEYS
792:But I tell you one thing-if you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather, see your own faults. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one is a stranger, my child: this whole world is your own!" ~ Sri Sarada Devi, [This is considered as her last message to the world.] #KEYS
793:Having thought of these things, meditating on them in my heart and having considered that I shall find immortality in the union with wisdom, I went in search of her on all sides, that I might take her for my companion. ~ Book of Wisdom, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
794:My mind is hushed in wide and endless light,
My heart a solitude of delight and peace,
My sense unsnared by touch and sound and sight,
My body a point in white infinities. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Liberation - I,#KEYS
795:My waters! see them lift their foam-white tops
Charging from sky to sky in rapid tumult:
Admire their force, admire their thunderous speed.
With green hooves and white manes they trample onwards. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Prologue,#KEYS
796:When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life. ~ John Lennon, #KEYS
797:A bare impersonal hush is now my mind,
A world of sight clear and inimitable,
A volume of silence by a Godhead signed,
A greatness pure of thought, virgin of will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Word of the Silence,#KEYS
798:I feel a darkness obstructing the back of my head. My head feels heavy and dark. Why has this happened to me and what is it?
Most often these attacks are the result of bad thoughts you have had, which fall back on you.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
799:My lower nature continues to do the same stupid things. You alone can change it. What are Your conditions?
1) to be convinced that you can change. 2) to will to change without accepting the excuses of the lower nature.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
800:Stick to God ! Who cares what comes to the body or to anything else. Through the terrors of evil, say -- my God, my love ! Through the pangs of death, say -- my God, my love ! Through all the evils under the sun, say -- my God, my love. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
801:We utter the name of the Lord superficially, too superficially. We say, 'I am Thy servant; Thou art my Master; Thou art my Lord; I have renounced all for Thee; I call Thee, Lord, come unto me.' But we harbor withal all sorts of evil thoughts in the mind. This won't do ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
802:When My servants ask you [O Prophet] about Me: I am truly near. I respond to one's prayer when they call upon Me. So let them respond with obedience to Me and believe in Me, perhaps they will be guided to the Right Way. ~ Quran 2:186, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
803:Regularly ask yourself: "how are my thoughts, words and deeds afgecting my friends, my spouse, my neighbour, my child, my employer, my subordinates, my fellow citizens?" Make it your business to draw out the best in others by being an exemplar yourself. ~ Epictetus, #KEYS
804:I saw my soul a traveller through Time;
From life to life the cosmic ways it trod,
Obscure in the depths and on the heights sublime,
Evolving from the worm into the god. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Miracle of Birth,#KEYS
805:This mute stupendous Energy that whirls
The stars and nebulae in its long train,
Like a huge Serpent through my being curls
With its diamond hood of joy and fangs of pain. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Witness Spirit,#KEYS
806:From a magicial point of view, it is axiomatic that we have create the world in which we exist. Looking about himself, the magician can say 'thus have I will,' or 'thus do I perceive,' or more accurately, 'thus does my Kia manifest.'
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, Liber LUX, Enchantment [55],#KEYS
807:I have wrapped the wide world in my wider self
And Time and Space my spirit's seeing are.
I am the god and demon, ghost and elf,
I am the wind's speed and the blazing star. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Cosmic Consciousness,#KEYS
808:Oh my heart, don't become discouraged so easily. Have faith. In the hidden world, there are many mysteries, many wonders. Even if the whole planet threatens your life, don't let go of the Beloved's robe for even a breath. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
809:I have created all worlds at my will, without being urged by any higher being, and I dwell within them. I permeate the earth and heaven, all created entities with my greatness, and dwell in them as eternal and infinite consciousness.
~ Devi Sukta, Rigveda 10.125.8, Translated by June McDaniel,#KEYS
810:My life is the life of village and continent,
I am earth's agony and her throbs of bliss;
I share all creatures' sorrow and content
And feel the passage of every stab and kiss. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Cosmic Spirit,#KEYS
811:No danger can perturb my spirit's calm:
My acts are Thine; I do Thy works and pass;
Failure is cradled on Thy deathless arm,
Victory is Thy passage mirrored in Fortune's glass. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Divine Worker,#KEYS
812:This most beloved daughter (the Church) of mine must live the hours of her agony and of her sorrowful passion. She will be abandoned by many of her children. The impetuous wind of persecution will blow against her and much blood will be shed, even by my beloved sons." ~ Our Lady how this thread, #KEYS
813:The illusionist sub-class sprang from my reading. So many spellworkers in fable and fiction used only the illusory, not "real magic" that had actual substance and effect, that I thought it would be fun to include such an option in the game. ~ Gary Gygax, ENWorld, Q&A with Gary Gygax part 1, 2002, #KEYS
814:Though my Master should visit the tavern, yet my master shall always be a saint. Though my Master should frequent the impious meeting-place of the drunkards and the sinners, yet shall he be always to me my pure and perfect Master. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
815:We have to conquer the world. That we have to! India must conquer the world, and nothing less than that is my ideal. It may be very big, it may astonish many of you, but it is so. We must conquer the world or die. There is no other alternative. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
816:My soul's wide self of living infinite Space
Outlines its body luminous and unborn
Behind the earth-robe; under the earth-mask grows clear
The mould of an imperishable face. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Immortality,#KEYS
817:Should I change my priorities?
Are there other options that would be better for me right now?
Am I using my free time wisely?
~ ?, https://www.copyblogger.com/water-writing/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=cb+blog+posts+2017&utm_term=prospecting+interests&utm_content=08.15.17,#KEYS
818:You do not pass
through imagination
or else we'll know
where You are.
You are He who
is everywhere
Yet You are nowhere.
Where are You?
In my annihilation
is my annihilation's
.... annihilation
And You are found
.... in my annihilation. ~ Mansoor al- Hallaj,#KEYS
819:When My servants ask you concerning Me, I am indeed (close to them), I listen to the prayer of every suppliant when he calls on me. Let them also, with a will, listen to My call, and believe in Me. That they may walk in the right way. ~ 2: 186), @Sufi_Path #KEYS
820:40. My adepts stand upright; their head above the heavens, their feet below the hells.
41. But since one is naturally attracted to the Angel, another to the Demon, let the first strengthen the lower link, the last attach more firmly to the higher. ~ Aleister Crowley,#KEYS
821:Any truth, I maintain, is my own property. And I shall continue to heap quotations from Epicurus upon you, so that all persons who swear by the words of another, and put a value upon the speaker and not upon the thing spoken, may understand that the best ideas are common property. Farewell. ~ Seneca, #KEYS
822:Jul 16 There is infinite strength in you. Never lose faith in yourself, my boy; God is in you. And His grace too. He is gracious to all. … Have faith, therefore; have firm faith in Him. Work hard with unshakable determination, and He will give you all knowledge. Strive unceasingly.~ Swami Brahmananda, #KEYS
823:People keep lamenting about their lot and feel that their troubles and their unhappy reactions would go if other people and things were changed. Do you share my doubt about this feeling?
Each one is the artisan of his own miseries.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
824:In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. ~ Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game, #KEYS
825:The world is but a reflection of my imagination. Whatever I want to see, I can see. But why should I invent patterns of creation, evolution and destruction? I do not need them and have no desire to lock up the world in a mental picture. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
826:Yes, my brother, if we think of each world, we shall find there a hundred thousand wonderful sciences. One of these worlds is Sleep.What problems it contains! what wisdom is there concealed! how many worlds it includes! ~ Baha-ullah: The Seven Valleys, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
827:My experience is that everything is bliss. But the desire for bliss creates pain. Thus bliss becomes the seed of pain. The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
828:Asked whether she did not dread leaving her body at such a distance from her own city, my mother replied, "Nothing is far to God; nor need I fear lest He should be ignorant at the end of the world of the place whence He is to raise me up." ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
829:DAWN
I have returned to my native village after twenty years;
No sign of old friends or relatives-they have all died or gone away.
My dreams are shattered by the sound of the temple bell struck at sunrise.
An empty floor, no shadows; the light has long been extinguished. ~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
830:For you, the world is weird because if you're not bored with it you're at odds with it. For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here in this marvelous time. ~ Carlos Castaneda, #KEYS
831:Heaven is my father and begot me; I have for my family all this heavenly circle. My mother is the boundless earth. But I-know not to what all this mysterious universe is like, my eyes are troubled and I move as if enchained in my own thought. ~ Rig Veda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
832:All eyes that look on me are my sole eyes;
The one heart that beats within all breasts is mine.
The world's happiness flows through me like wine,
Its million sorrows are my agonies. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Indwelling Universal,#KEYS
833:At times I try to silence the mind, at times to surrender and at times to find my psychic being. Thus I cannot fix my attention on a single thing. Which one should I try first?
All should be done and each one when it comes spontaneously.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
834:You are not even a human being. You just are - a point of awareness, co-extensive with time and space and beyond both, the ultimate cause, itself uncaused. If you ask me "Who are you?", my answer would be: "Nothing in particular. Yet, I am". ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
835:Force yourself to study and your depression will go away. Can you imagine a student in college coming and telling his teacher, Sir, I didn't do my homework today because I felt depressed? Surely the teacher would punish him most severely.
~ The Mother, More Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
836:As for the attacks, it is a long-standing affair and it may not be easy to make them stop at once-but one day they will have to cease. And meanwhile they can be made shorter and less acute, by keeping faith in my promise and calling for my help that is always available.
~ The Mother,#KEYS
837:Yes, my child, the Nature can change, completely change with the practice of Yoga - nothing is impossible for the Divine Grace - it can transform a being so totally that all that seemed for it completely impossible becomes not only possible but done. ~ The Mother, White Roses, Huta, 12, #KEYS
838:This is how you should pray: "Lord, if you see this to be for my good, if you judge it to be profitable for me, give me this thing to use for your honor; but if you foresee it will do me harm, impair the health of my soul, take away from me the desire for such a thing." ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
839:Repeating The Name Of Ranjha
Repeating the name of Ranjha
I have become Ranjha myself.
O call me ye all 'Dhido-Ranjha,'
let no one call me Heer.
Ranjha is in me, I am in Ranjha,
no other thought exists in my mind.
I am not, He alone is.
He alone is amusing himself.
~ Bulleh Shah,#KEYS
840:Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation.
And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science,#KEYS
841:The gods have invented
Only one way for a man through the world, O my slavegirl Briseis,
Valiant to be and noble and truthful and just to the humble,
Only one way for a woman, to love and serve and be faithful. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
842:I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. ~ Frank Herbert, #KEYS
843:I found the spot where truth echoes and know each beauty mark by heart.
But I just can't keep her still enough to render perfect art.
'Cause the truth is ever changing and although she loves my touch,
I've had my way, but I when I pray, she kisses back too much. ~ Saul Williams, Surrender (A Second to Think),#KEYS
844:My son, if thou hearkenest to me with application thou shalt be instructed and if thou appliest thy mind thou shalt get wisdom. If thou lend thine ear, thou shalt receive instruction and if thou love to hearken thou shalt grow wise. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
845:Question me now about all other matters, but do not ask who I am, for fear you may increase in my heart it's burden of sorrow as I think back; I am very full of grief, and I should not sit in the house of somebody else with my lamentation and wailing. It is not good to go on mourning forever. ~ Homer, #KEYS
846:The path of karma is extremely difficult. Therefore one should pray: 'O God, make my duties fewer and fewer; and may I, through Thy grace, do the few duties that Thou givest me without any attachment to their results! May I have no desire to be involved in many activities! ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
847:I am the Man of Sorrows, I am he
Who is nailed on the wide cross of the universe;
To enjoy my agony God built the earth,
My passion he has made his drama's theme. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
848:Let him who finds fault with my discourse, see whether he can understand other men who have handled similar subjects and questions, when he does not understand me: and if he can, let him put down my book, or even, if he pleases, throw it away. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate, #KEYS
849:Is it necessary to write out the geography and history lessons? I can study them by reading.
One learns things better if one writes them.
My hand often gets tired while writing.
You can simply rest a minute or two and then continue.
18 October 1936 ~ The Mother, More Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
850:My Force is Nature that creates and slays
The hearts that hope, the limbs that long to live.
I have made man her instrument and slave,
His body I made my banquet, his life my food. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Journey in Eternal Night and the Voice of the Darkness,#KEYS
851:My heart shall throb with the world-beats of Thy love,
My body become Thy engine for earth-use;
In my nerves and veins Thy rapture's streams shall move;
My thoughts shall be hounds of Light for Thy power to loose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Surrender,#KEYS
852:O living power of the incarnate Word,
All that the Spirit has dreamed thou canst create:
Thou art the force by which I made the worlds,
Thou art my vision and my will and voice.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation,#KEYS
853:I'm glad mushrooms are against the law, because I took them one time, and you know what happened to me? I laid in a field of green grass for four hours going, "My God! I love everything." Yeah, now if that isn't a hazard to our country ... how are we gonna justify arms dealing when we realize that we're all one? ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
854:I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
~ Frank Herbert, Dune,#KEYS
855:My ideal is growth, expansion, development on national lines. I have no words of condemnation for my nation. I tell,"You have done well; only try to do better." Great things have been done in the past in this land, & there is both time & room for greater things to be done yet.~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
856:as it were, then the possibilities are practically limitless. Given the correct techniques one can invoke or evoke anything, even things which did not exist before one thought of calling them. This may sound like complete Chaos, and I have to report that my own researches confirm that it is!
~ Peter J Carroll, Excerpts Part 1,#KEYS
857:If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but for one instant, in one being, let Your enormous Library be justified.~ Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, Selected Stories and Other Writings, #KEYS
858:It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing~they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me. ~ Stephen Fry, #KEYS
859:Through thousands of years of chiseling & modelling, the lives of the great prophets of yore come down to us; & yet, in my opinion, not one stands so high in brilliance as that life which I saw with my own eyes, at whose feet I have learnt everything —the life of Sri Ramakrishna~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
860:You O Lord art good and merciful, and Your right hand had respect unto the profoundness of my death, and removed from the bottom of my heart that abyss of corruption. And this was the result, that I willed not to do what I willed, and willed to do what you willed. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
861:andai on Oct 28, 2017 | parent | favorite | on: Alan Kay on Lisp\nI wonder if LISP and LSD encourage similar ways of thinking.\n\ntempodox on Oct 28, 2017 [-]\nBased on my own experiences with both, I'd say: Yes. Although I'm sure you couldn't prove it mathematically (yet). ~ website, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15573502, #KEYS
862:In The Morning :::
In the morning, bowing to all;
In the evening, bowing to all.
Respecting others is my only duty--
Hail to the Never-despising Bodhisattva.
In heaven and earth he stands alone.
A real monk
Needs
Only one thing--
a heart like
Never-despising Buddha. ~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
863:My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. ~ Bertrand Russell, #KEYS
864:I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close. ~ Pablo Neruda, #KEYS
865:The ordinary man says in his ignorance "My religion is the sole religion, my religion is the best." But when his heart is illumined by the true knowledge, he knows that beyond all the battles of sects and of sectaries presides the one, indivisible, eternal and omniscient Benediction. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
866:Behold, my son, the plenitude of the good which follows the appearance of the Truth, for envy removes far from us and by the truth the good arrives with life and light and there no longer remain in us any executioners or darkness; all withdraw vanquished. ~ Hermes "On the Rebirth", the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
867:The sex-vampire eats up the other's vital and gives nothing or very little. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV: Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga
Sec-Vampire
In myself is the seed of all my creation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Karma,#KEYS
868:Soul, my soul
Soul, my soul, yet ascend crossing the marge of life:
Mount out far above Time, reach to the golden end
... Live there lost in God space, rapturous, vacant, mute,
Sun-bright, timeless, immense, single and absolute.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
869:Men hail in my coming the Almighty's force
Or praise with thankful tears his saviour Grace.
I smite the Titan who bestrides the world
And slay the ogre in his blood-stained den.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
870:Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. ~ Steve Jobs, #KEYS
871:Our Lord wants us to become sharers of his joy by our observing his commandments. He says, that my joy, the joy I take in my divinity and that of my Father, may be in you. This is nothing else than eternal life, which as Augustine says, is joy in the truth ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Jn. 15)., #KEYS
872:How can I make my soul progress?
To have any action on your soul you must be first conscious of it. And then when you will be conscious of your soul, you will probably find out that instead of you making your soul progress, it is your soul who will help you to progress.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
873:Death makes me realize how deeply I have internalized the agnosticism I preach in all my books. I consider dogmatic belief and dogmatic denial very childish forms of conceit in a world of infinitely whirling complexity. None of us can see enough from one corner of space-time to know "all" about the rest of space-time. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #KEYS
874:I looked into my own heart and I saw reflected there in its entirety the vast world with all its passions,-pride, hope, fear and the conflagration of the desires. So gazing I understood the word of the ancient sage, "Man is a mirror in which there appears the image of the world." ~ Ryonen, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
875:Young women... you are, in my opinion, disgracefully ignorant. You have never made a discovery of any sort of importance. You have never shaken an empire or led an army into battle. The plays by Shakespeare are not by you, and you have never introduced a barbarous race to the blessings of civilization. What is your excuse? ~ Virginia Woolf, #KEYS
876:As for myself, I look upon all women as my Mother. This is a very pure attitude of mind. There is no risk or danger in it. To look upon a woman as one's sister is also not bad. But the other attitudes are very difficult and dangerous. It is almost impossible to keep to the purity of the ideal. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
877:It is a great gift to suffer for Christ, as it says in James ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (1:2): "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces patience" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Mt. 10, lect.2 )., #KEYS
878: know not anything, O my brothers, which so much gives birth to good, leads to the supreme happiness and destroys evil as vigilance, energy, moderation, contentment, wise reflection, a clear conscience, the friendship of the just, seeking after good and aversion from evil. ~ Anguttara Nikaya, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
879:Greater it seems to my mind to be king over men than their slayer,
Nobler to build and to govern than what the ages have laboured
Putting their godhead forth to create or the high gods have fashioned,
That to destroy in our wrath of a moment. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
880:The ordinary man says in his ignorance "My religion is the sole religion, my religion is the best." But when his heart is illumined by the true knowledge, he knows that beyond all the battles of sects and of sectaries presides the one, indivisible, eternal and omniscient Benediction. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
881:And so now, today, one cannot think of the greats-Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, Marx, Fichte, Freud, Nietzsche, Einstein, Schopenhauer, Leibniz, Schelling-the whole Germanic sphere-without thinking, at some point, of Auschwitz and Treblinka, Sobibor and Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Chelmno. My God, they have names, as if they were human. ~ Ken Wilber, One Taste, #KEYS
882:The thought came over me that never would one full and absolute moment, containing all the others, justify my life, that all of my instants would be provisional phases, annihilators of the past turned to face the future, and that beyond the episodic, the present, the circumstantial, we were nobody.
~ Jorge Luis Borges,#KEYS
883:When He calls me I start a self-inspection: 'Am I fair or will my looks earn rejection? If a fine beauty leads a beast along, She's only mocking what does not belong! To see my own face can there be a way? Is my complexion now like night or day?' I searched for my soul's form in everyone, But it did not reflect in anyone. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, The Masnavi, #KEYS
884:A hundred things may be explained to you, a thousand things told, but one thing only should you grasp. Know one thing and everything is freed- remain within your inner nature, your Awareness. May I recognize all the manifestations that appear to me in the bardo (intermediate state) as being my own projections; emanations of my own mind. ~ Padmasambhava, #KEYS
885:Don't go outside your house to see the flowers.
My friend, don't bother with that excursion.
Inside your body there are flowers.
One flower has a thousand petals.
That will do for a place to sit.
Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty
inside the body and out of it,
before gardens and after gardens. ~ Kabir,#KEYS
886:I dabbled in stocks and shares a little, but came a cropper. The speculation I carried on for a while has burnt quite a hole in my pocket. I really wish I hadn't. Are you dead against speculation?
You ought to know that I do not approve at all of speculation - but what is done is done.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
887:To do yoga, one of the most important things to achieve is to get rid of all attachment to the past. Let the past be past and concentrate only on the progress you want to make and the surrender to the Divine you have to achieve. My blessings and help are always with you. With love. 10 January 1967 ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III, #KEYS
888:A part of my being has developed the bad habit of feeling miserable after Pranam. It gets jealous of certain people. Don't you think I should have the strength to reject this obstacle?
Certainly - but then you must do it in all sincerity and not accept these movements of jealousy in any way.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
889:Like a flame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward without wavering, my love goes to Thee; and like the child who does not reason and has no care, I trust myself to Thee that Thy Will may be done, that Thy Light may manifest, Thy Peace radiate, Thy Love cover the world.
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations,#KEYS
890:God said to David, "Be not too intimate with men; for two kinds of persons are excluded from My presence: those who are earnest in seeking reward and slack when they obtain it, and those who prefer their own thoughts to the remembrance of Me. The sign of My displeasure is that I leave such to themselves. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #KEYS
891:Let us say this clearly, my brothers, that we cannot reach unto God but by the intermediary of one who is like unto ourselves, by striving to love: God is not there where we think him to be, he is in ourselves. He dispenses love to us, he is love itself. Let us love then by him our neighbour. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
892:The senses and the mind seek to convince thee, sova in are they, that they are the end of all things. The senses and the mind are only instruments and play things. Behind the feelings and the thoughts, my brother; there dwells a more puissant master, an unknown sage; it is called the Self. ~ Nietzsche Zarathustra, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
893:My dear child, I carry you always in my arms, pressed close to my heart, and I have no doubt that you will become aware of it if you forget the world and concentrate on me. By turning your thoughts towards me you will feel closer and closer to me and peace will come to dwell in your heart. Love. 25 May 1934
~ The Mother, On Education, [T0],#KEYS
894:God said unto Jesus, "O Jesus! When I see in My servants' hearts pure love for Myself unmixed with any selfish desire concerning this world or the next, I act as guardian over that love." Again, when people asked Jesus "What is the highest work of all?" he answered, "To love God and to be resigned to His will. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #KEYS
895:I do not know which of the religious leaders is right, nor is it possible for me to know it with any certainty. But I know pertinently that the best I can do is to develop love in myself and about that it is impossible for me to doubt. I cannot doubt it because in developing my love my happiness increases.- ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
896:'If you know me,
you know that I reside in the hearts of all beings.
Just summon me and I will return!'
'Now until the dualistic identity mind
melts and dissolves,
it may seem that we are parting.
Please be happy.
When you understand the dualistic mind,
there will be no separation from me.
May my good wishes fill the sky.' ~ Yeshe Tsogyal,#KEYS
897:Now I have done with space and my soul is released from the hours.
Saved is my heart from the need of joy, the attraction to sorrow,
Who have escaped from my past and forgotten today and tomorrow;
I have grown vacant and mighty, naked and wide as th ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Descent of Ahana,#KEYS
898:My love is stronger than the bonds of Fate:
I guard the heavenly seal of the Supreme.
Love must not cease to live upon the earth;
For Love is the bright link twixt earth and heaven.
Love is the far Transcendent's angel here
Love is man's lien on the Absolute
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Debate of Love and Death,#KEYS
899:To share the suffering of the world I came,
I draw my children's pangs into my breast.
I am the nurse of the dolour beneath the stars;
I am the soul of all who wailing writhe
Under the ruthless harrow of the Gods. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
900:And this tie between you and me is never cut. There are people who have long ago left the Ashram, in a state of revolt, and yet I keep myself informed of them, I attend to them. You are never abandoned. In truth, I hold myself responsible for everyone, even for those whom I have met only for one second in my life.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I,#KEYS
901:I walk by the chill wave through the dull slime
And still that weary journeying knows no end;
Lost is the lustrous godhead beyond Time,
There comes no voice of the celestial Friend.
And yet I know my footprints' track shall be
A pathway towards I ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Pilgrim of the Night,#KEYS
902:I was a terrible believer in things,but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn't know where to put my faith,or if there was such a place,or even what the word faith meant, in all of it's complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. ~ Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, #KEYS
903:Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself back to me. Lo, I love you, but if my love is too mean, let me love more passionately. I cannot gauge my love, nor know how far it fails, how much more love I need for my life to set its course straight into your arms, never swerving until hidden in the covert of your face. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
904:In the world of my knowledge and my ignorance
Where God is unseen and only is heard a Name
And knowledge is trapped in the boundaries of mind
And life is hauled in the drag-net of desire
And Matter hides the soul from its own sight, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day, The Soul's Choice and the Supreme Consummation,#KEYS
905:It is nothing, O my brothers, the loss of relatives, riches or honours; but the loss of understanding is a heavy loss. It is nothing, O my brothers, the gain of relatives, riches or honours; but the gain of understanding is the supreme gain. Therefore we wish to gain in understanding; let that be our aspiration. ~ Angattara Nikaya, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
906:How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? [...] In my opinion the answer to this question is, briefly, this: As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
907:I have found the atoms from which he built the worlds:
The first tremendous cosmic energy
Missioned shall leap to slay my enemy kin,
Expunge a nation or abolish a race,
Death's silence leave where there was laughter and joy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
908:Abraham Maslow said that the fully realized person transcends his local group and identifies with the species. But the election of Ronald Reagan might've been the beginning of my giving up on my species. Because it was absurd. To this day it remains absurd. More than absurd, it was frightening: it represented the rise to supremacy of darkness, the ascendancy of ignorance. ~ George Carlin, #KEYS
909:Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down... Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me. ~ Saint Patrick,#KEYS
910:I stand upon earth's paths of danger and grief
And help the unfortunate and save the doomed.
To the strong I bring the guerdon of their strength,
To the weak I bring the armour of my force;
To men who long I carry their coveted joy: ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
911:Surely, my child, I have no intention of leaving you and you need not worry; one thing you must know and never forget: all that is true and sincere will always be kept. Only what is false and insincere will disappear.
In the measure in which your need for me is sincere and genuine, it will be fulfilled. 5 October 1955
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, I am With You,#KEYS
912:24 I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope.
25 In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue.
26 Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits. ~ Sirach 24:24-26, Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition, biblegateway#KEYS
913:Who cares for your bhakti and mukti? Who cares what your scriptures say? I will go into a thousand hells cheerfully if I can rouse my countrymen, immersed in tamas, to stand on their own feet and be men inspired with the spirit of karma-yoga. I am a follower only of he or she who serves and helps others without caring for his own bhakti and mukti! ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
914:Feeling of discontinuity as a person. My various selves-how do they all come together? And anxiety at moments of transition from one "role" to another. Will I make it fifteen minutes from now? Be able to step into, inhabit the person I'm supposed to be? This is felt as an infinitely hazardous leap, no matter how often it's successfully executed. ~ Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh, #KEYS
915:My lie has been miserable and difficult, and yet to others and sometimes to myself, it has seemed rich and wonderful. Man's life seems to me like a long, weary night that would be intolerable if there were not occasionally flashes of light, the sudden brightness of which is so comforting and wonderful, that the moments of their appearance cancel out and justify the years of darkness. ~ Hermann Hesse, #KEYS
916:O Mother, what should I do? I am completely unconscious. Mother, where are You?
In your psychic being - I am always present there. It is there that you can find me and must find me, and when you have found me there, in the depths of your heart, you will also recognise me in my physical form. 31 October 1934
~ The Mother, More Answers From The Mother, [T0],#KEYS
917:What desolates my heart, is this sort of continual destruction throughout Nature; she has created nothing which does not destroy its neighbour or destroy itself. Thus, staggering and bewildered in the midst of these oscillating forces of earth and heaven, I move forward seeing nothing but a world in which all devours and ruminates eternally. ~ Goethe, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
918:The essence of my work is; God, or the absolute Spirit, exists-and can be proven-and there is a ladder that reaches to that summit, a ladder that you can be shown how to climb, a ladder that leads from time to eternity, and from death to immortality. And all philosophy and psychology swings into a remarkable synthesis around that ladder. ~ Ken Wilber, The Great Chain of Being, 1987 (unpublished manuscript), #KEYS
919:468 - I may question God, my guide and teacher, and ask Him, 'Am I right or hast Thou in thy love and wisdom suffered my mind to deceive me?' Doubt thy mind, if thou wilt, but doubt not that God leads thee.
Life is given to us to find the Divine and unite with Him. The mind tries to persuade us that it is not so. Shall we believe this liar?
~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,#KEYS
920:One of the gnostics was hungry and wept. Someone who had no tasting (dhawq) in that area censured him for that. The gnostic said, "But Allah makes me hungry so that I might weep.
He tests me by affliction so that I might ask Him to remove it from me. This does not lessen my being patient." We know that patience is holding the self back from complaint to other-than-Allah. ~ Ibn Arabi,#KEYS
921:I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and behold, all was vanity and pursuit of the wind and there was no profit under the sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness and folly... Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
922:My guide and I crossed over and began
to mount that little known and lightless road
to ascend into the shining world again.
He first, I second, without thought of rest
we climbed the dark until we reached the point
where a round opening brought in sight the blest.
And beauteous shining of the heavenly cars.
And we walked out once more beneath the stars. ~ Dante Alighieri, Inferno,#KEYS
923:The best relief for the brain, he writes in one of them, is when the thinking takes place outside the body and above the head (or in space or at other levels but still outside the body). At any rate it was so in my case; for as soon as that happened there was an immense relief; I have felt body strain since then but never any kind of brain fatigue.
~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure of Consciousness, 325,#KEYS
924:My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear atentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. ...
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 2:1-22,#KEYS
925:God & the World is my subject, ... the conditions in which the kingdom of heaven on earth can be converted from a dream into a possibility, - by the willed evolution in man of his higher nature, by a steady self-purification and a development in the light of this divine knowledge towards the fulfilment of his own supra-material, supra-intellectual nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad,#KEYS
926:Mother, sometimes when I use my mental will to become aware of Your universal presence and to link myself with You, I feel the peace and assurance of Your touch. Mother, is it true or is it my mental construction?
In this case, it is of no importance, because there are mental constructions which can be true and which lead safely to the experience.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
927:Sometimes, looking at the many books I have at home, I feel I shall die before I come to the end of them, yet I cannot resist the temptation of buying new books. Whenever I walk into a bookstore and find a book on one of my hobbies - for example, Old English or Old Norse poetry - I say to myself, "What a pity I can't buy that book, for I already have a copy at home.
~ Jorge Luis Borges,#KEYS
928:Remember that the Mother is always with you.
Address Her as follows and She will pull you out of all difficulties:
"O Mother, Thou art the light of my intelligence, the purity of my soul,
the quiet strength of my vital, the endurance of my body.
I rely on Thee alone and want to be entirely Thine.
Make me surmount all obstacles on the way."
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III, [T1],#KEYS
929:Sometimes I reread my favorite books from back to front. I start with the last chapter and read backward until I get to the beginning. When you read this way, characters go from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt. In love stories, couples start out as lovers and end as strangers. Coming-of-age books become stories of losing your way. Your favorite characters come back to life. ~ Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything #KEYS
930:By thee I have greatened my mortal arc of life,
But now far heavens, unmapped infinitudes
Thou hast brought me, thy illimitable gift!
If to fill these thou lift thy sacred flight,
My human earth will still demand thy bliss.
Make still my life through thee a song of joy
And all my silence wide and deep with thee.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Return to Earth,#KEYS
931:When I start writing a new imaginary future, I have no idea what it is. The characters arrive first. They help me figure out where they are living and I get to fill in the gaps with that and where we are. So when I get to the end of the process of composition, if I feel that I have really done my job, I have no idea what I've got - and I then spend essentially the rest of my life figuring out what it might mean. ~ William Gibson, #KEYS
932:O Lord, my sweet Master, Thou whom I adore in silence and to whom I have entirely consecrated myself, Thou who governest my life, kindle in my heart the flame of Thy pure love that it may burn like a glowing brazier, consuming all imperfections and transforming into a comforting warmth and radiating light the dead wood of egoism and the black coals of ignorance.
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations, 55,#KEYS
933:Turn Your Face Toward Me
Turn your face toward me, my dear one,
Turn your face toward me!
It is you who inserted the hook in me,
It is you who pulls the cord.
Turn your face toward me!
The call to prayer came from your throne in heaven,
The sound reverberated in Mecca.
Turn your face toward me!
Says Bulla, I will not die,
Though someone else may.
Turn your face toward me!
~ Bulleh Shah,#KEYS
934:Bhakti is the one essential thing. Who can ever know God through reasoning? I want love of God. What do I care about knowing His infinite glories? One bottle of wine makes me drunk. What do I care about knowing how many gallons there are in the grog-shop? One jar of water is enough to quench my thirst. I don't need to know the amount of water there is on earth. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Ramakrishna, #KEYS
935:Christ said to Peter before His ascension: "Feed My sheep" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (John 21:17); and before His passion: "You being once converted confirm your brethren" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Luke 22:32); and to him alone did He promise: "I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Mat. 16:19)., #KEYS
936:Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me. ~ Saint Patrick,#KEYS
937:Q: Is it intentional in AD&D that the Haste spell (causing magical aging) should require a system shock roll, risking death?
Gary: the system shock check was included so DMs has something to use to prevent abuse of the spell, such as when a PC drank a potion of speed and then had a haste spell cast on him. My players knew better that to try to get cutsy like that when I was the DM. ~ Gary Gygax, Dragonsfoot, Q&A with Gary Gygax, 2005,#KEYS
938:I hail thee, almighty and victorious Death,
Thou grandiose Darkness of the Infinite.
O Void that makest room for all to be ...
Thou art my shadow and my instrument.
I have given thee thy awful shape of dread
And thy sharp sword of terror and grief and pain
To force the soul of man to struggle for light"
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real,#KEYS
939:The truth is that my work ~ I was going to say my mission ~ is to shatter the faith of men here, there, and everywhere, faith in affirmation, faith in negation, and faith in abstention in faith, and this for the sake of faith in faith itself; it is to war against all those who submit, whether it be to Catholicism, or to rationalism, or to agnosticism; it is to make all men live the life of inquietude and passionate desire. ~ Miguel de Unamuno, #KEYS
940:I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, #KEYS
941:I would be glad to know your Lordship's opinion whether when my brain has lost its original structure, and when some hundred years after the same materials are fabricated so curiously as to become an intelligent being, whether, I say that being will be me; or, if, two or three such beings should be formed out of my brain; whether they will all be me, and consequently one and the same intelligent being. ~ Thomas Reid letter to Lord Kames, 1775[1], #KEYS
942:Although it was unfortunate to get motor neurone disease, I have been very fortunate in almost everything else.
I have been lucky to work in theoretical physics at a fascinating time and it' s one of the few areas in which my disability was not a serious handicap.
It's also important not to become angry, no matter how difficult life may seem because you can lose all hope if you can't laugh at yourself and life in general.
~ Stephen Hawkings,#KEYS
943:X who has been studying astrology has prepared my horoscope. I send it to you to see. Do you think the indications he has given in it for my future have any value?
The horoscope is sufficiently vague and favourable to be taken in consideration as the base of a mental conception for your future. The most important factor in a horoscope is the intuitive faculty of the astrologer.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
944:If there come into your assembly a man with a gold ring in goodly apparel and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment, and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing and say unto him, "Sit thou here in a good place," and say to the poor man, "Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool," are ye not then partial in yourselves and become judges of evil thoughts ? ~ James II. 1-4, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
945:I looked whence the voice came, and was then ware of a shining shape, with bright wings, who diffused much light. As I looked the shape dilated more and more; he waved his hands; the roof of my study opened; he ascended into heaven; he stood in the sun, and, beckoning to me, moved the universe. An angel of evil could not have done that - it was the archangel Gabriel! ~ John Bunyan, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, Volume 31, 1875 [William Blake], #KEYS
946:The 'little word is has its tragedies; it marries and identifies different things with the greatest innocence; and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein too lies the danger. Whenever I use the word is, except in sheer tautology, I deeply misuse it; and when I discover my error, the world seems to fall asunder and the members of my family no longer know one another. (461) ~ G Santayana, #KEYS
947:Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against
your own neck
You won't find me in the mosque
or the sadhus temple.
You wont find me in holy books
or behind the lips of priests.
Nor in eating nothing but vegetables
You will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says : Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.... ~ Kabir,#KEYS
948:In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel nothing can befall me in life - no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes) which Nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground - my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
949:[My wife] liked to collect old encyclopedias from second-hand bookstores, and at one point we had eight of them. When I wrote my first historical novel--back in 1980, before I was online--I used them often as a research tool. For instance, I learned that the Bastille was either 90 feet high or 100 feet or 120 feet. This led me to formulate Wilson's 22nd Law: 'Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only look in one encyclopedia.' ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #KEYS
950:My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. ... ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Proverbs, 3:1-35, #KEYS
951:You've taken away my looks, my identity, by just a glance.
By making me drink the wine of love-potion,
You've intoxicated me by just a glance;
My fair, delicate wrists with green bangles in them,
Have been held tightly by you with just a glance.
I give my life to you, Oh my cloth-dyer,
You've dyed me in yourself, by just a glance.
I give my whole life to you Oh, Nijam,
You've made me your bride, by just a glance. ~ Amir Khusrau,#KEYS
952:MASTER: "I want you to remember this. You may impart thousands of instructions to people, but they will not bear fruit except in proper time. On going to bed, a child said to his mother, 'Mother, please wake me up when I feel the call of nature.' The mother said: 'Don't worry about it, my child. That call will wake you up itself.' (All laugh.) One feels yearning for God at the proper time. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
953:I think there will be a reaction ~ a reaction will set in against this communal dissociation. You know, man doesn't stand forever, his nullification. Once, there will be a reaction, and I see it setting in, you know, when I think of my patients, they all seek their own existence and to assure their existence against that complete atomization into nothingness or into meaninglessness. Man cannot stand a meaningless life. ~ Carl Jung, Face to Face BBC Interview (1959), #KEYS
954:Let him close the ears with his thumbs .... This is my most beloved Yoga. From practicing this gradually, the Yogi begins to hear mystic sounds (nadas). The first sound is like the hum of the honey-intoxicated bee (matta-bhrnga), next that of a flute (venu), then of a harp (vina); after this, by the gradual practice of Yoga, the destroyer of the darkness of the world, he hears the sounds of ringing bells (ghanta) then sounds like roar of thunder (megha).
~ Shiva-Samhita,#KEYS
955:Oh my God, does art engender humanity? It awakens your humanity. But humanity has nothing to do with political theory. Political theory is in the interests of one group of humanity, or one ideal for humanity. But humanity~my heavens, that's what proper art renders. We have a paradox. Going into the deepest aspects of inner space connects you with something that is the most vital for the outer realm. ~ Joseph Campbell, interviewed by Joan Marler for the Yoga Journal (1987), #KEYS
956:Bjorn: I'm sorry to hear of Helga's death. We knew each other a long time. Since I was a boy.
Floki: I too am dead, Bjorn. A part of me died with my daughter, Angrboda, a second part with Ragnar, and the last part of what was Floki died with my sweet, sad Helga. What I am now is nothing. And all this nothing I give to the gods to do with as they please. And I shall be an empty ship with no rudder set upon their endless sea. And where they take me, I shall go.
~ Vikings,#KEYS
957:IN THE entire ten quarters of the Buddha land
There is only one vehicle.
When we see clearly, there is no difference in all the teachings.
What is there to lose? What is there to gain?
If we gain something, it was there from the beginning.
If we lose anything, it is hidden nearby.
Look at the ball in the sleeve of my robe.
Surely it has great value.
[ The first sentence of this poem quotes a famous line from the Lotus Sutra.] ~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
958:There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded, Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads, Where millions of Brahmâs are reading the Vedas, Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation, Where millions of Indras dwell in the sky, Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered, Where millions of Saraswatis, Goddess of Music, play on the vina— There is my Lord self-revealed: and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in those deeps. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
959:I pray to the unknown gods that some man-even a single man, tens of centuries ago-has perused and read that book. If the honor and wisdom and joy of such a reading are not to be my own, then let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my own place be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enormous Library may find its justification. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel, #KEYS
960:There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable -- unobservable in principle -- it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality -- it's just a figment of our imaginations. ~ Leonard Susskind, The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics, #KEYS
961:In other words, all of my books are lies. They are simply maps of a territory, shadows of a reality, gray symbols dragging their bellies across the dead page, suffocated signs full of muffled sound and faded glory, signifying absolutely nothing. And it is the nothing, the Mystery, the Emptiness alone that needs to be realized: not known but felt, not thought but breathed, not an object but an atmosphere, not a lesson but a life. - Ken Wilber ~ Frank Visser, Ken Wilber Thought as Passion, Foreward, #KEYS
962:the three-dimensional world of ordinary experience-the universe filled with galaxies, stars, planets, houses, boulders, and people-is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface. This new law of physics, known as the Holographic Principle, asserts that everything inside a region of space can be described by bits of information restricted to the boundary. ~ Leonard Susskind, The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics, #KEYS
963:You Will Find Me
The Mother: Take the trouble to find me. Follow the path that I have traced before you. Nothing is as important as this work. Nothing can be compared to this. Only the Divine. To find the Divine. This is life, this the aim, this the joy! To love the Divine so that He is always with you. Let it be Him who does all. He works with you. He strives with you. He guides you at every instant.
Au revoir, my child. ~ The Mother, The Supreme, Mona Sarkar,#KEYS
964:A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 23:1-6, #KEYS
965:To those who ask you, Where have you seen the gods, or how do you who are so devout know for sure that the gods exist? I answer, first of all, that even to the very eye, they are in some manner visible and apparent. Secondly, neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honour it. So then for the gods, by the daily experience that I have of their power and providence towards myself and others, I know certainly that they exist and therefore I worship them. ~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12, 21, #KEYS
966:No matter how much I wanted to sing Western songs, they were all very difficult. Had I, born in Japan, no choice but to sing Japanese songs? Was there a Japanese song that expressed my present sentiment - a traveler who had immersed himself in love and the arts in France but was now going back to the extreme end of the Orient where only death would follow monotonous life? ... I felt totally forsaken. I belonged to a nation that had no music to express swelling emotions and agonized feelings. ~ Kafu Nagai, #KEYS
967:One says, When my son Harish shall have grown up, I will marry him off, give up the burden of the family, renounce the world and begin to practise Yoga. To him the Lord replies: You will never find the opportune moment to practise Yoga; for you will then say, 'Harish and Girish are very fond of me and cannot do without me', you will no doubt desire that Harish should have a son and the son marry. There will never be an end to your desires. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
968: uh i didn't so that was a funny story i ended up in the er and then like they were saying you're malnouished because i didn't have time to eat. i forgot to eat. so even when i was sleeping i would turn on the like a ted talks or npr so i can like listen my brain still kept working and even when i was sleeping i would put the books behind my pillow so the like knowledge really going to me i was obsessed i was crazy you were obsessed with yeah i was i was completely obsessed with the learning ~ Yeonmi Park, #KEYS
969:This is how it works. I love the people in my life, and I do for my friends whatever they need me to do for them, again and again, as many times as is necessary. For example, in your case you always forgot who you are and how much you're loved. So what I do for you as your friend is remind you who you are and tell you how much I love you. And this isn't any kind of burden for me, because I love who you are very much. Every time I remind you, I get to remember with you, which is my pleasure. ~ James Lecesne, #KEYS
970:I admit that my visions can never mean to other men as much as they do to me. I do not regret this. All I ask is that my results should convince seekers after truth that there is beyond doubt something worth while seeking, attainable by methods more or less like mine. I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics, or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle. ~ Aleister Crowley, #KEYS
971:When a jar is broken, the space that was inside Merges into the space outside. In the same way, my mind has merged in God; To me, there appears no duality.
Truly, there's no jar, no space within; There's no body and no soul encased. Please understand; everything is Brahman. There's no subject, no object, no separate parts.
Everywhere, always, and in everything, Know this: the Self alone exists. Everything, both the Void and the manifested world, Is nothing but my Self; of this I am certain. ~ The Song of the Avadhut,#KEYS
972:And Thou, O Lord, who art all this made one and much more, O sovereign Master, extreme limit of our thought, who standest for us at the threshold of the Unknown, make rise from that Unthinkable some new splendour, some possibility of a loftier and more integral realisation, that Thy work may be accomplished and the universe take one step farther towards the sublime Identity, the supreme Manifestation.
And now my pen falls mute and I adore Thee in silence.*
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations, 270,#KEYS
973:One does not say to God, Show your love for me first, shower on me the experience of yourself, satisfy my demand, then I will see whether I can love you so long as you deserve it. It is surely the seeker who must seek and love first, follow the quest, become impassioned for the Sought-then only does the veil move aside and the Light be seen and the Face manifest that alone can satisfy the soul after its long sojourn in the desert
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Sadhana through Love and Devotion,#KEYS
974:The Real made me contemplate the light of the veils as the star of strong backing rose, and He said to me, "Do you know how many veils I have veiled you with?"
"No", I replied.
He said, "With seventy veils. Even if you raise them you will not see Me, and if you do not raise them you will not see Me."
"If you raise them you will see Me and if you do not raise them you will see Me."
"Take care of burning yourself!"
"You are My sight, so have faith. You are My Face, so veil yourself" ~ Ibn Arabi,#KEYS
975:The Mother says, "Look at me, I am here, come back in my new body, divine, transformed and glorious. And I am the same Mother, still human. Do not worry. Do not be concerned about your own self, your progress and realisation, nor about others. I am here, look at me, gaze into me, enter into me wholly, merge into my being, lose yourself into my love, with your love. You will see all problems solved, everything done. Forget all else, forget the world. Remember me alone, be one with me, with my love." ~ Priti Dasgupta, Moments Eternal, #KEYS
976:If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in the darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the center of the silent Word.
Oh my people, what have I done unto thee.
Where shall the word be found, where shall the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence ~ T S Eliot,#KEYS
977:I would say that my most interesting experience with the earlier techniques was the realization that when you make cut-ups you do not get simply random juxtapositions of words, that they do mean something, and often that these meanings refer to some future event. I've made many cut-ups and then later recognized that the cut-up referred to something that I read later in a newspaper or a book, or something that happened... Perhaps events are pre-written and pre-recorded and when you cut word lines the future leaks out. ~ William S Burroughs, #KEYS
978:Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous. I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist; I want to prove that there is infinite space, infinite meaning, infinite dimension. But I am not always in what I call a state of grace. I have days of illuminations and fevers. I have days when the music in my head stops. Then I mend socks, prune trees, can fruits, polish furniture. But while I am doing this I feel I am not living. ~ Anaïs Nin, #KEYS
979:O Thou who art the sole reality of our being, O sublime Master of love, Redeemer of life, let me have no longer any other consciousness than of Thee at every instant and in each being. When I do not live solely with Thy life, I agonise, I sink slowly towards extinction; for Thou art my only reason for existence, my one goal, my single support. I am like a timid bird not yet sure of its wings and hesitating to take its flight; let me soar to reach definitive identity with Thee.
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations,#KEYS
980:
When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy.
When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song.
When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.
When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner, break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.
When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder.
~ Rabindranath Tagore,#KEYS
981:Mr. Venkatakrishnayya, a lawyer-devotee, visited Sri Bhagavan ten years before and asked Him what he should do to improve himself.
Sri Bhagavan told him to perform Gayatri Japa. The young man went away satisfied. When he returned after some years, he asked:
D.: If I meditate on the meaning of the Gayatri mantra, my mind again wanders. What is to be done?
M.: Were you told to meditate on the mantra or its meaning? You must think of the one who repeats the mantra. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks, 606,#KEYS
982:Some people are so afraid of losing their individuality. Wouldn't it be better for the pig to lose his pig-individuality if he can become God? Yes. But the poor pig does not think so at the time. Which state is my individuality? When I was a baby sprawling on the floor trying to swallow my thumb? Was that the individuality I should be sorry to lose? Fifty years hence I shall look upon this present state and laugh, just as I now look upon the baby state. Which of these individualities shall I keep? ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
983:Beneath the surface level of conditioned thinking in every one of us there is a single living spirit. The still small voice whispering to me in the depths of my consciousness is saying exactly the same thing as the voice whispering to you in your consciousness. 'I want an earth that is healthy, a world at peace, and a heart filled with love.' It doesn't matter if your skin is brown or white or black, or whether you speak English, Japanese, or Malayalam - the voice, says the Gita, is the same in every creature, and it comes from your true self. ~ Eknath Easwaran, #KEYS
984:I think a good way to conceive of sacred space is as a playground. If what you're doing seems like play, you are in it. But you can't play with my toys, you have to have your own. Your life should have yielded some. Older people play with life experiences and realizations or with thoughts they like to entertain. In my case, I have books I like to read that don't lead anywhere. One great thing about growing old is that nothing is going to lead to anything. Everything is of the moment ~ Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living, #KEYS
985:The only way out of your difficulty is to find the psychic being and to live entirely in its consciousness. Life upon earth as it is now is full of miseries and any sensitive heart is full of sorrow because of that. To get in contact with the Divine Consciousness and to live in its mercy, its strength and its light is the only truly effective way to get out of this difficulty and suffering and by uniting with the psychic we can obtain this condition. My help and blessings are with you for this purpose.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
986:Light will someday split you open
Even if your life is now a cage.
Little by little, You will turn into stars.
Little by little, You will turn into
The whole sweet, amorous Universe.
Love will surely burst you wide open
Into an unfettered, booming new galaxy.
You will become so free
In a wonderful, secret
And pure Love That flows
From a conscious, One-pointed, Infinite Light.
Even then, my dear, The Beloved will have fulfilled
Just a fraction, Just a fraction!
Of a promise He wrote upon your heart.
~ Hafiz,#KEYS
987:Divine Mother, I want to realise Your Presence in all the parts of my being, penetrating even the body - only I don't know how to do it. You are the very reason of my being; why then do I live now without feeling Your Presence even in the cells of my body?
The physical nature is obscure and recalcitrant everywhere; it is very difficult for it to become conscious of the divine Presence. That is why we must be patient and keep on aspiring with the certitude of Victory. My blessings are always with you.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
988:I was told when I grew up I could be anything I wanted: a fireman, a policeman, a doctor - even President, it seemed. And for the first time in the history of mankind, something new, called an astronaut. But like so many kids brought up on a steady diet of Westerns, I always wanted to be the avenging cowboy hero - that lone voice in the wilderness, fighting corruption and evil wherever I found it, and standing for freedom, truth and justice. And in my heart of hearts I still track the remnants of that dream wherever I go, in my endless ride into the setting sun. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
989:O son of earth, be blind and thou shalt see My beauty; be deaf and thou shalt hear My sweet song, My pleasant melody; be ignorant and thou shalt partake My knowledge; be in distress and thou shalt have an eternal portion of the infinite ocean of My riches:-blind to all that is not My beauty, deaf to all that is not My word, ignorant of all that is not My knowledge. Thus with a gaze that is pure, a spirit without stain, an understanding refined, thou shalt enter into my sacred presence. ~ Baha-ullah, "The Hidden Words in Persian.", the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
990:I feel sincerely that I want the Divine and nothing else. But when I am in contact with other people, when I am busy with things without any value, I naturally forget the Divine, my one goal. Is it insincerity? If not, then what does it mean?
Yes. It is insincerity of the being, in which one part wants the Divine and another part wants something else. It is through ignorance and stupidity that the being is insincere. But with a persevering will and an absolute confidence in the Divine Grace, one can cure this insincerity.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
991:Everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavors and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
992:(From a meditation written on the day after the Mother first saw Sri Aurobindo)
It matters little that there are thousands of beings plunged in the densest ignorance, He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; his presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, and Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth.
O Lord, Divine Builder of this marvel, my heart overflows with joy and gratitude when I think of it, and my hope has no bounds.
My adoration is beyond all words, my reverence is silent. 30 March 1914
~ The Mother,#KEYS
993:Any limiting categorization is not only erroneous but offensive, and stands in opposition to the basic human foundations of the therapeutic relationship. In my opinion, the less we think (during the process of psychotherapy) in terms of diagnostic labels, the better. (Albert Camus once described hell as a place where one's identity was eternally fixed and displayed on personal signs: Adulterous Humanist, Christian Landowner, Jittery Philosopher, Charming Janus, and so on.8 To Camus, hell is where one has no way of explaining oneself, where one is fixed, classified-once and for all time.) ~ Irvin D Yalom, #KEYS
994:Creator of all things, true source of light and wisdom, origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your light penetrate the darkness of my understanding. Take from me the double darkness in which I have been born, an obscurity of sin and ignorance. Give me a keen understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally. Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm. Point out the beginning, direct the progress, and help in the completion. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
995:If something wrong happens, at once repeat my name- "Ma" "Ma" ..... Indeed it is like a meditation. Whenever you repeat the name of the Divine, you must always feel that the Divine is in your heart -- there you can feel sweetness and peace. No doubt, sometimes you do not feel the Divine's presence and peace, it is because your consciousness is entangled in the mind full of illusions. But you must understand that the hostile forces are false and the divine Forces are true. You must also develop your consciousness towards the divine Light. ~ The Mother, MOTHER YOU SAID SO....., Huta, #KEYS
996:Flatland accepts no interior domain whatsoever, and reintroducing Spirit is the least of our worries. 'Thus our task is not specifically to reintroduce spirituality and somehow attempt to show that modern science is becoming compatible with God. That approach, which is taken by most of the integrative attempts, does not go nearly deep enough in diagnosing the disease, and thus, in my opinion, never really addresses the crucial issues. 'Rather, it is the rehabilitation of the interior in general that opens the possibility of reconciling science and religion.' ~ Ken Wilber, Marriage of Sense and Soul, p. 142., #KEYS
997:Never underestimate the long-term consequences of your actions. For as long as the mind has the obscurration of grasping at an inherently existing "me", then there will be karma. No matter how far on the path one is, no matter how realised one is, no matter how many miraculous powers one has attained, for as long as there is even a subtle trace of this obscurration, karma is there.
That is why Padmasambhava, an enlightened being not even affected by it, had skilfully told ordinary beings, "My realization is higher than the sky, but my observance of karma is finer than grains of flour." ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche,#KEYS
998:When a nation which has long groaned under the intolerable yoke of a tyrant rises at last and throws off its chains, do you call that weakness? The man who, to rescue his house from the flames, finds his physical strength redoubled, so that he lifts burdens with ease which in the absence of excitement he could scarcely move; he who under the rage of an insult attacks and puts to flight half a score of his enemies,-are such persons to be called weak? My good friend, if resistance be strength, how can the highest degree of resistance be a weakness? ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
999:The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain. ~ John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife, #KEYS
1000:Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 130
,#KEYS
1001:As a rule the only mantra used in this sadhana is that of the Mother or of my name and the Mother. The concentration in the heart and the concentration in the head can both be used - each has its own result. The first opens up the psychic being and brings bhakti, love and union with the Mother, her presence within the heart and the action of her Force in the nature. The other opens the mind to self-realisation, to the consciousness of what is above mind, to the ascent of the consciousness out of the body and the descent of the higher consciousness into the body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, #KEYS
1002:Shake off thy bondage, O children,
and walk in the Light of the glorious day.
Never turn thy thoughts to the darkness
and surely ye shall be One with The Light.
Man is only what he believeth,
a brother of darkness or a Child of The Light.
Come though into the Light my Children.
Walk in the pathway that leads to the Sun.
Hark ye now, and list to the Wisdom.
Use thou the word I have given unto thee.
Use it and surely though shalt find
power and wisdom and Light to walk in the way.
Seek thee and find the key I have given
and Ever shalt Thou be a Child of The Light. ~ Emerald Tablet,#KEYS
1003:I have devoted my energies to the study of the scriptures, observing monastic discipline, and singing the daily services in church; study, teaching, and writing have always been my delight . . . The ultimate Mystery of being, the ultimate Truth, is Love. This is the essential structure of reality. When Dante spoke of the 'love which moves the sun and the other stars', he was not using a metaphor, but was describing the nature of reality. There is in Being an infinite desire to give itself in love and this gift of Self in love is for ever answered by a return of love....and so the rhythm of the universe is created. ~ Venerable Bede, #KEYS
1004:I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me ~ that I understand. And these two certainties ~ my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle ~ I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my conditions?, #KEYS
1005:I would like to tell you that an enlightened essence is present in everyone. It is present in every state, both samsara and nirvana, and in all sentient beings; there is no exception. Experience your buddha nature, make it your constant practice, and you will reach enlightenment. In my lifetime I have known many, many people who attained such and enlightened state, both male and female. Awakening to enlightenment is not an ancient fable. It is not mythology. It actually does happen. Bring the oral instructions into your own practical experience and enlightenment is indeed possible; it is not just a fairy tale. ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, #KEYS
1006:I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.
~ Franz Kafka,#KEYS
1007:What art Thou then, my God? what, but the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God? Most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most present; most beautiful, yet most strong; stable, yet incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet all-changing; never new, never old; all-renewing, and bringing age upon the proud, and they know it not; ever working, ever at rest; still gathering, yet nothing lacking; supporting, filling, and overspreading; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet having all things. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
1008:Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
And even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
And we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.
Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?
Not angels, not humans, and already the knowing animals are aware
That we are not really at home in our interpreted world. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#KEYS
1009:How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people ~ first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving., #KEYS
1010:Sciences reach a point where they become mathematized..the central issues in the field become sufficiently understood that they can be thought about mathematically..[by the early 1990s] biology was no longer the science of things that smelled funny in refrigerators (my view from undergraduate days in the 1960s)..The field was undergoing a revolution and was rapidly acquiring the depth and power previously associated exclusively with the physical sciences. Biology was now the study of information stored in DNA - strings of four letters: A, T, G, and C..and the transformations that information undergoes in the cell. There was mathematics here! ~ Leonard Adleman, #KEYS
1011:So one of the things I do when a client comes is I just do a rough walk through of those dimensions its like does anybody care if youre alive or dead, you know, do you have any friends, do you have anybody that loves you, do you have an intimate relationship, how are things going with your family, do you have a job, are you as educated as you are intelligent, do you have any room for advancement in the future, do you do anything interesting outside of your job and if the answer to all of those is no.. its like your not depressed my friend you just are screwed. really. ~ Jordan Peterson, 015 Maps of Meaning 4: Narrative, Neuropsychology & Mythology II / Part 1, #KEYS
1012:Bride of the Fire :::
Bride of the Fire, clasp me now close, -
Bride of the Fire!
I have shed the bloom of the earthly rose,
I have slain desire.
Beauty of the Light, surround my life, -
Beauty of the Light!
I have sacrificed longing and parted from grief,
I can bear thy delight.
Image of Ecstasy, thrill and enlace, -
Image of Bliss!
I would see only thy marvellous face,
Feel only thy kiss.
Voice of Infinity, sound in my heart, -
Call of the One!
Stamp there thy radiance, never to part,
O living sun. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
1013:Mother, Why didn't You return the letter to me (the one You wrote to me) after I sent it to You this morning with my letter? I want to lie on Your lap, Mother.
Poor little one, I very gladly take you on my lap and cradle you to my heart to soothe this heavy sorrow which has no cause and to quell this great revolt which has no reason. Let me take you in my arms, bathe you in my love and wipe away even the memory of this unfortunate incident. I kept the letter to show it to Sri Aurobindo along with your letter of this morning. I am returning it to you in this notebook. - February 27th, 1934
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
1014:The Song On Reaching The Mountain Peak :::
Hearken, my sons! If you want
To climb the mountain peak
You should hold the Self-mind's light,
Tie it with a great "Knot,"
And catch it with a firm "Hook."
If you practice thus
You can climb the mountain peak
To enjoy the view.
Come, you gifted men and women,
Drink the brew of Experience!
Come "inside" to enjoy the scene
See it and enjoy it to the full!
The Incapable remain outside;
Those who cannot drink pure
Beer may quaff small beer.
He who cannot strive for Bodhi,
Should strive for superior birth. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,#KEYS
1015:I've always been keenly aware of the passing of time. I've always thought that I was old. Even when I was twelve, I thought it was awful to be thirty. I felt that something was lost. At the same time, I was aware of what I could gain, and certain periods of my life have taught me a great deal. But, in spite of everything, I've always been haunted by the passing of time and by the fact that death keeps closing in on us. For me, the problem of time is linked up with that of death, with the thought that we inevitably draw closer and closer to it, with the horror of decay. It's that, rather than the fact that things disintegrate, that love peters out. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #KEYS
1016:But you must remember that nothing can be achieved except in its proper time. Some persons must pass through many experiences and perform many worldly duties before they can turn their attention to God; so they have to wait a long time. If an abscess is lanced before it is soft, the result is not good; the surgeon makes the opening when it is soft and has come to a head. Once a child said to its mother: 'Mother, I am going to sleep now. Please wake me up when I feel the call of nature.' 'My child,' said the mother, 'when it is time for that, you will wake up yourself. I shan't have to wake you.' ~ Sri Ramakrishna, Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1017:There exist two extremes, O my brothers, to which he who aspires to liberation should never abandon himself. One of these extremes is the continual seeking after the satisfaction of the passions and the sensuality; that is vile, coarse, debasing and fatal, that is the road of the children of this world. The other extreme is a life consecrated to mortifications and asceticism; that is full of sorrow, suffering and inutility. Alone the middle path which the Perfect has discovered, avoids these two blind-alleys, accords clearsightedness, opens the intelligence and conducts to liberation, wisdom and perfection. ~ Mahavaga, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1018:Gird up thy loins now like a man; I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayst be righteous? Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him? Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty. Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud and abase him. Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret. Then I will also confess unto thee that thine own hand can save thee. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Job, 40:7-14, #KEYS
1019:Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well. One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit. "Where do you come from?" asked the frog in the well. "From the great ocean," he replied. "How big is your ocean?" "It's gigantic." "You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?" "Bigger." "Bigger? You mean half as big?" "No, even bigger." "Is it . . . as big as this well?" "There's no comparison." "That's impossible! I've got to see this for myself." They set off together. When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, #KEYS
1020:Working of Magick Art the changed aspect of the world whose culmination is the keeping of the oath "I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul" was present with me. This aspect is difficult to describe; one is indifferent to everything and yet interested in it. The meaning of things is lost, pending the inception of their Spiritual Meaning; just as, on putting one's eye to the microscope, the drop of water on the slide is gone, and a world of life discovered, though the real import of that world is not apprehended, until one's knowledge becomes far greater than a single glance can make it. ~ Aleister Crowley, #KEYS
1021:All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what's cool. And that works all the way from the external trappings to the level of metaphor, subtext, and the way one uses words. In other words, I happen not to think that full-plate armor and great big honking greatswords are cool. I don't like 'em. I like cloaks and rapiers. So I write stories with a lot of cloaks and rapiers in 'em, 'cause that's cool. Guys who like military hardware, who think advanced military hardware is cool, are not gonna jump all over my books, because they have other ideas about what's cool. ~ Stephen Brust, #KEYS
1022:Reply To A Friend ::: In stubborn stupidity, I live on alone
befriended by trees and herbs.
Too lazy to learn right from wrong,
I laugh at myself, ignoring others.
Lifting my bony shanks, I cross the stream,
a sack in my hand, blessed by spring weather.
Living thus, I want for nothing,
at peace with all the world.
Your finger points to the moon,
but the finger is blind until the moon appears.
What connection has moon and finger?
Are they separate objects or bound?
This is a question for beginners
wrapped in seas of ignorance.
Yet one who looks beyond metaphor
knows there is no finger; there is no moon. ~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
1023:And as I ran along the shore, crushing sleeping flowers with heedless feet and maddened ever by the fear of unknown things and the lure of the dead faces, I saw that the garden had no end under that moon; for where by day the walls were, there stretched now only new vistas of trees and paths, flowers and shrubs, stone idols and pagodas, and bendings of the yellow-litten stream past grassy banks and under grotesque bridges of marble. And the lips of the dead lotos-faces whispered sadly, and bade me follow, nor did I cease my steps till the stream became a river, and joined amidst marshes of swaying reeds and beaches of gleaming sand the shore of a vast and nameless sea. Upon ~ H P Lovecraft, #KEYS
1024:In the Middle Ages, a favorite image that occurs in many, many contexts is the wheel of fortune. There's the hub of the wheel, and there is the revolving rim of the wheel. For example, if you are attached to the rim of the wheel of fortune, you will be either above going down or at the bottom coming up. But if you are at the hub, you are in the same place all the time. That is the sense of the marriage vow~I take you in health or sickness, in wealth or poverty: going up or going down. But I take you as my center, and you are my bliss, not the wealth that you might bring me, not the social prestige, but you. That is following your bliss. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers, #KEYS
1025:Now as always-humility and terror. Fear that the working of my pen cannot capture the grinding of my brain. It is so easy to understand why the ancients prayed for the help of a Muse. And the Muse came and stood beside them, and we, heaven help us, do not believe in Muses. We have nothing to fall back on but our craftsmanship and it, as modern literature attests, is inadequate. May I be honest; may I be decent; may I be unaffected by the technique of hucksters. If invocation is required, let this be my invocation-may I be strong and yet gentle, tender and yet wise, wise and yet tolerant. May I for a little while, only for a little while, see with the inflamed eyes of a God. ~ John Steinbeck, #KEYS
1026:Einstein was remarkable for his powers of concentration; he could work uninterruptedly for hours and even days on the same problem. Some of the topics that interested him remained on his mind for decades. For relaxation he turned to music and to sailing, but often his work would continue during these moments as well; he usually had a notebook in his pocket so that he could jot down any idea that came to him. Once, after the theory of relativity had been put forth, he confessed to his colleague Wolfgang Pauli, "For the rest of my life I want to reflect on what light is." It is perhaps not entirely an accident that a focus on light is also the first visual act of the newborn child. ~ Howard Gardner, #KEYS
1027:I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias,#KEYS
1028:Saichō's Prayer
So long as I have not attained the stage where my six faculties are pure, I will not venture out into the world.
So long as I have not realized the absolute, I will not acquire any special skills or arts (e.g. medicine, divination, calligraphy, etc.)
So long as I have not kept all the precepts purely, I will not participate in any lay donor's Buddhist meetings.
So long as I have not attained wisdom (lit. hannya 般若), I will not participate in worldly affairs unless it be to benefit others.
May any merit from my practice in the past, present and future be given not to me, but to all sentient beings so that they may attain supreme enlightenment. ~ Saichō,#KEYS
1029:I too have been into the underworld, like Odysseus, and will often be there again; and I have not only sacrificed just rams to be able to talk with the dead, but my own blood as well. There have been four pairs who did not refuse themselves to me: Epicurus and Montaigne, Goethe and Spinoza, Plato and Rousseau, Pascal and Schopenhauer. With these I had come to terms when I have wandered long alone, and from them will I accept judgment. May the living forgive me if they sometimes appear to me as shades, so pale and ill-humored, so restless and, alas!, so lusting for life. Eternal liveliness is what counts beyond eternal life. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Human All Too Human, "Assorted Opinions and Maxims," §408 (edited)., #KEYS
1030:Where spring, the lord of seasons reigneth, there the unstruck music sounds of itself,
There the streams of light flow in all directions, few are the men who can cross to that shore!
There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded,
Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads, where millions of Brahmas are reading the Vedas,
Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation, where millions of Indras dwell in the sky,
Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered, where millions of Saraswatis, goddess of music play the vina,
There is my Lord self-revealed, and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in those deeps. ~ Kabir, II.57, Translated by Rabindranath Tagore[26],#KEYS
1031:Did you know that when a guy comes, he comes 200 million sperm? And you're trying to tell me that your child is special because one out of 200 million -- that load! we're talking one load! -- connected. Gee, what are the fucking odds? 200 million; you know what that means? I have wiped civilizations off my chest with a gray gym sock. That is special. Entire nations have flaked and crusted in the hair around my navel! That is special. And I want you to remember that, you two egg-carrying beings out there, with that holier-than-thou "we have the gift of life" attitude. I've tossed universes...in my underpants...while napping! Boom! A milky way shoots into my jockey shorts, "Aaaah, what's for fucking breakfast? ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
1032:Krishna:::
At last I find a meaning of soul's birth
Into this universe terrible and sweet,
I who have felt the hungry heart of earth
Aspiring beyond heaven to Krishna's feet.
I have seen the beauty of immortal eyes,
And heard the passion of the Lover's flute,
And known a deathless ecstasy's surprise
And sorrow in my heart for ever mute.
Nearer and nearer now the music draws,
Life shudders with a strange felicity;
All Nature is a wide enamoured pause
Hoping her lord to touch, to clasp, to be.
For this one moment lived the ages past;
The world now throbs fulfilled in me at last. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
1033:I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothloriene no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horselords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fanghorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystefied as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to W.H. Auden, June 7, 1955" #KEYS
1034:To what shore would you cross, O my heart?
there is no traveller before you, there is no road:
Where is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore?
There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there;
There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw it.
No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford!
There, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place that shall still the thirst of the soul?
You shall find naught in that emptiness.
Be strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold is firm.
Consider it well, O my heart! go not elsewhere,
Kabîr says: 'Put all imaginations away, and stand fast in that which you are. ~ Kabir,#KEYS
1035:Alas! I find no customers who want anything better than kalai pulse. No one wants to give up 'woman and gold'. Man, deluded by the beauty of woman and the power of money, forgets God. But to one who has seen the beauty of God, even the position of Brahma, the Creator, seems insignificant.
A man said to Ravana, 'You have been going to Sita in different disguises; why don't you go to her in the form of Rama?' 'But', Ravana replied, 'when I meditate on Rama in my heart, the most beautiful women - celestial maidens like Rambha and Tilottama - appear no better than ashes of the funeral pyre. Then even the position of Brahma appears trivial to me, not to speak of the beauty of another man's wife.' ~ Sri Ramakrishna,#KEYS
1036:The Golden Light :::
Thy golden Light came down into my brain
And the grey rooms of mind sun-touched became
A bright reply to Wisdom's occult plane,
A calm illumination and a flame.
Thy golden Light came down into my throat,
And all my speech is now a tune divine,
A paean-song of Thee my single note;
My words are drunk with the Immortal's wine.
Thy golden Light came down into my heart
Smiting my life with Thy eternity;
Now has it grown a temple where Thou art
And all its passions point towards only Thee.
Thy golden Light came down into my feet,
My earth is now Thy playfield and Thy seat. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
1037:Lila is by no means the last word. Passing through all these states, I said to the Divine Mother: 'Mother, in these states there is separation. Give me a state where there is no separation.' Then I remained for some time absorbed in the Indivisible Satchidananda. I removed the pictures of the gods and goddesses from my room. I began to perceive God in all beings. Formal worship dropped away. You see that bel-tree. I used to go there to pluck its leaves. One day, as I plucked a leaf, a bit of the bark came off. I round the tree full of Consciousness. I felt grieved because I had hurt the tree. One day I tried to pluck some durva grass, but I found I couldn't do it very well. Then I forced myself to pluck it. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1038:If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for . . . To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.
Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. ~ Thomas Merton,#KEYS
1039:It is not a question of making a few changes in individual lines, that is a very minor problem; the real finality only comes when all is felt as a perfect whole, no line jarring with or falling away from the level of the whole though some may rise above it and also all the parts in their proper place making the right harmony. It is an inner feeling that has to decide that and my inner feeling is not as satisfied in that respect with parts of the third section as it is with the first two. Unfortunately the mind can't arrange these things, one has to wait till the absolutely right thing comes in a sort of receptive self-opening and calling-down condition. Hence the months. 20 November 1936 ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Poetry And Art, #KEYS
1040:I Have A Hundred Lives:::
I have a hundred lives before me yet
To grasp thee in, O spirit ethereal,
Be sure I will with heart insatiate
Pursue thee like a hunter through them all.
Thou yet shalt turn back on the eternal way
And with awakened vision watch me come
Smiling a little at errors past, and lay
Thy eager hand in mine, its proper home.
Meanwhile made happy by thy happiness
I shall approach thee in things and people dear
And in thy spirit's motions half-possess
Loving what thou hast loved, shall feel thee near,
Until I lay my hands on thee indeed
Somewhere among the stars, as 'twas decreed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, 180,#KEYS
1041:The Divine Worker
I face earth's happenings with an equal soul;
In all are heard Thy steps: Thy unseen feet
Tread Destiny's pathways in my front. Life's whole
Tremendous theorem is Thou complete.
No danger can perturb my spirit's calm:
My acts are Thine; I do Thy works and pass;
Failure is cradled on Thy deathless arm,
Victory is Thy passage mirrored in Fortune's glass.
In this rude combat with the fate of man
Thy smile within my heart makes all my strength;
Thy Force in me labours at its grandiose plan,
Indifferent to the Time-snake's crawling length.
No power can slay my soul; it lives in Thee.
Thy presence is my immortality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
1042:The books I liked became a Bible from which I drew advice and support; I copied out long passages from them; I memorized new canticles and new litanies, psalms, proverbs, and prophecies, and I sanctified every incident in my life by the recital of these sacred texts. My emotions, my tears, and my hopes were no less sincere on account of that; the words and the cadences, the lines and the verses were not aids to make believe: but they rescued from silent oblivion all those intimate adventures of the spirit that I couldn't speak to anyone about; they created a kind of communion between myself and those twin souls which existed somewhere out of reach; instead of living out my small private existence, I was participating in a great spiritual epic. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #KEYS
1043:Faith :::
One must say, "Since I want only the Divine, my success is sure, I have only to walk forward in all confidence and His own Hand will be there secretly leading me to Him by His own way and at His own time." That is what you must keep as your constant mantra. Anything else one may doubt but that he who desires only the Divine shall reach the Divine is a certitude and more certain than two and two make four. That is the faith every sadhak must have at the bottom of his heart, supporting him through every stumble and blow and ordeal. It is only false ideas still casting their shadows on your mind that prevent you from having it. Push them aside and the back of the difficulty will be broken. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
1044:Cosmic Consciousness :::
I have wrapped the wide world in my wider self
And Time and Space my spirit's seeing are.
I am the god and demon, ghost and elf,
I am the wind's speed and the blazing star.
All Nature is the nursling of my care,
I am its struggle and the eternal rest;
The world's joy thrilling runs through me, I bear
The sorrow of millions in my lonely breast.
I have learned a close identity with all,
Yet am by nothing bound that I become;
Carrying in me the universe's call
I mount to my imperishable home.
I pass beyond Time and life on measureless wings,
Yet still am one with born and unborn things.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
1045:ཨོཾ། འཇིགས་པ་བརྒྱད་སྐྱོབ་མ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ། །
OM, JIK PA GYÉ KYOB MA LA CHAK TSAL LO
"Om! Homage to you, who protects from the eight fears!
བཀྲ་ཤིས་དཔལ་འབར་མ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ། །
TASHI PAL BAR MA LA CHAK TSAL LO
Homage to you, who shines as a beacon of goodness!
ངན་སོང་སྒོ་འགེགས་མ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ། །
NGEN SONG GO GEK MA LA CHAK TSAL LO
Homage to you, who closes the gates to the lower realms!
མཐོ་རིས་ལམ་འདྲེན་མ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ། །
TORI LAM DREN MA LA CHAK TSAL LO
Homage to you, who leads the way to the higher realms!
རྟག་ཏུ་ཁྱེད་ཀྱིས་སྟོངས་པར་མཛད། །
TAK TU KYÉ KYI TONG PAR DZÉ
You are my constant companion.
ད་དུང་ཐུགས་རྗེས་བསྐྱབ་ཏུ་གསོལ། །
DA DUNG TUK JÉ KYAB TU SOL
Always protect me with compassion! ~ Prayer to Tara, H E Garchen Rinpoche?#KEYS
1046:For me everything in human life is mixed, nothing is completely good, nothing completely bad. I cannot give my entire and exclusive support to this idea or that idea, to one cause or another.
The only important thing for me, in action, is Sri Aurobindo's work, automatically my conscious support is with all that helps that work and in proportion to the help. And for the work to be carried on as it must be I need all collaborations and all helps, I cannot accept only this one or that one and reject the others. I cannot belong to this party or that party. I belong to the Divine alone and my action upon earth is and will always be for the triumph of the Divine, irrespective of all sects and parties.
29 February 1956 ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I,#KEYS
1047:Because Thou Art :::
Because Thou art All-beauty and All-bliss,
My soul blind and enamoured yearns for Thee;
It bears thy mystic touch in all that is
And thrills with the burden of that ecstasy.
Behind all eyes I meet Thy secret gaze
And in each voice I hear Thy magic tune:
Thy sweetness haunts my heart through Nature's ways
Nowhere it beats now from Thy snare immune.
It loves Thy body in all living things;
Thy joy is there in every leaf and stone:
The moments bring thee on their fiery wings;
Sight's endless artistry is Thou alone.
Time voyages with Thee upon its prow
And all the futures passionate hope is Thou.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
1048:My child, if you can concentrate deeply into my eyes, then you will get all that you want to know, all that you want to comprehend, all that you want to realise, just by an intense concentration, just by the power of your will which expresses itself through your eyes.
You can have all that you aspire for, all that you need. You can see the whole world in my eyes: the whole universe unfolds in my eyes, all that is beautiful in nature as well as in the heavens. And you will not need to go here and there looking for the so-called attractions and revelations of this world. All is in me, and all expresses itself through me. Take the trouble to find me there (Mother points to the heart) and you will see everything, everything through my eyes. Voilà! ~ The Mother,#KEYS
1049:
Mother, I would like to know from you if it is good for me to devote more time to meditation than I am doing at present. I spend about two hours, morning and evening together. I am as yet not quite successful in meditation. My physical mind disturbs me a lot. I pray to you that it may become quiet and my psychic being may come out. It is so painful to find the mind working like a mad machine and the heart sleeping like a stone. Mother, let me feel your presence within my heart always.
...
The increase of time given to meditation is not very useful unless the urge for meditation comes spontaneously from inside and not from any arbitrary decision of the mind.
My help, love and blessings are always with you.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
1050:Everyone who is turned to the Mother is doing my Yoga. It is a great mistake to suppose that one can 'do' the Purna Yoga - i.e. carry out and fulfil all the sides of the Yoga by one's own effort. No human being can do that. What one has to do is to put oneself in the Mother's hands and open oneself to her by service, by bhakti, by aspiration; then the Mother by her light and force works in him so that the sadhana is done. It is a mistake also to have the ambition to be a big Purna Yogi or a supramental being and ask oneself how far have I got towards that. The right attitude is to be devoted and given to the Mother and to wish to be whatever she wants you to be. The rest is for the Mother to decide and do in you.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, 151 [T3],#KEYS
1051:O DIVINE Force, supreme Illuminator, hearken to our prayer, move not away from us, do not withdraw, help us to fight the good fight, make firm our strength for the struggle, give us the force to conquer!
O my sweet Master, Thou whom I adore without being able to know Thee, Thou who I am without being able to realise Thee, my entire conscious individuality prostrates itself before Thee and implores, in the name of the workers in their struggle, and of the earth in her agony, in the name of suffering humanity and of striving Nature;
O my sweet Master, O marvellous Unknowable, O Dispenser of all boons, Thou who makest light spring forth in the darkness and strength to arise out of weakness, support our effort, guide our steps, lead us to victory.
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations, 211,#KEYS
1052:Invitation:::
With wind and the weather beating round me
Up to the hill and the moorland I go.
Who will come with me? Who will climb with me?
Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?
Not in the petty circle of cities
Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell;
Over me God is blue in the welkin,
Against me the wind and the storm rebel.
I sport with solitude here in my regions,
Of misadventure have made me a friend.
Who would live largely? Who would live freely?
Here to the wind-swept uplands ascend.
I am the Lord of tempest and mountain,
I am the Spirit of freedom and pride.
Stark must he be and a kinsman to danger
Who shares my kingdom and walks at my side. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
1053:A talisman is a storehouse of some particular kind of energy, the kind that is needed to accomplish the task for which you have constructed it...The decisive advantage of this system is not that its variety makes it so adaptable to our needs, but that we already posses the Invocations necessary to call forth the Energies required...You must lay most closely to your heart the theory of the Magical Link and see well to it that it rings true; for without this your talisman is worse than useless. It is dangerous; for all that Energy is bound to expend itself somehow; it will make its own links with anything handy that takes its fancy; and you can get into any sort of the most serious kind of trouble...Most of my Talismans, like my Invocations, have been poems. ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears, #KEYS
1054:You have spoken much today of my self-sacrifice and devotion to my country. I have heard that kind of speech ever since I came out of jail, but I hear it with embarrassment, with something of pain. For I know my weakness, I am a prey to my own faults and backslidings. I was not blind to them before and when they all rose up against me in seclusion, I felt them utterly. I knew them that I the man was a man of weakness, a faulty and imperfect instrument, strong only when a higher strength entered into me. Then I found myself among these young men and in many of them I discovered a mighty courage, a power of self-effacement in comparison with which I was simply nothing. I saw one or two who were not only superior to me in force and character, - very many were that, - but in the promise of that intellectual ability on which I prided myself. ~ ?, #KEYS
1055:Thus slowly I lift man's soul nearer the Light.
But human mind clings to its ignorance
And to its littleness the human heart
And to its right to grief the earthly life.
Only when Eternity takes Time by the hand,
Only when infinity weds the finite's thought,
Can man be free from himself and live with God.
I bring meanwhile the gods upon the earth;
I bring back hope to the despairing heart;
I give peace to the humble and the great,
And shed my grace on the foolish and the wise.
I shall save earth, if earth consents to be saved.
Then Love shall at last unwounded tread earth's soil;
Man's mind shall admit the sovereignty of Truth
And body bear the immense descent of God."
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
1056:For throughout its life, without knowing it or with some presentiment of it, it was Thou whom it was seeking; in all its passions, all its enthusiasms, all its hopes and disillusionments, all its sufferings and all its joys, it was Thou whom it ardently wanted. And now that it has found Thee, now that it possesses Thee in a supreme Peace and Felicity, it wonders that it should have needed so many sensations, emotions, experiences to discover Thee.
But all this, which was a struggle, a turmoil, a perpetual effort, has become through the sovereign grace of Thy conscious Presence, a priceless fortune which the being rejoices to offer as its gift to Thee. The purifying flame of Thy illumination has turned it into jewels of price laid down as a living holocaust on the altar of my heart.
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations, 322, [T1],#KEYS
1057:So it is that when Dante had taken the last step in his spiritual adventure, and came before the ultimate symbolic vision of the Triune God in the Celestial Rose, he had still one more illumination to experience, even beyond the forms of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. "Bernard," he writes, "made a sign to me, and smiled, that I should look upward; but I was already, of myself, such as he wished; for my sight, becoming pure, was entering more and more, through the radiance of the lofty Light which in Itself is true. Thenceforward my vision was greater than our speech, which yields to such a sight, and the memory yields to such excess. [167]
[167] "Paradiso," XXXIII, 49-57 (translation by Norton, op. cit., Vol. Ill, pp. 253-254, by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers). ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Ultimate Boon,#KEYS
1058:But it was enough if, in my own bed, my sleep was deep and allowed my mind to relax entirely; then it would let go of the map of the place where I had fallen asleep and, when I woke in the middle of the night, since I did not know where I was, I did not even understand in the first moment who I was; all I had, in its original simplicity, was the sense of existence as it may quiver in the depths of an animal; I was more bereft than a caveman; but then the memory - not yet of the place where I was, but of several of those where I had lived and where I might have been - would come to me like help from on high to pull me out of the void from which I could not have got out on my own; I passed over centuries of civilization in one second, and the image confusedly glimpsed of oil lamps, then of wing-collar shirts, gradually recomposed my self's original features. ~ Marcel Proust, #KEYS
1059:For the last three weeks I've been working on a open world game in Inform 7. The initial seed for my idea came when I was playing Rune Factory 3 a game for my DS. And I thought, Hey look if I can run a farm here why can't I somehow implement this in a interactive fiction. So I sat myself down and began to type away furiously at my keyboard. And the more I sat the more complicated my farming implementation got, requiring water and fertilizer, levels of sunlight ect
And then, finally, I finished it. And my mind began to wander. Why just stop there why not keep going. And soon I was adding mining, weather and a form of crafting items. Now if I get this done, and don't fall into the trap of to create everything, of which I am slowly making the maddening descent, I could have a open world IF game ready within a few months. Maybe more than a few. ~ KGentle, intfiction.org,#KEYS
1060:This Dog
Every morning this dog, very attached to me,
Quietly keeps sitting near my seat
Till touching its head
I recognize its company.
This recognition gives it so much joy
Pure delight ripples through its entire body.
Among all dumb creatures
It is the only living being
That has seen the whole man
Beyond what is good or bad in him
It has seen
For his love it can sacrifice its life
It can love him too for the sake of love alone
For it is he who shows the way
To the vast world pulsating with life.
When I see its deep devotion
The offer of its whole being
I fail to understand
By its sheer instinct
What truth it has discovered in man.
By its silent anxious piteous looks
It cannot communicate what it understands
But it has succeeded in conveying to me
Among the whole creation
What is the true status of man.
~ Rabindranath Tagore,#KEYS
1061:Truth is one, unique, single; it is
indivisibly One.
And its Oneness, and the knowledge of
that oneness belongs to him; is
placed in him.
Impossible, impossible; it is aloofness,
estrangement, separation; he is known only
by them.
Knowledge of One is abstract; single,
indivisible.
To say one, and to say single is to reach
the attribute; but he, who is one, is beyond
attribute.
If I say "I," he sends back "I," in answer
to my "I". So, "he" is for you and not for
me.
And if I say Unity is Oneness for his
loneliness, for his being alone, then I
placed him in
creation; among things created.
And if I say single One, as number one; how
can he come
within
number?
And if I say, he is One for as the
result of being considered one, being proved
One-then I
placed limit on him; delimited
him. ~ Mansur al Hallaj,#KEYS
1062:It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple. They look simple, but they are not. The table I am sitting at looks simple: but ask a scientist to tell you what it is really made of-all about the atoms and how the light waves rebound from them and hit my eye and what they do to the optic nerve and what it does to my brain-and, of course, you find that what we call "seeing a table" lands you in mysteries and complications which you can hardly get to the end of. A child saying a child's prayer looks simple. And if you are content to stop there, well and good. But if you are not--and the modern world usually is not--if you want to go on and ask what is really happening, then you must be prepared for something difficult. If we ask for something more than simplicity, it is silly then to complain that the something more is not simple. ~ C S Lewis, Mere Christianity, #KEYS
1063:
Often, when I read Sri Aurobindo's works or listen to His words, I am wonderstruck: how can this eternal truth, this beauty of expression escape people? It is really strange that He is not yet recognised, at least as a supreme creator, a pure artist, a poet par excellence! So I tell myself that my judgments, my appreciations are influenced by my devotion for the Master - and everyone is not devoted. I do not think this is true. But then why are hearts not yet enchanted by His words?
Who can understand Sri Aurobindo? He is as vast as the universe and his teaching is infinite...
The only way to come a little close to him is to love him sincerely and give oneself unreservedly to his work. Thus, each one does his best and contributes as much as he can to that transformation of the world which Sri Aurobindo has predicted. 2 December 1964
~ The Mother, On Education, 396,#KEYS
1064:I am the sort of man who has changed completely under the effect of suffering, even though this transformation may simply be the intensification of elements already there. Thus amplified, they gave an entirely new perspective on life. I believe frenetically and fanatically, in the virtues of suffering and of anxiety, and I believe in them especially since, though I've suffered greatly and despaired much, I nevertheless acquired through them a sense of my own destiny, a sort of weird enthusiasm for my mission. On the heights of the most terrifying despair, I experience the joy of having a destiny, of living a life of successive deaths and transfigurations, of turning every moment into a cross-road. And I am proud that my life begins with death, unlike the majority of people, who end with death. I feel as if my death were in the past, and the future looks to me like a sort of personal illumination.
~ Emil Cioran,#KEYS
1065:As long as you remain in mortality,' Jesus continued, 'you will not be able to discern who is in what group, for they grow as tares among wheat, but those who ascend to live on a spiritual plane will be called out by the More Sure Word of Prophecy and brought into the Body of the Firstborn through a holy anointing so that you will know them. Others may not know them, but you will know them, just as you will be known by them. Those who are deaf and blind to Truth will join together, for mortals prefer the company of their own kind, and they will separate themselves from you, for they will be uncomfortable in your Light. They will set up their own churches in the image of my Body, but there will be no Life in them except that which they borrow from my teachings, so that while they may have the illusion of life for a little while, they will eventually die and dissolve into that darkness which is their Source.
~ Source?,#KEYS
1066:
There is no darkness, we only close our eyes
and shut out the Light;
There is no pain, it is only our shrinking
from an intense and unwelcome Delight;
There is no death, it is only our dread of the Life Eternal
that comes back upon us and smites us.
Our senses are tremulous and fearsome
and cling to the empty littlenesses of the surface moment,
they heed not the vast surges of Infinitude
that sweep and pass by.
Calm, calm, my soul! Sink down and deep:
Fashion the crystal bowl of thy heart
with all the serene profundity of the unknown spaces -
And drop by drop will gather there
a bliss immortals only can taste,
And ray by ray will dawn the Light supernal....
Or - be prepared for this too, soul, my soul -
the down-rush of a myriad undyked cataracts,
the sudden bursting of a whole stellar conflagration
March 17, 1935 ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, , To the Heights,#KEYS
1067:I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva who surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna whom I saw standing there and holding over me his shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who was guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the coarse blankets that were given me for a couch and felt the arms of Sri Krishna around me, the arms of my Friend and Lover. This was the first use of the deeper vision He gave me. I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin,#KEYS
1068:10 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,
11 persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.
12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
13 while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,
15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. ~ 2 Timothy 3#KEYS
1069:My deepest debt in this book is to the General Semantics ('non-Aristotelian system') of Alfred Korzybski. I have also drawn heavily upon the works of other contributors to semantic thought: especially C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, Thorstein Veblen, Edward Sapir, Leonard Bloomfield, Karl R. Popper, Thurman Arnold, Jerome Frank, Jean Piaget, Charles Morris, Wendell Johnson, Irving J. Lee, Ernst Cassirer, Anatol Rapoport, Stuart Chase. I am also deeply indebted to the writings of numerous psychologists and psychiatrists with one or another of the dynamic points of view inspired by Sigmund Freud: Karl Menninger, Trigant Burrow, Carl Rogers, Kurt Lewin, N. R. F. Maier, Jurgen Ruesch, Gregory Bateson, Rudolf Dreikurs, Milton Rokeach. I have also found extremely helpful the writings of cultural anthropologists, especially those of Benjamin Lee Whorf, Ruth Benedict, Clyde Kluckhohn, Leslie A. White, Margaret Mead, Weston La Barre. ~ S. I. Hayakawa, #KEYS
1070:To The Works Of:
Aristotle, Cassius J. Keyser, Eric T. Bell, G. W. Leibnitz, Eugen Bleuler, J. Locke, Niels Bohr, Jacques Loeb, George Boole, H. A. Lorentz, Max Born, Ernst Mach, Louis De Brogue, J. C. Maxwell, Georg Cantor, Adolf Meyer, Ernst Cassirer, Hermann Minkowsja, Charles M. Child, Isaac Newton, C. Darwin, Ivan Pavlov, Rene Descartes, Giuseppe Peano, P. A. M. Dirac, Max Planck, A. S. Eddington, Plato, Albert Einstein, H. Poincare, Euclid, M. Faraday, Sigmund Freud, Josiah Royce, Karl F. Gauss, G. Y. Rainich, G. B. Riemann, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Graham, Ernest Rutherford, Arthur Haas, E. Schrodinger, Wm. R. Hamilton, C. S. Sherrington, Henry Head, Socrates, Werner Heisenberg, Arnold Sommerfeld, C. Judson Herrick, Oswald Veblen, E. V. Huntington, Wm. Alanson White, Smith Ely Jeluffe, Alfred N. Whitehead, Ludwig Wittgenstein
Which Have Creatly Influenced My Enquiry
This System Is Dedicated ~ Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity,#KEYS
1071:Please explain to me what is meant by the Divine Mother.
The Divine Mother is the Consciousness and Force of the Divine - which is the Mother of all things.
24 June 1933
You have written in The Mother that the Mother is the consciousness and force of the Ishwara, but here my experience is that the Ishwara is the consciousness and force of the Supreme Mother. Could you please make it clear to me?
The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Divine - or, it may be said, she is the Divine in its consciousness-force. The Ishwara as Lord of the Cosmos does come out of the Mother who takes her place beside him as the cosmic Shakti - the cosmic Ishwara is one aspect of the Divine. The experience therefore is correct so far as it goes.
16 November 1934 ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature, The Consciousness and Force of the Divine,#KEYS
1072:Talk 183.
A gentleman from Bombay said: "I asked Mother in Sri Aurobindo Ashram the following question: 'I keep my mind blank without thoughts arising so that God might show Himself in His true Being. But I do not perceive anything.
"The reply was to this effect: 'The attitude is right. The Power will come down from above. It is a direct experience'."
So he asked what further he should do.
M.: Be what you are. There is nothing to come down or become manifest. All that is needful is to lose the ego, That what is, is always there. Even now you are That. You are not apart from it. The blank is seen by you. You are there to see the blank. What do you wait for? The thought "I have not seen," the expectation to see and the desire of getting something, are all the working of the ego. You have fallen into the snares of the ego. The ego says all these and not you. Be yourself and nothing more! ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,#KEYS
1073:I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence and find out knowledge of witty inventions.... Counsel is mine and sound knowledge. I am understanding. I am strength. By me Kings reign and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. I love them that love me. And those that seek me shall find me. Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver. I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment, that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.... I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning before ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills were, I was brought forth. ~ Proverbs, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1074:The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.
Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance-
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?
Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.
If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she
would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god. ~ Billy Collins, Dharma,#KEYS
1075:Please initiate me into a tangible form of Yoga. I make this assurance that I shall follow your instructions to the very letter and refer to you my doubts and difficulties on the way.
There is no method in this Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. 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. 30 November 1934 ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
1076:The hell I won't talk that way! Peter, an eternity here without her is not an eternity of bliss; it is an eternity of boredom and loneliness and grief. You think this damned gaudy halo means anything to me when I know--yes, you've convinced me!--that my beloved is burning in the Pit? I didn't ask much. Just to be allowed to live with her. I was willing to wash dishes forever if only I could see her smile, hear her voice, touch her hand! She's been shipped on a technicality and you know it! Snobbish, bad-tempered angels get to live here without ever doing one lick to deserve it. But my Marga, who is a real angel if one ever lived, gets turned down and sent to Hell to everlasting torture on a childish twist in the rules. You can tell the Father and His sweet-talking Son and that sneaky Ghost that they can take their gaudy Holy City and shove it! If Margrethe has to be in Hell, that's where I want to be!
~ Robert Heinlein, Alexander Hergensheimer in Job: A Comedy of Justice, (1984).,#KEYS
1077:When ye look at me I am an idle, idle man; when I look at myself I am a busy, busy man. Since upon the plain of uncreated infinity I am building, building the tower of ecstasy, I have no time for building houses. Since upon the steppe of the void of truth I am breaking, breaking the savage fetter of suffering, I have no time for ploughing family land. Since at the bourn of unity ineffable I am subduing, subduing the demon-foe of self, I have no time for subduing angry foe-men. Since in the palace of mind which transcends duality I am waiting, waiting for spiritual experience as my bride, I have no time for setting up house. Since in the circle of the Buddhas of my body I am fostering, fostering the child of wisdom, I have no time for fostering snivelling children. Since in the frame of the body, the seat of all delight, I am saving, saving precious instruction and reflection, I have no time for saving wordly wealth. ~ Jetsun Milarepa, Songs of Milarepa, #KEYS
1078:Though I speak with the tongues of men and of an- gels and have not charity, I am as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not ; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up doth not behave itself unseemly seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinlceth no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth...And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity. Follow after charity. ~ I. Corinthians. 1. 8. 13-XIV. 8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1079:The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga - but they could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way. Many have such illuminations, even initial realisations while meditating on verses of the Upanishads or the Gita. Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light this fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body. In all ages spiritual seekers have expressed their aspirations or their experiences in poetry or inspired language and it has helped themselves and others. Therefore there is nothing absurd in my assigning to such poetry a spiritual or psychic value and effectiveness to poetry of a psychic or spiritual character.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
1080:[E]very man hath liberty to write, but few ability. Heretofore learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base and illiterate scribblers, that either write for vain-glory, need, to get money, or as Parasites to flatter and collogue with some great men, they put out trifles, rubbish and trash. Among so many thousand Authors you shall scarce find one by reading of whom you shall be any whit better, but rather much worse; by which he is rather infected than any way perfected...
What a catalogue of new books this year, all his age (I say) have our Frankfurt Marts, our domestic Marts, brought out. Twice a year we stretch out wits out and set them to sale; after great toil we attain nothing...What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast Chaos and confusion of Books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning. For my part I am one of the number-one of the many-I do not deny it... ~ Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy,#KEYS
1081:When I began to lose my sight, the last color I saw, or the last color, rather, that stood out, because of course now I know that your coat is not the same color as this table or of the woodwork behind you~the last color to stand out was yellow because it is the most vivid of colors. That's why you have the Yellow Cab Company in the United States. At first they thought of making the cars scarlet. Then somebody found out that at night or when there was a fog that yellow stood out in a more vivid way than scarlet. So you have yellow cabs because anybody can pick them out. Now when I began to lose my eyesight, when the world began to fade away from me, there was a time among my friends… well they made, they poked fun at me because I was always wearing yellow neckties. Then they thought I really liked yellow, although it really was too glaring. I said, 'Yes, to you, but not to me, because it is the only color I can see, practically!' I live in a gray world, rather like the silver-screen world. But yellow stands out. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #KEYS
1082:The Garden ::: There's an ancient, ancient garden that I see sometimes in dreams,
Where the very Maytime sunlight plays and glows with spectral gleams;
Where the gaudy-tinted blossoms seem to wither into grey,
And the crumbling walls and pillars waken thoughts of yesterday.
There are vines in nooks and crannies, and there's moss about the pool,
And the tangled weedy thicket chokes the arbour dark and cool:
In the silent sunken pathways springs a herbage sparse and spare,
Where the musty scent of dead things dulls the fragrance of the air.
There is not a living creature in the lonely space arouna,
And the hedge~encompass'd d quiet never echoes to a sound.
As I walk, and wait, and listen, I will often seek to find
When it was I knew that garden in an age long left behind;
I will oft conjure a vision of a day that is no more,
As I gaze upon the grey, grey scenes I feel I knew before.
Then a sadness settles o'er me, and a tremor seems to start -
For I know the flow'rs are shrivell'd hopes - the garden is my heart. ~ H P Lovecraft,#KEYS
1083:Over and over again I sail towards joy, which is never in the room with me, but always near me, across the way, like those rooms full of gayety one sees from the street, or the gayety in the street one sees from a window. Will I ever reach joy? It hides behind the turning merry-go-round of the traveling circus. As soon as I approach it, it is no longer joy. Joy is a foam, an illumination. I am poorer and hungrier for the want of it. When I am in the dance, joy is outside in the elusive garden. When I am in the garden, I hear it exploding from the house. When I am traveling, joy settles like an aurora borealis over the land I leave. When I stand on the shore I see it bloom on the flag of a departing ship. What joy? Have I not possessed it? I want the joy of simple colors, street organs, ribbons, flags, not a joy that takes my breath away and throws me into space alone where no one else can breathe with me, not the joy that comes from a lonely drunkenness. There are so many joys, but I have only known the ones that come like a miracle, touching everything with light. ~ Anais Nin, #KEYS
1084:Worldly affairs are all deceptive;
So I seek the truth Divine.
Excitements and distractions are illusions;
So I meditate on the non-dual Truth.
Companions and servants are deceptive;
So I remain in solitude.
Money and possessions are also deceptive;
So if I have them, I give them away.
Things in the outer world are all illusion;
The Inner Mind is that which I observe.
Wandering thoughts are all deceptive;
So I only tread the path of wisdom.
Deceptive are the teachings of expedient truth;
The final truth is that on which I meditate.
Books written in black ink are all misleading;
I only meditate on the pith-instructions of the whispered lineage.
Words and sayings, too, are but illusion;
At ease, I rest my mind in the effortless state.
Birth and death are both illusions;
I observe but the truth of no-arising.
The common mind is in every way misleading;
And so I practice how to animate awareness.
The Mind-holding Practice
is misleading and deceptive;
And so I rest in the realm of reality. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,#KEYS
1085:the importance and power of surrender :::
Surrender is the decision taken to hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine. Without this decision nothing is at all possible; if you do not surrender, the Yoga is entirely out of the question. Everything else comes naturally after it, for the whole process starts with surrender. You can surrender either through knowledge or through devotion. You may have a strong intuition that the Divine alone is the truth and a luminous conviction that without the Divine you cannot manage. Or you may have a spontaneous feeling that this line is the only way of being happy, a strong psychic desire to belong exclusively to the Divine: I do not belong to my self, you say, and give up the responsibility of your being to the Truth. Then comes self-offering: Here I am, a creature of various qualities, good and bad, dark and enlightened. I offer myself as I am to you, take me up with all my ups and downs, conflicting impulses and tendencies - do whatever you like with me.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
1086:
But why does the Divine want to manifest Himself on earth in this chaos?
Because this is why He has created the earth, not for any other motive; the earth is He Himself in a deformation and He wants to establish it back again in its truth. Earth is not something separated from Him and alien to Him. It is a deformation of Himself which must once again become what it was in its essence, that is, the Divine.
Then why is He a stranger to us?
But He is not a stranger, my child. You fancy that He is a stranger, but He is not, not in the least. He is the essence of your being - not at all alien. You may not know Him, but He is not a stranger; He is the very essence of your being. Without the Divine you would not exist. Without the Divine you could not exist even for the millionth part of a second. Only, because you live in a kind of false illusion and deformation, you are not conscious. You are not conscious of yourself, you are conscious of something which you think to be yourself, but which isn't you.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955,#KEYS
1087:My understanding is that these are interdmensional entities that have an objective existence apart from the tripper's consciousness
The narcissistic reductionistism of physicalism assumes that either consciousness is an epiphenomnon of brain activity, or, at best, that brain and consciousness are two different aspects of the same reality (e.g. Neutral Monism, Teilhard, Wilber). While the latter option is more receptive of alternate realities, neither of these options acknowledges entities or consciousness existing apart from the empirical material world.
Ufo researcher John Keel coined the term "ultraterrestrial." A similar phenomenon may be the case here. These are entities that are more "material" than the imaginal ("astral") world.
So, a continuum of being might be something like:
- Transcendent
- Mind or psyche apart from matter
- Imaginal world (sensu Henry Corbin, = Collective Unconscious of Jung)
- Interdimensional, Ultraterrestrial, ufos, drug vision entities, high strangeness
- Orgone (Reich), linga sharira (Blavatsky), Etheric body
- Empirical material reality ~ M Alan Kazlev, Facebook 2020-09-14,#KEYS
1088:DEFEAT
Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;
You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,
And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.
Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,
Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot
And not to be trapped by withering laurels.
And in you I have found aloneness
And the joy of being shunned and scorned.
Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,
In your eyes I have read
That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,
And to be understood is to be leveled down,
And to be grasped is but to reach one's fullness
And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.
Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,
You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,
And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,
And urging of seas,
And of mountains that burn in the night,
And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.
Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,
You and I shall laugh together with the storm,
And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,
And we shall stand in the sun with a will,
And we shall be dangerous. ~ Kahlil Gibran,#KEYS
1089:I've never been lonely. I've been in a room ~ I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful ~ awful beyond all ~ but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, The strongest men are the most alone. I've never thought, Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good. No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there? Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine! ~ Charles Bukowski, #KEYS
1090:Raise Your Standards
Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards. When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming.
Think of the far-reaching consequences set in motion by men and women who raised their standards and acted in accordance with them, deciding they would tolerate no less. History chronicles the inspiring examples of people like Leonardo da Vinci, Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Albeit Einstein, Cesar Chavez, Soichiro Honda, and many others who took the magnificently powerful step of raising their standards. The same power that was available to them is available to you, if you have the courage to claim it. Changing an organization, acompany, a country-or a world-begins with the simple step of changing yourself.
STEP TWO
Change Your Limiting Beliefs ~ Anthony Robbins, How to take Immediate Control of Your Mental Emotional Physical and Financial Destiny,#KEYS
1091:I have got three letters from you, but as I was busy with many things I couldn't answer them-today I am answering all the three together. It was known that it wouldn't be possible for you to come for darshan this time, it can't be easy to come twice within this short time. Don't be sorry, remain calm and remember the Mother, gather faith and strength within. You are a child of the Divine Mother, be tranquil, calm and full of force. There is no special procedure. To take the name of the Mother, to remember her within, to pray to her, all this may be described as calling the Mother. As it comes from within you, you have to call her accordingly. You can do also this - shutting your eyes you can imagine that the Mother is in front of you or you can sketch a picture of her in your mind and offer her your pranam, that obeissance will reach her. When you've time, you can meditate on her with the thinking attitude that she is with you, she's sitting in front of you. Doing these things people at last get to see her. Accept my blessings, I send the Mother's blessings also at the same time. From time to time Jyotirmoyee will take blessing flowers during pranam and send them to you. ~ The Mother, Nirodbaran Memorable contacts with the Mother, #KEYS
1092:My sweet mother, The more I look into myself, the more discouraged I am, and I don't know whether there is any chance of my making any progress. It seems that all the obscurities and falsehoods are rising up on every side, inside and outside, and want to swallow me up. There are times when I cannot distinguish truth from falsehood and I am then on the verge of losing my mind.
Still, there is something in me which says very weakly that all will be well; but this voice is so feeble that I cannot rely on it.1
My faults are so numerous and so great that I think I shall fail. On the other hand, I have neither the inclination nor the capacity for the ordinary life. And I know that I shall never be able to leave this life. This is my situation right now. The struggle is getting more and more acute, and worst of all I cannot lie to you. What should I do?
Do not torment yourself, my child, and remain as quiet as you can; do not yield to the temptation to give up the struggle and let yourself fall into darkness. Persist, and one day you will realise that I am close to you to console you and help you, and then the hardest part will be over. With all my love and blessings. 25 September 1947
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
1093:I accept, will not give up, and will practice each of the Three Jewels,
And will not let go of my guru or my yidam deity.
As the samaya of the Buddha, first among the Three Jewels,
I will apply myself to the true, essential reality.
As the samaya of sacred Dharma, second among the Three Jewels,
I will distill the very essence of all the vehicles' teachings.
As the samaya of the Sangha, the third and final Jewel,
I will look upon reality; I will behold pure awareness.
And as the samaya of the guru and the yidam deity,
I will take my very own mind, my pure mind, as a witness.
Generally speaking, the Three Jewels should be regarded as the ultimate place to take refuge. As was taught in the section on taking refuge, your mind should be focused one-pointedly, with all your hopes and trust placed in their care. The gurus are a lamp that dispels the darkness of ignorance.
As the guides who lead you along the path to liberation, they are your sole source of refuge and protection, from now until you attain enlightenment.
For these reasons, you should act with unwavering faith, pure view and devotion, and engage in the approach and accomplishment of the divine yidam deity. ~ Dzogchen Rinpoche III, Great Perfection Outer and Inner Preliminaries,#KEYS
1094:I have been accused of a habit of changing my opinions. I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available; but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. The kind of philosophy that I value and have endeavoured to pursue is scientific, in the sense that there is some definite knowledge to be obtained and that new discoveries can make the admission of former error inevitable to any candid mind. For what I have said, whether early or late, I do not claim the kind of truth which theologians claim for their creeds. I claim only, at best, that the opinion expressed was a sensible one to hold at the time when it was expressed. I should be much surprised if subsequent research did not show that it needed to be modified. I hope, therefore, that whoever uses this dictionary will not suppose the remarks which it quotes to be intended as pontifical pronouncements, but only as the best I could do at the time towards the promotion of clear and accurate thinking. Clarity, above all, has been my aim.
~ Bertrand Russell,#KEYS
1095:I have loved in life and I have been loved.
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar,
and have been raised above life's joy and sorrow.
My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it.
My heart has been rent and joined again;
My heart has been broken and again made whole;
My heart has been wounded and healed again;
A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet.
I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
I wept in love and made all weep with me;
I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men;
And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes.
The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear;
With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved,
I shook the throne of God in heaven.
I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love,
"Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret."
She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear,
"My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover,
and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan,#KEYS
1096:When one goes out of the body, one must try to rush towards you I think everybody does that, dont they?
Not one in a hundred!
If you did that, very interesting things would happen to you. I knew someone in France who used to come to me every evening in order that I might show him some unknown region and take him for a ramble in the vital or mental world, and actually I used to take him there. At times there were others also, at times this person was alone. I showed him how to go out of the body, how to get back into it, how to keep the consciousness, etc., I showed him many places telling him There you must take this precaution, here you must do such and such a thing. And this continued for a long time.
I do not mean that no one among you comes to me in the night, but there are very few who do it consciously. Generally (you will tell me if I am wrong, but that is my impression), when you go to sleep and have decided to remember me before going to sleep, it is rather a call than a will to rush to me, as you say. You are there on your bed, you want to rest, to have a good sleep, remain in a good consciousness; then you call me rather than have the idea of going out of the body and coming to see me. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1950-1951, 1951-02-19,#KEYS
1097:
Sweet Mother, Is it possible to have control over oneself during sleep? For example, if I want to see you in my dreams, can I do it at will?
Control during sleep is entirely possible and it is progressive if you persist in the effort. You begin by remembering your dreams, then gradually you remain more and more conscious during your sleep, and not only can you control your dreams but you can guide and organise your activities during sleep.
If you persist in your will and your effort, you are sure to learn how to come and find me at night during your sleep and afterwards to remember what has happened.
For this, two things are necessary, which you must develop by aspiration and by calm and persistent effort.
(1) Concentrate your thought on the will to come and find me; then pursue this thought, first by an effort of imagination, afterwards in a tangible and increasingly real way, until you are in my presence.
(2) Establish a sort of bridge between the waking and the sleeping consciousness, so that when you wake up you remember what has happened.
It may be that you succeed immediately, but more often it takes a certain time and you must persist in the effort. 25 September 1959
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother, 226,#KEYS
1098:The sadhaka of the integral Yoga will make use of all these aids according to his nature; but it is necessary that he should shun their limitations and cast from himself that exclusive tendency of egoistic mind which cries, "My God, my Incarnation, my Prophet, my Guru," and opposes it to all other realisation in a sectarian or a fanatical spirit. All sectarianism, all fanaticism must be shunned; for it is inconsistent with the integrity of the divine realisation.
On the contrary, the sadhaka of the integral Yoga will not be satisfied until he has included all other names and forms of Deity in his own conception, seen his own Ishta Devata in all others, unified all Avatars in the unity of Him who descends in the Avatar, welded the truth in all teachings into the harmony of the Eternal Wisdom.
Nor should he forget the aim of these external aids which is to awaken his soul to the Divine within him. Nothing has been finally accomplished if that has not been accomplished. It is not sufficient to worship Krishna, Christ or Buddha without, if there is not the revealing and the formation of the Buddha, the Christ or Krishna in ourselves. And all other aids equally have no other purpose; each is a bridge between man's unconverted state and the revelation of the Divine within him. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
1099:Recommended Reading
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
DH Lawrence - The Rainbow
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
Karl Ove Knausgaard - My Struggle
Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse
Ben Lerner - The Topeka School
Sally Rooney - Conversations With Friends
Nell Zink - The Wallcreeper
Elena Ferrante - The Days of Abandonment
Jack Kerouac - Dharma Bums
Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass
Michael Murphy - Golf in the Kingdom
Barbara Kingsolver - Prodigal Summer
Albertine Sarrazin - Astragal
Rebecca Solnit - The Faraway Nearby
Michael Paterniti - Love and Other Ways of Dying
Rainer Maria Rilke - Book of Hours
James Baldwin - Another Country
Roberto Calasso - Ka
Translation by S. Radhakrishan - Principle Upanisads
Chogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
Translation by Georg Feuerstein - Yoga Sutra
Richard Freeman - The Mirror of Yoga
Translation by S. Radhakrishan - The Bhagavad Gita
Shrunyu Suzuki - Zen Mind Beginner's Mind
Heinrich Zimmer - Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
Sogyal Rinpoche - The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Joseph Campbell - Myths of Light
Joseph Campbell - The Hero With A Thousand Faces
Sri Aurobindo - Savitri
Thomas Meyers - Anatomy Trains
Wendy Doniger - The Hindus ~ Jason Bowman, http://www.jasonbowmanyoga.com/recommended-reading,#KEYS
1100:Many are God's forms by which he grows in man;
They stamp his thoughts and deeds with divinity,
Uplift the stature of the human clay
Or slowly transmute it into heavens gold.
He is the Good for which men fight and die,
He is the war of Right with Titan wrong;
He is Freedom rising deathless from her pyre;
He is Valour guarding still the desperate pass
Or lone and erect on the shattered barricade
Or a sentinel in the dangerous echoing Night.
He is the crown of the martyr burned in flame
And the glad resignation of the saint
And courage indifferent to the wounds of Time
And the heros might wrestling with death and fate.
He is Wisdom incarnate on a glorious throne
And the calm autocracy of the sages rule.
He is the high and solitary Thought
Aloof above the ignorant multitude:
He is the prophets voice, the sight of the seer.
He is Beauty, nectar of the passionate soul,
He is the Truth by which the spirit lives.
He is the riches of the spiritual Vast
Poured out in healing streams on indigent Life;
He is Eternity lured from hour to hour,
He is infinity in a little space:
He is immortality in the arms of death.
These powers I am and at my call they come.
Thus slowly I lift mans soul nearer the Light.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
1101:A book like this, a problem like this, is in no hurry; we both, I just as much as my book, are friends of lento. It is not for nothing that I have been a philologist, perhaps I am a philologist still, that is to say, A TEACHER OF SLOW READING:- in the end I also write slowly. Nowadays it is not only my habit, it is also to my taste - a malicious taste, perhaps? - no longer to write anything which does not reduce to despair every sort of man who is 'in a hurry'. For philology is that venerable art which demands of its votaries one thing above all: to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow - it is a goldsmith's art and connoisseurship of the WORD which has nothing but delicate, cautious work to do and achieves nothing if it does not achieve it lento. But precisely for this reason it is more necessary than ever today, by precisely this means does it entice and enchant us the most, in the midst of an age of 'work', that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to 'get everything done' at once, including every old or new book:- this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read WELL, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers...My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and philologists: LEARN to read me well! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
1102:Endure and you will triumph. Victory goes to the most enduring. And with the Grace and divine love nothing is impossible. My force and love are with you. At the end of the struggle there is Victory And so we find once more that the Ego-idea must be ruthlessly rooted out before Understanding can be attained The emptiness that you described in your letter yesterday was not a bad thing - it is this emptiness inward and outward that often in Yoga becomes the first step towards a new consciousness. Man's nature is like a cup of dirty water - the water has to be thrown out, the cup left clean and empty for the divine liquor to be poured into it. The difficulty is that the human physical consciousness feels it difficult to bear this emptiness - it is accustomed to be occupied by all sorts of little mental and vital movements which keep it interested and amused or even if in trouble and sorrow still active. The cessation of these things is hard to bear for it. It begins to feel dull and restless and eager for the old interests and movements. But by this restlessness it disturbs the quietude and brings back the things that had been thrown out. It is this that is creating the difficulty and the obstruction for the moment. If you can accept emptiness as a passage to the true consciousness and true movements, then it will be easier to get rid of the obstacle.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,#KEYS
1103:I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort.
From poets, I moved to artists. No one was more ignorant about the arts than I; no one was more convinced that artists possessed really beautiful secrets. However, I noticed that their condition was no better than that of the poets and that both of them have the same misconceptions. Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they look upon themselves as the wisest of men. In my eyes, this presumption completely tarnished their knowledge. As a result, putting myself in the place of the oracle and asking myself what I would prefer to be - what I was or what they were, to know what they have learned or to know that I know nothing - I replied to myself and to the god: I wish to remain who I am.
We do not know - neither the sophists, nor the orators, nor the artists, nor I- what the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are. But there is this difference between us: although these people know nothing, they all believe they know something; whereas, I, if I know nothing, at least have no doubts about it. As a result, all this superiority in wisdom which the oracle has attributed to me reduces itself to the single point that I am strongly convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not know. ~ Socrates,#KEYS
1104:
Mother, in your symbol the twelve petals signify the twelve inner planes, don't they?
It signifies anything one wants, you see. Twelve: that's the number of Aditi, of Mahashakti. So it applies to everything; all her action has twelve aspects. There are also her twelve virtues, her twelve powers, her twelve aspects, and then her twelve planes of manifestation and many other things that are twelve; and the symbol, the number twelve is in itself a symbol. It is the symbol of manifestation, double perfection, in essence and in manifestation, in the creation.
What are the twelve aspects, Sweet Mother?
Ah, my child, I have described this somewhere, but I don't remember now. For it is always a choice, you see; according to what one wants to say, one can choose these twelve aspects or twelve others, or give them different names. The same aspect can be named in different ways. This does not have the fixity of a mental theory. (Silence)
According to the angle from which one sees the creation, one day I may describe twelve aspects to you; and then another day, because I have shifted my centre of observation, I may describe twelve others, and they will be equally true.
(To Vishwanath) Is it the wind that's producing this storm? It is very good for a dramatic stage-effect.... The traitor is approaching in the night... yes? We are waiting for some terrible deed....
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954, 395,#KEYS
1105:When I was a child of about thirteen, for nearly a year every night as soon as I had gone to bed it seemed to me that I went out of my body and rose straight up above the house, then above the city, very high above. Then I used to see myself clad in a magnificent golden robe, much longer than myself; and as I rose higher, the robe would stretch, spreading out in a circle around me to form a kind of immense roof over the city. Then I would see men, women, children, old men, the sick, the unfortunate coming out from every side; they would gather under the outspread robe, begging for help, telling of their miseries, their suffering, their hardships. In reply, the robe, supple and alive, would extend towards each one of them individually, and as soon as they had touched it, they were comforted or healed, and went back into their bodies happier and stronger than they had come out of them. Nothing seemed more beautiful to me, nothing could make me happier; and all the activities of the day seemed dull and colourless and without any real life, beside this activity of the night which was the true life for me. Often while I was rising up in this way, I used to see at my left an old man, silent and still, who looked at me with kindly affection and encouraged me by his presence. This old man, dressed in a long dark purple robe, was the personification-as I came to know later-of him who is called the Man of Sorrows. ~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations, #KEYS
1106:The necessary and needful reaction from the collective unconscious expresses itself in archetypally formed ideas. The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one's own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no one inside and no one outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is a world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me.No, the collective unconscious is anything but an encapsulated personal system; it is sheer objectivity, as wide as the world and open to all the world. There I am the object of every subject, in complete reversal of my ordinary consciousness, where I am always the subject that has an object. There I am utterly one with the world, so much a part of it that I forget all too easily who I really am. ""Lost in oneself"" is a good way of describing this state. But this self is the world, if only a consciousness could see it. That is why we must know who we are. ~ Carl Jung, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #KEYS
1107:During the stage of sadhana one should describe God by all His attributes. One day Hazra said to Narendra: 'God is Infinity. Infinite is His splendour. Do you think He will accept your offerings of sweets and bananas or listen to your music? This is a mistaken notion of yours.' Narendra at once sank ten fathoms. So I said to Hazra, 'You villain! Where will these youngsters be if you talk to them like that?' How can a man live if he gives up devotion? No doubt God has infinite splendour; yet He is under the control of His devotees. A rich man's gate-keeper comes to the parlour where his master is seated with his friends. He stands on one side of the room. In his hand he has something covered with a cloth. He is very hesitant. The master asks him, 'Well, gate-keeper, what have you in your hand?' Very hesitantly the servant takes out a custard-apple from under the cover, places it in front of his master, and says, 'Sir, it is my desire that you should eat this.' The Master is impressed by his servant's devotion. With great love he takes the fruit in his hand and says: 'Ah! This is a very nice custard-apple. Where did you pick it? You must have taken a great deal of trouble to get it.'
"God is under the control of His devotees. King Duryodhana was very attentive to Krishna and said to Him, 'Please have your meal here.' But the Lord went to Vidura's hut. He is very fond of His devotees. He ate Vidura's simple rice and greens as if they were celestial food. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,#KEYS
1108:
Mother, aren't these entities afraid of you?
Ah, my child, terribly afraid! (Laughter) All those which are ill-willed try to hide, and usually do you know what they do? They gather together behind the head of the one who comes (laughter) in order not to be seen. But this is useless, because, just think, I have the capacity to see through. (Laughter) Otherwise - they always do this, instinctively. When they can manage to get in, they try to get in. But then... I intervene with greater force, because that is nasty. These are people who have the instinct to hide, you see. So I pursue them, there inside. With others very little is needed, very little; but there are some - there are such people, you know, they themselves have told me - when they are about to come to me, it is as though there were something which pulled them back, which told them: "No, no, no, it's not worthwhile, why go there? There are so many people for Mother to see, why add one more?" And they draw back, like that, so that they don't come. So I always tell them what it is: 'It would be better not to listen to that, for it's not something with a very good conscience.' Some people cannot bear it. There have been instances like this, of people who were obliged to run away, because they themselves were too attached to their own formations and did not want to get rid of them. Naturally there is only one way, to run away!
There we are! We shall stop now for today.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
1109:The Quest
A part, immutable, unseen,
Being, before itself had been,
Became. Like dew a triple queen
Shone as the void uncovered:
The silence of deep height was drawn
A veil across the silver dawn
On holy wings that hovered.
The music of three thoughts became
The beauty, that is one white flame,
The justice that surpasses shame,
The victory, the splendour,
The sacred fountain that is whirled
From depths beyond that older world
A new world to engender.
The kingdom is extended. Night
Dwells, and I contemplate the sight
That is not seeing, but the light
That secretly is kindled,
Though oft-time its most holy fire
Lacks oil, whene'er my own Desire
Before desire has dwindled.
I see the thin web binding me
With thirteen cords of unity
Toward the calm centre of the sea.
(O thou supernal mother!)
The triple light my path divides
To twain and fifty sudden sides
Each perfect as each other.
Now backwards, inwards still my mind
Must track the intangible and blind,
And seeking, shall securely find
Hidden in secret places
Fresh feasts for every soul that strives,
New life for many mystic lives,
And strange new forms and faces.
My mind still searches, and attains
By many days and many pains
To That which Is and Was and reigns
Shadowed in four and ten;
And loses self in sacred lands,
And cries and quickens, and understands
Beyond the first Amen.
~ Aleister Crowley,#KEYS
1110:AHA!"
There are seven keys to the great gate,
Being eight in one and one in eight.
First, let the body of thee be still,
Bound by the cerements of will,
Corpse-rigid; thus thou mayst abort
The fidget-babes that tense the thought.
Next, let the breath-rhythm be low,
Easy, regular, and slow;
So that thy being be in tune
With the great sea's Pacific swoon.
Third, let thy life be pure and calm
Swayed softly as a windless palm.
Fourth, let the will-to-live be bound
To the one love of the Profound.
Fifth, let the thought, divinely free
From sense, observe its entity.
Watch every thought that springs; enhance
Hour after hour thy vigilance!
Intense and keen, turned inward, miss
No atom of analysis!
Sixth, on one thought securely pinned
Still every whisper of the wind!
So like a flame straight and unstirred
Burn up thy being in one word!
Next, still that ecstasy, prolong
Thy meditation steep and strong,
Slaying even God, should He distract
Thy attention from the chosen act!
Last, all these things in one o'erpowered,
Time that the midnight blossom flowered!
The oneness is. Yet even in this,
My son, thou shalt not do amiss
If thou restrain the expression, shoot
Thy glance to rapture's darkling root,
Discarding name, form, sight, and stress
Even of this high consciousness;
Pierce to the heart! I leave thee here:
Thou art the Master. I revere
Thy radiance that rolls afar,
O Brother of the Silver Star! ~ Aleister Crowley,#KEYS
1111:On a thousand bridges and paths they shall throng to the future, and ever more war and inequality shall divide them: thus does my great love make me speak.
In their hostilities they shall become inventors of images and ghosts, and with their images and ghosts they shall yet fight the highest fight against one another. Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all the names of values-arms shall they be and clattering signs that life must overcome itself again and again.
Life wants to build itself up into the heights with pillars and steps; it wants to look into vast distances and out toward stirring beauties: therefore it requires height. And because it requires height, it requires steps and contradiction among the steps and the climbers.
Life wants to climb and to overcome itself climbing.
And behold, my friends: here where the tarantula has its hole, the ruins of an ancient temple rise; behold it with enlightened eyes Verily, the man who once piled his thoughts to the sky in these stones-he, like the wisest, knew the secret of all life. That struggle and inequality are present even in beauty, and also war for power and more power: that is what he teaches us here in the plainest parable. How divinely vault and arches break through each other in a wrestling match; how they strive against each other with light and shade, the godlike strivers-with such assurance and beauty let us be enemies too, my friends Let us strive against one another like gods. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Fred Kaufmann,#KEYS
1112:The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we ... kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok ... But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
1113:Some young men who had come with an introduction from the Ramakrishna Mission at Madras asked Bhagavan, "Which is the proper path for us to follow?"
Bhagavan: When you speak of a path, where are you now? and where do you want to go? If these are known, then we can talk of the path. Know first where you are and what you are. There is nothing to be reached. You are always as you really are. But you don't realise it. That is all.
A little while after, one of the visitors asked Bhagavan, "I am now following the path of japa. Is that all right?"
Bhagavan: Yes. It is quite good. You can continue in that. The gentleman who asked about creation said, "I never thought I was going to have the good fortune of visiting Bhagavan. But circumstances have brought me here and I find in his presence, without any effort on my part, I am having santi. Apparently, getting peace does not depend on our effort.
It seems to come only as the result of grace!" Bhagavan was silent. Meanwhile, another visitor remarked, "No. Our effort is also necessary, though no one can do without grace." After some time, Bhagavan remarked, "Mantra japa, after a time, leads to a stage when you become Mantra maya i.e., you become that whose name you have been repeating or chanting.
First you repeat the mantra by mouth; later you do it mentally.
First, you do this dhyana with breaks. Later, you do it without any break. At that stage you realise you do dhyana without any effort on your part, that dhyana is your real nature. Till then, effort is necessary." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day By Day,#KEYS
1114:The whole history of mankind and especially the present condition of the world unite in showing that far from being merely hypothetical, the case supposed has always been actual and is actual to-day on a vaster scale than ever before. My contention is that while progress in some of the great matters of human concern has been long proceeding in accordance with the law of a rapidly increasing geometric progression, progress in the other matters of no less importance has advanced only at the rate of an arithmetical progression or at best at the rate of some geometric progression of relatively slow growth. To see it and to understand it we have to pay the small price of a little observation and a little meditation.
Some technological invention is made, like that of a steam engine or a printing press, for example; or some discovery of scientific method, like that of analytical geometry or the infinitesimal calculus; or some discovery of natural law, like that of falling bodies or the Newtonian law of gravitation. What happens? What is the effect upon the progress of knowledge and invention? The effect is stimulation. Each invention leads to new inventions and each discovery to new discoveries; invention breeds invention, science begets science, the children of knowledge produce their kind in larger and larger families; the process goes on from decade to decade, from generation to generation, and the spectacle we behold is that of advancement in scientific knowledge and technological power according to the law and rate of a rapidly increasing geometric progression or logarithmic function. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity,#KEYS
1115:The Nirmanakaya manifestation of Amitabha, I,
the Indian Scholar, the Lotus Born,
From the self-blossoming center of a lotus,
Came to this realm of existence through miraculous powers
To be the prince of the king of Oddiyana.
Then, I sustained the kingdom in accordance with Dharma.
Wandering throughout all directions of India,
I severed all spiritual doubts without exception.
Engaging in fearless activity in the eight burial grounds,
I achieved all supreme and common siddhis.
Then, according to the wishes of King Trisong Detsen
And by the power of previous prayers, I journeyed to Tibet.
By subduing the cruel gods, nagas, yakshas, rakshas,
and all spirits who harm beings,
The light of the teachings of secret mantra has been illuminated.
Then, when the time came to depart for the continent of Lanka,
I did so to provide refuge from the fear of rakshas
For all the inhabitants of this world, including Tibet.
I blessed Nirmanakaya emanations to be representatives of my body.
I made sacred treasures as representatives of my holy speech.
I poured enlightened wisdom into the hearts of those with fortunate karma.
Until samsara is emptied, for the benefit of sentient beings,
I will manifest unceasingly in whatever ways are necessary.
Through profound kindness, I have brought great benefit for all.
If you who are fortunate have the mind of aspiration,
May you pray so that blessings will be received.
All followers, believe in me with determination.
Samaya. ~ The Wrathful Compassion of Guru Dorje Drollo, Vajra Master Dudjom Yeshe Dorje, translated by Dungse Thinley Norbu Rinpoche,#KEYS
1116:The Song Of View, Practice, And Action :::
Oh, my Guru! The Exemplar of the View, Practice, and Action,
Pray vouchsafe me your grace, and enable me
To be absorbed in the realm of Self-nature!
For the View, Practice, Action, and Accomplishment
There are three Key-points you should know:
All the manifestation, the Universe itself, is contained in the mind;
The nature of Mind is the realm of illumination
Which can neither be conceived nor touched.
These are the Key-points of the View.
Errant thoughts are liberated in the Dharmakaya;
The awareness, the illumination, is always blissful;
Meditate in a manner of non-doing and non-effort.
These are the Key-points of Practice.
In the action of naturalness
The Ten Virtues spontaneously grow;
All the Ten Vices are thus purified.
By corrections or remedies
The Illuminating Void is ne'er disturbed.
These are the Key-points of Action.
There is no Nivana to attain beyond;
There is no Samsara here to renounce;
Truly to know the Self-mind
It is to be the Buddha Himself.
These are the Key-points of Accomplishment.
Reduce inwardly the Three Key-points to One.
This One is the Void Nature of Being,
Which only a wondrous Guru
Can clearly illustrate.
Much activity is of no avail;
If one sees the Simultaneously Born Wisdom,
He reaches the goal.
For all practioners of Dharma
The preaching is a precious gem;
It is my direct experience from yogic meditation.
Think carefully and bear it in your minds,
Oh, my children and disciples. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,#KEYS
1117:8. We all recognize the Universe must have been thought into shape before it ever could have become a material fact. And if we are willing to follow along the lines of the Great Architect of the Universe, we shall find our thoughts taking form, just as the universe took concrete form. It is the same mind operating through the individual. There is no difference in kind or quality, the only difference is one of degree.
9. The architect visualizes his building, he sees it as he wishes it to be. His thought becomes a plastic mold from which the building will eventually emerge, a high one or a low one, a beautiful one or a plain one, his vision takes form on paper and eventually the necessary material is utilized and the building stands complete.
10. The inventor visualizes his idea in exactly the same manner, for instance, Nikola Tesla, he with the giant intellect, one of the greatest inventors of all ages, the man who has brought forth the most amazing realities, always visualizes his inventions before attempting to work them out. He did not rush to embody them in form and then spend his time in correcting defects. Having first built up the idea in his imagination, he held it there as a mental picture, to be reconstructed and improved by his thought. "In this way," he writes in the Electrical Experimenter. "I am enabled to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of, and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete, the product of my brain. Invariably my devise works as I conceived it should; in twenty years there has not been a single exception. ~ Charles F Haanel, The Master Key System,#KEYS
1118:Musa Spiritus :::
O Word concealed in the upper fire,
Thou who hast lingered through centuries,
Descend from thy rapt white desire,
Plunging through gold eternities.
Into the gulfs of our nature leap,
Voice of the spaces, call of the Light!
Break the seals of Matter's sleep,
Break the trance of the unseen height.
In the uncertain glow of human mind,
Its waste of unharmonied thronging thoughts,
Carve thy epic mountain-lined
Crowded with deep prophetic grots.
Let thy hue-winged lyrics hover like birds
Over the swirl of the heart's sea.
Touch into sight with thy fire-words
The blind indwelling deity.
O Muse of the Silence, the wideness make
In the unplumbed stillness that hears thy voice,
In the vast mute heavens of the spirit awake
Where thy eagles of Power flame and rejoice.
Out, out with the mind and its candles flares,
Light, light the suns that never die.
For my ear the cry of the seraph stars
And the forms of the Gods for my naked eye!
Let the little troubled life-god within
Cast his veils from the still soul,
His tiger-stripes of virtue and sin,
His clamour and glamour and thole and dole;
All make tranquil, all make free.
Let my heart-beats measure the footsteps of God
As He comes from His timeless infinity
To build in their rapture His burning abode.
Weave from my life His poem of days,
His calm pure dawns and His noons of force.
My acts for the grooves of His chariot-race,
My thoughts for the tramp of His great steeds' course! ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
1119:She"
How shall I welcome not this light
Or, wakened by it, greet with doubt
This beam as palpable to sight
As visible to touch? How not,
Old as I am and (some say) wise,
Revive beneath her summer eyes?
How not have all my nights and days,
My spirit ranging far and wide,
By recollections of her grace
Enlightened and preoccupied?
Preoccupied: the Morning Star
How near the Sun and yet how far!
Enlightened: true, but more than true,
Or why must I discover there
The meaning in this taintless dew,
The dancing wave, this blessed air
Enchanting in its morning dress
And calm as everlastingness?
The flame that in the heart resides
Is parcel of that central Fire
Whose energy is winds and tides-
Is rooted deep in the Desire
That smilingly unseals its power
Each summer in each springing flower.
Oh Lady Nature-Proserpine,
Mistress of Gender, star-crowned Queen!
Ah Rose of Sharon-Mistress mine,
My teacher ere I turned fourteen,
When first I hallowed from afar
Your Beautyship in avatar!
I sense the hidden thing you say,
Your subtle whisper how the Word
From Alpha on to Omega
Made all things-you confide my Lord
Himself-all, all this potent Frame,
All save the riddle of your name.
Wisdom! I heard a voice that said:
"What riddle? What is that to you?
How! By my follower betrayed!
Look up-for shame! Now tell me true:
Where meet you light, with love and grace?
Still unacquainted with my face?"
Dear God, the erring heart must live-
Through strength and weakness, calm and glow-
That answer Wisdom scorns to give.
Much have I learned. One problem, though,
I never shall unlock: Who then,
Who made Sophia feminine?
~ Owen Barfield, 1978,#KEYS
1120:the second aid, the need for effort and aspiration, utsaha :::
The development of the experience in its rapidity, its amplitude, the intensity and power of its results, depends primarily, in the beginning of the path and long after, on the aspiration and personal effort of the sadhaka. The process of Yoga is a turning of the human soul from the egoistic state of consciousness absorbed in the outward appearances and attractions of things to a higher state in which the Transcendent and Universal can pour itself into the individiual mould and transform it. The first determining element in the siddhi is, therefore, the intensity of the turning, the force which directs the soul inward. The power of aspiration of the heart, the force of the will, the concentration of the mind, the perseverance and determination of the applied energy are the measure of that intensity. The ideal sadhaka should be able to say in the Biblical phrase, 'My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up.' It is this zeal for the Lord, -utsaha, the zeal of the whole nature for its divine results, vyakulata, the heart's eagerness for the attainment of the Divine, - that devours the ego and breaks up the petty limitations ...
So long as the contact with the Divine is not in some considerable degree established, so long as there is not some measure of sustained identity, sayujya, the element of personal effort must normally predominate. But in proportion as this contact establishes itself, the sadhaka must become conscious that a force other than his own, a force transcending his egoistic endeavour and capacity, is at work in him and to this Power he learns progressively to submit himself and delivers up to it the charge of his Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids,#KEYS
1121:Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. ~ Bertrand Russell,#KEYS
1122:There is a story I would like to tell you about a woman who practices the invocation of the Buddha Amitabha's name. She is very tough, and she practices the invocation three times daily, using a wooden drum and a bell, reciting, "Namo Amitabha Buddha" for one hour each time. When she arrives at one thousand times, she invites the bell to sound. (In Vietnamese, we don't say "strike" or "hit" a bell.) Although she has been doing this for ten years, her personality has not changed. She is still quite mean, shouting at people all the time.
A friend wanted to teach her a lesson, so one afternoon when she had just lit the incense, invited the bell to sound three times, and was beginning to recite "Namo Amitabha Buddha," he came to her door, and said, "Mrs. Nguyen, Mrs. Nguyen!" She found it very annoying because this was her time of practice, but he just stood at the front gate shouting her name. She said to herself, "I have to struggle against my anger, so I will ignore that," and she went on, "Namo Amitabha Buddha, Namo Amitabha Buddha."
The gentleman continued to shout her name, and her anger became more and more oppressive. She struggled against it, wondering, "Should I stop my recitation and go and give him a piece of my mind?" But she continued chanting, and she struggled very hard. Fire mounted in her, but she still tried to chant "Namo Amitabha Buddha." The gentleman knew it, and he continued to shout, "Mrs. Nguyen! Mrs. Nguyen!"
She could not bear it any longer. She threw away the bell and the drum. She slammed the door, went out to the gate and said, "Why, why do you behave like that? Why do you call my name hundreds of times like that?" The gentleman smiled at her and said, "I just called your name for ten minutes, and you are so angry. You have been calling the Buddha's name for ten years. Think how angry he must be! ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,#KEYS
1123:Response To A Logician :::
I bow at the feet of my teacher Marpa.
And sing this song in response to you.
Listen, pay heed to what I say,
forget your critique for a while.
The best seeing is the way of "nonseeing"
the radiance of the mind itself.
The best prize is what cannot be looked for
the priceless treasure of the mind itself.
The most nourishing food is "noneating"
the transcendent food of samadhi.
The most thirst-quenching drink is "nondrinking"
the nectar of heartfelt compassion.
Oh, this self-realizing awareness
is beyond words and description!
The mind is not the world of children,
nor is it that of logicians.
Attaining the truth of "nonattainment,"
you receive the highest initiation.
Perceiving the void of high and low,
you reach the sublime stage.
Approaching the truth of "nonmovement,"
you follow the supreme path.
Knowing the end of birth and death,
the ultimate purpose is fulfilled.
Seeing the emptiness of reason,
supreme logic is perfected.
When you know that great and small are groundless,
you have entered the highest gateway.
Comprehending beyond good and evil
opens the way to perfect skill.
Experiencing the dissolution of duality,
you embrace the highest view.
Observing the truth of "nonobservation"
opens the way to meditating.
Comprehending beyond "ought" and "oughtn't"
opens the way to perfect action.
When you realize the truth of "noneffort,"
you are approaching the highest fruition.
Ignorant are those who lack this truth:
arrogant teachers inflated by learning,
scholars bewitched by mere words,
and yogis seduced by prejudice.
For though they yearn for freedom,
they find only enslavement. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,#KEYS
1124:Man's refusal of the Divine Grace has been depicted very beautifully and graphically in a perfect dramatic form by Sri Aurobindo in Savitri. The refusal comes one by one from the three constituent parts of the human being. First of all man is a material being, a bodily creature, as such he is a being of ignorance and misery, of brutish blindness . He does not know that there is something other than his present state of misfortune and dark fate. He is not even aware that there may be anything higher or nobler than the ugliness he is steeped in. He lives on earth-life with an earth-consciousness, moves mechanically and helplessly through vicissitudes over which he has no control. Even so the material life is not a mere despicable thing; behind its darkness, behind its sadness, behind all its infirmities, the Divine Mother is there upholding it and infusing into it her grace and beauty. Indeed, she is one with this world of sorrows, she has in effect become it in her infinite pity and love so that this material body of hers may become conscious of its divine substance and manifest her true form. But the human being individualised and separated in egoistic consciousness has lost the sense of its inner reality and is vocal only in regard to its outward formulation. It is natural for physical man therefore to reject and deny the physical Godhead in him, he even curses it and wants to continue as he is.
He yells therefore in ignorance and anguish:
I am the Man of Sorrows, I am he
Who is nailed on the wide cross of the Universe . . .
I toil like the animal, like the animal die.
I am man the rebel, man the helpless serf...
I know my fate will ever be the same.
It is my Nature' s work that cannot change . . .
I was made for evil, evil is my lot;
Evil I must be and by evil live;
Nought other can I do but be myself;
What Nature made, that I must remain.2' ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, On Savitri, 13,#KEYS
1125:Disciple : What part does breathing exercise - Pranayama - play in bringing about the higher consciousness?
Sri Aurobindo : It sets the Pranic - vital - currents free and removes dullness of the brain so that the higher consciousness can come down. Pranayama does not bring dullness in the brain. My own experience, on the contrary, is that brain becomes illumined. When I was practising Pranayama at Baroda, I used to do it for about five hours in the day, - three hours in the morning and two in the evening. I found that the mind began to work with great illumination and power. I used to write poetry in those days. Before the Pranayama practice, usually I wrote five to eight lines per day; and about two hundred lines in a month. After the practice I could write 200 lines within half an hour. That was not the only result. Formerly my memory was dull. But after this practice I found that when the inspiration came I could remember all the lines in their order and write them down correctly at any time. Along with these enhanced functionings I could see an electrical activity all round the brain, and I could feel that it was made up of a subtle substance. I could feel everything as the working of that substance. That was far from your carbon-dioxide!
Disciple : How is it that Pranayama develops mental capacities? What part does it play in bringing about the higher consciousness?
Sri Aurobindo : It is the Pranic - vital - currents which sustain mental activity. When these currents are changed by Pranayama, they bring about a change in the brain. The cause of dullness of the brain is some obstruction in it which does not allow the higher thought to be communicated to it. When this obstruction is removed the higher mental being is able to communicate its action easily to the brain. When the higher consciousness is attained the brain does not become dull. My experience is that it becomes illumined.
~ Sri Aurobindo, A B Purani, Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, 19-9-1926,#KEYS
1126:WHEN THE GREAT YOGIN Padmasambhava, called by Tibetans Guru Rinpoche, "the precious teacher," embarks on his spiritual journey, he travels from place to place requesting teachings from yogins and yoginls. Guided by visions and dreams, his journey takes him to desolate forests populated with ferocious wild animals, to poison lakes with fortified islands, and to cremation grounds. Wherever he goes he performs miracles, receives empowerments, and ripens his own abilities to benefit others.
When he hears of the supreme queen of all dakinls, the greatly accomplished yogini called Secret Wisdom, he travels to the Sandal Grove cremation ground to the gates of her abode, the Palace of Skulls. He attempts to send a request to the queen with her maidservant Kumari. But the girl ignores him and continues to carry huge brass jugs of water suspended from a heavy yoke across her shoulders. When he presses his request, Kumari continues her labors, remaining silent. The great yogin becomes impatient and, through his yogic powers, magically nails the heavy jugs to the floor. No matter how hard Kumari struggles, she cannot lift them.
Removing the yoke and ropes from her shoulders, she steps before Padmasambhava, exclaiming, "You have developed great yogic powers. What of my powers, great one?" And so saying, she draws a sparkling crystal knife from the girdle at her waist and slices open her heart center, revealing the vivid and vast interior space of her body. Inside she displays to Guru Rinpoche the mandala of deities from the inner tantras: forty-two peaceful deities manifested in her upper torso and head and fifty-eight wrathful deities resting in her lower torso. Abashed that he did not realize with whom he was dealing, Guru Rinpoche bows before her and humbly renews his request for teachings. In response, she offers him her respect as well, adding, "I am only a maidservant," and ushers him in to meet the queen Secret Wisdom. ~ Judith Simmer-Brown, Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism, Introduction: Encountering the Dakini,#KEYS
1127:My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever; the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain. Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it. In twenty years there has not been a single exception. Why should it be otherwise? Engineering, electrical and mechanical, is positive in results. There is scarcely a subject that cannot be examined beforehand, from the available theoretical and practical data. The carrying out into practice of a crude idea as is being generally done, is, I hold, nothing but a waste of energy, money, and time. My early affliction had however, another compensation. The incessant mental exertion developed my powers of observation and enabled me to discover a truth of great importance. I had noted that the appearance of images was always preceded by actual vision of scenes under peculiar and generally very exceptional conditions, and I was impelled on each occasion to locate the original impulse. After a while this effort grew to be almost automatic and I gained great facility in connecting cause and effect. Soon I became aware, to my surprise, that every thought I conceived was suggested by an external impression. Not only this but all my actions were prompted in a similar way. In the course of time it became perfectly evident to me that I was merely an automation endowed with power OF MOVEMENT RESPONDING TO THE STIMULI OF THE SENSE ORGANS AND THINKING AND ACTING ACCORDINGLY.
~ Nikola Tesla, The Strange Life of Nikola Tesla,#KEYS
1128:How often there is a kind of emptiness in the course of life, an unoccupied moment, a few minutes, sometimes more. And what do you do? Immediately you try to distract yourself, and you invent some foolishness or other to pass your time. That is a common fact. All men, from the youngest to the oldest, spend most of their time in trying not to be bored. Their pet aversion is boredom and the way to escape from boredom is to act foolishly.
Well, there is a better way than that - to remember.
When you have a little time, whether it is one hour or a few minutes, tell yourself, "At last, I have some time to concentrate, to collect myself, to relive the purpose of my life, to offer myself to the True and the Eternal." If you took care to do this each time you are not harassed by outer circumstances, you would find out that you were advancing very quickly on the path. Instead of wasting your time in chattering, in doing useless things, reading things that lower the consciousness - to choose only the best cases, I am not speaking of other imbecilities which are much more serious - instead of trying to make yourself giddy, to make time, that is already so short, still shorter only to realise at the end of your life that you have lost three-quarters of your chance - then you want to put in double time, but that does not work - it is better to be moderate, balanced, patient, quiet, but never to lose an opportunity that is given to you, that is to say, to utilise for the true purpose the unoccupied moment before you.
When you have nothing to do, you become restless, you run about, you meet friends, you take a walk, to speak only of the best; I am not referring to things that are obviously not to be done. Instead of that, sit down quietly before the sky, before the sea or under trees, whatever is possible (here you have all of them) and try to realise one of these things - to understand why you live, to learn how you must live, to ponder over what you want to do and what should be done, what is the best way of escaping from the ignorance and falsehood and pain in which you live. 16 May 1958
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
1129:For centuries and centuries humanity has waited for this time. It is come. But it is difficult.
I don't simply tell you we are here upon earth to rest and enjoy ourselves, now is not the time for that. We are here..... to prepare the way for the new creation.
The body has some difficulty, so I can't be active, alas. It is not because I am old, I am not old, I am younger than most of you. If I am here inactive, it is because the body has given itself definitely to prepare the transformation. But the consciousness is clear and we are here to work - rest and enjoyment will come afterwards. Let us do our work here.
So I have called you to tell you that. Take what you can, do what you can, my help will be with you. All sincere effort will be helped to the maximum.
It is the hour to be the heroic. Heroism is not what it is said to be; it is to become wholly unified - and the Divine help will always be with those who have resolved to be heroic in full sincerity.
There!
You are here at this moment that is to say upon earth, because you chose it at one time - you do not remember it any more, but I know it - that is why you are here. Well, you must rise to the height of the task. You must strive, you must conquer all weakness and limitations; above all you must tell your ego: "Your hour is gone." We want a race that has no ego, that has in place of the ego the Divine Consciousness. It is that which we want: the Divine Consciousness which will allow the race to develop itself and the Supramental being to take birth.
If you believe that I am here because I am bound - it is not true. I am not bound, I am here because my body has been given for the first attempt at transformation. Sri Aurobindo told me so. Well, I am doing it. I do not wish anyone to do it for me because.... Because it is not very pleasant, but I do it willingly because of the result; everybody will be able to benefit from it. I ask only one thing: do not listen to the ego.
If there is in your hearts a sincere Yes, you will satisfy me completely. I do not need words, I need the sincere adhesion of your hearts. That's all. ~ The Mother, (This talk was given by the Mother on April 2,1972,#KEYS
1130:What is the ape to a human? A laughing stock or a painful embarrassment. And that is precisely what the human shall be to the overman: a laughing stock or a painful embarrassment.
You have made your way from worm to human, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now a human is still more ape than any ape.
But whoever is wisest among you is also just a conflict and a cross between plant and ghost. But do I implore you to become ghosts or plants?
Behold, I teach you the overman!
The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth!
I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth and do not believe those who speak to you of extraterrestrial hopes! They are mixers of poisons whether they know it or not.
They are despisers of life, dying off and self-poisoned, of whom the earth is weary: so let them fade away!
Once the sacrilege against God was the greatest sacrilege, but God died, and then all these desecrators died. Now to desecrate the earth is the most terrible thing, and to esteem the bowels of the unfathomable higher than the meaning of the earth!
Once the soul gazed contemptuously at the body, and then such contempt was the highest thing: it wanted the body gaunt, ghastly, starved.
Thus it intended to escape the body and the earth.
Oh this soul was gaunt, ghastly and starved, and cruelty was the lust of this soul!
But you, too, my brothers, tell me: what does your body proclaim about your soul? Is your soul not poverty and filth and a pitiful contentment?
Truly, mankind is a polluted stream. One has to be a sea to take in a polluted stream without becoming unclean.
Behold, I teach you the overman: he is this sea, in him your great contempt can go under.
What is the greatest thing that you can experience? It is the hour of your great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness turns to nausea and likewise your reason and your virtue.
The hour in which you say: 'What matters my happiness? It is poverty and filth, and a pitiful contentment. But my happiness ought to justify existence itself!' ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Fred Kaufmann,#KEYS
1131:There I waited day and night for the voice of God within me, to know what He had to say to me, to learn what I had to do. In this seclusion the earliest realisation, the first lesson came to me. I remembered then that a month or more before my arrest, a call had come to me to put aside all activity, to go in seclusion and to look into myself, so that I might enter into closer communion with Him. I was weak and could not accept the call. My work was very dear to me and in the pride of my heart I thought that unless I was there, it would suffer or even fail and cease; therefore I would not leave it. It seemed to me that He spoke to me again and said, The bonds you had not the strength to break, I have broken for you, because it is not my will nor was it ever my intention that that should continue. I have had another thing for you to do and it is for that I have brought you here, to teach you what you could not learn for yourself and to train you for my work. Then He placed the Gita in my hands. His strength entered into me and I was able to do the sadhana of the Gita. I was not only to understand intellectually but to realise what Sri Krishna demanded of Arjuna and what He demands of those who aspire to do His work, to be free from repulsion and desire, to do work for Him without the demand for fruit, to renounce self-will and become a passive and faithful instrument in His hands, to have an equal heart for high and low, friend and opponent, success andfailure, yet not to do His work negligently. I realised what the Hindu religion meant. We speak often of the Hindureligion, of the Sanatan Dharma, but few of us really know what that religion is. Other religions are preponderatingly religions of faith and profession, but the Sanatan Dharma is life itself; it is a thing that has not so much to be believed as lived. This is the Dharma that for the salvation of humanity was cherished in the seclusion of this peninsula from of old. It is to give this religion that India is rising. She does not rise as other countries do, for self or when she is strong, to trample on the weak. She is rising to shed the eternal light entrusted to her over the world. India has always existed for humanity and not for herself and it is for humanity and not for herself that she must be great.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin,#KEYS
1132:An old man of sixty began practising Yoga by reading your books. Eventually he developed signs of insanity. His son describes his condition and asks for advice. I am sending his letter.
As for the letter, I suppose you will have to tell the writer that his father committed a mistake when he took up Yoga without a Guru—for the mental idea about a Guru cannot take the place of the actual living influence. This Yoga especially, as I have written in my books, needs the help of the Guru and cannot be done without it. The condition into which his father got was a breakdown, not a state of siddhi. He passed out of the normal mental consciousness into a contact with some intermediate zone of consciousness (not the spiritual) where one can be subjected to all sorts of voices, suggestions, ideas, so-called aspirations which are not genuine. I have warned against the dangers of this intermediate zone in one of my books. The sadhak can avoid entering into this zone—if he enters, he has to look with indifference on all these things and observe them without lending any credence, by so doing he can safely pass into the true spiritual light. If he takes them all as true or real without discrimination, he is likely to land himself in a great mental confusion and, if there is in addition a lesion or weakness of the brain—the latter is quite possible in one who has been subject to apoplexy—it may have serious consequences and even lead to a disturbance of the reason. If there is ambition, or other motive of the kind mixed up in the spiritual seeking, it may lead to a fall in the Yoga and the growth of an exaggerated egoism or megalomania—of this there are several symptoms in the utterances of his father during the crisis. In fact one cannot or ought not to plunge into the experiences of this sadhana without a fairly long period of preparation and purification (unless one has already a great spiritual strength and elevation). Sri Aurobindo himself does not care to accept many into his path and rejects many more than he accepts. It would be well if he can get his father to pursue the sadhana no farther—for what he is doing is not really Sri Aurobindo's Yoga but something he has constructed in his own mind and once there has been an upset of this kind the wisest course is discontinuance.
21 April 1937
~ Sri Aurobindo, LOHATA, The Guru,#KEYS
1133:There is one point in particular I would like to single out and stress, namely, the notion of evolution. It is common to assume that one of the doctrines of the perennial philosophy... is the idea of involution-evolution. That is, the manifest world was created as a "fall" or "breaking away" from the Absolute (involution), but that all things are now returning to the Absolute (via evolution). In fact, the doctrine of progressive temporal return to Source (evolution) does not appear anywhere, according to scholars as Joseph Campbell, until the axial period (i.e. a mere two thousand years ago). And even then, the idea was somewhat convoluted and backwards. The doctrine of the yugas, for example, sees the world as proceeding through various stages of development, but the direction is backward: yesterday was the Golden Age, and time ever since has been a devolutionary slide downhill, resulting in the present-day Kali-Yuga. Indeed, this notion of a historical fall from Eden was ubiquitous during the axial period; the idea that we are, at this moment, actually evolving toward Spirit was simply not conceived in any sort of influential fashion.
But sometime during the modern era-it is almost impossible to pinpoint exactly-the idea of history as devolution (or a fall from God) was slowly replaced by the idea of history as evolution (or a growth towards God). We see it explicitly in Schelling (1775-1854); Hegel (1770-1831) propounded the doctrine with a genius rarely equaled; Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) made evolution a universal law, and his friend Charles Darwin (1809-1882) applied it to biology. We find it next appearing in Aurobindo (1872-1950), who gave perhaps its most accurate and profound spiritual context, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) who made it famous in the West.
But here is my point: we might say that the idea of evolution as return-to-Spirit is part of the perennial philosophy, but the idea itself, in any adequate form, is no more than a few hundred years old. It might be 'ancient' as timeless, but it is certainly not ancient as "old."...
This fundamental shift in the sense or form of the perennial philosophy-as represented in, say, Aurobindo, Hegel, Adi Da, Schelling, Teilhard de Chardin, Radhakrishnan, to name a few-I should like to call the "neoperennial philosophy." ~ Ken Wilber, The Eye Of Spirit,#KEYS
1134:I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I help believing it? I have seen the truth ~ it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul for ever. I have seen it in such full perfection that I cannot believe that it is impossible for people to have it. And so how can I go wrong? I shall make some slips no doubt, and shall perhaps talk in second-hand language, but not for long: the living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always correct and guide me. Oh, I am full of courage and freshness, and I will go on and on if it were for a thousand years! Do you know, at first I meant to conceal the fact that I corrupted them, but that was a mistake ~ that was my first mistake! But truth whispered to me that I was lying, and preserved me and corrected me. But how establish paradise ~ I don't know, because I do not know how to put it into words. After my dream I lost command of words. All the chief words, anyway, the most necessary ones. But never mind, I shall go and I shall keep talking, I won't leave off, for anyway I have seen it with my own eyes, though I cannot describe what I saw. But the scoffers do not understand that. It was a dream, they say, delirium, hallucination. Oh! As though that meant so much! And they are so proud! A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted ~ you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times ~ but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness ~ that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, #KEYS
1135:The general characteristics and attributions of these Grades are indicated by their correspondences on the Tree of Life, as may be studied in detail in the Book 777.
Student. -- His business is to acquire a general intellectual knowledge of all systems of attainment, as declared in the prescribed books. (See curriculum in Appendix I.) {231}
Probationer. -- His principal business is to begin such practices as he my prefer, and to write a careful record of the same for one year.
Neophyte. -- Has to acquire perfect control of the Astral Plane.
Zelator. -- His main work is to achieve complete success in Asana and Pranayama. He also begins to study the formula of the Rosy Cross.
Practicus. -- Is expected to complete his intellectual training, and in particular to study the Qabalah.
Philosophus. -- Is expected to complete his moral training. He is tested in Devotion to the Order.
Dominus Liminis. -- Is expected to show mastery of Pratyahara and Dharana.
Adeptus (without). -- is expected to perform the Great Work and to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
Adeptus (within). -- Is admitted to the practice of the formula of the Rosy Cross on entering the College of the Holy Ghost.
Adeptus (Major). -- Obtains a general mastery of practical Magick, though without comprehension.
Adeptus (Exemptus). -- Completes in perfection all these matters. He then either ("a") becomes a Brother of the Left Hand Path or, ("b") is stripped of all his attainments and of himself as well, even of his Holy Guardian Angel, and becomes a babe of the Abyss, who, having transcended the Reason, does nothing but grow in the womb of its mother. It then finds itself a
Magister Templi. -- (Master of the Temple): whose functions are fully described in Liber 418, as is this whole initiation from Adeptus Exemptus. See also "Aha!". His principal business is to tend his "garden" of disciples, and to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. He is a Master of Samadhi. {232}
Magus. -- Attains to wisdom, declares his law (See Liber I, vel Magi) and is a Master of all Magick in its greatest and highest sense.
Ipsissimus. -- Is beyond all this and beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#KEYS
1136:Now I have taught you about Immortal Man and have loosed the bonds of the robbers from him. I have broken the gates of the pitiless ones in their presence. I have humiliated their malicious intent, and they all have been shamed and have risen from their ignorance. Because of this, then, I came here, that they might be joined with that Spirit and Breath, [III continues:] and might from two become one, just as from the first, that you might yield much fruit and go up to Him Who Is from the Beginning, in ineffable joy and glory and honor and grace of the Father of the Universe.
"Whoever, then, knows the Father in pure knowledge will depart to the Father and repose in Unbegotten Father. But whoever knows him defectively will depart to the defect and the rest of the Eighth. Now whoever knows Immortal Spirit of Light in silence, through reflecting and consent in the truth, let him bring me signs of the Invisible One, and he will become a light in the Spirit of Silence. Whoever knows Son of Man in knowledge and love, let him bring me a sign of Son of Man, that he might depart to the dwelling-places with those in the Eighth.
"Behold, I have revealed to you the name of the Perfect One, the whole will of the Mother of the Holy Angels, that the masculine multitude may be completed here, that there might appear in the aeons, the infinities and those that came to be in the untraceable wealth of the Great Invisible Spirit, that they all might take from his goodness, even the wealth of their rest that has no kingdom over it. I came from First Who Was Sent, that I might reveal to you Him Who Is from the Beginning, because of the arrogance of Arch-Begetter and his angels, since they say about themselves that they are gods. And I came to remove them from their blindness, that I might tell everyone about the God who is above the universe. Therefore, tread upon their graves, humiliate their malicious intent, and break their yoke and arouse my own. I have given you authority over all things as Sons of Light, that you might tread upon their power with your feet."
These are the things the blessed Savior said, and he disappeared from them. Then all the disciples were in great, ineffable joy in the spirit from that day on. And his disciples began to preach the Gospel of God, the eternal, imperishable spirit. Amen.
~ The Sophia of Jesus, (excerpt), The Nag Hamadi Library,#KEYS
1137:Fundamentally, whatever be the path one follows - whe- ther the path of surrender, consecration, knowledge-if one wants it to be perfect, it is always equally difficult, and there is but one way, one only, I know of only one: that is perfect sincerity, but perfect sincerity!
Do you know what perfect sincerity is?...
Never to try to deceive oneself, never let any part of the being try to find out a way of convincing the others, never to explain favourably what one does in order to have an excuse for what one wants to do, never to close one's eyes when something is unpleasant, never to let anything pass, telling oneself, "That is not important, next time it will be better."
Oh! It is very difficult. Just try for one hour and you will see how very difficult it is. Only one hour, to be totally, absolutely sincere. To let nothing pass. That is, all one does, all one feels, all one thinks, all one wants, is exclusively the Divine.
"I want nothing but the Divine, I think of nothing but the Divine, I do nothing but what will lead me to the Divine, I love nothing but the Divine."
Try - try, just to see, try for half an hour, you will see how difficult it is! And during that time take great care that there isn't a part of the vital or a part of the mind or a part of the physical being nicely hidden there, at the back, so that you don't see it (Mother hides her hands behind her back) and don't notice that it is not collaborating - sitting quietly there so that you don't unearth it... it says nothing, but it does not change, it hides itself. How many such parts! How many parts hide themselves! You put them in your pocket because you don't want to see them or else they get behind your back and sit there well-hidden, right in the middle of your back, so as not to be seen. When you go there with your torch - your torch of sincerity - you ferret out all the corners, everywhere, all the small corners which do not consent, the things which say "No" or those which do not move: "I am not going to budge. I am glued to this place of mine and nothing will make me move."... You have a torch there with you, and you flash it upon the thing, upon everything. You will see there are many of them there, behind your back, well stuck.
Try, just for an hour, try!
No more questions?
Nobody has anything to say? Then, au revoir, my children! ~ The Mother, Question and Answers, Volume-6, page no.132-133),#KEYS
1138:Countless books on divination, astrology, medicine and other subjects
Describe ways to read signs. They do add to your learning,
But they generate new thoughts and your stable attention breaks up.
Cut down on this kind of knowledge - that's my sincere advice.
You stop arranging your usual living space,
But make everything just right for your retreat.
This makes little sense and just wastes time.
Forget all this - that's my sincere advice.
You make an effort at practice and become a good and knowledgeable person.
You may even master some particular capabilities.
But whatever you attach to will tie you up.
Be unbiased and know how to let things be - that's my sincere advice.
You may think awakened activity means to subdue skeptics
By using sorcery, directing or warding off hail or lightning, for example.
But to burn the minds of others will lead you to lower states.
Keep a low profile - that's my sincere advice.
Maybe you collect a lot of important writings,
Major texts, personal instructions, private notes, whatever.
If you haven't practiced, books won't help you when you die.
Look at the mind - that's my sincere advice.
When you focus on practice, to compare understandings and experience,
Write books or poetry, to compose songs about your experience
Are all expressions of your creativity. But they just give rise to thinking.
Keep yourself free from intellectualization - that's my sincere advice.
In these difficult times you may feel that it is helpful
To be sharp and critical with aggressive people around you.
This approach will just be a source of distress and confusion for you.
Speak calmly - that's my sincere advice.
Intending to be helpful and without personal investment,
You tell your friends what is really wrong with them.
You may have been honest but your words gnaw at their heart.
Speak pleasantly - that's my sincere advice.
You engage in discussions, defending your views and refuting others'
Thinking that you are clarifying the teachings.
But this just gives rise to emotional posturing.
Keep quiet - that's my sincere advice.
You feel that you are being loyal
By being partial to your teacher, lineage or philosophical tradition.
Boosting yourself and putting down others just causes hard feelings.
Have nothing to do with all this - that's my sincere advice.
~ Longchenpa, excerpts from 30 Pieces of Sincere Advice
,#KEYS
1139:Satya Sattva - "Sri Yukteswar's intuition was penetrating; heedless of remarks, he often replied to one's unexpressed thoughts. The words a person uses, and the actual thoughts behind them, may be poles apart. 'By calmness,' my guru said, 'try to feel the thoughts behind the confusion of men's verbiage.' [...]
Many teachers talked of miracles but could manifest nothing. Sri Yukteswar seldom mentioned the subtle laws but secretly operated them at will. 'A man of realization doesn't perform any miracle until he receives an inward sanction', master explained. 'God does not wish the secrets of His creation revealed promiscuously. Also, every individual in the world has an inalienable right to his free will. A saint will not encroach on that independence.'
The silence habitual to Sri Yukteswar was caused by his deep perceptions of the Infinite. [...] Because of my guru's unspectacular guise, only a few of his contemporaries recognized him as a superman. The adage: 'He is a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom,' could never be applied to my profound and quiet master. Though born a mortal like all others, Sri Yukteswar achieved identity with the Ruler of time and space. Master found no insuperable obstacles to the mergence of human and Divine. No such barrier exists, I came to understand. [...]
Though my guru's undissembling speech prevented a large following during his years on Earth, nevertheless, through an ever-growing number of sincere students of his teachings, his spirit lives on in the world today. [...]
The disclosures of the Divine insight are often painful to worldly ears. Master was not popular with superficial students. The wise, always few in number, deeply revered him. I daresay Sri Yukteswar would have been the most sought-after guru in India had his speech not been so candid and so censorious. [...]
He added, 'You will go to foreign lands, where blunt assaults on the ego are not appreciated. A teacher could not spread India's message in the West without an ample fund of accommodative patience and forbearance.' [...]
I am immeasurably grateful for the humbling blows he dealt my vanity. I sometimes felt that, metaphorically, he was discovering and uprooting every diseased tooth in my jaw. The hard core of egotism is difficult to dislodge except rudely. With its departure, the Divine finds at last un unobstructed channel. In vain It seeks to percolate through flinty hearts of selfishness. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi,#KEYS
1140:It is your birthday tomorrow?
Yes, Mother.
How old will you be?
Twenty-six, Mother.
I shall see you tomorrow and give you something special. You will see, I am not speaking of anything material- that, I shall give you a card and all that- but of something...You will see, tomorrow, now go home and prepare yourself quietly so that you may be ready to receive it.
Yes, Mother.
You know, my child, what "Bonne Fete" signifies, that is, the birthday we wish here?
Like that, I know what it means, Mother, but not the special significance you want to tell me.
Yes, it is truly a special day in one's life. It is one of those days in the year when the Supreme descends into us- or when we are face to face with the Eternal- one of those days when our soul comes in contact with the Eternal and, if we remain a little conscious, we can feel His Presence within us. If we make a little effort on this day, we accomplish the work of many lives as in a lightning flash. That is why I give so much importance to the birthday- because what one gains in one day is truly something incomparable. And it is for this that I also work to open the consciousness a little towards what is above so that one may come before the Eternal. My child, it is a very, very special day, for it is the day of decision, the day one can unite with the Supreme Consciousness. For the Lord lifts us on this day to the highest region possible so that our soul which is a portion of that Eternal Flame, may be united and identified with its Origin.
This day is truly an opportunity in life. One is so open and so receptive that one can assimilate all that is given. I can do many things, that is why it is important.
It is one of those days when the Lord Himself opens the doors wide for us. It is as though He were inviting us to rekindle more powerfully the flame of aspiration. It is one of those days which He gives us. We too, by our personal effort, could attain to this, but it would be long, hard and not so easy. And this- this is a real chance in life- the day of Grace.
It is an occult phenomenon that occurs invariably, without our knowledge, on this particular day of the year. The soul leaves behind the body and journeys up and up till it merges into the Source in order to replenish itself and absorb from the Supreme Its Power, Light and Ananda and comes down charged for a whole year to pass. Then again and again... it continues like this year after year. ~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, Mona Sarkar,#KEYS
1141:reading :::
50 Spiritual Classics: List of Books Covered:
Muhammad Asad - The Road To Mecca (1954)
St Augustine - Confessions (400)
Richard Bach - Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
Black Elk Black - Elk Speaks (1932)
Richard Maurice Bucke - Cosmic Consciousness (1901)
Fritjof Capra - The Tao of Physics (1976)
Carlos Castaneda - Journey to Ixtlan (1972)
GK Chesterton - St Francis of Assisi (1922)
Pema Chodron - The Places That Scare You (2001)
Chuang Tzu - The Book of Chuang Tzu (4th century BCE)
Ram Dass - Be Here Now (1971)
Epictetus - Enchiridion (1st century)
Mohandas Gandhi - An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth (1927)
Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness (1097)
Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet (1923)
GI Gurdjieff - Meetings With Remarkable Men (1960)
Dag Hammarskjold - Markings (1963)
Abraham Joshua Heschel - The Sabbath (1951)
Hermann Hesse - Siddartha (1922)
Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception (1954)
William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Carl Gustav Jung - Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1955)
Margery Kempe - The Book of Margery Kempe (1436)
J Krishnamurti - Think On These Things (1964)
CS Lewis - The Screwtape Letters (1942)
Malcolm X - The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964)
Daniel C Matt - The Essential Kabbalah (1994)
Dan Millman - The Way of the Peaceful Warrior (1989)
W Somerset Maugham - The Razor's Edge (1944)
Thich Nhat Hanh - The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975)
Michael Newton - Journey of Souls (1994)
John O'Donohue - Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (1998)
Robert M Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)
James Redfield - The Celestine Prophecy (1994)
Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements (1997)
Helen Schucman & William Thetford - A Course in Miracles (1976)
Idries Shah - The Way of the Sufi (1968)
Starhawk - The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979)
Shunryu Suzuki - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1970)
Emanuel Swedenborg - Heaven and Hell (1758)
Teresa of Avila - Interior Castle (1570)
Mother Teresa - A Simple Path (1994)
Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now (1998)
Chogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (1973)
Neale Donald Walsch - Conversations With God (1998)
Rick Warren - The Purpose-Driven Life (2002)
Simone Weil - Waiting For God (1979)
Ken Wilber - A Theory of Everything (2000)
Paramahansa Yogananda - Autobiography of a Yogi (1974)
Gary Zukav - The Seat of the Soul (1990)
~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Spirital Classics (2017 Edition),#KEYS
1142:The Song Of Food And Dwelling :::
I bow down at the feet of the wish-fulfilling Guru.
Pray vouchsafe me your grace in bestowing beneficial food,
Pray make me realize my own body as the house of Buddha,
Pray grant me this knowledge.
I built the house through fear,
The house of Sunyata, the void nature of being;
Now I have no fear of its collapsing.
I, the Yogi with the wish-fulfilling gem,
Feel happiness and joy where'er I stay.
Because of the fear of cold, I sought for clothes;
The clothing I found is the Ah Shea Vital Heat.
Now I have no fear of coldness.
Because of the fear of poverty, I sought for riches;
The riches I found are the inexhaustible Seven Holy Jewels.
Now I have no fear of poverty.
Because of the fear of hunger, I sought for food;
The food I found is the Samadhi of Suchness.
Now I have no fear of hunger.
Because of the fear of thirst, I sought for drink;
The heavenly drink I found is the wine of mindfulness.
Now I have no fear of thirst.
Because of the fear of loneliness, I searched for a friend;
The friend I found is the bliss of perpetual Sunyata.
Now I have no fear of loneliness.
Because of the fear of going astray,
I sought for the right path to follow.
The wide path I found is the Path of Two-in-One.
Now I do not fear to lose my way.
I am a yogi with all desirable possessions,
A man always happy where'er he stays.
Here at Yolmo Tagpu Senge Tson,
The tigress howling with a pathetic, trembling cry,
Reminds me that her helpless cubs are innocently playing.
I cannot help but feel a great compassion for them,
I cannot help but practice more diligently,
I cannot help but augment thus my Bodhi-Mind.
The touching cry of the monkey,
So impressive and so moving,
Cannot help but raise in me deep pity.
The little monkey's chattering is amusing and pathetic;
As I hear it, I cannot but think of it with compassion.
The voice of the cuckoo is so moving,
And so tuneful is the lark's sweet singing,
That when I hear them I cannot help but listen
When I listen to them,
I cannot help but shed tears.
The varied cries and cawings of the crow,
Are a good and helpful friend unto the yogi.
Even without a single friend,
To remain here is a pleasure.
With joy flowing from my heart, I sing this happy song;
May the dark shadow of all men's sorrows
Be dispelled by my joyful singing. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,#KEYS
1143:
Are not offering and surrender to the Divine the same thing?
They are two aspects of the same thing, but not altogether the same. One is more active than the other. They do not belong to quite the same plane of existence.
For example, you have decided to offer your life to the Divine, you take that decision. But all of a sudden, something altogether unpleasant, unexpected happens to you and your first movement is to react and protest. Yet you have made the offering, you have said once for all: "My life belongs to the Divine", and then suddenly an extremely unpleasant incident happens (that can happen) and there is something in you that reacts, that does not want it. But here, if you want to be truly logical with your offering, you must bring forward this unpleasant incident, make an offering of it to the Divine, telling him very sincerely: "Let Your will be done; if You have decided it that way, it will be that way." And this must be a willing and spontaneous adhesion. So it is very difficult.
Even for the smallest thing, something that is not in keeping with what you expected, what you have worked for, instead of an opposite reaction coming in - spontaneously, irresistibly, you draw back: "No, not that" - if you have made a complete surrender, a total surrender, well, it does not happen like that: you are as quiet, as peaceful, as calm in one case as in the other. And perhaps you had the notion that it would be better if it happened in a certain way, but if it happens differently, you find that this also is all right. You might have, for example, worked very hard to do a certain thing, so that something might happen, you might have given much time, much of your energy, much of your will, and all that not for your own sake, but, say, for the divine work (that is the offering); now suppose that after having taken all this trouble, done all this work, made all these efforts, it all goes just the other way round, it does not succeed. If you are truly surrendered, you say: "It is good, it is all good, it is all right; I did what I could, as well as I could, now it is not my decision, it is the decision of the Divine, I accept entirely what He decides." On the other hand, if you do not have this deep and spontaneous surrender, you tell yourself: "How is it? I took so much trouble to do a thing which is not for a selfish purpose, which is for the Divine Work, and this is the result, it is not successful!" Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it is like that.
True surrender is a very difficult thing.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 52,#KEYS
1144:
When one is bored, Mother, does that mean one does not progress?
At that time, yes, certainly without a doubt; not only does one not progress, but one misses an opportunity for progressing. There was a concurrence of circumstances which seemed to you dull, boring, stupid and you were in their midst; well, if you get bored, it means that you yourself are as boring as the circumstances! And that is a clear proof that you are simply not in a state of progress. There is nothing more contrary to the very reason of existence than this passing wave of boredom. If you make a little effort within yourself at that time, if you tell yourself: "Wait a bit, what is it that I should learn? What does all that bring to me so that I may learn something? What progress should I make in overcoming myself? What is the weakness that I must overcome? What is the inertia that I must conquer?" If you say that to yourself, you will see the next minute you are no longer bored. You will immediately get interested and you will make progress! This is a commonplace of consciousness.
And then, you know, most people when they get bored, instead of trying to rise a step higher, descend a step lower, they become still worse than what they were, and they do all the stupid things that others do, go in for all the vulgarities, all the meannesses, everything, in order to amuse themselves. They get intoxicated, take poison, ruin their health, ruin their brain, they utter crudities. They do all that because they are bored. Well, if instead of going down, one had risen up, one would have profited by the circumstances. Instead of profiting, one falls a little lower yet than where one was. When people get a big blow in their life, some misfortune (what men call "misfortune", there are people who do have misfortunes), the first thing they try to do is to forget it - as though one did not forget quickly enough! And to forget, they do anything whatsoever. When there is something painful, they want to distract themselves - what they call distraction, that is, doing stupid things, that is to say, going down in their consciousness, going down a little instead of rising up.... Has something extremely painful happened to you, something very grievous? Do not become stupefied, do not seek forgetfulness, do not go down into the inconscience; you must go to the end and find the light that is behind, the truth, the force and the joy; and for that you must be strong and refuse to slide down. But that we shall see a little later, my children, when you will be a little older. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 50,#KEYS
1145:He continuously reflected on her image and attributes, day and night. His bhakti was such that he could not stop thinking of her. Eventually, he saw her everywhere and in everything. This was his path to illumination.
He was often asked by people: what is the way to the supreme? His answer was sharp and definite: bhakti yoga. He said time and time again that bhakti yoga is the best sadhana for the Kali Yuga (Dark Age) of the present.
His bhakti is illustrated by the following statement he made to a disciple:
To my divine mother I prayed only for pure love.
At her lotus feet I offered a few flowers and I prayed:
Mother! here is virtue and here is vice;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Mother! here is knowledge and here is ignorance;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Mother! here is purity and impurity;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Ramakrishna, like Kabir, was a practical man.
He said: "So long as passions are directed towards the world and its objects, they are enemies. But when they are directed towards a deity, then they become the best of friends to man, for they take him to illumination. The desire for worldly things must be changed into longing for the supreme; the anger which you feel for fellow man must be directed towards the supreme for not manifesting himself to you . . . and so on, with all other emotions. The passions cannot be eradicated, but they can be turned into new directions."
A disciple once asked him: "How can one conquer the weaknesses within us?" He answered: "When the fruit grows out of the flower, the petals drop off themselves. So when divinity in you increases, the weaknesses of human nature will vanish of their own accord." He emphasized that the aspirant should not give up his practices. "If a single dive into the sea does not bring you a pearl, do not conclude that there are no pearls in the sea. There are countless pearls hidden in the sea.
So if you fail to merge with the supreme during devotional practices, do not lose heart. Go on patiently with the practices, and in time you will invoke divine grace." It does not matter what form you care to worship. He said: "Many are the names of the supreme and infinite are the forms through which he may be approached. In whatever name and form you choose to worship him, through that he will be realized by you." He indicated the importance of surrender on the path of bhakti when he said:
~ Swami Satyananda Saraswati, A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya,#KEYS
1146:What is the difference between meditation and concentration?
Meditation is a purely mental activity, it interests only the mental being. One can concentrate while meditating but this is a mental concentration; one can get a silence but it is a purely mental silence, and the other parts of the being are kept immobile and inactive so as not to disturb the meditation. You may pass twenty hours of the day in meditation and for the remaining four hours you will be an altogether ordinary man because only the mind has been occupied-the rest of the being, the vital and the physical, is kept under pressure so that it may not disturb. In meditation nothing is directly done for the other parts of the being.
Certainly this indirect action can have an effect, but... I have known in my life people whose capacity for meditation was remarkable but who, when not in meditation, were quite ordinary men, even at times ill-natured people, who would become furious if their meditation was disturbed. For they had learnt to master only their mind, not the rest of their being.
Concentration is a more active state. You may concentrate mentally, you may concentrate vitally, psychically, physically, and you may concentrate integrally. Concentration or the capacity to gather oneself at one point is more difficult than meditation. You may gather together one portion of your being or consciousness or you may gather together the whole of your consciousness or even fragments of it, that is, the concentration may be partial, total or integral, and in each case the result will be different.
If you have the capacity to concentrate, your meditation will be more interesting and easieR But one can meditate without concentrating. Many follow a chain of ideas in their meditation - it is meditation, not concentration.
Is it possible to distinguish the moment when one attains perfect concentration from the moment when, starting from this concentration, one opens oneself to the universal Energy?
Yes. You concentrate on something or simply you gather yourself together as much as is possible for you and when you attain a kind of perfection in concentration, if you can sustain this perfection for a sufficiently long time, then a door opens and you pass beyond the limit of your ordinary consciousness-you enter into a deeper and higher knowledge. Or you go within. Then you may experience a kind of dazzling light, an inner wonder, a beatitude, a complete knowledge, a total silence. There are, of course, many possibilities but the phenomenon is always the same.
To have this experience all depends upon your capacity to maintain your concentration sufficiently long at its highest point of perfection. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
1147:Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a few himself. They were deeply disappointing be cause they aroused the desire for the highest and did not fulfill it. They lacked the most essential thing-mystery. That was what dreams and truly great works of art had in common : mystery. Goldmund continued his thought: It is mystery I love and pursue. Several times I have seen it beginning to take shape; as an artist, I would like to capture and express it. Some day, perhaps, I'll be able to. The figure of the universal mother, the great birthgiver, for example. Unlike other fi gures, her mystery does not consist of this or that detail, of a particular voluptuousness or sparseness, coarseness or delicacy, power or gracefulness. It consists of a fusion of the greatest contrasts of the world, those that cannot otherwise be combined, that have made peace only in this figure. They live in it together: birth and death, tenderness and cruelty, life and destruction. If I only imagined this fi gure, and were she merely the play of my thoughts, it would not matter about her, I could dismiss her as a mistake and forget about her. But the universal mother is not an idea of mine; I did not think her up, I saw her! She lives inside me. I've met her again and again. She appeared to me one winter night in a village when I was asked to hold a light over the bed of a peasant woman giving birth: that's when the image came to life within me. I often lose it; for long periods it re mains remote; but suddenly it Hashes clear again, as it did today. The image of my own mother, whom I loved most of all, has transformed itself into this new image, and lies encased within the new one like the pit in the cherry.
As his present situation became clear to him, Goldmund was afraid to make a decision. It was as difficult as when he had said farewell to Narcissus and to the cloister. Once more he was on an impor tant road : the road to his mother. Would this mother-image one day take shape, a work of his hands, and become visible to all? Perhaps that was his goal, the hidden meaning of his life. Perhaps; he didn't know. But one thing he did know : it was good to travel toward his mother, to be drawn and called by her. He felt alive. Perhaps he'd never be able to shape her image, perhaps she'd always remain a dream, an intuition, a golden shimmer, a sacred mystery. At any rate, he had to follow her and submit his fate to her. She was his star.
And now the decision was at his fingertips; everything had become clear. Art was a beautiful thing, but it was no goddess, no goal-not for him. He was not to follow art, but only the call of his mother.
~ Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund,#KEYS
1148:10000 :::
The Only Way Out:
... Once you have no more desires, no more attachments, once you have given up all necessity of receiving a reward from human beings, whoever they are - knowing that the only reward that is worth getting is the one that comes from the Supreme and that never fails - once you give up attachment to all exterior beings and things, you at once feel in your heart this Presence, this Force, this Grace that is always with you. And there is no other remedy. It's the only remedy, for everybody without exception. To all those who suffer, for the same thing that has to be said: all suffering is the sign that the surrender is not total. Then, when you feel in you a 'bang' like that, instead of saying, 'Oh, this is bad' or 'This circumstance is difficult,' you say, 'My surrender is not perfect.' Then it's all right. And then you feel the Grace that helps you and leads you, and you go on. And one day you emerge into that peace that nothing can trouble.
You answer to all the contrary forces, the contrary movements, the attacks, the misunderstandings, the bad wills, with the same smile that comes from full confidence in the Divine Grace. And that is the only way out, there is no other.
But where to get such a strength?
Within you. The Divine Presence is in you. It is in you. You look for it outside; look inside. It is in you. The Presence is there. You want the appreciation of others to get strength - you will never get it. The strength is in you. If you want, you can aspire for what seems to you the supreme goal, supreme light, supreme knowledge, supreme love. But it is in you - otherwise you would never be able to contact it. If you go deep enough inside you, you will find it there, like a flame that is always burning straight up. And don't believe that it is difficult to do. It is because the look is always turned outside that you don't feel the Presence. But if, instead of looking outside for support, you concentrate and you pray - inside, to the supreme knowledge - to know at each moment what is to be done, the way to do it, and if you give all you are, all you do in order to acquire perfection, you will feel that the support is always there, always guiding, showing the way. And if there is a difficulty, then instead of wanting to fight, you hand it over, hand it over to the supreme wisdom to deal with it - to deal with all the bad wills, all the misunderstandings, all the bad reactions. If you surrender completely, it is no more your concern: it's the concern of the Supreme who takes it up and knows better than anybody else what is to be done. That is the only way out, only way out. There, my child
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III, [T1],#KEYS
1149:
Sweet Mother, can the psychic express itself without the mind, the vital and the physical?
It expresses itself constantly without them. Only, in order that the ordinary human being may perceive it, it has to express itself through them, because the ordinary human being is not in direct contact with the psychic. If it was in direct contact with the psychic it would be psychic in its manifestation - and all would be truly well. But as it is not in contact with the psychic it doesn't even know what it is, it wonders all bewildered what kind of a being it can be; so to reach this ordinary human consciousness it must use ordinary means, that is, go through the mind, the vital and the physical.
One of them may be skipped but surely not the last, otherwise one is no longer conscious of anything at all. The ordinary human being is conscious only in his physical being, and only in relatively rare moments is he conscious of his mind, just a little more frequently of his vital, but all this is mixed up in his consciousness, so much so that he would be quite unable to say "This movement comes from the mind, this from the vital, this from the physical." This already asks for a considerable development in order to be able to distinguish within oneself the source of the different movements one has. And it is so mixed that even when one tries, at the beginning it is very difficult to classify and separate one thing from another.
It is as when one works with colours, takes three or four or five different colours and puts them in the same water and beats them up together, it makes a grey, indistinct and incomprehensi- ble mixture, you see, and one can't say which is red, which blue, which green, which yellow; it is something dirty, lots of colours mixed. So first of all one must do this little work of separating the red, blue, yellow, green - putting them like this, each in its corner. It is not at all easy.
I have met people who used to think themselves extremely intelligent, by the way, who thought they knew a lot, and when I spoke to them about the different parts of the being they looked at me like this (gesture) and asked me, "But what are you speaking about?" They did not understand at all. I am speaking of people who have the reputation of being intelligent. They don't understand at all. For them it is just the consciousness; it is the consciousness-"It is my consciousness" and then there is the neighbour's consciousness; and again there are things which do not have any consciousness. And then I asked them whether animals had a consciousness; so they began to scratch their heads and said, "Perhaps it is we who put our consciousness in the animal when we look at it," like that...
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955,#KEYS
1150:Mother of Dreams :::
Goddess supreme, Mother of Dream, by thy ivory doors when thou standest,
Who are they then that come down unto men in thy visions that troop, group upon group, down the path of the shadows slanting?
Dream after dream, they flash and they gleam with the flame of the stars still around them;
Shadows at thy side in a darkness ride where the wild fires dance, stars glow and glance and the random meteor glistens;
There are voices that cry to their kin who reply; voices sweet, at the heart they beat and ravish the soul as it listens.
What then are these lands and these golden sands and these seas more radiant than earth can imagine?
Who are those that pace by the purple waves that race to the cliff-bound floor of thy jasper shore under skies in which mystery muses,
Lapped in moonlight not of our night or plunged in sunshine that is not diurnal?
Who are they coming thy Oceans roaming with sails whose strands are not made by hands, an unearthly wind advances?
Why do they join in a mystic line with those on the sands linking hands in strange and stately dances?
Thou in the air, with a flame in thy hair, the whirl of thy wonders watching,
Holdest the night in thy ancient right, Mother divine, hyacinthine, with a girdle of beauty defended.
Sworded with fire, attracting desire, thy tenebrous kingdom thou keepest,
Starry-sweet, with the moon at thy feet, now hidden now seen the clouds between in the gloom and the drift of thy tresses.
Only to those whom thy fancy chose, O thou heart-free, is it given to see thy witchcraft and feel thy caresses.
Open the gate where thy children wait in their world of a beauty undarkened.
High-throned on a cloud, victorious, proud I have espied Maghavan ride when the armies of wind are behind him;
Food has been given for my tasting from heaven and fruit of immortal sweetness;
I have drunk wine of the kingdoms divine and have healed the change of music strange from a lyre which our hands cannot master,
Doors have swung wide in the chambers of pride where the Gods reside and the Apsaras dance in their circles faster and faster.
For thou art she whom we first can see when we pass the bounds of the mortal;
There at the gates of the heavenly states thou hast planted thy wand enchanted over the head of the Yogin waving.
From thee are the dream and the shadows that seem and the fugitive lights that delude us;
Thine is the shade in which visions are made; sped by thy hands from celestial lands come the souls that rejoice for ever.
Into thy dream-worlds we pass or look in thy magic glass, then beyond thee we climb out of Space and Time to the peak of divine endeavour. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
1151:To Know How To Suffer
IF AT any time a deep sorrow, a searing doubt or an intense pain overwhelms you and drives you to despair, there is an infallible way to regain calm and peace.
In the depths of our being there shines a light whose brilliance is equalled only by its purity; a light, a living and conscious portion of a universal godhead who animates and nourishes and illumines Matter, a powerful and unfailing guide for those who are willing to heed his law, a helper full of solace and loving forbearance towards all who aspire to see and hear and obey him. No sincere and lasting aspiration towards him can be in vain; no strong and respectful trust can be disappointed, no expectation ever deceived.
My heart has suffered and lamented, almost breaking beneath a sorrow too heavy, almost sinking beneath a pain too strong.... But I have called to thee, O divine comforter, I have prayed ardently to thee, and the splendour of thy dazzling light has appeared to me and revived me.
As the rays of thy glory penetrated and illumined all my being, I clearly perceived the path to follow, the use that can be made of suffering; I understood that the sorrow that held me in its grip was but a pale reflection of the sorrow of the earth, of this abysm of suffering and anguish.
Only those who have suffered can understand the suffering of others; understand it, commune with it and relieve it. And I understood, O divine comforter, sublime Holocaust, that in order to sustain us in all our troubles, to soothe all our pangs, thou must have known and felt all the sufferings of earth and man, all without exception.
How is it that among those who claim to be thy worshippers, some regard thee as a cruel torturer, as an inexorable judge witnessing the torments that are tolerated by thee or even created by thy own will?
No, I now perceive that these sufferings come from the very imperfection of Matter which, in its disorder and crudeness, is unfit to manifest thee; and thou art the very first to suffer from it, to bewail it, thou art the first to toil and strive in thy ardent desire to change disorder into order, suffering into happiness, discord into harmony.
Suffering is not something inevitable or even desirable, but when it comes to us, how helpful it can be!
Each time we feel that our heart is breaking, a deeper door opens within us, revealing new horizons, ever richer in hidden treasures, whose golden influx brings once more a new and intenser life to the organism on the brink of destruction.
And when, by these successive descents, we reach the veil that reveals thee as it is lifted, O Lord, who can describe the intensity of Life that penetrates the whole being, the radiance of the Light that floods it, the sublimity of the Love that transforms it for ever! ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, To Know How To Suffer, 1910,#KEYS
1152:The madman.-
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place. and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" -As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -Thus they yelled and laughed.
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him-you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward. forward. in all directions? be there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too. decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us-for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then: "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars-and yet they have done it themselves... It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his reqttiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Kaufmann,#KEYS
1153:reading :::
50 Psychology Classics: List of Books Covered:
Alfred Adler - Understanding Human Nature (1927)
Gordon Allport - The Nature of Prejudice (1954)
Albert Bandura - Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)
Gavin Becker - The Gift of Fear (1997)
Eric Berne - Games People Play (1964)
Isabel Briggs Myers - Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type (1980)
Louann Brizendine - The Female Brain (2006)
David D Burns - Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (1980)
Susan Cain - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking (2012)
Robert Cialdini - Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984)
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Creativity (1997)
Carol Dweck - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006)
Albert Ellis & Robert Harper - (1961) A Guide To Rational Living(1961)
Milton Erickson - My Voice Will Go With You (1982) by Sidney Rosen
Eric Erikson - Young Man Luther (1958)
Hans Eysenck - Dimensions of Personality (1947)
Viktor Frankl - The Will to Meaning (1969)
Anna Freud - The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936)
Sigmund Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams (1901)
Howard Gardner - Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983)
Daniel Gilbert - Stumbling on Happiness (2006)
Malcolm Gladwell - Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005)
Daniel Goleman - Emotional Intelligence at Work (1998)
John M Gottman - The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work (1999)
Temple Grandin - The Autistic Brain: Helping Different Kinds of Minds Succeed (2013)
Harry Harlow - The Nature of Love (1958)
Thomas A Harris - I'm OK - You're OK (1967)
Eric Hoffer - The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951)
Karen Horney - Our Inner Conflicts (1945)
William James - Principles of Psychology (1890)
Carl Jung - The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1953)
Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)
Alfred Kinsey - Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953)
RD Laing - The Divided Self (1959)
Abraham Maslow - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (1970)
Stanley Milgram - Obedience To Authority (1974)
Walter Mischel - The Marshmallow Test (2014)
Leonard Mlodinow - Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (2012)
IP Pavlov - Conditioned Reflexes (1927)
Fritz Perls - Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (1951)
Jean Piaget - The Language and Thought of the Child (1966)
Steven Pinker - The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002)
VS Ramachandran - Phantoms in the Brain (1998)
Carl Rogers - On Becoming a Person (1961)
Oliver Sacks - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1970)
Barry Schwartz - The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less (2004)
Martin Seligman - Authentic Happiness (2002)
BF Skinner - Beyond Freedom & Dignity (1953)
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton & Sheila Heen - Difficult Conversations (2000)
William Styron - Darkness Visible (1990)
~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Psychology Classics,#KEYS
1154:Something happened to you before you were born, and this is what it was:
STAGE ONE: THE CHIKHAI
The events of the 49-day Bardo period are divided into three major stages, the Chikhai, the Chonyid, and the Sidpa (in that order). Immediately following physical death, the soul enters the Chikhai, which is simply the state of the immaculate and luminous Dharmakaya, the ultimate Consciousness, the BrahmanAtman. This ultimate state is given, as a gift, to all individuals: they are plunged straight into ultimate reality and exist as the ultimate Dharmakaya. "At this moment," says the Bardo Thotrol, "the first glimpsing of the Bardo of the Clear Light of Reality, which is the Infallible Mind of the Dharmakaya, is experienced by all sentient beings.''110 Or, to put it a different way, the Thotrol tells us that "Thine own consciousness, shining, void, and inseparable from the Great Body of Radiance, hath no birth, nor death, and is the Immutable Light-Buddha Amitabha. Knowing this is sufficient. Recognizing the voidness of thine own intellect to be Buddhahood ... is to keep thyself in the Divine Mind."110 In short, immediately following physical death, the soul is absorbed in and as the ultimate-causal body (if we may treat them together).
Interspersed with this brief summary of the Bardo Thotrol, I will add my commentaries on involution and on the nature of the Atman project in involution. And we begin by noting that at the start of the Bardo experience, the soul is elevated to the utter heights of Being, to the ultimate state of Oneness-that is, he starts his Bardo career at the top. But, at the top is usually not where he remains, and the Thotrol tells us why. In Evans-Wentz's words, "In the realm of the Clear Light [the highest Chikhai stage] the mentality of a person . . . momentarily enjoys a condition of balance, of perfect equilibrium, and of [ultimate] oneness. Owing to unfamiliarity with such a state, which is an ecstatic state of non-ego, of [causal] consciousness, the . . . average human being lacks the power to function in it; karmic propensities becloud the consciousness-principle with thoughts of personality, of individualized being, of dualism, and, losing equilibrium, the consciousness-principle falls away from the Clear Light."
The soul falls away from the ultimate Oneness because "karmic propensities cloud consciousness"-"karmic propensities'' means seeking, grasping, desiring; means, in fact, Eros. And as this Erosseeking develops, the state of perfect Oneness starts to "break down" (illusorily). Or, from a different angle, because the individual cannot stand the intensity of pure Oneness ("owing to unfamiliarity with such a state"), he contracts away from it, tries to ''dilute it," tries to extricate himself from Perfect Intensity in Atman. Contracting in the face of infinity, he turns instead to forms of seeking, desire, karma, and grasping, trying to "search out" a state of equilibrium. Contraction and Eros-these karmic propensities couple and conspire to drive the soul away from pure consciousness and downwards into multiplicity, into less intense and less real states of being. ~ Ken Wilber, The Atman Project,#KEYS
1155:The Mother once described the characteristics of the unity-body, of the future supramental body, to a young Ashramite: 'You know, if there is something on that window-sill and if I [in a supramental body] want to take it, I stretch out my hand and it becomes - wow! - long, and I have the thing in my hand without even having to get up from my chair ... Physically, I shall be able to be here and there at the same time. I shall be able to communicate with many people at the same time. To have something in my hand, I'll just have to wish for it. I think about something and I want it and it is already in my hand. With this transformed body I shall be free of the fetters of ignorance, pain, of mortality and unconsciousness. I shall be able to do many things at the same time. The transparent, luminous, strong, light, elastic body won't need any material things to subsist on ... The body can even be lengthened if one wants it to become tall, or shrunk when one wants it to be small, in any circumstances ... There will be all kinds of changes and there will be powers without limit. And it won't be something funny. Of course, I am giving you somewhat childish examples to tease you and to show the difference. 'It will be a true being, perfect in proportion, very, very beautiful and strong, light, luminous or else transparent. It will have a supple and malleable body endowed with extraordinary capacities and able to do everything; a body without age, a creation of the New Consciousness or else a transformed body such as none has ever imagined ... All that is above man will be within its reach. It will be guided by the Truth alone and nothing less. That is what it is and more even than has ever been conceived.'895 This the Mother told in French to Mona Sarkar, who noted it down as faithfully as possible and read it out to her for verification. The supramental body will not only be omnipotent and omniscient, but also omnipresent. And immortal. Not condemned to a never ending monotonous immortality - which, again, is one of our human interpretations of immortality - but for ever existing in an ecstasy of inexhaustible delight in 'the Joy that surpasses all understanding.' Moment after moment, eternity after eternity. For in that state each moment is an eternity and eternity an ever present moment. If gross matter is not capable of being used as a permanent coating of the soul in the present phase of its evolution, then it certainly is not capable of being the covering of the supramental consciousness, to form the body that has, to some extent, been described above. This means that the crux of the process of supramental transformation lies in matter; the supramental world has to become possible in matter, which at present still is gross matter. - Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were supramentalized in their mental and vital, but their enormous problem was the supramentalization of the physical body, consisting of the gross matter of the Earth. As the Mother said: 'It is matter itself that must change so that the Supramental may manifest. A new kind of matter no longer corresponding with Mendeleyev's periodic table of the elements? Is that possible?
~ Georges Van Vrekhem,#KEYS
1156:On that spring day in the park I saw a young woman who attracted me. She was tall and slender, elegantly dressed, and had an intelligent and boyish face. I liked her at once. She was my type and began to fill my imagination. She probably was not much older than I but seemed far more mature, well-defined, a full-grown woman, but with a touch of exuberance and boyishness in her face, and this was what I liked above all .
I had never managed to approach a girl with whom I had fallen in love, nor did I manage in this case. But the impression she made on me was deeper than any previous one had been and the infatuation had a profound influence on my life.
Suddenly a new image had risen up before me, a lofty and cherished image. And no need, no urge was as deep or as fervent within me as the craving to worship and admire. I gave her the name Beatrice, for, even though I had not read Dante, I knew about Beatrice from an English painting of which I owned a reproduction. It showed a young pre-Raphaelite woman, long-limbed and slender, with long head and etherealized hands and features. My beautiful young woman did not quite resemble her, even though she, too, revealed that slender and boyish figure which I loved, and something of the ethereal, soulful quality of her face.
Although I never addressed a single word to Beatrice, she exerted a profound influence on me at that time. She raised her image before me, she gave me access to a holy shrine, she transformed me into a worshiper in a temple.
From one day to the next I stayed clear of all bars and nocturnal exploits. I could be alone with myself again and enjoyed reading and going for long walks.
My sudden conversion drew a good deal of mockery in its wake. But now I had something I loved and venerated, I had an ideal again, life was rich with intimations of mystery and a feeling of dawn that made me immune to all taunts. I had come home again to myself, even if only as the slave and servant of a cherished image.
I find it difficult to think back to that time without a certain fondness. Once more I was trying most strenuously to construct an intimate "world of light" for myself out of the shambles of a period of devastation; once more I sacrificed everything within me to the aim of banishing darkness and evil from myself. And, furthermore, this present "world of light" was to some extent my own creation; it was no longer an escape, no crawling back to -nether and the safety of irresponsibility; it was a new duty, one I had invented and desired on my own, with responsibility and self-control. My sexuality, a torment from which I was in constant flight, was to be transfigured nto spirituality and devotion by this holy fire. Everything :brk and hateful was to be banished, there were to be no more tortured nights, no excitement before lascivious picures, no eavesdropping at forbidden doors, no lust. In place of all this I raised my altar to the image of Beatrice, :.. and by consecrating myself to her I consecrated myself to the spirit and to the gods, sacrificing that part of life which I withdrew from the forces of darkness to those of light. My goal was not joy but purity, not happiness but beauty, and spirituality.
This cult of Beatrice completely changed my life.
~ Hermann Hesse, Demian,#KEYS
1157:(Nirodbaran:) "It was the first week of January 1930.
At about 3 p.m., I reached Dilip Kumar Roy's place. "Oh, you have come! Let us go," he said, and cutting a rose from his terrace-garden he added, "Offer this to the Mother." When we arrived at the Ashram he left me at the present Reading Room saying, "Wait here." My heart was beating nervously as if I were going to face an examination. A stately chair in the middle of the room attracted momentarily my attention. In a short while the Mother came accompanied by Nolini, Amrita and Dilip. She took her seat in the chair, the others stood by her side. I was dazzled by the sight. Was it a ‘visionary gleam’ or a reality? Nothing like it had I seen before. Her fair complexion, set off by a finely coloured sari and a headband, gave me the impression of a goddess such as we see in pictures or in the idols during the Durga Puja festival. She was all smiles and redolent with grace. I suppose this was the Mahalakshmi smile Sri Aurobindo had spoken of in his book The Mother. She bathed me in the cascade of her smile and heart-melting look. I stood before her, shy and speechless, made more so by the presence of the others who were enjoying the silent sweet spectacle. Minutes passed. Then I offered to her hand my rose and did my pranam at her feet which had gold anklets on them. She stooped and blessed me. On standing up, I got again the same enchanting smile like moonbeams from a magic sky. After a time she said to the others, "He is very shy." "[1]
(Amal Kiran:) "Now to come back to all the people, all – the undamned all who were there in the Ashram. Very soon after my coming Dilip Kumar Roy came with Sahana Devi. They came and settled down. And, soon after that, I saw the face of my friend Nirod. It was of course an unforgettable face. (laughter) I think he had come straight from England or via some place in Bengal, but he carried something of the air of England. (laughter) He had passed out as a doctor at Edinburgh. I saw him, we became friends and we have remained friends ever since. But when he came as a doctor he was not given doctoring work here. As far as I remember he was made the head of a timber godown! (laughter) All sorts of strange jobs were being given to people. Look at the first job I got. The Mother once told me, "I would like you to do some work." I said, "All right, I am prepared to do some work." Then she said,"Will you take charge of our stock of furniture?" (laughter)"[2]
(Amal Kiran:) "To return to my friend Nirod – it was after some time that he got the Dispensary. I don't know whether he wanted it, or liked it or not, but he established his reputation as the frowning physician. (laughter) People used to come to him with a cold and he would stand and glare at them, and say, "What? You have a cold!" Poor people, they would simply shiver (laughter) and this had a very salutary effect because they thought that it was better not to fall ill than face the doctor's drastic disapproval of any kind of illness which would give him any botheration. (laughter) But he did his job all right, and every time he frightened off a patient he went to his room and started trying to write poetry (laughter) – because that, he thought, was his most important job. And, whether he succeeded as a doctor or not, as a poet he has eminently succeeded. Sri Aurobindo has really made him a poet.
The doctoring as well as the poetry was a bond between us, because my father had been a doctor and medicine ran in my blood. We used to discuss medical matters sometimes, but more often the problems and pains of poetry."[3] ~ https://wiki.auroville.org.in/wiki/Nirodbaran#KEYS
1158:Wake-Initiated Lucid Dreams (WILDS)
In the last chapter we talked about strategies for inducing lucid dreams by carrying an idea from the waking world into the dream, such as an intention to comprehend the dream state, a habit of critical state testing, or the recognition of a dreamsign. These strategies are intended to stimulate a dreamer to become lucid within a dream.
This chapter presents a completely different set of approaches to the world of lucid dreaming based on the idea of falling asleep consciously. This involves retaining consciousness while wakefulness is lost and allows direct entry into the lucid dream state without any loss of reflective consciousness. The basic idea has many variations.
While falling asleep, you can focus on hypnagogic (sleep onset) imagery, deliberate visualizations, your breath or heartbeat, the sensations in your body, your sense of self, and so on. If you keep the mind sufficiently active while the tendency to enter REM sleep is strong, you feel your body fall asleep, but you, that is to say, your consciousness, remains awake. The next thing you know, you will find yourself in the dream world, fully lucid.
These two different strategies for inducing lucidity result in two distinct types of lucid dreams. Experiences in which people consciously enter dreaming sleep are referred to as wake-initiated lucid dreams (WILDs), in contrast to dream-initiated lucid dreams (DILDs), in which people become lucid after having fallen asleep unconsciously. 1 The two kinds of lucid dreams differ in a number of ways. WILDs always happen in association with brief awakenings (sometimes only one or two seconds long) from and immediate return to REM sleep. The sleeper has a subjective impression of having been awake. This is not true of DILDs. Although both kinds of lucid dream are more likely to occur later in the night, the proportion of WILDs also increases with time of night. In other words, WILDs are most likely to occur the late morning hours or in afternoon naps. This is strikingly evident in my own record of lucid dreams. Of thirty-three lucid dreams from the first REM period of the night, only one (3 percent) was a WILD, compared with thirteen out of thirty-two (41 percent) lucid dreams from afternoon naps. 2 Generally speaking, WILDs are less frequent than DILDs; in a laboratory study of seventy-six lucid dreams, 72 percent were DILDs compared with 28 percent WILDs. 3 The proportion of WILDs observed in the laboratory seems, by my experience, to be considerably higher than the proportion of WILDs reported at home.
To take a specific example, WILDs account for only 5 percent of my home record of lucid dreams, but for 40 percent of my first fifteen lucid dreams in the laboratory. 4 Ibelieve there are two reasons for this highly significant difference: whenever I spentthe night in the sleep laboratory, I was highly conscious of every time I awakened andI made extraordinary efforts not to move more than necessary in order to minimizeinterference with the physiological recordings.
Thus, my awakenings from REM in the lab were more likely to lead toconscious returns to REM than awakenings at home when I was sleeping with neitherheightened consciousness of my environment and self nor any particular intent not tomove. This suggests that WILD induction techniques might be highly effective underthe proper conditions.
Paul Tholey notes that, while techniques for direct entry to the dream staterequire considerable practice in the beginning, they offer correspondingly greatrewards. 5 When mastered, these techniques (like MILD) can confer the capacity toinduce lucid dreams virtually at will. ~ Stephen LaBerge, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, 4 - Falling Asleep Consciously,#KEYS
1159:The true Mantra must come from within OR it must be given by a Guru
Nobody can give you the true mantra. It's not something that is given; it's something that wells up from within. It must spring from within all of a sudden, spontaneously, like a profound, intense need of your being - then it has power, because it's not something that comes from outside, it's your very own cry.
I saw, in my case, that my mantra has the power of immortality; whatever happens, if it is uttered, it's the Supreme that has the upper hand, it's no longer the lower law. And the words are irrelevant, they may not have any meaning - to someone else, my mantra is meaningless, but to me it's full, packed with meaning. And effective, because it's my cry, the intense aspiration of my whole being.
A mantra given by a guru is only the power to realize the experience of the discoverer of the mantra. The power is automatically there, because the sound contains the experience. I saw that once in Paris, at a time when I knew nothing of India, absolutely nothing, only the usual nonsense. I didn't even know what a mantra was. I had gone to a lecture given by some fellow who was supposed to have practiced "yoga" for a year in the Himalayas and recounted his experience (none too interesting, either). All at once, in the course of his lecture, he uttered the sound OM. And I saw the entire room suddenly fill with light, a golden, vibrating light.... I was probably the only one to notice it. I said to myself, "Well!" Then I didn't give it any more thought, I forgot about the story. But as it happened, the experience recurred in two or three different countries, with different people, and every time there was the sound OM, I would suddenly see the place fill with that same light. So I understood. That sound contains the vibration of thousands and thousands of years of spiritual aspiration - there is in it the entire aspiration of men towards the Supreme. And the power is automatically there, because the experience is there.
It's the same with my mantra. When I wanted to translate the end of my mantra, "Glory to You, O Lord," into Sanskrit, I asked for Nolini's help. He brought his Sanskrit translation, and when he read it to me, I immediately saw that the power was there - not because Nolini put his power into it (!), God knows he had no intention of "giving" me a mantra! But the power was there because my experience was there. We made a few adjustments and modifications, and that's the japa I do now - I do it all the time, while sleeping, while walking, while eating, while working, all the time.[[Mother later clarified: "'Glory to You, O Lord' isn't MY mantra, it's something I ADDED to it - my mantra is something else altogether, that's not it. When I say that my mantra has the power of immortality, I mean the other, the one I don't speak of! I have never given the words.... You see, at the end of my walk, a kind of enthusiasm rises, and with that enthusiasm, the 'Glory to You' came to me, but it's part of the prayer I had written in Prayers and Meditations: 'Glory to You, O Lord, all-triumphant Supreme' etc. (it's a long prayer). It came back suddenly, and as it came back spontaneously, I kept it. Moreover, when Sri Aurobindo read this prayer in Prayers and Meditations, he told me it was very strong. So I added this phrase as a kind of tail to my japa. But 'Glory to You, O Lord' isn't my spontaneous mantra - it came spontaneously, but it was something written very long ago. The two things are different."
And that's how a mantra has life: when it wells up all the time, spontaneously, like the cry of your being - there is no need of effort or concentration: it's your natural cry. Then it has full power, it is alive. It must well up from within.... No guru can give you that. ~ The Mother, Agenda, May 11 1963,#KEYS
1160:There's an idea in Christianity of the image of God as a Trinity. There's the element of the Father, there's the element of the Son, and there's the element of the Holy Spirit. It's something like the spirit of tradition, human beings as the living incarnation of that tradition, and the spirit in people that makes relationship with the spirit and individuals possible. I'm going to bounce my way quickly through some of the classical, metaphorical attributes of God, so that we kind of have a cloud of notions about what we're talking about, when we return to Genesis 1 and talk about the God who spoke chaos into Being.
There's a fatherly aspect, so here's what God as a father is like. You can enter into a covenant with it, so you can make a bargain with it. Now, you think about that. Money is like that, because money is a bargain you make with the future. We structured our world so that you can negotiate with the future. I don't think that we would have got to the point where we could do that without having this idea to begin with. You can act as if the future's a reality; there's a spirit of tradition that enables you to act as if the future is something that can be bargained with. That's why you make sacrifices. The sacrifices were acted out for a very long period of time, and now they're psychological. We know that you can sacrifice something valuable in the present and expect that you're negotiating with something that's representing the transcendent future. That's an amazing human discovery. No other creature can do that; to act as if the future is real; to know that you can bargain with reality itself, and that you can do it successfully. It's unbelievable.
It responds to sacrifice. It answers prayers. I'm not saying that any of this is true, by the way. I'm just saying what the cloud of ideas represents. It punishes and rewards. It judges and forgives. It's not nature. One of the things weird about the Judeo-Christian tradition is that God and nature are not the same thing, at all. Whatever God is, partially manifest in this logos, is something that stands outside of nature. I think that's something like consciousness as abstracted from the natural world. It built Eden for mankind and then banished us for disobedience. It's too powerful to be touched. It granted free will. Distance from it is hell. Distance from it is death. It reveals itself in dogma and in mystical experience, and it's the law. That's sort of like the fatherly aspect.
The son-like aspect. It speaks chaos into order. It slays dragons and feeds people with the remains. It finds gold. It rescues virgins. It is the body and blood of Christ. It is a tragic victim, scapegoat, and eternally triumphant redeemer simultaneously. It cares for the outcast. It dies and is reborn. It is the king of kings and hero of heroes. It's not the state, but is both the fulfillment and critic of the state. It dwells in the perfect house. It is aiming at paradise or heaven. It can rescue from hell. It cares for the outcast. It is the foundation and the cornerstone that was rejected. It is the spirit of the law.
The spirit-like aspect. It's akin to the human soul. It's the prophetic voice. It's the still, small voice of conscience. It's the spoken truth. It's called forth by music. It is the enemy of deceit, arrogance, and resentment. It is the water of life. It burns without consuming. It's a blinding light.
That's a very well-developed set of poetic metaphors. These are all...what would you say...glimpses of the transcendent ideal. That's the right way of thinking about it. They're glimpses of the transcendent ideal, and all of them have a specific meaning. In part, what we're going to do is go over that meaning, as we continue with this series. What we've got now is a brief description, at least, of what this is. ~ Jordan Peterson, Biblical Series, 1,#KEYS
1161:Allow the Lord to Do Everything :::
Now, when I start looking like this (Mother closes her eyes), two things are there at the same time: this smile, this joy, this laughter are there, and such peace! Such full, luminous, total peace, in which there are no more conflicts, no more contradictions. There are no more conflicts. It is one single luminous harmony - and yet everything we call error, suffering, misery, everything is there. It eliminates nothing. It is another way of seeing.
(long silence)
There can be no doubt that if you sincerely want to get out of it, it is not so difficult after all: you have nothing to do, you only have to allow the Lord to do everything. And He does everything. He does everything. It is so wonderful, so wonderful!
He takes anything, even what we call a very ordinary intelligence and he simply teaches you to put this intelligence aside, to rest: "There, be quiet, don't stir, don't bother me, I don't need you." Then a door opens - you don't even feel that you have to open it; it is wide open, you are tkane over to the other side. All that is done by Someone else, not you. And then the other way becomes impossible.
All this... oh, this tremendous labour of hte mind striving to understand, toiling and giving itself headaches!... It is absolutely useless, absolutely useless, no use at all, it merely increases the confusion.
You are faced with a so-called problem: what should you say, what should you do, how should you act? There is nothing to do, nothing, you only have to say to the Lord, "There, You see, it is like that" - that's all. And then you stay very quiet. And then quite spontaneously, without thinking about it, without reflection, without calculation, nothing, nothing, without the slightest effect - you do what has to be done. That is to say, the Lord does it, it is no longer you. He does it. He arranges the circumstances, He arranges the people, He puts the words into your mouth or your pen - He does everything, everything, everything, everything; you have nothing more to do but allow yourself to live blissfully.
I am more and more convinced that people do not really want it.
But clearing the ground is difficult, the work of clearing the ground before hand.
But you don't even need to do it! He does it for you.
But they are constantly breaking in: the old consciousness, the old thoughts....
Yes, they try to come in again, by habit. You only have to say, "Lord, You see, You see, You see, it is like that" - that's all. "Lord, You see, You see this, You see that, You see this fool" - and it is all over immediately. And it changes automatically, my child, without the slightest effort. Simply to be sincere, that is to say, to truly want everything to be right. You are perfectly conscious that you can do nothing about it, that you have no capacity.... But there is always something that wants to do it by itself; that's the trouble, otherwise...
No, you may be full of an excellent goodwill and then you want to do it. That's what complicated everything. Or else you don't have faith, you believe that the Lord will not be able to do it and that you must do it yourself, because He does not know! (Mother laughs.) This, this kind of stupidity is very common. "How can He see things? We live in a world of Falsehood, how can He see Falsehood and see..." But He sees the thing as it is! Exactly!
I am not speaking of people of no intelligence, I am speaking of people who are intelligent and try - there is a kind of conviction, like that, somewhere, even in people who know that we live in a world of Ignorance and Falsehood and that there is a Lord who is All-Truth. They say, "Precisely because He is All-Truth, He does not understand. (Mother laughs.) He does not understand our falsehood, I must deal with it myself." That is very strong, very common.
Ah! we make complications for nothing. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
1162:Sweet Mother, how can we make our resolution very firm?
By wanting it to be very firm! (Laughter)
No, this seems like a joke... but it is absolutely true. One does not want it truly. There is always, if you... It is a lack of sincerity. If you look sincerely, you will see that you have decided that it will be like this, and then, beneath there is something which has not decided at all and is waiting for the second of hesitation in order to rush forward. If you are sincere, if you are sincere and get hold of the part which is hiding, waiting, not showing itself, which knows that there will come a second of indecision when it can rush out and make you do the thing you have decided not to do...
[] But if you really want it, nothing in the world can prevent you from doing what you want. It is because one doesn't know how to will it. It is because one is divided in one's will. If you are not divided in your will, I say that nothing, nobody in the world can make you change your will.
But one doesn't know how to will it. In fact one doesn't even want to. These are velleities: "Well, it is like this.... It would be good if it were like that... yes, it would be better if it were like that... yes, it would be preferable if it were like that." But this is not to will. And always there at the back, hidden somewhere in a corner of the brain, is something which is looking on and saying, "Oh, why should I want that? After all one can as well want the opposite." And to try, you see... Not like that, just wait... But one can always find a thousand excuses to do the opposite. And ah, just a tiny little wavering is enough... pftt... the thing swoops down and there it is. But if one wills, if one really knows that this is the thing, and truly wants this, and if one is oneself entirely concentrated in the will, I say that there is nothing in the world that can prevent one from doing it, from doing it or being obliged to do it. It depends on what it is.
One wants. Yes, one wants, like this (gestures). One wants: "Yes, yes, it would be better if it were like that. Yes, it would be finer also, more elegant."... But, eh, eh, after all one is a weak creature, isn't that so? And then one can always put the blame upon something else: "It is the influence coming from outside, it is all kinds of circumstances."
A breath has passed, you see. You don't know... something... a moment of unconsciousness... "Oh, I was not conscious." You are not conscious because you do not accept... And all this because you don't know how to will.
[] To learn how to will is a very important thing. And to will truly, you must unify your being. In fact, to be a being, one must first unify oneself. If one is pulled by absolutely opposite tendencies, if one spends three-fourths of one's life without being conscious of oneself and the reasons why one does things, is one a real being? One does not exist. One is a mass of influences, movements, forces, actions, reactions, but one is not a being. One begins to become a being when one begins to have a will. And one can't have a will unless one is unified.
And when you have a will, you will be able to say, say to the Divine: "I want what You want." But not before that. Because in order to want what the Divine wants, you must have a will, otherwise you can will nothing at all. You would like to. You would like it very much. You would very much like to want what the Divine wants to do. You don't possess a will to give to Him and to put at His service. Something like that, gelatinous, like jelly-fish... there... a mass of good wills - and I am considering the better side of things and forgetting the bad wills - a mass of good wills, half-conscious and fluctuating....
Ah, that's all, my children. That's enough for today. There we are.
Only, put this into practice; just a little of what I have said, not all, eh, just a very little. There.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
1163:I have never been able to share your constantly recurring doubts about your capacity or the despair that arises in you so violently when there are these attacks, nor is their persistent recurrence a valid ground for believing that they can never be overcome. Such a persistent recurrence has been a feature in the sadhana of many who have finally emerged and reached the goal; even the sadhana of very great Yogis has not been exempt from such violent and constant recurrences; they have sometimes been special objects of such persistent assaults, as I have indeed indicated in Savitri in more places than one - and that was indeed founded on my own experience. In the nature of these recurrences there is usually a constant return of the same adverse experiences, the same adverse resistance, thoughts destructive of all belief and faith and confidence in the future of the sadhana, frustrating doubts of what one has known as the truth, voices of despondency and despair, urgings to abandonment of the Yoga or to suicide or else other disastrous counsels of déchéance. The course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they have strong family resemblance. One can eventually overcome if one begins to realise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of observing them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf, finally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and refusing the mind's sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl or the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions. In the end these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature; the recurrence becomes feeble or has no power to last: even, if the detachment is strong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once. The strongest attitude to take is to regard these things as what they really are, incursions of dark forces from outside taking advantage of certain openings in the physical mind or the vital part, but not a real part of oneself or spontaneous creation in one's own nature. To create a confusion and darkness in the physical mind and throw into it or awake in it mistaken ideas, dark thoughts, false impressions is a favourite method of these assailants, and if they can get the support of this mind from over-confidence in its own correctness or the natural rightness of its impressions and inferences, then they can have a field day until the true mind reasserts itself and blows the clouds away. Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense of grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or rankling as long as possible. In that case one has to discover these openings in one's nature and learn to close them permanently to such attacks or else to throw out intruders at once or as soon as possible. The recurrence is no proof of a fundamental incapacity; if one takes the right inner attitude, it can and will be overcome. The idea of suicide ought never to be accepted; there is no real ground for it and in any case it cannot be a remedy or a real escape: at most it can only be postponement of difficulties and the necessity for their solution under no better circumstances in another life. One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time he conceals himself, and then in his own right time he will reveal his Presence.
I have tried to dispel all the misconceptions, explain things as they are and meet all the points at issue. It is not that you really cannot make progress or have not made any progress; on the contrary, you yourself have admitted that you have made a good advance in many directions and there is no reason why, if you persevere, the rest should not come. You have always believed in the Guruvada: I would ask you then to put your faith in the Guru and the guidance and rely on the Ishwara for the fulfilment, to have faith in my abiding love and affection, in the affection and divine goodwill and loving kindness of the Mother, stand firm against all attacks and go forward perseveringly towards the spiritual goal and the all-fulfilling and all-satisfying touch of the All-Blissful, the Ishwara.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
1164:A God's Labour
I have gathered my dreams in a silver air
Between the gold and the blue
And wrapped them softly and left them there,
My jewelled dreams of you.
I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge
Marrying the soil to the sky
And sow in this dancing planet midge
The moods of infinity.
But too bright were our heavens, too far away,
Too frail their ethereal stuff;
Too splendid and sudden our light could not stay;
The roots were not deep enough.
He who would bring the heavens here
Must descend himself into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
And tread the dolorous way.
Coercing my godhead I have come down
Here on the sordid earth,
Ignorant, labouring, human grown
Twixt the gates of death and birth.
I have been digging deep and long
Mid a horror of filth and mire
A bed for the golden river's song,
A home for the deathless fire.
I have laboured and suffered in Matter's night
To bring the fire to man;
But the hate of hell and human spite
Are my meed since the world began.
For man's mind is the dupe of his animal self;
Hoping its lusts to win,
He harbours within him a grisly Elf
Enamoured of sorrow and sin.
The grey Elf shudders from heaven's flame
And from all things glad and pure;
Only by pleasure and passion and pain
His drama can endure.
All around is darkness and strife;
For the lamps that men call suns
Are but halfway gleams on this stumbling life
Cast by the Undying Ones.
Man lights his little torches of hope
That lead to a failing edge;
A fragment of Truth is his widest scope,
An inn his pilgrimage.
The Truth of truths men fear and deny,
The Light of lights they refuse;
To ignorant gods they lift their cry
Or a demon altar choose.
All that was found must again be sought,
Each enemy slain revives,
Each battle for ever is fought and refought
Through vistas of fruitless lives.
My gaping wounds are a thousand and one
And the Titan kings assail,
But I dare not rest till my task is done
And wrought the eternal will.
How they mock and sneer, both devils and men!
"Thy hope is Chimera's head
Painting the sky with its fiery stain;
Thou shalt fall and thy work lie dead.
"Who art thou that babblest of heavenly ease
And joy and golden room
To us who are waifs on inconscient seas
And bound to life's iron doom?
"This earth is ours, a field of Night
For our petty flickering fires.
How shall it brook the sacred Light
Or suffer a god's desires?
"Come, let us slay him and end his course!
Then shall our hearts have release
From the burden and call of his glory and force
And the curb of his wide white peace."
But the god is there in my mortal breast
Who wrestles with error and fate
And tramples a road through mire and waste
For the nameless Immaculate.
A voice cried, "Go where none have gone!
Dig deeper, deeper yet
Till thou reach the grim foundation stone
And knock at the keyless gate."
I saw that a falsehood was planted deep
At the very root of things
Where the grey Sphinx guards God's riddle sleep
On the Dragon's outspread wings.
I left the surface gauds of mind
And life's unsatisfied seas
And plunged through the body's alleys blind
To the nether mysteries.
I have delved through the dumb Earth's dreadful heart
And heard her black mass' bell.
I have seen the source whence her agonies part
And the inner reason of hell.
Above me the dragon murmurs moan
And the goblin voices flit;
I have pierced the Void where Thought was born,
I have walked in the bottomless pit.
On a desperate stair my feet have trod
Armoured with boundless peace,
Bringing the fires of the splendour of God
Into the human abyss.
He who I am was with me still;
All veils are breaking now.
I have heard His voice and borne His will
On my vast untroubled brow.
The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridged
And the golden waters pour
Down the sapphire mountain rainbow-ridged
And glimmer from shore to shore.
Heaven's fire is lit in the breast of the earth
And the undying suns here burn;
Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birth
The incarnate spirits yearn
Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss:
Down a gold-red stairway wend
The radiant children of Paradise
Clarioning darkness' end.
A little more and the new life's doors
Shall be carved in silver light
With its aureate roof and mosaic floors
In a great world bare and bright.
I shall leave my dreams in their argent air,
For in a raiment of gold and blue
There shall move on the earth embodied and fair
The living truth of you.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, A God's Labour, 534,#KEYS
1165: Sri Aurobindo writes here: "...Few and brief in their visits are the Bright Ones who are willing or permitted to succour." Why?
(1 "The Way", Cent. Vol. 17, p. 40.)
One must go and ask them! But there is a conclusion, the last sentences give a very clear explanation. It is said: "Nay, then, is immortality a plaything to be given lightly to a child, or the divine life a prize without effort or the crown for a weakling?" This comes back to the question why the adverse forces have the right to interfere, to harass you. But this is precisely the test necessary for your sincerity. If the way were very easy, everybody would start on the way, and if one could reach the goal without any obstacle and without any effort, everybody would reach the goal, and when one has come to the end, the situation would be the same as when one started, there would be no change. That is, the new world would be exactly what the old has been. It is truly not worth the trouble! Evidently a process of elimination is necessary so that only what is capable of manifesting the new life remains. This is the reason and there is no other, this is the best of reasons. And, you see, it is a tempering, it is the ordeal of fire, only that which can stand it remains absolutely pure; when everything has burnt down, there remains only the little ingot of pure gold. And it is like that. What puts things out very much in all this is the religious idea of fault, sin, redemption. But there is no arbitrary decision! On the contrary, for each one it is the best and most favourable conditions which are given. We were saying the other day that it is only his friends whom God treats with severity; you thought it was a joke, but it is true. It is only to those who are full of hope, who will pass through this purifying flame, that the conditions for attaining the maximum result are given. And the human mind is made in such a way that you may test this; when something extremely unpleasant happens to you, you may tell yourself, "Well, this proves I am worth the trouble of being given this difficulty, this proves there is something in me which can resist the difficulty", and you will notice that instead of tormenting yourself, you rejoice - you will be so happy and so strong that even the most unpleasant things will seem to you quite charming! This is a very easy experiment to make. Whatever the circumstance, if your mind is accustomed to look at it as something favourable, it will no longer be unpleasant for you. This is quite well known; as long as the mind refuses to accept a thing, struggles against it, tries to obstruct it, there are torments, difficulties, storms, inner struggles and all suffering. But the minute the mind says, "Good, this is what has to come, it is thus that it must happen", whatever happens, you are content. There are people who have acquired such control of their mind over their body that they feel nothing; I told you this the other day about certain mystics: if they think the suffering inflicted upon them is going to help them cross the stages in a moment and give them a sort of stepping stone to attain the Realisation, the goal they have put before them, union with the Divine, they no longer feel the suffering at all. Their body is as it were galvanised by the mental conception. This has happened very often, it is a very common experience among those who truly have enthusiasm. And after all, if one must for some reason or other leave one's body and take a new one, is it not better to make of one's death something magnificent, joyful, enthusiastic, than to make it a disgusting defeat? Those who cling on, who try by every possible means to delay the end even by a minute or two, who give you an example of frightful anguish, show that they are not conscious of their soul.... After all, it is perhaps a means, isn't it? One can change this accident into a means; if one is conscious one can make a beautiful thing of it, a very beautiful thing, as of everything. And note, those who do not fear it, who are not anxious, who can die without any sordidness are those who never think about it, who are not haunted all the time by this "horror" facing them which they must escape and which they try to push as far away from them as they can. These, when the occasion comes, can lift their head, smile and say, "Here I am."
It is they who have the will to make the best possible use of their life, it is they who say, "I shall remain here as long as it is necessary, to the last second, and I shall not lose one moment to realise my goal"; these, when the necessity comes, put up the best show. Why? - It is very simple, because they live in their ideal, the truth of their ideal; because that is the real thing for them, the very reason of their being, and in all things they can see this ideal, this reason of existence, and never do they come down into the sordidness of material life.
So, the conclusion:
One must never wish for death.
One must never will to die.
One must never be afraid to die.
And in all circumstances one must will to exceed oneself. ~ The Mother, Question and Answers, Volume-4, page no.353-355,#KEYS
1166:Death & Fame
When I die
I don't care what happens to my body throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But I want a big funeral St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother 96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor Joel, cousin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sister-in-law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters their grandchildren, companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--
Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche, there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting America, Satchitananda Swami Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche, Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms Baker, Whalen, Daido Loorie, Qwong, Frail White-haired Kapleau Roshis, Lama Tarchen --
Then, most important, lovers over half-century Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories
"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousandday retreat --"
"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he loved me"
"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"
"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly arms round each other"
"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my skivvies would be on the floor"
"Japanese, always wanted take it up my bum with a master"
"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then sleep in his captain's bed."
"He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy"
"I was lonely never in bed nude with anyone before, he was so gentle my stomach shuddered when he traced his finger along my abdomen nipple to hips-- "
"All I did was lay back eyes closed, he'd bring me to come with mouth & fingers along my waist"
"He gave great head"
So there be gossip from loves of 1948, ghost of Neal Cassady commin-gling with flesh and youthful blood of 1997 and surprise -- "You too? But I thought you were straight!"
"I am but Ginsberg an exception, for some reason he pleased me."
"I forgot whether I was straight gay queer or funny, was myself, tender and affectionate to be kissed on the top of my head, my forehead throat heart & solar plexus, mid-belly. on my prick, tickled with his tongue my behind"
"I loved the way he'd recite 'But at my back allways hear/ time's winged chariot hurrying near,' heads together, eye to eye, on a pillow --"
Among lovers one handsome youth straggling the rear
"I studied his poetry class, 17 year-old kid, ran some errands to his walk-up flat, seduced me didn't want to, made me come, went home, never saw him again never wanted to... "
"He couldn't get it up but loved me," "A clean old man." "He made sure I came first"
This the crowd most surprised proud at ceremonial place of honor--
Then poets & musicians -- college boys' grunge bands -- age-old rock star Beatles, faithful guitar accompanists, gay classical con-ductors, unknown high Jazz music composers, funky trum-peters, bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin auto-harp pennywhistles & kazoos
Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India, Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman Massa-chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate biblio-philes, sex liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either sex
"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved him anyway, true artist"
"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me from suicide hospitals"
"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my studio guest a week in Budapest"
Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"
"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "
"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas City"
"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"
"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"
"I read what he said in a newsmagazine, blew my mind, realized others like me out there"
Deaf & Dumb bards with hand signing quick brilliant gestures
Then Journalists, editors's secretaries, agents, portraitists & photo-graphy aficionados, rock critics, cultured laborors, cultural historians come to witness the historic funeral Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autograph-hunters, distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers
Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive
February 22, 1997
~ Allen Ginsberg,#KEYS
1167:Chapter LXXXII: Epistola Penultima: The Two Ways to Reality
Cara Soror,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
How very sensible of you, though I admit somewhat exacting!
You write-Will you tell me exactly why I should devote so much of my valuable time to subjects like Magick and Yoga.
That is all very well. But you ask me to put it in syllogistic form. I have no doubt this can be done, though the task seems somewhat complicated. I think I will leave it to you to construct your series of syllogisms yourself from the arguments of this letter.
In your main question the operative word is "valuable. Why, I ask, in my turn, should you consider your time valuable? It certainly is not valuable unless the universe has a meaning, and what is more, unless you know what that meaning is-at least roughly-it is millions to one that you will find yourself barking up the wrong tree.
First of all let us consider this question of the meaning of the universe. It is its own evidence to design, and that design intelligent design. There is no question of any moral significance-"one man's meat is another man's poison" and so on. But there can be no possible doubt about the existence of some kind of intelligence, and that kind is far superior to anything of which we know as human.
How then are we to explore, and finally to interpret this intelligence?
It seems to me that there are two ways and only two. Imagine for a moment that you are an orphan in charge of a guardian, inconceivably learned from your point of view.
Suppose therefore that you are puzzled by some problem suitable to your childish nature, your obvious and most simple way is to approach your guardian and ask him to enlighten you. It is clearly part of his function as guardian to do his best to help you. Very good, that is the first method, and close parallel with what we understand by the word Magick.
We are bothered by some difficulty about one of the elements-say Fire-it is therefore natural to evoke a Salamander to instruct you on the difficult point. But you must remember that your Holy Guardian Angel is not only far more fully instructed than yourself on every point that you can conceive, but you may go so far as to say that it is definitely his work, or part of his work; remembering always that he inhabits a sphere or plane which is entirely different from anything of which you are normally aware.
To attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is consequently without doubt by far the simplest way by which you can yourself approach that higher order of being.
That, then, is a clearly intelligible method of procedure. We call it Magick.
It is of course possible to strengthen the link between him and yourself so that in course of time you became capable of moving and, generally speaking, operating on that plane which is his natural habitat.
There is however one other way, and one only, as far as I can see, of reaching this state.
It is at least theoretically possible to exalt the whole of your own consciousness until it becomes as free to move on that exalted plane as it is for him. You should note, by the way, that in this case the postulation of another being is not necessary. There is no way of refuting the solipsism if you feel like that. Personally I cannot accede to its axiom. The evidence for an external universe appears to me perfectly adequate.
Still there is no extra charge for thinking on those lines if you so wish.
I have paid a great deal of attention in the course of my life to the method of exalting the human consciousness in this way; and it is really quite legitimate to identify my teaching with that of the Yogis.
I must however point out that in the course of my instruction I have given continual warnings as to the dangers of this line of research. For one thing there is no means of checking your results in the ordinary scientific sense. It is always perfectly easy to find a subjective explanation of any phenomenon; and when one considers that the greatest of all the dangers in any line of research arise from egocentric vanity, I do not think I have exceeded my duty in anything that I have said to deter students from undertaking so dangerous a course as Yoga.
It is, of course, much safer if you are in a position to pursue in the Indian Jungles, provided that your health will stand the climate and also, I must say, unless you have a really sound teacher on whom you can safely rely. But then, if we once introduce a teacher, why not go to the Fountain-head and press towards the Knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel?
In any case your Indian teacher will ultimately direct you to seek guidance from that source, so it seems to me that you have gone to a great deal of extra trouble and incurred a great deal of unnecessary danger by not leaving yourself in the first place in the hands of the Holy Guardian Angel.
In any case there are the two methods which stand as alternatives. I do not know of any third one which can be of any use whatever. Logically, since you have asked me to be logical, there is certainly no third way; there is the external way of Magick, and the internal way of Yoga: there you have your alternatives, and there they cease.
Love is the law, love under will.
Fraternally,
666 ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears,#KEYS
1168:For instance, a popular game with California occultists-I do not know its inventor-involves a Magic Room, much like the Pleasure Dome discussed earlier except that this Magic Room contains an Omniscient Computer.
To play this game, you simply "astrally project" into the Magic Room. Do not ask what "astral projection" means, and do not assume it is metaphysical (and therefore either impossible, if you are a materialist, or very difficult, if you are a mystic). Just assume this is a gedankenexperiment, a "mind game." Project yourself, in imagination, into this Magic Room and visualize vividly the Omniscient Computer, using the details you need to make such a super-information-processor real to your fantasy. You do not need any knowledge of programming to handle this astral computer. It exists early in the next century; you are getting to use it by a species of time-travel, if that metaphor is amusing and helpful to you. It is so built that it responds immediately to human brain-waves, "reading" them and decoding their meaning. (Crude prototypes of such computers already exist.) So, when you are in this magic room, you can ask this Computer anything, just by thinking of what you want to know. It will read your thought, and project into your brain, by a laser ray, the correct answer.
There is one slight problem. The computer is very sensitive to all brain-waves. If you have any doubts, it registers them as negative commands, meaning "Do not answer my question." So, the way to use it is to start simply, with "easy" questions. Ask it to dig out of the archives the name of your second-grade teacher. (Almost everybody remembers the name of their first grade teacher-imprint vulnerability again-but that of the second grade teacher tends to get lost.)
When the computer has dug out the name of your second grade teacher, try it on a harder question, but not one that is too hard. It is very easy to sabotage this machine, but you don't want to sabotage it during these experiments. You want to see how well it can be made to perform.
It is wise to ask only one question at a time, since it requires concentration to keep this magic computer real on the field of your perception. Do not exhaust your capacities for imagination and visualization on your first trial runs.
After a few trivial experiments of the second-grade-teacher variety, you can try more interesting programs. Take a person toward whom you have negative feelings, such as anger, disappointment, feeling-of-betrayal, jealousy or whatever interferes with the smooth, tranquil operation of your own bio-computer. Ask the Magic Computer to explain that other person to you; to translate you into their reality-tunnel long enough for you to understand how events seem to them. Especially, ask how you seem to them.
This computer will do that job for you; but be prepared for some shocks which might be disagreeable at first. This super-brain can also perform exegesis on ideas that seem obscure, paradoxical or enigmatic to us. For instance, early experiments with this computer can very profitably turn on asking it to explain some of the propositions in this book which may seem inexplicable or perversely wrong-headed to you, such as "We are all greater artists than we realize" or "What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves" or "mind and its contents are functionally identical."
This computer is much more powerful and scientifically advanced than the rapture-machine in the neurosomatic circuit. It has total access to all the earlier, primitive circuits, and overrules any of them. That is, if you put a meta-programming instruction into this computer; it will relay it downward to the old circuits and cancel contradictory programs left over from the past. For instance, try feeding it on such meta-programming instructions as: 1. I am at cause over my body. 2. I am at cause over my imagination. 3.1 am at cause over my future. 4. My mind abounds with beauty and power. 5.1 like people, and people like me.
Remember that this computer is only a few decades ahead of present technology, so it cannot "understand" your commands if you harbor any doubts about them. Doubts tell it not to perform. Work always from what you can believe in, extending the area of belief only as results encourage you to try for more dramatic transformations of your past reality-tunnels.
This represents cybernetic consciousness; the programmer becoming self-programmer, self-metaprogrammer, meta-metaprogrammer, etc. Just as the emotional compulsions of the second circuit seem primitive, mechanical and, ultimately, silly to the neurosomatic consciousness, so, too, the reality maps of the third circuit become comic, relativistic, game-like to the metaprogrammer. "Whatever you say it is, it isn't, " Korzybski, the semanticist, repeated endlessly in his seminars, trying to make clear that third-circuit semantic maps are not the territories they represent; that we can always make maps of our maps, revisions of our revisions, meta-selves of our selves. "Neti, neti" (not that, not that), Hindu teachers traditionally say when asked what "God" is or what "Reality" is. Yogis, mathematicians and musicians seem more inclined to develop meta-programming consciousness than most of humanity. Korzybski even claimed that the use of mathematical scripts is an aid to developing this circuit, for as soon as you think of your mind as mind 1 , and the mind which contemplates that mind as mind2 and the mind which contemplates mind2 contemplating mind 1 as mind3, you are well on your way to meta-programming awareness. Alice in Wonderland is a masterful guide to the metaprogramming circuit (written by one of the founders of mathematical logic) and Aleister Crowley soberly urged its study upon all students of yoga. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising,#KEYS
1169:Depression, unless one has a strong will, suggests, "This is not worth while, one may have to wait a lifetime." As for enthusiasm, it expects to see the vital transformed overnight: "I am not going to have any difficulty henceforth, I am going to advance rapidly on the path of yoga, I am going to gain the divine consciousness without any difficulty." There are some other difficulties.... One needs a little time, much perseverance. So the vital, after a few hours - perhaps a few days, perhaps a few months - says to itself: "We haven't gone very far with our enthusiasm, has anything been really done? Doesn't this movement leave us just where we were, perhaps worse than we were, a little troubled, a little disturbed? Things are no longer what they were, they are not yet what they ought to be. It is very tiresome, what I am doing." And then, if one pushes a little more, here's this gentleman saying, "Ah, no! I have had enough of it, leave me alone. I don't want to move, I shall stay in my corner, I won't trouble you, but don't bother me!" And so one has not gone very much farther than before.
This is one of the big obstacles which must be carefully avoided. As soon as there is the least sign of discontentment, of annoyance, the vital must be spoken to in this way, "My friend, you are going to keep calm, you are going to do what you are asked to do, otherwise you will have to deal with me." And to the other, the enthusiast who says, "Everything must be done now, immediately", your reply is, "Calm yourself a little, your energy is excellent, but it must not be spent in five minutes. We shall need it for a long time, keep it carefully and, as it is wanted, I shall call upon your goodwill. You will show that you are full of goodwill, you will obey, you won't grumble, you will not protest, you will not revolt, you will say 'yes, yes', you will make a little sacrifice when asked, you will say 'yes' wholeheartedly."
So we get started on the path. But the road is very long. Many things happen on the way. Suddenly one thinks one has overcome an obstacle; I say "thinks", because though one has overcome it, it is not totally overcome. I am going to take a very obvious instance, of a very simple observation. Someone has found that his vital is uncontrollable and uncontrolled, that it gets furious for nothing and about nothing. He starts working to teach it not to get carried away, not to flare up, to remain calm and bear the shocks of life without reacting violently. If one does this cheerfully, it goes quite quickly. (Note this well, it is very important: when you have to deal with your vital take care to remain cheerful, otherwise you will get into trouble.) One remains cheerful, that is, when one sees the fury rise, one begins to laugh. Instead of being depressed and saying, "Ah! In spite of all my effort it is beginning all over again", one begins to laugh and says, "Well, well! One hasn't yet seen the end of it. Look now, aren't you ridiculous, you know quite well that you are being ridiculous! Is it worthwhile getting angry?" One gives it this lesson cheerfully. And really, after a while it doesn't get angry again, it is quiet - and one relaxes one's attention. One thinks the difficulty has been overcome, one thinks a result has at last been reached: "My vital does not trouble me any longer, it does not get angry now, everything is going fine." And the next day, one loses one's temper. It is then one must be careful, it is then one must not say, "Here we are, it's no use, I shall never achieve anything, all my efforts are futile; all this is an illusion, it is impossible." On the contrary, one must say, "I wasn't vigilant enough." One must wait long, very long, before one can say, "Ah! It is done and finished." Sometimes one must wait for years, many years....
I am not saying this to discourage you, but to give you patience and perseverance - for there is a moment when you do arrive. And note that the vital is a small part of your being - a very important part, we have said that it is the dynamism, the realising energy, it is very important; but it is only a small part. And the mind!... which goes wandering, which must be pulled back by all the strings to be kept quiet! You think this can be done overnight? And your body?... You have a weakness, a difficulty, sometimes a small chronic illness, nothing much, but still it is a nuisance, isn't it? You want to get rid of it. You make efforts, you concentrate; you work upon it, establish harmony, and you think it is finished, and then.... Take, for instance, people who have the habit of coughing; they can't control themselves or almost can't. It is not serious but it is bothersome, and there seems to be no reason why it should ever stop. Well, one tells oneself, "I am going to control this." One makes an effort - a yogic effort, not a material one - one brings down consciousness, force, and stops the cough. And one thinks, "The body has forgotten how to cough." And it is a great thing when the body has forgotten, truly one can say, "I am cured." But unfortunately it is not always true, for this goes down into the subconscient and, one day, when the balance of forces is not so well established, when the strength is not the same, it begins again. And one laments, "I believed that it was over! I had succeeded and told myself, 'It is true that spiritual power has an action upon the body, it is true that something can be done', and there! it is not true. And yet it was a small thing, and I who want to conquer immortality! How will I succeed?... For years I have been free from this small thing and here it is beginning anew!" It is then that you must be careful. You must arm yourself with an endless patience and endurance. You do a thing once, ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times if necessary, but you do it till it gets done. And not done only here and there, but everywhere and everywhere at the same time. This is the great problem one sets oneself. That is why, to those who come to tell me very light-heartedly, "I want to do yoga", I reply, "Think it over, one may do the yoga for a number of years without noticing the least result. But if you want to do it, you must persist and persist with such a will that you should be ready to do it for ten lifetimes, a hundred lifetimes if necessary, in order to succeed." I do not say it will be like that, but the attitude must be like that. Nothing must discourage you; for there are all the difficulties of ignorance of the different states of being, to which are added the endless malice and the unbounded cunning of the hostile forces in the world.... They are there, do you know why? They have been.... ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1950-1951,#KEYS
1170:Attention on Hypnagogic Imagery The most common strategy for inducing WILDs is to fall asleep while focusing on the hypnagogic imagery that accompanies sleep onset. Initially, you are likely to see relatively simple images, flashes of light, geometric patterns, and the like.
Gradually more complicated forms appear: faces, people, and finally entire scenes. 6
The following account of what the Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky called "half-dream states" provides a vivid example of what hypnagogic imagery can be like:
I am falling asleep. Golden dots, sparks and tiny stars appear and disappear before my eyes. These sparks and stars gradually merge into a golden net with diagonal meshes which moves slowly and regularly in rhythm with the beating of my heart, which I feel quite distinctly. The next moment the golden net is transformed into rows of brass helmets belonging to Roman soldiers marching along the street below. I hear their measured tread and watch them from the window of a high house in Galata, in Constantinople, in a narrow lane, one end of which leads to the old wharf and the Golden Horn with its ships and steamers and the minarets of Stamboul behind them. I hear their heavy measured tread, and see the sun shining on their helmets. Then suddenly I detach myself from the window sill on which I am lying, and in the same reclining position fly slowly over the lane, over the houses, and then over the Golden Horn in the direction of Stamboul. I smell the sea, feel the wind, the warm sun. This flying gives me a wonderfully pleasant sensation, and I cannot help opening my eyes. 7
Ouspensky's half-dream states developed out of a habit of observing the contents of his mind while falling asleep or in half-sleep after awakening from a dream. He notes that they were much easier to observe in the morning after awakening than before sleep at the beginning of the night and did not occur at all "without definite efforts." 8
Dr. Nathan Rapport, an American psychiatrist, cultivated an approach to lucid dreaming very similar to Ouspensky's: "While in bed awaiting sleep, the experimenter interrupts his thoughts every few minutes with an effort to recall the mental item vanishing before each intrusion that inquisitive attention." 9 This habit is continued sleep itself, with results like the following:
Brilliant lights flashed, and a myriad of sparkles twinkled from a magnificent cut glass chandelier. Interesting as any stage extravaganza were the many quaintly detailed figurines upon a mantel against the distant, paneled wall adorned in rococo.
At the right a merry group of beauties and gallants in the most elegant attire of Victorian England idled away a pleasant occasion. This scene continued for [a] period of I was not aware, before I discovered that it was not reality, but a mental picture and that I was viewing it. Instantly it became an incommunicably beautiful vision. It was with the greatest stealth that my vaguely awakened mind began to peep: for I knew that these glorious shows end abruptly because of such intrusions.
I thought, "Have I here one of those mind pictures that are without motion?" As if in reply, one of the young ladies gracefully waltzed about the room. She returned to the group and immobility, with a smile lighting her pretty face, which was turned over her shoulder toward me. The entire color scheme was unobtrusive despite the kaleidoscopic sparkles of the chandelier, the exquisite blues and creamy pinks of the rich settings and costumes. I felt that only my interest in dreams brought my notice to the tints - delicate, yet all alive as if with inner illumination. 10
Hypnagogic Imagery Technique
1. Relax completely
While lying in bed, gently close your eyes and relax your head, neck, back, arms, and legs. Completely let go of all muscular and mental tension, and breathe slowly and restfully. Enjoy the feeling of relaxation and let go of your thoughts, worries, and concerns. If you have just awakened from sleep, you are probably sufficiently relaxed.
Otherwise, you may use either the progressive relaxation exercise (page 33) or the 61-point relaxation exercise (page 34) to relax more deeply. Let everything wind down,
slower and slower, more and more relaxed, until your mind becomes as serene as the calmest sea.
2. Observe the visual images
Gently focus your attention on the visual images that will gradually appear before your mind's eye. Watch how the images begin and end. Try to observe the images as delicately as possible, allowing them to be passively reflected in your mind as they unfold. Do not attempt to hold onto the images, but instead just watch without attachment or desire for action. While doing this, try to take the perspective of a detached observer as much as possible. At first you will see a sequence of disconnected, fleeting patterns and images. The images will gradually develop into scenes that become more and more complex, finally joining into extended sequences.
3. Enter the dream
When the imagery becomes a moving, vivid scenario, you should allow yourself to be passively drawn into the dream world. Do not try to actively enter the dream scene,
but instead continue to take a detached interest in the imagery. Let your involvement with what is happening draw you into the dream. But be careful of too much involvement and too little attention. Don't forget that you are dreaming now!
Commentary
Probably the most difficult part of this technique to master is entering the dream at Step 3. The challenge is to develop a delicate vigilance, an unobtrusive observer perspective, from which you let yourself be drawn into the dream. As Paul Tholey has emphasized, "It is not desirable to want actively to enter into the scenery,
since such an intention as a rule causes the scenery to disappear." 11 A passive volition similar to that described in the section on autosuggestion in the previous chapter is required: in Tholey's words, "Instead of actively wanting to enter into the scenery, the subject should attempt to let himself be carried into it passively." 12 A Tibetan teacher advises a similar frame of mind: "While delicately observing the mind, lead it gently into the dream state, as though you were leading a child by the hand." 13
Another risk is that, once you have entered into the dream, the world can seem so realistic that it is easy to lose lucidity, as happened in the beginning of Rapport's WILD described above. As insurance in case this happens, Tholey recommends that you resolve to carry out a particular action in the dream, so that if you momentarily lose lucidity, you may remember your intention to carry out the action and thereby regain lucidity.
~ Stephen LaBerge, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming,#KEYS
1171:Chapter 18 - Trapped in a Dream
(A guy is playing a pinball machine, seemingly the same guy who rode with him in the back of the boat car. This part is played by Richard Linklater, aka, the director.)
Hey, man.
Hey.
Weren't you in a boat car? You know, the guy, the guy with the hat? He gave me a ride in his car, or boat thing, and you were in the back seat with me?
I mean, I'm not saying that you don't know what you're talking about, but I don't know what you're talking about.
No, you see, you guys let me off at this really specific spot that you gave him directions to let me off at, I get out, and end up getting hit by a car, but then, I just woke up because I was dreaming, and later than that, I found out that I was still dreaming, dreaming that I'd woken up.
Oh yeah, those are called false awakenings. I used to have those all the time.
Yeah, but I'm still in it now. I, I can't get out of it. It's been going on forever, I keep waking up, but, but I'm just waking up into another dream. I'm starting to get creeped out, too. Like I'm talking to dead people. This woman on TV's telling me about how death is this dreamtime that exists outside of life. I mean, (desperate sigh) I'm starting to think that I'm dead.
I'm gonna tell you about a dream I once had. I know that's, when someone says that, then usually you're in for a very boring next few minutes, and you might be, but it sounds like, you know, what else are you going to do, right? Anyway, I read this essay by Philip K. Dick.
What, you read it in your dream?
No, no. I read it before the dream. It was the preamble to the dream. It was about that book, um Flow My Tears the Policeman Said. You know that one?
Uh, yeah yeah, he won an award for that one.
Right, right. That's the one he wrote really fast. It just like flowed right out of him. He felt he was sort of channeling it, or something. But anyway, about four years after it was published, he was at this party, and he met this woman who had the same name as the woman character in the book. And she had a boyfriend with the same name as the boyfriend character in the book, and she was having an affair with this guy, the chief of police, and he had the same name as the chief of police in his book. So she's telling him all of this stuff from her life, and everything she's saying is right out of his book. So that's totally freaking him out, but, what can he do?
And then shortly after that, he was going to mail a letter, and he saw this kind of, um, you know, dangerous, shady looking guy standing by his car, but instead of avoiding him, which he says he would have usually done, he just walked right up to him and said, "Can I help you?" And the guy said, "Yeah. I, I ran out of gas." So he pulls out his wallet, and he hands him some money, which he says he never would have done, and then he gets home and thinks, wait a second, this guy, you know, he can't get to a gas station, he's out of gas. So he gets back in his car, he goes and finds the guy, takes him to the gas station, and as he's pulling up at the gas station, he realizes, "Hey, this is in my book too. This exact station, this exact guy. Everything."
So this whole episode is kind of creepy, right? And he's telling his priest about it, you know, describing how he wrote this book, and then four years later all these things happened to him. And as he's telling it to him, the priest says, "That's the Book of Acts. You're describing the Book of Acts." And he's like, "I've never read the Book of Acts." So he, you know, goes home and reads the Book of Acts, and it's like uncanny. Even the characters' names are the same as in the Bible. And the Book of Acts takes place in 50 A.D., when it was written, supposedly. So Philip K. Dick had this theory that time was an illusion and that we were all actually in 50 A.D., and the reason he had written this book was that he had somehow momentarily punctured through this illusion, this veil of time, and what he had seen there was what was going on in the Book of Acts.
And he was really into Gnosticism, and this idea that this demiurge, or demon, had created this illusion of time to make us forget that Christ was about to return, and the kingdom of God was about to arrive. And that we're all in 50 A.D., and there's someone trying to make us forget that God is imminent. And that's what time is. That's what all of history is. It's just this kind of continuous, you know, daydream, or distraction.
And so I read that, and I was like, well that's weird. And than that night I had a dream and there was this guy in the dream who was supposed to be a psychic. But I was skeptical. I was like, you know, he's not really a psychic, you know I'm thinking to myself. And then suddenly I start floating, like levitating, up to the ceiling. And as I almost go through the roof, I'm like, "Okay, Mr. Psychic. I believe you. You're a psychic. Put me down please." And I float down, and as my feet touch the ground, the psychic turns into this woman in a green dress. And this woman is Lady Gregory.
Now Lady Gregory was Yeats' patron, this, you know, Irish person. And though I'd never seen her image, I was just sure that this was the face of Lady Gregory. So we're walking along, and Lady Gregory turns to me and says, "Let me explain to you the nature of the universe. Now Philip K. Dick is right about time, but he's wrong that it's 50 A.D. Actually, there's only one instant, and it's right now, and it's eternity. And it's an instant in which God is posing a question, and that question is basically, 'Do you want to, you know, be one with eternity? Do you want to be in heaven?' And we're all saying, 'No thank you. Not just yet.' And so time is actually just this constant saying 'No' to God's invitation. I mean that's what time is. I mean, and it's no more 50 A.D. than it's two thousand and one. And there's just this one instant, and that's what we're always in."
And then she tells me that actually this is the narrative of everyone's life. That, you know, behind the phenomenal difference, there is but one story, and that's the story of moving from the "no" to the "yes." All of life is like, "No thank you. No thank you. No thank you." then ultimately it's, "Yes, I give in. Yes, I accept. Yes, I embrace." I mean, that's the journey. I mean, everyone gets to the "yes" in the end, right?
Right.
So we continue walking, and my dog runs over to me. And so I'm petting him, really happy to see him, you know, he's been dead for years. So I'm petting him and I realize there's this kind of gross oozing stuff coming out of his stomach. And I look over at Lady Gregory, and she sort of coughs. She's like [cough] [cough] "Oh, excuse me." And there's vomit, like dribbling down her chin, and it smells really bad. And I think, "Well, wait a second, that's not just the smell of vomit," which is, doesn't smell very good, "that's the smell of like dead person vomit." You know, so it's like doubly foul. And then I realize I'm actually in the land of the dead, and everyone around me is dead. My dog had been dead for over ten years, Lady Gregory had been dead a lot longer than that. When I finally woke up, I was like, whoa, that wasn't a dream, that was a visitation to this real place, the land of the dead.
So what happened? I mean how did you finally get out of it?
Oh man. It was just like one of those like life altering experiences. I mean I could never really look at the world the same way again, after that.
Yeah, but I mean like how did you, how did you finally get out of the dream? See, that's my problem. I'm like trapped. I keep, I keep thinking that I'm waking up, but I'm still in a dream. It seems like it's going on forever. I can't get out of it, and I want to wake up for real. How do you really wake up?
I don't know, I don't know. I'm not very good at that anymore. But, um, if that's what you're thinking, I mean you, you probably should. I mean, you know if you can wake up, you should, because you know someday, you know, you won't be able to. So just, um ... But it's easy. You know. Just, just wake up. ~ Waking Life,#KEYS
1172:
The whole question.
The whole question? And now, do you understand?... Not quite? I told you that you did not understand because it was muddled up; in one question three different ideas were included. So naturally it created a confusion. But taken separately they are what I explained to you just now, most probably; that is to say, one has this altogether ignorant and obliterated consciousness and is convinced that he is the cause and effect, the origin and result of himself, separate from all others, separate with a limited power to act upon others and a little greater capacity to be set in movement by others or to react to others' influence. That is how people think usually, something like that, isn't that so? How do you feel, you? What effect do you have upon yourself? And you? And you?... You have never thought about it? You have never looked into yourself to see what effect you exercise upon yourself? Never thought over it? No? How do you feel? Nobody will tell me? Come, you tell me that. Never tried to understand how you feel? Yes? No? How strange! Never sought to understand how, for example, decisions take place in you? From where do they come? What makes you decide one thing rather than another? And what is the relation between a decision of yours and your action? And to what extent do you have the freedom of choice between one thing and another? And how far do you feel you are able to, you are free to do this or that or that other or nothing at all?... You have pondered over that? Yes? Is there any one among the students who has thought over it? No? Nobody put the question to himself? You? You?...
Even if one thinks over it, perhaps one is not able to answer!
One cannot explain?
No.
It is difficult to explain? Even this simple little thing, to see where in your consciousness the wills that come from outside meet your will (which you call yours, which comes from within), at what place the two join together and to what extent the one from outside acts upon that from within and the one from within acts upon that from outside? You have never tried to find this out? It has never seemed to you unbearable that a will from outside should have an action upon your will? No?
I do not know.
Oh! I am putting very difficult problems! But, my children, I was preoccupied with that when I was a child of five!... So I thought you must have been preoccupied with it since a long time. In oneself, there are contradictory wills. Yes, many. That is one of the very first discoveries. There is one part which wants things this way; and then at another moment, another way, and a third time, one wants still another thing! Besides, there is even this: something that wants and another which says no. So? But it is exactly that which has to be found if you wish in the least to organise yourself. Why not project yourself upon a screen, as in the cinema, and then look at yourself moving on it? How interesting it is!
This is the first step.
You project yourself on the screen and then observe and see all that is moving there and how it moves and what happens. You make a little diagram, it becomes so interesting then. And then, after a while, when you are quite accustomed to seeing, you can go one step further and take a decision. Or even a still greater step: you organise - arrange, take up all that, put each thing in its place, organise in such a way that you begin to have a straight movement with an inner meaning. And then you become conscious of your direction and are able to say: "Very well, it will be thus; my life will develop in that way, because that is the logic of my being. Now, I have arranged all that within me, each thing has been put in its place, and so naturally a central orientation is forming. I am following this orientation. One step more and I know what will happen to me for I myself am deciding it...." I do not know, I am telling you this; to me it seemed terribly interesting, the most interesting thing in the world. There was nothing, no other thing that interested me more than that.
This happened to me.... I was five or six or seven years old (at seven the thing became quite serious) and I had a father who loved the circus, and he came and told me: "Come with me, I am going to the circus on Sunday." I said: "No, I am doing something much more interesting than going to the circus!" Or again, young friends invited me to attend a meeting where we were to play together, enjoy together: "No, I enjoy here much more...." And it was quite sincere. It was not a pose: for me, it was like this, it was true. There was nothing in the world more enjoyable than that.
And I am so convinced that anybody who does it in that way, with the same freshness and sincerity, will obtain most interesting results.... To put all that on a screen in front of yourself and look at what is happening. And the first step is to know all that is happening and then you must not try to shut your eyes when something does not appear pleasant to you! You must keep them wide open and put each thing in that way before the screen. Then you make quite an interesting discovery. And then the next step is to start telling yourself: "Since all that is happening within me, why should I not put this thing in this way and then that thing in that way and then this other in this way and thus wouldn't I be doing something logical that has a meaning? Why should I not remove that thing which stands obstructing the way, these conflicting wills? Why? And what does that represent in the being? Why is it there? If it were put there, would it not help instead of harming me?" And so on.
And little by little, little by little, you see clearer and then you see why you are made like that, what is the thing you have got to do - that for which you are born. And then, quite naturally, since all is organised for this thing to happen, the path becomes straight and you can say beforehand: "It is in this way that it will happen." And when things come from outside to try and upset all that, you are able to say: "No, I accept this, for it helps; I reject that, for that harms." And then, after a few years, you curb yourself as you curb a horse: you do whatever you like, in the way you like and you go wherever you like.
It seems to me this is worth the trouble. I believe it is the most interesting thing.
...
You must have a great deal of sincerity, a little courage and perseverance and then a sort of mental curiosity, you understand, curious, seeking to know, interested, wanting to learn. To love to learn: that, one must have in one's nature. To find it impossible to stand before something grey, all hazy, in which nothing is seen clearly and which gives you quite an unpleasant feeling, for you do not know where you begin and where you end, what is yours and what is not yours and what is settled and what is not settled - what is this pulp-like thing you call yourself in which things get intermingled and act upon one another without even your being aware of it? You ask yourself: "But why have I done this?" You know nothing about it. "And why have I felt that?" You don't know that, either. And then, you are thrown into a world outside that is only fog and you are thrown into a world inside that is also for you another kind of fog, still more impenetrable, in which you live, like a cork thrown upon the waters and the waves carry it away or cast it into the air, and it drops and rolls on. That is quite an unpleasant state. I do not know, but to me it appears unpleasant.
To see clearly, to see one's way, where one is going, why one is going there, how one is to go there and what one is going to do and what is the kind of relation with others... But that is a problem so wonderfully interesting - it is interesting - and you can always discover things every minute! One's work is never finished.
There is a time, there is a certain state of consciousness when you have the feeling that you are in that condition with all the weight of the world lying heavy upon you and besides you are going in blinkers and do not know where you are going, but there is something which is pushing you. And that is truly a very unpleasant condition. And there is another moment when one draws oneself up and is able to see what is there above, and one becomes it; then one looks at the world as though from the top of a very very high mountain and one sees all that is happening below; then one can choose one's way and follow it. That is a more pleasant condition. This then is truly the truth, you are upon earth for that, surely. All individual beings and all the little concentrations of consciousness were created to do this work. It is the very reason for existence: to be able to become fully conscious of a certain sum of vibrations representing an individual being and put order there and find one's way and follow it.
And so, as men do not know it and do not do it, life comes and gives them a blow here: "Oh! that hurts", then a blow there: "Ah! that's hurting me." And the thing goes on like that and all the time it is like that. And all the time they are getting pain somewhere. They suffer, they cry, they groan. But it is simply due to that reason, there is no other: it is that they have not done that little work. If, when they were quite young, there had been someone to teach them to do the work and they had done it without losing time, they could have gone through life gloriously and instead of suffering they would have been all-powerful masters of their destiny.
This is not to say that necessarily all things would become pleasant. It is not at all that. But your reaction towards things becomes the true reaction and instead of suffering, you learn; instead of being miserable, you go forward and progress. After all, I believe it is for this that you are here - so that there is someone who can tell you: "There, well, try that. It is worth trying." ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 199,#KEYS
1173:The Supreme Discovery
IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
The ancient traditions rightly said:
"Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
On this a sage has said:
"I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,#KEYS
1174:It does not matter if you do not understand it - Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step.
But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.
Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.
*He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.
You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, *I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies and religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it gives out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. - 5 November 1967
~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, The Mother to Mona Sarkar, [T0],#KEYS
1175:One little picture in this book, the Magic Locket, was drawn by 'Miss Alice Havers.' I did not state this on the title-page, since it seemed only due, to the artist of all these (to my mind) wonderful pictures, that his name should stand there alone.
The descriptions, of Sunday as spent by children of the last generation, are quoted verbatim from a speech made to me by a child-friend and a letter written to me by a lady-friend.
The Chapters, headed 'Fairy Sylvie' and 'Bruno's Revenge,' are a reprint, with a few alterations, of a little fairy-tale which I wrote in the year 1867, at the request of the late Mrs. Gatty, for 'Aunt Judy's Magazine,' which she was then editing.
It was in 1874, I believe, that the idea first occurred to me of making it the nucleus of a longer story.
As the years went on, I jotted down, at odd moments, all sorts of odd ideas, and fragments of dialogue, that occurred to me--who knows how?--with a transitory suddenness that left me no choice but either to record them then and there, or to abandon them to oblivion. Sometimes one could trace to their source these random flashes of thought--as being suggested by the book one was reading, or struck out from the 'flint' of one's own mind by the 'steel' of a friend's chance remark but they had also a way of their own, of occurring, a propos of nothing --specimens of that hopelessly illogical phenomenon, 'an effect without a cause.' Such, for example, was the last line of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' which came into my head (as I have already related in 'The Theatre' for April, 1887) quite suddenly, during a solitary walk: and such, again, have been passages which occurred in dreams, and which I cannot trace to any antecedent cause whatever. There are at least two instances of such dream-suggestions in this book--one, my Lady's remark, 'it often runs in families, just as a love for pastry does', the other, Eric Lindon's badinage about having been in domestic service.
And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature--if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling --which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write. Only! The task, at first, seemed absolutely hopeless, and gave me a far clearer idea, than I ever had before, of the meaning of the word 'chaos': and I think it must have been ten years, or more, before I had succeeded in classifying these odds-and-ends sufficiently to see what sort of a story they indicated: for the story had to grow out of the incidents, not the incidents out of the story I am telling all this, in no spirit of egoism, but because I really believe that some of my readers will be interested in these details of the 'genesis' of a book, which looks so simple and straight-forward a matter, when completed, that they might suppose it to have been written straight off, page by page, as one would write a letter, beginning at the beginning; and ending at the end.
It is, no doubt, possible to write a story in that way: and, if it be not vanity to say so, I believe that I could, myself,--if I were in the unfortunate position (for I do hold it to be a real misfortune) of being obliged to produce a given amount of fiction in a given time,--that I could 'fulfil my task,' and produce my 'tale of bricks,' as other slaves have done. One thing, at any rate, I could guarantee as to the story so produced--that it should be utterly commonplace, should contain no new ideas whatever, and should be very very weary reading!
This species of literature has received the very appropriate name of 'padding' which might fitly be defined as 'that which all can write and none can read.' That the present volume contains no such writing I dare not avow: sometimes, in order to bring a picture into its proper place, it has been necessary to eke out a page with two or three extra lines : but I can honestly say I have put in no more than I was absolutely compelled to do.
My readers may perhaps like to amuse themselves by trying to detect, in a given passage, the one piece of 'padding' it contains. While arranging the 'slips' into pages, I found that the passage was 3 lines too short. I supplied the deficiency, not by interpolating a word here and a word there, but by writing in 3 consecutive lines. Now can my readers guess which they are?
A harder puzzle if a harder be desired would be to determine, as to the Gardener's Song, in which cases (if any) the stanza was adapted to the surrounding text, and in which (if any) the text was adapted to the stanza.
Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature--at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it come's is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune. I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story--I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it--but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen storybooks have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'--is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.
Hence it is that, in 'Sylvie and Bruno,' I have striven with I know not what success to strike out yet another new path: be it bad or good, it is the best I can do. It is written, not for money, and not for fame, but in the hope of supplying, for the children whom I love, some thoughts that may suit those hours of innocent merriment which are the very life of Childhood; and also in the hope of suggesting, to them and to others, some thoughts that may prove, I would fain hope, not wholly out of harmony with the graver cadences of Life.
If I have not already exhausted the patience of my readers, I would like to seize this opportunity perhaps the last I shall have of addressing so many friends at once of putting on record some ideas that have occurred to me, as to books desirable to be written--which I should much like to attempt, but may not ever have the time or power to carry through--in the hope that, if I should fail (and the years are gliding away very fast) to finish the task I have set myself, other hands may take it up.
First, a Child's Bible. The only real essentials of this would be, carefully selected passages, suitable for a child's reading, and pictures. One principle of selection, which I would adopt, would be that Religion should be put before a child as a revelation of love--no need to pain and puzzle the young mind with the history of crime and punishment. (On such a principle I should, for example, omit the history of the Flood.) The supplying of the pictures would involve no great difficulty: no new ones would be needed : hundreds of excellent pictures already exist, the copyright of which has long ago expired, and which simply need photo-zincography, or some similar process, for their successful reproduction. The book should be handy in size with a pretty attractive looking cover--in a clear legible type--and, above all, with abundance of pictures, pictures, pictures!
Secondly, a book of pieces selected from the Bible--not single texts, but passages of from 10 to 20 verses each--to be committed to memory. Such passages would be found useful, to repeat to one's self and to ponder over, on many occasions when reading is difficult, if not impossible: for instance, when lying awake at night--on a railway-journey --when taking a solitary walk-in old age, when eyesight is failing or wholly lost--and, best of all, when illness, while incapacitating us for reading or any other occupation, condemns us to lie awake through many weary silent hours: at such a time how keenly one may realise the truth of David's rapturous cry "O how sweet are thy words unto my throat: yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth!"
I have said 'passages,' rather than single texts, because we have no means of recalling single texts: memory needs links, and here are none: one may have a hundred texts stored in the memory, and not be able to recall, at will, more than half-a-dozen--and those by mere chance: whereas, once get hold of any portion of a chapter that has been committed to memory, and the whole can be recovered: all hangs together.
Thirdly, a collection of passages, both prose and verse, from books other than the Bible. There is not perhaps much, in what is called 'un-inspired' literature (a misnomer, I hold: if Shakespeare was not inspired, one may well doubt if any man ever was), that will bear the process of being pondered over, a hundred times: still there are such passages--enough, I think, to make a goodly store for the memory.
These two books of sacred, and secular, passages for memory--will serve other good purposes besides merely occupying vacant hours: they will help to keep at bay many anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, uncharitable thoughts, unholy thoughts. Let me say this, in better words than my own, by copying a passage from that most interesting book, Robertson's Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, Lecture XLIX. "If a man finds himself haunted by evil desires and unholy images, which will generally be at periodical hours, let him commit to memory passages of Scripture, or passages from the best writers in verse or prose. Let him store his mind with these, as safeguards to repeat when he lies awake in some restless night, or when despairing imaginations, or gloomy, suicidal thoughts, beset him. Let these be to him the sword, turning everywhere to keep the way of the Garden of Life from the intrusion of profaner footsteps."
Fourthly, a "Shakespeare" for girls: that is, an edition in which everything, not suitable for the perusal of girls of (say) from 10 to 17, should be omitted. Few children under 10 would be likely to understand or enjoy the greatest of poets: and those, who have passed out of girlhood, may safely be left to read Shakespeare, in any edition, 'expurgated' or not, that they may prefer: but it seems a pity that so many children, in the intermediate stage, should be debarred from a great pleasure for want of an edition suitable to them. Neither Bowdler's, Chambers's, Brandram's, nor Cundell's 'Boudoir' Shakespeare, seems to me to meet the want: they are not sufficiently 'expurgated.' Bowdler's is the most extraordinary of all: looking through it, I am filled with a deep sense of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers. The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.
If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have taken in this story--by introducing, along with what will, I hope, prove to be acceptable nonsense for children, some of the graver thoughts of human life--it must be to one who has learned the Art of keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety--with the exception of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that 'convenient season', which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come before he has finished reading this page,' this night shalt thy soul be required of thee.'
The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages, 1 an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation--an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial 'bon vivant' Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to one's heart. It is the word 'exilium' in the well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.
Yes, to him this present life--spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow--was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?
And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
We go to entertainments, such as the theatre--I say 'we', for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know--dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis--to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, "Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)--how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?
And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive.
I don't say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever, I must see it this once! I'll begin a stricter life to-morrow." To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!
"Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,
'Sorrow for sin God's judgement stays!'
Against God's Spirit he lies; quite stops Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,
Like a scorch'd fly, that spins in vain
Upon the axis of its pain,
Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,
Blind and forgot, from fall to fall."
Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death--if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.
But, once realise what the true object is in life--that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds'--but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man--and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!
One other matter may perhaps seem to call for apology--that I should have treated with such entire want of sympathy the British passion for 'Sport', which no doubt has been in by-gone days, and is still, in some forms of it, an excellent school for hardihood and for coolness in moments of danger.
But I am not entirely without sympathy for genuine 'Sport': I can heartily admire the courage of the man who, with severe bodily toil, and at the risk of his life, hunts down some 'man-eating' tiger: and I can heartily sympathize with him when he exults in the glorious excitement of the chase and the hand-to-hand struggle with the monster brought to bay. But I can but look with deep wonder and sorrow on the hunter who, at his ease and in safety, can find pleasure in what involves, for some defenceless creature, wild terror and a death of agony: deeper, if the hunter be one who has pledged himself to preach to men the Religion of universal Love: deepest of all, if it be one of those 'tender and delicate' beings, whose very name serves as a symbol of Love--'thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women'--whose mission here is surely to help and comfort all that are in pain or sorrow!
'Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.' ~ Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:It ain't my cup of meat. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 2:My path is about joy. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 3:Be like water, my friend. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 4:I write all my sermons. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 5:Action is my domain. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 6:I have had my vision. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 7:In my beginning is my end. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 8:In the end is my beginning. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 9:Literature is my Utopia ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 10:My teachings are my life. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 11:Reading musses up my mind. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 12:My life is my message. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 13:My love's a noble madness. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 14:My mind is my own church. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 15:My native land, good night! ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 16:My shows are not narratives. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 17:In my integrity I'll wrap me up. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 18:Lord help my poor soul. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 19:My feet is my only carriage. ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 20:My Precious, my Precious. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 21:Thinking is my fighting. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 22:Health is my expected heaven. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 23:I can always live by my pen. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 24:I'm living now in my reward. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 25:My heart says follow through. ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 26:My work is loving the world. ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 27:A great ox stands on my tongue. ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 28:Hail Lord, ... Loose my chains. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 29:I failed my way to success. ~ thomas-edison, @wisdomtrove 30:I have wasted my hours. ~ leonardo-da-vinci, @wisdomtrove 31:I want God, not my idea of God. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 32:My friends are my estate. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 33:My hat is in the ring. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 34:My life is my argument. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 35:My sorrow is my castle. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 36:Boldness be my friend. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 37:I've lost my faith in science. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 38:I write with all my heart ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 39:My diary seems to keep me whole. ~ anais-nin, @wisdomtrove 40:Poetry gave me back my voice. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 41:Well Being is my birth right. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 42:And I say to my heart: rave on. ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 43:I do not believe in my death. ~ salvador-dali, @wisdomtrove 44:I had my coat hangers spayed. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 45:I want to meet my God awake. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 46:Lord, keep my memory green. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 47:My life is a glorious adventure. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 48:of every situation in my life." ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 49:Please will you do my job for me. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 50:I do know what my songs are about. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 51:I don't try to control my days. ~ paulo-coelho, @wisdomtrove 52:I'm in love with my second cousin. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 53:I've failed my way to success. ~ thomas-edison, @wisdomtrove 54:I've had rainbows in my clouds. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 55:Leave my loneliness unbroken ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 56:Never without a shilling in my purse. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 57:The eyes of my eyes are opened. ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 58:The people in my songs are all me. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 59:We're news junkies in my house. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 60:Why can't I just eat my waffle? ~ barack-obama, @wisdomtrove 61:Your tears are my prayers. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 62:All in green went my love riding ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 63:Come my, heart, up and away! ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 64:Don't bring negative to my door. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 65:I attract only peace into my life. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove 66:I have so much of you in my heart. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 67:I owe my solitude to other people. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 68:Most of my reading is rereading. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 69:My business is circumference. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 70:My future is bright and beautiful. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 71:Not my will, but thine, be done. ~ jesus-christ, @wisdomtrove 72:The big show is inside my head, ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 73:All I am I owe to my mother. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 74:Any place I hang my head is home. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 75:I keep my undies in the icebox! ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 76:My imagination creates my reality. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 77:My television is the tabernacle. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 78:Your opinion is not my reality. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 79:If God be my friend, I cannot be wretched. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 80:I loved my country, and I hated him. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 81:I want the world to see my body. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 82:Let my enemies devour each other. ~ salvador-dali, @wisdomtrove 83:My wife gives good headache. ~ rodney-dangerfield, @wisdomtrove 84:Only by you my heart always moves. ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 85:Tis you, alone, can save, or give my doom. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 86:Women alone stir my imagination. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 87:You are a fool in four letters, my son. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 88:And I fell violently on my face. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 89:I learn to pity woes so like my own. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 90:My later years are my treasure years. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 91:My, my. A body does get around. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 92:My name is only an anagram of toilets. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 93:Reggae is my heart. Reggae is my soul ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 94:The past is a pebble in my shoe. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 95:Your irreverence toward my deity. ~ ambrose-bierce, @wisdomtrove 96:Go, and never darken my towels again ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 97:I am blessed beyond my fondest dreams. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 98:I recover my property wherever I find it. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 99:It was my fans who made me a star. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 100:Love breaks my bones and I laugh ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 101:Men are my life, diamonds are my career. ~ mae-west, @wisdomtrove 102:My hand tells me what I’m thinking. ~ pablo-picasso, @wisdomtrove 103:My message is that God is a good God. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 104:My secret is simple - I pray. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 105:Oh Rome! My country! City of the soul! ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 106:Your god is too small for my universe. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 107:You’ve seen my descent. Now watch my rising. ~ rumi, @wisdomtrove 108:And hold up to the sun my little taper. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 109:Can you restrain your laughter, my friends? ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 110:I am in chains. Don't touch my chains. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 111:I don't digest things with my mind. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 112:I fought with my twin, the enemy within. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 113:I was never without a book in my hand. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 114:Listen, my friend. He who loves understands. ~ kabir, @wisdomtrove 115:Music is not my life. My life is music. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 116:My country is wherever liberty lives. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 117:Pardon My Sanity In A World Insane ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 118:You are my peace, my solace, my salvation. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 119:Your homecoming will be my homecoming ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 120:By heaven you have destroyed me, my friends! ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 121:I ascribe my change wholly to God. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 122:I'd got hobbits on my hands hadn't I? ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 123:I'm a painter in my dreams, you know. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 124:I never take my own side in a quarrel. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 125:I see through my eyes, not with them. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 126:I will live this day as if it is my last ~ og-mandino, @wisdomtrove 127:My actions will follow my expectations. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 128:My deepest being is the oneness of being. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 129:My heart is, and always will be, yours. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 130:Nothing can affect my voice, it's so bad. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 131:The happiest time of my life is now. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 132:Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 133:At birth the Devil touched my tongue. ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 134:For my part, it was Greek to me. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 135:Ha, but my life is a box of wormgears. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 136:I am in charge. I take my own power back. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 137:I listen with love to my body's messages. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 138:I wish you'd keep my hands to yourself. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 139:Love is my religion - I could die for it. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 140:My pessimism has never been flabby. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 141:My standpoint is armed neutrality. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 142:That man made me miss my destiny. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 143:Today I can do anything I put my mind to. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 144:You know my God. My God is called love ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 145:A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 146:Fools are my theme, let satire be my song. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 147:Help me give up my addiction to Hope. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 148:I am I because my little dog knows me. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 149:I drink to separate my body from my soul. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 150:I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 151:I made all my generals out of mud. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 152:Imagination, My Friends, My Imagination ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 153:I must have my share in the conversation. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 154:I must have my share in the conversation… ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 155:It was involuntary. They sank my boat. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 156:I was in a terrible mess in my childhood. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 157:I will go down with my colours flying. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 158:Murder will out, this my conclusion. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 159:My altars are the mountains and the ocean. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 160:My art and profession is to live. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 161:My business is to tear them apart. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 162:My God is love and sweetly suffers all. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 163:My life closed twice before its close ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 164:My thoughts ran a wool-gathering. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 165:No danger can perturb my spirit's calm. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 166:The light has gone out of my life. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 167:The path to my joy is through my action. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 168:Today I will be the master of my emotions. ~ og-mandino, @wisdomtrove 169:A cup of tea would restore my normality. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 170:I am myself the matter of my book. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 171:I feel the flame of eternity in my soul. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 172:I lost my one true love. I started drinking. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 173:I'm no angel, but I've spread my wings a bit. ~ mae-west, @wisdomtrove 174:I'm sick of giving creeps money off my soul. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 175:I'm sittin' on my watch so I can be on time. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 176:Lord I disbelieve - help thou my unbelief. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 177:My good opinion once lost is lost forever. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 178:My hands are guilty, but my heart is free. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 179:My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 180:My religion has no geographical limits. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 181:My sun sets to raise again. ~ elizabeth-barrett-browning, @wisdomtrove 182:No chains around my feet, But I'm not free. ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 183:This world is not my concern; it is myself. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 184:What I do, I want to do with all my being. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 185:Agonies are one of my changes of garments. ~ walt-whitman, @wisdomtrove 186:I am busy with my work. My path is clear. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 187:I believe God will fight my battles for me. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 188:I do like a little bit of butter to my bread. ~ a-a-milne, @wisdomtrove 189:If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 190:I have nothing to declare except my genius. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 191:I love my son and am proud of my son. ~ robert-h-schuller, @wisdomtrove 192:I'm eighteen years behind in my ironing. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 193:I speak up for myself. I claim my power now. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 194:I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out. ~ walt-whitman, @wisdomtrove 195:I will greet this day with love in my heart. ~ og-mandino, @wisdomtrove 196:My ambition is handicapped by laziness ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 197:My belief is that to have no wants is divine. ~ socrates, @wisdomtrove 198:My books are friends that never fail me. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 199:My creed is love and you are its only tenet. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 200:My idea of exercise is a good brisk sit. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 201:Remember my mantra: distinct... or extinct. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 202:You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars. ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 203:You have my soul and I have your money ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 204:Fear is the opposite of love, in my opinion. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 205:Gazing on beautiful things acts on my soul. ~ michelangelo, @wisdomtrove 206:I am as successful as I make up my mind to be ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 207:I am often the brunt of my own humor. ~ charles-r-swindoll, @wisdomtrove 208:I find no intellect comparable to my own ~ margaret-fuller, @wisdomtrove 209:If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 210:I get my ideas from listening from within. ~ thomas-edison, @wisdomtrove 211:I had lost my mind and fallen into my heart. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove 212:I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance. ~ socrates, @wisdomtrove 213:It is my last wish to be burried sitting up. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 214:I too am not powerless, and my weapons strike hard. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 215:I wouldn't trade anything for my story now. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 216:Life is slippery. Here, take my hand. ~ h-jackson-brown-jr, @wisdomtrove 217:Most of all, I can choose my thoughts. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 218:My comedy is like emotional hang-gliding. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 219:My dear friend, clear your mind of can't. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 220:My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 221:My father was a small claims court jester. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 222:My friends have made the story of my life. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 223:My guru is in my imagination anywhere. Anywhere. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 224:My heart's gratitude Is My life's plenitude. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 225:My right eye itches, some good luck is near. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 226:Speak softly, I'm getting my massage. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 227:These fragments I have shored against my ruins ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 228:The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 229:Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold. ~ og-mandino, @wisdomtrove 230:When I see an Alfa Romeo go by, I tip my hat. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 231:You are, and always have been, my dream. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 232:You are going Uruguay, and I'm going my way ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 233:You have been the last dream of my soul. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 234:At my age I'm envious of a stiff wind. ~ rodney-dangerfield, @wisdomtrove 235:cruelty, / To steal my Basil-pot away from me! ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 236:Curse us and crush us, my precious is lost! ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 237:Don't walk in my head with your dirty feet. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 238:I am not contain'd between my hat and boots. ~ walt-whitman, @wisdomtrove 239:I followed my heart without breaking any rules. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 240:I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 241:I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 242:I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance. ~ diogenes, @wisdomtrove 243:I'm only confrontational with my friends. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 244:In my very own self, I am part of my family. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 245:I've spent my life making blunders. ~ pierre-auguste-renoir, @wisdomtrove 246:Listen to me, my Friend! My beloved Lord is within. ~ kabir, @wisdomtrove 247:Money doesn't excite me - my ideas excite me. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 248:My conscience is captive to the Word of God ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 249:My day begins and ends with gratitude and joy. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 250:My happy thoughts help create my healthy body. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 251:My hopes are not always realized, but I always hope. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 252:My mistakes have been my greatest mentors. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 253:My wonder button is being pushed all the time. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 254:Nobody can hurt me without my permission. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 255:Sire, I am my own Rudolph of Hapsburg. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 256:The more beneath my feet the clouds I see, ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 257:The more I give the winds my pinions free, ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 258:This is my decade. Nothing is going to stop me. ~ les-brown, @wisdomtrove 259:Travelers repose and dream among my leaves. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 260:You have no idea how strong my love is! ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 261:Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends. ~ hafez, @wisdomtrove 262:You should have a softer pillow than my heart. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 263:Activism is my rent for living on the planet. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 264:Before my death I hope to obtain my life. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 265:Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie! ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 266:I'd luv to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 267:I love the freedom that my phone gives me. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 268:I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks. ~ winston-churchill, @wisdomtrove 269:In my brain were stored a thousand pictures. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 270:I was so wrinkled I could screw my hats on. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 271:Let my heart be wise. It is the gods' best gift. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 272:My best writing has always been in journals. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 273:My honor is dearer to me than my life. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 274:My mind may be American but my heart is British. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 275:Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 276:Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 277:Yesterday, my eyeglass prescription ran out. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 278:And I'll know my song well before I start singing ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 279:Circumstances beyond my individual control. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 280:except for my cup of coffee in the morning. ~ charlie-chaplan, @wisdomtrove 281:Humor and joy contribute to my total well-being. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 282:I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 283:I gave my whole heart up, for him to hold. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 284:I grew intoxicated with my own eloquence. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 285:I love to read. My education is self-inflicted ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 286:I resent the limitations of my own imagination. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 287:It was my tongue that swore; my heart is unsworn. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 288:I Xeroxed my watch. Now I have time to spare. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 289:May my soul bloom in love for all existence. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 290:My enemies make appointments at my tomb. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 291:My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 292:My mom took me to a dog show and I won!! ~ rodney-dangerfield, @wisdomtrove 293:My reputation grows with every failure. ~ george-bernard-shaw, @wisdomtrove 294:My sore throats are always worse than anyone's. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 295:My tongue swore, but my mind was still unpledged. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 296:Some of my best friends are Oscar Wilde. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 297:Stubbornness should have been my middle name. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 298:The body is my temple, asanas are my prayers. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove 299:The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 300:The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny. ~ og-mandino, @wisdomtrove 301:Don't put a lump of rock under my elbow again! ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 302:Fear hurries on my tongue through want of courage. ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 303:here in the summer desert, winter found my blood ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 304:I can tell where my own shoe pinches me. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 305:I do love being in my studio. Especially at night. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 306:I don't like to read books. They muss up my mind. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 307:If love be good, from whence cometh my woe? ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 308:I guess I'm larger than life. That's my problem. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 309:I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 310:I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 311:In my normal life I'm a very unadventurous person. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 312:I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. ~ anais-nin, @wisdomtrove 313:I was the female Marlon Brando of my generation. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 314:My father used to call me the laughing hyena. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 315:My father was the best person i've ever known. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 316:My life carries its own meaning in itself. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 317:My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 318:My only thrill is self inflicted hickies. ~ rodney-dangerfield, @wisdomtrove 319:My painting carries with it the message of pain. ~ frida-kahlo, @wisdomtrove 320:My socks DO match. They're the same thickness. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 321:Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 322:Principle is ever my motto, no expediency. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 323:Since I have spread my wings to purpose high, ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 324:The dead are merely the countrymen of my future. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 325:The truth is what I cherish and that's my strength ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 326:Arms are my ornaments, warfare my repose. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 327:Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. ~ claude-monet, @wisdomtrove 328:Die, my dear? Why that's the last thing I'll do! ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 329:Don't put my faith in nobody, not even a scientist. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 330:From such trivia, I believe my soul was born. ~ charlie-chaplan, @wisdomtrove 331:I became my own only when I gave myself to Another. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 332:I buried a lot of my ironing in the back yard. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 333:I had spent my time counterfeiting eternity. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 334:I like to have space to spread my mind out in. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 335:In search of my mother's garden, I found my own. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 336:I poured spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 337:It's my choice, to choose how to live my life. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 338:I've never used a PC in my life; I don't like them. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 339:I was built up from my dad more than anyone else. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 340:Marry me. Marry me, my wonderful, darling friend. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 341:May Heaven exist, even if my place is Hell. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 342:Measures, not men, have always been my mark. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 343:My age, my inclinations, are no longer what they were. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 344:My body is very wise; it knows how to heal itself. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 345:My chest of books divide amongst my friends& 346:My downfall raises me to infinite heights. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 347:My girlfriend works at Hooters. In the kitchen. ~ mitch-hedberg, @wisdomtrove 348:My life's accomplishments? Sanity, and you. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 349:My own thoughts Are my companions. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 350:That's nothing. My alarm clock is set for eight. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 351:traveling is the great true love of my life ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 352:Without music, my life would be black and white. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 353:America is my country and Paris is my hometown. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 354:And what about the cash, my existence's jewel? ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 355:A part of me has become immortal, out of my control. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 356:But I pine in Solitude. Solitude is my undoing. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 357:For my part, I will never give up, and I mean never. ~ elon-musk, @wisdomtrove 358:If I have a monument in this world, it is my son. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 359:If my jeans could talk, they'd plead for mercy. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 360:I hold myself accountable for my contradictions. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 361:I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 362:I'm more and more in control of my own vibration. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 363:I never go jogging, it makes me spill my martini. ~ george-burns, @wisdomtrove 364:I opened two gifts this morning. They were my eyes. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 365:I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 366:Life and death have been lacking in my life. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 367:love is a deeper season than reason; my sweet one ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 368:May gratitude to God permeate my entire life. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 369:Me and my dad used to play tag, he'd drive! ~ rodney-dangerfield, @wisdomtrove 370:My anger rises up within faith and not outside it. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 371:My big fear was that my guitar would go out of tune. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 372:My boat is on the shore, And my bark is on the sea. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 373:My intention is to tell of bodies changed into new forms. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 374:My place is in the sunlight of opportunity. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 375:My tastes are aristocratic, my actions democratic. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 376:My temptations have been my Masters of Divinity. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 377:My will is mine... I shall not make it soft for you. ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 378:Oh my God, baby, you are in so much trouble. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 379:The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 380:To be free of belief and unbelief is my religion. ~ omar-khayyam, @wisdomtrove 381:Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 382:Death is a continuation of my life without me. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 383:I destroy my enemies by making them my friends. ~ abraham-lincoln, @wisdomtrove 384:If by my life or death I can protect you, I will. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 385:I love my love with a b because she is peculiar. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 386:It is mine to give to whom I will, like my heart. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 387:It's not art for art's sake, it's art for my sake. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 388:I will prepare and someday my chance will come. ~ abraham-lincoln, @wisdomtrove 389:I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy. ~ og-mandino, @wisdomtrove 390:My body takes me everywhere easily and effortlessly. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 391:My brain hums with scraps of poetry and madness. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 392:My generals are a parcel of post inspectors. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 393:My soul is my great asset and my great misfortune. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 394:My trouble was I had a mind but I couldn't make it up! ~ dr-seuss, @wisdomtrove 395:Oh Cup-bearer, set my glass afire with the light of wine! ~ hafez, @wisdomtrove 396:Peace with all the world, is my sincere wish. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 397:tell me how does it feel with my teeth in your heart! ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 398:The tide of my love has risen so high, let me flood over. ~ hafez, @wisdomtrove 399:Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 400:Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 401:You‚Äôre my religion. You‚Äôre all I‚Äôve got. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 402:A cork screw to my heart, ever since we've been apart. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 403:As I change my thoughts, the world around me changes. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 404:Don't judge me by my past. I don't live there anymore ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 405:Every man I meet is in some way my superior. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 406:From the very first time I rest my eyes on you, girl, ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 407:Here is my secret: I don't mind what happens. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 408:I am an artist at living - my work of art is my life. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 409:I am an artist at living – my work of art is my life. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 410:I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man. ~ charlie-chaplan, @wisdomtrove 411:i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 412:I climb, I backtrack. I float. I ramble my way home. ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 413:I die content, I die for the liberty of my country. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 414:I don't want my past to become anyone else's future. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 415:I hate the sight of blood, but it's in my veins. ~ charlie-chaplan, @wisdomtrove 416:I have spent my life resisting the desire to end it. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 417:I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite. ~ amsel-adams, @wisdomtrove 418:I like my wine like my women - ready to pass out. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 419:My Beloved One gleams like the lightning flash in the sky. ~ kabir, @wisdomtrove 420:My friends should drink a dozen of Claret on my Tomb. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 421:My rule is always, People first and things second. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 422:My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 423:My writing is nothing, my boxing is everything. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 424:Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph best. ~ thomas-edison, @wisdomtrove 425:Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 426:Pain has no effect but to steal some of my time. ~ margaret-fuller, @wisdomtrove 427:Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 428:[The Bible] is been my passion almost from my youth. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 429:What other people think of me is none of my business. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove 430:Who says that my dreams have to just stay my dreams? ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 431:You must suffer me to go my own dark way. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 432:All darkness vanished, when I saw the Lamp within my heart. ~ kabir, @wisdomtrove 433:All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood. ~ rainer-maria-rilke, @wisdomtrove 434:A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 435:I am not bound to please thee with my answer. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 436:I breathe in my courage. I exhale my fear. ~ jonathan-lockwood-huie, @wisdomtrove 437:I don't like audiences, I prefer my mistakes in private. ~ dr-seuss, @wisdomtrove 438:If the victims are my problem, the killers are yours. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 439:I have always felt proud of my Oscars and my numerous ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 440:I love all religions, but I am in love with my own. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 441:I'm putting all my money in the Chinese toy market. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 442:I want death to find me planting my cabbages. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 443:I want to die with my high heels on, still in action. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 444:My body represents perfection. I am vibrantly healthy. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 445:My faith in man is, at bottom, a faith in God. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 446:My God,' he gasped, & 447:My greatest trouble is getting the curtain up and down. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 448:My purpose in life is to do right and to glorify God. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 449:My sex life is like shooting pool with a rope! ~ rodney-dangerfield, @wisdomtrove 450:Nice to be here? At my age it's nice to be anywhere. ~ george-burns, @wisdomtrove 451:Nothing can disturb the calm peace of my soul. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 452:Siva, O Siva, carry my boat to the other shore! ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 453:The best advice I got from my dad? Wear a condom. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 454:The biology of purpose keeps my nose above the surface. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 455:The rest of the crowd were friends of my fortune, not of me. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 456:Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 457:When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 458:& 459:All my successes have been built on my failures. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 460:A mystery, and a dream, should my early life seem. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 461:Ask yourself a question: Is my attitude worth catching? ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 462:Distorted realities have always been my cup of tea. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 463:I am almost frightened out of my seven senses. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 464:I am always going to do my best, no matter where I am. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 465:I am willing to learn how to take good care of my body. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 466:I decided that I would make my life my argument. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 467:I got a flue shot and now my chimney works perfectly. ~ steve-martin, @wisdomtrove 468:I haven't known 6 days of happiness in my life. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 469:I'm at an age when my back goes out more than I do. ~ phyllis-diller, @wisdomtrove 470:I'm not a playwright. The people in my songs are all me. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 471:I must do something or I shall wear my heart away. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 472:I never did a day's work in my life, it was all fun. ~ thomas-edison, @wisdomtrove 473:I warn you, if you bore me, I shall take my revenge. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 474:Life isn't as serious as my mind makes it out to be. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 475:My heart forgives and releases. Inner peace is my goal. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 476:My key to heaven is that I loved Jesus in the night. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 477:My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. ~ dalai-lama, @wisdomtrove 478:The more I see of Mankind, the more I prefer my dog. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 479:Where would I be without my sense of direction? ~ ashleigh-brilliant, @wisdomtrove 480:Why can I never set my heart on a possible thing? ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 481:I am my clients. I am defined by who I do business with. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 482:I am rather impatient to know the fate of my best gown. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 483:I derived my strength from daily mass and communion. ~ vince-lombardi, @wisdomtrove 484:I drink because I wish to multiply my sufferings. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 485:I have three boxes on my desk: In, Out, and Too Hard. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 486:I implore those who love me to love my solitude. ~ rainer-maria-rilke, @wisdomtrove 487:In my next life I will try to commit more errors. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 488:I respect my life-force enough to no longer waste it. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 489:I was born to join in love, not hate - that is my nature. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 490:I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 491:I will heighten my life by helping others heighten theirs ~ les-brown, @wisdomtrove 492:Most of my problems come from rejecting parts of myself. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 493:My age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 494:My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 495:My idea of a group decision is to look in the mirror. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 496:My idea of a writer: someone interested in everything. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 497:My life is only important if i can help plenty of people ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 498:My mother had morning sickness after I was born. ~ rodney-dangerfield, @wisdomtrove 499:My soul seemed as foul as smoke from burning cat fur. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 500:My therapy has come from paying attention to my life. ~ oprah-winfrey, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:All my lies are white ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
2:batting my lashes ~ Sierra Abrams, #NFDB
3:bought my respect. ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
4:change my conviction. ~ Greg Iles, #NFDB
5:Friends my ass. ~ Jennifer Echols, #NFDB
6:Get outta my dreams ~ Billy Ocean, #NFDB
7:glared at him. My ~ Marlene Perez, #NFDB
8:Hand me my pants, ~ Michael Grant, #NFDB
9:Hogwarts is my home ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
10:I am a man of my word. ~ Augustus, #NFDB
11:I got ice in my veins ~ Lil Wayne, #NFDB
12:in my new office; ~ Alex Ferguson, #NFDB
13:into my tightest place ~ Lynn Red, #NFDB
14:I trust you with my life ~ J Lynn, #NFDB
15:It's my secret hoard, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
16:Mind my own business. ~ DJ Khaled, #NFDB
17:My beautiful, my own ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
18:My best girl is dead. ~ Red Smith, #NFDB
19:my camera.” He ~ Michael Connelly, #NFDB
20:My dearest Jennifer, ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
21:My dear Vincent ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB
22:My devil is winning. ~ Kyra Davis, #NFDB
23:My eyes adored ya ~ Frankie Valli, #NFDB
24:My eyes! I'm blind! ~ Darren Shan, #NFDB
25:My God is rock'n'roll. ~ Lou Reed, #NFDB
26:My hour at last has come; ~ Homer, #NFDB
27:My life is a struggle. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
28:My office is my tour bus. ~ Drake, #NFDB
29:My pluperfect lover ~ Andr Aciman, #NFDB
30:O Lord my God, ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
31:They're my nakama. ~ Eiichiro Oda, #NFDB
32:Your arrows for my tears. ~ Homer, #NFDB
33:You're my Aslan. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
34:You’re my Aslan. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
35:You stole my placenta? ~ Lisa See, #NFDB
36:all mistakes are my own ~ Lisa See, #NFDB
37:And my life continued ~ John Green, #NFDB
38:Applaud my idiocy. ~ Conan O Brien, #NFDB
39:captor, my lover. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
40:Don’t try, my dear, ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
41:Fiction Is My Addiction ~ Dr Seuss, #NFDB
42:He spilled my diet soda! ~ CM Punk, #NFDB
43:I bet my buttons ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
44:I'll do my best. ~ Kristen Britain, #NFDB
45:I love my burdens. ~ Dennis Lehane, #NFDB
46:I'm bidin' my time, ~ Ira Gershwin, #NFDB
47:I trust my instincts. ~ Billy Zane, #NFDB
48:It's my big secret. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
49:I've found my cause. ~ Jeff Garvin, #NFDB
50:Mark my trail... ~ Rudyard Kipling, #NFDB
51:Music is my home. ~ Alison Croggon, #NFDB
52:My body, my choice.” As ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
53:My chains are gone ~ Chris Tomlin, #NFDB
54:My cradle was a shoe. ~ W S Merwin, #NFDB
55:My endeavors ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
56:My face is my career. ~ Carol Kane, #NFDB
57:My fun days are over. ~ James Dean, #NFDB
58:My goals are so high. ~ Kevin Hart, #NFDB
59:My hits are not hits. ~ John Mayer, #NFDB
60:my life is not scripted. ~ E N Joy, #NFDB
61:My name's Punk. CM Punk. ~ CM Punk, #NFDB
62:My nards aren't clean ~ Simon Rex, #NFDB
63:My soul needs yours ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
64:My trigger got no heart. ~ Big Pun, #NFDB
65:My weakness is him. ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
66:My weakness is him. ~ Sarina Bowen, #NFDB
67:My wife's a goof. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
68:Oh, my giddy aunt! ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
69:She’s my nanny. ~ Victoria H Smith, #NFDB
70:Then I sat in my chair ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
71:Was my gladness sin? ~ Julie Berry, #NFDB
72:Whate'er my doom; ~ Woodrow Wilson, #NFDB
73:You are my miracle. ~ Truth Devour, #NFDB
74:You’ll be my queen. ~ Kenya Wright, #NFDB
75:You’re my exception, ~ Abbi Glines, #NFDB
76:Ana—as usual, you’re my ~ E L James, #NFDB
77:ANYONE SEEN MY KITTEN? ~ J Sterling, #NFDB
78:But I know my truth. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
79:don’t mind my asking? ~ Sue Grafton, #NFDB
80:during my work day. But ~ S J Scott, #NFDB
81:Find me, my thief. ~ Jessica Khoury, #NFDB
82:give up my quest. ~ Ally Broadfield, #NFDB
83:Home is my Bethlehem, ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
84:I am in my own mind. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
85:I'd give away my soul ~ Josh Groban, #NFDB
86:I let my mind wander. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
87:I like you in my lap. ~ Jaci Burton, #NFDB
88:I'll eat my head! ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
89:I'm confident in my art. ~ Kid Cudi, #NFDB
90:I'm here, my love,"... ~ Alex Flinn, #NFDB
91:I'm selling my V-card, ~ Ella James, #NFDB
92:I'm selling my V-card. ~ Ella James, #NFDB
93:I'm with you, my angel. ~ L J Smith, #NFDB
94:I PLUNGE TO MY DEATH ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
95:I said: what about my eyes? ~ Rumi, #NFDB
96:It’s not my fault, ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
97:Karma is my religion. ~ Jewel E Ann, #NFDB
98:Man be my metaphor’, ~ Dylan Thomas, #NFDB
99:mead for my men! ~ Donald Barthelme, #NFDB
100:Mine. I'm on my side. ~ Alyson Noel, #NFDB
101:My beautiful Ivey. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
102:My clone stands there, ~ A G Riddle, #NFDB
103:My first language is Gaelic. ~ Enya, #NFDB
104:My heart is so tired ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
105:My ideas are a curse. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
106:My love is upon you. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
107:My name is Nathan. ~ Deborah Bladon, #NFDB
108:my poles into the ~ Cheryl Bradshaw, #NFDB
109:My soul had the flu. ~ Cara McKenna, #NFDB
110:My soul hurts. ~ Jennifer Elisabeth, #NFDB
111:My week beats your year. ~ Lou Reed, #NFDB
112:My wish isn't to mean ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
113:POETRY SHAPES MY GENDER. ~ Amy King, #NFDB
114:That woman is my woman ~ Robyn Carr, #NFDB
115:wasn’t my department, ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
116:You are my treasure. ~ Truth Devour, #NFDB
117:You Fill Up My Senses ~ John Denver, #NFDB
118:You're my woobie! ~ Heather Rainier, #NFDB
119:Bear rapped on my window, ~ L T Ryan, #NFDB
120:Bed is my friend. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
121:Be like water, my friend ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
122:Be still my heart. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
123:Birds ate my face. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
124:Books are my weakness. ~ Dan Stevens, #NFDB
125:Come back to my bed. ~ Lorelei James, #NFDB
126:concentrate on my novel ~ A J Waines, #NFDB
127:Criticism polishes my mirror. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
128:Evil, be thou my good. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
129:I am my nearest neighbour. ~ Tacitus, #NFDB
130:I am my world. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #NFDB
131:I did do my own stunts. ~ Peter Falk, #NFDB
132:I drank my liver out. ~ Larry Hagman, #NFDB
133:I give you my wings. ~ Kenneth Oppel, #NFDB
134:I hate the way my mother thinks. ~ M, #NFDB
135:I have my own strength. ~ Nina Hagen, #NFDB
136:I'm a Muun of my word ~ James Luceno, #NFDB
137:I'm my favorite rapper. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
138:Is my kissing that bad? ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
139:It ain't my cup of meat. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
140:I think I peed my pants. ~ M C Steve, #NFDB
141:I think with my blood. ~ Cate Marvin, #NFDB
142:It's me who is my enemy ~ Paula Cole, #NFDB
143:L.A. is my American city. ~ Tom Ford, #NFDB
144:Music is my religion. ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB
145:My body is no schoolboy. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
146:My books are so tame! ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
147:My enemy. Ajax. ~ Josephine Angelini, #NFDB
148:MY FAB-4-EVER ~ Rachel Ren e Russell, #NFDB
149:My faith guides my life. ~ Kay Hagan, #NFDB
150:My father liked it, ~ Lani Lynn Vale, #NFDB
151:my focus began to shift. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
152:My hair is my identity. ~ Ethan Zohn, #NFDB
153:My hound hath no nose. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
154:My house. My rules. ~ Ella Dominguez, #NFDB
155:My Katarina is dead. ~ Pittacus Lore, #NFDB
156:My lamb likes the pain ~ Celia Aaron, #NFDB
157:My life was pretty rough. ~ Yoko Ono, #NFDB
158:My mic is a Magnum. ~ Pharoahe Monch, #NFDB
159:My motto: Fuck Hope! ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
160:My name is Slither. ~ Joseph Delaney, #NFDB
161:My path is about Joy. ~ Esther Hicks, #NFDB
162:My salad days, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
163:My soul will find yours, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
164:my timbers! ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
165:My vote is my secret. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
166:My way of life ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
167:nothing else.' 'My ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
168:Now, in my middle age, ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
169:Oh captain my captain ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
170:playfully bit my arm. ~ Jessica Sims, #NFDB
171:Running is my church. ~ Joan Van Ark, #NFDB
172:Satellite in my eyes ~ Dave Matthews, #NFDB
173:So by my lights, ~ Robert B Cialdini, #NFDB
174:Stop thieving my tragedy ~ Ali Smith, #NFDB
175:up. “He’s hardly my type, ~ J D Robb, #NFDB
176:You’re my reawakening. ~ Tillie Cole, #NFDB
177:you’re my stepbrother.” ~ J S Scott, #NFDB
178:Above my pay grade! ~ Dennis E Taylor, #NFDB
179:All my games are real ~ Bobby Fischer, #NFDB
180:As for my wife, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
181:Be like water, my friend. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
182:Carry on, my sisters. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
183:Disaster is my muse. ~ Art Spiegelman, #NFDB
184:Fashion breaks my heart. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
185:FML. Fuck my life. ~ Jennifer Hillier, #NFDB
186:Give me back my eggs ~ Nadine Brandes, #NFDB
187:I can't hide my feelings. ~ Jack Kemp, #NFDB
188:I'd like my life back. ~ Tony Hayward, #NFDB
189:I don't need a man in my life. ~ Enya, #NFDB
190:I faced down my fears. ~ Mark Edwards, #NFDB
191:I love my minions. ~ Michelle Knudsen, #NFDB
192:I loves me my Google ~ Richard Castle, #NFDB
193:I'm in my dream world. ~ Hunter Hayes, #NFDB
194:I miss my old life ~ Richard C Morais, #NFDB
195:I paint my own reality. ~ Frida Kahlo, #NFDB
196:I still got my Ferrari. ~ Miles Davis, #NFDB
197:It wasn't my fault. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
198:Just kissing my girl, ~ Marissa Meyer, #NFDB
199:Kemo Sabe, kiss my ass. ~ Lyle Lovett, #NFDB
200:Lenz snorts. “My mistake. ~ Greg Iles, #NFDB
201:little less so. “My ~ Christine Sneed, #NFDB
202:Losing My Virginity ~ Vishen Lakhiani, #NFDB
203:Maybe she can be my sun ~ Celia Aaron, #NFDB
204:My baby girl liked pink ~ A L Jackson, #NFDB
205:My body is on auto-slut. ~ Tara Brown, #NFDB
206:My childhood was extreme. ~ Tori Amos, #NFDB
207:My cholesterol’s a little high. ~ Joe, #NFDB
208:My cradle
was a shoe. ~ W S Merwin,#NFDB
209:My dog's a gentleman. ~ Todd Phillips, #NFDB
210:My door creaked open. ~ Bella Forrest, #NFDB
211:my father is dead? ~ Kathryn Le Veque, #NFDB
212:My hatred is diamond-hard. ~ Jim Goad, #NFDB
213:My heart for yours ~ Rachel Van Dyken, #NFDB
214:My house, my rules! ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
215:My idols are all older. ~ Kelly Lynch, #NFDB
216:My name has zero value. ~ Colin Quinn, #NFDB
217:My name is Zia Rashid. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
218:My name's Jet Steele. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
219:My religion is kindness. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
220:my remarkable walked ~ Alan Partridge, #NFDB
221:My service to humanity ~ Sri Chinmoy, #NFDB
222:my tongue.” “Do more ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
223:My words are my bullets. ~ John Lydon, #NFDB
224:Oh. My. Godz. Could you? ~ Joan Holub, #NFDB
225:saw my great-grandfather ~ Wendy Webb, #NFDB
226:She asked if my phone ~ Tamra Baumann, #NFDB
227:She’s in my fucking blood, ~ L J Shen, #NFDB
228:The darkness is my birthright. ~ Nico, #NFDB
229:The man read my thoughts. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
230:The Torus is my enemy! ~ Peter Sarnak, #NFDB
231:The unknown is my compass ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
232:The Valley of Origin. My ~ Mary Weber, #NFDB
233:This is my eureka moment; ~ E L James, #NFDB
234:This is my story now. ~ Reki Kawahara, #NFDB
235:Will you hold my hand? ~ Belle Aurora, #NFDB
236:Would You Wear My Eyes? ~ Bob Kaufman, #NFDB
237:wtf even is my sexuality ~ Dan Howell, #NFDB
238:You are blowing my mind. ~ Keri Smith, #NFDB
239:You are my sickness, ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
240:You are my somewhere. ~ Susan Fanetti, #NFDB
241:You’re my dream guy. ~ Megan Erickson, #NFDB
242:You’re my heart’s hero. ~ Carian Cole, #NFDB
243:Your past is my Future. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
244:Ah, my wishes become hopes. ~ K lid sa, #NFDB
245:Anger's my meat. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
246:Ball prints on my hood! ~ Abigail Roux, #NFDB
247:Be my wife, all my life. ~ Jodi Thomas, #NFDB
248:British. My mother ~ A P J Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
249:Bugs Bunny is my muse. ~ Billy Collins, #NFDB
250:But my heart rebelled. ~ Cameron Dokey, #NFDB
251:Climb onto my shoulders. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
252:Dmitri was in my arms. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
253:Don't be fooled by my beauty - ~ Rumi, #NFDB
254:Dreams from My Father ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
255:Get the hell out of my way! ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
256:I always know my lines. ~ Vivien Leigh, #NFDB
257:I am a man of my word. ~ Aleatha Romig, #NFDB
258:I and my pupil dined ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
259:I believe in my music. ~ Ralph Stanley, #NFDB
260:Ignite, my love. Ignite ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
261:I had rambling on my mind. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
262:I have had my vision. ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
263:I, in my brand new body, ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
264:I like my imperfect girls ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
265:I like my life as it is. ~ Sue Grafton, #NFDB
266:I like my whiskey wild, ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
267:I’ll feel my heaven anew, ~ John Keats, #NFDB
268:I’m in my grave. Panic ~ Keira Andrews, #NFDB
269:I'm working in my mind. ~ Jasper Johns, #NFDB
270:In my beginning is my end. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
271:In my end is my beginning. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
272:In my mind's eye ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
273:I plan to die at my desk. ~ Don Hewitt, #NFDB
274:I raise my pelvis to God ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
275:I smiled in my weakness. ~ Osamu Dazai, #NFDB
276:It is the face of my soul. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
277:I've served my country. ~ Prince Harry, #NFDB
278:I wanna rule my destiny. ~ Buju Banton, #NFDB
279:I want my rockstars dead. ~ Bill Hicks, #NFDB
280:I was quaking in my boots. ~ Lynn Hill, #NFDB
281:just setting up my twttr ~ Nick Bilton, #NFDB
282:Literature is my Utopia ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
283:Look through my eyes... ~ Claudia Gray, #NFDB
284:Maybe, although my heart ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
285:mind, and sealed my valve. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
286:Music's my medication. ~ Kenny Chesney, #NFDB
287:My and Ben’s birthday. ~ Bella Forrest, #NFDB
288:My blood is my crime. ~ Nadine Brandes, #NFDB
289:My bugs don't have bugs. ~ Eoin Colfer, #NFDB
290:My Caps Lock Key Is Loud! ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
291:My Country is Truth. ~ Emily Dickinson, #NFDB
292:My dad is a good dad. ~ Mindy McCready, #NFDB
293:My father's a character. ~ Bryan Adams, #NFDB
294:My God...it can think. ~ Laurie R King, #NFDB
295:My hair-- bob it! ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
296:My hands are dying. ~ Courtney Summers, #NFDB
297:My heart is asleep. We ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
298:My heart is on a budget. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
299:My heart is so tired ~ Rudyard Kipling, #NFDB
300:My Life is My Message ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
301:My life isn't tabloid-friendly. ~ Mika, #NFDB
302:My life. It’s enough. ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
303:my mother didn’t work ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
304:My nature just changes. ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB
305:My page was too white ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
306:My past is a bit checkered. ~ Kid Rock, #NFDB
307:My rage is gone, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
308:My religion is kindness. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
309:My secret is practice. ~ David Beckham, #NFDB
310:My tears speak for me. ~ Joan Crawford, #NFDB
311:My weapon of choice is my voice. ~ Nas, #NFDB
312:Oh my god, I am a banana. ~ John Green, #NFDB
313:Oh, my! Well . . . that ~ Joanne Fluke, #NFDB
314:On my face extended flat ~ W S Gilbert, #NFDB
315:pulled my jacket tighter ~ Edie Claire, #NFDB
316:So, want to be my sister wife? ~ Tijan, #NFDB
317:So where's my hug. ~ Suzanne Brockmann, #NFDB
318:Sport is not my thing. ~ Rupert Friend, #NFDB
319:Suck my hemorrhoids! ~ Brian K Vaughan, #NFDB
320:Tequila is my salmon. ~ Eddie Redmayne, #NFDB
321:That's my kind of girl! ~ Amie Kaufman, #NFDB
322:The Lord saved my soul. ~ Steve Harvey, #NFDB
323:There's my bearcat. ~ Jennifer Laurens, #NFDB
324:tucked the flower into my ~ Tate James, #NFDB
325:Voice is my instrument. ~ Debra Wilson, #NFDB
326:You are my business! ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
327:You are my life now. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
328:You Bedazzled my stake? ~ Bree Despain, #NFDB
329:You’re my favorite color ~ Ashley Jade, #NFDB
330:Your face is my heart ~ Diana Gabaldon, #NFDB
331:your name is My Brother. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
332:All my jewelry has stories. ~ Eva Green, #NFDB
333:Bruckner he is my man! ~ Richard Wagner, #NFDB
334:BSB are my personal favorites. ~ Dr Dre, #NFDB
335:Darkness is my destiny. ~ Hafsah Faizal, #NFDB
336:Death is my neighbor now. ~ Edith Evans, #NFDB
337:Do not forget my example. ~ Kate Schatz, #NFDB
338:Don't mess with my balloon. ~ E L James, #NFDB
339:Don't piss on my Utopia. ~ Theresa Weir, #NFDB
340:Do you want to be my dad? ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
341:Glitter is my makeup of choice. ~ Kesha, #NFDB
342:Go ahead, make my day. ~ Clint Eastwood, #NFDB
343:I am myself my own commander. ~ Plautus, #NFDB
344:I am the hero of my own story ~ Unknown, #NFDB
345:I called my style… me. ~ S J D Peterson, #NFDB
346:I can concentrate on my art. ~ Lou Reed, #NFDB
347:I don't reread my books. ~ Graham Swift, #NFDB
348:I eat my heart out alone. ~ Azar Nafisi, #NFDB
349:I failed my way to success. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
350:If I hold you with my emotions, ~ Rumi, #NFDB
351:Ignite, my love. Ignite. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
352:Ignite, my love, ignite. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
353:I-hate-you-with-all-my-soul ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
354:I hold you within my heart. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
355:I like my life alone. ~ Sarah Silverman, #NFDB
356:I live way below my means. ~ Chris Rock, #NFDB
357:I love my Spanish fans! ~ Emilia Clarke, #NFDB
358:I'm about my characters. ~ Abel Ferrara, #NFDB
359:I’m in my own shadow. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
360:In the end is my beginning. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
361:Irix, my beloved klepto. ~ Debra Dunbar, #NFDB
362:Is Ajax my father? ~ Josephine Angelini, #NFDB
363:I want my Canada back! ~ Justin Trudeau, #NFDB
364:I will kill for my family. ~ K F Breene, #NFDB
365:I wish he was my friend. ~ Sally Thorne, #NFDB
366:I wish you we're my daddy. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
367:Jazz is my adventure. ~ Thelonious Monk, #NFDB
368:Jazz was my first love. ~ Frankie Valli, #NFDB
369:Keep my memory green. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
370:Look into my eyes and deny me. ~ Poppet, #NFDB
371:Love could kiss my ass. ~ Jamie McGuire, #NFDB
372:Love me, Love my dog(s). ~ Nancy L Silk, #NFDB
373:Misfortune was my god. ~ Arthur Rimbaud, #NFDB
374:More than my own life ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
375:Mugged by my own mother. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
376:My books were my friends. ~ Abbi Glines, #NFDB
377:My cock will text you. ~ Angelica Chase, #NFDB
378:my eye lest I be invaded by ~ Ivan Doig, #NFDB
379:My fairy tale has ended. ~ Frank Warren, #NFDB
380:My family is awesome. ~ Miranda Lambert, #NFDB
381:My family is my career. ~ James McBride, #NFDB
382:My family's really close. ~ Paul Walker, #NFDB
383:My father is a fish. ~ Theodore Roethke, #NFDB
384:My father was a bullfighter. ~ Paz Vega, #NFDB
385:My heart is in your hands. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
386:My heart is yours to break ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
387:My heart's a dance of fear. ~ Aeschylus, #NFDB
388:My hope has a small h. ~ Niall Williams, #NFDB
389:My ideas are my whores. ~ Denis Diderot, #NFDB
390:My life is my message. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
391:My life is only half full ~ Sri Chinmoy, #NFDB
392:My life was very Japanese. ~ Bryan Clay, #NFDB
393:My mind is reeling. ~ Michael D O Brien, #NFDB
394:„My mountain of Adamant. ~ Ren e Ahdieh, #NFDB
395:My mum is my best friend. ~ Leona Lewis, #NFDB
396:My name's Peter. Can I play too? ~ Brom, #NFDB
397:My pain is fine. ~ Benjamin Alire S enz, #NFDB
398:My queendom for a coffee! ~ Chris Lange, #NFDB
399:My songs are like my kids. ~ Billy Joel, #NFDB
400:My style is forever changing. ~ Pusha T, #NFDB
401:My sweet, sad Fifty Shades. ~ E L James, #NFDB
402:My weapon is just a movie. ~ Gaspar Noe, #NFDB
403:My weapon is literature ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
404:My weight is my love. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
405:Nobody me without my enemy. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
406:no jokes about my poo. ~ Betty G Birney, #NFDB
407:Not my but Thy will, O Lord. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
408:of my bones like a twig. ~ Tiffany Snow, #NFDB
409:Over my pile of ashes ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
410:Over. My. Rotting. Corpse. ~ C L Wilson, #NFDB
411:Paris can kiss my ass. ~ Melanie Harlow, #NFDB
412:Poisons are more my thing ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
413:Public service is my motto. ~ Al Capone, #NFDB
414:Reading is my passion. ~ Kate DiCamillo, #NFDB
415:Reading musses up my mind. ~ Henry Ford, #NFDB
416:Real beauty is my aim. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
417:Revenge is my specialty. ~ Alan Bradley, #NFDB
418:Ruthless. That’s my girl. ~ Holly Black, #NFDB
419:She a patient waitin in my room ~ Drake, #NFDB
420:Stay strange, my friend. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
421:Surviving, that's my plan. ~ Ray Davies, #NFDB
422:Sweetness, you're my high. ~ Mia Miller, #NFDB
423:The french fry is my canvas. ~ Ray Kroc, #NFDB
424:The knowledge of my sin ~ Bayard Taylor, #NFDB
425:The stage calls my name. ~ Keegan Allen, #NFDB
426:The world is my oyster. ~ Ani DiFranco, #NFDB
427:This man is my boatswain. ~ Scott Lynch, #NFDB
428:Today, my life is awesome. ~ Kim Holden, #NFDB
429:Vanity is my favourite sin. ~ Al Pacino, #NFDB
430:Welcome To My Nightmare! ~ Alice Cooper, #NFDB
431:Who invented my life? ~ Bernard Malamud, #NFDB
432:You are my absolution. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
433:You are my Easter. ~ Sena Jeter Naslund, #NFDB
434:You’re harshing my mellow. ~ Elle Casey, #NFDB
435:You took my breath away. ~ Cherrie Lynn, #NFDB
436:you will always be my ~ Samantha Bayarr, #NFDB
437:Again, I checked my rear. ~ Kathy Reichs, #NFDB
438:All night, my face next ~ Imtiaz Dharker, #NFDB
439:Autumn is my spring! ~ August Strindberg, #NFDB
440:A wave roared in my ears. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
441:before turning out of my ~ Brenna Aubrey, #NFDB
442:Coal is my worst nightmare. ~ Steven Chu, #NFDB
443:Communication is my thing. ~ Naomi Klein, #NFDB
444:Connecticut is in my blood. ~ Wally Lamb, #NFDB
445:Drove me to my new life. ~ Tara Westover, #NFDB
446:focused on the contents of my ~ J C Reed, #NFDB
447:Good night, my love. ~ Rebecca Ethington, #NFDB
448:Goosing my own Maverick. ~ Caitlin Moran, #NFDB
449:Happy birthday, my love. ~ Tiffany Reisz, #NFDB
450:here in my bathrobe and this ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
451:Home is where my horse is. ~ Lyle Lovett, #NFDB
452:I acted my heart out. ~ F Murray Abraham, #NFDB
453:I admire my father greatly. ~ Kojo Annan, #NFDB
454:I AM my Brother's Keeper! ~ Jos N Harris, #NFDB
455:I am the captain of my pain. ~ Nick Cave, #NFDB
456:I am the captain of my shit ~ Tommy Pico, #NFDB
457:I believe in my writing. ~ Barry Manilow, #NFDB
458:I can easily set my tone. ~ Esther Hicks, #NFDB
459:I dream with my eyes open. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
460:God steals my soul. ~ Harley King, #NFDB
461:I got my own way of praying. ~ Tom Petty, #NFDB
462:I had my first wet dream! ~ Sue Townsend, #NFDB
463:I have my shield of faith. ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
464:I have my way of doing things. ~ Romario, #NFDB
465:I have to grow with my audience. ~ Ice T, #NFDB
466:I look at my own body ~ Langston Hughes, #NFDB
467:I made that test my bitch. ~ Ned Vizzini, #NFDB
468:I'm amazed at my progress. ~ Jason Terry, #NFDB
469:I'm blind without my glasses. ~ Adam Ant, #NFDB
470:I'm famous. That's my job. ~ Jerry Rubin, #NFDB
471:India is my kid sister. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
472:In my stiff, brocaded gown. ~ Amy Lowell, #NFDB
473:I plot my ascent daily. ~ Conor McGregor, #NFDB
474:I ran with all my might. All ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
475:I return my attention my drum ~ Jo Raven, #NFDB
476:Israel is in my heart. ~ Roberto Cavalli, #NFDB
477:I still bite my nails. ~ Jesse McCartney, #NFDB
478:I still keep my room clean. ~ Jay McLean, #NFDB
479:I've got a war in my mind ~ Lana Del Rey, #NFDB
480:I've got holes in my guitar. ~ Dick Dale, #NFDB
481:I've laid my friends bare. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
482:I've lost my heart to you. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
483:I want balance in my life. ~ Ron Dellums, #NFDB
484:I want my money back! ~ Elin Hilderbrand, #NFDB
485:I want my name to mean me. ~ Mark Haddon, #NFDB
486:I wrote my way out. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
487:Kind pity chokes my spleen. ~ John Donne, #NFDB
488:Kiss my ass, ya shiksa! ~ Howard Schultz, #NFDB
489:Kiss my fairy dust, Bitches! ~ Ethan Day, #NFDB
490:Legacy always wins. My ~ Gary Vaynerchuk, #NFDB
491:Let my country die for me. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
492:Let valour end my life! ~ Walter Raleigh, #NFDB
493:Love me. Love my umbrella. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
494:Loyalty is my biggest thing. ~ Tony Yayo, #NFDB
495:Mujer, you own my soul. ~ Simone Elkeles, #NFDB
496:My ambition cannot be stopped! ~ Cao Cao, #NFDB
497:My curse on plays ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
498:My curves are not crazy. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
499:My dad was a great dad. ~ Bijou Phillips, #NFDB
500:My dreams tell me who I am. ~ F bio Moon, #NFDB
501:My English is very bad. ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
502:My future is righteousness. ~ Bob Marley, #NFDB
503:My god is transgendered. ~ Krista Bremer, #NFDB
504:My Google-fu is strong. ~ China Mieville, #NFDB
505:My Google-fu is strong. ~ China Mi ville, #NFDB
506:My heart is set. ~ Henry VIII of England, #NFDB
507:My life is a contribution. ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
508:My life is a reading list. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
509:My little cinder Ella. ~ Danielle Teller, #NFDB
510:My love's a noble madness. ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
511:My love, sun of my heart. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
512:My mind is my own church. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
513:My mind wants to interpret ~ Sri Chinmoy, #NFDB
514:My mom and I are very close. ~ Lady Gaga, #NFDB
515:My mom is part albino. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
516:My mother loved the Bible. ~ Goldie Hawn, #NFDB
517:My mother will hear you. ~ Annette Blair, #NFDB
518:My native land, good night! ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
519:My nipples could cut glass. ~ Chris Pine, #NFDB
520:My only enemy is time. ~ Charlie Chaplin, #NFDB
521:My paintings are rubbish. ~ David Bailey, #NFDB
522:My parents were Christian. ~ Wyclef Jean, #NFDB
523:My passionate puritan! ~ Violet Winspear, #NFDB
524:My poems are like a dagger ~ Jose Marti, #NFDB
525:My poems please the brave: ~ Jose Marti, #NFDB
526:My shows are not narratives. ~ Brian Eno, #NFDB
527:My sleeping pill is white. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
528:My soul had found ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
529:My soul will find yours. ~ Jude Deveraux, #NFDB
530:My swag was phenomenal. ~ Gilbert Arenas, #NFDB
531:My toe as a lethal weapon! ~ Azar Nafisi, #NFDB
532:My weapon is literature. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
533:My whole life is my work. ~ Chris Cleave, #NFDB
534:Not when I lost my dream ~ Katie McGarry, #NFDB
535:of his eyes on my body. I ~ Penny Wylder, #NFDB
536:Oh my God, cheese burn! ~ Susan Bischoff, #NFDB
537:Perfect was my only option. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
538:Puny human body, my ass! ~ Margaret Weis, #NFDB
539:Readers are my vampires. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
540:REMEMBER MY LAST, PETUNIA. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
541:she was my nirvana. ~ A Meredith Walters, #NFDB
542:Someone had keyed my car. ~ Ernest Cline, #NFDB
543:Stop thinking about my poop ~ Hank Green, #NFDB
544:That’s my clever girl. ~ Teresa Medeiros, #NFDB
545:The dove is my emblem. ~ Thomas A Edison, #NFDB
546:The money is not my mission. ~ Tone Bell, #NFDB
547:They are my baby Keelans! ~ Alanea Alder, #NFDB
548:The yoke of my birth ~ Natasha Trethewey, #NFDB
549:This then is my story ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
550:Time is my greatest enemy. ~ Evita Peron, #NFDB
551:Tiramisu is my favourite. ~ Hugh Jackman, #NFDB
552:Unhappiness was my god. ~ Arthur Rimbaud, #NFDB
553:Us is my favorite people. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
554:walk around my new office. I ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
555:What an actor my demon was. ~ Gwen Hayes, #NFDB
556:Words can't change my face ~ R J Palacio, #NFDB
557:You are scored on my heart. ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
558:You're my favorite mistake ~ Sheryl Crow, #NFDB
559:You're my heartbeat, Brady. ~ Lisa Henry, #NFDB
560:You’re my only Duchess. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
561:You're the milk to my shake. ~ Jenny Han, #NFDB
562:your smile is my sunshine. ~ Susan Wiggs, #NFDB
563:And my girl actin like a brat ~ Lil Wayne, #NFDB
564:Basketball isn't my job. ~ Michael Jordan, #NFDB
565:Be still my heart, he cares. ~ Gwen Hayes, #NFDB
566:Blake opened my door before I ~ C L Stone, #NFDB
567:Break the chains, my love. ~ Pierce Brown, #NFDB
568:Clouds suit my mood just fine. ~ Marie Lu, #NFDB
569:Despite my asbestos gloves, ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
570:Don't disarrange my circles! ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB
571:Do you want to be my seahorse? ~ E L Todd, #NFDB
572:Drumming is my middle name. ~ Ringo Starr, #NFDB
573:Eee-nee-mee-nee-my-nee-moe ~ Joe Satriani, #NFDB
574:Ex-D-boy, used to park my Beamer ~ Jay Z, #NFDB
575:Fast cars are my only vice. ~ Michael Bay, #NFDB
576:First things first: find my ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
577:Forward my mail to Mars. ~ Stanley Kunitz, #NFDB
578:French was my first language. ~ Bob Cousy, #NFDB
579:Go ahead. Rip my bodice. ~ Richard Castle, #NFDB
580:He doesn't jingle my chimes. ~ Peggy Webb, #NFDB
581:hello my fellow americans ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
582:Here I am: My brain is open. ~ Paul Erdos, #NFDB
583:He's my man, he was great ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
584:Hockey's my favorite sport. ~ Denis Leary, #NFDB
585:I am ashamed of my nation. ~ Djemal Pasha, #NFDB
586:I am as my creator made me. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
587:I am one, my liege, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
588:I am stronger than my trials. ~ Dan Wells, #NFDB
589:I been the same dude my whole life. ~ DMX, #NFDB
590:I do all my own stunts! ~ Jennifer Garner, #NFDB
591:If I lose my honor, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
592:I have a woman inside my soul. ~ Yoko Ono, #NFDB
593:I have made my bed ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, #NFDB
594:I laughed until my fat hurt. ~ Cathy Lamb, #NFDB
595:I lead my life as normal. ~ Jonathan King, #NFDB
596:I like guts in my leaders. ~ Sean Hannity, #NFDB
597:I like my coffee light. ~ Elizabeth Banks, #NFDB
598:I like my life. It's good. ~ Kim Cattrall, #NFDB
599:I love my mom to death. ~ Oscar Gutierrez, #NFDB
600:I’m gonna talk to my friend, ~ Paul Selig, #NFDB
601:I'm living my dream now. ~ Chris Daughtry, #NFDB
602:I'm proud of my sexuality. ~ Adam Lambert, #NFDB
603:I never learn my lesson. ~ Chris Shiflett, #NFDB
604:In my family, I'm short. ~ Rosario Dawson, #NFDB
605:In my integrity I'll wrap me up. ~ Horace, #NFDB
606:In my thoughts forever. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
607:in the mornin' po-lice at my door ~ Ice T, #NFDB
608:I owe my career to Paul Heyman. ~ CM Punk, #NFDB
609:I put all my sighs in a lockbox ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
610:I say no wealth is worth my life. ~ Homer, #NFDB
611:I think all my videos suck. ~ Bryan Adams, #NFDB
612:I think my English is bad. ~ Stephen Chow, #NFDB
613:I trained my spirit in method. ~ Milarepa, #NFDB
614:...it's my own *** fault. ~ Jimmy Buffett, #NFDB
615:I want my money back! ~ Margaret Thatcher, #NFDB
616:I want my narre to mean me. ~ Mark Haddon, #NFDB
617:I was his first kiss. My ~ Sloane Kennedy, #NFDB
618:I was my own buddy in camp. ~ Joan Rivers, #NFDB
619:I will blaze my own trail. ~ Brad Meltzer, #NFDB
620:Jem is my greatest sin. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
621:Kindness is my religion, ~ Timber Hawkeye, #NFDB
622:Kiss my ass Rath Roiben Rye ~ Holly Black, #NFDB
623:Leave me to my own absurdity. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
624:Lipgloss is my calling! ~ Vanessa Hudgens, #NFDB
625:Lord help my poor soul. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
626:Lord, I want to be up in my heart. ~ Moby, #NFDB
627:Loving me with my shoes off ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
628:My bookshelves help me breathe. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
629:My core constituency will ~ John Sandford, #NFDB
630:My eye-balls are glass, ~ Hilda Doolittle, #NFDB
631:My faith keeps me strong. ~ Cissy Houston, #NFDB
632:My favorite color is green. ~ Larry Clark, #NFDB
633:My feet is my only carriage. ~ Bob Marley, #NFDB
634:My friend, judge not me, ~ William Camden, #NFDB
635:My friends call me Ryder. ~ J A Templeton, #NFDB
636:My girl. My fucking jersey. ~ Abbi Glines, #NFDB
637:My God. What's happened? ~ Princess Diana, #NFDB
638:My good friends call me Bobby. ~ Kid Rock, #NFDB
639:My grandpa was a preacher. ~ Dolly Parton, #NFDB
640:My head’s leaking,” I said. ~ Robert Shea, #NFDB
641:My heart is so full of him. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
642:My job does not define me. ~ Meg Wolitzer, #NFDB
643:My love's manners in bed ~ Robert Creeley, #NFDB
644:My lungs suck at being lungs ~ John Green, #NFDB
645:My Mind To Me a Kingdom Is. ~ Edward Dyer, #NFDB
646:My mistakes are my life. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
647:My mom died when I was 8. ~ Lisa Guerrero, #NFDB
648:My motto - sans limites. ~ Isadora Duncan, #NFDB
649:My mouth blooms like a cut. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
650:My name is not important, ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
651:My nature is a quagmire ~ Robert Creeley, #NFDB
652:My Perfect, Perfect Daughters ~ G A Aiken, #NFDB
653:My pledge of honor upon it. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
654:My political ambition ~ Goodluck Jonathan, #NFDB
655:My Precious, my Precious. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
656:My preference is simple—you. ~ Kasie West, #NFDB
657:My religion is Get Over It. ~ Nora Ephron, #NFDB
658:My religion is kindness. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
659:My religion makes no sense ~ Anne Carson, #NFDB
660:My reputation proceeds me. ~ Amy Spalding, #NFDB
661:My snobbery made me do it. ~ John Lithgow, #NFDB
662:My son has died of AIDS. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
663:My soul is not for sale. ~ Caryl Chessman, #NFDB
664:My story hurries me on. ~ Sebastian Barry, #NFDB
665:My swag is off the charts. ~ Roman Reigns, #NFDB
666:My teeth worry my bottom lip. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
667:my train of thought. “Look ~ Kathy Reichs, #NFDB
668:My work... is my legacy. ~ Patrick Swayze, #NFDB
669:Not-my cousin Helen. ~ Josephine Angelini, #NFDB
670:NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH!! ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
671:Not my daughter, you bitch! ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
672:Now Death usurps my premium ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
673:Oh my God I am so cool. ~ Charlize Theron, #NFDB
674:Oh my,” I said. “Thank you. ~ Meghan Daum, #NFDB
675:on my rump and pushed me ~ Annie Nicholas, #NFDB
676:Painting completed my life. ~ Frida Kahlo, #NFDB
677:Resurrection is my forte. ~ David Simpson, #NFDB
678:right now,I am my father ~ Natasha Friend, #NFDB
679:Sick to my motherf****** tummy! ~ Various, #NFDB
680:Singing's not my real passion. ~ Skrillex, #NFDB
681:Someone hurt my monster. ~ Laura Thalassa, #NFDB
682:Still here with my day jne niggas ~ Drake, #NFDB
683:Sunshine is my quest. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
684:That's my Shinobi Way ~ Masashi Kishimoto, #NFDB
685:The human heart is my school. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
686:The journey is my home. ~ Muriel Rukeyser, #NFDB
687:There is trouble in my mind ~ Jakob Dylan, #NFDB
688:There's a snake in my butt! ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
689:“The unknown was my compass.” ~ Anais Nin, #NFDB
690:Thinking is my fighting. ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
691:This is heaven my child. ~ Santosh Kalwar, #NFDB
692:This was my eleventh lie. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
693:Thumbs grow into my throat. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
694:Underneath my stiffened gown ~ Amy Lowell, #NFDB
695:want your scent on my sheets. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
696:You haul my woman ~ Jennifer L Armentrout, #NFDB
697:You’re my reward, Hanna. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
698:You saved me from my life. ~ Shelly Crane, #NFDB
699:You scared my pants off! ~ Megan McDonald, #NFDB
700:You’ve given me back my wings ~ Jean Haus, #NFDB
701:You've scored on my heart... ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
702:You want to carry my baby? ~ Andrea Smith, #NFDB
703:All the hatin just fuels to my fire. ~ T I, #NFDB
704:All this has been my fault. ~ Robert E Lee, #NFDB
705:Being charming is my hobby ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
706:Blaire. You're my exception. ~ Abbi Glines, #NFDB
707:Blind with love, my daughter ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
708:But I’m not just my genes, Dad. ~ A S King, #NFDB
709:By which I get my wealth-- ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
710:Collecting is my passion. ~ Ursula Andress, #NFDB
711:Come into my Tahoe, Simon, ~ Alice Clayton, #NFDB
712:Damn, my word of the night ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
713:Does my eye look okay to you? ~ John Green, #NFDB
714:Don't get in my personal life. ~ Timbaland, #NFDB
715:Fatherhood became my ideology. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
716:Food makes my mind sluggish. ~ Miles Davis, #NFDB
717:Fusion has been my nemesis. ~ Pete La Roca, #NFDB
718:Get out of my chair, dillhole! ~ A A Milne, #NFDB
719:God gave me my money. ~ John D Rockefeller, #NFDB
720:grip my arm. I willed the old ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
721:Hail Lord, ...Loose my chains. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
722:Haters are my motivators ~ Ellen DeGeneres, #NFDB
723:Health is my expected heaven. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
724:Here my last love had died. ~ Evelyn Waugh, #NFDB
725:He's the peace in my soul. ~ Tammy Falkner, #NFDB
726:Home is where my mom is. ~ Brittany Murphy, #NFDB
727:I am a beau only in my books. ~ Adam Smith, #NFDB
728:I am looking for my heart. ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
729:I am more than my scars. ~ Andrew Davidson, #NFDB
730:I am truly my mother's son. ~ David Geffen, #NFDB
731:I can always live by my pen. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
732:Iced coffee is my crack. ~ Lynn Weingarten, #NFDB
733:I divide my time badly. ~ Antonio Banderas, #NFDB
734:I do my best to love everyday ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
735:I do my laundry on a weekly basis. ~ Kesha, #NFDB
736:I found the Divine within my Heart. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
737:If you love me, feed my sheep. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
738:If you want to buy my wares ~ Cole Porter, #NFDB
739:I grow old on my bitterness. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
740:I had my own battle tactics. ~ Lech Walesa, #NFDB
741:I haven't lost my head yet. ~ Andrew Cuomo, #NFDB
742:I know God is my vindicator. ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
743:I left my mark on that man. ~ Alice Sebold, #NFDB
744:I live on my gut instinct. ~ Melanie Brown, #NFDB
745:I loafe and invite my soul. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
746:I love mixing up my genres. ~ Rosanne Cash, #NFDB
747:I'm a stranger in my own life. ~ Lang Leav, #NFDB
748:I'm not a huge fan of my work. ~ Tea Leoni, #NFDB
749:I'm not going to doubt my life. ~ Yoko Ono, #NFDB
750:I'm one of my sensations. ~ Alberto Caeiro, #NFDB
751:I'm very happy with my body. ~ Alicia Keys, #NFDB
752:Indistinctness is my forte. ~ J M W Turner, #NFDB
753:I paint my life with words. ~ Blake Crouch, #NFDB
754:I prefer my water in wine form. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
755:I put my sins in his hands. ~ Karina Halle, #NFDB
756:I put my trust in fiction ~ Erika Johansen, #NFDB
757:Run, my child, run. ~ Susan Dennard, #NFDB
758:I throw her over my shoulder ~ Sabaa Tahir, #NFDB
759:I turned on my e-mail ~ Elizabeth Benedict, #NFDB
760:I want my breakfast. ~ Megan Whalen Turner, #NFDB
761:I want my face covered in you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
762:I want to make my own movie. ~ Bam Margera, #NFDB
763:I want you on my balcony. ~ Lauren Blakely, #NFDB
764:I was never out of my Bible. ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
765:Just let me live my life. ~ Sergei Polunin, #NFDB
766:Lord help my poor soul. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
767:Mind the dead man, my dear. ~ Rachel Caine, #NFDB
768:My Beloved, in Whom I delight! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
769:My beloved is mine and I am his. ~ Solomon, #NFDB
770:My best feature is my hair. ~ Hayley Mills, #NFDB
771:My career is my girlfriend. ~ Aaron Carter, #NFDB
772:My cholera's acting up again. ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
773:My family came from Ecuador. ~ Jose Garces, #NFDB
774:My fan fiction is canon. ~ Dwayne McDuffie, #NFDB
775:My fans are my fans for life. ~ Lil Boosie, #NFDB
776:My father was a doctor. ~ David Alan Grier, #NFDB
777:My father was an agnostic. ~ Jerry Falwell, #NFDB
778:My films, no one else will do. ~ Mira Nair, #NFDB
779:my freedom. And So It Is! ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
780:My fur is silky, damn it. ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
781:My genius from a boy ~ George Moses Horton, #NFDB
782:My greatest fear: repetition. ~ Max Frisch, #NFDB
783:my hand, I said her name. ~ Jami Attenberg, #NFDB
784:My hatred gives me strength. ~ Janet Fitch, #NFDB
785:My heart ached for the snow. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
786:My heart has jet lag. ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB
787:My honor is my loyalty. ~ Heinrich Himmler, #NFDB
788:My house was once an acorn. ~ Roger Deakin, #NFDB
789:My ideal weight is moobless. ~ Albie Sachs, #NFDB
790:My innocence is a dying flower ~ Tite Kubo, #NFDB
791:My instincts are not comedic. ~ Josh Lucas, #NFDB
792:My life has been very full. ~ Dolly Parton, #NFDB
793:My lifes a wreck, and I love it. ~ Bo Bice, #NFDB
794:My mind is full of hornets. ~ Isaac Marion, #NFDB
795:my mind, still fugitive, ~ Dante Alighieri, #NFDB
796:My mom wasn't a movie star. ~ Jeff Bridges, #NFDB
797:My mother is a muttonhead. ~ Julia Golding, #NFDB
798:My nerves could use a drink. ~ Grace Kelly, #NFDB
799:My only inheritance. ~ Christopher Paolini, #NFDB
800:My Paintings are Battles. ~ Georg Baselitz, #NFDB
801:My parents were hippies. ~ Balthazar Getty, #NFDB
802:My purpose? What is my purpose? ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
803:My sentence is for open war. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
804:My son wasn't gay. No way. ~ Tommy Lasorda, #NFDB
805:My will exceeds my talents. ~ Edvard Munch, #NFDB
806:My work is loving the world. ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
807:NO” STARTS THE NEGOTIATION My ~ Chris Voss, #NFDB
808:Not my circus, not my monkeys. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
809:Oh my God...I'm a megahoe. ~ Lynda LeeAnne, #NFDB
810:Oh no, my brain is broken. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
811:Oh sharp diamond, my mother! ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
812:Only I can snatch my own weave ~ Lady Gaga, #NFDB
813:Poetry became my doctor, my lover. ~ J Ivy, #NFDB
814:Ragtime was my lullaby. ~ Hoagy Carmichael, #NFDB
815:She’s earned my contempt. ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
816:Sneakers are not my thing. ~ Barry Manilow, #NFDB
817:Some words live in my throat ~ Audre Lorde, #NFDB
818:Soul rotted before my eyes. ~ Faith Hunter, #NFDB
819:Spank me pull my hair bite me ~ Sylvia Day, #NFDB
820:Spring is my sweetheart. ~ Mary Baker Eddy, #NFDB
821:That’s my girl.” Again, ~ Victoria Aveyard, #NFDB
822:The word of God is my vow. ~ Pittacus Lore, #NFDB
823:the world is my idea ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
824:to get some brandy for my ~ Helen MacInnes, #NFDB
825:Violence is my last option. ~ Chuck Norris, #NFDB
826:Who will be my equal? ~ Cardinal Richelieu, #NFDB
827:Why did you cut off my toe? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
828:Wildness is my suiting scene. ~ John Clare, #NFDB
829:You can’t stop my voice cause ~ Lady Gaga, #NFDB
830:You colour my world, Freda... ~ L H Cosway, #NFDB
831:You fuck - you ate my cat! ~ Kendare Blake, #NFDB
832:You'll be my glass of wine ~ Blake Shelton, #NFDB
833:You’re my everything, Bree. ~ Mia Sheridan, #NFDB
834:You're still my princess. ~ Claudia Connor, #NFDB
835:Your heart is my piñata. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
836:Your margin is my opportunity ~ Jeff Bezos, #NFDB
837:You understand my music. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
838:Acting and theatrics are my forte. ~ LeCrae, #NFDB
839:Acting was my first love. ~ Joe Manganiello, #NFDB
840:A great ox stands on my tongue. ~ Aeschylus, #NFDB
841:All my instincts tell me no. ~ Kathryn Shay, #NFDB
842:And who was my godly parent? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
843:An eye for an eye my friend. ~ Tsugumi Ohba, #NFDB
844:Anyone who bombs is my friend. ~ Todd Barry, #NFDB
845:ask for my hand.” “That’s ~ Khaled Hosseini, #NFDB
846:At dinner my man appeares. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
847:At my core, I'm a Midwesterner. ~ Paul Rudd, #NFDB
848:Because you are my Estrella. ~ Karina Halle, #NFDB
849:Being charming is my hobby. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
850:Berlin is my favourite city. ~ Logan Lerman, #NFDB
851:But I think he broke my vagina ~ Tina Reber, #NFDB
852:Candy is my religion. ~ Sarah Addison Allen, #NFDB
853:Can you picture my prophecy? ~ Tupac Shakur, #NFDB
854:Choice or no, my heart is his. ~ Beth Revis, #NFDB
855:Christian takes my hand, and we ~ E L James, #NFDB
856:cover my hands with my eyes. ~ Kelly Rimmer, #NFDB
857:Devil a bit. My wife’s alive. ~ Jo Beverley, #NFDB
858:Disobedience is my joy! ~ Princess Margaret, #NFDB
859:Effie rapping on my door. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
860:Failure is my specialty. ~ Barbara Corcoran, #NFDB
861:Fate's book, but my italics. ~ Don Paterson, #NFDB
862:Get the hell out of my cave. ~ Scott Snyder, #NFDB
863:Give me my sin again. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
864:Go bring me back my daughter. ~ A L Jackson, #NFDB
865:Handful was my basket name. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
866:Has anybody seen my tambourine? ~ Tim Curry, #NFDB
867:He is my vulnerability ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB
868:He put his shirt on my head. ~ Quinn Loftis, #NFDB
869:Here it is. My moment of zen. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
870:Hold my hand. Don't let go. ~ Jenny Downham, #NFDB
871:I act with my gut instincts. ~ Alanna Ubach, #NFDB
872:I am every age, up to my own. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
873:I am the creator of my destiny. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
874:I am the hero of my own story. ~ Tara Brown, #NFDB
875:I believe you got my property? ~ Chris Rock, #NFDB
876:I can get money with my eyes closed ~ Drake, #NFDB
877:I can watch a sunset on my own. ~ Kate Nash, #NFDB
878:I do my best to love everybody ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
879:I don't know anyone my age. ~ Frank Buckles, #NFDB
880:I had a 15th club in my bag. ~ Ben Crenshaw, #NFDB
881:I have arranged my little life. ~ Jean Rhys, #NFDB
882:I have a trend of my own. ~ Andrei Platonov, #NFDB
883:I have to satisfy my audience. ~ J B Smoove, #NFDB
884:I have wasted my hours. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
885:I love my own kind—womankind. ~ Qiu Miaojin, #NFDB
886:I love sharing my passions. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
887:Imagination is my best friend. ~ Neil Young, #NFDB
888:I'm a man of my word. ~ Floyd Mayweather Jr, #NFDB
889:I’m at peace with my faults. ~ Tim Marquitz, #NFDB
890:I'm most proud of my family. ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
891:I'm on my time with everyone. ~ Kurt Cobain, #NFDB
892:Impossible is my specialty. ~ Marissa Meyer, #NFDB
893:I'm sick of my own romanticism! ~ Anais Nin, #NFDB
894:I'm sick of my own romanticism! ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
895:I never liked my own species. ~ Gary Larson, #NFDB
896:I never play without my cape. ~ Bela Lugosi, #NFDB
897:I started my own record label. ~ Tom Felton, #NFDB
898:I think Steve Jobs is my idol. ~ Ma Huateng, #NFDB
899:It's no good giving my heart and my ~ Rumi, #NFDB
900:It wasn’t my history to tell. ~ Violet Duke, #NFDB
901:I've been very lucky in my life. ~ Joe Gold, #NFDB
902:I want God, not my idea of God. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
903:I want my own Christian Grey :) ~ E L James, #NFDB
904:I want to be alone with my thought. ~ Homer, #NFDB
905:I was always my own teacher. ~ Eudora Welty, #NFDB
906:I wear my heart on my blog. ~ Coco J Ginger, #NFDB
907:I will stay in my bed! ~ Jean Paul Gaultier, #NFDB
908:I would sell my life to avoid ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
909:Janelle, you're my home. ~ Elizabeth Norris, #NFDB
910:Judge me by my future works. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
911:Let my temptation be a book. ~ Eugene Field, #NFDB
912:Look not in my eyes, for fear ~ A E Housman, #NFDB
913:loosens my mind. From my desk, ~ Amy Harmon, #NFDB
914:Music brings life to my soul. ~ Judith Hill, #NFDB
915:My act is based on my life. ~ Kathy Griffin, #NFDB
916:my admittedly peculiar life. ~ Mark Kermode, #NFDB
917:My! ain't men blinder'n moles? ~ Amy Lowell, #NFDB
918:My ambition is to be happy. ~ Penelope Cruz, #NFDB
919:My answer is bring them on. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
920:My baby does the hanky panky. ~ Tommy James, #NFDB
921:My background is Scottish. ~ Melissa George, #NFDB
922:My balls crawl up my throat. ~ D B C Pierre, #NFDB
923:My body is a damn traitor. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
924:My books are my confessions. ~ Clive Barker, #NFDB
925:My face is my passport. ~ Vladimir Horowitz, #NFDB
926:My friends are my estate. ~ Emily Dickinson, #NFDB
927:My God is better than your God ~ Boy George, #NFDB
928:My hat is in the ring. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
929:My head, my rules. ~ Alexander Gordon Smith, #NFDB
930:My heart belongs to daddy. ~ Marilyn Monroe, #NFDB
931:My heart can take on any form: ~ Ibn Arabi, #NFDB
932:My husband is insatiable. ~ Charmaine Pauls, #NFDB
933:My husband - my king. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft, #NFDB
934:My identity is without root. ~ C S Friedman, #NFDB
935:My imagination needs therapy. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
936:My joy will be in serving. ~ Walter Russell, #NFDB
937:My life is my argument. ~ Albert Schweitzer, #NFDB
938:My message is all about peace. ~ Puff Daddy, #NFDB
939:My mind is my laboratory. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
940:My mom is definitely my rock. ~ Alicia Keys, #NFDB
941:My most salient memories ~ Marya Hornbacher, #NFDB
942:My mother is a beauty. ~ Mary Louise Parker, #NFDB
943:My music is not lovely. ~ Arnold Schoenberg, #NFDB
944:My, my, aren’t we pushy . . . ~ Julie James, #NFDB
945:My name is Banu Manizheh. ~ S A Chakraborty, #NFDB
946:My name isn’t Shirley. ~ Michael J Sullivan, #NFDB
947:My only fear is the unknown. ~ David Blaine, #NFDB
948:My only scheme was to be a rapper. ~ Eminem, #NFDB
949:My phone buzzed moments later. ~ John Green, #NFDB
950:My sincerity is my credentials. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
951:My slow descent into madness. ~ Julie James, #NFDB
952:My sorrow is my castle. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
953:My sorrow is my castle. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
954:My soul abhors a falsehood ~ Horace Walpole, #NFDB
955:My vengeance needs blood. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
956:My very soul demands you. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
957:My weapon is literature
~ Chinua Achebe,#NFDB
958:My witness is the empty sky. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
959:My work is largely concerned ~ Jasper Johns, #NFDB
960:My wound existed before me; ~ Joe Bousquet, #NFDB
961:No pills gonna cure my ill. ~ Robert Palmer, #NFDB
962:Now my tapestry's unraveling. ~ Carole King, #NFDB
963:Okay, Trent. Pop my cherry. ~ Jamie McGuire, #NFDB
964:Rock'n'roll saved my soul. ~ Thurston Moore, #NFDB
965:Send the witch my love. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
966:She’s…the…love of my life. ~ Scott Hildreth, #NFDB
967:Shun death, is my advice. ~ Robert Browning, #NFDB
968:Sunday is my favorite day. ~ Emma Caulfield, #NFDB
969:surface my wife’s most vicious ~ Pat Conroy, #NFDB
970:Tattoos made my skin more me. ~ Larry Smith, #NFDB
971:The center of my earth is you ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
972:There are no edges to my loving now. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
973:There's a fire starting in my heart ~ Adele, #NFDB
974:The sky is not my limit...I am. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
975:This is my time, this is my hour, ~ Pusha T, #NFDB
976:to stitch my name on the sky ~ Paula McLain, #NFDB
977:Well Being is my birthright. ~ Esther Hicks, #NFDB
978:Whatever, I make my own rules! ~ Kelly Oram, #NFDB
979:When my dreams showed signs ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
980:You are encased in my heart. ~ Truth Devour, #NFDB
981:You broke my heart, you big cat, ~ K M Shea, #NFDB
982:You have conquered my heart. ~ Karina Halle, #NFDB
983:You prance in my mind, Mary. ~ Abigail Roux, #NFDB
984:Your margin is my opportunity. ~ Jeff Bezos, #NFDB
985:your story, I hear my own. I ~ Sarah Hepola, #NFDB
986:Your views are now my own. ~ Marvin L Cohen, #NFDB
987:You see Jesus wrecked my life ~ Katie Davis, #NFDB
988:Adjust my dreams for me. ~ Bret Easton Ellis, #NFDB
989:and no one hurts my family. ~ Sarah A Denzil, #NFDB
990:(and not in my poo corner), ~ Betty G Birney, #NFDB
991:And, oh, my God, it's over. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
992:And when my own Mark Antony ~ Robert Southey, #NFDB
993:Are you taking my hat hostage? ~ Derek Landy, #NFDB
994:As . . . as you say, my lord. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
995:As a tree my sin stands ~ Christina Rossetti, #NFDB
996:Bad ideas are my favorite kind. ~ V E Schwab, #NFDB
997:Be kind. Aim for my heart. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
998:Be kind, aim for my heart. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
999:Bella. You were always my soul. ~ Lora Leigh, #NFDB
1000:Be my angel. Just for the night. ~ S L Scott, #NFDB
1001:Birthday sex is my speciality. ~ Amy Andrews, #NFDB
1002:blowing rainbows up my ass, ~ Sawyer Bennett, #NFDB
1003:Boldness be my friend. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1004:But damn it, give me my tacos. ~ Jordan Dane, #NFDB
1005:coaxing back to my side. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
1006:Coffee isn't my cup of tea. ~ Samuel Goldwyn, #NFDB
1007:door in my face if you’re not ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
1008:Even smiling makes my face ache. ~ Tim Curry, #NFDB
1009:Everyone is entitled to my opinion ~ Madonna, #NFDB
1010:Famous for my ignorance, me. ~ Harry Bingham, #NFDB
1011:Free’s my favorite price. ~ Juliet Blackwell, #NFDB
1012:Goodbye, my friend, goodbye ~ Sergei Yesenin, #NFDB
1013:His lordship can eat my fat— ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
1014:How shall I sum up my life? ~ Audrey Hepburn, #NFDB
1015:I am my brain's publisher. ~ Philippe Starck, #NFDB
1016:I am my own damned princess! ~ Gerald Morris, #NFDB
1017:I am the shadow my words cast, ~ Octavio Paz, #NFDB
1018:I am very serious about my baby. ~ Morrissey, #NFDB
1019:I believed in God my whole life. ~ Andy Dick, #NFDB
1020:Idling is not my strong suit. ~ Cam Gigandet, #NFDB
1021:I do my job like I breathe. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
1022:I don't care about my image. ~ Jean Dujardin, #NFDB
1023:I don't talk about my salary. ~ Howard Stern, #NFDB
1024:I enjoy my time alone. ~ Stephanie Zimbalist, #NFDB
1025:I feel no sympathy for my food. ~ Seth Rogen, #NFDB
1026:I gave up my world for you. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
1027:I got my degree in rhetoric. ~ Alex Borstein, #NFDB
1028:I got my red dress on tonight ~ Lana Del Rey, #NFDB
1029:I harden my glare and my heart. ~ A G Howard, #NFDB
1030:I have my own stalker, Joe. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
1031:I have no words for my reality. ~ Max Frisch, #NFDB
1032:I heart Jewish girls... oh my God. ~ Pauly D, #NFDB
1033:I hid my love when young till I ~ John Clare, #NFDB
1034:I just rediscovered my guitar. ~ Ben Gibbard, #NFDB
1035:I know. You're my whole life. ~ Kahlen Aymes, #NFDB
1036:I listen to my spirit guide. ~ Sylvia Browne, #NFDB
1037:I loaf and invite my soul. ~ Christian Wiman, #NFDB
1038:I look into my own black heart. ~ Gore Vidal, #NFDB
1039:I’m burning to my bones. Beyond ~ Katy Evans, #NFDB
1040:I'm in love with my work ~ Charice Pempengco, #NFDB
1041:I'm in mourning for my life. ~ Anton Chekhov, #NFDB
1042:I’m losing my mind without you. ~ Sylvia Day, #NFDB
1043:I need to broaden my horizons. ~ Trevor Dunn, #NFDB
1044:I never knew my mother's name. ~ Zo Marriott, #NFDB
1045:I never slept outside of my home. ~ Paz Vega, #NFDB
1046:in the mirror on my locker door. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1047:I owe my father everything. ~ Robert Carlyle, #NFDB
1048:I play chess, but my past is checkered, ~ Ka, #NFDB
1049:I take vitamins. For my ears. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1050:I think my liver hurts. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1051:I trade with you my mind. ~ Clifford D Simak, #NFDB
1052:I try to reach out to my idols. ~ Thia Megia, #NFDB
1053:I've got feathers in my hair, ~ Lana Del Rey, #NFDB
1054:I've lost my faith in science. ~ Bette Davis, #NFDB
1055:I've loved reading all my life. ~ John Wayne, #NFDB
1056:I wanted to be my own heroine. ~ Jesmyn Ward, #NFDB
1057:I was my pain and nothing else ~ C J Roberts, #NFDB
1058:I went from zero to my own hero ~ Katy Perry, #NFDB
1059:I will fall on my face sometimes ~ Jessie J, #NFDB
1060:I will not be my father's dog. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1061:I write with all my heart ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1062:Litton’s my father.” His ~ Rosamunde Pilcher, #NFDB
1063:make my lady bits shiver. ~ Jessica Gadziala, #NFDB
1064:Many of my poems are not sexual. ~ Thom Gunn, #NFDB
1065:Michael, your my big brother. ~ Rachel Caine, #NFDB
1066:Most of my dreams came true. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
1067:My behavior is humiliating. ~ Danny Bonaduce, #NFDB
1068:My bowels are filled with mercy. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1069:My dad was a big card player. ~ Vince Vaughn, #NFDB
1070:My dancing days are past. ~ Philip Massinger, #NFDB
1071:My diary seems to keep me whole. ~ Anais Nin, #NFDB
1072:My difficulties belong to me! ~ Alfred Adler, #NFDB
1073:My dreams are all follies. ~ Taylor Caldwell, #NFDB
1074:My entire life has been a lie. ~ Bobby Darin, #NFDB
1075:My experience is the opposite. ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
1076:My family is very theatrical. ~ Debra Wilson, #NFDB
1077:My family. My wife. My son. ~ Krista Ritchie, #NFDB
1078:My favorite animal is steak. ~ Fran Lebowitz, #NFDB
1079:My favorite animals are dogs. ~ Jane Goodall, #NFDB
1080:[My favorite word?] "Yes." ~ Pamela Anderson, #NFDB
1081:My fist so rocky and and wrist so icy, ~ T I, #NFDB
1082:My grandfather was a worm. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
1083:My heart is a stupid asshole. ~ Jessica Park, #NFDB
1084:My hobby is fishing for girls. ~ Tom Kaulitz, #NFDB
1085:My hovercraft is full of eels. ~ John Cleese, #NFDB
1086:My hurt wouldn't keep silence. ~ Julie Berry, #NFDB
1087:My ignorance is not charming. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
1088:My imagination needs therapy". ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
1089:MY LIFE IS A JOKE BY SHEILA HETI ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1090:My life is an issue in my life. ~ Susan Juby, #NFDB
1091:my lungs sucked at being lungs. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1092:My mind controls my reality. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
1093:My mind goes to tragedy first. ~ Fiona Apple, #NFDB
1094:My new name will keep me warm! ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
1095:my own family. Hearing ~ Denise Grover Swank, #NFDB
1096:My own mind is my own church. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
1097:My Peace I leave with you ~ John the Apostle, #NFDB
1098:My religion is to be alive from LOVE. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1099:My religion is, to live through Love. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1100:My sister and I need to talk. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1101:My son is a hip-hop producer. ~ Quincy Jones, #NFDB
1102:My soul is in the sky. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1103:My style is all to myself. ~ John Lee Hooker, #NFDB
1104:My sun, moon and stars. ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB
1105:My sun sets to rise again. ~ Robert Browning, #NFDB
1106:My thoughts amuse me. ~ Laurie Faria Stolarz, #NFDB
1107:My type is girls. All of them. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
1108:My voice is an instrument. ~ David Coverdale, #NFDB
1109:My whole act is confession. ~ Shelley Berman, #NFDB
1110:My wife watches me like a hawk. ~ Carl Icahn, #NFDB
1111:My wits begin to turn. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1112:My work means everything to me. ~ Robin Gibb, #NFDB
1113:My wretched dragon is perplexed. ~ W B Yeats, #NFDB
1114:My writing is how I maintain. ~ Mark Salzman, #NFDB
1115:NEVER USE HIGHLITER IN MY BOOKS ~ John Green, #NFDB
1116:None of my kids can draw! ~ Charles M Schulz, #NFDB
1117:Not my will, but thine, be done. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1118:Oh my God! It's a blackout! ~ Shawn Michaels, #NFDB
1119:only mastered cynicism in my 30s. ~ Dan John, #NFDB
1120:Peanut butter is my frenemy. ~ Coco J Ginger, #NFDB
1121:Playing my drums is therapy. ~ Travis Barker, #NFDB
1122:Poetry gave me back my voice. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1123:Pull,
my finger
please. ~ E E Cummings,#NFDB
1124:Read my lips-NO NEW TAXES! ~ George H W Bush, #NFDB
1125:Rose took my nose, I suppose ~ James Dashner, #NFDB
1126:Saint Delphi my ass. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout, #NFDB
1127:She’s pretty. She stole my table. ~ Sara Ney, #NFDB
1128:So. Lie there, my art. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1129:Step out of my sunlight. ~ Diogenes La rtius, #NFDB
1130:Street's disciple, my raps are trifle. ~ Nas, #NFDB
1131:swallowed. My ears felt as if ~ Paula McLain, #NFDB
1132:Swimming in my Daddy's big nuts ~ Grand Puba, #NFDB
1133:Thank you. You've made my day. ~ Jaci Burton, #NFDB
1134:The arts saved my life. ~ Michael K Williams, #NFDB
1135:The journey itself is my home. ~ Matsuo Bash, #NFDB
1136:The past is written on my body. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
1137:There’s a feather on my pillow. ~ Max Porter, #NFDB
1138:the rest of my days I spend ~ Galway Kinnell, #NFDB
1139:The stage is my first love. ~ Anthony Mackie, #NFDB
1140:this is my landlord, Krook ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1141:This is sunshine in my veins, ~ Karina Halle, #NFDB
1142:This long disease, my life. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
1143:Thus my task was destruction. ~ G nter Grass, #NFDB
1144:Time is on my side, yes it is. ~ Mick Jagger, #NFDB
1145:To be weird! That is my goal! ~ Alfred Jarry, #NFDB
1146:...true love is my religion... ~ John Geddes, #NFDB
1147:Well that just dills my pickle! ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
1148:Wheresoe'er I turn my view, ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
1149:Why's my name the Large Professor? ~ Extra P, #NFDB
1150:Writing is still on my slate. ~ Jaleel White, #NFDB
1151:You are my finest knight ~ Carolyn Parkhurst, #NFDB
1152:You are my perfect sentiment. ~ Truth Devour, #NFDB
1153:You are my Titanium. You was. ~ Sitta Karina, #NFDB
1154:You are the ocean to my eyes. ~ Sanober Khan, #NFDB
1155:You can't ever have my books. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
1156:You know what my father did. ~ Bella Forrest, #NFDB
1157:You'll always be my Bella. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
1158:You’re my bread when I’m hungry. ~ M R Carey, #NFDB
1159:You're my existence. I'm yours ~ Abbi Glines, #NFDB
1160:You’re my first muse, Grace. ~ Renee Carlino, #NFDB
1161:You’re my pea.” “You’re my pod. ~ Jana Aston, #NFDB
1162:Your Mercy is my social status. ~ Guru Nanak, #NFDB
1163:You see, my mind takes me far, ~ Henri Cole, #NFDB
1164:You wanna know my occupation? ~ Kool Moe Dee, #NFDB
1165:You were my pick. My only pick. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
1166:A Cow in My Soup G ~ Gertrude Chandler Warner, #NFDB
1167:And I say to my heart: rave on. ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
1168:Art is my life and my life is art. ~ Yoko Ono, #NFDB
1169:Blue wasn’t my favorite color, ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1170:By my heel, I care not. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1171:Climbing had captured my soul. ~ Lincoln Hall, #NFDB
1172:Coffee, black, like my soul ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
1173:Come, baby. Come on my cock, ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
1174:Come, my pretender, my fritter, ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
1175:Come on, baby, light my fire. ~ Robby Krieger, #NFDB
1176:Days are gods to years, my ~ Anton DiSclafani, #NFDB
1177:Do I have to use my own money? ~ Erma Bombeck, #NFDB
1178:Elementary, my dear fucksticks ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1179:Everything I do is for my people. ~ Sacagawea, #NFDB
1180:Evie, Evie, my girl, my heart. ~ Mia Sheridan, #NFDB
1181:experience was not yet my friend ~ Neil Young, #NFDB
1182:Feed my lambs, shepherd my sheep. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1183:feel this emptiness in my chest… ~ Riley Hart, #NFDB
1184:Fighting dragons is my holy joy. ~ May Sarton, #NFDB
1185:For once, entropy was on my side. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1186:Go and get my lost Makua bride. ~ Heidi Baker, #NFDB
1187:Gucci Mane is my favorite artist. ~ Fetty Wap, #NFDB
1188:Hello, Paranoia, My Old Friend ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1189:He's not my warlock. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
1190:He was my Reason To Breathe ~ Rebecca Donovan, #NFDB
1191:I am the captain of my soul. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
1192:I broke my own heart loving you. ~ Tia Louise, #NFDB
1193:I did not even finish my studies ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
1194:I do all my interviews on the toilet. ~ Slash, #NFDB
1195:I do not believe in my death. ~ Salvador Dali, #NFDB
1196:I drag my myth around with me. ~ Orson Welles, #NFDB
1197:I failed my way to success. ~ Thomas A Edison, #NFDB
1198:I feel my best when I'm happy. ~ Winona Ryder, #NFDB
1199:I found my voice in books. ~ James Earl Jones, #NFDB
1200:If you like my poems let them ~ e e cummings, #NFDB
1201:I had fulfilled my purpose. ~ W Bruce Cameron, #NFDB
1202:I have to work, for my soul. ~ Jennifer Lopez, #NFDB
1203:I'll always be poor in my mind. ~ Chet Atkins, #NFDB
1204:I'll play until my knees fall off. ~ Sue Bird, #NFDB
1205:I lost my temper on stage. ~ Michael Richards, #NFDB
1206:I lost my voice but I had words. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
1207:I love being around my family. ~ Jourdan Dunn, #NFDB
1208:I love you too, my Sam. ~ Huntley Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
1209:I'm a good judge of my own work. ~ S E Hinton, #NFDB
1210:I make my relationships at work. ~ Carol Kane, #NFDB
1211:I'm a product of my environment. ~ Ariel Pink, #NFDB
1212:I'm confident with my ability. ~ LeBron James, #NFDB
1213:I'm glad to share my views. ~ Scott McClellan, #NFDB
1214:I'm guided by my enthusiasm. ~ Jonathan Demme, #NFDB
1215:I'm only 19 but my mind is older... ~ Prodigy, #NFDB
1216:I mostly just listen to my body. ~ Gigi Hadid, #NFDB
1217:I'm thankful for my POLKADOTS! ~ Dusty Rhodes, #NFDB
1218:I'm too full to swallow my pride ~ The Weeknd, #NFDB
1219:I'm too sexy for my cape... ~ Kerrelyn Sparks, #NFDB
1220:I own the night...the heat's my receipt. ~ Ka, #NFDB
1221:I promote my own self-hatred. ~ Jonathan Ames, #NFDB
1222:I rapped, as was my custom, ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
1223:I rarely lose my temper anymore. ~ Mel Gibson, #NFDB
1224:I really was more than my caste. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
1225:I refuse to live my life in fear. ~ Fela Kuti, #NFDB
1226:I regret my disbelief in God. ~ Peter Medawar, #NFDB
1227:I tell jokes to pay my green fees. ~ Bob Hope, #NFDB
1228:It is my heart that's late, ~ Stanley Kunitz, #NFDB
1229:It's elementary, my dear Winifred. ~ Miss Mae, #NFDB
1230:It's just me and my control freak ~ E L James, #NFDB
1231:Its sort of my job to feel good. ~ A J Jacobs, #NFDB
1232:I've crashed my car three times. ~ Billy Joel, #NFDB
1233:I've learned to love my brown eyes. ~ Tinashe, #NFDB
1234:I've never had my heart broken. ~ Sally Field, #NFDB
1235:I've never lied about my age. ~ Sutton Foster, #NFDB
1236:I want to meet my God awake. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
1237:I want you to take my virginity ~ Celia Aaron, #NFDB
1238:I was always taught my do's and don'ts: ~ GZA, #NFDB
1239:I will write my name in fire red. ~ Jean Rhys, #NFDB
1240:I won’t let my fears rule my life ~ J S Scott, #NFDB
1241:Life is fun with my husband. ~ Tassa Desalada, #NFDB
1242:Like my soul is wearing thin. ~ Suzanne Young, #NFDB
1243:Lord, keep my memory green. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1244:Love is hearing my son laugh. ~ Kelly Stables, #NFDB
1245:Love is my only lifeline. ~ Yasunari Kawabata, #NFDB
1246:Maybe, with my Southern drawl and ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
1247:Meditation has changed my life ~ Hugh Jackman, #NFDB
1248:Memory. My poison, my food. ~ Eduardo Galeano, #NFDB
1249:Mine honour is my life. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1250:minimize the shallow in my life ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
1251:Mmm. O positive, my favorite. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
1252:Modesty is not one of my virtues. ~ Alan King, #NFDB
1253:Music is like my security blanket. ~ Yoko Ono, #NFDB
1254:Music is the center of my life. ~ Nina Simone, #NFDB
1255:My accomplishments are endless. ~ Randy Orton, #NFDB
1256:My baby love and I are ENGAGED!!! ~ Evan Ross, #NFDB
1257:My bedroom's like an armoury. ~ Jeremy Irvine, #NFDB
1258:My best advice to you: Shut up. ~ Jim Calhoun, #NFDB
1259:My best friend is my husband. ~ Samantha Bond, #NFDB
1260:My best friend was Aboriginal. ~ Isabel Lucas, #NFDB
1261:My biggest fear in life is fear. ~ Sheryl Lee, #NFDB
1262:My buildings are all on budget. ~ Frank Gehry, #NFDB
1263:My character is not flawless. ~ Breckin Meyer, #NFDB
1264:My childhood was appalling. ~ Taylor Caldwell, #NFDB
1265:My courage rises while I write. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
1266:My crotch is like scrambled eggs ~ A J McLean, #NFDB
1267:My enemy is my greatest teacher. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1268:My fan mail is what keeps me going. ~ Lil Kim, #NFDB
1269:My father is an amazing man. ~ Sherman Alexie, #NFDB
1270:My father was a beautiful man. ~ Shania Twain, #NFDB
1271:My favorite color is you. ~ Suzanne Brockmann, #NFDB
1272:My first car was a motorcycle. ~ Adam Carolla, #NFDB
1273:My first vocation was dance. ~ Victoria Abril, #NFDB
1274:My fish dream is a sex dream. ~ Joseph Heller, #NFDB
1275:My goal is to live to be 100. ~ Tommy Lasorda, #NFDB
1276:My greatest friend is truth. ~ Beth Fantaskey, #NFDB
1277:My head is turned by every eye ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
1278:My heart aches to love hers. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
1279:My heart is pure. Pure evil! ~ Akira Toriyama, #NFDB
1280:My heroes used to be cowboys. ~ David Foreman, #NFDB
1281:My history defines who I am. ~ Simone Elkeles, #NFDB
1282:My house is the red earth . . . . ~ Joy Harjo, #NFDB
1283:My intentions create my reality. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
1284:My Jenn. Not Billy’s Jenn. Mine. ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
1285:My life is a glorious adventure. ~ Louise Hay, #NFDB
1286:My lifesaver, my everything. ~ Cecilia Robert, #NFDB
1287:My Little Pegasus pyjamas, the ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1288:[My Long Crawl in the Dark] When ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1289:My mantra is "Better is better". ~ David Ayer, #NFDB
1290:My material life is simple. ~ Gustavo Dudamel, #NFDB
1291:My neighborhood is a war zone. ~ Angie Thomas, #NFDB
1292:My novels are all ideas. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
1293:My own mind is my own church. ~ Carl L Becker, #NFDB
1294:my past does not equal my future. ~ Hal Elrod, #NFDB
1295:My pure love is playing music. ~ Jamie Cullum, #NFDB
1296:My purpose is to serve the people ~ V F Mason, #NFDB
1297:My rhymes are like shot clocks, ~ Talib Kweli, #NFDB
1298:My role model is my dad. ~ Sean William Scott, #NFDB
1299:My rule is to save myself first. ~ Kevin Hart, #NFDB
1300:My sister the booty police. ~ Victoria Laurie, #NFDB
1301:My soul I'll pour into thee. ~ Robert Herrick, #NFDB
1302:My soul sees its equal in you. ~ Ren e Ahdieh, #NFDB
1303:My stand-up act is very clean. ~ Carol Leifer, #NFDB
1304:My style is more moi-centric. ~ Eric Jacobson, #NFDB
1305:My tiny scary friend is coming ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
1306:My tongue is my enemy. Brothers ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1307:My TV ain't HD, that's too real ~ Frank Ocean, #NFDB
1308:My voice escapes like a mouse. ~ K E Ganshert, #NFDB
1309:My wife's married. I'm not. ~ Charles Barkley, #NFDB
1310:Never darken my Dior again! ~ Beatrice Lillie, #NFDB
1311:Off to the STUDIO in my new whip. ~ Lady Gaga, #NFDB
1312:Our we is better than my me. ~ Monique Martin, #NFDB
1313:Perfectionism was my enemy now. ~ Rinker Buck, #NFDB
1314:Photography is my passion. ~ Alfred Stieglitz, #NFDB
1315:Playing the drums hurts my back. ~ Don Henley, #NFDB
1316:Please will you do my job for me. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1317:Put a jazz band on my hearse wagon. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
1318:Rock and roll is my religion. ~ Ozzy Osbourne, #NFDB
1319:Sacha Baron Cohen is one of my heroes. ~ Moby, #NFDB
1320:Scratch my back with a hack saw! ~ Mike Lange, #NFDB
1321:Send the haters all my love. X and O. ~ Drake, #NFDB
1322:She was a genius, my mother. ~ Sally Kirkland, #NFDB
1323:Slaan my plat met ’n vars snoek. ~ Deon Meyer, #NFDB
1324:So loving to my mother, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1325:Sometimes I look at my own movies ~ Ann Petry, #NFDB
1326:Stop dragging my heart around. ~ Stevie Nicks, #NFDB
1327:Stop taking my book so literally. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1328:surrender, and say, “My God, have ~ F B Meyer, #NFDB
1329:Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. ~ Erin Watt, #NFDB
1330:That hurts me in my feminism. ~ Myra McEntire, #NFDB
1331:That's immortality my darlings ~ Sara Shepard, #NFDB
1332:That's not my cane," he said. ~ Layce Gardner, #NFDB
1333:The darkness is my birthright. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1334:The dread had not left my soul. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1335:The journey itself is my home. ~ Matsuo Basho, #NFDB
1336:The journey itself is my home. ~ Matsuo Bashō, #NFDB
1337:the nail clipper to my wings. ~ Bella Forrest, #NFDB
1338:There's grammar in my bones! ~ Stanley Kunitz, #NFDB
1339:The stars set fire to my eyes. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
1340:They have hijacked my religion. ~ Cat Stevens, #NFDB
1341:They understood my feelings?! ~ Karuho Shiina, #NFDB
1342:This my friends is an outrage ~ Noel Fielding, #NFDB
1343:to give him my number so that he ~ J S Cooper, #NFDB
1344:twenty miles of the sea. My ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1345:Validation is my main bitch. ~ Melissa Broder, #NFDB
1346:Wait 'till I get my money right. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
1347:What I saw there was my own death. ~ Otsuichi, #NFDB
1348:Wild nights are my glory! ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
1349:Wild nights are my glory, ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
1350:Will you be my forever, Donia? ~ Melissa Marr, #NFDB
1351:Will you save my soul tonight? ~ Jos N Harris, #NFDB
1352:with my God I can scale any wall. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1353:You a slave to a page in my rhyme book. ~ Nas, #NFDB
1354:You could smell my ass from mars. ~ Joe Rogan, #NFDB
1355:You look good with my sword. ~ Karpov Kinrade, #NFDB
1356:You, my dear, are a stupid ho. ~ Belle Aurora, #NFDB
1357:You're my silver lining, Clio. ~ Lisa Kessler, #NFDB
1358:You walk in my dreams, Leafpool ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
1359:You wanna be my girlfriend, Lucy? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1360:You were reserved for my future ~ Henry James, #NFDB
1361:You will always be my world. ~ Elizabeth Finn, #NFDB
1362:Adrenaline is my drug of choice. ~ Kate Angell, #NFDB
1363:A good book is an event in my life. ~ Stendhal, #NFDB
1364:All my films are love stories. ~ James Cameron, #NFDB
1365:All my friends are super normal. ~ Miley Cyrus, #NFDB
1366:All my good movies, nobody sees. ~ Chris Evans, #NFDB
1367:All my life I've been hiding. ~ Jerzy Kosinski, #NFDB
1368:all my wealth is in my memories. ~ Ruth Draper, #NFDB
1369:All of my writing is God-given. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
1370:All the heat should come my way ~ Piers Morgan, #NFDB
1371:And I can see Russia from my house. ~ Tina Fey, #NFDB
1372:And I wear my sunglasses at night ~ Corey Hart, #NFDB
1373:Angels run naked in my veins; ~ George Seferis, #NFDB
1374:are my light and you gide my way ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
1375:Athletics is in my blood. ~ Haile Gebrselassie, #NFDB
1376:because thou hast obeyed my voice. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1377:beginning to damage my calm. ~ John G Hartness, #NFDB
1378:Biggest influence: my mother. ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB
1379:breaking down all my defenses. ~ Elisa S Amore, #NFDB
1380:Burnt toast destroyed my life. ~ Glen R Krisch, #NFDB
1381:but I hated my record company more. ~ L J Shen, #NFDB
1382:Dame Poverty gave me my name, ~ Countee Cullen, #NFDB
1383:Dark circles are my charisma though. ~ Seungri, #NFDB
1384:Do not be hasty, that is my motto. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1385:Do not encourage my behaviour. ~ Carlos Mencia, #NFDB
1386:Don’t do your best, do my best. ~ Adam Carolla, #NFDB
1387:Don't puke on my scene, ninja boy. ~ Tami Hoag, #NFDB
1388:Enthusiasm isn’t really my thing. ~ Susan Juby, #NFDB
1389:Even my mom is calling me Shaggy now, ~ Shaggy, #NFDB
1390:Everything is interconnected. My ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1391:Fear is not one of my attributes. ~ Bernie Mac, #NFDB
1392:Football is my guilty pleasure. ~ John Nettles, #NFDB
1393:For me, my faith informs my life. ~ Mike Pence, #NFDB
1394:For want of my father, I was lost. ~ T J Klune, #NFDB
1395:Get away from my brother." - Damon ~ L J Smith, #NFDB
1396:He aint heavy, he's my brother. ~ Neil Diamond, #NFDB
1397:Heart of my heart, were it more, ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
1398:He is the cheese to my macaroni. ~ Diablo Cody, #NFDB
1399:hi I hope u want to be my friends ~ Judy Blume, #NFDB
1400:his tongue devoted to my rapture. ~ Remy Blake, #NFDB
1401:Home is anywhere I hang my hair ~ Dolly Parton, #NFDB
1402:I am a product of my failures. ~ Werner Herzog, #NFDB
1403:I am the assasin of my dreams. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
1404:I barely leave my cage, my house. ~ Kim Coates, #NFDB
1405:I broke my heart in two ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
1406:I cannot touch my essential self. ~ Sarah Kane, #NFDB
1407:I cook all my meals at home. ~ Jennifer Hudson, #NFDB
1408:I did it my own self to gratify. ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
1409:I do know what my songs are about. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
1410:I don't try to control my days. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1411:I feel my best when I am happy. ~ Winona Ryder, #NFDB
1412:If only my heart were stone. ~ Cormac McCarthy, #NFDB
1413:I found my own way of doing things. ~ Lee Clow, #NFDB
1414:I get all of my comedy from CNN. ~ Rob Corddry, #NFDB
1415:I got mean things on my mind. ~ Robert Johnson, #NFDB
1416:I go wherever my fare is paid. ~ Quentin Crisp, #NFDB
1417:I hardly even leave my own house. ~ Bill Nighy, #NFDB
1418:I have fallen down into my pulse. ~ Nath Jones, #NFDB
1419:I have no regrets about my life. ~ Jane Badler, #NFDB
1420:I have so much of you in my heart ~ John Keats, #NFDB
1421:I have the universe on my chin. ~ Jack Passion, #NFDB
1422:I have to defend my husband. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
1423:I just wanna do my music. ~ Olivia Newton John, #NFDB
1424:I keep my word, Abby. Always. ~ Claudia Connor, #NFDB
1425:I know my role and I play it well. ~ Lil Wayne, #NFDB
1426:I let it. I let my heart break. ~ Jandy Nelson, #NFDB
1427:I'll never go against my morals. ~ Leona Lewis, #NFDB
1428:I look in the mirror, my only opponent ~ Jay Z, #NFDB
1429:I lost my voice, but I had words. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
1430:I love both my parents dearly. ~ Kevin Eubanks, #NFDB
1431:I love doing my own make-up. ~ Erin Heatherton, #NFDB
1432:I love my wife, I love my kids. ~ Ted McGinley, #NFDB
1433:I love the way you refuse my love. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
1434:I messed my pants,” he said. ~ James Lee Burke, #NFDB
1435:I'm going to say hi to my girl now ~ E L James, #NFDB
1436:I'm in love with my second cousin. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
1437:I'm not Lisa, my name is Julie. ~ Jessi Colter, #NFDB
1438:I'm obsessed with my children. ~ Travis Barker, #NFDB
1439:I’M so TOUGH, I make my TEARS cry! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1440:I need my father. Don’t leave me. ~ Erin Hayes, #NFDB
1441:I never raise my voice! ~ Kristin Scott Thomas, #NFDB
1442:I never told a joke in my life. ~ Andy Kaufman, #NFDB
1443:In my old age, I'll be in L.A. ~ David Hockney, #NFDB
1444:In search of my Love ~ Saint John of the Cross, #NFDB
1445:In the darkness, fear my light. ~ Susann Cokal, #NFDB
1446:I opened the doors of my heart. ~ Jean Ingelow, #NFDB
1447:I really keep my life very simple. ~ FKA twigs, #NFDB
1448:I shall laugh my bitter laugh. ~ Nikolai Gogol, #NFDB
1449:I shut my eyes in order to see. ~ Paul Gauguin, #NFDB
1450:I sing a lot, even with my voice. ~ Heidi Klum, #NFDB
1451:I spent much of my life hiding. ~ Kevyn Aucoin, #NFDB
1452:I still got my hair, I'm not fat. ~ Ray Romano, #NFDB
1453:I suspect that hunger was my mother. ~ Plautus, #NFDB
1454:I think the story is my form. ~ Joseph Epstein, #NFDB
1455:it is myself I paint. My ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
1456:I try not to bore my readers. ~ Jackie Collins, #NFDB
1457:It's my job, to create a fantasy. ~ Anne Heche, #NFDB
1458:I've been fighting my whole life. ~ Chuck Zito, #NFDB
1459:I've been labeled all my life. ~ Corey Feldman, #NFDB
1460:I’ve been second my whole life. ~ Kevin Durant, #NFDB
1461:I've had rainbows in my clouds. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1462:I've had to find my sanity. ~ Evangeline Lilly, #NFDB
1463:I've loved all of my time here. ~ Tabitha King, #NFDB
1464:I waited for my first kiss. ~ Carly Rae Jepsen, #NFDB
1465:I was no longer on my dignity. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
1466:I wear my heart on my sleeve. ~ Princess Diana, #NFDB
1467:I will never possess my hand. ~ Arthur Rimbaud, #NFDB
1468:I will not repeat my mother's life. ~ Etaf Rum, #NFDB
1469:Leave my loneliness unbroken ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
1470:Let's get my incantation right: ~ Robert Frost, #NFDB
1471:Long as me and my team in here, ~ Wiz Khalifa, #NFDB
1472:Madesimo and can’t ski?” “My ~ Mark T Sullivan, #NFDB
1473:Marriage, my dear, is not suicide. ~ Sarah Jio, #NFDB
1474:Me and my dog are best friends. ~ Daniel Johns, #NFDB
1475:M. Shadows is my everything ~ Penelope Douglas, #NFDB
1476:[My advice] will one day be found ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
1477:My body is a carnivorous flower ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
1478:My body is a gradual work of art ~ Rick Genest, #NFDB
1479:My breakfast is very important. ~ Sonia Rykiel, #NFDB
1480:My brother Albus wanted a lot of ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1481:My career is just kind of crazy. ~ David Spade, #NFDB
1482:My children are my whole life. ~ Kelly LeBrock, #NFDB
1483:My choice is what I choose to be. ~ Ben Harper, #NFDB
1484:My colors are logically chosen. ~ Mark Kostabi, #NFDB
1485:My darkness will save them. ~ Victoria Aveyard, #NFDB
1486:my deal's the only one in town ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
1487:My dream is to have a gay son. ~ Amanda Holden, #NFDB
1488:My duty is to obey orders. ~ Stonewall Jackson, #NFDB
1489:My eyes are only for him. ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB
1490:My face is not that expressive! ~ Cate Tiernan, #NFDB
1491:My favorite toast is rye toast. ~ Paris Hilton, #NFDB
1492:My first album came out in 1979. ~ Teena Marie, #NFDB
1493:My future was about to happen. ~ Emma Donoghue, #NFDB
1494:My goal is to forever do stand up. ~ Tone Bell, #NFDB
1495:My God! Middle Earth does exist! ~ Elijah Wood, #NFDB
1496:My health is very much improved. ~ Lech Walesa, #NFDB
1497:My heart is forever in Giverny. ~ Claude Monet, #NFDB
1498:My heart really likes your heart. ~ Kim Holden, #NFDB
1499:My joy rider is pretty impressive; ~ Ker Dukey, #NFDB
1500:My life is basically my work. ~ Temple Grandin, #NFDB
2367 Poetry
2134 Integral Yoga
416 Mysticism
388 Philosophy
280 Occultism
233 Fiction
151 Christianity
107 Yoga
90 Psychology
71 Philsophy
51 Sufism
37 Science
33 Zen
26 Hinduism
22 Mythology
18 Buddhism
17 Education
16 Integral Theory
14 Theosophy
6 Baha i Faith
3 Kabbalah
3 Cybernetics
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
1553 The Mother
1039 Satprem
574 Sri Aurobindo
326 Nolini Kanta Gupta
264 Walt Whitman
201 Rabindranath Tagore
199 William Butler Yeats
193 William Wordsworth
147 Aleister Crowley
140 Percy Bysshe Shelley
123 H P Lovecraft
101 John Keats
89 Carl Jung
87 Friedrich Nietzsche
84 Robert Browning
79 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
76 Friedrich Schiller
71 Ralph Waldo Emerson
67 Li Bai
64 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
60 James George Frazer
56 Sri Ramakrishna
56 Jalaluddin Rumi
47 Edgar Allan Poe
44 Rainer Maria Rilke
44 Jorge Luis Borges
39 Kabir
37 Anonymous
34 Saint Augustine of Hippo
32 Saint Teresa of Avila
31 Hafiz
28 A B Purani
27 Swami Krishnananda
26 Plotinus
26 Aldous Huxley
24 Taigu Ryokan
22 Swami Vivekananda
22 Saint John of Climacus
21 Ibn Arabi
19 Vyasa
19 Rudolf Steiner
19 Mirabai
18 Omar Khayyam
18 Lucretius
16 Lalla
15 Solomon ibn Gabirol
15 Nirodbaran
14 Ramprasad
14 Ovid
14 Farid ud-Din Attar
13 Bulleh Shah
12 Plato
12 Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia
12 Hakim Sanai
11 Symeon the New Theologian
11 Mansur al-Hallaj
11 George Van Vrekhem
11 Franz Bardon
10 Paul Richard
9 Sri Ramana Maharshi
9 Lewis Carroll
8 Saint John of the Cross
8 Joseph Campbell
8 Jetsun Milarepa
8 Baba Sheikh Farid
7 Wang Wei
7 Sarmad
7 Mechthild of Magdeburg
7 Jordan Peterson
7 Henry David Thoreau
7 Baha u llah
7 Abu-Said Abil-Kheir
6 Thomas Merton
6 Namdev
6 Al-Ghazali
6 Alfred Tennyson
5 Vidyapati
5 Thubten Chodron
5 Tao Chien
5 Shankara
5 Ravidas
5 Rabbi Abraham Abulafia
5 Matsuo Basho
5 Bokar Rinpoche
5 Allama Muhammad Iqbal
5 Alice Bailey
4 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
4 Saint Hildegard von Bingen
4 Khwaja Abdullah Ansari
4 Dogen
4 Aristotle
3 William Blake
3 Saint Therese of Lisieux
3 Saadi
3 R Buckminster Fuller
3 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
3 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
3 Po Chu-i
3 Peter J Carroll
3 Patanjali
3 Norbert Wiener
3 Nachmanides
3 Ken Wilber
3 Dadu Dayal
3 Basava
2 Yuan Mei
2 Yeshe Tsogyal
2 Theophan the Recluse
2 Shiwu (Stonehouse)
2 Saint Francis of Assisi
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Lu Tung Pin
2 Judah Halevi
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jean Gebser
2 Jayadeva
2 Jacopone da Todi
2 Izumi Shikibu
2 Ikkyu
2 H. P. Lovecraft
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Boethius
2 Alexander Pope
245 Whitman - Poems
200 Prayers And Meditations
199 Yeats - Poems
193 Wordsworth - Poems
190 Tagore - Poems
140 Shelley - Poems
140 Agenda Vol 01
123 Lovecraft - Poems
101 Keats - Poems
98 Agenda Vol 13
84 Browning - Poems
82 Magick Without Tears
79 The Synthesis Of Yoga
78 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
76 Schiller - Poems
76 Agenda Vol 12
76 Agenda Vol 10
76 Agenda Vol 08
74 Agenda Vol 04
74 Agenda Vol 03
72 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
72 Agenda Vol 06
71 Emerson - Poems
71 Agenda Vol 05
67 Li Bai - Poems
66 Agenda Vol 02
65 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
64 Agenda Vol 11
64 Agenda Vol 07
60 The Golden Bough
59 Agenda Vol 09
55 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
55 Goethe - Poems
55 Collected Poems
54 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
48 Savitri
47 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
46 Poe - Poems
46 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
46 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
44 Rilke - Poems
42 The Life Divine
39 Questions And Answers 1956
39 Liber ABA
38 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
38 Letters On Yoga IV
36 Questions And Answers 1953
36 Mysterium Coniunctionis
36 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
35 Record of Yoga
34 The Divine Comedy
34 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
33 Letters On Yoga II
33 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
32 Rumi - Poems
31 Questions And Answers 1955
31 Questions And Answers 1954
30 Crowley - Poems
29 Words Of Long Ago
28 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
28 Essays On The Gita
27 The Study and Practice of Yoga
27 Songs of Kabir
26 The Perennial Philosophy
26 The Bible
24 The Practice of Psycho therapy
24 Ryokan - Poems
24 Faust
24 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
23 Letters On Poetry And Art
22 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
22 City of God
22 Borges - Poems
21 Labyrinths
21 Hafiz - Poems
20 The Future of Man
19 Words Of The Mother II
19 Vishnu Purana
19 Anonymous - Poems
18 The Way of Perfection
18 Of The Nature Of Things
17 Let Me Explain
17 Essays Divine And Human
16 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
16 Arabi - Poems
15 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
15 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
15 Song of Myself
15 On Education
15 Letters On Yoga I
14 The Phenomenon of Man
14 Some Answers From The Mother
14 Metamorphoses
14 Aion
13 The Secret Of The Veda
13 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
13 On the Way to Supermanhood
13 Hymn of the Universe
12 The Human Cycle
12 Talks
12 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
12 Bhakti-Yoga
11 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
11 Preparing for the Miraculous
10 Vedic and Philological Studies
10 Twilight of the Idols
10 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
10 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
9 Theosophy
9 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
9 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
9 5.1.01 - Ilion
8 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
8 The Blue Cliff Records
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
8 Milarepa - Poems
8 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
8 Kena and Other Upanishads
8 Alice in Wonderland
7 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
7 Walden
7 The Problems of Philosophy
7 Raja-Yoga
7 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
7 Maps of Meaning
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Red Book Liber Novus
6 The Practice of Magical Evocation
6 The Integral Yoga
6 The Alchemy of Happiness
5 Words Of The Mother III
5 Tara - The Feminine Divine
5 Letters On Yoga III
5 Isha Upanishad
5 Initiation Into Hermetics
5 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
5 Basho - Poems
5 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
4 Words Of The Mother I
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Poetics
4 Dogen - Poems
4 Dark Night of the Soul
4 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
3 The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma
3 The Lotus Sutra
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
3 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
3 Liber Null
3 Jerusalum
3 General Principles of Kabbalah
3 Cybernetics
2 The Gateless Gate
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Essentials of Education
2 Symposium
2 Selected Fictions
2 Sefer Yetzirah The Book of Creation In Theory and Practice
2 Notes On The Way
2 Mansur al-Hallaj - Poems
2 God Exists
2 Amrita Gita
00.00 - Publishers Note B, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
my love goes to Thee..]
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00.00 - Publishers Note, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Approach to mysticism
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Publishers Note
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We have pleasure in presenting the Second Volume of the Collected Works of Sri Nolini Kanta Gupta. The six books in this volume were originally published separately. The Essays are mainly concerned with mysticism and Poetry.
We are happy to note that the Government of India have given to our Centre of Education a grant to meet the cost of publication of this volume.
--
The Approach to mysticism
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
- and it is terribly disturbing for all those who still climb trees in the old, millennial way. Perhaps it is even a heresy. Unless it is some cerebral disorder? A first man in his little clearing had to have a great deal of courage. Even this little clearing was no longer so sure. A first man is a perpetual question. What am I, then, in the midst of all that? And where is my law? What is the law? And what if there were no more laws? ... It is terrifying. Mathematics - out of order. Astrono my and biology, too, are beginning to respond to mysterious influences. A tiny point huddled in the center of the world's great clearing. But what is all this, what if I were 'mad'? And then, claws all around, a lot of claws against this uncommon creature. A first man ... is very much alone. He is quite unbearable for the pre-human 'reason.' And the surrounding tribes growled like red monkies in the twilight of Guiana.
One day, we were like this first man in the great, stridulant night of the Oyapock. Our heart was beating with the rediscovery of a very ancient mystery - suddenly, it was absolutely new to be a man amidst the diorite cascades and the pretty red and black coral snakes slithering beneath the leaves. It was even more extraordinary to be a man than our old confirmed tribes, with their infallible equations and imprescriptible biologies, could ever have dreamed. It was an absolutely uncertain 'quantum' that delightfully eluded whatever one thought of it, including perhaps what even the scholars thought of it. It flowed otherwise, it felt otherwise. It lived in a kind of flawless continuity with the sap of the giant balata trees, the cry of the macaws and the scintillating water of a little fountain. It 'understood' in a very different way. To understand was to be in everything. Just a quiver, and one was in the skin of a little iguana in distress. The skin of the world was very vast.
To be a man after rediscovering a million years was mysteriously like being something still other than man, a strange, unfinished possibility that could also be all kinds of other things. It was not in the dictionary, it was fluid and boundless - it had become a man through habit, but in truth, it was formidably virgin, as if all the old laws belonged to laggard barbarians. Then other moons began whirring through the skies to the cry of macaws at sunset, another rhythm was born that was strangely in tune with the rhythm of all, making one single flow of the world, and there we went, lightly, as if the body had never had any weight other than that of our human thought; and the stars were so near, even the giant airplanes roaring overhead seemed vain artifices beneath smiling galaxies. A man was the overwhelming Possible. He was even the great discoverer of the Possible.
Never had this precarious invention had any other aim through millions of species than to discover that which surpassed his own species, perhaps the means to change his species - a light and lawless species. After rediscovering a million years in the great, rhythmic night, a man was still something to be invented. It was the invention of himself, where all was not yet said and done.
--
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 ene my 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.
Perhaps this AGENDA is really an endeavor to solve the mystery in the company of a certain
number of fraternal iconoclasts.
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:00.01 - The Approach to mysticism
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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Publishers Note mystic Symbolism
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta The Approach to mysticism
The Approach to mysticism
mysticism is not only a science but also, and in a greater degree, an art. To approach it merely as a science, as the modern mind attempts to do, is to move towards futility, if not to land in positive disaster. Sufficient stress is not laid on this aspect of the matter, although the very crux of the situation lies here. The mystic domain has to be apprehended not merely by the true mind and understanding but by the right temperament and character. mysticism is not merely an object of knowledge, a problem for inquiry and solution, it is an end, an ideal that has to be achieved, a life that has to be lived. The mystics themselves have declared long ago with no uncertain or faltering voice: this cannot be attained by intelligence or much learning, it can be seized only by a purified and clear temperament.
The warning seems to have fallen, in the modern age, on unheeding ears. For the modern mind, being pre-eminently and uncompromisingly scientific, can entertain no doubt as to the perfect competency of science and the scientific method to seize and unveil any secret of Nature. If, it is argued, mysticism is a secret, if there is at all a truth and reality in it, then it is and must be amenable to the rules and regulations of science; for science is the revealer of Nature's secrecies.
But what is not recognised in this view of things is that there are secrecies and secrecies. The material secrecies of Nature are of one category, the mystic secrecies are of another. The two are not only disparate but incommensurable. Any man with a mind and understanding of average culture can see and handle the 'scientific' forces, but not the mystic forces.
A scientist once thought that he had clinched the issue and cut the Gordian knot when he declared triumphantly with reference to spirit sances: "Very significant is the fact that spirits appear only in closed chambers, in half obscurity, to somnolent minds; they are nowhere in the open air, in broad daylight to the wide awake and vigilant intellect!" Well, if the fact is as it is stated, what does it prove? Night alone reveals the stars, during the day they vanish, but that is no proof that stars are not existent. Rather the true scientific spirit should seek to know why (or how) it is so, if it is so, and such a fact would exactly serve as a pointer, a significant starting ground. The attitude of the jesting Pilate is not helpful even to scientific inquiry. This matter of the Spirits we have taken only as an illustration and it must not be understood that this is a domain of high mysticism; rather the contrary. The spiritualists' approach to mysticism is not the right one and is fraught with not only errors but dangers. For the spiritualists approach their subject with the entire scientific apparatus the only difference being that the scientist does not believe while the spiritualist believes.
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, almost 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
Kurasya dhr niit duratyay1
--
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."
The mystic truth has to be approached through the heart. "In the heart is established the Truth," says the Upanishad: it is there that is seated eternally the soul, the real being, who appears no bigger than the thumb. Even if the mind is utilised as an instrument of knowledge, the heart must be there behind as the guide and inspiration. It is precisely because, as I have just mentioned, Gargi sought to shoot uplike "vaulting ambition that o'erleaps itself" of which Shakespeare speaksthrough the mind alone to the highest truth that Yajnavalkya had to pull her up and give the warning that she risked losing her head if she persisted in her questioning endlessly.
For true knowledge comes of, and means, identity of being. All other knowledge may be an apprehension of things but not comprehension. In the former, the knower stands apart from the object and so can envisage only the outskirts, the contour, the surface nature; the mind is capable of this alone. But comprehension means an embracing and penetration which is possible when the knower identifies himself with the object. And when we are so identified we not merely know the object, but becoming it in our consciousness, we love it and live it.
The mystic's knowledge is a part and a formation of his life. That is why it is a knowledge not abstract and remote but living and intimate and concrete. It is a knowledge that pulsates with delight: indeed it is the radiance that is shed by the purest and intensest joy. For this reason it may be that in approaching through the heart there is a chance of one's getting arrested there and not caring for the still higher, the solar lights; but this need not be so. In the heart there is a golden door leading to the deepest delights, but there is also a diamond door opening up into the skies of the brightest luminosities.
For it must be understood that the heart, the mystic heart, is not the external thing which is the seat of emotion or passion; it is the secret heart that is behind, the inner heartantarhdaya of the Upanishadwhich is the centre of the individual consciousness, where all the divergent lines of that consciousness meet and from where they take their rise. That is what the Upanishad means when it says that the heart has a hundred channels which feed the human vehicle. That is the source, the fount and origin, the very substance of the true personality. mystic knowledge the true mystic knowledge which saves and fulfilsbegins with the awakening or the entrance into this real being. This being is pure and luminous and blissful and sovereignly real, because it is a portion, a spark of the Divine Consciousness and Nature: a contact and communion with it brings automatically into play the light and the truth that are its substance. At the same time it is an uprising flame that reaches out naturally to higher domains of consciousness and manifests them through its translucid dynamism.
The knowledge that is obtained without the heart's instrumentation or co-operation is liable to be what the Gita describes as Asuric. First of all, from the point of view of knowledge itself, it would be, as I have already said, egocentric, a product and agent of one's limited and isolated self, easily put at the service of desire and passion. This knowledge, whether rationalistic or occult, is, as it were, hard and dry in its constitution, and oftener than not, negative and destructivewi thering and blasting in its career like the desert simoom.
There are modes of knowledge that are occultand to that extent mystic and can be mastered by practices in which the heart has no share. But they have not the saving grace that comes by the touch of the Divine. They are not truly mystic the truly mystic belongs to the ultimate realities, the deepest and the highest,they, on the other hand, are transverse and tangential movements belonging to an intermediate region where light and obscurity are mixed up and even for the greater part the light is swallowed up in the obscurity or utilised by it.
The mystic's knowledge and experience is not only true and real: it is delightful and blissful. It has a supremely healing virtue. It brings a sovereign freedom and ease and peace to the mystic himself, but also to those around him, who come in contact with him. For truth and reality are made up of love and harmony, because truth is, in its essence, unity.
Sharp as a razor's edge, difficult of going, hard to traverse is that path!"
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Publishers Note mystic Symbolism
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Integral Yoga
You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, *I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. my child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
my child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to 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
object:00.02 - mystic Symbolism
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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The Approach to mysticism Upanishadic Symbolism
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta mystic Symbolism
mystic Symbolism
The mystics all over the world and in all ages have clothed their sayings in proverbs and parables, in figures and symbols. To speak in symbols seems to be in their very nature; it is their characteristic manner, their inevitable style. Let us see what is the reason behind it. But first who are the mystics? They are those who are in touch with supra-sensual things, whose experiences are of a world different from the common physical world, the world of the mind and the senses.
These other worlds are constituted in other ways than ours. Their contents are different and the laws that obtain there are also different. It would be a gross blunder to attempt a chart of any of these other systems, to use an Einsteinian term, with the measures and conventions of the system to which our external waking consciousness belongs. For, there "the sun shines not, nor the moon, nor the stars, neither these lightnings nor this fire." The difficulty is further enhanced by the fact that there are very many unseen worlds and they all differ from the seen and from one another in manner and degree. Thus, for example, the Upanishads speak of the swapna, the suupta, and the turya, domains beyond the jgrat which is that where the rational being with its mind and senses lives and moves. And there are other systems and other ways in which systems exist, and they are practically innumerable.
If, however, we have to speak of these other worlds, then, since we can speak only in the terms of this world, we have to use them in a different sense from those they usually bear; we must employ them as figures and symbols. Even then they may prove inadequate and misleading; so there are mystics who are averse to all speech and expression they are mauni; in silence they experience the inexpressible and in silence they communicate it to the few who have the capacity to receive in silence.
But those who do speak, how do they choose their figures and symbols? What is their methodology? For it might be said, since the unseen and the seen differ out and out, it does not matter what forms or signs are taken from the latter; for any meaning and significance could be put into anything. But in reality, it does not so happen. For, although there is a great divergence between figures and symbols on the one hand and the things figured and symbolised on the other, still there is also some link, some common measure. And that is why we see not unoften the same or similar figures and symbols representing an identical experience in ages and countries far apart from each other.
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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 innermost 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.
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The Approach to mysticism Upanishadic Symbolism
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
mystic Symbolism The Beautiful in the Upanishads
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Upanishadic Symbolism
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my suggestion is that the dog is a symbol of the keen sight of Intuition, the unfailing perception of direct knowledge. With this clue the Upanishadic story becomes quite sensible and clear and not mere abracadabra. To the aspirant for Knowledge came first a purified power of direct understanding, an Intuition of fundamental value, and this brought others of the same species in its train. They were all linked together organically that is the significance of the circle, and formed a rhythmic utterance and expression of the supreme truth (Om). It is also to be noted that they came and met at dawn to chant, the Truth. Dawn is the opening and awakening of the consciousness to truths that come from above and beyond.
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 alche my, whose method and process and rationale are very obscure, which can be penetrated only by the vision of a third eye.
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King Yama initiated Nachiketas into the mystery of Fire Worship and spoke of three fires that have to be kindled if one aspires to enter the heaven of immortality.
The three fires are named elsewhere Garhapatya, Dakshina, and Ahavaniya.9 They are the three tongues of the one central Agni, that dwells secreted in the hearth of the soul. They manifest as aspirations that flame up from the three fundamental levels of our being, the body, the life and the mind. For although the spiritual consciousness is the natural element of the soul and is gained in and through the soul, yet, in order that man may take possession of it and dwell in it consciously, in order that the soul's empire may be established, the external being too must respond to the soul's impact and yearn for its truth in the Spirit. The mind, the life and the body which are usually obstructions in the path, must discover the secret flame that is in them tooeach has his own portion of the Soul's Fireand mount on its ardent tongue towards the heights of the Spirit.
Garhapatya is the Fire in the body-consciousness, the fire of Earth, as it is sometimes called; Dakshina is the Fire of the moon or mind, and Ahavaniya that of life.10 The earthly fire is also the fire of the sun; the sun is the source of all earth's heat and symbolises at the same time the spiritual light manifested in the physical consciousness. The lunar fire is also the fire of the stars, the stars, mythologically, being the consorts or powers of the moon and they symbolise, in Yogic experience, the intuitive thoughts. The fire of the life-force has its symbol in lightning, electric energy being its vehicle.
Agni in the physical consciousness is calledghapati, for the body is the house in which the soul is lodged and he is its keeper, guardian and lord. The fire in the mental consciousness is called daki; for it is that which gives discernment, the power to discriminate between the truth and the falsehood, it is that which by the pressure of its heat and light cleaves the wrong away from the right. And the fire in the life-force is called havanya; for pra is not only the plane of hunger and desire, but also of power and dynamism, it is that which calls forth forces, brings them into' play and it is that which is to be invoked for the progression of the Sacrifice, for an onward march on the spiritual path.
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The central secret of the transfigured consciousness lies, as we have already indicated, in the mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, fundamental, universal Law that upholds and explains the cosmic movement, conformity to which brings to the thrice-bound human being release and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or processes: (i) The offering or self giving of the lower reality to the higher, and, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the descent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the higher means the lower sublimated and integrated into the higher; and the descent of the higher into the lower means the incarnation of the former and the fulfilment of the latter. The Gita elaborates the same idea when it says that by Sacrifice men increase the gods and the gods increase men and by so increasing each other they attain the supreme Good. Nothing is, nothing is done, for its own sake, for an egocentric satisfaction; all, even movements relating to food and to sex should be dedicated to the Cosmic BeingVisva Purusha and that alone received which comes from Him.
VII. The Cosmic and the Transcendental
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It would be interesting to know what the five ranges or levels or movements of consciousness exactly are that make up the Universal Brahman described in this passage. It is the mystic knowledge, the Upanishad says, of the secret delight in thingsmadhuvidy. The five ranges are the five fundamental principles of delightimmortalities, the Veda would say that form the inner core of the pyramid of creation. They form a rising tier and are ruled respectively by the godsAgni, Indra, Varuna, Soma and Brahmawith their emanations and instrumental personalities the Vasus, the Rudras, the Adityas, the Maruts and the Sadhyas. We suggest that these refer to the five well-known levels of being, the modes or nodi of consciousness or something very much like them. The Upanishad speaks elsewhere of the five sheaths. The six Chakras of Tantric system lie in the same line. The first and the basic mode is the physical and the ascent from the physical: Agni and the Vasus are always intimately connected with the earth and -the earth-principles (it can be compared with the Muladhara of the Tantras). Next, second in the line of ascent is the Vital, the centre of power and dynamism of which the Rudras are the deities and Indra the presiding God (cf. Swadhishthana of the Tantras the navel centre). Indra, in the Vedas, has two aspects, one of knowledge and vision and the other of dynamic force and drive. In the first aspect he is more often considered as the Lord of the Mind, of the Luminous Mind. In the present passage, Indra is taken in his second aspect and instead of the Maruts with whom he is usually invoked has the Rudras as his agents and associates.
The third in the line of ascension is the region of Varuna and the Adityas, that is to say, of the large Mind and its lightsperhaps it can be connected with Tantric Ajnachakra. The fourth is the domain of Soma and the Marutsthis seems to be the inner heart, the fount of delight and keen and sweeping aspirations the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth is the region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and the Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the descending inflatus, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you go beyond, you pass into the ultimate status of the Sun, the reality absolute, the Transcendent which is indescribable, unseizable, indeterminate, indeterminable, incommensurable; and once there, one never returns, neverna ca punarvartate na ca punarvartate.
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Besides this metaphysics there is also an occult aspect in numerology of which Pythagoras was a well-known adept and in which the Vedic Rishis too seem to take special delight. The multiplication of numbers represents in a general way the principle of emanation. The One has divided and subdivided itself, but not in a haphazard way: it is not like the chaotic pulverisation of a piece of stone by hammer-blows. The process of division and subdivision follows a pattern almost as neat and methodical as a genealogical tree. That is to say, the emanations form a hierarchy. At the top, the apex of the pyramid, stands the one supreme Godhead. That Godhead is biune in respect of manifestation the Divine and his creative Power. This two-in-one reality may be considered, according to one view of creation, as dividing into three forms or aspects the well-known Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra of Hindu mythology. These may be termed the first or primary emanations.
Now, each one of them in its turn has its own emanations the eleven Rudriyas are familiar. These are secondary and there are tertiary and other graded emanations the last ones touch the earth and embody physico-vital forces. The lowest formations or beings can trace their origin to one or other of the primaries and their nature and function partake of or are an echo of their first ancestor.
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But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord of creation and the Inner Mastersarvabhtntartm, antarymis called brahmajam, born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the human consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the Pleasurable (reya and preya). The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness in the heart of all that is unstable and fleetingone has to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.
Man has two souls corresponding to his double status. In the inferior, the soul looks downward and is involved in the current of Impermanence and Ignorance, it tastes of grief and sorrow and suffers death and dissolution: in the higher it looks upward and communes and joins with the Eternal (the cosmic) and then with the Absolute (the transcendent). The lower is a reflection of the higher, the higher comes down in a diminished and hence tarnished light. The message is that of deliverance, the deliverance and reintegration of the lower soul out of its bondage of worldly ignorant life into the freedom and immortality first of its higher and then of its highest status. It is true, however, that the Upanishad does not make a trenchant distinction between the cosmic and the transcendent and often it speaks of both in the same breath, as it were. For in fact they are realities involved in each other and interwoven. Indeed the triple status, including the Individual, forms one single totality and the three do not exclude or cancel each other; on the contrary, they combine and may be said to enhance each other's reality. The Transcendence expresses or deploys itself in the cosmoshe goes abroad,sa paryagt: and the cosmic individualises, concretises itself in the particular and the personal. The one single spiritual reality holds itself, aspects itself in a threefold manner.
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mystic Symbolism The Beautiful in the Upanishads
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The form of a thing can be beautiful; but the formless too has its beauty. Indeed, the beauty of the formless, that is to say, the very sum and substance, the ultimate essence, the soul of beauty that is what suffuses, with in-gathered colour and enthusiasm, the realisation and poetic creation of the Upanishadic seer. All the forms that are scattered abroad in their myriad manifest beauty hold within themselves a secret Beauty and are reflected or projected out of it. This veiled Name of Beauty can be compared to nothing on the phenomenal hemisphere of Nature; it has no adequate image or representation below:
na tasya pratimsti
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
A simple example is the concept of the Trinity in the Christian religion. The student is frequently amazed to learn through a study of the Qabalah that Egyptian mythology followed a similar concept with its trinity of gods, Osiris the father, Isis the virgin-mother, and Horus the son. The Qabalah indicates similar correspondences in the pantheon of Roman and Greek deities, proving the father-mother (Holy Spirit) - son principles of deity are primordial archetypes of man's psyche, rather than being, as is frequently and erroneously supposed a development peculiar to the Christian era.
At this juncture let me call attention to one set of attri butions by Rittangelius usually found as an appendix attached to the Sepher Yetzirah. It lists a series of "Intelligences" for each one of the ten Sephiros and the twenty-two Paths of the Tree of Life. It seems to me, after prolonged meditation, that the common attri butions of these Intelligences is altogether arbitrary and lacking in serious meaning.
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The Qabalah has nothing to do with any of them. Attempts on the part of cultish-partisans to impart higher mystical meanings, through the Qabalah, etc., to their now sterile faiths is futile, and will be seen as such by the younger generation. They, the flower and love children, will have none of this nonsense.
I felt this a long time ago, as I still do, but even more so. The only way to explain the partisan Jewish attitude demonstrated in some small sections of the book can readily be explained. I had been reading some writings of Arthur Edward Waite, and some of his pomposity and turgidity stuck to my mantle. I disliked his patronising Christian attitude, and so swung all the way over to the other side of the pendulum. Actually, neither faith is particularly important in this day and age. I must be careful never to read Waite again before embarking upon literary work of my own.
Much knowledge obtained by the ancients through the use of the Qabalah has been supported by discoveries of modern scientists- anthropologists, astronomers, psychiatrists, et al. Learned Qabalists for hundreds of years have been aware of what the psychiatrist has only discovered in the last few decades-that man's concept of himself, his deities and the Universe is a constantly evolving process, changing as man himself evolves on a higher spiral. But the roots of his concepts are buried in a race-consciousness that antedated Neanderthal man by uncounted aeons of time.
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I began the study of the Qabalah at an early age. Two books I read then have played unconsciously a prominent part in the writing of my own book. One of these was "Q.B.L. or the Bride's Reception" by Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones), which I must have first read around 1926. The other was "An Introduction to the Tarot" by Paul Foster Case, published in the early 1920's. It is now out of print, superseded by later versions of the same topic. But as I now glance through this slender book, I perceive how profoundly even the format of his book had influenced me, though in these two instances there was not a trace of plagiarism. It had not consciously occurred to me until recently that I owed so much to them. Since Paul Case passed away about a decade or so ago, this gives me the opportunity to thank him, overtly, wherever he may now be.
By the middle of 1926 I had become aware of the work of Aleister Crowley, for whom I have a tremendous respect. I studied as many of his writings as I could gain access to, making copious notes, and later acted for several years as his secretary, having joined him in Paris on October 12, 1928, a memorable day in my life.
All sorts of books have been written on the Qabalah, some poor, some few others extremely good. But I came to feel the need for what might be called a sort of Berlitz handbook, a concise but comprehensive introduction, studded with diagrams and tables of easily understood definitions and correspondences to simplify the student's grasp of so complicated and abstruse a subject.
During a short retirement in North Devon in 1931, I began to amalgamate my notes. It was out of these that A Garden of Pomegranates gradually emerged. I unashamedly admit that my book contains many direct plagiarisms from Crowley, Waite, Eliphas Levi, and D. H. Lawrence. I had incorporated numerous fragments from their works into my notebooks without citing individual references to the various sources from which I condensed my notes.
Prior to the closing down of the Mandrake Press in London about 1930-31, I was employed as company secretary for a while. Along with several Crowley books, the Mandrake Press published a lovely little monogram by D. H. Lawrence entitled "Apropos of Lady Chatterley's Lover." my own copy accompanied me on my travels for long years. Only recently did I discover that it had been lost. I hope that any one of my former patients who had borrowed it will see fit to return it to me forthwith.
The last chapter of A Garden deals with the Way of Return. It used almost entirely Crowley's concept of the Path as described in his superb essay "One Star in Sight." In addition to this, I borrowed extensively from Lawrence's Apropos. Somehow, they all fitted together very nicely. In time, all these variegated notes were incorporated into the text without acknowledgment, an oversight which I now feel sure would be forgiven, since I was only twenty-four at the time.
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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.
The importance of the book to me was and is five-fold. 1) It provided a yardstick by which to measure my personal progress in the understanding of the Qabalah. 2) Therefore it can have an equivalent value to the modern student. 3) It serves as a theoretical introduction to the Qabalistic foundation of the magical work of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 4) It throws considerable light on the occasionally obscure writings of Aleister Crowley. 5) It is dedicated to Crowley, who was the Ankh-af-na-Khonsu mentioned in The Book of the Law -a dedication which served both as a token of personal loyalty and devotion to Crowley, but was also a gesture of my spiritual independence from him.
In his profound investigation into the origins and basic nature of man, Robert Ardrey in African Genesis recently made a shocking statement. Although man has begun the conquest of outer space, the ignorance of his own nature, says Ardrey, "has become institutionalized, universalized and sanctified." He further states that were a brotherhood of man to be formed today, "its only possible common bond would be ignorance of what man is."
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
state that as a consequence of the myriad of more-with-less, invisible, technological
advances of the 20th century, and employing only well-proven technologies and
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
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."
Khudiram Chattopadhyaya and Chandra Devi, the parents of Sri Ramakrishna, were married in 1799. At that time Khudiram was living in his ancestral village of Dereypore, not far from Kamarpukur. Their first son, Ramkumar, was born in 1805, and their first daughter, Katyayani, in 1810. In 1814 Khudiram was ordered by his landlord to bear false witness in court against a neighbour. When he refused to do so, the landlord brought a false case against him and deprived him of his ancestral property. Thus dispossessed, he arrived, at the invitation of another landlord, in the quiet village of Kamarpukur, where he was given a dwelling and about an acre of fertile land. The crops from this little property were enough to meet his family's simple needs. Here he lived in simplicity, dignity, and contentment.
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Gadadhar grew up into a healthy and restless boy, full of fun and sweet mischief. He was intelligent and precocious and endowed with a prodigious memory. On his father's lap he learnt by heart the names of his ancestors and the hymns to the gods and goddesses, and at the village school he was taught to read and write. But his greatest delight was to listen to recitations of stories from Hindu mythology and the epics. These he would afterwards recount from memory, to the great joy of the villagers. Painting he enjoyed; the art of moulding images of the gods and goddesses he learnt from the potters. But arithmetic was his great aversion.
At the age of six or seven Gadadhar had his first experience of spiritual ecstasy. One day in June or July, when he was walking along a narrow path between paddy-fields, eating the puffed rice that he carried in a basket, he looked up at the sky and saw a beautiful, dark thunder-cloud. As it spread, rapidly enveloping the whole sky, a flight of snow-white cranes passed in front of it. The beauty of the contrast overwhelmed the boy. He fell to the ground, unconscious, and the puffed rice went in all directions. Some villagers found him and carried him home in their arms. Gadadhar said later that in that state he had experienced an indescribable joy.
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Ramkumar did not at first oppose the ways of his temperamental brother. He wanted Gadadhar to become used to the conditions of city life. But one day he decided to warn the boy about his indifference to the world. After all, in the near future Gadadhar must, as a householder, earn his livelihood through the performance of his brahminical duties; and these required a thorough knowledge of Hindu law, astrology, and kindred subjects. He gently admonished Gadadhar and asked him to pay more attention to his studies. But the boy replied spiritedly: "Brother, what shall I do with a mere bread-winning education? I would rather acquire that wisdom which will illumine my heart and give me satisfaction for ever."
--- BREAD-WINNING EDUCATION
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Hindu priests are thoroughly acquainted with the rites of worship, but few of them are aware of their underlying significance. They move their hands and limbs mechanically, in obedience to the letter of the scriptures, and repeat the holy mantras like parrots. But from the very beginning the inner meaning of these rites was revealed to Sri Ramakrishna. As he sat facing the image, a strange transformation came over his mind. While going through the prescribed ceremonies, he would actually find himself encircled by a wall of fire protecting him and the place of worship from unspiritual vibrations, or he would feel the rising of the mystic Kundalini through the different centres of the body. The glow on his face, his deep absorption, and the intense atmosphere of the temple impressed everyone who saw him worship the Deity.
Ramkumar wanted Sri Ramakrishna to learn the intricate rituals of the worship of Kali. To become a priest of Kali one must undergo a special form of initiation from a qualified guru, and for Sri Ramakrishna a suitable brahmin was found. But no sooner did the brahmin speak the holy word in his ear than Sri Ramakrishna, overwhelmed with emotion, uttered a loud cry and plunged into deep concentration.
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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
and collapsed, unconscious. What was happening in the outside world I did not know; but within me there was a steady flow of undiluted bliss, altogether new, and I felt the presence of the Divine Mother." On his lips when he regained consciousness of the world was the word "Mother".
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Naturally the temple officials took him for an insane person. His worldly well-wishers brought him to skilled physicians; but no-medicine could cure his malady. Many a time he doubted his sanity himself. For he had been sailing across an uncharted sea, with no earthly guide to direct him. His only haven of security was the Divine Mother Herself. To Her he would pray: "I do not know what these things are. I am ignorant of mantras and the scriptures. Teach me, Mother, how to realize Thee. Who else can help me? Art Thou not my only refuge and guide?" And the sustaining presence of the Mother never failed him in his distress or doubt. Even those who criticized his conduct were greatly impressed with his purity, guilelessness, truthfulness, integrity, and holiness. They felt an uplifting influence in his presence.
It is said that samadhi, or trance, no more than opens the portal of the spiritual realm. Sri Ramakrishna felt an unquenchable desire to enjoy God in various ways. For his meditation he built a place in the northern wooded section of the temple garden. With Hriday's help he planted there five sacred trees. The spot, known as the Panchavati, became the scene of many of his visions.
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"O Mother," he would constantly pray, "I have taken refuge in Thee. Teach me what to do and what to say. Thy will is paramount everywhere and is for the good of Thy children. Merge my will in Thy will and make me Thy instrument."
His visions became deeper and more intimate. He no longer had to meditate to behold the Divine Mother. Even while retaining consciousness of the outer world, he would see Her as tangibly as the temples, the trees, the river, and the men around him.
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Sri Ramakrishna has described the incident: "The Divine Mother revealed to me in the Kali temple that it was She who had become everything. She showed me that everything was full of Consciousness. The image was Consciousness, the altar was Consciousness, the water-vessels were Consciousness, the door-sill was Consciousness, the marble floor was Consciousness — all was Consciousness. I found everything inside the room soaked, as it were, in Bliss — the Bliss of God. I saw a wicked man in front of the Kali temple; but in him also I saw the power of the Divine Mother vibrating. That was why I fed a cat with the food that was to be offered to the Divine Mother. I clearly perceived that all this was the Divine Mother — even the cat. The manager of the temple garden wrote to Mathur Babu saying that I was feeding the cat with the offering intended for the Divine Mother. But Mathur Babu had insight into the state of my mind. He wrote back to the manager: 'Let him do whatever he likes. You must not say anything to him.'"
One of the painful ailments from which Sri Ramakrishna suffered at this time was a burning sensation in his body, and he was cured by a strange vision. During worship in the temple, following the scriptural injunctions, he would imagine the presence of the "sinner" in himself and the destruction of this "sinner". One day he was meditating in the Panchavati, when he saw come out of him a red-eyed man of black complexion, reeling like a drunkard. Soon there emerged from him another person, of serene countenance, wearing the ochre cloth of a sannyasi and carrying in his hand a trident. The second person attacked the first and killed him with the trident. Thereafter Sri Ramakrishna was free of his pain.
About this time he began to worship God by assuming the attitude of a servant toward his master. He imitated the mood of Hanuman, the monkey chieftain of the Ramayana, the ideal servant of Rama and traditional model for this self-effacing form of devotion. When he meditated on Hanuman his movements and his way of life began to resemble those of a monkey. His eyes became restless. He lived on fruits and roots. With his cloth tied around his waist, a portion of it hanging in the form of a tail, he jumped from place to place instead of walking. And after a short while he was blessed with a vision of Sita, the divine consort of Rama, who entered his body and disappeared there with the words, "I bequeath to you my smile."
Mathur had faith in the sincerity of Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual zeal, but began now to doubt his sanity. He had watched him jumping about like a monkey. One day, when Rani Rasmani was listening to Sri Ramakrishna's singing in the temple, the young priest abruptly turned and slapped her. Apparently listening to his song, she had actually been thinking of a law-suit. She accepted the punishment as though the Divine Mother Herself had imposed it; but Mathur was distressed. He begged Sri Ramakrishna to keep his feelings under control and to heed the conventions of society. God Himself, he argued, follows laws. God never permitted, for instance, flowers of two colours to grow on the same stalk. The following day Sri Ramakrishna presented Mathur Babu with two hibiscus flowers growing on the same stalk, one red and one white.
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One day Haladhari upset Sri Ramakrishna with the statement that God is incomprehensible to the human mind. Sri Ramakrishna has described the great moment of doubt when he wondered whether his visions had really misled him: "With sobs I prayed to the Mother, 'Canst Thou have the heart to deceive me like this because I am a fool?' A stream of tears flowed from my eyes. Shortly afterwards I saw a volume of mist rising from the floor and filling the space before me. In the midst of it there appeared a face with flowing beard, calm, highly expressive, and fair. Fixing its gaze steadily upon me, it said solemnly, 'Remain in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness.' This it repeated three times and then it gently disappeared in the mist, which itself dissolved. This vision reassured me."
A garbled report of Sri Ramakrishna's failing health, indifference to worldly life, and various abnormal activities reached Kamarpukur and filled the heart of his poor mother with anguish. At her repeated request he returned to his village for a change of air. But his boyhood friends did not interest him any more. A divine fever was consuming him. He spent a great part of the day and night in one of the cremation grounds, in meditation. The place reminded him of the impermanence of the human body, of human hopes and achievements. It also reminded him of Kali, the Goddess of destruction.
--
Saradamani, a little girl of five, lived in the neighbouring village of Jayrambati. Even at this age she had been praying to God to make her character as stainless and fragrant as the white tuberose. Looking at the full moon, she would say: "O God, there are dark spots even on the moon. But make my character spotless." It was she who was selected as the bride for Sri Ramakrishna.
The marriage ceremony was duly performed. Such early marriage in India is in the nature of a betrothal, the marriage being consummated when the girl attains puberty. But in this case the marriage remained for ever unconsummated. Sri Ramakrishna lived at Kamarpukur about a year and a half and then returned to Dakshineswar.
--
Gauri said: "I feel it in my heart and I have the scriptures on my side. I am ready to prove it to anyone who challenges me."
"Well," Sri Ramakrishna said, "it is you who say so; but, believe me, I know nothing about it."
Thus the insane priest was by verdict of the great scholars of the day proclaimed a Divine Incarnation. His visions were not the result of an over-heated brain; they had precedent in spiritual history. And how did the proclamation affect Sri Ramakrishna himself? He remained the simple child of the Mother that he had been since the first day of his life. Years later, when two of his householder disciples openly spoke of him as a Divine Incarnation and the matter was reported to him, he said with a touch of sarcasm: "Do they think they will enhance my glory that way? One of them is an actor on the stage and the other a physician. What do they know about Incarnations? Why, years ago pundits like Gauri and Vaishnavcharan declared me to be an Avatar. They were great scholars and knew what they said. But that did not make any change in my mind."
Sri Ramakrishna was a learner all his life. He often used to quote a proverb to his disciples: "Friend, the more I live the more I learn." When the excitement created by the Brahmani's declaration was over, he set himself to the task of practising spiritual disciplines according to the traditional methods laid down in the Tantra and Vaishnava scriptures. Hitherto he had pursued his spiritual ideal according to the promptings of his own mind and heart. Now he accepted the Brahmani as his guru and set foot on the traditional highways.
--
The average man wishes to enjoy the material objects of the world. Tantra bids him enjoy these, but at the same time discover in them the presence of God. mystical rites are prescribed by which, slowly, the sense-objects become spiritualized and sense attraction is transformed into a love of God. So the very "bonds" of man are turned into "releasers". The very poison that kills is transmuted into the elixir of life. Outward renunciation is not necessary. Thus the aim of Tantra is to sublimate bhoga, or enjoyment into yoga, or union with Consciousness. For, according to this philosophy, the world with all its manifestations is nothing but the sport of Siva and Sakti, the Absolute and Its inscrutable Power.
The disciplines of Tantra are graded to suit aspirants of all degrees. Exercises are prescribed for people with "animal", "heroic", and "divine" outlooks. Certain of the rites require the presence of members of the opposite sex. Here the aspirant learns to look on woman as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Mother of the Universe. The very basis of Tantra is the Motherhood of God and the glorification of woman. Every part of a woman's body is to be regarded as incarnate Divinity. But the rites are extremely dangerous. The help of a qualified guru is absolutely necessary. An unwary devotee may lose his foothold and fall into a pit of depravity.
--
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.
--
Totapuri, discovering at once that Sri Ramakrishna was prepared to be a student of Vedanta, asked to initiate him into its mysteries. With the permission of the Divine Mother, Sri Ramakrishna agreed to the proposal. But Totapuri explained that only a sannyasi could receive the teaching of Vedanta. Sri Ramakrishna agreed to renounce the world, but with the stipulation that the ceremony of his initiation into the monastic order be performed in secret, to spare the feelings of his old mother, who had been living with him at Dakshineswar.
On the appointed day, in the small hours of the morning, a fire was lighted in the Panchavati. Totapuri and Sri Ramakrishna sat before it. The flame played on their faces. "Ramakrishna was a small brown man with a short beard and beautiful eyes, long dark eyes, full of light, obliquely set and slightly veiled, never very wide open, but seeing half-closed a great distance both outwardly and inwardly. His mouth was open over his white teeth in a bewitching smile, at once affectionate and mischievous. Of medium height, he was thin to emaciation and extremely delicate. His temperament was high-strung, for he was supersensitive to all the winds of joy and sorrow, both moral and physical. He was indeed a living reflection of all that happened before the mirror of his eyes, a two-sided mirror, turned both out and in." (Romain Rolland, Prophets of the New India, pp. 38-9.) Facing him, the other rose like a rock. He was very tall and robust, a sturdy and tough oak. His constitution and mind were of iron. He was the strong leader of men.
--
Totapuri asked the disciple to withdraw his mind from all objects of the relative world, including the gods and goddesses, and to concentrate on the Absolute. But the task was not easy even for Sri Ramakrishna. He found it impossible to take his mind beyond Kali, the Divine Mother of the Universe. "After the initiation", Sri Ramakrishna once said, describing the event, "Nangta began to teach me the various conclusions of the Advaita Vedanta and asked me to withdraw the mind completely from all objects and dive deep into the Atman. But in spite of all my attempts I could not altogether cross the realm of name and form and bring my mind to the unconditioned state. I had no difficulty in taking the mind from all the objects of the world. But the radiant and too familiar figure of the Blissful Mother, the Embodiment of the essence of Pure Consciousness, appeared before me as a living reality. Her bewitching smile prevented me from passing into the Great Beyond. Again and again I tried, but She stood in my way every time. In despair I said to Nangta: 'It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the unconditioned state and come face to face with Atman.' He grew excited and sharply said: 'What? You can't do it? But you have to.' He cast his eyes around. Finding a piece of glass he took it up and stuck it between my eyebrows. 'Concentrate the mind on this point!' he thundered. Then with stern determination I again sat to meditate. As soon as the gracious form of the Divine Mother appeared before me, I used my discrimination as a sword and with it clove Her in two. The last barrier fell. my spirit at once soared beyond the relative plane and I lost myself in samadhi."
Sri Ramakrishna remained completely absorbed in samadhi for three days. "Is it really true?" Totapuri cried out in astonishment. "Is it possible that he has attained in a single day what it took me forty years of strenuous practice to achieve? Great God! It is nothing short of a miracle!" With the help of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna's mind finally came down to the relative plane.
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Sri Ramakrishna, on the other hand, though fully aware, like his guru, that the world is an illusory appearance, instead of slighting maya, like an orthodox monist, acknowledged its power in the relative life. He was all love and reverence for maya, perceiving in it a mysterious and majestic expression of Divinity. To him maya itself was God, for everything was God. It was one of the faces of Brahman. What he had realized on the heights of the transcendental plane, he also found here below, everywhere about him, under the mysterious garb of names and forms. And this garb was a perfectly transparent sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the Divine Immanence. Maya, the mighty weaver of the garb, is none other than Kali, the Divine Mother. She is the primordial Divine Energy, Sakti, and She can no more be distinguished from the Supreme Brahman than can the power of burning be distinguished from fire. She projects the world and again withdraws it. She spins it as the spider spins its web. She is the Mother of the Universe, identical with the Brahman of Vedanta, and with the Atman of Yoga. As eternal Lawgiver, She makes and unmakes laws; it is by Her imperious will that karma yields its fruit. She ensnares men with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign eyes. She is the supreme Mistress of the cosmic play, and all objects, animate and inanimate, dance by Her will. Even those who realize the Absolute in nirvikalpa samadhi are under Her jurisdiction as long as they still live on the relative plane.
Thus, after nirvikalpa samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized maya in an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from before his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that maya operates in the relative world in two ways, and he termed these "avidyamaya" and "vidyamaya". Avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the round of man's birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidyamaya is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion. Vidyamaya elevates man to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya the devotee rids himself of avidyamaya; he then becomes mayatita, free of maya. The two aspects of maya are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and She stands beyond them both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining through and standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes, conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.
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After the departure of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna remained for six months in a state of absolute identity with Brahman. "For six months at a stretch", he said, "I remained in that state from which ordinary men can never return; generally the body falls off, after three weeks, like a sere leaf. I was not conscious of day and night. Flies would enter my mouth and nostrils just as they do a dead body's, but I did not feel them. my hair became matted with dust."
His body would not have survived but for the kindly attention of a monk who happened to be at Dakshineswar at that time and who somehow realized that for the good of humanity Sri Ramakrishna's body must be preserved. He tried various means, even physical violence, to recall the fleeing soul to the prison-house of the body, and during the resultant fleeting moments of consciousness he would push a few morsels of food down Sri Ramakrishna's throat. Presently Sri Ramakrishna received the command of the Divine Mother to remain on the threshold of relative consciousness. Soon there-after after he was afflicted with a serious attack of dysentery. Day and night the pain tortured him, and his mind gradually came down to the physical plane.
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"Sri Ramakrishna had not read books, yet he possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of religions and religious philosophies. This he acquired from his contacts with innumerable holy men and scholars. He had a unique power of assimilation; through meditation he made this knowledge a part of his being. Once, when he was asked by a disciple about the source of his seemingly inexhaustible knowledge, he replied; "I have not read; but I have heard the learned. I have made a garland of their knowledge, wearing it round my neck, and I have given it as an offering at the feet of the Mother."
Sri Ramakrishna used to say that when the flower blooms the bees come to it for honey of their own accord. Now many souls began to visit Dakshineswar to satisfy their spiritual hunger. He, the devotee and aspirant, became the Master. Gauri, the great scholar who had been one of the first to proclaim Sri Ramakrishna an Incarnation of God, paid the Master a visit in 1870 and with the Master's blessings renounced the world. Narayan Shastri, another great pundit, who had mastered the six systems of Hindu philosophy and had been offered a lucrative post by the Maharaja of Jaipur, met the Master and recognized in him one who had realized in life those ideals which he himself had encountered merely in books. Sri Ramakrishna initiated Narayan Shastri, at his earnest request, into the life of sannyas. Pundit Padmalochan, the court pundit of the Maharaja of Burdwan, well known for his scholarship in both the Vedanta and the Nyaya systems of philosophy, accepted the Master as an Incarnation of God. Krishnakishore, a Vedantist scholar, became devoted to the Master. And there arrived Viswanath Upadhyaya, who was to become a favourite devotee; Sri Ramakrishna always addressed him as "Captain". He was a high officer of the King of Nepal and had received the title of Colonel in recognition of his merit. A scholar of the Gita, the Bhagavata, and the Vedanta philosophy, he daily performed the worship of his Chosen Deity with great devotion. "I have read the Vedas and the other scriptures", he said. "I have also met a good many monks and devotees in different places. But it is in Sri Ramakrishna's presence that my spiritual yearnings have been fulfilled. To me he seems to be the embodiment of the truths of the scriptures."
The Knowledge of Brahman in nirvikalpa samadhi had convinced Sri Ramakrishna that the gods of the different religions are but so many readings of the Absolute, and that the Ultimate Reality could never be expressed by human tongue. He understood that all religions lead their devotees by differing paths to one and the same goal. Now he became eager to explore some of the alien religions; for with him understanding meant actual experience.
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In 1867 Sri Ramakrishna returned to Kamarpukur to recuperate from the effect of his austerities. The peaceful countryside, the simple and artless companions of his boyhood, and the pure air did him much good. The villagers were happy to get back their playful, frank, witty, kind-hearted, and truthful Gadadhar, though they did not fail to notice the great change that had come over him during his years in Calcutta. His wife, Sarada Devi, now fourteen years old, soon arrived at Kamarpukur. Her spiritual development was much beyond her age and she was able to understand immediately her husband's state of mind. She became eager to learn from him about God and to live with him as his attendant. The Master accepted her cheerfully both as his disciple and as his spiritual companion. Referring to the experiences of these few days, she once said: "I used to feel always as if a pitcher full of bliss were placed in my heart. The joy was indescribable."
--- PILGRIMAGE
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In 1872 Sarada Devi paid her first visit to her husband at Dakshineswar. Four years earlier she had seen him at Kamarpukur and had tasted the bliss of his divine company. Since then she had become even more gentle, tender, introspective, serious, and unselfish. She had heard many rumours about her husband's insanity. People had shown her pity in her misfortune. The more she thought, the more she felt that her duty was to be with him, giving him, in whatever measure she could, a wife's devoted service. She was now eighteen years old. Accompanied by her father, she arrived at Dakshineswar, having come on foot the distance of eighty miles. She had had an attack of fever on the way. When she arrived at the temple garden the Master said sorrowfully: "Ah! You have come too late. my Mathur is no longer here to look after you." Mathur had passed away the previous year.
The Master took up the duty of instructing his young wife, and this included everything from housekeeping to the Knowledge of Brahman. He taught her how to trim a lamp, how to behave toward people according to their differing temperaments, and how to conduct herself before visitors. He instructed her in the mysteries of spiritual life — prayer, meditation, japa, deep contemplation, and samadhi. The first lesson that Sarada Devi received was: "God is everybody's Beloved, just as the moon is dear to every child. Everyone has the same right to pray to Him. Out of His grace He reveals Himself to all who call upon Him. You too will see Him if you but pray to Him."
Totapuri, coming to know of the Master's marriage, had once remarked: "What does it matter? He alone is firmly established in the Knowledge of Brahman who can adhere to his spirit of discrimination and renunciation even while living with his wife. He alone has attained the supreme illumination who can look on man and woman alike as Brahman. A man with the idea of sex may be a good aspirant, but he is still far from the goal." Sri Ramakrishna and his wife lived together at Dakshineswar, but their minds always soared above the worldly plane. A few months after Sarada Devi's arrival Sri Ramakrishna arranged, on an auspicious day, a special worship of Kali, the Divine Mother. Instead of an image of the Deity, he placed on the seat the living image, Sarada Devi herself. The worshipper and the worshipped went into deep samadhi and in the transcendental plane their souls were united. After several hours Sri Ramakrishna came down again to the relative plane, sang a hymn to the Great Goddess, and surrendered, at the feet of the living image, himself, his rosary, and the fruit of his life-long sadhana. This is known in Tantra as the Shorasi Puja, the "Adoration of Woman". Sri Ramakrishna realized the significance of the great statement of the Upanishad: "O Lord, Thou art the woman. Thou art the man; Thou art the boy. Thou art the girl; Thou art the old, tottering on their crutches. Thou pervadest the universe in its multiple forms."
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In the nirvikalpa samadhi Sri Ramakrishna had realized that Brahman alone is real and the world illusory. By keeping his mind six months on the plane of the non-dual Brahman, he had attained to the state of the vijnani, the knower of Truth in a special and very rich sense, who sees Brahman not only in himself and in the transcendental Absolute, but in everything of the world. In this state of vijnana, sometimes, bereft of body-consciousness, he would regard himself as one with Brahman; sometimes, conscious of the dual world, he would regard himself as God's devotee, servant, or child. In order to enable the Master to work for the welfare of humanity, the Divine Mother had kept in him a trace of ego, which he described — according to his mood — as the "ego of Knowledge", the "ego of Devotion", the "ego of a child", or the "ego of a servant". In any case this ego of the Master, consumed by the fire of the Knowledge of Brahman, was an appearance only, like a burnt string. He often referred to this ego as the "ripe ego" in contrast with the ego of the bound soul, which he described as the "unripe" or "green" ego. The ego of the bound soul identifies itself with the body, relatives, possessions, and the world; but the "ripe ego", illumined by Divine Knowledge, knows the body, relatives, possessions, and the world to be unreal and establishes a relationship of love with God alone. Through this "ripe ego" Sri Ramakrishna dealt with the world and his wife. One day, while stroking his feet, Sarada Devi asked the Master, "What do you think of me?" Quick came the answer: "The Mother who is worshipped in the temple is the mother who has given birth to my body and is now living in the nahabat, and it is She again who is stroking my feet at this moment. Indeed, I always look on you as the personification of the Blissful Mother Kali."
Sarada Devi, in the company of her husband, had rare spiritual experiences. She said: "I have no words to describe my wonderful exaltation of spirit as I watched him in his different moods. Under the influence of divine emotion he would sometimes talk on abstruse subjects, sometimes laugh, sometimes weep, and sometimes become perfectly motionless in samadhi. This would continue throughout the night. There was such an extraordinary divine presence in him that now and then I would shake with fear and wonder how the night would pass. Months went by in this way. Then one day he discovered that I had to keep awake the whole night lest, during my sleep, he should go into samadhi — for it might happen at any moment —, and so he asked me to sleep in the nahabat."
--- SUMMARY OF THE MASTER'S SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES
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During this period Sri Ramakrishna suffered several bereavements. The first was the death of a nephew named Akshay. After the young man's death Sri Ramakrishna said: "Akshay died before my very eyes. But it did not affect me in the least. I stood by and watched a man die. It was like a sword being drawn from its scabbard. I enjoyed the scene, and laughed and sang and danced over it. They removed the body and cremated it. But the next day as I stood there (pointing to the southeast verandah of his room), I felt a racking pain for the loss of Akshay, as if somebody were squeezing my heart like a wet towel. I wondered at it and thought that the Mother was teaching me a lesson. I was not much concerned even with my own body — much less with a relative. But if such was my pain at the loss of a nephew, how much more must be the grief of the householders at the loss of their near and dear ones!" In 1871 Mathur died, and some five years later Sambhu Mallick — who, after Mathur's passing away, had taken care of the Master's comfort. In 1873 died his elder brother Rameswar, and in 1876, his beloved mother. These bereavements left their imprint on the tender human heart of Sri Ramakrishna, albeit he had realized the immortality of the soul and the illusoriness of birth and death.
In March 1875, about a year before the death of his mother, the Master met Keshab Chandra Sen. The meeting was a momentous event for both Sri Ramakrishna and Keshab. Here the Master for the first time came into actual, contact with a worthy representative of modern India.
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Keshab was the leader of the Brahmo Samaj, one of the two great movements that, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, played an important part in shaping the course of the renascence of India. The founder of the Brahmo movement had been the great Raja Rammohan Roy (1774-1833). Though born in an orthodox brahmin family, Rammohan Roy had shown great sympathy for Islam and Christianity. He had gone to Tibet in search of the Buddhist mysteries. He had extracted from Christianity its ethical system, but had rejected the divinity of Christ as he had denied the Hindu Incarnations. The religion of Islam influenced him, to a great extent, in the formulation of his monotheistic doctrines. But he always went back to the Vedas for his spiritual inspiration. The Brahmo Samaj, which he founded in 1828, was dedicated to the "worship and adoration of the Eternal, the Unsearchable, the Immutable Being, who is the Author and Preserver of the Universe". The Samaj was open to all without distinction of colour, creed, caste, nation, or religion.
The real organizer of the Samaj was Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905), the father of the poet Rabindranath. His physical and spiritual beauty, aristocratic aloofness, penetrating intellect, and poetic sensibility made him the foremost leader of the educated Bengalis. These addressed him by the respectful epithet of Maharshi, the "Great Seer". The Maharshi was a Sanskrit scholar and, unlike Raja Rammohan Roy, drew his inspiration entirely from the Upanishads. He was an implacable ene my of image worship ship and also fought to stop the infiltration of Christian ideas into the Samaj. He gave the movement its faith and ritual. Under his influence the Brahmo Samaj professed One Self-existent Supreme Being who had created the universe out of nothing, the God of Truth, Infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power, the Eternal and Omnipotent, the One without a Second. Man should love Him and do His will, believe in Him and worship Him, and thus merit salvation in the world to come.
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Shivanath, one day, was greatly impressed by the Master's utter simplicity and abhorrence of praise. He was seated with Sri Ramakrishna in the latter's room when several rich men of Calcutta arrived. The Master left the room for a few minutes. In the mean time Hriday, his nephew, began to describe his samadhi to the visitors. The last few words caught the Master's ear as he entered the room. He said to Hriday: "What a mean-spirited fellow you must be to extol me thus before these rich men! You have seen their costly apparel and their gold watches and chains, and your object is to get from them as much money as you can. What do I care about what they think of me? (Turning to the gentlemen) No, my friends, what he has told you about me is not true. It was not love of God that made me absorbed in God and indifferent to external life. I became positively insane for some time. The sadhus who frequented this temple told me to practise many things. I tried to follow them, and the consequence was that my austerities drove me to insanity." This is a quotation from one of Shivanath's books. He took the Master's words literally and failed to see their real import.
Shivanath vehemently criticized the Master for his other-worldly attitude toward his wife. He writes: "Ramakrishna was practically separated from his wife, who lived in her village home. One day when I was complaining to some friends about the virtual widowhood of his wife, he drew me to one side and whispered in my ear: 'Why do you complain? It is no longer possible; it is all dead and gone.' Another day as I was inveighing against this part of his teaching, and also declaring that our program of work in the Brahmo Samaj includes women, that ours is a social and domestic religion, and that we want to give education and social liberty to women, the saint became very much excited, as was his way when anything against his settled conviction was asserted — a trait we so much liked in him — and exclaimed, 'Go, thou fool, go and perish in the pit that your women will dig for you.' Then he glared at me and said: 'What does a gardener do with a young plant? Does he not surround it with a fence, to protect it from goats and cattle? And when the young plant has grown up into a tree and it can no longer be injured by cattle, does he not remove the fence and let the tree grow freely?' I replied, 'Yes, that is the custom with gardeners.' Then he remarked, 'Do the same in your spiritual life; become strong, be full-grown; then you may seek them.' To which I replied, 'I don't agree with you in thinking that women's work is like that of cattle, destructive; they are our associates and helpers in our spiritual struggles and social progress' — a view with which he could not agree, and he marked his dissent by shaking his head. Then referring to the lateness of the hour he jocularly remarked, 'It is time for you to depart; take care, do not be late; otherwise your woman will not admit you into her room.' This evoked hearty laughter."
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.
--
Contact with the Brahmos increased Sri Ramakrishna's longing to encounter aspirants who would be able to follow his teachings in their purest form. "There was no limit", he once declared, "to the longing I felt at that time. During the day-time I somehow managed to control it. The secular talk of the worldly-minded was galling to me, and I would look wistfully to the day when my own beloved companions would come. I hoped to find solace in conversing with them and relating to them my own realizations. Every little incident would remind me of them, and thoughts of them wholly engrossed me. I was already arranging in my mind what I should say to one and give to another, and so on. But when the day would come to a close I would not be able to curb my feelings. The thought that another day had gone by, and they had not come, oppressed me. When, during the evening service, the temples rang with the sound of bells and conch-shells, I would climb to the roof of the kuthi in the garden and, writhing in anguish of heart, cry at the top of my voice: 'Come, my children! Oh, where are you? I cannot bear to live without you.' A mother never longed so intensely for the sight of her child, nor a friend for his companions, nor a lover for his sweetheart, as I longed for them. Oh, it was indescribable! Shortly after this period of yearning the devotees1 began to come."
In the year 1879 occasional writings about Sri Ramakrishna by the Brahmos, in the Brahmo magazines, began to attract his future disciples from the educated middle-class Bengalis, and they continued to come till 1884. But others, too, came, feeling the subtle power of his attraction. They were an ever shifting crowd of people of all castes and creeds: Hindus and Brahmos, Vaishnavas and Saktas, the educated with university degrees and the illiterate, old and young, maharajas and beggars, journalists and artists, pundits and devotees, philosophers and the worldly-minded, jnanis and yogis, men of action and men of faith, virtuous women and prostitutes, office-holders and vagabonds, philanthropists and self-seekers, dramatists and drunkards, builders-up and pullers-down. He gave to them all, without stint, from his illimitable store of realization. No one went away empty-handed. He taught them the lofty .knowledge of the Vedanta and the soul
--
But to the young men destined to be monks he pointed out the steep path of renunciation, both external and internal. They must take the vow of absolute continence and eschew all thought of greed and lust. By the practice of continence, aspirants develop a subtle nerve through which they understand the deeper mysteries of God. For them self-control is final, imperative, and absolute. The sannyasis are teachers of men, and their lives should be totally free from blemish. They must not even look at a picture which may awaken their animal passions. The Master selected his future monks from young men untouched by "woman and gold" and plastic enough to be cast in his spiritual mould. When teaching them the path of renunciation and discrimination, he would not allow the householders to be anywhere near them.
--- RAM AND MANOMOHAN
--
Harish, a young man in affluent circumstances, renounced his family and took shelter with the Master, who loved him for his sincerity, singleness of purpose, and quiet nature. He spent his leisure time in prayer and meditation, turning a deaf ear to the entreaties and threats of his relatives. Referring to his undisturbed peace of mind, the Master would say: "Real men are dead to the world though living. Look at Harish. He is an example." When one day the Master asked him to be a little kind to his wife, Harish said: "You must excuse me on this point. This is not the place to show kindness. If I try to be sympathetic to her, there is a possibility of my forgetting the ideal and becoming entangled in the world."
--- BHAVANATH
--
Girish Chandra Ghosh was a born rebel against God, a sceptic, a Bohemian, a drunkard. He was the greatest Bengali dramatist of his time, the father of the modem Bengali stage. Like other young men he had imbibed all the vices of the West. He had plunged into a life of dissipation and had become convinced that religion was only a fraud. Materialistic philosophy he justified as enabling one to get at least a little fun out of life. But a series of reverses shocked him and he became eager to solve the riddle of life. He had heard people say that in spiritual life the help of a guru was imperative and that the guru was to be regarded as God Himself. But Girish was too well acquainted with human nature to see perfection in a man. His first meeting with Sri Ramakrishna did not impress him at all. He returned home feeling as if he had seen a freak at a circus; for the Master, in a semi-conscious mood, had inquired whether it was evening, though the lamps were burning in the room. But their paths often crossed, and Girish could not avoid further encounters. The Master attended a performance in Girish's Star Theatre. On this occasion, too, Girish found nothing impressive about him. One day, however, Girish happened to see the Master dancing and singing with the devotees. He felt the contagion and wanted to join them, but restrained himself for fear of ridicule. Another day Sri Ramakrishna was about to give him spiritual instruction, when Girish said: "I don't want to listen to instructions. I have myself written many instructions. They are of no use to me. Please help me in a more tangible way If you can." This pleased the Master and he asked Girish to cultivate faith.
As time passed, Girish began to learn that the guru is the one who silently unfolds the disciple's inner life. He became a steadfast devotee of the Master. He often loaded the Master with insults, drank in his presence, and took liberties which astounded the other devotees. But the Master knew that at heart Girish was tender, faithful, and sincere. He would not allow Girish to give up the theatre. And when a devotee asked him to tell Girish to give up drinking, he sternly replied: "That is none of your business. He who has taken charge of him will look after him. Girish is a devotee of heroic type. I tell you, drinking will not affect him." The Master knew that mere words could not induce a man to break deep-rooted habits, but that the silent influence of love worked miracles. Therefore he never asked him to give up alcohol, with the result that Girish himself eventually broke the habit. Sri Ramakrishna had strengthened Girish's resolution by allowing him to feel that he was absolutely free.
--
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.
During his second visit, about a month later, suddenly, at the touch of the Master, Narendra felt overwhelmed and saw the walls of the room and everything around him whirling and vanishing. "What are you doing to me?" he cried in terror. "I have my father and mother at home." He saw his own ego and the whole universe almost swallowed in a nameless void. With a laugh the Master easily restored him. Narendra thought he might have been hypnotized, but he could not understand how a monomaniac could cast a spell over the mind of a strong person like himself. He returned home more confused than ever, resolved to be henceforth on his guard before this strange man.
But during his third visit Narendra fared no better. This time, at the Master's touch, he lost consciousness entirely. While he was still in that state, Sri Ramakrishna questioned him concerning his spiritual antecedents and whereabouts, his mission in this world, and the duration of his mortal life. The answers confirmed what the Master himself had known and inferred. Among other things, he came to know that Narendra was a sage who had already attained perfection, and that the day he learnt his real nature he would give up his body in yoga, by an act of will.
--
Narendra now realized that he had a spiritual mission to fulfil. He resolved to renounce the world, as his grandfather had renounced it, and he came to Sri Ramakrishna for his blessing. But even before he had opened his mouth, the Master knew what was in his mind and wept bitterly at the thought of separation. "I know you cannot lead a worldly life," he said, "but for my sake live in the world as long as I live."
One day, soon after, Narendra requested Sri Ramakrishna to pray to the Divine Mother to remove his poverty. Sri Ramakrishna bade him pray to Her himself, for She would certainly listen to his prayer. Narendra entered the shrine of Kali. As he stood before the image of the Mother, he beheld Her as a living Goddess, ready to give wisdom and liberation. Unable to ask Her for petty worldly things, he prayed only for knowledge and renunciation, love and liberation. The Master rebuked him for his failure to ask the Divine Mother to remove his poverty and sent him back to the temple. But Narendra, standing in Her presence, again forgot the purpose of his coming. Thrice he went to the temple at the bidding of the Master, and thrice he returned, having forgotten in Her presence why he had come. He was wondering about it when it suddenly flashed in his mind that this was all the work of Sri Ramakrishna; so now he asked the Master himself to remove his poverty, and was assured that his family would not lack simple food and clothing.
This was a very rich and significant experience for Narendra. It taught him that Sakti, the Divine Power, cannot be ignored in the world and that in the relative plane the need of worshipping a Personal God is imperative. Sri Ramakrishna was overjoyed with the conversion. The next day, sitting almost on Narendra's lap, he said to a devotee, pointing first to himself, then to Narendra: "I see I am this, and again that. Really I feel no difference. A stick floating in the Ganges seems to divide the water; But in reality the water is one. Do you see my point? Well, whatever is, is the Mother — isn't that so?" In later years Narendra would say: "Sri Ramakrishna was the only person who, from the time he met me, believed in me uniformly throughout. Even my mother and brothers did not. It was his unwavering trust and love for me that bound me to him for ever. He alone knew how to love. Worldly people, only make a show of love for selfish ends.
--- TARAK
--
Nitya Niranjan Sen was a disciple of heroic type. He came to the Master when he was eighteen years old. He was a medium for a group of spiritualists. During his first visit the Master said to him: " my boy, if you think always of ghosts you will become a ghost, and if you think of God you will become God. Now, which do you prefer?" Niranjan severed all connexions with the spiritualists. During his second visit the Master embraced him and said warmly: "Niranjan, my boy, the days are flitting away. When will you realize God? This life will be in vain if you do not realize Him. When will you devote your mind wholly to God?" Niranjan was surprised to see the Master's great anxiety for his spiritual welfare. He was a young man endowed with unusual spiritual parts. He felt disdain for worldly pleasures and was totally guileless, like a child. But he had a violent temper. One day, as he was coming in a country boat to Dakshineswar, some of his fellow passengers began to speak ill of the Master. Finding his protest futile, Niranjan began to rock the boat, threatening to sink it in mid stream. That silenced the offenders. When he reported the incident to the Master, he was rebuked for his inability to curb his anger.
--- JOGINDRA
--
One day, in January 1884, the Master was going toward the pine-grove when he went into a trance. He was alone. There was no one to support him or guide his footsteps. He fell to the ground and dislocated a bone in his left arm. This accident had a significant influence on his mind, the natural inclination of which was to soar above the consciousness of the body. The acute pain in the arm forced his mind to dwell on the body and on the world outside. But he saw even in this a divine purpose; for, with his mind compelled to dwell on the physical plane, he realized more than ever that he was an instrument in the hand of the Divine Mother, who had a mission to fulfil through his human body and mind. He also distinctly found that in the phenomenal world God manifests Himself, in an inscrutable way, through diverse human beings, both good and evil. Thus he would speak of God in the guise of the wicked, God in the guise of the pious. God in the guise of the hypocrite, God in the guise of the lewd. He began to take a special delight in watching the divine play in the relative world. Sometimes the sweet human relationship with God would appear to him more appealing than the all-effacing Knowledge of Brahman. Many a time he would pray: "Mother, don't make me unconscious through the Knowledge of Brahman. Don't give me Brahmajnana, Mother. Am I not Your child, and naturally timid? I must have my Mother. A million salutations to the Knowledge of Brahman! Give it to those who want it." Again he prayed: "O Mother let me remain in contact with men! Don't make me a dried-up ascetic. I want to enjoy Your sport in the world." He was able to taste this very rich divine experience and enjoy the love of God and the company of His devotees because his mind, on account of the injury to his arm, was forced to come down to the consciousness of the body. Again, he would make fun of people who proclaimed him as a Divine Incarnation, by pointing to his broken arm. He would say, "Have you ever heard of God breaking His arm?" It took the arm about five months to heal.
--- BEGINNING OF HIS ILLNESS
In April 1885 the Master's throat became inflamed. Prolonged conversation or absorption in samadhi, making the blood flow into the throat, would aggravate the pain. Yet when the annual Vaishnava festival was celebrated at Panihati, Sri Ramakrishna attended it against the doctor's advice. With a group of disciples he spent himself in music, dance, and ecstasy. The illness took a turn for the worse and was diagnosed as "clergyman's sore throat". The patient was cautioned against conversation and ecstasies. Though he followed the physician's directions regarding medicine and diet, he could neither control his trances nor withhold from seekers the solace of his advice. Sometimes, like a sulky child, he would complain to the Mother about the crowds, who gave him no rest day or night. He was overheard to say to Her; "Why do You bring here all these worthless people, who are like milk diluted with five times its own quantity of water? my eyes are almost destroyed with blowing the fire to dry up the water. my health is gone. It is beyond my strength. Do it Yourself, if You want it done. This (pointing to his own body) is but a perforated drum, and if you go on beating it day in and day out, how long will it last?"
But his large heart never turned anyone away. He said, "Let me be condemned to be born over and over again, even in the form of a dog, if I can be of help to a single soul." And he bore the pain, singing cheerfully, "Let the body be preoccupied with illness, but, O mind, dwell for ever in God's Bliss!"
--
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.
--
MASTER: "But I cannot pray for my body."
NARENDRA: "You must do it, for our sake at least."
--
A few hours later the Master said to Narendra: "I said to Her: 'Mother, I cannot swallow food because of my pain. Make it possible for me to eat a little.' She pointed you all out to me and said: 'What? You are eating enough through all these mouths. Isn't that so?' I was ashamed and could not utter another word." This dashed all the hopes of the devotees for the Master's recovery.
"I shall make the whole thing public before I go", the Master had said some time before. On January 1, 1886, he felt better and came down to the garden for a little stroll. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. Some thirty lay disciples were in the hall or sitting about under the trees. Sri Ramakrishna said to Girish, "Well, Girish, what have you seen in me, that you proclaim me before everybody as an Incarnation of God?" Girish was not the man to be taken by surprise. He knelt before the Master and said, with folded hands, "What can an insignificant person like myself say about the One whose glory even sages like Vyasa and Valmiki could not adequately measure?" The Master was profoundly moved. He said: "What more shall I say? I bless you all. Be illumined!" He fell into a spiritual mood. Hearing these words the devotees, one and all, became overwhelmed with emotion. They rushed to him and fell at his feet. He touched them all, and each received an appropriate benediction. Each of them, at the touch of the Master, experienced ineffable bliss. Some laughed, some wept, some sat down to meditate, some began to pray. Some saw light, some had visions of their Chosen Ideals, and some felt within their bodies the rush of spiritual power.
Narendra, consumed with a terrific fever for realization, complained to the Master that all the others had attained peace and that he alone was dissatisfied. The Master asked what he wanted. Narendra begged for samadhi, so that he might altogether forget the world for three or four days at a time. "You are a fool", the Master rebuked him. "There is a state even higher than that. Isn't it you who sing, 'All that exists art Thou'? First of all settle your family affairs and then come to me. You will experience a state even higher than samadhi."
--
One day when Narendra was on the ground floor, meditating, the Master was lying awake in his bed upstairs. In the depths of his meditation Narendra felt as though a lamp were burning at the back of his head. Suddenly he lost consciousness. It was the yearned-for, all-effacing experience of nirvikalpa samadhi, when the embodied soul realizes its unity with the Absolute. After a very long time he regained partial consciousness but was unable to find his body. He could see only his head. "Where is my body?" he cried. The elder Gopal entered the room and said, "Why, it is here, Naren!" But Narendra could not find it. Gopal, frightened, ran upstairs to the Master. Sri Ramakrishna only said: "Let him stay that way for a time. He has worried me long enough."
After another long period Narendra regained full consciousness. Bathed in peace, he went to the Master, who said: "Now the Mother has shown you everything. But this revelation will remain under lock and key, and I shall keep the key. When you have accomplished the Mother's work you will find the treasure again."
--
Sri Ramakrishna said to him: "Today I have given you my all and I am now only a poor fakir, possessing nothing. By this power you will do immense good in the world, and not until it is accomplished will you return." Henceforth the Master lived in the disciple.
Doubt, however, dies hard. After one or two days Narendra said to himself, "If in the midst of this racking physical pain he declares his Godhead, then only shall I accept him as an Incarnation of God." He was alone by the bedside of the Master. It was a passing thought, but the Master smiled. Gathering his remaining strength, he distinctly said, "He who was Rama and Krishna is now, in this body, Ramakrishna — but not in your Vedantic sense." Narendra was stricken with shame.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
in none other of my writings have I given so pro-
found and comprehensive an exposition of my
philosophy on every plane...."
--
mysteries. Again, though the secret itself is of such
tremendous import, and though it is so simple that
--
came into my possession. It had occurred to me to
write a book `THE BOOK OF LIES, WHICH IS
--
my luck', by doing something entirely contrary to
my inclinations. In the midst of my disgust, the
spirit came over me, and I scribbled the chapter
--
into the book in a sort of anger at myself as a
deliberate act of spite towards my readers.
[6]
--
blazed upon my spiritual vision. From that moment
the O.T.O. assumed its proper importance in my
mind. I understood that I held in my hands the key
to the future progress of humanity...."
--
lives in Night, the Night of Pan, which is mystically
called N.O.X., and this O is identified with the O in
--
for their number is 6 (1 plus 2 plus 3), the mystic
number of Binah; but they are called "None", because
--
mythopoeia.
NOTES
--
mystic number 6 (= 1 + 2 + 3).
(6) These are not eight, as apparent; for Lao-tzu
--
have I burned the corpse of my desires.
Mighty and erect is this {Phi-alpha-lambda-lambda-omicron-sigma}
of my Will. The
seed thereof is That which I have borne within me
--
This chapter is quite clear, but one my remark in
the last paragraph a reference to the nature of Samadhi.
--
night, O my love; and there are no stars but thine
eyes.
--
Baphomet is the mysterious name of the God of the
Templars.
--
objects of the mystic aviary, such as the swan, phoenix,
pelican, dove and so on.
--
I do not give myself wholly up.
Take me, who will!
--
provided with his mystic Rose].
In the centre, let him give the L.V.X. signs; or if
--
This is the mystery.
Life!
--
This is the mystery.
Tyle!
--
Vague and mysterious and all indefinite are the
contents of this new consciousness; yet they are
--
way, without any mystical sense.
V.V.V.V.V. is the motto of a Master of the Temple
--
I utter the mysterious Name.
ABRAHADABRA
--
As I enflame myself with prayer:
"There is no grace: there is no guilt:
--
To do my pleasure on the earth
Among the legions of the living.
--
The more necessary anything appears to my mind,
the more certain it is that I only assert a limitation.
I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on
awaking; I drank and danced all night with Doubt,
--
the forges of my smiths...."
"Yea, verily and Amen," said the Stag-beetle, "all
--
stag of a mystical or sacred nature.
The Stag-beetle must not be identified with the one
--
And I held my peace.
O generation of gossipers! who shall deliver you
--
but {Aleph} is also a number of Samadhi and mysticism, and
the doctrine is therefore that Magick, in that highest
--
The One Thought vanished; all my mind was torn to
rags: --- nay! nay! my head was mashed into
wood pulp, and thereon the Daily Newspaper was
--
Thus wrote I, since my One Love was torn from me.
I cannot work: I cannot think: I seek distraction
here: I seek distraction there: but this is all my
truth, that I who love have lost; and how may I
--
O my darling! We should not have spent Ninety
Pounds in that Three Weeks in Paris!...Slash the
--
Worship then the Rosy Cross, and the mystery of
Two-in-One.
--
symbols of the secret of my soul.
Yea, though I were lowered by ropes into the
--
God! in what prism may any man analyse my Light?
Immortal are the adepts; and ye hey die-They
--
my certainty that destiny is "good"
Rests on its picking me for Buddhahood.
--
In the last paragraph we reach the sublime mystic
doctrine that whatever you have must be abandoned.
--
"Where is the mystic Grace?" sayest thou?
Who told thee, man, that LAYLAH is not Nuit, nd
--
"And Julian only fixes in my mind
Even before feels better than behind.
--
I turned upon my friend, and, breaking bounds,
Borrowed a trifle of two hundred pounds.
--
I have bought pleasant trifles, and thus soothed my
lack of LAYLAH.
Light is my wallet, and my heart is also light; and
yet I know that the clouds will gather closer for
--
Paragraph 4 is a practical counsel to mystics not
to break up their dryness by relaxing their austerities.
--
I have my choice of place and service; the babble of
the apes will begin soon enough.
--
I am going to rejoin Laylah. (5) my mission will
succeed soon enough. (6) Death will remove the
--
Let us seek the mystery of the Gnarled Oak, and of
the Glacier Torrent!
--
Tetragrammaton; this is the great and mysterious
Divided Name; by adding the terminations Yod He,
--
The logician my say, "But white exists, and if
white is destroyed, it leaves black; yet black exists. So
--
mysticism.
Step 1, the illumination of Ain as Ain Soph Aour;
--
commentary. But it does so, or my most gifted Chela
and myself would hardly have been at the pains to
write one. It was in response to the impassioned appeals
--
Phaeton was the charioteer of the Sun in Greek mythology.
At first sight the prose of this chapter, though there is only one dissyllabl
--
as a mystic number.
7, the septenary; 11, the magical number; 77, the mani-
--
conventional mystic one; stop thought at its source!
Five wheels are mentioned in this chapter; all but
--
Nature is false; but I'm a bit of a liar myself.
Nature is useless; but then how beautiful she is!
--
who falls far short of mySELF-I am against
Anarchy, and for Feudalism.
--
should be aroused (as Olivia Haddon assures my
favourite Chela), yet policemen, unless most severely
--
Beware, O my brother, lest this chapter deceive
thee!
--
The reader should consult La Messe et ses mysteres, par Jean
'Marie de V .... (Paris et Nancy, 1844), for a complete
--
Teach us Your secret, Master! yap my Yahoos.
Then for the hardness of their hearts, and for the
--
I shall avenge myself by writing nothing in this
chapter.
--
Now do I lift up my voice and testify that all is
vanity on earth, except the love of a good woman,
--
and that my natural forces fail, therefore do I rise
up i my throne and call upon THE END.
For I am youth eternal and force infinite.
--
if to imply this: The final mystery is always insoluble.
FINIS.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"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.
--------------------
--
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is the English translation of the Sri Sri Rmakrishna Kathmrita, the conversations of Sri Ramakrishna with his disciples, devotees, and visitors, recorded by Mahendranth Gupta, who wrote the book under the pseudonym of "M." The conversations in Bengali fill five volumes, the first of which was published in 1897 and the last shortly after M.'s death in 1932. Sri Ramakrishna Math, Madras, has published in two volumes an English translation of selected chapters from the monumental Bengali work. I have consulted these while preparing my translation.
M., one of the intimate disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, was present during all the conversations recorded in the main body of the book and noted them down in his diary.
--
I have made a literal translation, omitting only a few pages of no particular interest to English-speaking readers. Often literary grace has been sacrificed for the sake of literal translation. No translation can do full justice to the original. This difficulty is all the more felt in the present work, whose contents are of a deep mystical nature and describe the inner experiences of a great seer. Human language is an altogether inadequate vehicle to express supersensuous perception. Sri Ramakrishna was almost illiterate. He never clothed his thoughts in formal language. His words sought to convey his direct realization of Truth. His conversation was in a village patois. Therein lies its charm. In order to explain to his listeners an abstruse philosophy, he, like Christ before him, used with telling effect homely parables and illustrations, culled from his observation of the daily life around him.
The reader will find mentioned in this work many visions and experiences that fall outside the ken of physical science and even psychology. With the development of modern knowledge the border line between the natural and the supernatural is ever shifting its position. Genuine mystical experiences are not as suspect now as they were half a century ago. The words of Sri Ramakrishna have already exerted a tremendous influence in the land of his birth. Savants of Europe have found in his words the ring of universal truth.
But these words were not the product of intellectual cogitation; they were rooted in direct experience. Hence, to students of religion, psychology, and physical science, these experiences of the Master are of immense value for the understanding of religious phenomena in general. No doubt Sri Ramakrishna was a Hindu of the Hindus; yet his experiences transcended the limits of the dogmas and creeds of Hinduism. mystics of religions other than Hinduism will find in Sri Ramakrishna's experiences a corroboration of the experiences of their own prophets and seers. And this is very important today for the resuscitation of religious values. The sceptical reader may pass by the supernatural experiences; he will yet find in the book enough material to provoke his serious thought and solve many of his spiritual problems.
There are repetitions of teachings and parables in the book. I have kept them purposely. They have their charm and usefulness, repeated as they were in different settings. Repetition is unavoidable in a work of this kind. In the first place, different seekers come to a religious teacher with questions of more or less identical nature; hence the answers will be of more or less identical pattern. Besides, religious teachers of all times and climes have tried, by means of repetition, to hammer truths into the stony soil of the recalcitrant human mind. Finally, repetition does not seem tedious if the ideas repeated are dear to a man's heart.
--
In the Introduction I have drawn much material from the Life of Sri Ramakrishna, published by the Advaita Ashrama, myvati, India. I have also consulted the excellent article on Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Nirvednanda, in the second volume of the Cultural Heritage of India.
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.
In the spiritual firmament Sri Ramakrishna is a waxing crescent. Within one hundred years of his birth and fifty years of his death his message has spread across land and sea. Romain Rolland has described him as the fulfilment of the spiritual aspirations of the three hundred millions of Hindus for the last two thousand years. Mahatma Gandhi has written: "His life enables us to see God face to face. . . . Ramakrishna was a living embodiment of godliness." He is being recognized as a compeer of Krishna, Buddha, and Christ.
--
It did not take much time for M. to become very intimate with the Master, or for the Master to recognise in this disciple a divinely commissioned partner in the fulfilment of his spiritual mission. When M. was reading out the Chaitanya Bhagavata, the Master discovered that he had been, in a previous birth, a disciple and companion of the great Vaishnava Teacher, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and the Master even saw him 'with his naked eye' participating in the ecstatic mass-singing of the Lord's name under the leadership of that Divine personality. So the Master told M, "You are my own, of the same substance as the father and the son," indicating thereby that M. was one of the chosen few and a part and parcel of his Divine mission.
There was an urge in M. to abandon the household life and become a Sannysin. When he communicated this idea to the Master, he forbade him saying," Mother has told me that you have to do a little of Her work you will have to teach Bhagavata, the word of God to humanity. The Mother keeps a Bhagavata Pandit with a bondage in the world!"
--
Even as a boy of about thirteen, while he was a student in the 3rd class of the Hare School, he was in the habit of keeping a diary. "Today on rising," he wrote in his diary, "I greeted my father and mother, prostrating on the ground before them" (Swami Nityatmananda's 'M The Apostle and the Evangelist' Part I. P 29.) At another place he wrote, "Today, while on my way to school, I visited, as usual, the temples of Kli, the Mother at Tharitharia, and of Mother Sitala, and paid my obeisance to them." About twenty-five years after, when he met the Great Master in the spring of 1882, it was the same instinct of a born diary-writer that made him begin his book, 'unique in the literature of hagiography', with the memorable words: "When hearing the name of Hari or Rma once, you shed tears and your hair stands on end, then you may know for certain that you do not have to perform devotions such as Sandhya any more."
In addition to this instinct for diary-keeping, M. had great endowments contri buting to success in this line. Writes Swami Nityatmananda who lived in close association with M., in his book entitled M - The Apostle and Evangelist: "M.'s prodigious memory combined with his extraordinary power of imagination completely annihilated the distance of time and place for him. Even after the lapse of half a century he could always visualise vividly, scenes from the life of Sri Ramakrishna. Superb too was his power to portray pictures by words."
--
As time went on and the number of devotees increased, the staircase room and terrace of the 3rd floor of the Morton Institution became a veritable Naimisaranya of modern times, resounding during all hours of the day, and sometimes of night, too, with the word of God coming from the Rishi-like face of M. addressed to the eager God-seekers sitting around. To the devotees who helped him in preparing the text of the Gospel, he would dictate the conversations of the Master in a meditative mood, referring now and then to his diary. At times in the stillness of midnight he would awaken a nearby devotee and tell him: "Let us listen to the words of the Master in the depths of the night as he explains the truth of the Pranava." ( Vednta Kesari XIX P. 142.) Swami Raghavananda, an intimate devotee of M., writes as follows about these devotional sittings: "In the sweet and warm months of April and May, sitting under the canopy of heaven on the roof-garden of 50 Amherst Street, surrounded by shrubs and plants, himself sitting in their midst like a Rishi of old, the stars and planets in their courses beckoning us to things infinite and sublime, he would speak to us of the mysteries of God and His love and of the yearning that would rise in the human heart to solve the Eternal Riddle, as exemplified in the life of his Master. The mind, melting under the influence of his soft sweet words of light, would almost transcend the frontiers of limited existence and dare to peep into the infinite. He himself would take the influence of the setting and say,'What a blessed privilege it is to sit in such a setting (pointing to the starry heavens), in the company of the devotees discoursing on God and His love!' These unforgettable scenes will long remain imprinted on the minds of his hearers." (Prabuddha Bharata Vol XXXVII P 497.)
About twenty-seven years of his life he spent in this way in the heart of the great city of Calcutta, radiating the Master's thoughts and ideals to countless devotees who flocked to him, and to still larger numbers who read his Kathmrita (English Edition : The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna), the last part of which he had completed before June 1932 and given to the press. And miraculously, as it were, his end also came immediately after he had completed his life's mission. About three months earlier he had come to stay at his home at 13/2 Gurdasprasad Chaudhuary Lane at Thakur Bari, where the Holy Mother had herself installed the Master and where His regular worship was being conducted for the previous 40 years. The night of 3rd June being the Phalahrini Kli Pooja day, M.
0.00 - The Wellspring of Reality, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
Children freed of the ignorantly founded educational traditions and exposed only to their spontaneously summoned, computer-stored and -distributed outflow of reliable-opinion-purged, experimentally verified data, shall indeed lead society to its happy egress from all misinformedly conceived, fearfully and legally imposed, and physically enforced customs of yesterday. They can lead all humanity into omnisuccessful survival as well as entrance into an utterly new era of human experience in an as-yet and ever-will-be fundamentally mysterious Universe.
And whence will come the wealth with which we may undertake to lead world man into his new and validly hopeful life? From the wealth of the minds of world man-whence comes all wealth. Only mind can discover how to do so much with so little as forever to be able to sustain and physically satisfy all humanity.
0.00 - To the Reader, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Integral Yoga
The reader is requested to note that Sri Aurobindo is not responsible for these records as he had no opportunity to see them. So, it is not as if Sri Aurobindo said exactly these things but that I remember him to have said them. All I can say is that I have tried to be as faithful in recording them as I was humanly capable. That does not minimise my personal responsibility which I fully accept.
A. B. PURANI
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
everything that makes up the universe, by reason of the mysterious
gift of existence. And this, in superior measure, is man's condition.
--
I repeat that my only aim, and my only vantage-ground in
these pages, is to try to see ; that is to say, to try to develop a
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
The Evening Talks collected here may afford to the outside world a glimpse of his external personality and give the seeker some idea of its richness, its many-sidedness, its uniqueness. One can also form some notion of Sri Aurobindo's personality from the books in which the height, the universal sweep and clear vision of his integral ideal and thought can be seen. His writings are, in a sense, the best representative of his mental personality. The versatile nature of his genius, the penetrating power of his intellect, his extraordinary power of expression, his intense sincerity, his utter singleness of purpose all these can be easily felt by any earnest student of his works. He may discover even in the realm of mind that Sri Aurobindo brings the unlimited into the limited. Another side of his dynamic personality is represented by the Ashram as an institution. But the outer, if one may use the phrase, the human side of his personality, is unknown to the outside world because from 1910 to 1950 a span of forty years he led a life of outer retirement. No doubt, many knew about his staying at Pondicherry and practising some kind of very special Yoga to the mystery of which they had no access. To some, perhaps, he was living a life of enviable solitude enjoying the luxury of a spiritual endeavour. Many regretted his retirement as a great loss to the world because they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as 'public', 'altruistic' or 'beneficial'. Even some of his admirers thought that he was after some kind of personal salvation which would have very little significance for mankind in general. His outward non-participation in public life was construed by many as lack of love for humanity.
But those who knew him during the days of the national awakening from 1900 to 1910 could not have these doubts. And even these initial misunderstandings and false notions of others began to evaporate with the growth of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram from 1927 onwards. The large number of books published by the Ashram also tended to remove the idea of the other-worldliness of his Yoga and the absence of any good by it to mankind.
--
Jung has admitted that there is an element of mystery, something that baffles the reason, in human personality. One finds that the greater the personality the greater is the complexity. And this is especially so with regard to spiritual personalities whom the Gita calls Vibhutis and Avatars.
Sri Aurobindo has explained the mystery of personality in some of his writings. Ordinarily by personality we mean something which can be described as "a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character.... In one view personality is regarded as a fixed structure of recognisable qualities expressing a power of being"; another idea regards "personality as a flux of self-expressive or sensitive and responsive being.... But flux of nature and fixity of nature" which some call character "are two aspects of being neither of which, nor indeed both together, can be a definition of personality.... But besides this flux and this fixity there is also a third and occult element, the Person behind of whom the personality is a self-expression; the Person puts forward the personality as his role, character, persona, in the present act of his long drama of manifested existence. But the Person is larger than his personality, and it may happen that this inner largeness overflows into the surface formation; the result is a self-expression of being which can no longer be described by fixed qualities, normalities of mood, exact lineaments, or marked out by structural limits."[4]
The gospel of the Supermind which Sri Aurobindo brought to man envisages a new level of consciousness beyond Mind. When this level is attained it imposes a complete and radical reintegration of the human personality. Sri Aurobindo was not merely the exponent but the embodiment of the new, dynamic truth of the Supermind. While exploring and sounding the tremendous possibilities of human personality in his intense spiritual Sadhana, he has shown us that practically there are no limits to its expansion and ascent. It can reach in its growth what appears to man at present as a 'divine' status. It goes without saying that this attainment is not an easy task; there are conditions to be fulfilled for the transformation from the human to the divine.
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Aurobindo and myself, as well as five of the closest disciples.
We have joined the houses together with openings in some
--
give my body the rest it needs, that is, two or three hours of
lying down in a condition of absolute immobility in which the
--
that I no longer experience ordinary sleep, while still giving my
body the rest that it needs.
--
true that in my answers many aspects of the question have been
neglected which could have been examined with interest - that
--
acquired four houses which I bought in my name to simplify the
legal technicalities; but it goes without saying that I do not own
--
if my name sometimes appears (on bank accounts, purchase of
houses, of automobiles, etc.), it is, as I already told you, a matter
--
for my taste, but...
24 April 1937
0.01 - Life and Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Mother in her vast upward labour. It is this view of Yoga that can alone form the basis for a sound and rational synthesis of Yogic methods. For then Yoga ceases to appear something mystic and abnormal which has no relation to the ordinary processes of the World-Energy or the purpose she keeps in view in her two great movements of subjective and objective selffulfilment; it reveals itself rather as an intense and exceptional use of powers that she has already manifested or is progressively
Life and Yoga
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
my explanation, based on my own experience, is this:
I feel a reserve while asking something from Mother.
--
Why was my stool at all painted with gris entretien? I did
not ask for the grey paint as far as I remember.
--
A rule is a rule and I do not see why my stool escaped the rule,
unless a chit signed by me could be produced.
--
For the last few days, my mind has dwelt upon the scenes
and incidents of days long past. It takes pleasure in comparing how different I am now from what I was then.
--
I am rolling in my bed in the hope of getting sleep.
Peace, peace, my child; do not torment yourself.
The sadhak's prayer is composed of extracts from several prayers of the Mother in
--
But what was this darkness? I could not recognise myself
during the last four hours. I was stiff, I was burning with
--
I open myself to Thee and I would obey Thee with an absolute
faithfulness.
--
"To Thee all the fervour of my adoration."7
It is adoration expressing itself in work - all the more precious.
--
asked me whether it was my belief that the cause for
sickness is always a revolt or wrong attitude. I said Yes.
--
an incident in which Mother found defects in my work,
Prayers and Meditations, 29 January 1914.
--
the kind in my intention. I was giving expression to an amused
observation about the ways of the world and how it cannot but
--
As to my belief in the efficacy of prayer, I believe
in its efficacy only when it is addressed to the Mother.
--
But why should I not say that according to my estimate,
it is 30 days' work?
--
I am feeling tired today. I have not exerted myself,
nor have I economised on sleep or rest. I was also getting
--
another reason for my perplexity.
I am afraid that in trying too hard to stick to the "letter", you
--
somewhere in my being. I can't pinpoint this recalcitrant
spot. Is it my mind? Isn't it the mind that shows the
absurdity of this request?
--
about this type of long frame my uneasiness doubled.
Enlighten me, Sweet Mother.
--
it that my features are lacking in vigour? Is it that I
am scornful of others and therefore others treat me
--
This morning at pranam a prayer leapt up from my
heart towards You: "May this day bring me an opportunity to remain calm even in the face of provocation." It
--
someone.) I regret having lost my temper while pronouncing these last sentences. I have noticed that even
when I am conscious, if I open my mouth I lose my selfcontrol. I get angrier and angrier from one sentence to
the next.
--
All my compliments for this appreciable progress.
9 February 1934
--
I have had a pain in the right side of my chest and in
the left side of my back for the past three or four days.
I decided to be brave and not tell You about it, but the
--
Sadhak: Yes, if the other person is receptive. Suppose I have difficultes in my work. There is no way of
communicating with Mother. I can't find the solution.
--
Why do you want an outward sign of my love? Are you not
satisfied with knowing it is there?
--
position. In my opinion you should add an English version to
the French and circulate both together.
--
I have a confession to make. my mind is flooded
with contradictions and doubts. I have struggled against
--
well as I could with my short and limited foresight. I
was completely dejected. What should I do?
--
worked everything out and can answer my questions, I shall
call you one morning alone with X into my little room, and we
shall discuss the matter quietly. When will you learn not to lose
--
not, by my own doing, exactly as you had planned? I think it is
high time you learned this and I find that you give me very little
--
All the pain I have felt till tonight comes from my
reservations with regard to Sweet Mother. Is my diagnosis correct? If so, how can I do away with these
reservations without seeming to contradict or embarrass
--
at the clock with my inner sight and told Z, "To make it go
slower, you have to shorten the pendulum." He looked at me
--
of X's apartment, perhaps more than a year ago.) my formation
was so living, so real, so active, that I made the mistake of
--
do not very clearly see my intention, you must enquire about it;
if you do not grasp my formation in a very precise way, you must
ask me to explain it to you. When I do not do so, it is because I
--
itself without my needing to speak about it, and in fact this often
happens - it is only when the mind and vital get in the way, for
--
Sleep well and rest yourself beneath the protective shade of my
blessing.
--
I know that I was not obliged to give Y an explanation for my decision. In his expression, the question was
there, but I could easily have ignored it. Why did I show
--
Please forgive me for my ambiguous reply to Z. I
bow to You, full of remorse.
--
without my knowledge, why should I interfere? and (2)
Since I know all about it, I cannot remain indifferent; I
--
wanted to disturb my mind. I don't know where it came
Series Two - To a Sadhak in the Building Department
from. Was it my own thought expressed in words, or was
it what is known as a "voice"? How can these things be
--
implications of my remark the other day. If you see something
that should be done in a certain way, you should simply say:
--
You have made me aware of the subconscious movements governing my action. Whenever a similar opportunity arises, will You please make me more and more
aware. Do not withdraw from me when You see me sad.
--
Your Grace I will be myself again within a short time.
I aspire for the blessed day when the conflict, the
--
thing is good or not, because my vision is limited.
I never said that you should be the judge. I agree to be the judge
--
If I could move about and see everything physically for myself, I
would not need to get information from anyone. But this is not
--
can. And on that information I base my decision.
18 July 1935
--
I thought that my refusal was ineffective because it was
not supported by Sweet Mother, and I firmly believe that
--
directly or indirectly, I look and judge for myself without the
intervention of anyone's opinion.
--
"Penetrate all my being, transfigure it till Thou alone
livest in us and through us."11
--
With my blessings.
1 April 1936
--
I don't know why I have lost my self-control and
peace.
--
wards me off. I looked inside myself to see if I have
recently done something to displease him, but I can't find
--
In spite of all my efforts at friendly collaboration
with X, I have failed. I pray that you tell me in detail the
--
beyond my capacity.
I am afraid it is a lack of affinity in the vital and even in the
--
the work, I am still not convinced of it. my impression is that
one always says far more than is necessary and that it is not with
--
and you ought to have them since my blessings are with you.
10 October 1939
--
With my loving solicitude and my blessings.
5 March 1940
--
With my blessings.
5 June 1940
It is very good, my child; I was quite sure that it would end this
way, for I know the goodness of your heart.
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:0.03 - Letters to my little smile
author class:The Mother
--
With all my love.
1931
--
I may remove the anger from the consciousness of my "little
smile" and give her back the joy and peace I want her always to
--
With my most affectionate blessings.
1931
I have seen the sari embroidered by my little smile and I find it
very pretty, completely successful.
--
I accept the rupee and send to my dear little child, along with
my blessings, my congratulations for the manner in which she
has passed her French test.
--
Keep your confidence and your faith, my little smile, and
everything will be all right.
With all my love.
1 August 1932
--
about my dullness is true - if it is due to an absence of
imagination.
--
But my mind does not have tamas; it is always active
and runs here and there like a madman.
--
Mother, I believe that if I stay all by myself, apart
from everyone else, I will be very happy. I am very bad;
--
because I have promised to write about my thoughts and
feelings and I don't want to deceive You. I have nothing
--
No, my child, I was not "serious" and I smiled at you as usual;
it was you who had such a sad little face and it is probably your
own sadness that you saw reflected in my eyes. I know life too
well for your confessions to make me "serious". Besides, your
--
feel that maybe I won't be able to do yoga, my mind
imagines: "Mother tells me that I cannot do yoga and
--
my Mother, today it seems to me that my mind is not
calm enough to write anything to You. Today I worked
--
are you not my little daughter? - and you will always have a
place by my side, in my love and protection.
9 December 1932
--
I had an imaginary conversation in my head with X.
I was not paying attention, but at one moment it came
--
That is how I talk to people in my head; my mind
puts the thoughts it likes, as it likes, into someone's
mouth and this makes a noise in my head.
I am very tired of writing such bad and stupid things.
--
a very rare chance. my vital being always wants more
and more; it is never satisfied with what You give it.
--
Nowhere do I find any progress. Even in my work I
am still not regular, so how can I hope for Your help?
I don't understand what you mean. my help is always with
you, as complete as it can be; it is up to you to open yourself
--
I would have Your help and become regular in my work,
but in vain.
How then can I continue my practice of writing to
You in this state of depression and discontent?
--
there is a kind of noise in my head, as if many people
were talking at once and I can understand nothing of
--
the last few days I have become irregular in my work.
You once said that to open myself to You is my work,
because Your help is always with me. But I do not know
when I will open myself to You. I am as hard as a stone.
If I had known before that these things are so difficult, I
--
You wrote this one day in my notebook. But all the
things I have written about to You up to now have not
--
This morning after nine o 'clock X came to my room.
He advised me to reject hostile suggestions and so on.
--
asked him to come to my room.
But I must tell You that I don't like people to
--
With all my will I want to save you, but you must allow me to
do so. To revolt is to reject the Divine Love and only the Divine
--
I don't think you are naughty and I know you are my child.
29 December 1932
--
It seems to me that my mind (or rather myself)
doesn't want to become quiet. Because if I wanted to become quiet, I would naturally have tried to make myself
quiet, wouldn't I?
--
When with all my will I am working for the disappearance
of suffering from the world, how could I want, much less like,
one of my children to suffer! It would be monstrous.
7 January 1933
--
about my condition in order to let You know about it.)
There are thieves in the subtle world just as in the outer world.
--
yourself once again, that is to say, my "little smile".
9 January 1933
--
And never doubt my affection, which is always with you to
help you make this indispensable progress.
--
with all my will and to work as before, I have started to
do that.
--
got up, washed and dressed, then I ate my breakfast and started
working at such and such a time, etc. etc.). You can tell me
--
dressed, then went to collect my notebook from X's
window (I always go there). Then at about 6:30 I
drank my phoscao, then started work at 6:45. At 7:30
I went for Pranam, then at 7:45 I started work again.
--
ate my lunch and rested for ten minutes. At 12:00 I
went back to work; at 12:30 Z came to work and at
--
Why not, my little smile? You can learn to say the same things
in different ways; this is an excellent exercise to learn how
--
Today I prayed to You with my body2 for ten hours.
Next time I see You, I shall explain how embroiderers fix the sari on the frame. The frame has to be as big
--
You are a beautiful and skilful worker, my little smile, and I am
proud of you and your work, which is so lovely. I see that you
--
Today I prayed to You with my body for nine hours.
Now I have become regular again in all my work as
before.
--
This is good, my little smile; balance of the being is based upon
regular work.
--
Have You seen my little roses on Your gown? Are
they nice?
--
Today I prayed to You with my body for nine hours.
Mother, for the past two days I have been feeling a
little tired, my hands have become a bit slow.
Don't you think it would be a good idea for you to take a little
--
You with my body for ten hours.
Then use Coué's method5 and repeat, "I am not tired, I cannot
--
and beautiful things such as I want to make for my dear,
dear Mother? How will my dreams be fulfilled if I waste
my time?
--
I shall tell You how I usually spend my evenings.
After seeing You go up to the terrace, I go and have
my meal. Then I return home and write my letter to You,
and then sometimes I wash our clothes (X's and mine;
--
then I usually prepare my lesson and go to bed.
But last night after my walk at 9:30, I helped X to
sew with the sewing machine until 10:15. Then I worked
--
- it is truly regal; and as for me, I was proud of my little smile
and her beautiful work!
--
have to give You is about my work.
You are very hardworking and painstaking, and if you have
--
of all my affection for my dear little smile.
22 August 1933
--
It is rather tiresome for you, my dear little smile! But it is an
exact image of life, where one must constantly undo what has
--
child all day with the marvellous playthings my Mother
has given me to play with all day. I don't know how to
--
Mother, I think the sari You wore today is my finest
embroidery, don't You think so?
--
As you like, my little smile; I am very busy, it is true, but I could
have managed to give you a few minutes. It is nice of you to
think of not increasing my work unnecessarily; there are not
many like you.
--
I was first and I took my seat with a place on either side
of me. I thought X would sit on one side and Y on the
--
Do not torment yourself, my little smile; all this has come to
teach you that on these occasions, after having had the joy of
--
but my lips refused; they didn't want to smile.
Mother, is it good or bad not to be able to speak like
--
All my affection for my hardworking little smile.
29 December 1933
--
I shall always be with you, my dear little child, in the struggle
and in the victory.
--
Then the work must be proceeding very fast. You have a marvellous capacity for work, my dear little child.
18 January 1934
--
You know that all my love is always with you as well as my best
will to help you out of your difficulties.
--
I know that there are beautiful things in my little
heart. There are bad things too, as You know, Mother
--
in my heart there will only be a very, very sweet love for
You alone.
--
Before seeing X's blouse I used to think that my
bird-of-paradise8 sari was very beautiful; but now that
--
made it, myself or someone else; I mean that upon seeing
a very beautiful thing someone has made for You, one
ought to be very happy, and all those who love my sweet
Mother will naturally be happy.
--
have had in me a kind of pride in my work: "I make
finer things than anyone else here", something like that.
--
made by someone else, my pride received a good hard
blow. Isn't that true? (Mother, here I recall a sentence I
--
want them. I shall not rest until You come into my heart
and live there eternally.
my Mother, give me purity and constancy in my
aspiration.
--
Such is my wish and my blessing.
1 February 1934
--
I shall capture You in my heart. I don't need to think
of peace and happiness. When You dwell in our hearts,
--
outward, and you will feel my presence as concretely (even more
so) as you feel the cold and the heat.
--
You are already in my heart, it is true. But I don't
know how to open my eyes; they are always open except
when I sleep.
--
it in my heart (and I think everyone feels in his heart).
I don't know how to feel outward. I don't understand
--
wrote to me) after I sent it to You this morning with my
letter?
--
Poor little one, I very gladly take you on my lap and cradle you
to my heart to soothe this heavy sorrow which has no cause
and to quell this great revolt which has no reason. Let me take
you in my arms, bathe you in my love and wipe away even the
Series Three - To " my little smile"
--
No, my dear child, I am sure I didn't tell you that you wanted
to hide something from me. When you started crying under the
--
With my love.
11 July 1934
--
You are my little child and you will always be my little child -
that is a sure fact.
--
And if you want my opinion, I suggest that you first take up the
crown - it will set you going on the sari itself; and you will
--
With my love.
8 September 1934
--
come. I shut my eyes and after a moment, in my sleep,
I felt a sort of fear. I opened my eyes, looked at the sky,
and then closed my eyes again. I saw something like a
cloud coming slowly and I opened my eyes...
my dear little smile,
--
Put yourself in my arms without fear and be sure that nothing can harm you. my force and my protection are always with
you.
With my tender love.
18 June 1935
--
With all my love.
10 July 1935
--
am proud of the beautiful things my dear children make for me
and I wear them with affection and joy.
my blessings and my love are always with you.
10 December 1935
--
want to feel Your love in my heart (which You say is
already there) I do not feel it. What is it that is closed?
--
I want my heart to open to You and to feel Your love
there always. But if it is really closed, how can I open
--
reappear. my love is always with you to help you go through
this bad moment.
--
Yes, my dear little child, you have indeed found the cause; and
weren't you a little annoyed that I didn't wear your embroidered
--
To my little smile very affectionately.
6 September 1936
--
To [ my little smile] whose precious help prevents my feet from
being hurt by the stones on the way.
With my love and blessings that her aspiration may be
realised this year.
0.04 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I hope that this time I have made myself clear.
14 September 1932
--
This boy has been dismissed by my orders and will not be
given work in the Ashram.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Today when I went to X for my music lesson I felt
uneasy. I also felt that he is not very happy with me. I
--
Mother, accept my prayer.
I am always with you, my child, so it is not only possible but
quite easy to feel my presence constantly.
With love and blessings.
--
Yes, I am taking you into my arms and cradling you to my heart
so that you may have true happiness and unalloyed peace.
--
Peace be with you, my child, the peace of Certitude and of
confidence in my love which never leaves you.
Your mother.
--
Why does this difficulty come? Do I open myself to
it or is it something else? Mother, after having come so
--
Yes, my dear child, it is entirely possible and since you want
it sincerely, it will come to be so. You will feel yourself always
--
close to my heart, cradled in my arms, and Peace will fill your
being and make you strong and joyful.
--
man realises his true being, the more he will become my very
dear child.
--
solicitude of my love.
9 April 1934
--
With my love.
21 April 1934
my child, my child, why this great sadness? Is it because someone to whom you had given your friendship has withdrawn for
reasons that he thinks are very profound?
--
with those whose contact does not veil my presence. This is the
important point which should never be forgotten. All that leads
--
you closer to me and gives you the perception and joy of my
presence is good. You should judge things in the light of this
--
I send you much patience and all my love.
2 May 1934
--
You are always in my arms and always I hold you close to
my heart to comfort and protect you, to strengthen and illumine
--
Peace, peace, my little child, the sweet peace of inner silence and
outer calm. May it always be with you.
--
You see, my child, the unfortunate thing is that you are too preoccupied with yourself. At your age I was exclusively occupied
with my studies - finding things out, learning, understanding,
knowing. That was my interest, even my passion. my mother,
who loved us very much - my brother and myself - never allowed us to be ill tempered or discontented or lazy. If we went
to complain to her about one thing or another, to tell her that
--
I am telling you these things with all my affection, and I
hope that you will understand them.
--
I constantly envelop you in my peace: you must learn to keep
it. I am constantly in your heart: you must become conscious
of my presence and receive and use the force that I am pouring
into you to enable you to overcome all difficulties.
--
With all my love.
24 May 1934
--
I carry you always in my arms, pressed close to my heart, and
I have no doubt that you will become aware of it if you forget the
--
With all my being, I want this progress and this transformation for you.
With love.
--
accept my childlike prayer.
For you I want consciousness, knowledge, artistic capacity, selfmastery in peace and perfect equality, and the happiness that is
--
Yes, my dear child,
I am your true mother who will give birth in you to the true
--
I carry you always in my heart and you are bathed in energy;
it is through a quiet and confident aspiration that you will receive
it. All my love is with you.
I hope you do not show my letters to anyone. It is better to
keep them to yourself; otherwise, if you show them, all the force
--
Mother, my dear mother,
You know everything that I need. Take me into your
--
by my love as by a protection, and truly my love is always with
you, around you; but you, on your side, must open to it and
--
With all my love.
21 August 1934
--
A strong being is always quiet. It is weakness that causes restlessness. I am sending you (on my envelope, but in reality too)
the repose that comes from concentrated energy.
--
all my love.
Your mother.
--
You must never lose confidence in my unvarying love.
30 August 1934
--
I have a pain in my head. I am very tired.
my child, all my love is always with you; do not push it away.
1 September 1934
--
am going to the dining-room. my mother, I want to be
good. Everything has gone now. I want to be your little
--
the best thing is to remain always cradled in my arms, protected
by my love which never leaves you.
7 September 1934
--
regularly, eat regularly, exercise regularly, etc., etc. And unfortunately you refuse all discipline. This makes my task very
difficult.
With all my love.
11 September 1934
--
I feel so tired, and my head hurts. Mother, what shall
I do?
--
You know that my love is always with you and my will is
that you should get well; my force is with you to give you health.
I take you into my arms, I take you to my heart.
20 September 1934
--
yourself and always nestle in my arms so as to receive my love
and force.
--
my force is with you to conquer these things. And my love
never leaves you.
--
With all my love.
3 October 1934
--
I am very happy to know that you want to be my instrument. To be able to be my instrument, you must be regular,
Series Five - To a Child
--
How will you feel my help and take advantage of it if you
do not even trust in me? Yet my love is always with you.
1 November 1934
--
Remain always in my heart.
Yes, my dear child, I forgive you; but how I would like you to
become quieter, more reasonable, more studious!
--
Yes, I know everything and that is why I know that my little child
is not always reasonable and that is why he has a headache and
--
calm and force. But to feel my presence, you know what you
must do and especially what you must not do.
--
Fill my thoughts with you. Stay always with your
little child. Give me a deep and lasting peace.
--
to me: "You have put Peace in my heart; make me aware of its
presence."
With all my love.
27 February 1935
--
that you must never do what you would not dare to do in my
physical presence, for I am always with you.
--
I don't know why I have lost all my happiness and
peace. I don't know when it will come back to my heart.
my sweet mother, what shall I do?
--
my work; I cannot forget it. my dear mother, be with
me always.
--
completely lost and lifeless. You know everything, my
mother. Will you tell me what it is?
--
within myself, not just now but over the past two years,
I find nothing. Sometimes I feel: "Why all these efforts?
They will be fruitless." You told me to open my heart
and all will be well; but you know, mother, nothing stays
--
in my arms. So if you feel that you are far away, it is a false
feeling which does not conform to the truth.
--
against me, against my heart. I feel, even now, that I am
suffocated.
--
know what my path is, then who does?
my dear child,
--
you? Whatever happens, you can always rely on my help; do
not hesitate to ask for it.
--
and I will be patient. I am only telling you about my
condition, that's all.
You are right to tell me, my dear child; it helps you to open
yourself. I know that it is troublesome to feel this resistance
--
I want to ask you something concerning my poetry.
It has stopped now. Is there some inner preparation
--
I am always with you, my dear child, and my love never
leaves you.
--
You have my full consent to write poetry, and Sri Aurobindo
says that there is no doubt about your poetic capacity. Today's
--
against you, no, not at all. But I want to be sure of my
path.
--
always be in my heart?
I am not at all angry; but since you have decided to leave, I
--
not because I am afraid of my duty but because I want you." I
would like to tell you something about this. To be sure that you
--
Read my letter very carefully, think it over well to be sure
that you have understood it completely, and when you have seen
--
my love, my help and my blessings will always be with you.
Your mother.
--
With my love and blessings.
10 April 1942
--
O my sweet mother,
Accept my gratitude for having shown me the true
path. Give me the strength to reject everything that
--
I want to be closer to you in my heart and in all my
being. Give me the power to give myself completely to
you. Stay with me always.
Yes, my dear little child, I am always with you to help you, to
support you, to guide you. By doing your work with conscientiousness, honesty and perseverance, you will feel my presence
closer and closer to you.
With my blessings.
29 June 1946
--
The more I look into myself, the more discouraged
I am, and I don't know whether there is any chance of
--
am then on the verge of losing my mind.
Still, there is something in me which says very
--
Do not torment yourself, my child, and remain as quiet as you
can; do not yield to the temptation to give up the struggle and let
--
With all my love and blessings.
25 September 1947
--
discontent and shall try my best to remove it. I cannot
tell you how it pains me to know that you are displeased
--
With my love and blessings.
12 December 1953
--
I pray, please do not be vexed by my letter. I on my
part can bear anything except your displeasure. I feel
--
With my love and blessings.
23 March 1954
--
With my love and blessings.
26 January 1956
--
Do not torment yourself, my dear child, and fear nothing; my
grace will always be with you and never fail you. Moreover, there
--
and my help will work.
With my love and blessings.
Series Five - To a Child
--
sure that I shall do my best to help you in that. I am quite sure
that perseverance in study and the acceptance of a discipline of
--
All my love is with you to help you and guide you.
my dear child,
--
with all my love.
You need not worry and must continue as you are doing except,
--
With my love and blessings.
my mother,
--
outer silence - peace in all my being, from the innermost
part to the outermost. Peace, peace in all my being. I
cannot express this in proper words and it is becoming
melodramatic. Pardon my mistake.
I don't find your expression melodramatic and there is nothing
--
the resolution to allow my will, and not your own, to govern
your life. As soon as you have understood the need for this,
--
You did not reply to my last letter. Do you mean
that it isn't necessary to make the vital peaceful?
--
There is a depression. And most often I feel that my
mind is tired. I don't know why. Today, my vital too is
in terrible revolt. What can I do?
--
No, my dear little child, I am not displeased - why should I
be? I understand your difficulties and I know your goodwill;
--
Transform my whole nature. I shall be what you
want me to be. Give me your peace, your silence in my
heart. I cannot express everything in words, but, mother,
--
Yes, I understand you very well, my dear child, and my affection
is always with you and it wants you to have a vast and lasting
--
With all my love.
my sweet mother,
--
Yes, it is good to stay in my arms; there you will find the peace
you aspire for so much, and also a repose from which the true
--
you are the greatest power. my mother, take me into
your heart, dissolve the obstacles.
--
Always nestle in my heart which is always ready to welcome
you, in my arms which are always ready to enfold you, and fear
no obstacles - we shall dispel them all.
With all my love.
O my dear mother,
Take me into your heart. No, no, I don't want these
--
I am always taking you into my heart, but what can I do if you
run away from there? You must remain quiet in my arms if you
want me to be able to help you.
--
"Peace, peace, O my heart!" Do it steadily and you will be
pleased with the result.
--
With all my love. Your mother.
my dear child,
--
With all my love.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
comprising the whole of the mystical life and ending only with the Divine embraces
of the soul transformed in God through love.
--
his own mystical experiences. Once more, too, we may admire the crystalline
transparency of his teaching and the precision of the phrases in which he clothes it.
--
author's mystical experience; any excerpt from them would do them an injustice. It
must suffice to say that St. John of the Cross seldom again touches those same
--
comprise St. Bernard's mystical ladder. Chapter xxi describes the soul's 'disguise,'
from which the book passes on (Chapters xxii, xxiii) to extol the 'happy chance'
--
burned in my heart.'
It is difficult to express adequately the sense of loss that one feels at the
--
his mystical dissertations find such an outlet as here. Nowhere else, again, is he
quite so appealingly human; for, though he is human even in his loftiest and
sublimest passages, this intermingling of philosophy with mystical theology makes
him seem particularly so. These treatises are a wonderful illustration of the
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Is there no means of uniting my will with Yours? Perhaps
You have no special will, for You want nothing.
--
Where is my true being?
Farther within or higher above, on the other side of the emotions,
--
I feel indignant, Mother, for I cannot find my "self", as
soon as I try to do so, I find nothing but this body, which
--
I ask You once again, Mother, what is it that divides my
being?
--
any enjoyment; I myself too do not want any.
It is good to be above all enjoyments the world can give, but
--
Beloved Mother, guide my steps, illumine my mind, and
do not leave, I pray, any distance between You and me.
--
May my whole being be only that love which wants to
give itself, and which leads me to You.
--
my Mother, with all my will and all my effort I want to
realise that love which You have foreseen in your divine
--
to You, I must prove it in my actions; without that these
would be worthless words behind which a man seeks
--
That's good. You are indeed always my child and I expect you to
become even more a good child who will be able to tell me in all
--
Whatever the reason may be, as soon as my consciousness loses You I become joyless and without energy.
At no moment do I forget you. Don't you rather allow too many
--
Mother, why is it so difficult to feel Your Presence constantly near me? In the depths of my heart I know well
that without You there is no meaning in life for me; yet
--
my beloved Mother, if only I could convince my ignorant
being that it is possible to find You in the centre of my
heart.
--
me; for if you were not always present in my consciousness you
would not be able to think of me. So you may be sure of my
presence. I add my blessings.
Beloved Mother, how shall I find the source of that
--
in exchange for my love for Him and the giving of my
soul, then it is a very easy thing for me.
--
joy in seeking; but it is true that my heart will always be
thirsty.
--
you capable of feeling me, experiencing concretely my presence,
even when your physical eyes do not see me? I don't think so, for
--
my one hope is to progress as much as I can, so that my
next birth may not be useless like this one.
--
I often ask myself if there is a truth behind this desire to
come close to You.
--
false; but if you think I am there for all my children, that I carry
them in my heart, that I want to lead them to the Divine and
that I am grieved when they move away from Him, - then this
--
and that I have to divide my time among all those who have need
of me.
--
when my body is far from You?
By concentrating your thought.
--
Do not leave my heart empty, Mother.
I am always in your heart.
--
rose from the depths of my being, through a crowd of
obstacles, and when this thing had come out above, all
--
not had any difficulty which could bar my way.
What was this thing, Mother?
--
through my intervention.
Now, if you don't like me to show you your faults, I can very
--
intervene and on the other refuse my intervention.
If you are vexed by what I tell you, it proves that you do not
--
Yes, my help is with you to master all the movements which are
opposed to the Divine.
--
After all, my whole life is consecrated to You; I shall
remain very calm without bothering about what happens
--
reasons for my actions! I act differently for each one, according
to the needs of his particular case.
--
When I try to look within myself, I find there a being that
is detached from everything, a great indifference reigns
--
Mother, my life is dry, it was always so; the dryness of
my life constantly increases.
--
certitude that you can become conscious of my presence.
The sadder you are and the more you lament, the farther you
--
soon become conscious of my presence always near you, and
that it will give you peace and joy.
--
for anything. The psychic feels my constant presence, is aware
of my love and solicitude, and is always peaceful, happy and
satisfied.
--
All will be done, Mother, but why is my heart becoming
more and more dry and hard?
--
Perhaps my vanity was better than this humility which
so casts me down.
--
that I have already reached my goal.
You have just given a very correct description, but it becomes
--
Formerly I used to repeat to myself: "I am one of the
greatest sadhaks." Now I tell myself: "I am nobody."
Series Six - To a Young Sadhak
--
All my good intentions, since my childhood, have been
of no worth. my nature is just what it was when I was a
child. I can scarcely hope that it will be transformed; and
--
not to identify myself with it is the best remedy I can
find against the lower and inconscient nature.
--
It would have been better to have sat in my chair and
thought about the moonlight playing upon the water.
--
Perhaps I am mistaken in believing that I shall find myself close to you more rapidly by dissolving my being
than by mixing with many people and doing much work.
I have had the experience myself that one can be fully concentrated and be in union with the Divine even while working
physically with one's hands; but naturally this asks for a little
--
If you persevere you are sure to succeed; as for my help you may
rest assured it is always with you, and one never calls in vain.
If you resolve to do it, my force will be there to back up your
effort.
--
All my power is with you to help you; open yourself with a
calm confidence, have faith in the Divine Grace, and you will
--
only my whole being does not accept it.
If you repeat it with sufficient constancy, the recalcitrant part
--
I have quite forgotten my past.
Yes, one must forget one's past.
--
It seemed to me that there was someone in my room
who wanted to suck my blood; I wanted to stretch my
left hand to him so that he could do so.
--
If I could detach myself entirely from this outer world,
if I could be quite alone, I would master this depression
--
Sweet Mother, if my company is not good for others,
should I not dissociate myself from everyone?
It would be much better to dissociate yourself from the tendency
--
controlled myself.
It is very good to control one's anger. Even if it were only to
--
Mother dearest, I have caught a cold. Should I take my
bath as usual?
--
stop the natural propensity of my body to disintegration?
It must become aware of the immortality of the elements constituting it (which is a scientifically recognised fact), then it must
--
doesn't it show that my mind can govern the vital?
No, it only shows that in your consciousness the mind takes
--
help me keep order in my classes.
The most important is to master yourself and never lose your
0.07 - DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
I went forth without being observed, my house being now at rest.
2. In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguisedoh, happy chance!
In darkness and in concealment, my house being now at rest.
3. In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.
4. This light guided me More surely than the light of noonday
--
6. Upon my flowery breast, Kept wholly for himself alone,
There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him, And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.
--
With his gentle hand he wounded my neck And caused all my senses to be suspended.
8. I remained, lost in oblivion; my face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself, Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.
Begins the exposition of the stanzas which treat of the way and manner which the soul follows upon the road of the union of love with God. Before we enter upon the exposition of these stanzas, it is well to understand here that the soul that utters them is now in the state of perfection, which is the union of love with God, having already passed through severe trials and straits, by means of spiritual exercise in the narrow way of eternal life whereof Our Saviour speaks in the Gospel, along which way the soul ordinarily passes in order to reach this high and happy union with God. Since this road (as the Lord Himself says likewise) is so strait, and since there are so few that enter by it,19 the soul considers it a great happiness and good chance to have passed along it to the said perfection of love, as it sings in this first stanza, calling this strait road with full propriety 'dark night,' as will be explained hereafter in the lines of the said stanza. The soul, then, rejoicing at having passed along this narrow road whence so many blessings have come to it, speaks after this manner.
--
I went forth without being observed, my house being now at rest.
EXPOSITION
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Many things have been said on the subject but, as far as my own
experience goes, I do not attach much importance to that belief.
--
"O Lord, awaken my entire being that it may be for Thee
the needed instrument, the perfect servant."
--
has found in my horoscope? I forgot to ask you about it
on my birthday.
Yes, he spoke to me about it. But you must know that yoga frees
--
me from myself.
From your mother you can always take, it is quite natural, especially when things are given to you full-heartedly - and am I
--
turn my head some day, if it is not turned already! But,
I know, it is only to give her confidence.
--
Love and blessings to my dear child.
4 May 1938
--
I have sunk very low in my consciousness and you
seem farther away than ever. You are the Infinite Mother
--
now intervene in a more overt form so that my earthly
eyes can see and understand somewhat of its working in
--
of my heart so that I may be blessed with a vision
of your soul-captivating Presence in the full glory of
--
that all my impurities be washed out, and restlessness
of the mind and stor my uprisings of passions laid at
--
I commend my soul to your keeping.
Yet I feel you much closer to me and I see in you an opening
--
Love and blessings to my dear child.
9 October 1938
--
Love and blessings to my dear child.
14 October 1938
--
Love and blessings to my dear child.
20 October 1938
--
thee my will of progressive submission and increasing
adoration.
The way is opened, my dear child, and I am waiting for you
with my arms wide to receive and enfold you affectionately -
with my love and blessings.
22 October 1938
Life of my life, I also want to come to you; for, in your
arms alone will I have peace and joy and Ananda and
the true truth and fulfilment of my life and being. But
still, O my Shining Light, the way is not clear to me. And
how shall I be ever able to climb to your dizzying heights
with the heavy chains of a mortal's nature pulling at my
feet?
Let me carry you in my arms and the climbing will become easy.
Love and blessings to my dear child.
25 October 1938
--
desire of my heart? You are very, very adorable and very,
very kind to your little child who loves you and is happy.
my very dear child, live in my love, feel it, be filled with it and
be happy - nothing can please me more than that.
--
child to you, O my beloved Mother.
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
blessings never leave you.
--
On my last birthday, your parting words to me were:
"Keep your faith." I am still wondering what exactly
--
Love and blessings to my dear child.
4 November 1938
--
The only mystery, the only spell is my love - my love which is
spread over my children and calls down upon them the Divine's
Grace to help and to protect.
--
response, my heart does seem to be made of stone; otherwise, why should it refuse to open itself to such a love?
Series Seven - To a Sadhak
--
Love and blessings to my dear child.
9 November 1938
--
me to tell you that there are difficulties of my nature
which make it difficult for me to accept you and your
--
satisfy my human existence. I have yet to know my soul
and my Self, to know and love the Divine Godhead and
fulfil Her in my life and to know the worlds, if it is Her
Will that I should do so. But above all, I must have the
--
With my love and blessings.
16 July 1939
--
With my love and blessings.
17 July 1939
--
my love and blessings to my dear (good) child.
27 July 1939
--
egoism. But if my Mother chooses to see only the good
in her child, that only speaks of the goodness of the
--
Love and blessings to my dear child.
28 July 1939
--
Love and blessings to my dear child.
6 August 1939
--
I send you heaps and heaps of love. In the lotus of my
heart may I have your lotus feet permanently installed
--
In the secret recesses of my heart's chamber I have
always been aware of an instinctive belief that you are an
--
why my eyes seek Her in your lotus-feet, and my heart
yearns to press them to itself knowing them as its sole
--
truly and genuinely in spite of my poor humanity or
is it all an experiment? I feel ashamed to pose such
--
you do not expect me to justify my love in front of the foolish
ignorance of such interpretations. Whether you believe or doubt,
--
I apologise humbly for my query yesterday and pray
to be forgiven for my stupidity.
O! How could I question your love, you who are
--
Your love for me is my true refuge and sole strength.
What I offer you, my Mother, is a turbid mixture of
which I am ashamed but which you alone can purify.
--
sure of my love, you can be sure of my help, and our blessings
19 August 1939
--
Love, love, love to my very dear child; all the joy, all the light,
all the peace of the divine love and also my loving blessings.
20 August 1939
--
and say to myself, "The Mother loves me." On the crest
of a great wave of love the gift came to me and I felt
--
wanted to answer very concretely to your call... my love and
blessings to my very dear child.
24 August 1939
--
kindness, my Mother, and grateful too.
There is no contradiction that cannot be solved and harmonised
--
Life of my life! my own sweetest Mama!
Accept my love and forgive me my lapses - as you
have been doing for so many years. I expect these moods
--
Love and blessings to my dear child.
9 September 1939
--
In my birthday book Sri Aurobindo has written,
"Rise into the higher Consciousness, let its light control
--
Your love for poor me is still my lodestar and I am
grateful.
--
With my blessings.
29 March 1940
--
war against my whole outer being. And, anyway, it seems
too late now to begin at the beginning and teach myself
to ask for a new ideal, the realisation of which seems
--
my love and blessings to my dear child.
29 June 1940
Your answer to my letter of July 22, which you kindly
meant to reassure me, did not reassure me.2 Why is that
so, Mother? Perhaps you do not approve of my tone;
perhaps you are dissatisfied with my disability; possibly
you are getting tired of me altogether. If so, I would not
be surprised, I would not blame you. For I am myself
tired of the problem called me.
--
answered: " my dear child, you can be sure of my love and blessings."
so in words which I can understand and I will drop it.
--
attach much importance to it. my sentence meant simply that
my love is capable of understanding and that my blessings do
not depend on such surface movements.
--
With my love and blessings.
25 July 1940
--
With my love and blessings.
9 September 1941
--
With my love and blessings.
9 September 1942
--
With my love and blessings.
9 September 1943
--
With my love and blessings.
9 September 1944
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
sleep? For example, if I want to see you in my dreams,
can I do it at will?
--
in my presence.
Series Eight - To a Young Captain
--
contact with each of those who are present, I identify myself
with the Supreme Lord and dissolve myself completely in Him.
Then my body, completely passive, is nothing but a channel
through which the Lord passes His forces freely and pours upon
--
To read my books is not difficult because they are written in the
simplest language, almost the spoken language. To get help from
--
even a different personality of my being; and by concentrating
on the photo, one enters into relation with that special aspect or
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When this process is no longer mysterious to you, I shall
explain what is meant by thinking with experiences.
--
what needs to be changed. You can be sure that my force will
always be with you so that you can make all the progress you
--
Have confidence, my child; everything will be all right.
5 June 1960
--
In the last question, I expressed myself very poorly
and Your reply made me feel very insincere. What I
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Here is the very heart of the mystery, the master-key to the problem. The advent of the superhuman or divine race, however stupendous or miraculous the phenomenon may appear to be, can become a thing of practical actuality, precisely because it is no human agency that has undertaken it but the Divine himself in his supreme potency and wisdom and love. The descent of the Divine into the ordinary human nature in order to purify and transform it and be lodged there is the whole secret of the sadhana in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. The sadhaka has only to be quiet and silent, calmly aspiring, open and acquiescent and receptive to the one Force; he need not and should not try to do things by his independent personal effort, but get them done or let them be done for him in the dedicated consciousness by the Divine Master and Guide. All other Yogas or spiritual disciplines in the past envisaged an ascent of the consciousness, its sublimation into the consciousness of the Spirit and its fusion and dissolution there in the end. The descent of the Divine Consciousness to prepare its definitive home in the dynamic and pragmatic human nature, if considered at all, was not the main theme of the past efforts and achievements. Furthermore, the descent spoken of here is the descent, not of a divine consciousness for there are many varieties of divine consciousness but of the Divine's own consciousness, of the Divine himself with his Shakti. For it is that that is directly working out this evolutionary transformation of the age.
It is not my purpose here to enter into details as to the exact meaning of the descent, how it happens and what are its lines of activity and the results brought about. For it is indeed an actual descent that happens: the Divine Light leans down first into the mind and begins its purificatory work therealthough it is always the inner heart which first recognises the Divine Presence and gives its assent to the Divine action for the mind, the higher mind that is to say, is the summit of the ordinary human consciousness and receives more easily and readily the Radiances that descend. From the Mind the Light filters into the denser regions of the emotions and desires, of life activity and vital dynamism; finally, it gets into brute Matter itself, the hard and obscure rock of the physical body, for that too has to be illumined and made the very form and figure of the Light supernal. The Divine in his descending Grace is the Master-Architect who is building slowly and surely the many-chambered and many-storeyed edifice that is human nature and human life into the mould of the Divine Truth in its perfect play and supreme expression. But this is a matter which can be closely considered when one is already well within the mystery of the path and has acquired the elementary essentials of an initiate.
Another question that troubles and perplexes the ordinary human mind is as to the time when the thing will be done. Is it now or a millennium hence or at some astronomical distance in future, like the cooling of the sun, as someone has suggested for an analogy. In view of the magnitude of the work one might with reason say that the whole eternity is there before us, and a century or even a millennium should not be grudged to such a labour for it is nothing less than an undoing of untold millenniums in the past and the building of a far-flung futurity. However, as we have said, since it is the Divine's own work and since Yoga means a concentrated and involved process of action, effectuating in a minute what would perhaps take years to accomplish in the natural course, one can expect the work to be done sooner rather than later. Indeed, the ideal is one of here and nowhere upon this earth of material existence and now in this life, in this very bodynot hereafter or elsewhere. How long exactly that will mean, depends on many factors, but a few decades on this side or the other do not matter very much.
01.01 - Sri Aurobindo - The Age of Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsSri Aurobindo: The Age of Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo: The Age of Sri Aurobindo
--
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.
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Although we may not know it, the New Man the divine race of humanity is already among us. It may be in our next neighbour, in our nearest brother, even in myself. Only a thin veil covers it. It marches just behind the line. It waits for an occasion to throw off the veil and place itself in the forefront. We are living in strenuous times in which age-long institutions are going down and new-forces rearing their heads, old habits are being cast off and new impulsions acquired. In every sphere of life, we see the urgent demand for a recasting, a fresh valuation of things. From the base to the summit, from the economic and political life to the artistic and spiritual, humanity is being shaken to bring out a new expression and articulation. There is the hidden surge of a Power, the secret stress of a Spirit that can no longer suffer to remain in the shade and behind the mask, but wills to come out in the broad daylight and be recognised in its plenary virtues.
That Power, that Spirit has been growing and gathering its strength during all the millenniums that humanity has lived through. On the momentous day when man appeared on earth, the Higher Man also took his birth. Since the hour the Spirit refused to be imprisoned in its animal sheath and came out as man, it approached by that very uplift a greater freedom and a vaster movement. It was the crest of that underground wave which peered over the surface from age to age, from clime to clime through the experiences of poets and prophets and sages the Head of the Sacrificial Horse galloping towards the Dawn.
01.01 - The One Thing Needful, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The realisation of the Divine is the one thing needful and the rest is desirable only in so far as it helps or leads towards that or when it is realised, extends and manifests the realisation. Manifestation and organisation of the whole life for the divine work, - first, the sadhana personal and collective necessary for the realisation and a common life of God-realised men, secondly, for help to the world to move towards that, and to live in the Light - is the whole meaning and purpose of my Yoga. But the realisation is the first need and it is that round which all the rest moves, for apart from it all the rest would have no meaning.
Yoga is directed towards God, not towards man. If a divine supramental consciousness and power can be brought down and established in the material world, that obviously would mean an immense change for the earth including humanity and its life. But the effect on humanity would only be one result of the change; it cannot be the object of the sadhana. The object of the sadhana can only be to live in the divine consciousness and to manifest it in life.
01.01 - The Symbol Dawn, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Turned from the insoluble mystery of birth
And the tardy process of mortality
--
A gate of dreams ajar on mystery's verge.
1.22
--
In colour's hieroglyphs of mystic sense,
It wrote the lines of a significant myth
Telling of a greatness of spiritual dawns,
--
Lines with its passion and mystery Matter's mask
And squanders eternity on a beat of Time.
--
Too mystic-real for space-tenancy
Her body of glory was expunged from heaven:
--
Of her pangs she made a mystic poignant sword.
2.26
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.
--
It is also to be noted that as mind is not the last limit of the march of evolution, even so the progress of evolution will not stop with the manifestation and embodiment of the Supermind. There are other still higher principles beyond and they too presumably await manifestation and embodiment on earth. Creation has no beginning in time (andi) nor has it an end (ananta). It is an eternal process of the unravelling of the mysteries of the Infinite. Only, it may be said that with the Supermind the creation here enters into a different order of existence. Before it there was the domain of Ignorance, after it will come the reign of Light and Knowledge. Mortality has been the governing principle of life on earth till now; it will be replaced by the consciousness of immortality. Evolution has proceeded through struggle and pain; hereafter it will be a spontaneous, harmonious and happy flowering.
Now, with regard to the time that the present stage of evolution is likely to take for its fulfilment, one can presume that since or if the specific urge and stress has manifested and come up to the front, this very fact would show that the problem has become a problem of actuality, and even that it can be dealt with as if it had to be solved now or never. We have said that in man, with man's self-consciousness or the consciousness of the psychic being as the instrument, evolution has attained the capacity of a swift and concentrated process, which is the process of Yoga; the process will become swifter and more concentrated, the more that instrument grows and gathers power and is infused with the divine afflatus. In fact, evolution has been such a process of gradual acceleration in tempo from the very beginning. The earliest stage, for example, the stage of dead Matter, of the play of the mere chemical forces was a very, very long one; it took millions and millions of years to come to the point when the manifestation of life became possible. But the period of elementary life, as manifested in the plant world that followed, although it too lasted a good many millions of years, was much briefer than the preceding periodit ended with the advent of the first animal form. The age of animal life, again, has been very much shorter than that of the plant life before man came upon earth. And man is already more than a million or two years oldit is fully time that a higher order of being should be created out of him.
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: The Age of Sri Aurobindo mystic Poetry
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsSri Aurobindo: Ahana and Other Poems
Sri Aurobindo: Ahana and Other Poems
--
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.
--
Poetry as an expression of thought-power, poetry weighted with intelligence and rationalised knowledge that seems to me to be the end and drive, the secret sense of all the mystery of modern technique. The combination is risky, but not impossible. In the spiritual domain the Gita achieved this miracle to a considerable degree. Still, the power of intelligence and reason shown by Vyasa is of a special order: it is a sublimated function of the faculty, something aloof and other-worldly"introvert", a modern mind would term it that is to say, something a priori, standing in its own au thenticity and self-sufficiency. A modern intelligence would be more scientific, let us use the word, more matter-of-fact and sense-based: the mental light should not be confined in its ivory tower, however high that may be, but brought down and placed at the service of our perception and appreciation and explanation of things human and terrestrial; made immanent in the mundane and the ephemeral, as they are commonly called. This is not an impossibility. Sri Aurobindo seems to have done the thing. In him we find the three terms of human consciousness arriving at an absolute fusion and his poetry is a wonderful example of that fusion. The three terms are the spiritual, the intellectual or philosophical and the physical or sensational. The intellectual, or more generally, the mental, is the intermediary, the Paraclete, as he himself will call it later on in a poem9 magnificently exemplifying the point we are trying to make out the agent who negotiates, bridges and harmonises the two other firmaments usually supposed to be antagonistic and incompatible.
Indeed it would be wrong to associate any cold ascetic nudity to the spiritual body of Sri Aurobindo. His poetry is philosophic, abstract, no doubt, but every philosophy has its practice, every abstract thing its concrete application,even as the soul has its body; and the fusion, not mere union, of the two is very characteristic in him. The deepest and unseizable flights of thought he knows how to clo the with a Kalidasian richness of imagery, or a Keatsean gusto of sensuousness:
--
my mind within grew holy, calm and still
Like the snow.
--
Sri Aurobindo: The Age of Sri Aurobindo mystic Poetry
01.02 - The Issue, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And on the bank of the mysterious flood
Peopled with well-loved forms now seen no more
--
As in a mystic and dynamic dance
A priestess of immaculate ecstasies
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:01.03 - mystic Poetry
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
--
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mystics mystic Poetry
mystic Poetry
I would like to make a distinction between mystic poetry and spiritual poetry. To equate mysticism and spirituality is not always happy or even correct. Thus, when Tagore sings:
Who comes along singing and steering his boat?
--
it is mysticism, mysticism inexcelsis. Even A.E.'s
I turn
--
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,
my body is God's happy living tool,
my spirit a vast sun of deathless light.3
or the more occult yet luminously vibrant lines:
--
The mystic tract beyond our waking thoughts,
A door parted, built in by Matters force,
--
When the Spirit speaks its own language in its own name, we have spiritual poetry. If, however, the Spirit speaksfrom choice or necessity-an alien language and manner, e.g., that of a profane consciousness, or of the consciousness of another domain, idealistic or philosophical or even occult, puts on or imitates spirit's language and manner, we have what we propose to call mystic poetry proper. When Samain sings of the body of the dancer:
Et Pannyre deviant fleur, flamme, papillon! ...
--
both so idealise, etherealize, almost spiritualise the earth and the flesh that they seem ostensibly only a vesture of something else behind, something mysterious and other-worldly, something other than, even just opposite to what they actually are or appear to be. That is the mystique of the senses which is a very characteristic feature of some of the best poetic inspirations of France. Baudelaire too, the Satanic poet, by the sheer intensity of sympathy and sincerity, pierces as it were into the soul of things and makes the ugly, the unclean, the diseased, the sordid throb and glow with an almost celestial light. Here is the Baudelairean manner:
Tout casss
--
It is not merely by addressing the beloved as your goddess that you can attain this mysticism; the Elizabethan did that in merry abundance,ad nauseam.A finer temper, a more delicate touch, a more subtle sensitiveness and a kind of artistic wizardry are necessary to tune the body into a rhythm of the spirit. The other line of mysticism is common enough, viz., to express the spirit in terms and rhythms of the flesh. Tagore did that liberally, the Vaishnava poets did nothing but that, the Song of Solomon is an exquisite example of that procedure. There is here, however, a difference in degrees which is an interesting feature worth noting. Thus in Tagore the reference to the spirit is evident, that is the major or central chord; the earthly and the sensuous are meant as the name and form, as the body to render concrete, living and vibrant, near and intimate what otherwise would perhaps be vague and abstract, afar, aloof. But this mundane or human appearance has a value in so far as it is a support, a pointer or symbol of the spiritual import. And the mysticism lies precisely in the play of the two, a hide-and-seek between them. On the other hand, as I said, the greater portion of Vaishnava poetry, like a precious and beautiful casket, no doubt, hides the spiritual import: not the pure significance but the sign and symbol are luxuriously elaborated, they are placed in the foreground in all magnificence: as if it was their very purpose to conceal the real meaning. When the Vaishnava poet says,
O love, what more shall I, shall Radha speak,
--
I have gazed upon beauty from my very birth
and yet my eyes
are not satiated; I have rested bosom upon bosom
--
of aeons and yet my heart is not soothed.. . .
they all give a very beautiful, a very poignant experience of love, but one does not know if it is love human or divine, if it is soul's love or mere bodily love.
--
Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse;
thou hast
ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with
one chain of thy neck.. . .
one can explain that it is the Christ calling the Church or God appealing to the human soul or one can simply find in it nothing more than a man pining for his woman. Anyhow I would not call it spiritual poetry or even mystic poetry. For in itself it does not carry any double or oblique meaning, there is no suggestion that it is applicable to other fields or domains of consciousness: it is, as it were, monovalent. An allegory is never mysticism. There is more mysticism in Wordsworth, even in Shelley and Keats, than in Spenser, for example, who stands in this respect on the same ground as Bunyan in his The Pilgrim's Progress. Take Wordsworth as a Nature-worshipper,
Breaking the silence of the seas
--
I do not know if this is not mysticism, what else is. Neither is religious poetry true mysticism (or true spirituality). I find more mysticism in
Come, let us run
--
I held my breath and from a world of din
Solitarily I sat apart
--
Among the ancients, strictly speaking, the later classical Lucretius was a remarkable phenomenon. By nature he was a poet, but his mental interest lay in metaphysical speculation, in philosophy, and unpoetical business. He turned away from arms and heroes, wrath and love and, like Seneca and Aurelius, gave himself up to moralising and philosophising, delving 'into the mystery, the why and the how and the whither of it all. He chose a dangerous subject for his poetic inspiration and yet it cannot be said that his attempt was a failure. Lucretius was not a religious or spiritual poet; he was rather Marxian,atheistic, materialistic. The dialectical materialism of today could find in him a lot of nourishment and support. But whatever the content, the manner has made a whole difference. There was an idealism, a clarity of vision and an intensity of perception, which however scientific apparently, gave his creation a note, an accent, an atmosphere high, tense, aloof, ascetic, at times bordering on the supra-sensual. It was a high light, a force of consciousness that at its highest pitch had the ring and vibration of something almost spiritual. For the basic principle of Lucretius' inspiration is a large thought-force, a tense perception, a taut nervous reactionit is not, of course, the identity in being with the inner realities which is the hallmark of a spiritual consciousness, yet it is something on the way towards that.
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, almost 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.
--
The religious, the mystic or the spiritual man was, in the past, more or Jess methodically and absolutely non-intellectual and anti-intellectual: but the modern age, the age of scientific culture, is tending to make him as strongly intellectual: he has to explain, not only present the object but show up its mechanism alsoexplain to himself so that he may have a total understanding and a firmer grasp of the thing which he presents and explains to others as well who demand a similar approach. He feels the necessity of explaining, giving the rationality the rationale the science, of his art; for without that, it appears to him, a solid ground is not given to the structure of his experience: analytic power, preoccupation with methodology seems inherent in the modern creative consciousness.
The philosophical trend in poetry has an interesting history with a significant role: it has acted as a force of purification, of sublimation, of katharsis. As man has risen from his exclusively or predominantly vital nature into an increasing mental poise, in the same way his creative activities too have taken this new turn and status. In the earlier stages of evolution the mental life is secondary, subordinate to the physico-vital life; it is only subsequently that the mental finds an independent and self-sufficient reality. A similar movement is reflected in poetic and artistic creation too: the thinker, the philosopher remains in the background at the outset, he looks out; peers through chinks and holes from time to time; later he comes to the forefront, assumes a major role in man's creative activity.
Man's consciousness is further to rise from the mental to over-mental regions. Accordingly, his life and activities and along with that his artistic creations too will take on a new tone and rhythm, a new mould and constitution even. For this transition, the higher mentalwhich is normally the field of philosophical and idealistic activitiesserves as the Paraclete, the Intercessor; it takes up the lower functionings of the consciousness, which are intense in their own way, but narrow and turbid, and gives, by purifying and enlarging, a wider frame, a more luminous pattern, a more subtly articulated , form for the higher, vaster and deeper realities, truths and harmonies to express and manifest. In the old-world spiritual and mystic poets, this intervening medium was overlooked for evident reasons, for human reason or even intelligence is a double-edged instrument, it can make as well as mar, it has a light that most often and naturally shuts off other higher lights beyond it. So it was bypassed, some kind of direct and immediate contact was sought to be established between the normal and the transcendental. The result was, as I have pointed out, a pure spiritual poetry, on the one hand, as in the Upanishads, or, on the other, religious poetry of various grades and denominations that spoke of the spiritual but in the terms and in the manner of the mundane, at least very much coloured and dominated by the latter. Vyasa was the great legendary figure in India who, as is shown in his Mahabharata, seems to have been one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer, to forge and build the missing link of Thought Power. The exemplar of the manner is the Gita. Valmiki's represented a more ancient and primary inspiration, of a vast vital sensibility, something of the kind that was at the basis of Homer's genius. In Greece it was Socrates who initiated the movement of speculative philosophy and the emphasis of intellectual power slowly began to find expression in the later poets, Sophocles and Euripides. But all these were very simple beginnings. The moderns go in for something more radical and totalitarian. The rationalising element instead of being an additional or subordinate or contri buting factor, must itself give its norm and form, its own substance and manner to the creative activity. Such is the present-day demand.
The earliest preoccupation of man was religious; even when he concerned himself with the world and worldly things, he referred all that to the other world, thought of gods and goddesses, of after-death and other where. That also will be his last and ultimate preoccupation though in a somewhat different way, when he has passed through a process of purification and growth, a "sea-change". For although religion is an aspiration towards the truth and reality beyond or behind the world, it is married too much to man's actual worldly nature and carries always with it the shadow of profanity.
The religious poet seeks to tone down or cover up the mundane taint, since he does not know how to transcend it totally, in two ways: (1) by a strong thought-element, the metaphysical way, as it may be called and (2) by a strong symbolism, the occult way. Donne takes to the first course, Blake the second. And it is the alche my brought to bear in either of these processes that transforms the merely religious into the mystic poet. The truly spiritual, as I have said, is still a higher grade of consciousness: what I call Spirit's own poetry has its own matter and mannerswabhava and swadharma. A nearest approach to it is echoed in those famous lines of Blake:
To see a World in a grain of Sand,
--
Suffuse my mood with a familiar glow.
For 'tis with mouth of clay I supplicate:
--
This, I say, is something different from the religious and even from the mystic. It is away from the merely religious, because it is naked of the vesture of humanity (in spite of a human face that masks it at times) ; it is something more than the merely mystic, for it does not stop being a signpost or an indication to the Beyond, but is itself the presence and embodiment of the Beyond. The mystic gives us, we can say, the magic of the Infinite; what I term the spiritual, the spiritual proper, gives in addition the logic of the Infinite. At least this is what distinguishes modern spiritual consciousness from the ancient, that is, Upanishadic spiritual consciousness. The Upanishad gives expression to the spiritual consciousness in its original and pristine purity and perfection, in its essential simplicity. It did not buttress itself with any logic. It is the record of fundamental experiences and there was no question of any logical exposition. But, as I have said, the modern mind requires and demands a logical element in its perceptions and presentations. Also it must needs be a different kind of logic that can satisfy and satisfy wholly the deeper and subtler movements of a modern consciousness. For the philosophical poet of an earlier age, when he had recourse to logic, it was the logic of the finite that always gave him the frame, unless he threw the whole thing overboard and leaped straight into the occult, the illogical and the a logical, like Blake, for instance. Let me illustrate and compare a little. When the older poet explains indriyani hayan ahuh, it is an allegory he resorts to, it is the logic of the finite he marshals to point to the infinite and the beyond. The stress of reason is apparent and effective too, but the pattern is what we are normally familiar with the movement, we can say, is almost Aristotelian in its rigour. Now let us turn to the following:
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme. ||26.15||
--
This is what I was trying to make out as the distinguishing trait of the real spiritual consciousness that seems to be developing in the poetic creation of tomorrow, e.g., it has the same rationality, clarity, concreteness of perception as the scientific spirit has in its own domain and still it is rounded off with a halo of magic and miracle. That is the nature of the logic of the infinite proper to the spiritual consciousness. We can have a Science of the Spirit as well as a Science of Matter. This is the Thought element or what corresponds to it, of which I was speaking, the philosophical factor, that which gives form to the formless or definition to that which is vague, a nearness and familiarity to that which is far and alien. The fullness of the spiritual consciousness means such a thing, the presentation of a divine name and form. And this distinguishes it from the mystic consciousness which is not the supreme solar consciousness but the nearest approach to it. Or, perhaps, the mystic dwells in the domain of the Divine, he may even be suffused with a sense of unity but would not like to acquire the Divine's nature and function. Normally and generally he embodies all the aspiration and yearning moved by intimations and suggestions belonging to the human mentality, the divine urge retaining still the human flavour. We can say also, using a Vedantic terminology, that the mystic consciousness gives us the tatastha lakshana, the nearest approximative attri bute of the attri buteless; or otherwise, it is the hiranyagarbha consciousness which englobes the multiple play, the coruscated possibilities of the Reality: while the spiritual proper may be considered as prajghana, the solid mass, the essential lineaments of revelatory knowledge, the typal "wave-particles" of the Reality. In the former there is a play of imagination, even of fancy, a decorative aesthesis, while in the latter it is vision pure and simple. If the spiritual poetry is solar in its nature, we can say, by extending the analogy, that mystic poetry is characteristically lunarMoon representing the delight and the magic that Mind and mental imagination, suffused, no doubt, with a light or a reflection of some light from beyond, is capable of (the Upanishad speaks of the Moon being born of the Mind).
To sum up and recapitulate. The evolution of the poetic expression in man has ever been an attempt at a return and a progressive approach to the spiritual source of poetic inspiration, which was also the original, though somewhat veiled, source from the very beginning. The movement has followed devious waysstrongly negative at timeseven like man's life and consciousness in general of which it is an organic member; but the ultimate end and drift seems to have been always that ideal and principle even when fallen on evil days and evil tongues. The poet's ideal in the dawn of the world was, as the Vedic Rishi sang, to raise things of beauty in heaven by his poetic power,kavi kavitv divi rpam sajat. Even a Satanic poet, the inaugurator, in a way, of modernism and modernistic consciousness, Charles Baudelaire, thus admonishes his spirit:
--
Poetry, actually however, has been, by and large, a profane and mundane affair: for it expresses the normal man's perceptions and feelings and experiences, human loves and hates and desires and ambitions. True. And yet there has also always been an attempt, a tendency to deal with them in such a way as can bring calm and puritykatharsisnot trouble and confusion. That has been the purpose of all Art from the ancient days. Besides, there has been a growth and development in the historic process of this katharsis. As by the sublimation of his bodily and vital instincts and impulses., man is gradually growing into the mental, moral and finally spiritual consciousness, even so the artistic expression of his creative activity has followed a similar line of transformation. The first and original transformation happened with religious poetry. The religious, one may say, is the profane inside out; that is to say, the religious man has almost the same tone and temper, the same urges and passions, only turned Godward. Religious poetry too marks a new turn and development of human speech, in taking the name of God human tongue acquires a new plasticity and flavour that transform or give a new modulation even to things profane and mundane it speaks of. Religious means at bottom the colouring of mental and moral idealism. A parallel process of katharsis is found in another class of poetic creation, viz., the allegory. Allegory or parable is the stage when the higher and inner realities are expressed wholly in the modes and manner, in the form and character of the normal and external, when moral, religious or spiritual truths are expressed in the terms and figures of the profane life. The higher or the inner ideal is like a loose clothing upon the ordinary consciousness, it does not fit closely or fuse. In the religious, however, the first step is taken for a mingling and fusion. The mystic is the beginning of a real fusion and a considerable ascension of the lower into the higher. The philosopher poet follows another line for the same katharsisinstead of uplifting emotions and sensibility, he proceeds by thought-power, by the ideas and principles that lie behind all movements and give a pattern to all things existing. The mystic can be of either type, the religious mystic or the philosopher mystic, although often the two are welded together and cannot be very well separated. Let us illustrate a little:
The spacious firmament on high,
--
The same religious spirit seems to climb a little higher still stretching towards the mystic vein in Donne,
my heart is by dejection, clay,
And by self-murder, red.
--
The allegorical element too finds here cleverly woven into the mystically religious texture. Here is another example of the mystically religious temper from Donne:
For though through many streights, and lands I roame,
--
The same poet is at once religious and mystic find philosophical in these lines, for example:
That All, which always is All every where,
--
Blake's powerfully pregnant lines are mystically philosophic:
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
--
Blake had this wonderful gift of transmuting the baser metal of mundane experience into the gold of a deep mystic and spiritual experience:
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!26
An allegorical structure has been transfused into a living and burning symbolism of an inner world.
But all that is left far behind, when we hear a new voice announcing an altogether new manner, revelatory of the truly and supremely spiritual consciousness, not simply mystic or religious but magically occult and carved out of the highest if recondite philosophia:
A finite movement of the Infinite
--
Sri Aurobindo: Radhas Appeal in Songs to mytrilla.
"The Solitary Reaper".
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It might be said, however, that the guarantee or sanction of Reason does not lie in the extent of its application, nor can its subjective nature (or ego-centric predication, as philosophers would term it) vitiate the validity of its conclusions. There is, in fact, an inherent unity and harmony between Reason and Reality. If we know a little of Reality, we know the whole; if we know the subjective, we know also the objective. As in the part, so in the whole; as it is within, so it is without. If you say that I will die, you need not wait for my actual death to have the proof of your statement. The generalising power inherent in Reason is the guarantee of the certitude to which it leads. Reason is valid, as it does not betray us. If it were such as anti-intellectuals make it out to be, we would be making nothing but false steps, would always remain entangled in contradictions. The very success of Reason is proof of its being a reliable and perfect instrument for the knowledge of Truth and Reality. It is beside the mark to prove otherwise, simply by analysing the nature of Reason and showing the fundamental deficiencies of that nature. It is rather to the credit of Reason that being as it is, it is none the less a successful and trustworthy agent.
Now the question is, does Reason never fail? Is it such a perfect instrument as intellectualists think it to be? There is ground for serious misgivings. Reason says, for example, that the earth revolves round the sun: and reason, it is argued, is right, for we see that all the facts are conformableto it, even facts that were hitherto unknown and are now coming into our ken. But the difficulty is that Reason did not say that always in the past and may not say that always in the future. The old astronomers could explain the universe by holding quite a contrary theory and could fit into it all their astronomical data. A future scientist may come and explain the matter in quite a different way from either. It is only a choice of workable theories that Reason seems to offer; we do not know the fact itself, apart perhaps from exactly the amount that immediate sense-perception gives to each of us. Or again, if we take an example of another category, we may ask, does God exist? A candid Rationalist would say that he does not know although he has his own opinion about the matter. Evidently, Reason cannot solve all the problems that it meets; it can judge only truths that are of a certain type.
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Protagonist of the mysterious play
In which the Unknown pursues himself through forms
--
Initiate of his own veiled mysteries,
Hides in a small dumb seed his cosmic thought.
--
A mystery of married Earth and Heaven
Annexed divinity to the mortal scheme.
--
The mystic tract beyond our waking thoughts,
A door parted, built in by Matter's force,
--
He lived in the mystic space where thought is born
And will is nursed by an ethereal Power
--
Its search for the mystic meaning of its birth
And joy of high spiritual response,
--
The illusion and mystery of the Inconscient
In whose black pall the Eternal wraps his head
--
A transfiguration in the mystic depths,
A happier cosmic working could begin
--
Rained from the all-powerful mystery above.
Thence stooped the eagles of Omniscience.
--
She pierced the guarded mysteries of World-Force
And her magic methods wrapped in a thousand veils;
--
The inspired body of the mystic Truth.
A recorder of the inquiry of the gods,
01.03 - Yoga and the Ordinary Life, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are many ways of opening to this Divine consciousness or entering into it. my way which I show to others is by a constant practice to go inward into oneself, to open by aspiration to the Divine and once one is conscious of it and its action to give oneself to It entirely. This self-giving means not to ask for anything but the constant contact or union with the Divine Consciousness, to aspire for its peace, power, light and felicity, but to ask nothing else and in life and action to be its instrument only for whatever work it gives one to do in the world. If one can once open and feel the Divine Force, the
Power of the Spirit working in the mind and heart and body, the rest is a matter of remaining faithful to It, calling for it always, allowing it to do its work when it comes and rejecting every other and inferior Force that belongs to the lower consciousness and the lower nature.
01.04 - Motives for Seeking the Divine, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That involves something which throws all your reasoning out of gear. For these are aspects of the Divine Nature, powers of it, states of his being, - but the Divine Himself is something absolute, someone self-existent, not limited by his aspects, - wonderful and ineffable, not existing by them, but they existing because of him. It follows that if he attracts by his aspects, all the more he can attract by his very absolute selfness which is sweeter, mightier, profounder than any aspect. His peace, rapture, light, freedom, beauty are marvellous and ineffable, because he is himself magically, mysteriously, transcendently marvellous and ineffable. He can then be sought after for his wonderful and ineffable self and not only for the sake of one aspect or another of him. The only thing needed for that is, first, to arrive at a point when the psychic being feels this pull of the Divine in himself and, secondly, to arrive at the point when the mind, vital and each thing else begins to feel too that that was what it was wanting and the surface hunt after Ananda or what else was only an excuse for drawing the nature towards that supreme magnet.
Your argument that because we know the union with the
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Reason is insufficient and unsatisfactory because, as Bergson explains, it does not and cannot embrace life as a whole, seize man and the world in an integral realisation. The greater part of the vast mystery of existence escapes its envergure. Reason is that faculty which is for analysing, defining, classifying and fixing things. It is a power that has grown in man in order that he may best manipulate the things of the world. It is utilitarian, practical in its nature and outlook. And as practical dealing requires that things should be stable and separate entities, therefore Reason cannot but see things in solid and in the fragments of a solid. It cuts up existence into distinct parts and diverse elements; and these again it seeks to relate and aggregate, in accordance with what it calls "laws". Such a process has been necessary for man in conducting life and action successfully. Originally a bye-product of active life, Reason gradually separated itself and came finally to have an independent status and function, became or sought to become the instrument of knowledge, of Truth.
But although Reason has been and is useful for the practical, we may say almost, the manual aspect of life, life itself it leaves unexplained and uncomprehended. For life is mobility, a continuous flow that has nowhere any gap or stop and things have in reality no isolated or separate existence, they merge and mingle into one another and form an indissoluble whole. Therefore the forms and categories that Reason imposes upon existence are more or less arbitrary; they are shackles that seek to bind up and limit life, but are often rent asunder in the very effort. So the civilisation that has its origin in Reason and progresses with discoveries and inventionsdevices for artfully manipulating naturehas been essentially and pre-eminently mechanical in its structure and outlook. It has become more and more efficient perhaps, but less and less soul-inspired, less and less-endowed with the free-flowing sap of organic growth and vitality.
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
mystic Poetry Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mystics The Poetry in the Making
The Poetry in the Making
--
When we say one is conscious, we usually mean that one is conscious with the mental consciousness, with the rational intelligence, with the light of the brain. But this need not be always so. For one can be conscious with other forms of consciousness or in other planes of consciousness. In the average or normal man the consciousness is linked to or identified with the brain function, the rational intelligence and so we conclude that without this wakeful brain activity there can be no consciousness. But the fact is otherwise. The experiences of the mystic prove the point. The mystic is conscious on a level which we describe as higher than the mind and reason, he has what may be called the overhead consciousness. (Apart from the normal consciousness, which is named jagrat, waking, the Upanishad speaks of three other increasingly subtler states of consciousness, swapna, sushupti and turiya.)And then one can be quite unconscious, as in samadhi that can be sushupti or turiyaorpartially consciousin swapna, for example, the external behaviour may be like that of a child or a lunatic or even a goblin. One can also remain normally conscious and still be in the superconscience. Not only so, the mystic the Yogican be conscious on infraconscious levels also; that is to say, he can enter into and identify with the consciousness involved in life and even in Matter; he can feel and realise his oneness with the animal world, the plant world and finally the world of dead earth, of "stocks and stones" too. For all these strands of existence have each its own type of consciousness and all different from the mode of mind which is normally known as consciousness. When St. Francis addresses himself to the brother Sun or the sister Moon, or when the Upanishad speaks of the tree silhouetted against the sky, as if stilled in trance, we feel there is something of this fusion and identification of consciousness with an infra-conscient existence.
I said that the supreme artist is superconscious: his consciousness withdraws from the normal mental consciousness and becomes awake and alive in another order of consciousness. To that superior consciousness the artist's mentalityhis ideas and dispositions, his judgments and valuations and acquisitions, in other words, his normal psychological make-upserves as a channel, an instrument, a medium for transcription. Now, there are two stages, or rather two lines of activity in the processus, for they may be overlapping and practically simultaneous. First, there is the withdrawal and the in-gathering of consciousness and then its reappearance into expression. The consciousness retires into a secret or subtle worldWords-worth's "recollected in tranquillity"and comes back with the riches gathered or transmuted there. But the purity of the gold thus garnered and stalled in the artistry of words and sounds or lines and colours depends altogether upon the purity of the channel through which it has to pass. The mental vehicle receives and records and it can do so to perfection if it is perfectly in tune with what it has to receive and record; otherwise the transcription becomes mixed and blurred, a faint or confused echo, a poor show. The supreme creators are precisely those in whom the receptacle, the instrumental faculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute fidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety in the recording mentality, suffuses it with its own glow and puissance, indeed resolves it into its own substance, as it were. And the difference between the two, the secret norm and the recording form, determines the scale of the artist's creative value. It happens often that the obstruction of a too critically observant and self-conscious brain-mind successfully blocks up the flow of something supremely beautiful that wanted to come down and waited for an opportunity.
Artists themselves, almost invariably, speak of their inspiration: they look upon themselves more or less as mere instruments of something or some Power that is beyond them, beyond their normal consciousness attached to the brain-mind, that controls them and which they cannot control. This perception has been given shape in myths and legends. Goddess Saraswati or the Muses are, however, for them not a mere metaphor but concrete realities. To what extent a poet may feel himself to be a mere passive, almost inanimate, instrumentnothing more than a mirror or a sensitive photographic plateis illustrated in the famous case of Coleridge. His Kubla Khan, as is well known, he heard in sleep and it was a long poem very distinctly recited to him, but when he woke up and wanted to write it down he could remember only the opening lines, the rest having gone completely out of his memory; in other words, the poem was ready-composed somewhere else, but the transmitting or recording instrument was faulty and failed him. Indeed, it is a common experience to hear in sleep verses or musical tunes and what seem then to be very beautiful things, but which leave no trace on the brain and are not recalled in memory.
Still, it must be noted that Coleridge is a rare example, for the recording apparatus is not usually so faithful but puts up its own formations that disturb and alter the perfection of the original. The passivity or neutrality of the intermediary is relative, and there are infinite grades of it. Even when the larger waves that play in it in the normal waking state are quieted down, smaller ripples of unconscious or half-conscious habitual formations are thrown up and they are sufficient to cause the scattering and dispersal of the pure light from above.
--
Such a stage in human evolution, the advent of Homo Faber, has been a necessity; it has to serve a purpose and it has done admirably its work. Only we have to put it in its proper place. The salvation of an extremely self-conscious age lies in an exceeding and not in a further enhancement or an exclusive concentration of the self-consciousness, nor, of course, in a falling back into the original unconsciousness. It is this shift in the poise of consciousness that has been presaged and prepared by the conscious, the scientific artists of today. Their task is to forge an instrument for a type of poetic or artistic creation completely new, unfamiliar, almost revolutionary which the older mould would find it impossible to render adequately. The yearning of the human consciousness was not to rest satisfied with the familiar and the ordinary, the pressure was for the discovery of other strands, secret stores of truth and reality and beauty. The first discovery was that of the great Unconscious, the dark and mysterious and all-powerful subconscient. Many of our poets and artists have been influenced by this power, some even sought to enter into that region and become its denizens. But artistic inspiration is an emanation of Light; whatever may be the field of its play, it can have its origin only in the higher spheres, if it is to be truly beautiful and not merely curious and scientific.
That is what is wanted at present in the artistic world the true inspiration, the breath from higher altitudes. And here comes the role of the mystic, the Yogi. The sense of evolution, the march of human consciousness demands and prophesies that the future poet has to be a mysticin him will be fulfilled the travail of man's conscious working. The self-conscious craftsman, the tireless experimenter with his adventurous analytic mind has sharpened his instrument, made it supple and elastic, tempered, refined and enriched it; that is comparable to what we call the aspiration or call from below. Now the Grace must descend and fulfil. And when one rises into this higher consciousness beyond the brain and mind, when one lives there habitually, one knows the why and the how of things, one becomes a perfectly conscious operator and still retains all spontaneity and freshness and wonder and magic that are usually associated with inconscience and irreflection. As there is a spontaneity of instinct, there is likewise also a spontaneity of vision: a child is spontaneous in its movements, even so a seer. Not only so, the higher spontaneity is more spontaneous, for the higher consciousness means not only awareness but the free and untrammelled activity and expression of the truth and reality it is.
Genius had to be generally more or less unconscious in the past, because the instrument was not ready, was clogged as it were with its own lower grade movements; the higher inspiration had very often to bypass it, or rob it of its serviceable materials without its knowledge, in an almost clandestine way. Wherever it was awake and vigilant, we have seen it causing a diminution in the poetic potential. And yet even so, it was being prepared for a greater role, a higher destiny it is to fulfil in the future. A conscious and full participation of a refined and transparent and enriched instrument in the delivery of superconscious truth and beauty will surely mean not only a new but the very acme of aesthetic creation. We thus foresee the age of spiritual art in which the sense of creative beauty in man will find its culmination. Such an art was only an exception, something secondary or even tertiary, kept in the background, suggested here and there as a novel strain, called " mystic" to express its unfamiliar nature-unless, of course, it was openly and obviously scriptural and religious.
--
Like the modern scientist the artist or craftsman too of today has become a philosopher, even a mystic philosopher. The subtler and higher ranges of consciousness are now the object of inquiry and investigation and expression and revelation for the scientist as well as for the artist. The external sense-objects, the phenomenal movements are symbols and signposts, graphs and pointer-readings of facts and realities that lie hidden, behind or beyond. The artist and the scientist are occult alchemists. What to make of this, for example:
Beyond the shapes of empire, the capes of Carbonek, over
--
Well, it is sheer incantation. It is word-weaving, rhythm plaiting, thought-wringing in order to pass beyond these frail materials, to get into contact with, to give some sense of the mystery of existence that passeth understanding. We are very far indeed from the "natural" poets, Homer or Shakespeare, Milton, or Virgil. And this is from a profane, a mundane poet, not an ostensibly religious or spiritual poet. The level of the poetic inspiration, at least of the poetic view and aspiration has evidently shifted to a higher, a deeper degree. We may be speaking of tins and tinsel, bones and dust, filth and misery, of the underworld of ignorance and ugliness,
All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
--
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.
and he cries out:
--
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.2
But the more truly modern mind looks at the thing in a slightly different way. The good and the evil are not, to it, contrary to each other: one does not deny or negate the other. They are intermixed, fused in a mysterious identity. The best and the worst are but two conditions, two potentials of the same entity. Baudelaire, who can be considered as the first of the real moderns in many ways, saw and experienced this intimate polarity or identity of opposites in human nature and consciousness. What is Evil, who is the Evil One:
Une Ide, uneForme, Un tre
--
Par l'opration d'un mystrevengeur
Dans la brute assoupie un ange se rveille.4
--
An avenging mystery operating, out of the drowsy animal awakes an angel.
Heaven! it is the dark lid upon the huge cauldron in which the imperceptible and vast humanity is boiling. Les Fleurs du Mal.
--
mystic Poetry Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Sometimes the inexpressible mystery
Elects a human vessel of descent.
--
And the heart of the mystery of the journeying years.
10.29
But all is screened, subliminal, mystical;
It needs the intuitive heart, the inward turn,
--
The dark Inconscient's signless mysteries
Stand up unsolved behind Fate's starting-line.
--
In the phenomenon see its mystic source.
These heed not the deceiving outward play,
--
Two are the ends of the mysterious plan.
In the wide signless ether of the Self,
--
In the mystery of the deeps that God has built
For his abode below the Thinker's sight,
--
And makes of his myriad truths her countless dreams.
The Master of being has come down to her,
--
In the mystery of her cosmic ignorance,
In the insoluble riddle of her play,
--
Life and himself don the aspect of a myth,
The burden of a long unmeaning tale.
--
The outline of a dim mysterious shore.
A sailor on the Inconscient's fathomless sea,
--
Late will he know, opening the mystic script,
Whether to a blank port in the Unseen
--
And never can the mystic voyage cease
Till the nescient dusk is lifted from man's soul
--
Her play is real; a mystery he fulfils:
There is a plan in the Mother s deep world-whim,
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsRabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man
Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man
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In an age when Reason was considered as the highest light given to man, Tagore pointed to the Vision of the mystics as always the still greater light; when man was elated with undreamt-of worldly success, puffed up with incomparable material possessions and powers, Tagore's voice rang clear and emphatic in tune with the cry of the ancients: "What shall I do with all this mass of things, if I am not made immortal by that?" When men, in their individual as well as collective egoism, were scrambling for earthly gains and hoards, he held before them vaster and cleaner horizons, higher and deeper ways of being and living, maintained the sacred sense of human solidarity, the living consciousness of the Divine, one and indivisible. When the Gospel of Power had all but hypnotised men's minds, and Superman or God-man came to be equated with the Titan, Tagore saw through the falsehood and placed in front and above all the old-world eternal verities of love and self-giving, harmony and mutuality, sweetness and light. When pessimism, cynicism, agnosticism struck the major chord of human temperament, and grief and frustration and death and decay were taken as a matter of course to be the inevitable order of earthlylifebhasmantam idam shariramhe continued to sing the song of the Rishis that Ananda and Immortality are the breath of things, the birth right of human beings. When Modernism declared with a certitude never tobe contested that Matter is Brahman, Tagore said with the voice of one who knows that Spirit is Brahman.
Tagore is in direct line with those bards who have sung of the Spirit, who always soared high above the falsehoods and uglinesses of a merely mundane life and lived in the undecaying delights and beauties of a diviner consciousness. Spiritual reality was the central theme of his poetic creation: only and naturally he viewed it in a special way and endowed it with a special grace. We know of another God-intoxicated man, the Jewish philosopher Spinoza, who saw things sub specie aeternitatis, under the figure or mode of eternity. Well, Tagore can be said to see things, in their essential spiritual reality, under the figure or mode of beauty. Keats indeed spoke of truth being beauty and beauty truth. But there is a great difference in the outlook and inner experience. A worshipper of beauty, unless he rises to the Upanishadic norm, is prone to become sensuous and pagan. Keats was that, Kalidasa was that, even Shelley was not far different. The spiritual vein in all these poets remains secondary. In the old Indian master, it is part of his intellectual equipment, no doubt, but nothing much more than that. In the other two it comes in as strange flashes from an unknown country, as a sort of irruption or on the peak of the poetic afflatus or enthousiasmos.
--
Not the acceptance of the world as it is, not even a joyous acceptance, viewing it as an inexplicable and mysterious and magic play of, God, but the asp ration and endeavour to change it, mould it in the pattern of its inner divine realities for there are such realities which seek expression and embodiment in earthly life that is the great mission and labour of humanity and that is all the meaning of man's existence here below. And Tagore is one of the great prophets and labourers who had the vision of the shape of things to come and worked for it. Only it must be noted, as I have already said, that unlike mere moral reformists or scientific planners, Tagore grounded himself upon the eternal ancient truths that "age cannot wither nor custom stale"the divine truths of the Spirit.
Tagore was a poet; this poetic power of his he put in the service of the great cause for the divine uplift of humanity. Naturally, it goes without saying, his poetry did not preach or propagandize the truths for which he stoodhe had a fine and powerful weapon in his prose to do the work, even then in a poetic way but to sing them. And he sang them not in their philosophical bareness, like a Lucretius, or in their sheer transcendental austerity like some of the Upanishadic Rishis, but in and through human values and earthly norms. The especial aroma of Tagore's poetry lies exactly here, as he himself says, in the note of unboundedness in things bounded that it describes. A mundane, profane sensuousness, Kalidasian in richness and sweetness, is matched or counterpointed by a simple haunting note imbedded or trailing somewhere behind, a lyric cry persevering into eternity, the nostalgic cry of the still small voice.2
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He found the occult cave, the mystic door
Near to the well of vision in the soul,
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Are written in the mystic heart of Life.
In the glow of the spirit's room of memories
--
The mystery of God's covenant with the Night.
Once more was heard in the still cosmic Mind
--
A mystic Form that could contain the worlds,
Yet make one human breast its passionate shrine,
--
And opening hardly to hid mystic keys
Her perilous arcanes and hooded Powers
--
In her mystery's moods divorced from the Maker's laws
She too as sovereignly creates her field,
--
Within its chambers of mysterious trance:
It makes the body's sleep a puissant arm,
--
She brings the light of her mysterious realms:
Here where he stands, his feet on a prostrate world,
--
Fragments of the mystery of omnipotence.
\tA border sovereign is the occult Force.
--
Her reign received their mystic influences,
Their lion-forces crouched beneath her feet;
--
A court of the mystical traffic of the worlds,
A balcony and miraculous facade.
--
Its reflex of the eternal mystery.
Ascending and descending twixt life's poles
01.06 - Vivekananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsVivekananda
Vivekananda
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsBlaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
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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 atmosphere 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.
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsWalter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection
Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection
From the twentieth century back to the fourteenth is a far cry: a far cry indeed from the modern scientific illumination to mediaeval superstition, from logical positivists and mathematical rationalists to visionary mystics, from Russell and Huxley to Ruysbroeck and Hilton. The mystic lore, the Holy Writ, the mediaeval sage says, echoing almost the very words of the Eastern Masters, "may not be got by study nor through man's travail only, but principally by the grace of the Holy Ghost." As for the men living and moving in the worldly way, there are "so mickle din and crying in their heart and vain thoughts and fleshly desires" that it is impossible for them to listen or understand the still small voice. It is the pure soul touched by the Grace that alone "seeth soothfastness of Holy Writ wonderly shewed and opened, above study and travail and reason of man's kindly (i.e. natural) wit."
What is day to us is night to the mystics and what is day to the mystics is night for us. The first thing the mystic asks is to close precisely those doors and windows which we, on the contrary, feel obliged to keep always open in order to know and to live and move. The Gita says: "The sage is wakeful when it is night for all creatures and when all creatures are wakeful, that is night for the sage." Even so this sage from the West says: "The more I sleep from outward things, the more wakeful am I in knowing of Jhesu and of inward things. I may not wake to Jhesu, but if I sleep to the world."
Close the senses. Turn within. And then go forward, that is to say, more and more inward. In that direction lies your itinerary, the journey of your consciousness. The sense-ridden secular man, who goes by his physical eye, has marked in his own way the steps of his forward march and progress. His knowledge and his power grew as he proceeded in his survey from larger masses of physical objects to their component molecules and from molecules to their component atoms and from atoms once more into electrons and protons or energy-points pure and simple, or otherwise as, in another direction, he extended his gaze from earth to the solar system, from the solar system to other starry systems, to far-off galaxies and I from galaxies to spaces beyond. The record of this double-track march to infinityas perceived or conceived by the physical sensesis marvellous, no doubt. The mystic offers the spectacle of a still more marvellous march to another kind of infinity.
Here is the Augustinian mantra taken as the motto of The Scale of Perfection: We ascend the ascending grades in our heart and we sing the song of ascension1. The journey's end is heavenly Jerusalem, the House of the Lord. The steps of this inner ascension are easily visible, not surely to the outer eye of the sense-burdened man, but to the "ghostly seeing" of the aspirant which is hazy in the beginning but slowly clears as he advances. The first step is the withdrawal from the outer senses and looking and seeing within. "Turn home again in thyself, and hold thee within and beg no more without." The immediate result is a darkness and a restless darknessit is a painful night. The outer objects of attraction and interest have been discarded, but the inner attachments and passions surge there still. If, however, one continues and persists, refuses to be drawn out, the turmoil settles down and the darkness begins to thin and wear away. One must not lose heart, one must have patience and perseverance. So when the outward world is no more-there and its call also no longer awakes any echo in us, then comes the stage of "restful darkness" or "light-some darkness". But it is still the dark Night of the soul. The outer light is gone and the inner light is not yet visible: the night, the desert, the great Nought, stretches between these two lights. But the true seeker goes through and comes out of the tunnel. And there is happiness at the end. "The seeking is travaillous, but the finding is blissful." When one steps out of the Night, enters into the deepest layer of the being, one stands face to face to one's soul, the very image of God, the perfect God-man, the Christ within. That is the third degree of our inner ascension, the entry into the deepest, purest and happiest statein which one becomes what he truly is; one finds the Christ there and dwells in love and union with him. But there is still a further step to take, and that is real ascension. For till now it has been a going within, from the outward to the inner and the inmost; now one has to go upward, transcend. Within the body, in life, however deep you may go, even if you find your soul and your union with Jesus whose tabernacle is your soul, still there is bound to remain a shadow of the sinful prison-house; the perfect bliss and purity without any earthly taint, the completeness and the crowning of the purgation and transfiguration can come only when you go beyond, leaving altogether the earthly form and worldly vesture and soar into Heaven itself and be in the company of the Trinity. "Into myself, and after... above myself by overpassing only into Him." At the same time it is pointed out, this mediaeval mystic has the common sense to see that the going in and going above of which one speaks must not be understood in a literal way, it is a figure of speech. The movement of the mystic is psychological"ghostly", it is saidnot physical or carnal.
This spiritual march or progress can also be described as a growing into the likeness of the Lord. His true self, his own image is implanted within us; he is there in the profoundest depth of our being as Jesus, our beloved and our soul rests in him in utmost bliss. We are aware neither of Jesus nor of his spouse, our soul, because of the obsession of the flesh, the turmoil raised by the senses, the blindness of pride and egoism. All that constitutes the first or old Adam, the image of Nought, the body of death which means at bottom the "false misruled love in to thyself." This self-love is the mother of sin, is sin itself. What it has to be replaced by is charity that is the true meaning of Christian charity, forgetfulness of self. "What is sin but a wanting and a forbearing of God." And the whole task, the discipline consists in "the shaping of Christ in you, the casting of sin through Christ." Who then is Christ, what is he? This knowledge you get as you advance from your sense-bound perception towards the inner and inmost seeing. As your outer nature gets purified, you approach gradually your soul, the scales fall off from your eyes too and you have the knowledge and "ghostly vision." Here too there are three degrees; first, you start with faith the senses can do nothing better than have faith; next, you rise to imagination which gives a sort of indirect touch or inkling of the truth; finally, you have the "understanding", the direct vision. "If he first trow it, he shall afterwards through grace feel it, and finally understand it."
It is never possible for man, weak and bound as he is, to reject the thraldom of his flesh, he can never purify himself wholly by his own unaided strength. God in his infinite mercy sent his own son, an emanation created out of his substancehis embodied loveas a human being to suffer along with men and take upon himself the burden of their sins. God the Son lived upon earth as man and died as man. Sin therefore has no longer its final or definitive hold upon mankind. Man has been made potentially free, pure and worthy of salvation. This is the mystery of Christ, of God the Son. But there is a further mystery. Christ not only lived for all men for all time, whether they know him, recognise him or not; but he still lives, he still chooses his beloved and his beloved chooses him, there is a conscious acceptance on either side. This is the function of the Holy Ghost, the redeeming power of Love active in him who accepts it and who is accepted by it, the dynamic Christ-Consciousness in the true Christian.
Indeed, the kernel of the mystic discipline and its whole bearingconsists in one and only one principle: to love Jhesu. All roads lead to Rome: all preparations, all trials lead to one realisation, love of God, God as a living person close to us, our friend and lover and master. The Christian mystic speaks almost in the terms of the Gita: Rise above your senses, give up your ego-hood, be meek and humble, it is Jesus within you, who embraces your soul: it is he who does everything for you and in you, give yourself up wholly into his hands. He will deliver you.
The characteristic then of the path is a one-pointed concentration. Great stress is laid upon "oneliness", "onedness":that is to say, a perfect and complete withdrawal from the outside and the world; an unmixed solitude is required for the true experience and realisation to come. "A full forsaking in will of the soul for the love of Him, and a living of the heart to Him. This asks He, for this gave He." The rigorous exclusion, the uncompromising asceticism, the voluntary self-torture, the cruel dark night and the arid desert are necessary conditions that lead to the "onlyness of soul", what another prophet (Isaiah, XXIV, 16) describes as " my privity to me". In that secreted solitude, the "onlistead"the graphic language of the author calls itis found "that dignity and that ghostly fairness which a soul had by kind and shall have by grace." The utter beauty of the soul and its absolute love for her deity within her (which has the fair name of Jhesu), the exclusive concentration of the whole of the being upon one point, the divine core, the manifest Grace of God, justifies the annihilation of the world and life's manifold existence. Indeed, the image of the Beloved is always within, from the beginning to the end. It is that that keeps one up in the terrible struggle with one's nature and the world. The image depends upon the consciousness which we have at the moment, that is to say, upon the stage or the degree we have ascended to. At the outset, when we can only look through the senses, when the flesh is our master, we give the image a crude form and character; but even that helps. Gradually, as we rise, with the clearing of our nature, the image too slowly regains its original and true shape. Finally, in the inmost soul we find Jesus as he truly is: "an unchangeable being, a sovereign might, a sovereign soothfastness, sovereign goodness, a blessed life and endless bliss." Does not the Gita too say: "As one approaches Me, so do I appear to him."Ye yath mm prapadyante.
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 inmost 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 ene my? Because, it is said, the ene my 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 inmost 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 inmost 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 inmost 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.
The conception of original sin is a cardinal factor in Christian discipline. The conception, of sinfulness is the very motive-power that drives the aspirant. "Seek tensely," it is said, "sorrow and sigh deep, mourn still, and stoop low till thine eye water for anguish and for pain." Remorse and grief are necessary attendants; the way of the cross is naturally the calvary strewn with pain and sorrow. It is the very opposite of what is termed the "sunlit path" in spiritual ascension. Christian mystics have made a glorious spectacle of the process of "dying to the world." Evidently, all do not go the whole length. There are less gloo my and happier temperaments, like the present one, for example, who show an unusual balance, a sturdy common sense even in the midst of their darkest nights, who have chalked out as much of the sunlit path as is possible in this line. Thus this old-world mystic says: it is true one must see and admit one's sinfulness, the grosser and apparent and more violent ones as well as all the subtle varieties of it that are in you or rise up in you or come from the Ene my. They pursue you till the very end of your journey. Still you need not feel overwhelmed or completely desperate. Once you recognise the sin in you, even the bare fact of recognition means for you half the victory. The mystic says, "It is no sin as thou feelest them." The day Jesus gave himself away on the Cross, since that very day you are free, potentially free from the bondage of sin. Once you give your adherence to Him, the Enemies are rendered powerless. "They tease the soul, but they harm not the soul". Or again, as the mystic graphically phrases it: "This soul is not borne in this image of sin as a sick man, though he feel it; but he beareth it." The best way of dealing with one's enemies is not to struggle and "strive with them." The aspirant, the lover of Jesus, must remember: "He is through grace reformed to the likeness of God ('in the privy substance of his soul within') though he neither feel it nor see it."
If you are told you are still full of sins and you are not worthy to follow the path, that you must go and work out your sins first, here is your answer: "Go shrive thee better: trow not this saying, for it is false, for thou art shriven. Trust securely that thou art on the way, and thee needeth no ransacking of shrift for that that is passed, hold forth thy way and think on Jerusalem." That is to say, do not be too busy with the difficulties of the moment, but look ahead, as far as possible, fix your attention upon the goal, the intermediate steps will become easy. Jerusalem is another name of the Love of Jesus or the Bliss in Heaven. Grow in this love, your sins will fade away of themselves. "Though thou be thrust in an house with thy body, nevertheless in thine heart, where the stead of love is, thou shouldst be able to have part of that love... " What exquisite utterance, what a deep truth!
Indeed, there are one or two points, notes for the guidance of the aspirant, which I would like to mention here for their striking appositeness and simple "soothfastness." First of all with regard to the restless enthusiasm and eagerness of a novice, here is the advice given: "The fervour is so mickle in outward showing, is not only for mickleness of love that they have; but it is for littleness and weakness of their souls, that they may not bear a little touching of God.. afterward when love hath boiled out all the uncleanliness, then is the love clear and standeth still, and then is both the body and the soul mickle more in peace, and yet hath the self soul mickle more love than it had before, though it shew less outward." And again: "without any fervour outward shewed, and the less it thinketh that it loveth or seeth God, the nearer it nigheth" ('it' naturally refers to the soul). The statement is beautifully self-luminous, no explanation is required. Another hurdle that an aspirant has to face often in the passage through the Dark Night is that you are left all alone, that you are deserted by your God, that the Grace no longer favours you. Here is however the truth of the matter; "when I fall down to my frailty, then Grace withdraweth: for my falling is cause there-of, and not his fleeing." In fact, the Grace never withdraws, it is we who withdraw and think otherwise. One more difficulty that troubles the beginner especially is with regard to the false light. The being of darkness comes in the form of the angel of light, imitates the tone of the still small voice; how to recognise, how to distinguish the two? The false light, the "feigned sun" is always found "atwixt two black rainy clouds" : they are "highing" of oneself and "lowing" of others. When you feel flattered and elated, beware it is the siren voice tempting you. The true light brings you soothing peace and meekness: the other light brings always a trail of darknessf you are soothfast and sincere you will discover it if not near you, somewhere at a distance lurking.
The ultimate truth is that God is the sole doer and the best we can do is to let him do freely without let or hindrance. "He that through Grace may see Jhesu, how that He doth all and himself doth right nought but suffereth Jhesu work in him what him liketh, he is meek." And yet one does not arrive at that condition from the beginning or all at once. "The work is not of the hour nor of a day, but of many days and years." And for a long time one has to take up one's burden and work, co-operate with the Divine working. In the process there is this double movement necessary for the full achievement. "Neither Grace only without full working of a soul that in it is nor working done without grace bringeth a soul to reforming but that one joined to that other." mysticism is not all eccentricity and irrationality: on the contrary, sanity seems to be the very character of the higher mysticism. And it is this sanity, and even a happy sense of humour accompanying it, that makes the genuine mystic teacher say: "It is no mastery to me for to say it, but for to do it there is mastery." Amen.
Ascendimus ascensiones in corde et cantamus canticum graduum." Confessions of St. Augustine XIII. 9.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The inflatus of something vast and transcendent, something which escapes all our familiar schemes of cognisance and yet is insistent with a translucent reality of its own, we do feel sometimes within us invading and enveloping our individuality, lifting up our sense of self and transmuting our personality into a reality which can hardly be called merely human. All this life of ego-bound rationality then melts away and opens out the passage for a life of vision and power. Thus it is the poet has felt when he says, "there is this incalculable element in human life influencing us from the mystery which envelops our being, and when reason is satisfied, there is something deeper than Reason which makes us still uncertain of truth. Above the human reason there is a transcendental sphere to which the spirit of men sometimes rises, and the will may be forged there at a lordly smithy and made the unbreakable pivot."(A.E.)
This passage from the self-conscient to the super-conscient does not imply merely a shifting of the focus of consciousness. The transmutation of consciousness involves a purer illumination, a surer power and a wider compass; it involves also a fundamental change in the very mode of being and living. It gives quite a different life-intuition and a different life-power. The change in the motif brings about a new form altogether, a re-casting and re-shaping and re-energising of the external materials as well. As the lift from mere consciousness to self-consciousness meant all the difference between an animal and a man, so the lift again from self-consciousness to super-consciousness will mean the difference of a whole world between man and the divine creature that is to be.
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsWilliam Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
--
The earliest dream of humanity is also the last fulfilment. The Vedic Rishis sang of the marriage of heaven and earthHeaven is my father and this Earth my mother. And Blake and Nietzsche are fiery apostles of that dream and ideal in an age crippled with doubt, falsehood, smallness, crookedness, impotence, colossal ignorance.
We welcome voices that speak of this ancient tradition, this occult Knowledge of a high Future. Recently we have come across one aspirant in the line, and being a contemporary, his views and reviews in the matter will be all the more interesting to us.2 He is Gustave Thibon, a Frenchman-not a priest or even a religious man in the orthodox sense in any way, but a country farmer, a wholly self-educated laque. Of late he has attracted a good deal of attention from intellectuals as well as religious people, especially the Catholics, because of his remarkable conceptions which are so often unorthodox and yet so often ringing true with an old-world au thenticity.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
With my blessings.
13 October 1954
--
and regret my thoughts. But this kind of struggle keeps
on recurring. Please help me to get out of it.
--
gain a total victory. my help is always with you as well as my
blessings.
--
I want an electric lamp in the corridor of my room.
It would be more proper to write (and above all, to think):
--
bring myself to do it. What shall I do? Confess or let
past things be effaced by forgetting the past?
--
the story there are mysteries, and the trial is like the
mental acrobatics of a master gymnast. But each time I
--
that people will discover my ignorance. Why am I like
that? And how can I come out of it?
--
as was done before. That is my opinion.
The ceremony in itself is only of secondary importance. It is
--
Sri Aurobindo is my refuge.
ended only yesterday with Rani Lakshmibai.6 After that,
--
that Mother may be angry at my audacity in writing such
a letter. Because it is none of my business!
I read your letter and I was not at all angry. But Z was not at all
--
It is all right, my children, but it is not enough to pray; you must
also make a persevering effort.
--
Is it better to meditate there or here in my room?
Meditate where you meditate best - that is to say, wherever you
--
me. But I am advised to keep as much as I want for my
personal needs and to offer the rest to You. Otherwise
--
Each time I have encountered an obstacle in my
life, each time I have been deprived of some happiness
--
immediately to dispel my psychological pain. For something tells me: "All that happens is done for your own
good and is done by the Divine Grace." Is it good, is it
--
I have too much "grey" matter in my head, which
prevents me from thinking clearly and grasping new
ideas quickly. How can I free myself from this?
By studying much, by reflecting much, by doing intellectual exercises. For instance, state a general idea clearly, then state the
--
I caused a sensation with my new clothes! Blue
shorts and a grey shirt. X was shocked to see me dressed
--
upon earth to fulfil a mission? That is not my conception
- what are beggars and people like that doing?
--
Suddenly I feel very happy, my heart is filled with an
inexpressible joy, but this experience does not last very
--
I still lack confidence in my work. I am too shy.
I think that in order to progress one should be a little
--
To be sure of making myself clearly understood, I will add
that it is not due to any fault of hers that he is inconstant and
--
If I look at my whole life and its circumstances,
I am very happy, but I am not satisfied. Often I am
--
I am very irregular in my studies; I don't know what
to do.
--
but as soon as I open my eyes everything becomes normal
again. What should I do?
--
pull me out of the slumber and awaken my psychic
consciousness?
--
If you are sincere and scrupulously honest, my help is certainly with you and one day you will become aware of it.
22 July 1964
--
There are times when I feel like abandoning all my
activities - the Playground, band, studies, etc. - and
devoting all my time to work. But my logic does not
accept this. Where does this idea come from and why?
--
I put my question badly last time. I did not mean
the progress one has made, that is to say, the results of
--
There are moments when, in spite of myself, a little
black cloud of jealousy comes and upsets my activities
during my working hours. I dispel it immediately by
reasoning, but all the same its effect remains and makes
--
it won't be my turn some day!" I feel there is a force
behind all this. What is it?
--
I have a habit of blaming myself, of making myself
responsible for all misunderstandings; this is a weakness
--
creator, a pure artist, a poet par excellence! So I tell myself that my judgments, my appreciations are influenced
by my devotion for the Master - and not everyone is
Series Ten - To a Young Captain
--
have lost my sense of direction. Where exactly am I?
I would like to have an indication, a way to get out,
--
Should one keep silent and say, "It is none of my business", or should one try to point out the mistake to them?
Neither the one nor the other.
--
of judgment is. One must ask, "What is my judgment based on?
Do I have perfect knowledge? What in me is judging? Do I have
--
Or is this feeling I have only a reflection of my own
nature!
--
But I very often ask myself: "Why does Mother protect
me and keep me in such happiness, I who so little deserve
--
You told me to enter within, into the depths of my
heart, to find You seated there. But, Mother, I cannot
--
that my consciousness is flying around an impenetrable
fortress. What should I do to succeed in what You have
--
I ask myself whether I am practising yoga! But the
answer is not sure. Can You tell me where I am and how
--
There was a time when I used to see You often in my
dreams and sometimes I even saw Sri Aurobindo too. But
--
How should I prepare myself for the April 24th
Darshan?
--
Two days ago I was with You in my dream and You
spoke with me for quite a long time. I don't remember
--
I had asked my last question from the spiritual point
of view and from Your answer I conclude that the American action is not at all justifiable. But, Mother, isn't the
--
will do me good, etc., in spite of my insistence that I
no longer feel like going after having received Your first
--
arrangements. X arranges for my departure. But later
on, You reply to X that You have given me permission
because You learned from me that he approves of my
going there. Strange!
--
that You are not enthusiastic about my going. But why
all this complication? I don't know what X thinks of me,
--
like going. I WILL NOT GO. This is my final decision.
This famous chapter is closed.
--
so as to be able to benefit from my physical presence even at a
distance.
--
my "business" was - all I knew was that I had to concentrate on myself in order to perfect myself more and
more. Was that correct? Mother, what actually is my
"business"?
--
this idea comes back to my mind very often. Mother, is
this a narrowness of vision on my part, or what?
Knowledge of past lives is interesting for an understanding of
--
sad. I tell myself that it is not an ordinary illness, that
it is an experience leading towards physical transformation. But when I think of Your suffering body, I am
--
I have the impression that Your Force responds according to the intensity of our prayer. But my case seems
to be different. Or am I not conscious of my prayers?
Or is everything done for me, for my good, in spite of
myself?
01.10 - Nicholas Berdyaev: God Made Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsNicholas Berdyaev: God Made Human
Nicholas Berdyaev: God Made Human
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsAldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy
Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsGoe the
Goethe
--
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.
The Cosmic Rhythm
--
The total eradication of Evil from the world and human nature and the remoulding of a terrestrial life in the substance and pattern of the Highest Good that is beyond all dualities is a conception which it was not for Goe the to envisage. In the order of reality or existence, first there is the consciousness of division, of trenchant separation in which Good is equated with not-evil and evil with not-good. This is the outlook of individualised consciousness. Next, as the consciousness grows and envelops the whole existence, good and evil are both embraced and are found to form a secret and magic harmony. That is the universal or cosmic consciousness. And Goethe's genius seems to be an outflowering of something of this status of consciousness. But there is still a higher status, the status of transcendence in which evil is not simply embraced but dissolved and even transmuted into a supreme reality of which it is an aberration, a reflection or projection, a lower formulation. That is the mystery of a spiritual realisation to which Goe the aspired perhaps, but had not the necessary initiation to enter into.
***
01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
--
Indian wisdom has found this other, a fairer terma tertium quid,the mystic factor, sought for by so many philosophers on so many counts. That is the very well- known, the very familiar termDharma. What is Dharma then? How does it accomplish the miracle which to others seems to have proved an impossibility? Dharma is self-law, that is to say, the law of the Self; it is the rhythm and movement of our inner or inmost being, the spontaneous working out of our truth-conscious nature.
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 foremost. 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.
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsT. S. Eliot: Four Quartets
T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets
--
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.1
--
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
but what he adds is characteristic of the new outlook
--
It is the song of redemption, of salvation achieved, of Paradise regained. The full story of the purgatory, of man's calvary is beautifully hymned in these exquisite lines of a haunting poetic beauty married to a real mystic sense:
The dove descending breaks the air
--
my days have crackled and gone up in smoke,5
or,
--
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning. 8
There must be a beginning, an affirmation. The other side of nature is not merely transcended and excluded, it must be taken up too, given some place, its proper place in the totality, in the higher synthesis:
--
The Word was made flesh and the Word was made Poetry. To express the supreme Word in life, that is the work of the sage, the Rishi. To express the Word in speech, that is the labour of the Poet. Eliot undertook this double function of the poet and the sage and he found the task difficult. The poet has to utter the unutterable, if he is to clo the in words the mystic experience of the sage in him. That is Eliot's ambition:
.... Words, after speech, reach
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Poets and mysticsNicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How can my effort to serve the Divine become more
perfect?
--
May I try to make my nights conscious? I pray for
guidance.
--
Is my understanding correct?
This is one way of putting it. Mental definitions are never more
--
You give everything we need, but my capacity to receive
is very limited since it takes me a long time to assimilate
--
The Ashram was born a few years after my return from Japan,
in 1926.
--
The Lord told You: "One day thou wilt be my head but
for the moment turn thy gaze towards the earth."4
Sweet Mother, what does "thou wilt be my head"
mean?
--
When I want to be closer to You, I see that I must overcome my ego. But when I think of overcoming my ego,
I see that I must be closer to You. How can I solve this
--
brings me great joy, and when some part of my being
offers itself to You the joy I feel is greater still. But in
spite of this experience my whole being is not offered to
You. What stupidity! How can I change this?
--
Is it possible to make my hands conscious so that they
do nothing imperfect, incorrect or wrong? What is the
--
faults or weaknesses in myself, something tries to justify
them or to prevent me from attending to them.
--
I asked myself, "How can one express the inexpressible?" The reply came, "By living it, by becoming it, by
being it." What does the Mother say?
--
One thing escapes my understanding: how can You find
time to do all that You do? Perhaps physical time does
--
to awaken my body's aspiration towards You.
The cells of the body thirst for the Divine Consciousness and
--
By Your Grace, my body is now collaborating to get rid
of its laziness. That even the body has a will of its own
--
The day before yesterday, as I was arranging my vase for
You, I said to a flower, "Oh, you are going to Mother!"
--
Your Grace has brought them to my notice so that the
next step may be taken.
--
According to my experience, one should not try to destroy or
to eliminate. One should concentrate all one's effort on building up and strengthening the true consciousness, which will
--
This is the great mystery of creation: immutable and yet eternally
renewed.
--
the yogic way, the mystic way, no one has realised transformation."10
Can one hope that the sadhaks have now made good
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Each time I decide to work well, I see that my effort
does not last more than two days. What do You think I
--
I have seen that I am not able to force my physical
body to do a little better than my actual capacity. I would
like to know how I can force it. But, Sweet Mother, is it
--
At times I talk in my sleep. It is a sign that the mind
lacks control, isn't it? So what should I do to keep it
0.13 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have never discussed with my friends the question
of knowing why we are here on earth, but I have thought
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I aspire to consecrate my life to Your service.
24 December 1971
0 1951-09-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
O my sweet Lord
supreme Truth,
--
of my body
Your all-knowledge,
0 1952-08-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Only when it is no longer necessary for my body to resemble the bodies of men in order to make them progress will it be free to be supramentalized.1
***
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
There are other great Personalities of the 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 indispensable for the supramental realization,most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda1 which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone can heal the gulf between the highest heights of the supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of Matter, the Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divines Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe.
Sri Aurobindo, The Mother
--
my answer is ready.
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):
She has come, bringing with Her a splendor of power and love, an intensity of divine joy heretofore unknown to the Earth. The physical atmosphere has been completely changed by her descent, permeated with new and marvelous possibilities.
--
Before, when there were we started with 35 or 36 people but even when it got up to 150, even with 150it was as if they were all nestled in a cocoon in my consciousness: they were so near to me that I could constantly guide ALL their inner or outer movements. Day and night, at each moment, everything was totally under my control. And naturally, I think they made a great deal of progress at that time: it is a fact that I was CONSTANTLY doing the sadhana2 for them. But then, with this baby boom The sadhana cant be done for little sprouts who are 3 or 4 or 5 years old! Its out of the question. The only thing I can do is wrap them in the Consciousness and try to see that they grow up in the best of all possible conditions. However, the one advantage to all this is that instead of there being such a COMPLETE and PASSIVE dependence on the disciples part, each one has to make his own little effort. Truly, thats excellent.
I dont know to whom I was mentioning this today (I think it was for a Birthday3 No, I dont know now. It was to someone who told me he was 18 years old. I said that between the ages of 18 and 20, I had attained a constant and conscious union with the Divine Presence and that I had done this ALL ALONE, without ANYONES help, not even books. When a little later I chanced upon Vivekanandas Raja Yoga, it really seemed so wonderful to me that someone could explain something to me! And it helped me realize in only a few months what would have otherwise taken years.
--
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.
--
Well, thats what you have to do, my child. I have just told you.
(silence)
--
For Her, this body is but one instrument among so many others in an eternity of ages to come, and for Her its only importance is that attri buted to it by the Earth and mankind the extent to which it can be used as a channel to further Her manifestation. If I find myself surrounded by people who are incapable of receiving Her, then for Her, I am quite useless.
It is very clear. So it is not I who can make Her stay. And I certainly cannot ask Her to stay for egotistical reasons. Moreover, all these Aspects, all these Personalities manifest constantly but they never manifest for personal reason. Not one of them has ever thought of helping my bodybesides, I dont ask them to because that is not their purpose. But it is more than obvious that if the people around me were receptive, She could permanently manifest since they could receive Herand this would help my body enormously because all these vibrations would run through it. But She never gets even a chance to manifestnot a single one. She only meets people who dont even feel Her when Shes there! They dont even notice Her, theyre not even aware of her presence. So how can She manifest in these conditions? Im not going to ask Her, Please come and change my body. We dont have that kind of relationship! Furthermore, the body itself wouldnt agree. It never thinks of itself, it never pays attention to itself, and besides, it is only through the work that it can be transformed.
Yes, certainly had there been any receptivity when She came down and had She been able to manifest with the power with which She came But I can tell you one thing: even before Her coming, when, with Sri Aurobindo, I had begun going down (for the Yoga) from the mental plane to the vital plane, when we brought our yoga down from the mental plane into the vital plane, in less than a month (I was forty years old at the time I didnt seem very old, I looked less than forty, but I was forty anyway), after no more than a month of this yoga, I looked exactly like an 18 year old! And someone who knew me and had stayed with me in Japan5 came here, and when he saw me, he could scarcely believe his eyes! He said, But my god, is it you? I said, Of course!
Only when we went down from the vital plane into the physical plane, all this went awaybecause on the physical plane, the work is much harder and we had so much to do, so many things to change.
--
(Mother gets up to go, but while leaving, She says to the children around her:) If you had made just one little decision to try to feel your psychic being, my time would not have been wasted.
Ananda: Divine Joy.
0 1955-03-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I dont know what mud is stirring about in me, but everything is obscured, and I cannot dissociate myself from these vital waves.
Mother, without Mahakalis grace, I shall never be able to get out of this mechanical round, to shatter these old formations, ever the same, which keep coming back. Mother, I beg of you, help. me to BREAK this shell in which I am suffocating. Deliver me from myself, deliver me in spite of myself. Alone, I am helpless; sometimes I cannot even call you! May your force come and burn all my impurities, shatter my resistances.
Signed: Bernard2
0 1955-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I am not so absurdly pretentious as to blame the divine, nor yourself and I remain quite convinced that all this is my own fault. Undoubtedly I have not known how to surrender totally in some part of myself, or I do not aspire enough or know how to open myself as needed. Also, I should rely entirely upon the divine to take care of my progress and not be concerned about the absence of experiences. I have therefore asked myself why I am so far away from the true attitude, the genuine opening, and I see two main reasons: on the one hand, the difficulties inherent in my own nature, and on the other, the outer conditions of this sadhana. These conditions do not seem to be conducive to helping me overcome the difficulties in my own nature.
I feel that I am turning in circles and taking one step backward for each one forward. Furthermore, instead of helping me draw nearer to the divine consciousness, my work in the Ashram (the very fact of working for to change work, even if I felt like it, would not change the overall situation), diverts me from this divine consciousness, or at least keeps me in a superficial consciousness from which I am unable to unglue myself as long as I am busy writing letters, doing translations, corrections or classes.1 I know its my own fault, that I should know how to be detached from my work and do it by relying upon a deeper consciousness, but what can be done? Unless I receive the grace, I cannot remember the essential thing as long as the outer part of my being is active.
When I am not immediately engrossed in work, I have to confront a thousand little temptations and daily difficulties that come from my contact with other beings and a life that does indeed remain in life. Here, even more, there is the feeling of an impossible struggle, and all these little difficulties seem to gnaw away at me; scarcely has one hole been filled when another opens up, or the same one reappears, and there is never any real victoryone has constantly to begin everything again. Finally, it seems to me that I really live only one hour a day, during the evening distribution at the playground.2 It is scarcely a life and scarcely a sadhana!
Consequently, I understand much better now why in the traditional yogas one settled all these difficulties once and for all by escaping from the world, without bothering to transform a life that seems so untransformable.
I am not now going to renounce Sri Aurobindos Yoga, Mother, for my whole life is based upon it, but I believe I should employ other meanswhich is why I am writing you this letter.
By continuing this daily little ant-like struggle and by having to confront the same desires, the same distractions every day, it seems to me I am wasting my energy in vain. Sri Aurobindos Yoga, which is meant to include life, is so difficult that one should come to it only after having already established the solid base of a concrete divine realization. That is why I want to ask you if I should not withdraw for a certain time, to Almora,3 for example, to Brewsters place,4 to live in solitude, silence, meditation, far away from people, work and temptations, until a beginning of Light and Realization is concretized in me. Once this solid base is acquired, it would be easier for me to resume my work and the struggle here for the true transformation of the outer being. But to want to transform this outer being without having fully illumined the inner being seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse, or at least condemning myself to a pitiless and endless battle in which the best of my forces are fruitlessly consumed.
In all sincerity, I must say that when I was at Brewsters place in Almora, I felt very near to that state in which the Light must surge forth. I quite understand the imperfection of this process, which involves fleeing from difficulties, but this would only be a stage, a strategic retreat, as it were.
Mother, this is not a vital desire seeking to divert me from the sadhana, for my life has no other meaning than to seek the divine, but it seems to be the only solution that could bring about some progress and get me out of this lukewarm slump in which I have been living day after day. I cannot be satisfied living merely one hour a day, when I see you.
I know that you do not like to write, Mother, but couldnt you say in a few words if you approve of my project or what I should do? In spite of all my rebellions and discouragements and resistances, I am your child. O Mother, help me!
Signed: Bernard
--
my dear child,
No doubt it would be better to go to Almora for a whilenot for too long, I hope, for it is needless to say how much the work will be disrupted by this departure
--
my dear child,
You may go to Almora if you think it will help you break this shell of the outer consciousness, so obstinately impenetrable.
--
In any event, my blessings will always be with you to help you find, at long last, this inner Presence which alone gives joy and stability.
Signed: Mother
0 1955-06-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Mother, I cannot say that it is a nostalgia for the outside world that is drawing me backwards nor some attachment to a personal form of life, nor even some vital desire seeking its own satisfaction. That old world no longer attracts me, and I do not see at all what I would do there. Yet something is standing in my way.
If only I could see a distinct error blocking my path which I could clearly attack But I feel that I am not responsible, that it is not my personal fault if I remain without aspiration, stagnating. I feel like a battlefield of contending forces that are beyond me and against which I can do NOTHING. Oh Mother, it is not an excuse for a lack of will, or at least I dont think so I profoundly feel like a helpless toy, totally helpless.
If the divine force, if your grace, does not intervene to shatter this obscure resistance that is drawing me downwards in spite of myself, I dont know what will become of me Mother, I am not blackmailing you, I am only expressing my helplessness, my anguish.
During the day, I live more or less calmly in my little morass, but as evening and the moment to meet you draw near, then the forces pinning me to the ground begin raging beneath your pressure, and I feel at times an unbearable tearing that burns and constricts in my throat like tears that cannot be shed. Afterwards, Truth regains possession of me but the following day it all begins again.
Mother, it is an impossible, absurd, unlivable life. I feel as though I have no hand in this cruel little game. Oh Mother, why doesnt your grace trust that deep part in me which knows so well that you are the Truth? Deliver me from these evil forces since, profoundly, it is you and you alone I want. Give me the aspiration and strength I do not have. If you do not do this Yoga for me, I feel I shall never have the strength to go on.
--
my dear child,
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.
--
With my blessings.
Signed: Mother
0 1955-09-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Mother, it seems that for weeks I have been knocking against myself at every turn, as though I were in a prison, and I cannot get out of it. Mother, I need your Space, your Light, to get out of this walled-in night that is suffocating me.
No matter where I concentrate, in my heart, above my head, between my eyes, I bang everywhere into an unyielding wall; I no longer know which way to turn, what I must do, say, pray in order to be freed from all this at last. Mother, I know that I am not making all the effort I should, but help me to make this effort, I implore your grace. I need so much to find at last this solid rock upon which to lean, this space of light where finally I may seek refuge. Mother, open the psychic being in me, open me to your sole Light which I need so much. Without your grace, I can only turn in circles, hopelessly. O Mother, may I live in you.
Your child,
0 1955-09-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Mother suddenly everything seems to have crystallizedall the little revolts, the little tensions, the ill will and petty vital demandsforming a single block of open, determined resistance. I have become conscious that from the beginning of my sadhana, the mind has led the gamewith the psychic behind and has held me in leash, helped muzzle all contrary movements, but at no time, or only rarely, has the vital submitted or opened to the higher influence. The rare times when the vital participated, I felt a great progress. But now, I find myself in front of this solid mass that says No and is not at all convinced of what the mind has been imposing upon it for almost two years now.
Mother, I am sufficiently awakened not to rebel against your Light and to understand that the vital is but one part of my being, but I have come to the conclusion that the only way of convincing this vital is not to force or stifle it, but to let it go through its own experience so it may understand by itself that it cannot be satisfied in this way. I feel the need to leave the Ashram for a while to see how I can get along away from here and to realize, no doubt, that one can really brea the only here.
I have friends in Bangalore whom I would like to join for two or three weeks, perhaps more, perhaps less, however long it may take to confront this vital with its own freedom. I need a vital activity, to move, to sail, for example, to have friends etc. The need I am feeling is exactly that which I sought to satisfy in the past through my long boat journeys along the coast of Brittany. It is a kind of thirst for space and movement.
Otherwise, Mother, there is this block before me that is obscuring all the rest and taking away my taste for everything. I would like to leave, Mother, but not in revolt; may it be an experience to go through that receives your approval. I would not like to be cut off from you by your displeasure or your condemnation, for this would seem to me terrible and leave me no other recourse but to plunge into the worst excesses in order to forget.
Mother, I would like you to forgive me, to understand me and, above all, not to deprive me of your Love. I would like you to tell me if I may leave for a few weeks and how you feel about it. It seems to me that I am profoundly your child, in spite of all this??
0 1956-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Mother, two months ago I had a clear mental perception of what was asked of me: to spend the rest of my life here. This is the source of my difficulties and of the inner hell I have been living through ever since. Each time I try to emerge, there is this image that rises up in me: your-whole-life and this casts me into a violent conflict. When I came here, I thought of staying for two or three years; for me the Ashram was a means of realization, not an end.
I understand now that as long as my whole being has not ACCEPTED that it must finish its life here, there is no way out nor any recovery possible. Through my mental force alone, this acceptance is impossible; I have been turning infernally in circles these past two months, and the mind is in league with the vital. Therefore, a force greater than mine must help me accept that my way is here. I need you, Mother, for without you I am lost. I need you to tell me that the Truth of my being is indeed here and that I am truly ready to follow this path. Mother, I beseech you, help me to see the truth of my being, give me some sign that my way is here and not elsewhere. I beg of you, Mother, help me to know.
I also had a very clear sensation that you were abandoning me, that you had no further interest in me and I could just as well do as I pleased. Perhaps you cannot forgive some of my inner rebellions which have been so very violent? Am I totally guilty? Is it true that you are abandoning me?
I am broken and battered in the depths of my being as I was in my flesh in the concentration camps. Will the divine grace take pity on me? Can you, do you want to help me? Alone I can do nothing. I am in an absolute solitude, even beyond all rebellion, at my very end.
Yet I love you in spite of all that I am.
--
my child, I have not abandoned you, and I am ready to forget, to efface all revolt.
my help is always with you.
Signed: Mother
0 1956-04-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
The difficulties of the past weeks have taught me that as soon as one strays from the true consciousness, in however trifling a way, anything may happen, any excess, any aberration, any imbalance and I have felt very dangerous things prowling about me. Mother, you told me in regard to Patrick1 that the law of the manifestation was a law of freedom, even the freedom to choose wrongly. This evening, it has been my very deep perception that this freedom is virtually always a freedom to choose wrongly. I harbor a great fear of losing the true consciousness once again. I have become aware of how fragile everything in me is and that very little would be enough to carry me away.
Therefore, Sweet Mother, I come to ask a great grace of you, from the depths of my heart: take my freedom into your hands. Prevent me from falling back, far away from you. I place this freedom in your hands. Keep me safe, Mother, protect me. Grant me the grace of watching over me and of taking me in your hands completely, like a child whose steps are unsure. I no longer want this Freedom. It is you I want, the Truth of my being. Mother, as a grace, I implore you to free me from my freedom to choose wrongly.
I am your child and I love you.
--
my dear child,
Agreedwith all my heart I accept the gift you give me of your freedom to choose wrongly And it is with all my heart, too, that I shall always help you make the choice that leads straight to the goal that is, towards your real self.
With all my affection and my blessings.
Signed: Mother
0 1956-05-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I dont care what words you use. I do not essentially insist upon my words, but I explain them to you, and its better to agree on words beforehand, for otherwise theres no end to explanations.
But now, you may reply to those people who are asking these insidious questions that the best way to receive anything whatsoever is not to pull, but to give. If they want to give themselves to the new life, well, the new life will enter into them.
0 1956-08-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
my Lord, through me thou hast challenged the world and all the adverse forces have risen in protest.1
But Thy Grace is winning the victory.
0 1956-09-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Something a little taller than myself: its feet extended below my feet and its head went a little beyond my head.
A solid block with a rectangular basea rectangle with a square baseone single piece.
--
And it was denser than my physical body: the physical body seemed to me almost unrealas though crumblylike sand running through your fingers.
I would have been incapable of speaking, words seemed so petty, narrow, ignorant.
--
And it radiated from me: myriads of little sparks that were penetrating everybody I saw them enter into each one of those present.
One more step.
0 1956-09-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
my friends keep telling me that I am not ready and that, like R,1 whom they knew, I should go and spend some time in society. They say that my idea of going to the Himalayas is absurd, and they advise me to return to Brazil for a few years to stay with W W is an elderly American millionaire the only good rich man I knowwho wanted to make me an heir, as it were, to his financial affairs and who treats me rather like a son. He was quite disappointed when I came back to India. my friends tell me that if I have to go through a period in the outside world, the best way to do it is to remain near someone who is fond of me, while at the same time ensuring a material independence for the future.
These questions of money do not interest me. In fact, nothing interests me except this something I feel within me. The only question for me is to know whether I am truly ready for the Yoga, or if my failings are not the sign of some immaturity. Mother, you alone can tell me what is right.
I feel a bit lost, cut off from you. The idea of going to the Himalayas is absurd and I am abandoning it. my friends tell me that I may remain with them as long as I wish, but this is hardly a solution; I dont even feel like writing a book any longernothing seems to appeal to me except the trees in this garden and the music that fills a large part of my days. There is no solution other than the Ashram or Brazil. You alone can tell me what to do.
I KNOW that ultimately my place is near you, but is that my place at present, after all these failings? Spontaneously, it is you I want, you alone who represent the light and all that is real in this world; I can love no one but you nor be interested in anything but this thing within me, but will it not all begin again once I have returned to the Ashram? You alone know the stage I am at, what is good for me, what is possible.
Sweet Mother, may I still ask for your Love, your help? For without your help, nothing is possible, and without your love, nothing has any meaning.
I feel that I am your child in spite of all my contradictions and failings. I love you.
Signed: Bernard
--
my dear child,
For my part, there has been no cut and I have not been severe my feelings cannot change, for they are based upon something other than outer circumstances.
But perhaps you have felt this way because you had left your work in the Ashram for an entirely personal, that is, necessarily egoistical reason, and egoism always isolates one from the great current of universal forces. That is why, too, you no longer clearly perceive my love and my help which nevertheless are always with you.
You asked me what I see and whether your difficulties will not reappear upon your return to the Ashram. It may well be. If you return as you still are at present, it may be that after a very short period it will all begin again. That is why I am going to propose something to you but to accept it you will have to be heroic and very determined in your consecration to my work.
This possibility appeared to me while reading what you wrote about your sojourn in Brazil with W, the only good rich man you have known. Here is my proposal, which I express to you quite plainly, spontaneously, as it presented itself to me.
Just now, the work is being delayed, curtailed, limited, almost endangered for want of money.
--
All my affection is with you, and my blessings never leave you.
Signed: Mother
0 1956-10-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
It was because I hadnt thought of it. It hadnt even grazed my consciousness. The divine will is not at all like that, it is not a will: it is a VISION, a global vision, that sees and No, it does not guide (to guide suggests something outside, but nothing is outside), a creative vision, as it were; yet even then, the word create does not here have the meaning we generally attri bute to it.
And what is the Ashram? (I dont even mean in terms of the Universeon Earth only.) A speck. And why should this speck receive exceptional treatment? Perhaps if people here had realized the supermind. But are they so exceptional as to expect exceptional treatment?
--
I used to be different (although I was said to be non-interfering); I acted, if at all, to defend myself But I understood very quickly that even this was a reaction of ignorance and that things would be set right automatically if one remained in the true consciousness.
A consciousness that sees and makes you see.
Which is why things go amiss when people try to force me to act: I am outside of myself, so to speak. As soon as I come back here, with no one around, then I see.
I have called for a greater package of Grace and asked that the truth of things prevail. We shall see what happens.
0 1956-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Then I wondered when and how I am at the height of myself. And this is what I saw:
Two things which were parallel and concomitant that is, they are always together:
--
And the moment I perceived this, I saw that my third attitude in action, which is the will for progress for the whole earth as well as for each particular individual, was not the height of my being.
***
--
When I am at my highest, I am already too high for the manifestation.
I have gone far beyond what I wrote this morning.
--
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
Sweet Mother, my birthday is the day after tomorrow, the 30th. I come to place my inner situation before you so that you may help me take a decision.
I am facing the same difficulties as before my departure to Hyderabad, and I have made the same mistakes. The main reason for this state is that, on the one hand, words and ideas seem to have lost all power over me, and on the other, the vital elan which led me thus far is dead. So upon what shall my faith rest? I still have some faith, of course, but it has become totally ABSTRACT. The vital does not cooperate, so I feel all withered, suspended in a void, nothing seems to give me direction anymore. There is no rebelliousness in me, but rather a void.
In this state, I am ceaselessly thinking of my forest in Guiana or of my travels through Africa and the ardor that filled me with life in those days. I seem to need to have my goal before me and to walk towards it. Outer difficulties also seem to help me resolve my inner problems: there is a kind of need in me for the elements the sea, the forest, the desert for a milieu with which I can wrestle and through which I can grow. Here, I seem to lack a dynamic point of leverage. Here, in the everyday routine, everything seems to be falling apart in me. Should I not return to my forest in Guiana?
Mother, I implore you, in the name of whatever led me to you in the first place, give me the strength to do WHAT HAS TO BE DONE. You who see and who can, decide for me. You are my Mother. Whatever my shortcomings, my difficulties, I feel I am so deeply your child.
Signed: Bernard
0 1956-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
For weeks on end, I have been spending nearly all my nights battling with serpents. Last night, I was attacked by three different kinds of serpents, each more venomous and repugnant than the other???
Signed: Bernard
0 1956-12-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Mother, what can I do with my life? I feel absolutely alone, in a void. What hope remains since I have not been able to integrate into the Ashram? I am goalless. I am from nowhere. I am good for nothing.
I have wanted to remain near you, and I love you, but there is something in me that does not accept an Ashram ending. There is a need in me to DO, to act. But what? What? Have I something to do in this life?
--
I dont see a thing, nothing. Oh Mother, I turn towards you in this void that is stifling me. Hear my prayer. Tell me what I must do. Give me a sign. Mother, you are my sole recourse, for who else would show me the path to be taken, who else but you would love me? Or is my fate to go off into the night?
Forgive me, Mother, for loving you so poorly, for giving myself so badly. Mother, you are my only hope, all the rest in me is utter despair.
Your child,
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:
Ten years ago, I had two intuitions the first of which, to my great astonishment, was realized. It was that I had something important to do in South America and though I never could have foreseen such a voyage, I went there. The second was that I had something to do in Turkestan.
Mother, this is the problem around which I have desperately been turning in circles. What is the truth of my destiny? Is it that which is urging me so strongly to leave, or that which is struggling against my freedom? For ultimately, sincerely, what I want is to fulfill my lifes truth. If I have ever had a will, then it is: LET BE WHAT MUST BE. Mother, how can one truly know? Is this drive, this very old and very CLEAR urge in me, false??
Your child,
0 1957-01-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Could you tell me, as a favor, what this particular thing is in me which may be useful to you and serve you? If I could only know what my real work is in this world All the conflicting impulses in me stem from my being like an unemployed force, like a being whose place has not yet been determined.
What do you see in me, Mother? Is it through writing that I shall achieve what is to be achievedor does all this still belong to a nether world? But if so, then of what use am I? If I were good at something, it would give me some air to breathe.
0 1957-04-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I would like to throw myself at your feet and open my heart to you but I cannot. I cannot.
For I SEE that, were I to give in now, I would be done forthere would be no alternative but to live out the rest of my days in the Ashram. But everything in me rebels at this idea. The idea of winding up as General Secretary of the Ashram, like Pavitra, makes my skin crawl. It is absurd, and I apologize for speaking this way, Mother, for I admire Pavitra but I cant help it, I cant do it, I do not want to end up like that.
For more than a year now, I have been hypnotized by the idea that if I give in, I will be condemned to remain here. Once more, forgive me for speaking so absurdly, for of course I know it is not a condemnation; and yet a part of me feels that it would be.
Thus I am so tense that I do not even want to close my eyes to meditate for fear of yielding. And I fall into all kinds of errors that horrify me, simply because the pressure is too strong at times, and I literally suffocate. Mother, I am not cut out to be a disciple.
I realize that all the progress I was able to make during the first two years has been lost and I am just as before, worse than beforeas if all my strength were in ruin, all faith in myself undoneso much so that at times I curse myself for having come here at all.
That is the situation, Mother. I feel my unworthiness profoundly. I am the opposite of Satprem, unable to love and to give myself. Everything in me is sealed tight.
So what is to be done? I intend asking your permission to leave as soon as the book is finished (I am determined to finish it, for it will rid me of the past it represents). I expect nothing from the world, except a bit of external space, in the absence of another space.
--
my dear child,
I read your letter yesterday, and here is the answer that immediately came to me. I add to it the assurance that nothing has changed, nor can change, in my relationship with you, and that you are and always will be my child for that is the truth of your being.
Here is what I wrote:
0 1957-07-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
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.
--
And now you understand why I had thought it would be useful to have a few meditations in common, to work at creating a common atmosphere a bit more organized than my big hotel of last night!
So, the best way to use these meditations (and they are going to increase, since we are now also going to replace the distributions with short meditations) is to go deep within yourselves, as far as you can, and find the place where you can feel, perceive and perhaps even create an atmosphere of oneness wherein a force of order and organization can put each element in its true place, and out of the chaos existing at this hour, make a new, harmonious world surge forth.
0 1957-07-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I have just received a letter from my friends in charge of the French Archaeological Expedition to Afghanistan. They need someone to assist them on their next field excavations (August 15 December 15) and have offered to take me if I wish to join them.
If I must have some new experience outside, this one has the advantage of being short-termed and not far away from India, and it is also in an interesting milieu. The only disadvantage is that I would have to pay for the trip as far as Kabul. But I dont want to do anything that displeases you or of which you do not really approve. In the event you might feel this to be a worthwhile experience, I would have to leave by the beginning of August.
0 1957-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
There is no question of my abandoning the path and I remain convinced that the only goal in life is spiritual. But I need things to help me along the way: I am not yet ripe enough to depend upon inner strength alone. And when I speak of the forest or a boat, it is not only for the sake of adventure or the feeling of space, but also because they mean a discipline. Outer constraints and difficulties help me, they force me to remain concentrated around that which is best in me. In a sense, life here is too easy. Yet it is also too hard, for one must depend on ones own discipline I do not yet have that strength, I need to be helped by outer circumstances. The very difficulty of life in the outside world helps me to be disciplined, for it forces me to concentrate all my vital strength in effort. Here, this vital part is unemployed, so it acts foolishly, it strains at the leash.
I doubt that a new experience outside can really resolve things, but I believe it might help me make it to the next stage and consolidate my inner life. And if you wish, I would return in a year or two.
I shall soon have completed the revision1 of The Life Divine and The Human Cycle, so I believe I shall have done the best I could, at present, to serve you. October 30th is my birthday. Could I leave immediately thereafter?
It is not because I am unhappy with the Ashram that I want to leave, but because I am unhappy with myself and because I want to master myself through other means.
I give you so little love, but I have tried my best, and my departure is not a betrayal.
Your child,
--
my dear child,
This is not an answer, but a comment.
0 1957-10-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
But with the supramental manifestation, something new has taken place in the body: it feels it is its own master, autonomous, with its two feet solidly on the ground, as it were. This gives a physical impression of the whole being suddenly drawing itself up, with its head lifted high I am my own master.
We live perennially with a burden on our shoulders, something that bows our heads down, and we feel pulled, led by all kinds of external forces, we dont know by whom or what, nor where tothis is what men call Fate, Destiny. When you do yoga, one of the first experiences the experience of the kundalini, as it is called here in Indiais precisely one in which the consciousness rises, breaks through this hard lid, here, at the crown of the head, and at last you emerge into the Light. Then you see, you know, you decide and you realizedifficulties may still remain, but truly speaking one is above them. Well, as a result of the supramental manifestation, it is THIS experience that came into the body. The body straightened its head up and felt its freedom, its independence.
0 1957-10-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I need a practical method corresponding to my present possibilities and to results of which I am presently capable. I feel that my efforts are dispersed by concentrating sometimes here, sometimes therea feeling of not knowing exactly what to do to break through and get out of all this. Would you point out some particular concentration to which I could adhere, a particular method that I would stick to?
I am well aware that a supple attitude is recommended in the Yoga, yet for the time being, it seems to me that one well-defined method would help me hold on1this practical aspect would help me. I will do it methodically, obstinately, until it cracks for good.
0 1957-12-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Sweet Mother, this is what is rising from my soul: I feel in me something unemployed, something seeking to express itself in life. I want to be like a knight, your knight, and go off in search of a treasure that I could bring back to you. The world has lost all sense of the wonderful, all beauty of Adventure, this quest known to the knights of the Middle Ages. It is this that calls so relentlessly within me, this need for a quest in the world and for a beautiful Adventure which at the same time would be an adventure of the soul. How I wish that the two things, inner and outer, be JOINED, that the joy of action, of the open road and the quest help the souls blossoming, that they be like a prayer of the soul expressed in life. The knights of the Middle Ages knew this. Perhaps it is all childish and absurd in the midst of this 20th century, but this is what I feel, this that is summoning me to leavenot anything base, not anything mediocre, only a need for something in me to be fulfilled. If only I could bring you back a beautiful treasure!
After that, perhaps I would be riper to accept the everyday life of the Ashram, and know how to give myself better.
Mother, I feel all this very strongly; I need your help to follow the true path of my being and fulfill this new outer cycle, should you see that it has to be fulfilled. I feel so strongly that something remains for me to DO. Guide me, Sweet Mother.
Your child,
0 1957-12-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
There is a whole gradation of planes of consciousness, from the physical consciousness to my radiant consciousness at the very highest level, that which knows the Will of the Supreme. I keep all these planes of consciousness in front of me, working simultaneously, coordinatedly, and I am acting on each plane, gathering the information proper to each plane, so as to have the integral truth of things. Thus, when I have a decision to make in regard to one of you, I plug into you directly from that level of the supreme consciousness which sees the deep truth of your being. But at the same time, my decision is shaped, as it were, by the information given to me by the other planes of consciousness and particularly by the physical consciousness, which acts as a recorder.
This physical consciousness records all it sees, all your reactions, your thoughts, all the factswithout preference, without prejudice, without personal will. Nothing escapes it. Its work is almost mechanical. Therefore I know what to tell or to ask you according to the integral truth of your being and its present possibilities. Ordinarily, in the normal man, the physical consciousness does not see things as they are, for three reasons: because of ignorance, because of preference, and because of an egoistic will. You color what you see, eliminate what displeases you. In short, you see only what you desire to see.
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.
This experience showed me once more the necessity to be perfectly humble before the Lord. It is not enough merely to rise to the heights, to the ethereal planes of consciousness: these planes have also to descend into matter and illuminate it. Otherwise, nothing is really done. One must have the patience to establish the communication between the high and the low. I am like a tempest, a hurricaneif I listened to myself, I would tear into the future, and everything would go flying! But then, there would no longer be any communication with the rest.
One must have the patience to wait.
Humility, a perfect humility, is the condition for all realization. The mind is so cocksure. It thinks it knows everything, understands everything. And if ever it acts through idealism to serve a cause that appears noble to it, it becomes even more arrogant more intransigent, and it is almost impossible to make it see that there might be something still higher beyond its noble conceptions and its great altruistic or other ideals. Humility is the only remedy. I am not speaking of humility as conceived by certain religions, with this God that belittles his creatures and only likes to see them down on their knees. When I was a child, this kind of humility revolted me, and I refused to believe in a God that wants to belittle his creatures. I dont mean that kind of humility, but rather the recognition that one does not know, that one knows nothing, and that there may be something beyond what presently appears to us as the truest, the most noble or disinterested. True humility consists in constantly referring oneself to the Lord, in placing all before Him. When I receive a blow (and there are quite a few of them in my sadhana), my immediate, spontaneous reaction, like a spring, is to throw myself before Him and to say, Thou, Lord. Without this humility, I would never have been able to realize anything. And I say I only to make myself understood, but in fact I means the Lord through this body, his instrument. When you begin living THIS kind of humility, it means you are drawing nearer to the realization. It is the condition, the starting point.
***
0 1958-01-01, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
The evening I told you these things, I totally identified myself with Nature and I entered into her play. And this movement of identification brought forth a response, a new kind of intimacy between Nature and myself, a long movement of drawing ever nearer which culminated in an experience that came on November 8.
Nature suddenly understood. She understood that this newborn Consciousness does not seek to reject her, but wants to embrace her entirely. She understood that this new spirituality does not stand apart from life, does not timorously recoil before the awesome richness of her movement, but on the contrary wants to integrate all her facets. She understood that the supramental consciousness is not there to diminish her but to make her complete.
0 1958-02-03a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
What you told me today at noon has left me stunned. I had decided to have my own way, but now I pray to be true.
I would like to tell you that I am staying, very simply, for something in me wants this, but I am afraid to make a decision that I may not be able to keep. A force other than mine is needed. In short, you have to do the willing for me, to utter a word that would help me understand truly that I must stay here. Grant me the grace of helping and enlightening me. I would like to decide without preference, in obedience to the sole Truth and in accordance with my real possibilities.
I have received a long letter from Swami,1 who in essence says that I should be able to realize what I have to realize right here with you, but he does not refuse to take me with him should I persist in my intention.
Mother, I am placing all this in your hands, sincerely.
0 1958-02-03b - The Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
The supramental world exists in a permanent way, and I am there permanently in a supramental body. I had proof of this today when my earthly consciousness went there and consciously remained there between two and three oclock in the afternoon: I now know that for the two worlds to join in a constant and conscious relationship what is missing is an intermediate zone between the existing physical world and the supramental world as it exists. This zone has yet to be built, both in the individual consciousness and in the objective world, and it is being built. When formerly I used to speak of the new world that is being created, I was speaking of this intermediate zone. And similarly, when I am on this side that is, in the realm of the physical consciousness and I see the supramental power, the supramental light and substance constantly permeating matter, I am seeing and participating in the construction of this zone.
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 atmosphere 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.
The nature of objects on this ship was not that which we know upon earth; for example, the clothes were not made of cloth, and this thing that resembled cloth was not manufacturedit was a part of the body, made of the same substance that took on different forms. It had a kind of plasticity. When a change had to be made, it was done not by artificial and outer means but by an inner working, by a working of the consciousness that gave the substance its form or appearance. Life created its own forms. There was ONE SINGLE substance in all things; it changed the nature of its vibration according to the needs or uses.
--
Just as I was called back, when I was saying, Not yet , I had a quick glimpse of myself, of my form in the supramental world. I was a mixture of what these tall beings were and the beings aboard the ship. The top part of myself, especially my head, was a mere silhouette of a whitish color with an orange fringe. The more it approached the feet, the more the color resembled that of the people on the ship, or in other words, orange; the more it went up towards the top, the more translucid and white it was, and the red faded. The head was only a silhouette with a brilliant sun at its center; from it issued rays of light which were the action of the will.
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.
--
When I came back, along with the memory of the experience, I knew that the supramental world was permanent, that my presence there is permanent, and that only a missing link is needed to allow the consciousness and the substance to connectand it is this link that is being built. At that time, my impression (an impression which remained rather long, almost the whole day) was of an extreme relativityno, not exactly that, but an impression that the relationship between this world and the other completely changes the criterion by which things are to be evaluated or judged. This criterion had nothing mental about it, and it gave the strange inner feeling that so many things we consider good or bad are not really so. It was very clear that everything depended upon the capacity of things and upon their ability to express the supramental world or be in relationship with it. It was so completely different, at times even so opposite to our ordinary way of looking at things! I recall one little thing that we usually consider bad actually how funny it was to see that it is something excellent! And other things that we consider important were really quite unimportant there! Whether it was like this or like that made no difference. What is very obvious is that our appreciation of what is divine or not divine is incorrect. I even laughed at certain things Our usual feeling about what is anti-divine seems artificial, based upon something untrue, unliving (besides, what we call life here appeared lifeless in comparison with that world); in any event, this feeling should be based upon our relationship between the two worlds and according to whether things make this relationship easier or more difficult. This would thus completely change our evaluation of what brings us nearer to the Divine or what takes us away from Him. With people, too, I saw that what helps them or prevents them from becoming supramental is very different from what our ordinary moral notions imagine. I felt just how ridiculous we are.
(Then Mother speaks to the children)
There is a continuation to all this, which is like the result in my consciousness of the experience of February 3, but it seems premature to read it now. It will appear in the April issue [of the Bulletin], as a sequel to this.
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.
--
When I invited you on a voyage into the unknown, a voyage of adventure,2 I did not know just how true were my words! And I can promise those who are ready to embark upon this adventure that they will make some very astonishing discoveries.
Indeed, one of the people near Mother had pulled Her out of the experience.
0 1958-02-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Some people come to see me in utter despair, in tears, in what they call terrible moral suffering; when I see them like that I slightly shift the needle in that part of my consciousness containing all of you, and when they leave, they are completely relieved. It is just like a compass needle I slightly shift the needle in my consciousness, and its over. Naturally, through habit, it returns later on. But these are mere soap bubbles.
I too have known suffering, but there was always a part of me that knew how to hold itself back and remain aloof.
0 1958-03-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Since my departure, I have been feeling your Force continually, almost constantly. And I feel an infinite gratitude that you are there, and that this thread from you to me keeps me anchored to something in this world. Simply knowing that you exist, that you are there, that I have a goal, a centerfills me with infinite gratitude. On a street in Madras, the day after I left, I suddenly had a poignant experience: I felt that if that were not in me, I would fall to pieces on the sidewalk, I would crumble, nothing would be left, nothing. And this experience remains. Like a litany, something keeps repeating almost incessantly, I need you, need you, I have only you, you alone in the world. You are all my present, all my future, I have only you Mother, I am living in a state of need, like hunger.
On the way, I stopped at J and Es place. They are living like native fishermen, in loincloths, in a coconut grove by the sea. The place is exceedingly beautiful, and the sea full of rainbow-hued coral. And suddenly, within twenty-four hours, I realized an old dreamor rather, I purged myself of an old and tenacious dream: that of living on a Pacific island as a simple fisherman. And all at once, I saw, in a flash, that this kind of life totally lacks a center. You float in a nowhere. It plunges you into some kind of higher inertia, an illumined inertia, and you lose all true substance.
As for me, I am totally out of my element in this new life, as though I were uprooted from myself. I am living in the temple, in the midst of pujas,1 with white ashes on my forehead, barefoot dressed like a Hindu, sleeping on cement at night, eating impossible curries, with some good sunburns to complete the cooking. And there I am, clinging to you, for if you were not there I would collapse, so absurd would it all be. You are the only realityhow many times have I repeated this to myself, like a litany! Apart from this, I am holding up quite well physically. But inside and outside, nothing is left but you. I need you, thats all. Mother, this world is so horrifyingly empty. I really feel that I would evaporate if you werent there. Well, no doubt I had to go through this experience Perhaps I will be able to extract some book from it that will be of use to you. We are like children who need a lot of pictures in order to understand, and a few good kicks to realize our complete stupidity.
Swami must soon take to the road again, through Ceylon, towards March 20 or 25. So I shall go wandering with him until May; towards the beginning of May, he will return to India. I hope to have learned my lesson by then, and to have learned it well. Inwardly, I have understood that there is only you but its these problem children on the surface who must be made to toe the line once and for all.
Sweet Mother, I am in a hurry to work for you. Will you still want me? Mother, I need you, I need you. I would like to ask you an absurd question: Do you think of me? I have only you, you alone in the world.
--
my dear child
It is good, very goodin truth, everything is taking place as expected, as the best expected. And I am so happy for this.
0 1958-04-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And at the same time, I saw that it is you who is doing everything, you who aspires in me, you who wants the progress, and that all I myself am in this affair is a screen, a resisting obstacle. O Mother, break this screen that I may be wholly transparent before you, that your transforming force may purify all the secret recesses in my being, that nothing may remain but you and you alone. O Mother, may all my being be a living expression of your light, your truth.
Mother, from the depths of my being, I offer you a sole prayer: may I become your more and more perfect instrument, a sword of light in your hands. Oh, to get out of this ego that belittles everything, diminishes everything, to emerge from it! All is falsehood in it.
And I, who understood nothing of love, am beginning to suspect who Satprem is. Mother, your grace is infinite, it has accompanied me everywhere in my life.
We are still in Kataragama, and we shall only go up to northern Ceylon, to Jaffna, around the 15th, then return to India towards the beginning of May if the visa problems are settled. Only in India, at the temple of Rameswaram, can I receive the orange robe. I am living here as a sannyasi, but dressed in white, like a Hindu. It is a stark life, nothing more. I have seen however, that truth does not lie in starkness but in a change of consciousness. (Desire always finds a means to entrench itself in very small details and in very petty and stupid, though well-rooted, avidities.)
Mother, I am seeing all the mean pettiness that obstructs your divine work. Destroy my smallness and take me unto you. May I be sincere, integrally sincere.
With infinite gratitude, I am your child.
--
P.S. my system is not in perfect condition due to this absurdly spiced food, and the river water that is used for everything.
***
--
my dear child,
It is with great joy that I shall receive you when you return in May.
0 1958-05-01, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
To do the divine Will I have been doing the sadhana for a long time, and I can say that not a day has passed that I have not done the Divines Will. But I didnt know what it was! I was living in all the inner realms, from the subtle physical to the highest regions, yet I didnt know what it was I always had to listen, to refer things, to pay attention. Now, no morebliss! There are no more problems, and everything is done in such harmony! Even if I had to leave my body, I would be in bliss! And it would happen in the best possible way.
Only now am I beginning to understand what Sri Aurobindo has written in The Synthesis of Yoga! And the human mind, the physical mind, appears so stupid, so stupid!
0 1958-05-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
This morning, I suddenly looked at my body (usually, I dont look at it I am inside it, working), I looked at my body and said to myself, Lets see, what would a witness say about this body?the witness Sri Aurobindo speaks of in The Synthesis of Yoga. Nothing very remarkable. So I formulated it like this (Mother reads a written note):
This body has neither the uncontested authority of a god nor the imperturbable calm of the sage.
--
I saw and understood very well that by concentrating, I could have given it the attitude of the absolute authority of the eternal Mother. When Sri Aurobindo told me, You are She, at the same time he bestowed upon my body this attitude of absolute authority. But as I had the inner vision of this truth, I concerned myself very little with the imperfections of the physical body I didnt bother about that, I only used it as an instrument. Sri Aurobindo did the sadhana for this body, which had only to remain constantly open to his action.1
Afterwards, when he left and I had to do the Yoga myself, to be able to take his physical place, I could have adopted the attitude of the sage, which is what I did since I was in an unparalleled state of calm when he left. As he left his body and entered into mine, he told me, You will continue, you will go right to the end of the work. It was then that I imposed a calm upon this body the calm of total detachment. And I could have remained like that.
But in a way, absolute calm implies withdrawal from action, so a choice had to be made between one or the other. I said to myself, I am neither exclusively this nor exclusively that. And actually, to do Sri Aurobindos work is to realize the Supramental on earth. So I began that work and, as a matter of fact, this was the only thing I asked of my body. I told it, Now you shall set right everything which is out of order and gradually realize this intermediate supermanhood between man and the supramental being or, in other words, what I call the superman.
And this is what I have been doing for the last eight years, and even much more during the past two years, since 1956. Now it is the work of each day, each minute.
--
I began my sadhana at birth, without knowing that I was doing it. I have continued it throughout my whole life, which means for almost eighty years (even though for perhaps the first three or four years of my life it was only something stirring about in unconsciousness). But I began a deliberate, conscious sadhana at about the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, upon prepared ground. I am now more than eighty years old: I have thought of nothing but that, I have wanted nothing but that, I had no other interest in life, and not for a single minute have I ever forgotten that it was THAT that I wanted. There were not periods of remembering and forgetting: it was continuous, unceasing, day and night, from the age of twenty-four and I had this experience for the first time about a week ago! So, I say that people who are in a hurry, people who are impatient, are arrogant fools.
It is a hard path. I try to make it as comfortable as possible, but nevertheless, it is a hard path. And it is obvious that it cannot be otherwise. You are beaten and battered until you understand. Until you are in that state in which all bodies are your body. But at that point, you begin to laugh! You were upset by this, hurt by that, you suffered from this or that but now, how laughable it all seems! And not only the head, but the body too finds it laughable!
--
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
Something quite curious took place during a recent meditation. I no longer recall when exactly, but it was at a time when there were many visitors, for the courtyard was full. After perhaps no more than a few minutes, I suddenly heard a distinct voice, coming from my right, say OM, like that. And then a second time, OM. What an impact it had upon me! I felt an emotion here (gesture towards the heart) as I have not felt for years and years and years. And all, all, all was filled with light, with forceit was absolutely marvelous. It was an invocation, and during the whole meditation the Presence was resplendent.
I said to myself, Who could have done that? I was not sure if only I had heard it, so I asked. The reply was, But it was the ship leaving! There was actually a ship which had left during the night3that is in support of those who said it was a ship. But for me, it was SOMEONE because I felt someone there and I thought, Oh! If someone, in the ardor of his soul, said that in this what I could call an atheistic silence. Because people here are so afraid of following tradition, of being the slaves of the old things, that they cast out anything closely or remotely resembling religion.
It was very strange, because my first reaction was one of bewilderment: how is it that someone I was really bewildered for a fraction, not even the fraction of a second. And then
In any event, if it wasnt a man, if it was a ship, then the ship said it! Because it was THATit was that, it was nothing other than an invocation. And the result was fantastic!
--
And these things act upon my body. It is strange, but it coagulates something: all the cellular life becomes one solid, compact mass, in a tremendous concentrationwith a single vibration. Instead of all the usual vibrations of the body, there is now only one single vibration. It becomes as hard as a diamond, a single massive concentration, as if all the cells of the body had
I became stiff from it. When the forest scene5 was over, I was so stiff that I was like that (gesture): one single mass.
0 1958-05-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Actually, when I myself am perfect, I believe that all the rest will become perfect automatically. But it does not seem possible to become perfect without there being a beginning of realization from the other side. So it proceeds like that, bumping from one side to the other, and we go stumbling along like a drunken man!
***
0 1958-05-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact, my tendency is more and more towards something in which the role of these hostile forces will be reduced to that of an examinerwhich means that they are there to test the sincerity of your spiritual quest. These elements have a reality in their action and for the workthis is their great reality but when you go beyond a certain region, it all grows dim to such a degree that it is no longer so well defined, so distinct. In the occult world, or rather if you look at the world from the occult point of view, these hostile forces are very real, their action is very real, quite concrete, and their attitude towards the divine realization is positively hostile; but as soon as you go beyond this region and enter into the spiritual world where there is no longer anything but the Divine in all things, and where there is nothing undivine, then these hostile forces become part of the total play and can no longer be called hostile forces: it is only an attitude that they have adoptedor more precisely, it is only an attitude adopted by the Divine in his play.
This again belongs to the dualities that Sri Aurobindo speaks of in (The Synthesis of Yoga, these dualities that are being reabsorbed. I dont know if he spoke of this particular one; I dont think so, but its the same thing. Its again a certain way of seeing. He has written of the Personal-Impersonal duality, Ishwara-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti but there is still one more: Divine and anti-divine.
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Its all the same thing, but the word realization can be reserved for something that is durable, that does not wear off. Because everything on earth fades awayeverything fades away, nothing remains. In this sense, there has never been any realization, for everything fades away. Nothing is ever permanent. And I know for myself: I am doing the sadhana at a gallop, as it were; never are two experiences identical nor do they recur in the same way. As soon as something is established, the next thing begins immediately. It may appear to fade away, but it doesnt fade away; rather, it is the basis upon which the next thing is built.
***
--
It was represented by a kind of image in which I was as vast as the Universe, and each way of approaching the Divine was like a tiny image containing the characteristic form of this approach. And my impression was this: Why do people always limit, limit themselves? Narrow, narrow, narrow! They understand only when it is narrow.
Take all! Take all within you. And then you will begin to understandyou will begin.
--
It was in 1910 that I had this sort of reversal of consciousness about which I spoke the other evening that is, the first contact with the higher Divine and it completely changed my life.
From that moment on, I was conscious that all one does is the expression of the indwelling Divine Will. But it is the Divine Will AT THE VERY CENTER of oneself, although for a while there remained an activity in the physical mind. But this was stilled two or three days after I saw Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1914, and it never started up again. Silence settled. And the consciousness was established above the head.
--
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 1958-07-05, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I have just explained to Z my program for getting out of the present difficulties,1 and I think if he has not concluded that I am totally mad, it is because he has an immense respect for me! But as always in these cases, there is such a joy in me, such an exultation: all the cells are dancing. I understand why people begin singing, dancing, etc. It takes a formidable power to remain like that (gesture of solidity): there is such a desire in the throat to sing!
***
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
This morning I asked myself the question, is money truly under Natures control? I shall have to see Because for me personally, she always gives everything in abundance.
When I was young, I was as poor as a turkey, as poor as could be! As an artist, I sometimes had to go out in society (as artists are forced to do). I had lacquered boots that were cracked and I painted them so it wouldnt show! This is to tell you the state I was inpoor as a turkey. So one day, in a shop window, I saw a very pretty petticoat much in fashion then, with lace, ribbons, etc. (It was the fashion in those days to have long skirts which trailed on the floor, and I didnt have a petticoat which could go with such things I didnt care, it didnt matter to me in the least, but since Nature had told me I would always have everything I needed, I wanted to make an experiment.) So I said, Well, I would very much like to have a petticoat to go with those skirts. I got five of them! They came from every direction!
And it is always like that. I never ask for anything, but if by chance I say to myself, Hmm, wouldnt it be nice to have that, mountains of them pour in! So last year, I made an experiment, I told Nature, Listen, my little one, you say that you will collaborate, you told me I would never lack anything. Well then, to put it on a level of feelings, it would really be fun, it would give me joy (in the style of Krishnas joy), to have A LOT of money to do everything I feel like doing. Its not that I want to increase things for myself, no; you give me more than I need. But to have some fun, to be able to give freely, to do things freely, to spend freely I am asking you to give me a crore of rupees1 for my birthday!
She didnt do a thing! Nothing, absolutely nothing: a complete refusal. Did she refuse or was she unable to? It may be that I always saw that money was under the control of an asuric force. (I am speaking of currency, cash; I dont want to do business. When I try to do business, it generally succeeds very well, but I dont mean that. I am speaking of cash.) I never asked her that question.
You see, this is how it happened: theres this Ganesh2 We had a meditation (this was more than thirty years ago) in the room where Prosperity3 is now distributed. There were eight or ten of us, I believe. We used to make sentences with flowers; I arranged the flowers, and each one made a sentence with the different flowers I had put there. And one day when the subject of prosperity or wealth came up, I thought (they always say that Ganesh is the god of money, of fortune, of the worlds wealth), I thought, Isnt this whole story of the god with an elephant trunk merely a lot of human imagination? Thereupon, we meditated. And who should I see walk in and park himself in front of me but a living being, absolutely alive and luminous, with a trunk that long and smiling! So then, in my meditation, I said, Ah! So its true that you exist!Of course I exist! And you may ask me for whatever you wish, from a monetary standpoint, of course, and I will give it to you!
So I asked. And for about ten years, it poured in, like this (gesture of torrents). It was incredible. I would ask, and at the next Darshan, or a month or several days later, depending, there it was.
Then the war and all the difficulties came, bringing a tremendous increase of people and expenditure (the war cost a fortuneanything at all cost ten times more than before), and suddenly, finished, nothing more. Not exactly nothing, but a thin little trickle. And when I asked, it didnt come. So one day, I put the question to Ganesh through his image (! ), I asked him, What about your promise?I cant do it, its too much for me; my means are too limited!Ah! I said to myself (laughing), What bad luck! And I no longer counted on him.
Once someone even asked Santa Claus! A young Muslim girl who had a special liking for Father Christmas I dont know why, as it was not part of her religion! Without saying a word to me, she called on Santa Claus and told him, Mother doesnt believe in you; you should give Her a gift to prove to Her that you exist. You can give it to Her for Christmas. And it happened! She was quite proud.
But it only happened like that once. And as for Ganesh, that was the end of it. So then I asked Nature. It took her a long time to accept to collaborate. But as for the money, I shall have to ask her about it; because for me personally, it is still going on. I think, Hmm, wouldnt it be nice to have a wristwatch like that. And I get twenty of them! I say to myself, Well, if I had that and I get thirty of them! Things come in from every side, without my even uttering a word I dont even ask, they just come.
The first time I came here and spoke with Sri Aurobindo about what was needed for the Work, he told me (he also wrote it to me) that for the secure achievement of the Work we would need three powers: one was the power over health, the second was the power over government, and the third was the power over money.
--
I am speaking of terrestrial Nature. Through their mental power, men had the choice and the freedom to make pacts with these extraterrestrial vital forces. There is a whole vital world that has nothing to do with the earth, it is entirely independent or prior to earths existence, it is self-existentwell, they have brought that down here! They have made what we see! And such being the case This is what terrestrial Nature told me: It is beyond my control.
So considering all that, Sri Aurobindo came to the conclusion that only the supramental power (Mother brings down her hands) as he said, will be able to rule over everything. And when that happens, it will be all overincluding Nature. For a long time, Nature rebelled (I have written about it often). She used to say, Why are you in such a hurry? It will be done one day. But then last year, there was that extraordinary experience.5 And it was because of that experience that I told her, Well, now that we agree, give me some proof; I am asking you for some proofdo it for me. She didnt budge, absolutely nothing.
0 1958-07-25a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
O my sweet Master,
Lord God of Kindness
0 1958-07-25b, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
O my Lord, my Lord!
What you want of me, let me be.
0 1958-08-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Last night, I had many dreams (not really dreams, but ); I used to find them very interesting because they gave me certain indications, all kinds of things, but when I saw it all now, I said to myself, Good Lord! What a waste of time! Instead, I could be living in a supramental consciousness and seeing things. So during the night, I made a resolution to change all this too. my nights have to change. I am already changing my days; now my nights have to change. But then all this subconscious in Matter, all this, it all has to change! Theres no choice, it has to be seen to.
Once you set to this work, it is such a formidable task! But what can I do?
0 1958-08-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
my dear child,
Behind all the appearances and diverse entities, I am always present near you, and my love enfolds you.
I have put the work aside and shall be happy to do it with you upon your return.
my blessings never leave you.
Signed: Mother
0 1958-08-29, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
At the Thursday evening meditation, he appeared as the Guru of Tantric Initiation, magnified and seated upon a symbolic representation of the forces and riches of material Nature (in the middle of the playground, to my left), and he put into my hand something sufficiently material for me to feel the vibrations physically, and it had a great realizing power. It was a kind of luminous and very vibrant globe which I held in my hands during the whole meditation.
S, who was sitting in front of me, spontaneously asked me afterwards what I had been holding in my hands during the meditation, and she described it thus: It was round, very soft and luminous like the moon.
The Swami brought back various objects and souvenirs from the Himalayas which he presented to Mother.
0 1958-08-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
It was just at four oclock in the morning, and it woke me up. It was exactly like this I was apparently in my bathroom, and I had to open the door between the bathroom and Sri Aurobindos room; the moment I put my hand on the doorknob, I knew with an absolute certainty that destruction was awaiting me behind the door. It had the form or image of those great invaders of India, those who had swooped down upon India and destroyed everything in their wake But it was only an impression.
So the door had to be opened and I felt and said, Lord, may your will be done. I opened the door and behind it was Z1 in the same clothes he wears when he drives, and he was leaning against one of those big tractor tiresor perhaps he was holding it at the same time. I was so dumbfounded that I woke up. It took me a little while to be able to understand what it might mean, and afterwards Even now, I still dont know What was I? Was I India, or was I the world? I dont know. And what did Z represent? It was as imperative and clear, as positive and absolute as could be: the certitude that destruction was behind the door, that it was inevitable. And it had the form of those great Tartar or Mongol invaders, those people who came from the North and invaded India, who pillaged everything Thats what it was like. But what Z was doing there I dont know. What does he represent? The first impulse was to tell Abhay Singh, Forbid him to drive the tractor.
0 1958-09-16 - OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I dont know when it begana very long time ago, before I came here, although some of them came while I was here. But in my case, they were always very short. For example, when Sri Aurobindo was here in his body, at any moment, in any difficulty, for anything, it always came like this: my Lord!simply and spontaneously my Lord! And instantly, the contact was established. But since He left, it has stopped. I can no longer say it, for it would be like saying my Lord, my Lord! to myself.
I had a mantra in French before coming to Pondicherry. It was Dieu de bont et de misricorde [God of kindness and mercy], but what it means is usually not understoodit is an entire program, a universal program. I have been repeating this mantra since the beginning of the century; it was the mantra of ascension, of realization. At present, it no longer comes in the same way, it comes rather as a memory. But it was deliberate, you see; I always said Dieu de bont et de misricorde, because even then I understood that everything is the Divine and the Divine is in all things and that it is only we who make a distinction between what is or what is not the Divine.
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.
--
Like a triumph. But I didnt write that one down because I did not want to spoil my impression.
Of course, these things should not be published. We can file them in this Agenda of the Supramental Manifestation for later on. Later on, when the Victory is won, we shall say, If you want to see the curve
--
This is how it happened: Y had just returned, and he brought back a trunk full of things which he then proceeded to show me, and his excitement made tight, tight little waves in the atmosphere, making my head ache; it made anyway, it was unpleasant. When I left, just after that had happened, I sat down and went like this (gesture of sweeping out) to make it stop, and immediately the mantra began.
It rose up from here (Mother indicates the solar plexus), like this: Om Namo Bhagavateh OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH. It was formidable. For the entire quarter of an hour that the meditation lasted, everything was filled with Light! In the deeper tones it was of golden bronze (at the throat level it was almost red) and in the higher tones it was a kind of opaline white light: OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH.
The other day (I was in my bathroom upstairs), it came; it took hold of the entire body. It rose up in the same way, and all the cells were trembling. And with such a power! So I stopped everything, all movement, and I let the thing grow. The vibration went on expanding, ever widening, as the sound itself was expanding, expanding, and all the cells of the body were seized with an intensity of aspiration as if the entire body were swellingit became overwhelming. I felt that it would all burst.
I understood those who withdraw from everything to live that totally.
--
Unfortunately, I was unable to continue, because I dont have the time; it was just before the balcony darshan and I was going to be late. Something told me, That is for people who have nothing to do. Then I said, I belong to my work, and I slowly withdrew. I put on the brakes, and the action was cut short. But what remains is that whenever I repeat this mantra everything starts vibrating.
So each one must find something that acts on himself, individually. I am only speaking of the action on the physical plane, because mentally, vitally, in all the inner parts of the being, the aspiration is always, always spontaneous. I am referring only to the physical plane.
--
The second is addressed to Sri Aurobindo (and I believe they have put my name at the end). It incorporates the mantra I was speaking of:
Om namo namah shrimirambikayai
--
And the third is addressed to Sri Aurobindo: Thou art my refuge.
Shriaravindah sharanam mama.
--
This one, this mantra, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, came to me after some time, for I felt well, I saw that I needed to have a mantra of my own, that is, a mantra consonant with what this body has to do in the world. And it was just then that it came.3 It was truly an answer to a need that had made itself felt. So if you feel the neednot there, not in your head, but here (Mother points to the center of her heart), it will come. One day, either you will hear the words, or they will spring forth from your heart And when that happens, you must hold onto it.
The first syllable of NAMO is pronounced with a short 'a,' as in nahmo. The final word is pronounced BHA-GAH-VA-TEH.
0 1958-09-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Ever since my childhood, I have spent my time veiling myself: one veil over another veil over another veil, so as to remain invisible. Because to see me without the true attitude is the great sin. Anyway, sin in the sense Sri Aurobindo defines itmeaning that things are no longer in their place.
***
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
It must be strong enough to pull me from my concentration or my activity. If I knew when you concentrate or do your puja,1 I could tune into you, and shell I would know more; otherwise, my inner life is too l am not at all passive inwardly, you see, I am very active, so I dont usually receive your vibrations unless they impose themselves strongly or unless I have decided beforeh and to be attentive to what is coming from someone or other. If I know that at a given moment something is going to happen, then I open a door, as it were. But its difficult to speak of these things.
When you left on your journey,2 for example, I made a specie! concentration for all to go well so that nothing untoward happen to you. I even made a formation and asked for a constant, special help over you. Then I renewed my concentration every day, which is how I came to notice that you were invoking me very regulary. I Saw you everyday, everyday, with a very regular precision. It was something that imposed itself on me, but it imposed itself only because l had initially made a formation to follow you.
For people here in the Ashram, my work is not the same. It is more like a kind of atmosphere that extends everywherea very conscious atmospherewhich I let work for each one according to his need. I dont have a special action for each person, unless something requires my special attention. When I would tune into you while you were travelling, I clearly saw your image appear before me, as though you were looking at me, but now that you have returned here, I no longer see it. Rather, I receive a sensation or an impression; and as these sensations and impressions are innumerable, its rather like one element among many. It no longer imposes itself in such an entirely distinct way nor does it appear before me in the same manner, as a clear image of yourself, as though you wanted to know something.
As soon as I am alone, I enter into a very deep concentration,a state of consciousness, a kind of universal activity. Is it deep? What is it? It is far beyond all the mental regions, far, far beyond, and it is constant. As soon as I am alone or resting somewhere, thats how it is.
The other day when I was in this state of concentration, I had the vision that I mentioned to you. I felt I was being pulled, that something was pulling me and trying to draw my attention. I felt it very strongly. So I opened my eyes, my mental eyes (the physical eyes may remain opened or closed, it makes no difference either way; when I am concentrated, things on the physical plane no longer exist), I deliberately opened the minds eyes, for that is where I felt myself being pulled, and then I had this vision I told you of. Someone was trying to draw my attention, to tell me something. It takes someone really quite powerful, with a very great power of concentration, to do thatthere are certainly a great many people here and elsewhere who try to do this, yet I dont feel a thing.3
In the outer, practical domain, I might suddenly think of someone, so I know that this person is calling or thinking of me. When you left on your trip, I created a special link-up so that if ever, at any moment, you called me for anything, I would know it instantly, and I remained attentive and alert. But I do that only in exceptional cases. Generally speaking, when I havent made this special link-up, things keep coming in and coming in and coming in and coming in, and the answer goes out automatically, here or there or there or therehundreds and hundreds of things that I dont keep in my memory because then it would really be frightful. I dont keep these things in my consciousness; it is rather a work that is done automatically.
When you asked me if X4 were thinking of me, I consulted my atmosphere 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.
The other day, for example, though I no longer recall exactly when (I forget everything on purpose)but it was in the last part of the night I had a rather long activity concerning the whole realization of the Ashram, notably in the fields of education and art. I was apparently inspecting this area to see how things were there, so naturally I saw a certain number of people, their work and their inner states. Some saw me and, at that moment, had a vision of me. It is likely that many were asleep and didnt notice anything, but some actually saw me. The next morning, for example, someone who works at the theater told me that she had had a splendid vision of me in which I had spoken to her, blessed her, etc. This was her way of receiving the work I had done. And this kind of thing is happening more and more, in that my action is awakening the consciousness in others more and more strongly.
Naturally, the reception is always incomplete or partially modified; when it passes through the individuality, it becomes narrowed, a personal thing. It seems impossible for each one to have a consciousness vast enough to see the thing in its entirety.
--
The progress above follows a certain trajectory, and in some cases the distance increases, in others it decreases (although on the whole, the distance remains relatively unchanged), but my feeling is that the collective receptivity will increase as the action becomes increasingly supramentalized. And the need for an individual receptivitywith all its distortions and alterations and limitationswill decrease in importance as the supramental influence increasingly imposes its power. This influence will impose itself in such a way that it will no longer be subject to the defects in receptivity.
***
--
Before, I always had the negative experience of the disappearance of the ego, of the oneness of Creation, where everything implying separation disappearedan experience that, personally, I would call negative. Last Wednesday, while I was speaking (and thats why at the end I could no longer find my words), I seemed suddenly to have left this negative phenomenon and entered into the positive experience: the experience of BEING the Supreme Lord, the experience that nothing exists but the Supreme Lordall is the Supreme Lord, there is nothing else. And at that moment, the feeling of this infinite power that has no limit, that nothing can limit, was so overwhelming that all the functions of the body, of this mental machine that summons up words, all this was I could no longer speak French. Perhaps the words could have come to me in Englishprobably, because it was easier for Sri Aurobindo to express himself in English, and thats how it must have happened: it was the part embodied in Sri Aurobindo (the part of the Supreme that was embodied in Sri Aurobindo for its manifestation) that had the experience. This is what joined back with the Origin and caused the experience I was well aware of it. And that is probably why its transcription through English words would have been easier than through French words (for at these moments, such activities are purely mechanical, rather like automatic machines). And naturally the experience left something behind. It left the sense of a power that can no longer be qualified,5 really. And it was there yesterday evening.
The difficultyits not even a difficulty, its just a kind of precaution that is taken (automatically, in fact) in order to For example, the volume of Force that was to be expressed in the voice was too great for the speech organ. So I had to be a little attentive that is, there had to be a kind of filtering in the outermost expression, otherwise the voice would have cracked. But this isnt done through the will and reason, its automatic. Yet I feel that the capacity of Matter to contain and express is increasing with phenomenal speed. But its progressive, it cant be done instantly. There have often been people whose outer form broke because the Force was too strong; well, I clearly see that it is being dosed out. After all, this is exclusively the concern of the Supreme Lord, I dont bother about itits not my concern and I dont bother about itHe makes the necessary adjustments. Thus it comes progressively, little by little, so that no fundamental disequilibrium occurs. It gives the impression that ones head is swelling so tremendously it will burst! But then if there is a moment of stillness, it adapts; gradually, it adapts.
Only, one must be careful to keep the sense of the Unmanifest sufficiently present so that the various things the elements, the cells and all thathave time to adapt. The sense of the Unmanifest, or in other words, to step back into the Unmanifest.6 This is what all those who have had experiences have done; they always believed that there was no possibility of adaptation, so they left their bodies and went off.
0 1958-10-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
When I am not in my body, I have all kinds of contacts with people, contacts of different types. And its not a thing decided in advance, it is not willed, it is not even thought out; it is simply observed.
Certain relationships are entirely within me, entirely. It is not a relationship between individuals, but a relationship between states of beingwhich means that with the same individual there may be many different relationships. If it were a single whole but I am still not sure if there is a single person with whom the relationship is global.
So there are parts which are entirely within me, entirely there is no difference; they are myself. There are other parts with which I am conscious of an exchangea very familiar, very intimate exchange. And there are parts outside of me with which I still have relationships, not exactly as with strangers but merely as acquaintances; it is still necessary to observe their reactions in order to do the correct thing. And the ratio between these different parts is naturally different depending upon the different individuals.
***
0 1958-10-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
To know life utterly Oh, there is a very interesting thing in this regard! And its strange, but this particular knowledge reminds me of one of my Sutras1 (which I read out, but no one understood or understood only vaguely, like that):
It is the Supreme Lord who has ineluctably decreed the place you occupy in the universal concert, but whatever be this place, you have equally the same right as all others to ascend the supreme summits right to the supramental realization.
--
On the one hand, there is what Sri Aurobindowho, as the Avatar, represented the supreme Consciousness and Will on earthdeclared me to be, that is, the supreme universal Mother; and on the other hand, there is what I am realizing in my body through the integral sadhana.2 I could be the supreme Mother and not do any sadhana, and as a matter of fact, as long as Sri Aurobindo was in his body, it was he who did the sadhana, and I received the effects. These effects were automatically established in the outer being, but he was the one doing it, not II was merely the bridge between his sadhana and the world. Only when he left his body was I forced to take up the sadhana myself; not only did I have to do what I was doing beforebeing a bridge between his sadhana and the world but I had to carry on the sadhana myself. When he left, he turned over to me the responsibility for what he himself had been doing in his body, and I had to do it. So there are both these things. Sometimes one predominates, sometimes the other (I dont mean successively in time, but it depends on the moment), and they are trying to combine in a total and perfect realization: the eternal, ineffable and immutable Consciousness of the Executrice of the Supreme, and the consciousness of the Sadhak of the integral Yoga who strives in an ascending effort towards an ever increasing progression.
To this has been added a growing initiation into the supramental realization which is (I understand it well now) the perfect union of what comes from above and what comes from below, or in other words, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization.
--
But all this is still in suspense, on the way to realization, moving forward progressively; therefore, unless we are able to see the outcome, we cant understand a thing. We get confused. Only when we see the outcome, the final realization, only when we have TOUCHED there, will everything be understood then it will be as clear and as simple as can be. But meanwhile, my relationships with different people are very funny, utterly amusing!
Those who have what I would call the more outer relationship compared to the other (although it is not really so)the relationship of yoga, of sadhanaconsider the others superstitious; and the others, who have faith OI perception, or the Grace to have understood what Sri Aurobindo meant (perhaps even before knowing what he said, but in any event, after he said it), discard the others as ignorant unbelievers! And there are all the gradations in between, so it really becomes quite funny!
--
And this explains everything, absolutely everything: how it works, how it functions in the world.3 I was saying to myself, But I have no powers, I have no powers! Several days ago, I said, But after all, I KNOW WHO is there, I know, yet how is it that ? There, up to there (the level of the head), it is all-powerful, nothing can resist but here it is ineffective. So those who have faith, even an ignorant but real faith (it can be ignorant but nevertheless it is real), say, What! How can you have no powers? Because the sadhana is not yet over.
The Lord will possess his universe only when the universe will have consciously become the Lord.
0 1958-10-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
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!
There is still one more (but it is not the last):
0 1958-11-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Last night, I thought, my god! If I have to Individually, with this one or that one, by selecting the best, I could get somewhere, but this this mass.1 Swami had told me sohe told me immediately after his first meditation (collective meditation at the Ashram playground), he told me, The stuff is not good! (Mother laughs)
I didnt press the matter.
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
object:0_1958-11-04 - myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams
author class:The Mother
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It was only a film story, but anyway, the goddesses, the three wives of the Trimurti that is, the consort of Brahma, the consort of Vishnu and the consort of Shivajoined forces (!) and tried all kinds of things to foil Narada. I no longer recall the details of the story Oh yes, the story begins like this: one of the three I believe it was Shivas consort, Parvati (she was the worst one, by the way!)was doing her puja. Shiva was in meditation, and she began doing her puja in front of him; she was using an oil lamp for the puja, and the lamp fell down and burned her foot. She cried out because she had burned her foot. So Shiva at once came out of his meditation and said to her, What is it, Devi? (laughter) She answered, I burned my foot! Then Narada said, Arent you ashamed of what you have done?to make Shiva come out of his meditation simply because you have a little burn on your foot, which cannot even hurt you since you are immortal! She became furious and snapped at him, Show me that it can be otherwise! Narada replied, I am going to show you what it is to really love ones husbandyou dont know anything about it!
Then comes the story of Anusuya and her husb and (who is truly a husb and a very good man, but well, not a god, after all!), who was sleeping with his head resting upon Anusuyas knees. They had finished their puja (both of them were worshippers of Shiva), and after their puja he was resting, sleeping, with his head on Anusuyas knees. Meanwhile, the gods had descended upon earth, particularly this Parvati, and they saw Anusuya like that. Then Parvati exclaimed, This is a good occasion! Not very far away a cooking fire was burning. With her power, she sent the fire rolling down onto Anusuyas feetwhich startled her because it hurt. It began to burn; not one cry, not one movement, nothing because she didnt want to awaken her husband. But she began invoking Shiva (Shiva was there). And because she invoked Shiva (it is lovely in the story), because she invoked Shiva, Shivas foot began burning! (Mother laughs) Then Narada showed Shiva to Parvati: Look what you are doing; you are burning your husbands foot! So Parvati made the opposite gesture and the fire was put out.
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It could apply to the old Greek mythology, though.
No, not uniquely. It could apply in many other eases. Even if the Christians dont understand, there are many others who will!
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There is something similar between the Puranic gods and the gods of Greek or Egyptian mythology. The gods of Egyptian mythology are terrible beings They cut off peoples heads, tear their enemies to pieces!
The Greeks were not always tender either!
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He said he had received initiation in India (he knew a little Sanskrit and the Rig-Veda thoroughly), and then he formulated a tradition which he called the cosmic tradition and which he claimed to have received I dont know howfrom a tradition anterior to that of the Cabala and the Vedas. But there were many things (Madame Theon was the clairvoyant one, and she received visions; oh, she was wonderful!), many things that I myself had seen and known before knowing them which were then substantiated.
So personally, I am convinced that there was indeed a tradition anterior to both these traditions containing a knowledge very close to an integral knowledge. Certainly, there is a similarity in the experiences. When I came here and told Sri Aurobindo certain things I knew from the occult standpoint, he always said that it conformed to the Vedic tradition. And as for certain occult practices, he told me that they were entirely tantric and I knew nothing at that time, absolutely nothing, neither the Vedas nor the Tantras.
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That was a grace. I was given every experience without knowing ANYTHING of what it was all about my mind was absolutely blank. There was no active correspondence in the formative mind. I only knew about what had happened or the laws governing these happenings AFTERWARDS, when I was curious and inquired to find out what it related to. Then I found out. But otherwise, I didnt know. So that was the clear proof that these things existed entirely outside of my imagination or thought.
It doesnt happen very frequently in this world. And thats why these experiences, which otherwise seem quite natural, quite obvious, appear to be extravagant fancies to people who know nothing.
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What happened in my life is that I never studied or knew things until AFTER having the experienceonly BECAUSE OF the experience and because I wanted to understand it would I study things related to it.
It was the same thing for visions of past lives. I knew NOTHING when I would have the experience, not even the possibility of past lives, and only after having had the experience would I study the question and, for example, even verify certain historical facts that had occurred in my vision but about which I had no prior knowledge.
***
0 1958-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I found my message for the 1st of January It was quite unforeseen. Yesterday morning, I thought, All the same, I have to find my message, but what? I was absolutely like that, neutral, nothing. Then yesterday evening at the class (of Friday, November 7) I noticed that these children who had had a whole week to prepare their questions on the text had not found a single one! A terrible lethargy! A total lack of interest. And when I had finished speaking, I thought to myself, But what IS there in these people who are interested in nothing but their personal little affairs? So I began descending into their mental atmosphere, in search of the little light, of that which responds And it literally pulled me downwards as into a hole, but in such a material way; my hand, which was on the arm of the chair, began slipping down, my other hand went like this (to the ground), my head, too! I thought it was going to touch my knees!
And I had the impression It was not an impression I saw it. I was descending into a crevasse between two steep rocks, rocks that appeared to be made of something harder than basalt, BLACK, but metallic at the same time, with such sharp edgesit seemed that a mere touch would lacerate you. It appeared endless and bottomless, and it kept getting narrower, narrower and narrower, narrower and narrower, like a funnel, so narrow that there was almost no more roomnot even for the consciousness to pass through. And the bottom was invisible, a black hole. And it went down, down, down, like that, without air, without light, except for a sort of glimmer that enabled me to make out the rock edges. They seemed to be cut so steeply, so sharply Finally, when my head began touching my knees, I asked myself, But what is there at the bottom of this this hole?
And as soon as I had uttered, What is there at the bottom of this hole? I seemed to touch a spring that was in the very depthsa spring I didnt see but that acted instantly with a tremendous power and it cast me up forthwith, hurled me out of this crevasse into (arms extended, motionless) a formless, limitless vast which was infinitely comfortablenot exactly warm, but it gave a feeling of ease and of an intimate warmth.
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At the time, I wondered what it meant. Later, of course, I found out, and finally this morning, I said to myself, Ah, so thats it! It came to give me my message for the new year! Then I transcribed the experienceit cant be described, of course, for it was indescribable; it was a psychological phenomenon and the form it took was only a way of describing the psychological state to oneself. Here is what I wrote down, obviously in a mental way, and I am thinking of using it as my message.
There was a hesitation in the expression, so I brought the paper and I want us to decide upon the final text together.
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Suddenly, while I was speaking (it was while I was speaking), I felt, Well really, can anything be done with such material? Then, quite naturally, when I stopped speaking, oh!I felt that I was being pulled! Then I understood. Because I had asked myself the question, But what is HAPPENING in there behind all those forms? I cant say that I was annoyed, but I said to myself, Well really, this has to be shaken up a bit! And just as I had finished, something pulled meit pulled me out of my body, I was literally pulled out of my body.
And then, down into this hole I still see what I saw then, this crevasse between two rocks. The sky was not visible, but on the rock summits I saw something like the reflection of a glimmera glimmercoming from something beyond, which (laughing) must have been the sky! But it was invisible. And as I descended, as if I were sliding down the face of this crevasse, I saw the rock edges; and they were really black rocks, as if cut with a chisel, cuts so fresh that they glistened, with edges as sharp as knives. There was one here, one there, another there, everywhere, all around. And I was being pulled, pulled, pulled, I went down and down and downthere was no end to it, and it was becoming more and more compressing.1 It went down and down
And so, physically, the body followed. my body has been taught to express the inner experience to a certain extent. In the body there is the body-force or the body-form or the body-spirit (according to the different schools, it bears a different name), and this is what leaves the body last when one dies, usually taking a period of seven days to leave.2 With special training, it can acquire a conscious lifeindependent and consciousto such a degree that not only in a state of trance (in trance, it frequently happens that one can speak and move if one is slightly trained or educated), but even in a cataleptic state it can produce sounds and even make the body move. Thus, through training, the body begins to have somnambulistic capacitiesnot an ordinary somnambulism, but it can live an autonomous life.3 This is what took place, yesterday evening it was like that I had gone out of my body, but my body was participating. And then I was pulled downwards: my hand, which had been on the arm of the chair, slipped down, then the other hand, then my head was almost touching my knees! (The consciousness was elsewhere, I saw it from outsideit was not that I didnt know what I was doing, I saw it from outside.) So I said, In any case, this has to stop somewhere because if it continues, my head (laughing) is going to be on the ground! And I thought, But what is there at the bottom of this hole?
Scarcely had these words been formulated when there I was, at the bottom of the hole! And it was absolutely as if a tremendous, almighty spring were there, and then (Mother hits the table) vrrrm! I was cast out of the abyss into a vastness. my body immediately sat straight up, head on high, following the movement. If someone had been watching, this is what he would have seen: in a single bound, vrrrm! Straight up, to the maximum, my head on high.
And I followed all this without objectifying it in the least; I was not aware of what it was nor of what was happening, nor of any explanation at all, nothing: it was like that. I was living it, thats all. The experience was absolutely spontaneous. And after this rather painful descent, phew!there was a kind of super-comfort. I cant explain it otherwise, an ease,4 but an ease to the utmost. A perfect immobility in a sense of eternity but with an extraordinary INTENSITY of movement and life! An inner intensity, unmanifested; it was within, self-contained. And motionless (had there been an outside, it would have been motionless in relation to that) and it was in a life so immeasurable that it can only be expressed metaphorically as infinite. And with an intensity, a POWER, a force and a peace the peace of eternity. A silence, a calm. A POWER capable of of EVERYTHING. Everything.
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That was my feeling.
I dont think I am mistaken, for there was such a superabundant feeling of power, of warmth, of gold It was not fluid, it was like a powdering. And each of these things (they cannot be called specks or fragments, nor even points, unless you understand it in the mathematical sense, a point that occupies no space) was something equivalent to a mathematical point, but like living gold, a powdering of warm gold. I cannot say it was sparkling, I cannot say it was dark, nor was it made of light, either: a multitude of tiny points of gold, nothing but that. They seemed to be touching my eyes, my face and with such an inherent power and warmthit was a splendor! And then, at the same time, the feeling of a plenitude, the PEACE of omnipotence It was rich, it was full. It was movement at its ultimate, infinitely swifter than all one can imagine, and at the same time it was absolute peace, perfect tranquillity.
(Mother resumes her message)
0 1958-11-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
There is no preliminary thought, preliminary knowledge, preliminary will: all those things do not exist. I am only like a mirror receiving the experience, the simplicity of a little child learning life. It is like that. And it is the gift of the Grace, truly the Grace: in the face of the experience, the simplicity of a little child just born. And it is spontaneously so, but deliberately too; in other words, during the experience I am very careful not to watch myself having the experience so that no previous knowledge intervenes. Only afterwards do I see. It is not a mental construction, nor does it come from something higher than the mind (it is not even a knowledge by identity that makes me see things); no, the body (when the experience is in the body) is like that, what in English is called blank. As if it had just been born, as if just then it were being born with the experience.
And only little by little, little by little, is this experience put in the presence of any previous knowledge. Thus, its explanation and its evaluation come about progressively.
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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 1958-11-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Through my friends in Hyderabad, I can contact some people who are doing business in the forests of the Belgian Congo. I want to go there, alone and far away from everything.
But there is always this wretched question of money. I need it to leave and to pay for the journey. Afterwards, I will manage. Anyway, it is all the same to me; I am not afraid of anything any longer.
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my love is with you.
Signed: Mother
0 1958-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I can explain the phenomenon like this: successive reversals such that an EVER NEW richness of creation will take place from stage to stage, making whatever came before seem so poor in comparison. What to us seems supremely rich compared to our ordinary life, appears so poor compared to this new reversal of consciousness. Such was my experience.
Last night, my effort to understand what was missing in order to help you completely and truly come out of the difficulty reminded me of what I said the other day about Power, the transforming power, the true realizing power, the supramental power. When you enter that, when you suddenly surge into that Thing, then you seeyou see that it is truly almighty in comparison to what we are here. So once again, I touched it, I experienced both states simultaneously.
But as long as this is not an accomplished fact, it will still be a progressiona progression, an ascension; you gain a little, you gain some ground, you rise higher and higher. But as long as the new reversal has not taken place, its as if everything had still to be done. It is a repetition of the experience below, reproduced above.
0 1958-11-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I dont have all the information, otherwise certainly Two things made me see I saw them the other day. First of all, when you didnt understand my letter, for I wrote it to a part of you that without any doubt should have understood; I was referring to something other than what is seen and known by this part of you which is this center, this knot of revolt that seems to resist everything, that really remains knotted, in spite of your experiences and the strides you have made, as well as your openings. And what made me see is especially the fact that it resists experiences, it is not touched by experiences; this was the point that did not understand what I wrote. Because the part of you that had the experience must necessarily understand what I wrote, without the shadow of a doubt.
Time is needed
0 1958-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Even at a very young age, I had a kind of intuition of my destiny. I felt that something in me had to be exhausted, or that I had to exhaust myself. I dont know, as though I had to descend into the depths of the night to find the thing. I thought it was the concentration camps. Perhaps this was still not deep enough Do you see any meaning in all this?
It can hardly be formulated; these are merely impressions that follow one another. I know that when you thought of leaving with Swami,1 I saw that a door was opening, that it was the truth, that this was IT.
my immediate impression was that you were being put in direct contact with this this sort of Fatality that here they call karma, which is the consequence yes, something that must be exhausted, something that remains in the consciousness.
This is how it works: the psychic being passes from one life to another, but there are cases in which the psychic incarnates in order to to work out2 to pass through a certain experience, to learn a certain thing, to develop a certain thing through a certain experience. And so in this life, in the life where the experience is to be made, it can happen (there may be more than one reason) that the soul does not come down accurately in the place it should have, some shift or other may occur, a set of contrary circumstancesthis happens sometimesand then the incarnation miscarries entirely and the soul leaves. But in other cases, the soul is simply placed in the impossibility of doing exactly what it wants and it finds itself swept away by unfortunate circumstances. Not only unfortunate from an objective standpoint, but unfortunate for its own development, and then that creates in it the necessity to begin the experience all over again, and in much more difficult conditions.
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But if the soul has had but ONE call, but ONE contact with the Grace, then in your next life you are put in the conditions, once, whereby EVERYTHING can be swept away at one stroke. And at this present moment on earth, you cannot imagine the number of people I have met that is, the number of soulswho had reached out towards this possibility with such an intensity and they have all found themselves on my path.
At that point, sometimes a great courage is needed, sometimes a great endurance is needed, sometimes a true love is enough, sometimes, oh! if only faith were there, one thing, one tiny little thing is enough, and everything can be swept away. I have done it often; there are times when I have failed. But more often than not I have been able to remove it. But then, what is needed is a great, stoical courage or a capacity to endure and to SEE IT THROUGH. The resistance (especially in cases of former suicide), the resistance to the temptation of renewing this stupidity creates a terrible formation. Or else this habit of fleeing when suffering comes: flee, flee, instead of absorbing the difficulty, holding on.
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my perception is that I have something to do, I dont know what, and only afterwards
But do you feel it as something to do physically?
0 1958-11-27 - Intermediaries and Immediacy, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
For example, one thing had always appeared unimportant to me in actionintermediaries between the spiritualized individual being, the conscious soul, and the Supreme. According to my personal experience, it had always seemed to me that if one is exclusively turned towards the Supreme in all ones actions and expresses Him directly, whatever is to be done is done automatically. For example, if you are always open and if at each second you consciously want to express only what the Supreme Lord wants to be expressed, it is done automatically. But with all that I have learned about pujas, about certain scriptures and certain rituals as well, the necessity for a process has become very clear to me. Its the same as in physical life; in physical life, everything needs a process, as we know, and it is the knowledge of processes that constitutes physical science. Similarly, in a more occult working, the knowledge and especially the RESPECT for the process seem to be much more important than I had first thought.
And when I studied this, when I looked at this science of processes, of intermediaries, suddenly I clearly understood the working of karma, which I had not understood before. I had worked and intervened quite often to change someones karma, but sometimes I had to wait, without exactly knowing why the result was not immediate. I simply used to wait without worrying about the reasons for this slowness or delay. Thats how it was. And generally it ended, as I said, with the exact vision of the karmas source, its initial cause; and scarcely would I have this vision when the Power would come, and the thing would be dissolved. But I didnt bother about finding out why it was like that.
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The spiritual action is direct, but it may not be immediate (anyway, thats my experience). Sri Aurobindo said that with the supramental presence, it becomes immediate and I have experienced this. But this would then mean that the supramental Power automatically commands all these intermediaries, whereas if its not present, even the highest spiritual power would need a specialized knowledge to act in this realm, a knowledge equivalent to an occult or initiatory knowledge of all these realms. This is why I told X, Well, you taught me many things while you were here. There is always something to learn.
Of course, when the Supramental is here, it will be very different. I see it clearly: in moments when it is there, everything is turned inside out, and all this belongs to a world to the world of preparation. It is like a preparation, a long preparation.
0 1958-12-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I had come to Hyderabad intending to prepare for a trip to Africa, but when it came to actually doing it, I simply could not. It is stronger than I; I cannot leave India, I cannot live without my soul.
Until these last days, I still thought I could count on some outer solution to resolve my problem, but now I am up against a wall; I see that nothing can be DONE and the only solution is what you said one day: Consent no longer to be.
Mother, I have made many mistakes, I have often been rebellious and fallen into many holes. Help me to pick myself up, give me nonetheless a little of your Love. This has to change.
I do not want to remain in Hyderabad. This is not the atmosphere I need, although everything is very quiet here.
If you want, I can return to the Ashram and throw myself headlong into the work in order to forget all this. There is a lot of work with Herberts things to correct, the revision of The Synthesis of Yoga, your old Questions and Answers and the Dhammapada, and perhaps you would accept to take up our work together again?
Otherwise, if you consider it preferable to wait, I could go join Swami in Rameswaram, discarding all my little personal reactions towards him. And I would try my best to find again the Light of the first time and return to you stronger. I dont know. I will do what you say. All this really has to change. I dont know, moreover, whether Swami wishes to have me.
Mother, I need you, I need you. Forgive me and tell me what I should do.
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my dear child,
I have just received your letter which I read with all my love, the love that understands and effaces. When you return here, you will always be very welcome, and we shall certainly take up our work together again. I shall be happy, and it is very much needed. But first of all, it will be good for you to go to Rameswaram. I know that you will be welcome there. Stay there as long as necessary to find and consolidate your experience. Afterwards, come back here, stronger and better armed, to face a new period of outer and inner work. At the end of the labor is the Victory.
With all my confident love.
Signed: Mother
0 1958-12-15 - tantric mantra - 125,000, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Swami received me warmly and is doing all he can with all his heart. I am following his instructions to the letter for I believe that your grace is acting through him. Furthermore, he is totally devoted to you and spoke of you as no one ever hashe understands many things. I was unfair in my reactions towards him.
At the new moon, when I felt very down, he gave me the first tantric mantraa mantra to Durga. For a period of 41 days, I must repeat it 125,000 times and go every morning to the Temple, stand before Parvati and recite this mantra within me for at least one hour. Then I must go to the sanctuary of Shiva and recite another mantra for half an hour. Practically speaking, I have to repeat constantly within me the mantra to Durga in a silent concentration, whatever I may be doing on the outside. In these conditions, it is difficult to think of you and this has created a slight conflict in me, but I believe that your Grace is acting through Swami and through Durga, whom I am invoking all the time I remember what you told me about the necessity for intermediaries and I am obeying Swami unreservedly.
Mother, things are far from being what they were the first time in Rameswaram, and I am living through certain moments that are hell the ene my seems to have been unleashed with an extraordinary violence. It comes in waves, and after it recedes, I am literally SHATTEREDphysically, mentally and vitally drained. This morning, while going to the temple, I lived through one of these moments. All this suffering that suddenly sweeps down upon me is horrible. Yes, I had the feeling of being BACKED UP AGAINST A WALL, exactly as in your vision I was up against a wall. I was walking among these immense arcades of sculptured granite and I could see myself walking, very small, all alone, alone, ravaged with pain, filled with a nameless despair, for nowhere was there a way out. The sea was nearby and I could have thrown myself into it; otherwise, there was only the sanctuary of Parvati but there was no more Africa to flee to, everything closed in all around me, and I kept repeating, Why? Why? This much suffering was truly inhuman, as if my last twenty years of nightmare were crashing down upon me. I gritted my teeth and went to the sanctuary to say my mantra. The pain in me was so strong that I broke into a cold sweat and almost fainted. Then it subsided. Yet even now I feel completely battered.
I clearly see that the hour has come: either I will perish right here, or else I will emerge from this COMPLETELY changed. But something has to change. Mother, you are with me, I know, and you are protecting me, you love me I have only you, only you, you are my Mother. If these moments of utter darkness return and they are bound to return for everything to be exorcised and conqueredprotect me in spite of myself. Mother, may your Grace not abandon me. I want to be done with all these old phantoms, I want to be born anew in your Light; it has to beotherwise I can no longer go on.
Mother, I believe I understand something of all that you yourself are suffering, and the crucifixion of the Divine in Matter is a real crucifixion. In this moment of consciousness, I offer you all my trials and little sufferings. I would like to triumph so that it be your triumph, one weight less upon your heart.
Forgive me, Mother, for all the pain I may have thrown on you, but I am confident that with your Grace I will emerge from this victorious, your child unobscured, in all the fibers of my being. Oh Mother, how alone you are to bear all our suffering if only I could remember this in my moments of darkness.
I am at your feet. You are my Mother, my only support.
Signed: Satprem
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my very dear child,
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,
--
Do not be troubled about my body it is well on the way to recovery.
***
--
my very dear child, I am adding on to what I wrote you this morning to ask you to follow very scrupulously the indications given by Swamihe knows these things and has offered himself very sincerely as an instrument of action for my Grace.
When you invoke Durga, it is I you invoke through her, when you invoke Shiva, it is I you invoke through himand in the final analysis, to the Supreme Lord go all prayers.
With all my love.
Signed: Mother
0 1958-12-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Your last letter was a great comfort to me. If you were not there, with me, everything would be so absurd and impossible. I am again disturbing you because Swami tells me that you are worried and that I should write to you. Not much has changed, except that I am holding on and am confident. Yesterday, I again suffered an agonizing wave, in the temple, and I found just enough strength to repeat your name with each beat of my heart, like someone drowning. I remained as motionless as a pillar of stone before the sanctuary, with only your name ( my mantra would not come out), then it cleared. It was brutal. I am confident that with each wave I am gaining in strength, and I know you are there. But I am aware that if the ene my is so violent it is because something in me responds, or has responded, something that has not made its surrender that is the critical point. Mother, may your grace help me to place everything in your hands, everything, without any shadow. I want so much to emerge into the Light, to be rid of all this once and for all.
I am following Swamis instructions to the letter. Sometimes it all seems to lack warmth and spontaneity, but I am holding on. I might add that we are living right next to the bazaar, amidst a great racket 20 hours a day, which does not make things easier. So I repeat my mantra as one pounds his fists against the walls of a prison. Sometimes it opens a little, you send me a little joy, and then everything becomes better again.
Swami told me that the mantra to Durga is intended to pierce through into the subconscient. To complement this work, he does his pujas to Kali, and finally one of his friends, X, the High Priest of the temple in Rameswaram (who presided over my initiation and has great occult powers), has undertaken to say a very powerful mantra over me daily, for a period of eight days, to extirpate the dark forces from my subconscious. The operation already began four days ago. While reciting his mantra, he holds a glass of water in his hand, then he makes me drink it. It seems that on the eighth day, if the ene my has been trapped, this water turns yellow then the operation is over and the poisoned water is thrown out. (I tell you all this because I prefer that you know.) In any event, I like X very much, he is a very luminous, very good man. If I am not delivered after all this!
In truth, I believe only in the Grace. my mantra and all the rest seem to me only little tricks to try to win over your Grace.
Mother, love me. I have only you, I want to belong to you alone.
--
my dear child,
I have received your letter of the 24th. You did well to write, not because I was worried, but I like to receive news for it fixes my work by giving me useful material details. I am glad that X is doing something for you. I like this man and I was counting upon him. I hope he will succeed. Perhaps his work will be useful here, too for I have serious reasons to believe that this time occult and even definite magic practices aimed directly against my body have been mixed in with the attacks. This has complicated things somewhat, so as yet I have not resumed any of my usual activities I am still upstairs resting, but in reality fighting. Yesterday, the Christmas distribution took place without me, and it is likely that it will be the same for January 1st. The work, too, has been completely interrupted. And I do not yet know how long this will last.
Keep me posted on the result of Xs action; it interests me very much
I love you, my child, and I am near you with confidence and tenderness.
Doubt not of the Victory, it is certain.
0 1958-12-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
On my side, within my little field, I am taking the bull by the horns and henceforth the ene my will no longer have my complicity. May all my being be turned solely towards your Lightand be your help, your instrument, your knight.
X has decided to continue his action upon me beyond the eight days foreseen, which doubtlessly corresponds to dosages that exceed my understanding.
Mother, I am fighting beside you, for you, for your Victory.
With all my Love, I am at your feet.
Signed: Satprem
--
my dear child,
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
--
Happy New Year, my dear child! I am sure it will bring us a decisive victory.
I am near you with all my love.
Signed: Mother
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.
I did not like the idea of something or somebody having the power to pull me like that so materially out of my body without my previous consent. That is why I gave some importance to the experience.
Mother withdrew on December 9. In fact, She had been unwell for already more than a month before withdrawing. On November 26, the last 'Wednesday class' took place at the playground; on November 28 the last 'Friday class', on December 6, the last 'Translation class'; on December 1, the end of Mother's tennis and the last visit to the playground. On December 9, She again went down for the meditation around the Samadhi. From December 10, Mother remained in her room for one month. A great period had come to an end. Henceforth, She would only go out of the Ashram building on rare occasions.
0 1959-01-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And it happened just as I was despairing of ever getting out of it. I seemed to be touching a kind of fundamental bedrock, so painful, so suffering, and full of revolt because of too much suffering. And I saw that all my efforts, all the meditations, aspirations, mantras, were only covering up this suffering bedrock without touching it. I saw this fundamental thing in me very clearly, a poignant knot, ever ready for an absolute negation. I saw it and I said to you, Mother, only your grace can remove this. I said this to you in the temple that morning, in total despair. And then, the knot was undone. Xs action contri buted a lot, with your grace acting through him. But truly, I have traversed a veritable hell this last while.
X continues his work on me daily; it is to last 41 days in all. He told me that he wants to undo the things of several births. When it is over, he will explain it all to me. I do not know how to tell you how luminous and good this man is, he is a very great soul. He is also giving me Sanskrit lessons, and little by little, each evening, speaks to me of the Tantra.
--
Mother, by way of expressing to you my gratitude, I want to work now to open myself totally to your Light and become truly an egoless instrument, your conscious instrument. Mother, you are the sole Reality.
With love and gratitude, I am your child.
--
my dear child,
I was awaiting your letter impatiently and am very happy about what you write!
I have followed the vicissitudes of your struggle step by step and I know that it has been terrible, but my confidence in the outcome has not wavered for I know you are in good hands. I am so happy that X is taking good care of you, teaching you Sanskrit, speaking to you of the Tantra. It is just what I wanted.
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 atmosphere. 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.
Satprem, my child, I am truly with you and I love you.
Signed: Mother
0 1959-01-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
As for myself, a step has definitely been taken, and I am no longer swept away by this painful torrent. Depressions and attacks still come, but no longer with the same violence as before. X told me that 2/3 of the work has been done and that everything would be purged in twelve days or so, then the thing will be enclosed in a jar and buried somewhere or thrown into the sea, and he will explain it all to me. I will write and tell you about it.
As for the true tantric initiation, this is what X told me: I will give you initiation. You are fit. You belong to that line. It will come soon, some months or some years. Shortly you shall reach the junction. When the time has come, you yourself will come and open a door in me and I shall give you initiation.1 And he made me understand that an important divine work was reserved for me in the future, a work for the Mother. The important practical point is that I have rapidly to develop my knowledge of Sanskrit. The mantra given to me seems to grow in power as I repeat it.
Sweet Mother, by what Grace have you guided and protected me through all these years? There are moments when I have the vision of this Grace, bringing me to the verge of tears. I see so clearly that you are doing everything, that you are all that is good in me, my aspiration and my strength. Me is all that is bad, all that resists, me is horribly false and falsifying. If your Grace withdraws for one second, I collapse, I am helpless.2 You alone are my strength, the source of my life, the joy and fulfillment to which I aspire.
I am at your feet, your child eternally.
--
my dear child,
This morning, I received your letter I am very happy about all that X is telling you and that he has found you fit to receive the tantric initiation. It was my feeling, I could say my conviction, to which he gives an enlightened confirmation. So all is well.
As for my health and the Ashram, I infinitely appreciate what he has done and what he would like to continue to do. His visit will make me very happy, and if he comes in about one month, a few days before the darshan, there will be no need to find any excuse for his visit, for it will appear quite natural.
my health is progressing well, but I intend to be very prudent and not burden myself with occupations. Yesterday, I began the balcony darshan again, and it is all right. That is all for the moment.
I am taking advantage of this situation to work. I have chosen the articles for the Bulletin. They are as follows: 1) Message. 2) To keep silent. 3) Can there be intermediary states between man and super-man? 4) The Anti-Divine. 5) What is the role of the spirit? 6) Karma (I have touched this one up to make it less personal). 7) The Worship of the Supreme in Matter. Now I would like to prepare the first twelve Aphorisms3 for printing. But as you have not yet revised the last two, I am sending them to you. Could you do them when you have finished what you are doing for the Bulletin? It is not urgent, take your time. Do not disturb your real work for this in any way. For, in my eyes, this work of inner liberation is much more important.
You will find in this letter a little money. I thought you might need it for your stamps, etc.
I never leave you, and my love too is always with you.
Signed: Mother
0 1959-01-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Here is what X told me: I have received a message from my guru.1 In my vision, the Mother was there, next to my guru, and she was smiling. my guru told me that your present difficulties are a period of testing, but I could already give you the first stage of tantric initiation and that for you, the three stages of initiation could be done in an accelerated way.
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.
Sweet Mother, may my entire life be at your service, may my entire being belong to you. I owe you everything.
With love and gratitude, I am your child.
--
my dear child,
I was waiting to answer your letter of the 21st until the Friday and Saturday you mentioned had gone by. And then I felt that you were returning the Aphorisms, so I waited a bit more. I have just received them along with your letter of the 23rd, but I have not yet looked at them. Besides, if you intend returning for the February darshan, I think it would be preferable for us to revise the whole book together. There will not be very much work on my side since the Wednesday and Friday classes were discontinued in the beginning of December, and I still do not know when they will resume.3 Right now, I am translating the Aphorisms all alone and it seems to go quickly and well. This could also be revised and the book on the Dhammapada prepared for publication.
For the time being, I am going downstairs only in the mornings at 6 for the balcony darshan and I immediately come back up without seeing anyone then in the afternoons, I go down once more at about 3 to take my bath and at 4:30 I come back up again. I do not yet know what will happen next month. I shall have to find some way to meet you so that we can work together I am going to think it over.
I do not ask you to write me your news,4 because I know that these are things it is better not to write about. But you know that it keenly interests me.
my love is always with you, enfolding and upholding you.
The blessings of the Grace are upon you.
0 1959-01-27, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
By a special grace, X gave me both stages of the tantric initiation at the same time, although they are normally separated by several years; then if all goes well, he will give me the full initiation in 6 months. I have thus received a mantra, along with the power of realizing it. X told me that a realization should come at the beginning of the fifth month if I repeat the mantra strictly according to his instructions, but he again told me that the hostile forces would do all they could to prevent me from saying my mantra: mental suggestions and even illness. X has understood that I have work at the Ashram, and he has exempted me from the outer forms (pujas and other rituals), but nevertheless I must repeat my mantra very accurately every day (3,333 times, that is, a little more than 3 hours uninterrupted in the mornings, and more than 2 hours in the evening). I must therefore organize myself in such a way as to get up very early in the morning in Pondicherry, for in no case will your work suffer.
Apart from this, he has not yet entirely finished the work of purging that he has been doing on me for over a month, but I believe that everything will be completed in a short time from now.
Sweet Mother, I have a kind of fear that all these mantras are not bringing me nearer to you I mean you in your physical body, for it is not upon you physically that I was told to concentrate. Also, I almost never see you in my dreams any longer, or else only very vaguely. Last night, I dreamed that I was offering you flowers (not very pretty ones), one of which was called mantra, but I did not see you in my dream. Mother, I would like to be true, to do the right thing, to be as you want me to be.
I am your child. I belong to you alone.
--
my dear child,
Your very interesting letter of the 27th has just arrived.
All is well I am enthusiastic and you can count on my conscious help to overcome all the obstacles and all the bad will that may try to stop or delay your progress. It is a matter of being more obstinate, much more obstinate than the ene my, and whatever the cost, to reach the goal in time.
Since my last letter, I have thought about it and I see that I will be able to go down in the morning three times a week for one hour, from 10 to 11, to work with you, but you will have to do only the strict minimum in order to have as much free time as you need for the other things.1
As I told you, I have resumed neither classes nor translations, and I still do not know when I will do so. So there is only the old work to finish up, but it will not take very long.
my body would also like to have a mantra to repeat. Those it has are not enough for it anymore. It would like to have one to hasten its transformation. It is ready to repeat it as many times as needed, provided that it does not have to be out loud, for it is very rarely alone and does not want to speak of this to anyone. Truly, the Ashram atmosphere is not very favorable for this kind of thing. You will have to take precautions so as not to be disturbed or interrupted in an inopportune way. Domestic servants, curious people, so-called friends can all serve as instruments of the hostile forces to put a spoke in the wheels. I will do my best to protect you, but you will have a lot to do yourself and will have to be as firm as an iron rod.
I am not writing you all this to discourage you from coming. But I want you to succeed; for me that is more important than anything else, no matter what the price. So, know for certain that I am with you all the time and more so especially when you repeat your mantra
In constant communion in the effort towards victory; my love and my force never leave you.
Signed: Mother
0 1959-01-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
X knows very little about your true work and what Swami has been able to explain to him is rather inadequate, for I do not believe that he himself understands it very well. So I shall have to try to make myself understood quite clearly to X and tell him exactly and simply what it is you need. The word transformation is too abstract. Each mantra has a very specific actionat least I believe soand I must be able to tell X in a concrete way the exact powers or capacities you are now seeking, and the general goal or the particular results required. Then he will find the mantra or mantras that apply.
my explanations will have to be simple, for X speaks English with difficulty, thus subtleties are out of the question. (I am teaching him a little English while he is teaching me Sanskrit, and we manage to understand each other rather well all the same. He understands more than he can speak.)
I do not want to mention this to Swami, as X is not very happy about the way Swami seizes upon every occasion to appropriate things, and particularly mantras (I will explain this to you when we meet again). It is especially the way he says I. Nothing very seriousit is Swamis bad side, though he has good ones too. You know that, however.
--
As for my return to Pondicherry, I would like you yourself to decide. I am anxious to see you again, but I also think that it is not necessary to rush things, and the Darshan periods are heavy for you.
In principle, X will have finished his purging of me on February 6. So after that date I will do what you wish.
As for my mantra, I say it only partially now, but X will fix an auspicious day to begin it really according to the rules when I am in Pondicherry, for theoretically, one should not move once the work has begun. The 12th of February is an auspicious day, if you decide that I should return by then (or a little before to get things ready); otherwise another date may be fixed later on.
Your letter, Sweet Mother, has filled me with strength and resolution. I want to be victorious and I want to serve you. I see very well that gradually I can be taught many useful things by X. The essential thing is first of all to lose this ego which falsifies everything. Finally, through your grace, I believe that I have passed a decisive turning point and that there is a beginning of real consecration and I feel your Love, your Presence. Things are opening a little.
--
my dear child,
I have received your letter of the 31st. In a number of ways it confirms my experience of these past days. We shall speak of all this when you return.
I have reflected a great deal on a possible mantra, and I have also seen the difficulty of receiving something that does not have a narrowing effect One must at least have an idea of the possibility (at least) of the supermind to understand what I need
--
Tell X that my body is on the way to complete recovery.
With my love and my blessings.
Signed: Mother
0 1959-03-10 - vital dagger, vital mass, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I, who know the consequences of these things, stopped him just in time I gave him a blow. Then I had enough of all this and it was over, I cleaned the place out. It was almost a physical cleaning, for I had my hands clasped together (I was in a semitrance) and I threw them apart in an abrupt movement, left and right, powerfully, as if to sweep something away, and frrt! immediately everything was gone.
But had that not happened I was watching, not exactly with curiosity, but in order to learnto learn what kind of atmosphere people live in! And it is ALWAYS like that! They are always pestered by HORDES of little formations that are absolutely swarming and disgusting, each one making its nasty little suggestion.
--
Sri Aurobindo calls this realm the intermediate zone, a zone in which, he says, you can have all the experiences you wish if you enter into it. But it isnt (laughing) very advisable!and I understand why! I had that experience because I had just read what Sri Aurobindo says on this subject in a letter in this latest book, On Yoga; I wanted to see for myself what it was. Ah, I understood!
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
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 Titan has been specially sent to attack this body, but he cant do it directly, so he uses people in my entourage. It is something fated: all those around me, who are close to me, and especially those capable of love, have been attacked by him; a few have succumbed, such as that girl in my entourage who was absorbed by him. He follows me like a shadow, and each time there is the least little opening in someone near me, he is there.
The power of this Titan comes from an Asura. There are four Asuras. Two have already been converted, and the other two, the Lord of Death and the Lord of Falsehood, made an attempt at conversion by taking on a physical bodythey have been intimately associated with my life. The story of these Asuras would be very interesting to recount The Lord of Death disappeared; he lost his physical body, and I dont know what has become of him.1 As for the other, the Lord of Falsehood, the one who now rules over this earth, he tried hard to be converted, but he found it disgusting!
At times he calls himself the Lord of Nations. It is he who sets all wars in motion, and only by thwarting his plans could the last war be won This one does not want to be converted, not at all. He wants neither the physical transformation nor the supramental world, for that would spell his end. Besides, he knows We talk to each other; beyond all this, we have our relationship. For after all, you see (laughing), I am his mother! One day he told me, I know you will destroy me, but meanwhile, I will create all the havoc possible.
0 1959-04-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Henceforth I refuse to be an accomplice to this force. It is my ene my. Whatever form it may take, or whatever supports it may find in my nature, I will refuse to yield to it and will cling to you. You are the only reality: that is my mantra. Anything that seeks to make me doubt you is my ene my. You are the only Reality.
And each time I feel the shadow approach, I will call to you, immediately.
May you never again suffer because of me. O Mother, purify me and open my heart.
Your child,
--
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.
2) I am very pullednot constantly, but periodicallyby the need to write (not mental things) and exasperated by the fact that this Orpailleur is not published because I have not taken the time to carry out certain corrections. When I am in a good mood, I offer all this to you (is it perhaps a hidden ambition? But I am not so sure; it is rather a need, I believe) and when I am not in a good mood, I fume about not having the time to write something else.
--
Satprem, my dear child,
Your resolution came straight to me. I sheltered it in the depths of my heart, and with my highest will, I said, So be it.
Just now, I received your letter confirming my experience. It is good.
I read your P.S. and I understand. This too confirms my feeling. I am not happy that you are plagued with work, and especially urgent work that has to be done quicklyit is contrary to the inner calm and concentration so indispensable for getting rid of ones difficulties. I am going to do what is necessary to change this situation. Besides, this is why I have been telling you recently that my work is not urgent. But this work for the Bulletin should stop for the moment.
The other point also has its element of truthwe shall speak of it later.
With all my love, I envelope you, my child, and I tell you, Have courage, the victory is certainnot a compromise or partial victory, but integral.
Signed: Mother
0 1959-04-23, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Satprem, my dear child,
I hope you wrote to X that it is agreed, that we expect him with his family early in the morning of the 30th, and that I am looking forward to our daily morning meditation during his stay.
0 1959-05-19 - Ascending and Descending paths, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
The path is difficult. And yet this body is full of good will; it is filled with the psychic in every one of its cells. Its like a child. The other day, it cried out quite spontaneously, O my Sweet Lord, give me the time to realize You! It did not ask to hasten the process, it did not ask to lighten its work; it only asked for enough TIME to do the work. Give me the time!
I could have begun this work on the body thirty years ago, but I was constantly caught up in this harassing ashram life. It took this illness2 to enable me truly to begin doing the sadhana of the body. It does not mean that thirty years were wasted, for it is likely that had I been able to start this work thirty years ago, it would have been premature. The consciousness of the others also had to develop the two are linked, the individual progress and the collective progress, and one cannot advance if the other does not advance.
I have also come to realize that for this sadhana of the body, the mantra is essential. Sri Aurobindo gave none; he said that one should be able to do all the work without having to resort to external means. Had he reached the point where we are now, he would have seen that the purely psychological method is inadequate and that a japa is necessary, because only japa has a direct action on the body. So I had to find the method all alone, to find my mantra by myself. But now that things are ready, I have done ten years of work in a few months. That is the difficulty, it requires time
And I repeat my mantra constantlywhen I am awake and even when I sleep. I say it even when I am getting dressed, when I eat, when I work, when I speak with others; it is there, just behind in the background, all the time, all the time.
In fact, you can immediately see the difference between those who have a mantra and those who dont. With those who have no mantra, even if they have a strong habit of meditation or concentration, something around them remains hazy and vague. Whereas the japa imparts to those who practice it a kind of precision, a kind of solidity: an armature. They become galvanized, as it were.
0 1959-05-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Satprem, my dear child,
I can only repeat the prayer that I made to the Supreme Lord this morning:
--
my love is with you.
Signed: Mother
--
If it is to make me feel all my wrongs that you remind me of my solemn promise, then I am ready to acknowledge all these wrongs. I am guilty, without any extenuating circumstances, and I expect no indulgence.
I can easily understand that your task on this earth is not particularly encouraging and you must find our human matter stupid and rebellious. I do not wish to throw upon you more bad things than you already receive, but I wish you could also understand certain things. I am not made for this withered life, not made for putting sentences together all day long, not made for living alone in my holefriendless, loveless, with nothing but mantras, and waiting for a better that never comes. For three years I have wanted to leave and each time I yielded out of scruples that you needed me, though also because I am attached to you. But after the [book on] Sri Aurobindo, there will be something else, there will always be something else that will make my departure look like a betrayal. I am fed up with living in my head, always in my head, with paper and ink. It was not of this that I dreamed when I was ten years old and ran with the wind over the untamed heaths. I am suffocating. You ask too much of me; or rather, I am not worth your expectation.
A love for you might have held me here. And indeed, for you I have devotion, veneration, respect, an attachment, but there has never been this marvelous thing, warm and full, that links one to a being in the same beating of a heart. Through love, I could do all, accept all, endure all, sacrifice all but I do not feel this love. You cannot give yourself with your head, through a mental decision, yet that is what I have been doing for five years. I have tried to serve you as best I could. But I am at the end of my rope. I am suffocating.
I have no illusions, and I do not at all suppose that elsewhere my life may at last be fulfilled. No, I know that this whole life is cursed, but it may as well be truly cursed. If the Divine does not want to give me his Love, may he give me his curse. But not this life between two worlds. Or if I am too hardened, may he break me. But not this tepidness, this approximation.
I am not really bad, Mother, but I can no longer bear this life without love. That is all.
There is someone here who could have saved me, whom I could have loved. Oh, it has nothing to do with all those things you might imagine! my soul loves her soul. It is something very serene. We have known each other for five years, and I had never even dreamed of calling it love. But all the outer circumstances are against us. And I do not want to turn anyone away from you. Anyway, if I sink into the depths of the pit, or so I tell myself, it is no reason to drag someone else along with me. So this too is one more reason for me to leave. I cannot continue suffocating all alone in my corner. (It is useless to ask her name, I will say nothing.)
You are imposing a new ordeal on me by asking me to go to Rameswaram. For you, I have accepted. But I shall go there sheathed in my sturdiest armor and I will not yield, because I know that it is always to be begun again. I do not want to become a great Tantric or whatever else it may be. I want only to love. And since I cannot love, I am leaving. I will arrive in Rameswaram at 2 in the morning, and will leave again by the 11 oclock train.
I want to go to New Caledonia. There, or elsewhere there are forests there. Africa is closing up. You must help me one last time by giving me the means to leave and try something else with a minimum of chancealthough, at the point Im at, I laugh in the face of chance. I need 2,000 rupees, if that is possible for you. If you do not want to, or if you cannot, I will leave anyway, no matter where, no matter how.
And once again, you can judge me all you want, I acknowledge all my wrongs. I am guilty in a guilty and stupid world (which loves its stupidity, no doubt).
Signed: Satprem
--
Satprem, my dear child,
This morning, the problem and its solution appeared to me very clearly; but since, for quite obvious reasons, I am both the judge and the accused in this matter, I cannot make a decision; not that my judgment would necessarily be egoistic, but it would have no authority.
Only someone who loves you and has the knowledge can find the true solution to the problem. X1 fulfills these conditions excellently. Go to him and simply be what you are, without blackening nor embellishing, with the sincerity and simplicity of a child. He knows your soul and its aspiration; speak to him of your physical life and of your need for space, solitude, untamed nature, the simple and free life. He will understand and, in his wisdom, will see the best thing to do.
--
my love is unalterably with you.
Signed: Mother
0 1959-05-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
There is a spiritual destiny in me, but there are three other destinies so intimately bound up with it that I cannot cut off any one without mutilating something of my living soulwhich is why, periodically, these suppressed destinies awaken and call to meand the dark forces seize upon these occasions to sow chaos within and drive me to ruin everything since I cannot really fulfill myself. And the problem is insoluble.
1) There is the destiny of the adventurer: it is the one in me that needs the sea or the forest and wide open spaces and struggles. This was the best part of my childhood. I can sit on it and tell myself that the adventure is within, and it might work for a while. But this untamed child in me continues to live all the same, and it is something very valuable in me. I cannot kill it through reasoning, even spiritual reasoning. And if I tell it that everything lies within, not without, it replies, Then why was I born, why this manifestation in the outer world? In the end, it is not a question of reasoning. It is a fact, like the wind upon the heaths.
2) There is the destiny of the writer in me. And this too is linked to the best of my soul. It is also a profound need, like adventuring upon the heaths, because when I write certain things, I brea the in a certain way. But during the five years I have been here, I have had to bow to the fact that, materially, there is no time to write what I would like (I recall how I had to wrench out this Orpailleur, which I have not even had time to revise). This is not a reproach, Mother, for you do all you can to help me. But I realize that to write, one must have leisure, and there are too many less personal and more serious things to do. So I can also sit on this and tell myself that I am going to write a Sri Aurobindo but this will not satisfy that other need in me, and periodically it awakens and sprouts up to tell me that it too needs to breathe.
3) There is also the destiny that feels human love as something divine, something that can be transfigured and become a very powerful driving force. I did not believe it possible, except in dreams, until the day I met someone here. But you do not believe in these things, so I shall not speak of it further. I can gag this also and tell myself that one day all will be filled in the inner divine love. But that does not prevent this other need in me from living and from finding that life is dry and from saying, Why this outer manifestation if all life is in the inner realms? But neither can I stifle this with reasoning.
So there remains the pure spiritual destiny, pure interiorization. That is what I have been trying to do for the last five years, without much success. There are good periods of collaboration, because one part of my being can be happy in any condition. But in a certain way this achievement remains truncated, especially when you base spiritual life on a principle of integrality. And these three destinies in me have their own good reasons, which are true: they are not inferior, they are not incidental, they are woven from the very threads that created the spiritual life in me. my error is to open the door to revolt when I feel too poignantly one or the other being stifled.
So you see, all this is insoluble. I have only to bow before these unfortunate circumstances. I perceive an injustice somewhere, but I have only to remain silent.
And I was also struck when you told me that I wanted to kick up a row. You so clearly implied that I was leaving the Ashram in a shoddy way. So that also froze me. I thought I had done my best and, in order to serve you, repressed as much as I could the others in me.
So there. I can find no solution. X will not understand, and I will not say anything to him. But I obey you because everything is futile and there is too much pain in this world, and also someone in me needs you, someone who loves you in his own way.
--
Satprem, my dear little one,
I have read your letter in its entirety and I remain convinced that one day all the parts of your being, without excluding any, will be fully satisfied. But we shall see about that later.
For the moment, I only want to tell you, from the bottom of my heartwhich is so deeply touchedthank you.
With all my love.
Signed: Mother
--
I did not utter the words that you heard I wanted to speak to you of my experience during the night, but I was paralyzed because I clearly felt that you no longer understood me. As soon as I received your letter, I concentrated on you in an effort to help you, and when night fell, just at the hour I enter into contact with X, I called for his helpwhereupon he sent me this little Kali whom he had already sent once before. So I went to your house, I took you in my arms and pressed you tightly to my heart to keep you as sheltered as possible from blows, and I let Kali do her warrior dance against this titan who is always trying to possess you, creating this rebelliousness in you. She must have at least partially succeeded in her work, because very early in the morning the titan went away somewhat discomfited, but while leaving, he flung this at me as he went by: You will regret it, for you would have had less trouble if he had left. I flung his suggestion back in his face with a laugh and told him, Take that, along with all the rest of your ugly person! I have no need of it! And the atmosphere cleared up.
I wanted to tell you all this, but I couldnt because you were still far away from me and it would have seemed like boasting. Also the misunderstanding created by the distance made you hear other words than those I uttered.
0 1959-06-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Regarding me, this is more or less what he said: First of all, I want an agreement from you so that under any circumstances you never leave the Ashram. Whatever happens, even if Yama1 comes to dance at your door, you should never leave the Ashram. At the critical moment, when the attack is the strongest, you should throw everything into His hands, then and then only the thing can be removed (I no longer know whether he said removed or destroyed ). It is the only way. SARVAM MAMA BRAHMAN [Thou art my sole refuge]. Here in Rameswaram, we are going to meditate together for 45 days, and the Asuric-Shakti may come with full strength to attack, and I shall try my best not only to protect but to destroy, but for that, I need your determination. It is only by your own determination that I can get strength. If the force comes to make suggestions: lack of adventure, lack of Nature, lack of love, then think that I am the forest, think that I am the sea, think that I am the wife (!!) Meanwhile, X has nearly doubled the number of repetitions of the mantra that I have to say every day (it is the same mantra he gave me in Pondicherry). X repeated to me again and again that I am not merely a disciple to him, like the others, but as if his son.
This was a first, hasty conversation, and we did not discuss things at length. I said nothing. I have no confidence in my reactions when I am in the midst of my crises of complete negation. And truly speaking, at the time of my last crisis in Pondicherry, I do not know if it was really Xs occult working that set things right, for personally (but perhaps it is an ignorant impression), I felt that it was thanks to Sujata and her childlike simplicity that I was able to get out of it.
In any event, since I left Pondicherry, I have been living like a kind of robot (it began in the train); I am empty, void of the least feeling for whomever it may be. I keep going by a kind of acquired momentum, but actually I feel completely anesthetized.
Excuse my handwriting. I am writing to you lying on the floor of the dharamshala2 near Xs house, for the hut meant for me is not yet ready.
Suddenly, last evening, X went furiously on the warpath against the Indian Congress3 and with an irrefutable tone, like someone who knows, began making very interesting predictions.
--
That is all, Sweet Mother. In spite of my anesthesia, I think of you. (I am not blocked; on the contrary, it seems to me that the bond has been renewed since our last meeting, but I feel strangely empty.) I am unable to understand how you can love me. Oh Mother, I have truly to begin living, truly loving!
Your child,
--
my very dear child,
I received and read your very interesting letter.
--
For you, I fully approve of what he told you. Fervently, and with all my love, I pray that he will succeed in what he wants to do during these 45 days of meditation. This is really what I was counting on.
For what occurred here, I can say only one thing: when the Supreme Lord wants to save someone, He clothes his will in every appearance necessary.
--
my love is with you.
Signed: Mother
0 1959-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Satprem, my very dear child, yesterday evening I received your second letter dated the 4th.
Regarding my mantra, I began repeating it yesterday before receiving your letter, and I felt that it was all right. So if X makes no alterations, it is not necessary to send it back to me. I receive the force X gives me without paper.
I do not know if it is an illusion, but on several occasions I felt that if X says this mantra, it will cure his fever.
As for the predictions, I am extremely interested. Tell this to X, and also that details of this kind are a great help in my work, for they give physical clues enabling a greater precision in the action. Needless to say, I will be very grateful for any indications he may wish to give me.
For you, my dear child, it is true that something must happen and will happen. Will you please tell X on my behalf that I will participate with all my power in what he wants to undertake. He will understand.
I am with you and wish to repeat to you: infinite is the Grace and invincible is the Love; be confident and will the victory, for this is what X means by your collaboration.
0 1959-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I thought certain details from my conversations with X might interest you:
1) X spoke to me of the Vedic times when a single emperor or sage ruled the entire world with the help of governors; then these governors gradually became independent kings, and conflicts were born. So I asked him what was going to happen after this next war and whether the world would be better. He replied as follows: Yes, great sages like Sri Aurobindo who are wandering now in their subtle bodies will appear. Some sages may take the physical body of political leaders in the West. It will be the end of ignorant atomic machines and the beginning of a new age with great sages leading the world. So it seems that Xs vision links up with Sri Aurobindos prediction for 1967.
--
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.
On another occasion, he said to me, I am ALWAYS taking care of you. And when I asked him why he was taking such trouble for me, he replied, Because I have orders. This attention that comes to me from you and him surprises me, for I do not feel that I am good, and upon the least occasion I know that I am seriously prepared to quit everything because something in me is profoundly revolted by this excess of suffering, by a lack of love and flowering, by an excess of solitude. Yesterday evening, it was still fully there, with all my approval, and at such a time no one in the world can hold me back. It is this POINT OF SUFFERING that makes me want to turn my back on everything. Not to commit suicide: to turn my back.
X told me the story of my last three existences (rather grim), but I will write you about that in another letter.
3) X has not yet begun his work with me nor for you, as he has been unwell until today. One evening, he made a very beautiful reflection concerning you and your mantra, but it is inexpressible in words, it was above all the tone in which he said, Who, who, is there a single person in the world who can repeat like that TRIOMPHE TOI MAHIMA MAHIMA? etc. And three or four times he repeated your mantra with such an expression
--
I have no other details to give you, except that I am not happy. The fact is that these last three years I have been tied down by my penury, otherwise I would be travelling along other roads, far from herewith no greater hope in my heart, but with space before me, at least. I am only here to render you service, but I do not know if I shall be able to repress my need for space much longerit has already been going on too long. This is the undisguised truth. But what can I do?I am tied down. If I truly loved, things would be different, but it seems I love no one, not even myself, and the only love of which I am capable, human love, is forbidden to me. So I can do nothing, not on any plane, and I have no hope in anything. Forgive me, I do not wish to pain you, but neither can I pretend any longer to be happy with my lot.
Signed: Satprem
0 1959-06-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I should write you what X has revealed about my last three lives, but I have neither the courage nor the desire to again speak of myself.
Your child,
--
P.S. X asked me questions about my family. I was prompted to speak to him of my mother (seeing her photo, you had said that you knew her very well, if you recall). He immediately said, You MUST go and see your mother. You will go in August and quickly come back by plane beginning September! Of course, I told him that all this seems like the highest fantasy to me, and that to begin with I had no money and would surely not ask you anything for that. He said, I shall ask my Mother. She will arrange everything.
***
--
Satprem, my dear little one,
I have a world of things to tell you about all I have heard, seen and done concerning you these past days. New doors of understanding have opened but all these things are impossible to write.
--
If X told you to go see your mother in August and return m early September, you must go. We shall manage. my finances are in an almost desperate state, but that cannot last. For what has to be done will be done.
You are constantly with me, and I am following all your inner movements with love and concern.
--
With all my tenderness.
Signed: Mother
0 1959-06-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
It seems to me that for months I have been far away from you. I no longer see you in my dreams, I no longer feel you. What, then is this path I am following?
In spite of all my revolts, I need you, I need truth, Light, and love. I feel I have already known all this, had all this, and that I have been dispossessed. Perhaps that is why I suffer.
Mother, lead me towards you, I am blind and without strength.
--
Satprem, my very dear child,
I have received your good letter of the 9th, It warms my heart.
All these things that you needtruth, light, love, my presence in youyou have had them and you still have them, they have not withdrawn from you, but something came to veil them from your perception, and this is why you became unhappy. They are waiting just there, near you, in you, anxious for the shadow to vanish and for you to realize that they have not left you.
With all my love.
Signed: Mother
0 1959-06-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
But I did not want to wait any longer to express my gratitude. I am still not so sure how all this will turn out nor how this destiny that he predicts for me can be realized, but I want to repeat to you, with all my confidence: I am your child, may your will be done now and forever.
Signed: Satprem
--- Grep of noun my
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