10 ordinary dreams) are usually in the great mass experiences of the vital plane, a world of supraphysical life, full of variety and interest, with many provinces, luminous or obscure, beauti- ful or perilous, often extremely attractive, where we can get much knowledge loo both of our concealed pans of nature and of things happening to us behind the veil and of others which are of concern for the development of our parts of nature. The vital being in us then may get very much attracted to this range of experience, may want to live more in it and less in the outer life.
1. Not inclined, willing, or ready; averse, reluctant, loath. 2. Offering resistance; stubborn or obstinate.
1. Not noticed or observed; unmarked. 2. Not specially noted or observed; undistinguished, obscure.
1. Portable barriers over which contestants must leap in certain running races. 2.* Fig.* Obstacles or difficulties.
1. The apparent intersection of the earth and sky as seen by an observer. 2. The range or limit of scope, interest, knowledge, etc. horizon"s, horizons.
5.Obsolete craftsmanship
aberration ::: n. --> The act of wandering; deviation, especially from truth or moral rectitude, from the natural state, or from a type.
A partial alienation of reason.
A small periodical change of position in the stars and other heavenly bodies, due to the combined effect of the motion of light and the motion of the observer; called annual aberration, when the observer&
A block, pile, table, stand, mound, platform, or other elevated structure on which to place or sacrifice offerings to a deity. 2. With reference to the uses, customs, dedication, or peculiar sanctity of the altar. 3. A place consecrated to devotional observances. altar’s, altars, altar-burnings, mountain-altars.
accoucheur ::: n. --> A man who assists women in childbirth; a man midwife; an obstetrician.
::: "A cosmic Will and Wisdom observant of the ascending march of the soul"s consciousness and experience as it emerges out of subconscient Matter and climbs to its own luminous divinity fixes the norm and constantly enlarges the lines of the law — or, let us say, since law is a too mechanical conception, — the truth of Karma.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“A cosmic Will and Wisdom observant of the ascending march of the soul’s consciousness and experience as it emerges out of subconscient Matter and climbs to its own luminous divinity fixes the norm and constantly enlarges the lines of the law—or, let us say, since law is a too mechanical conception,—the truth of Karma.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
acrita ::: n. pl. --> The lowest groups of animals, in which no nervous system has been observed.
— active only when driven by an energy, otherwise inactive and immobile. When one first falls into direct contact with this level, the feeling in the body is that of inertia and immobility, in the vital-physical exhaustion or lassitude, in the physical mind absence of prakasa and pravrtti* or only the most ordinary thoughts and impulses. Once it is illumined, the advantage is that the sub-conscient becomes conscient and this removes a very fucidamfintal obstacle from the sadhana.
acute ::: a. --> Sharp at the end; ending in a sharp point; pointed; -- opposed to blunt or obtuse; as, an acute angle; an acute leaf.
Having nice discernment; perceiving or using minute distinctions; penetrating; clever; shrewd; -- opposed to dull or stupid; as, an acute observer; acute remarks, or reasoning.
Having nice or quick sensibility; susceptible to slight impressions; acting keenly on the senses; sharp; keen; intense; as, a man of acute eyesight, hearing, or feeling; acute pain or pleasure.
adj. 1. Not imprisoned or enslaved; being at liberty. 2. Unconstrained; unconfined. 3. Unobstructed; clear. 4. Ready or generous in using or giving; liberal; lavish. 5. Exempt from external authority, interference, restriction, etc., as a person or one"s will, thought, choice, action, etc.; independent; unrestricted. 6. Exempt or released from something specified that controls, restrains, burdens, etc. (usually followed by from or of). 7. Given readily or in profusion. freer, thought-free, world-free. *adv. *8. In a free manner; without constraints; unimpeded. v. 9. To make free; set at liberty; release from bondage, imprisonment, or restraint. 10. To disengage or clear something from an entanglement. 11. To relieve or rid of a burden, an inconvenience or an obligation. freed. set free. Released; liberated; freed.
adnubilated ::: a. --> Clouded; obscured.
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.
aeroscopy ::: n. --> The observation of the state and variations of the atmosphere.
A glad and strong and helpful ^submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the Illumined disciple of thb Truth, of the inner warrior who fights against obscurity hnd falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine.
“All aspects of the omnipresent Reality have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Thus even the aspect or power of Inconscience, which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, yet corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. It is, when we look closely at it, the Infinite’s power of plunging the consciousness into a trance of self-involution, a self-oblivion of the Spirit veiled in its own abysses where nothing is manifest but all inconceivably is and can emerge from that ineffable latency. In the heights of Spirit this state of cosmic or infinite trance-sleep appears to our cognition as a luminous uttermost Superconscience: at the other end of being it offers itself to cognition as the Spirit’s potency of presenting to itself the opposites of its own truths of being,—an abyss of non-existence, a profound Night of inconscience, a fathomless swoon of insensibility from which yet all forms of being, consciousness and delight of existence can manifest themselves,—but they appear in limited terms, in slowly emerging and increasing self-formulations, even in contrary terms of themselves; it is the play of a secret all-being, all-delight, all-knowledge, but it observes the rules of its own self-oblivion, self-opposition, self-limitation until it is ready to surpass it. This is the Inconscience and Ignorance that we see at work in the material universe. It is not a denial, it is one term, one formula of the infinite and eternal Existence.” The Life Divine
allhallown ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the time of Allhallows. [Obs.] "Allhallown summer." Shak. (i. e., late summer; "Indian Summer").
All introspection is based upon the fact that one can so divide oneself into a consciousness that observes and an energy that acts.
allusively ::: adv. --> Figuratively [Obs.]; by way of allusion; by implication, suggestion, or insinuation.
almacantar ::: n. --> Same as Almucantar.
A recently invented instrument for observing the heavenly bodies as they cross a given almacantar circle. See Almucantar.
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.
Also, there is a mind-energy actual or potential in each which differs and this mind-energy in its recipience of the thought can be luminous or obscure, sattwic, rajasic or tamasic with conse- quences that vary in each case.
altar ::: 1. A block, pile, table, stand, mound, platform, or other elevated structure on which to place or sacrifice offerings to a deity. 2. With reference to the uses, customs, dedication, or peculiar sanctity of the altar. 3. A place consecrated to devotional observances. altar"s, altars, altar-burnings, mountain-altars.
Amal: “Many obstructing agencies have to be met when one tries to break free from outwardness and plunge into the depths of one’s being. The very first of these obstructions is a poisonous serpent like a cobra—a terrifying front with a long supporting background of fearful forces.”
Amal: “This is the scientific building of knowledge by a logical process—a massing together of little observations into a coherent whole. It implies the loss of the original knowledge which was direct and grasped at once from all sides and not structured piece by piece from small bits of logical deduction.”
amazement ::: n. --> The condition of being amazed; bewilderment [Obs.]; overwhelming wonder, as from surprise, sudden fear, horror, or admiration.
Frenzy; madness.
ambiguous ::: 1. Open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal; questionable; indistinct, obscure, not clearly defined. 2. Of doubtful or uncertain nature; difficult to comprehend, distinguish, or classify; admitting more than one interpretation, or explanation; of double meaning. 3. Of oracles, people, using words of double meaning. ambiguously.
"A mind of light will replace the present confusion and trouble of this earthly ignorance; it is likely that even those parts of humanity which cannot reach it will yet be aware of its possibility and consciously tend towards it; not only so, but the life of humanity will be enlightened, uplifted, governed, harmonised by this luminous principle and even the body become something much less powerless, obscure and animal in its propensities and capable instead of a new and harmonised perfection. It is this possibility that we have to look at and that would mean a new humanity uplifted into Light, capable of a spiritualised being and action, open to governance by some light of the Truth-consciousness, capable even on the mental level and in its own order of something that might be called the beginning of a divinised life.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“A mind of light will replace the present confusion and trouble of this earthly ignorance; it is likely that even those parts of humanity which cannot reach it will yet be aware of its possibility and consciously tend towards it; not only so, but the life of humanity will be enlightened, uplifted, governed, harmonised by this luminous principle and even the body become something much less powerless, obscure and animal in its propensities and capable instead of a new and harmonised perfection. It is this possibility that we have to look at and that would mean a new humanity uplifted into Light, capable of a spiritualised being and action, open to governance by some light of the Truth-consciousness, capable even on the mental level and in its own order of something that might be called the beginning of a divinised life.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
ammiral ::: n. --> An obsolete form of admiral.
anacharis ::: n. --> A fresh-water weed of the frog&
Ananda) and if the lower movements are active, it forms an obstacle to the establishment of the higher consciousness. But the higher can descend, if there is at all an opening, even before
Ananda 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. But human nature bounded, egoistic and obscure is inapt to receive these great Presences or to support their mighty action. Only when the Four have founded their harmony and freedom of movement in the transformed mind and life and body, can those other rarer Powers manifest in the earth move- ment and the supramental action become possible.
anatomical ::: a. --> Of or relating to anatomy or dissection; as, the anatomic art; anatomical observations.
And it must be a surrender and an opening to the Divine alone and to no other. For it is possible for an obscure mind or an impure life-force in us to surrender to undivme and hostile forces and even to mistake them for the Divine There can be no more calamitous error. Therefore our surrender must be no blind and inert passivity to all influences or any influencei but sincere, conscious, vigilant, pointed to the One and the Highest alone.
And still we can recognise at once in the Overmind the original cosmic Maya, not a Maya of Ignorance but a Maya of Knowledge, yet a Power which has made the Ignorance possible, even inevitable. For if each principle loosed into action must follow its independent line and carry out its complete consequences, the principle of separation must also be allowed its complete course and arrive at its absolute consequence; this is Overmind in its descent reaches a line which divides the cosmic Truth from the cosmic Ignorance; it is the line at which it becomes possible for Consciousness-Force, emphasising the separateness of each independent movement created by Overmind and hiding or darkening their unity, to divide Mind by an exclusive concentration from the overmental source. There has already been a similar separation of Overmind from its supramental source, but with a transparency in the veil which allows a conscious transmission and maintains a certain luminous kinship; but here the veil is opaque and the transmission of the Overmind motives to the Mind is occult and obscure. Mind separated acts as if it were an independent principle, and each mental being, each basic mental idea, power, force stands similarly on its separate self; if it communicates with or combines or contacts others, it is not with the catholic universality of the overmind movement, on a basis of underlying oneness, but as independent units joining to form a separate constructed whole. It is by this movement that we pass from the cosmic Truth into the cosmic Ignorance. The cosmic Mind on this level, no doubt, comprehends its own unity, but it is not aware of its own source and foundation in the Spirit or can only comprehend it by the intelligence, not in any enduring experience; it acts in itself as if by its own right and works out what it receives as material without direct communication with the source from which it receives it. Its units also act in ignorance of each other and of the cosmic whole except for the knowledge that they can get by contact and communication,—the basic sense of identity and the mutual penetration and understanding that comes from it are no longer there. All the actions of this Mind Energy proceed on the opposite basis of the Ignorance and its divisions and, although they are the results of a certain conscious knowledge, it is a partial knowledge, not a true and integral self-knowledge, nor a true and integral world-knowledge. This character persists in Life and in subtle Matter and reappears in the gross material universe which arises from the final lapse into the Inconscience. …
and the Grace will recede from you. Detect first what is false or obscure in you and persistently reject it, then alone can you rightly call for the divine Power to transform you.
animadverter ::: n. --> One who animadverts; a censurer; also [Obs.], a chastiser.
animadvert ::: v. i. --> To take notice; to observe; -- commonly followed by that.
To consider or remark by way of criticism or censure; to express censure; -- with on or upon.
To take cognizance judicially; to inflict punishment.
An inert passivity is constantly confused with the real sur- render, but out of an inert passivity nothing true and powerful can come. It is the inert passivity of physical Nature that leaves it at the mercy of every obscure or undivlne influence. A glad and strong and helpful submission Is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of the
antiquated ::: a. --> Grown old. Hence: Bygone; obsolete; out of use; old-fashioned; as, an antiquated law.
antiquate ::: v. t. --> To make old, or obsolete; to make antique; to make old in such a degree as to put out of use; hence, to make void, or abrogate.
antisabbatarian ::: n. --> One of a sect which opposes the observance of the Christian Sabbath.
antithesis ::: n. --> An opposition or contrast of words or sentiments occurring in the same sentence; as, "The prodigal robs his heir; the miser robs himself." "He had covertly shot at Cromwell; he how openly aimed at the Queen."
The second of two clauses forming an antithesis.
Opposition; contrast.
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.
Anybody can do that merely by a little practice ; anybody who observes his own thoughts, feelings, actions, has begun doing it already. In yoga, we nwke the division complete, that is all.
A person viewing anything; onlooker; observer. 2. An observer or an event. spectators. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.)
a posteriori ::: --> Characterizing that kind of reasoning which derives propositions from the observation of facts, or by generalizations from facts arrives at principles and definitions, or infers causes from effects. This is the reverse of a priori reasoning.
Applied to knowledge which is based upon or derived from facts through induction or experiment; inductive or empirical.
apparition ::: n. --> The act of becoming visible; appearance; visibility.
The thing appearing; a visible object; a form.
An unexpected, wonderful, or preternatural appearance; a ghost; a specter; a phantom.
The first appearance of a star or other luminary after having been invisible or obscured; -- opposed to occultation.
appellate ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or taking cognizance of, appeals. ::: n. --> A person or prosecuted for a crime. [Obs.] See Appellee.
appliance ::: n. --> The act of applying; application; [Obs.] subservience.
The thing applied or used as a means to an end; an apparatus or device; as, to use various appliances; a mechanical appliance; a machine with its appliances.
applicable ::: a. --> Capable of being applied; fit or suitable to be applied; having relevance; as, this observation is applicable to the case under consideration.
appose ::: v. t. --> To place opposite or before; to put or apply (one thing to another).
To place in juxtaposition or proximity.
To put questions to; to examine; to try. [Obs.] See Pose.
aprosos ::: a. & adv. --> Opportunely or opportune; seasonably or seasonable.
By the way; to the purpose; suitably to the place or subject; -- a word used to introduce an incidental observation, suited to the occasion, though not strictly belonging to the narration.
aptness ::: n. --> Fitness; suitableness; appropriateness; as, the aptness of things to their end.
Disposition of the mind; propensity; as, the aptness of men to follow example.
Quickness of apprehension; readiness in learning; docility; as, an aptness to learn is more observable in some children than in others.
Proneness; tendency; as, the aptness of iron to rust.
A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but that these will be on the surface and you will feel your true being within separate from them, observing but not carried away, able to watch and judge them and reject all that has to be rejected and to accept and keep to all that is true consciousness and true experience.” Letters on Yoga
arcanes ::: of things known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric. (Employed by Sri Aurobindo as a noun.)
archaic ::: a. --> Of or characterized by antiquity or archaism; antiquated; obsolescent.
archaism ::: a. --> An ancient, antiquated, or old-fashioned, word, expression, or idiom; a word or form of speech no longer in common use.
Antiquity of style or use; obsoleteness.
argus-eyed ::: a. --> Extremely observant; watchful; sharp-sighted.
ARRESTS IN SADHANA. ::: A difficulty comes or an arrest in some movement which you have begun or have been carrying on for some time. Such arrests are inevitably frequent enough; one might almost say that every step forward is followed by an arrest. It is to be dealt with by becoming always more quiet, more firm in the will to go through, by opening oneself more and more so that any obstructing non-receptivity in the nature may diminish or disappear, by an affirmation of faith even in the midst of obscurity, faith in the presence of a Power that is working behind the cloud and the veil, in the guidance of the Guru, by an observation of oneself to find any cause of the arrest, not in a spirit of depression or discouragement but with the will to find out and remove it. This is the only right attitude and, if one is persistent in taking it, the periods of arrest are not abolished, - for that cannot be at this stage, - but greatly shortened and lightened in their incidence. Sometimes these arrests are periods, long or short, of assimilation or unseen preparation, their appearance of sterile immobility is deceptive ::: in that case, with the right attitude, one can after a time, by opening, by observation, by accumulated experience, begin to feel, to get some inkling of what is being prepared or done. Sometimes it is a period of true obstruction in which the Power at work has to deal with the obstacles in the way, obstacles in oneself, obstacles of the opposing cosmic forces or any other or of all together, and this kind of arrest may be long or short according to the magnitude or obstinacy or complexity of the impediments that are met. But here, too, the right attitude can alleviate or shorten and, if persistently taken, help to a more radical removal of the difficulties and greatly diminish the necessity of complete arrests hereafter.
On the contrary, an attitude of depression or unfaith in the help or the guidance or in the certitude of the victory of the guiding Power, a shutting up of yourself in the sense of the difficulties, helps the obstructions to recur with force instead of progressively diminishing in their incidence.
ascertain ::: v. t. --> To render (a person) certain; to cause to feel certain; to make confident; to assure; to apprise.
To make (a thing) certain to the mind; to free from obscurity, doubt, or change; to make sure of; to fix; to determine.
To find out or learn for a certainty, by trial, examination, or experiment; to get to know; as, to ascertain the weight of a commodity, or the purity of a metal.
"As for the spectator and the coils of the dragon, it is the Chino-Japanese image for the world-force extending itself in the course of the universe and this expresses the attitude of the witness seeing it all and observing in its unfolding the unrolling of the play of the Divine Lila.” Letters on Yoga
“As for the spectator and the coils of the dragon, it is the Chino-Japanese image for the world-force extending itself in the course of the universe and this expresses the attitude of the witness seeing it all and observing in its unfolding the unrolling of the play of the Divine Lila.” Letters on Yoga
ashen ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the ash tree.
Consisting of, or resembling, ashes; of a color between brown and gray, or white and gray. ::: n. --> obs. pl. for Ashes.
asinine ::: a. --> Of or belonging to, or having the qualities of, the ass, as stupidity and obstinacy.
asininity ::: n. --> The quality of being asinine; stupidity combined with obstinacy.
assail ::: v. t. --> To attack with violence, or in a vehement and hostile manner; to assault; to molest; as, to assail a man with blows; to assail a city with artillery.
To encounter or meet purposely with the view of mastering, as an obstacle, difficulty, or the like.
To attack morally, or with a view to produce changes in the feelings, character, conduct, existing usages, institutions; to attack by words, hostile influence, etc.; as, to assail one with
assentation ::: n. --> Insincere, flattering, or obsequious assent; hypocritical or pretended concurrence.
assentator ::: n. --> An obsequious; a flatterer.
assentatory ::: a. --> Flattering; obsequious.
assish ::: a. --> Resembling an ass; asinine; stupid or obstinate.
ass ::: n. --> A quadruped of the genus Equus (E. asinus), smaller than the horse, and having a peculiarly harsh bray and long ears. The tame or domestic ass is patient, slow, and sure-footed, and has become the type of obstinacy and stupidity. There are several species of wild asses which are swift-footed.
A dull, heavy, stupid fellow; a dolt.
Ass ::: Symbol of the inertia and obstruction in the body.
astacus ::: n. --> A genus of crustaceans, containing the crawfish of fresh-water lobster of Europe, and allied species of western North America. See Crawfish.
astrolabe ::: n. --> An instrument for observing or showing the positions of the stars. It is now disused.
A stereographic projection of the sphere on the plane of a great circle, as the equator, or a meridian; a planisphere.
astroscopy ::: n. --> Observation of the stars.
astrotheology ::: n. --> Theology founded on observation or knowledge of the celestial bodies.
attentive ::: a. --> Heedful; intent; observant; regarding with care or attention.
Heedful of the comfort of others; courteous.
ATTITUDE. ::: A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of the Truth, of the inner Warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine.
augury ::: n. --> The art or practice of foretelling events by observing the actions of birds, etc.; divination.
An omen; prediction; prognostication; indication of the future; presage.
A rite, ceremony, or observation of an augur.
aulic ::: a. --> Pertaining to a royal court. ::: n. --> The ceremony observed in conferring the degree of doctor of divinity in some European universities. It begins by a harangue of the chancellor addressed to the young doctor, who then receives the cap, and presides at the disputation (also called the aulic).
auln ::: n. --> An ell. [Obs.] See Aune.
auspice ::: a. --> A divining or taking of omens by observing birds; an omen as to an undertaking, drawn from birds; an augury; an omen or sign in general; an indication as to the future.
Protection; patronage and care; guidance.
austromancy ::: n. --> Soothsaying, or prediction of events, from observation of the winds.
autophony ::: n. --> An auscultatory process, which consists in noting the tone of the observer&
autopsy ::: a. --> Personal observation or examination; seeing with one&
autoptical ::: a. --> Seen with one&
autoptically ::: adv. --> By means of ocular view, or one&
avant ::: n. --> The front of an army. [Obs.] See Van.
avisement ::: n. --> Advisement; observation; deliberation.
AWAKENING ::: There is a stage in the sadhana in which the inner being begins to awake. Often the first result is ::: (I) a sort of witness attitude in which the inner consciousness looks at all that happens as a spectator or observer, observing things but taking no active interest or pleasure in them. (2) A state of neutral equanimity in which there is neither joy nor sorrow, only quietude. (3) A sense of being something separate from all that happens, observing it but not part of it. (4) An absence of attachment to things, people or events.
awreke ::: v. t. & i. --> To avenge. [Obs.] See Wreak.
ayme ::: n. --> The utterance of the ejaculation "Ay me !" [Obs.] See Ay, interj.
background ::: n. --> Ground in the rear or behind, or in the distance, as opposed to the foreground, or the ground in front.
The space which is behind and subordinate to a portrait or group of figures.
Anything behind, serving as a foil; as, the statue had a background of red hangings.
A place in obscurity or retirement, or out of sight.
back ::: n. --> A large shallow vat; a cistern, tub, or trough, used by brewers, distillers, dyers, picklers, gluemakers, and others, for mixing or cooling wort, holding water, hot glue, etc.
A ferryboat. See Bac, 1.
In human beings, the hinder part of the body, extending from the neck to the end of the spine; in other animals, that part of the body which corresponds most nearly to such part of a human being; as, the back of a horse, fish, or lobster.
backstaff ::: n. --> An instrument formerly used for taking the altitude of the heavenly bodies, but now superseded by the quadrant and sextant; -- so called because the observer turned his back to the body observed.
backwater ::: n. --> Water turned back in its course by an obstruction, an opposing current , or the flow of the tide, as in a sewer or river channel, or across a river bar.
An accumulation of water overflowing the low lands, caused by an obstruction.
Water thrown back by the turning of a waterwheel, or by the paddle wheels of a steamer.
balk ::: v. i. --> A ridge of land left unplowed between furrows, or at the end of a field; a piece missed by the plow slipping aside.
A great beam, rafter, or timber; esp., the tie-beam of a house. The loft above was called "the balks."
One of the beams connecting the successive supports of a trestle bridge or bateau bridge.
A hindrance or disappointment; a check.
A sudden and obstinate stop; a failure.
barbary ::: n. --> The countries on the north coast of Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic. Hence: A Barbary horse; a barb. [Obs.] Also, a kind of pigeon.
barful ::: a. --> Full of obstructions.
bar ::: n. **1. Anything that obstructs or prevents; a barrier. v. 2. To obstruct, prevent, hinder, impede. bars, barred, barring.**
bar ::: n. --> A piece of wood, metal, or other material, long in proportion to its breadth or thickness, used as a lever and for various other purposes, but especially for a hindrance, obstruction, or fastening; as, the bars of a fence or gate; the bar of a door.
An indefinite quantity of some substance, so shaped as to be long in proportion to its breadth and thickness; as, a bar of gold or of lead; a bar of soap.
Anything which obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an
barn ::: n. --> A covered building used chiefly for storing grain, hay, and other productions of a farm. In the United States a part of the barn is often used for stables.
A child. [Obs.] See Bairn. ::: v. t. --> To lay up in a barn.
barometrical ::: a. --> Pertaining to the barometer; made or indicated by a barometer; as, barometric changes; barometrical observations.
barometrically ::: adv. --> By means of a barometer, or according to barometric observations.
barrage ::: n. --> An artificial bar or obstruction placed in a river or water course to increase the depth of water; as, the barrages of the Nile.
barricade ::: a structure hastily set up across a route of access to obstruct the passage of an enemy.
barricade ::: n. --> A fortification, made in haste, of trees, earth, palisades, wagons, or anything that will obstruct the progress or attack of an enemy. It is usually an obstruction formed in streets to block an enemy&
barrier ::: 1. Anything built or serving to bar passage. 2. Anything that restrains or obstructs progress, access. 3. A limit or boundary of any kind. barriers, barrier-breakers.
barriered ::: closed off; blocked, obstructing passage. Also fig.
barrier ::: n. --> A carpentry obstruction, stockade, or other obstacle made in a passage in order to stop an enemy.
A fortress or fortified town, on the frontier of a country, commanding an avenue of approach.
A fence or railing to mark the limits of a place, or to keep back a crowd.
An any obstruction; anything which hinders approach or attack.
bawdily ::: adv. --> Obscenely; lewdly.
bawdiness ::: n. --> Obscenity; lewdness.
bawdry ::: n. --> The practice of procuring women for the gratification of lust.
Illicit intercourse; fornication.
Obscenity; filthy, unchaste language.
bawdy ::: a. --> Dirty; foul; -- said of clothes.
Obscene; filthy; unchaste.
bobsled ::: n. --> Alt. of Bobsleigh
bobsleigh ::: n. --> A short sled, mostly used as one of a pair connected by a reach or coupling; also, the compound sled so formed.
bobstay ::: n. --> A rope or chain to confine the bowsprit of a ship downward to the stem or cutwater; -- usually in the pl.
becloud ::: v. t. --> To cause obscurity or dimness to; to dim; to cloud.
bedim ::: v. t. --> To make dim; to obscure or darken.
belay ::: v. t. --> To lay on or cover; to adorn.
To make fast, as a rope, by taking several turns with it round a pin, cleat, or kevel.
To lie in wait for with a view to assault. Hence: to block up or obstruct.
belonite ::: n. --> Minute acicular or dendritic crystalline forms sometimes observed in glassy volcanic rocks.
beltane ::: n. --> The first day of May (Old Style).
A festival of the heathen Celts on the first day of May, in the observance of which great bonfires were kindled. It still exists in a modified form in some parts of Scotland and Ireland.
benight ::: v. t. --> To involve in darkness; to shroud with the shades of night; to obscure.
To overtake with night or darkness, especially before the end of a day&
besmirch ::: v. t. --> To smirch or soil; to discolor; to obscure. Hence: To dishonor; to sully.
betid ::: Obs --> of Betide
bigoted ::: a. --> Obstinately and blindly attached to some creed, opinion practice, or ritual; unreasonably devoted to a system or party, and illiberal toward the opinions of others.
bigot ::: n. --> A hypocrite; esp., a superstitious hypocrite.
A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. In an extended sense, a person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion.
bigotry ::: n. --> The state of mind of a bigot; obstinate and unreasoning attachment of one&
BitlJaloes ::: Rash and obscure vital forces, obscure violenes in the nature.
blear ::: v. --> Dim or sore with water or rheum; -- said of the eyes.
Causing or caused by dimness of sight; dim. ::: v. t. --> To make somewhat sore or watery, as the eyes; to dim, or blur, as the sight. Figuratively: To obscure (mental or moral perception); to blind; to hoodwink.
blench ::: v. i. --> To shrink; to start back; to draw back, from lack of courage or resolution; to flinch; to quail.
To fly off; to turn aside. ::: v. t. --> To baffle; to disconcert; to turn away; -- also, to obstruct; to hinder.
blind ::: adj. 1. Unable to see; lacking the sense of sight; sightless. Also fig. 2. Unwilling or unable to perceive or understand. 3. Lacking all consciousness or awareness. 4. Not having or based on reason or intelligence; absolute and unquestioning. 5. Not characterized or determined by reason or control. 6. Purposeless; fortuitous, random. 7. Undiscriminating; heedless; reckless. 8. Enveloped in darkness; dark, dim, obscure. 9. Dense enough to form a screen. 10. Covered or concealed from sight; hidden from immediate view. 11. Having no openings or passages for light; (a window or door) walled up. blindest, half-blind. v. 12. To deprive of sight permanently or temporarily. 13. To make sightless momentarily; dazzle. blinded.* n. 14. A blind person, esp. as pl., those who are blind. 15. Fig.* Any thing or action intended to conceal one"s real intention; a pretence, a pretext; subterfuge.
blinding ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Blind ::: a. --> Making blind or as if blind; depriving of sight or of understanding; obscuring; as, blinding tears; blinding snow. ::: n.
blinker ::: n. --> One who, or that which, blinks.
A blinder for horses; a flap of leather on a horse&
blockade ::: 1. The isolating, closing off, or surrounding of a place. 2. Any obstruction of passage or progress.
blockade ::: v. t. --> The shutting up of a place by troops or ships, with the purpose of preventing ingress or egress, or the reception of supplies; as, the blockade of the ports of an enemy.
An obstruction to passage. ::: v. t. --> To shut up, as a town or fortress, by investing it
blocking ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Block ::: n. --> The act of obstructing, supporting, shaping, or stamping with a block or blocks.
Blocks used to support (a building, etc.) temporarily.
block ::: n. 1. A solid piece of a hard substance, such as wood, stone, etc. having one or more flat sides. Also fig. 2. Something that obstructs; an obstacle. blocks. *v. 3. To impede, retard, prevent or obstruct the progress or achievement of (someone or something). Also fig.*
blot ::: n. 1. A dark spot or stain. 2. Something likened to a blot that destroys. v. 3. To make obscure; hide. 4. To destroy utterly; annihilate. blotted.
blot ::: v. t. --> To spot, stain, or bespatter, as with ink.
To impair; to damage; to mar; to soil.
To stain with infamy; to disgrace.
To obliterate, as writing with ink; to cancel; to efface; -- generally with out; as, to blot out a word or a sentence. Often figuratively; as, to blot out offenses.
To obscure; to eclipse; to shadow.
To dry, as writing, with blotting paper.
blur ::: a smudge or smear that partially obscures; indistinctness.
blur ::: v. t. --> To render obscure by making the form or outline of confused and uncertain, as by soiling; to smear; to make indistinct and confused; as, to blur manuscript by handling it while damp; to blur the impression of a woodcut by an excess of ink.
To cause imperfection of vision in; to dim; to darken.
To sully; to stain; to blemish, as reputation. ::: n.
bobber ::: n. --> One who, or that which, bobs.
obscene ::: offensive or outrageous to accepted standards of decency or modesty; repulsive.
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.
obscured ::: adj. **1. Made unclear, vague, or hidden to the sight. v. 2. Made less visible or unclear; concealed. obscuring.**
obscurely ::: in an obscure manner.
obscurity ::: 1. Deficiency or absence of light; darkness. 2. The quality or condition of being imperfectly known or difficult to understand. obscurities.
observe ::: 1. To see, watch, perceive, or notice. 2. To obey, comply with, or conform to. observes, observing.
observer ::: a person or thing that observes.
obsess ::: to haunt like a ghost; trouble; beset like an evil being or force.
obsolete ::: no longer in use.
obstacle ::: one or that which opposes, stands in the way of, or holds up progress. obstacles.
obstinate ::: 1. Firmly or stubbornly adhering to one"s purpose, opinion, etc. 2. Characterized by inflexible persistence or an unyielding attitude. obstinately.
obstructing ::: 1. Impeding, retarding, or interfering with; hindering. 2. Getting in the way of so as to hide from sight.
obstruction ::: anything that makes progress difficult.
bob wig ::: --> A short wig with bobs or short curls; -- called also bobtail wig.
Body-mind ::: There is an obscure mind of the body, of the very cells, molecules, corpuscles. This body-mind is a very tangible truth ; owing to its obscurity and mechanical clinging to past movements, and facile oblivion and rejection of the new. we find in it one of the chief obstacles to pemiealion by the Supermind
boost ::: v. i. --> To lift or push from behind (one who is endeavoring to climb); to push up; hence, to assist in overcoming obstacles, or in making advancement. ::: n. --> A push from behind, as to one who is endeavoring to climb; help.
bottone ::: a. --> Having a bud or button, or a kind of trefoil, at the end; furnished with knobs or buttons.
bourbonism ::: n. --> The principles of those adhering to the house of Bourbon; obstinate conservatism.
bourbon ::: n. --> A member of a family which has occupied several European thrones, and whose descendants still claim the throne of France.
A politician who is behind the age; a ruler or politician who neither forgets nor learns anything; an obstinate conservative.
bow net ::: --> A trap for lobsters, being a wickerwork cylinder with a funnel-shaped entrance at one end.
A net for catching birds.
braid ::: v. t. --> To weave, interlace, or entwine together, as three or more strands or threads; to form into a braid; to plait.
To mingle, or to bring to a uniformly soft consistence, by beating, rubbing, or straining, as in some culinary operations.
To reproach. [Obs.] See Upbraid.
Deceitful. ::: n.
breaks through ::: makes a sudden, quick advance, as through an obstruction.
break ::: v. 1. To destroy by or as if by shattering or crushing. 2. To force or make a way through (a barrier, etc.). 3. To vary or disrupt the uniformity or continuity of. 4. To overcome or put an end to. 5. To destroy or interrupt a regularity, uniformity, continuity, or arrangement of; interrupt. 6. To intrude upon; interrupt a conversation, etc. 7. To discontinue or sever an association, an agreement, or a relationship. **8. To overcome or wear down the spirit, strength, or resistance of. 9. (usually followed by in, into or out). 10. To filter or penetrate as sunlight into a room. 11. To come forth suddenly. 12. To utter suddenly; to express or start to express an emotion, mood, etc. 13. Said of waves, etc. when they dash against an obstacle, or topple over and become surf or broken water in the shallows. 14. To part the surface of water, as a ship or a jumping fish. breaks, broke, broken, breaking.* *n. 15.** An interruption or a disruption in continuity or regularity.
brighten ::: a. --> To make bright or brighter; to make to shine; to increase the luster of; to give a brighter hue to.
To make illustrious, or more distinguished; to add luster or splendor to.
To improve or relieve by dispelling gloom or removing that which obscures and darkens; to shed light upon; to make cheerful; as, to brighten one&
bronchophony ::: n. --> A modification of the voice sounds, by which they are intensified and heightened in pitch; -- observed in auscultation of the chest in certain cases of intro-thoracic disease.
brothelry ::: n. --> Lewdness; obscenity; a brothel.
bullheaded ::: a. --> Having a head like that of a bull. Fig.: Headstrong; obstinate; dogged.
bullition ::: v. i. --> The action of boiling; boiling. [Obs.] See Ebullition.
buried ::: v. 1. Deposited or hid under ground; covered up with earth or other material. Also fig. **2. Plunged or sunk deep in, so as to be covered from view; put out of sight. adj. 3. Put in the ground or in a tomb; interred. 4. Consigned to a position of obscurity, inaccessibility, or inaction. 5.* Fig.* Consigned to oblivion, put out of the way, abandoned and forgotten.
But there is a wall which divides them from it, a wall of obscurity and unconsciousness. When it breaks down there is a release.
bypath ::: n. --> A private path; an obscure way; indirect means.
byroad ::: n. --> A private or obscure road.
byssus ::: n. --> A cloth of exceedingly fine texture, used by the ancients. It is disputed whether it was of cotton, linen, or silk.
A tuft of long, tough filaments which are formed in a groove of the foot, and issue from between the valves of certain bivalve mollusks, as the Pinna and Mytilus, by which they attach themselves to rocks, etc.
An obsolete name for certain fungi composed of slender threads.
by-street ::: n. --> A separate, private, or obscure street; an out of the way or cross street.
by-turning ::: n. --> An obscure road; a way turning from the main road.
byway ::: n. --> A secluded, private, or obscure way; a path or road aside from the main one.
caliginous ::: a. --> Affected with darkness or dimness; dark; obscure.
caligo ::: n. --> Dimness or obscurity of sight, dependent upon a speck on the cornea; also, the speck itself.
calorescence ::: n. --> The conversion of obscure radiant heat into light; the transmutation of rays of heat into others of higher refrangibility.
camera obscura ::: --> An apparatus in which the images of external objects, formed by a convex lens or a concave mirror, are thrown on a paper or other white surface placed in the focus of the lens or mirror within a darkened chamber, or box, so that the outlines may be traced.
An apparatus in which the image of an external object or objects is, by means of lenses, thrown upon a sensitized plate or surface placed at the back of an extensible darkened box or chamber variously modified; -- commonly called simply the camera.
camera ::: n. --> A chamber, or instrument having a chamber. Specifically: The camera obscura when used in photography. See Camera, and Camera obscura.
camouflage ::: concealment by some means that alters or obscures the appearance.
can ::: --> an obs. form of began, imp. & p. p. of Begin, sometimes used in old poetry. [See Gan.] ::: n. --> A drinking cup; a vessel for holding liquids.
A vessel or case of tinned iron or of sheet metal, of various forms, but usually cylindrical; as, a can of tomatoes; an oil can; a
canker ::: n. --> A corroding or sloughing ulcer; esp. a spreading gangrenous ulcer or collection of ulcers in or about the mouth; -- called also water canker, canker of the mouth, and noma.
Anything which corrodes, corrupts, or destroy.
A disease incident to trees, causing the bark to rot and fall off.
An obstinate and often incurable disease of a horse&
carbone ::: v. t. --> To broil. [Obs.] "We had a calf&
carcinology ::: n. --> The department of zoology which treats of the Crustacea (lobsters, crabs, etc.); -- called also malacostracology and crustaceology.
castrate ::: v. t. --> To deprive of the testicles; to emasculate; to geld; to alter.
To cut or take out; esp. to remove anything erroneous, or objectionable from, as the obscene parts of a writing; to expurgate.
cate ::: n. --> Food. [Obs.] See Cates.
celebrate ::: v. t. --> To extol or honor in a solemn manner; as, to celebrate the name of the Most High.
To honor by solemn rites, by ceremonies of joy and respect, or by refraining from ordinary business; to observe duly; to keep; as, to celebrate a birthday.
To perform or participate in, as a sacrament or solemn rite; to solemnize; to perform with appropriate rites; as, to celebrate a marriage.
cephalotribe ::: n. --> An obstetrical instrument for performing cephalotripsy.
ceremonial ::: a. --> Relating to ceremony, or external rite; ritual; according to the forms of established rites.
Observant of forms; ceremonious. [In this sense ceremonious is now preferred.] ::: n. --> A system of rules and ceremonies, enjoined by law, or
ceremony ::: n. --> Ar act or series of acts, often of a symbolical character, prescribed by law, custom, or authority, in the conduct of important matters, as in the performance of religious duties, the transaction of affairs of state, and the celebration of notable events; as, the ceremony of crowning a sovereign; the ceremonies observed in consecrating a church; marriage and baptismal ceremonies.
Behavior regulated by strict etiquette; a formal method of performing acts of civility; forms of civility prescribed by custom
chapiter ::: n. --> A capital [Obs.] See Chapital.
A summary in writing of such matters as are to be inquired of or presented before justices in eyre, or justices of assize, or of the peace, in their sessions; -- also called articles.
charact ::: n. --> A distinctive mark; a character; a letter or sign. [Obs.] See Character.
chare ::: v. t. --> To perform; to do; to finish.
To work or hew, as stone. ::: v. i. --> To work by the day, without being a regularly hired servant; to do small jobs.
chaste ::: a. --> Pure from unlawful sexual intercourse; virtuous; continent.
Pure in thought and act; innocent; free from lewdness and obscenity, or indecency in act or speech; modest; as, a chaste mind; chaste eyes.
Pure in design and expression; correct; free from barbarisms or vulgarisms; refined; simple; as, a chaste style in composition or art.
Unmarried.
chauvinism ::: n. --> Blind and absurd devotion to a fallen leader or an obsolete cause; hence, absurdly vainglorious or exaggerated patriotism.
check ::: n. --> A word of warning denoting that the king is in danger; such a menace of a player&
chiaro-oscuro ::: n. --> The arrangement of light and dark parts in a work of art, such as a drawing or painting, whether in monochrome or in color.
The art or practice of so arranging the light and dark parts as to produce a harmonious effect. Cf. Clair-obscur.
chicanery ::: n. --> Mean or unfair artifice to perplex a cause and obscure the truth; stratagem; sharp practice; sophistry.
childermas day ::: --> A day (December 28) observed by mass or festival in commemoration of the children slain by Herod at Bethlehem; -- called also Holy Innocent&
choked ::: interfered with the respiration of by compression or obstruction of the larynx or trachea by strangling, smothering; stifling.
choke ::: v. t. --> To render unable to breathe by filling, pressing upon, or squeezing the windpipe; to stifle; to suffocate; to strangle.
To obstruct by filling up or clogging any passage; to block up.
To hinder or check, as growth, expansion, progress, etc.; to stifle.
To affect with a sense of strangulation by passion or strong feeling.
Chronic or repealed illnesses are indeed mainly due to the subconscient and its obstinate memory and habit of repetition of whatever has impressed itself upon the body consciousness.
chronometer ::: n. --> An instrument for measuring time; a timekeeper.
A portable timekeeper, with a heavy compensation balance, and usually beating half seconds; -- intended to keep time with great accuracy for use an astronomical observations, in determining longitude, etc.
A metronome.
chthonophagy ::: n. --> A disease characterized by an irresistible desire to eat earth, observed in some parts of the southern United States, the West Indies, etc.
church ::: n. --> A building set apart for Christian worship.
A Jewish or heathen temple.
A formally organized body of Christian believers worshiping together.
A body of Christian believers, holding the same creed, observing the same rites, and acknowledging the same ecclesiastical authority; a denomination; as, the Roman Catholic church; the Presbyterian church.
\cil of sleep — very largely indeed these two elements get mixed up together. For in fact a large part of our consciousness in sleep docs not sink into this subconscious slate ; it passes beyond the veil into other planes of being which arc connected with our own inner planes, planes of supraphj'sical existence, w'orlds of a larger life, mind or psychic which arc there behind and whose influences come to us without our knowledge. Occasionally we get a dream from these planes, something more than a dream, — a dream experience which is a record direct or symbolic of what happens to us or around us there. As the inner consciousness grows by sadhana, these dream experiences increase In number, dearness, coherence, accuracy and after some growth of experi- ence and consciousness, we can, if we observe, come to under- stand them and their significance to our loner life. Even we can by training become so coosetous as to follow our own passage, usually veiled to our arvarencss and memory, through many realms and the process of the return to the waking state. At a certain pitch of this inner wakefulness this kind of sleep, a sleep experience, can replace the ordinary subconscious slumber.
circle ::: n. --> A plane figure, bounded by a single curve line called its circumference, every part of which is equally distant from a point within it, called the center.
The line that bounds such a figure; a circumference; a ring.
An instrument of observation, the graduated limb of which consists of an entire circle.
A round body; a sphere; an orb.
cize ::: n. --> Bulk; largeness. [Obs.] See Size.
clair-obscur ::: n. --> See Chiaroscuro.
clare-obscure ::: n. --> See Chiaroscuro.
clear ::: 1. Not obscured or darkened; bright. 2. Free from darkness, obscurity, or cloudiness; transparent. 3. Serene; calm; untroubled. 4. Free from doubt or confusion; certain. 5. Easily perceptible to the eye or ear; distinct. 6. Easily understood; without ambiguity. 7. Free from impediment, obstruction, or hindrance; open. clearer, sun-clear, surface-clear.
cloud ::: 1. A visible collection of particles of water or ice suspended in the air, usually at an elevation above the earth"s surface. 2. Any similar mass, esp. of smoke or dust. 3. Something fleeting or unsubstantial. 4. Anything that obscures or darkens something, or causes gloom, trouble, suspicion, disgrace, etc. clouds, clouds", cloud-veils.
Clouds ::: Symbols of obscurity.
concealed ::: kept from being seen, found, observed, or discovered; hidden. conceals, concealing, all-concealing, deep-concealed.
concentration ::: “Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it.” Letters on Yoga
Conditions essfntitd for meditation ::: There are no essential external conditions, but solitude and seclusion at the time of meditation as as stillness of the body arc helpful, sometimes almost necessary to the beginner. Bui one should not bound b' external conditions. Once the habit of meditation is formed, it should be mads possible to do it in all circumstances, l.ving. sitting, walking, alone, in company, in silettce or in the midst of noise etc. The first imeroal condition necessary is concentration of the will against the obstacles to meditation. i.e. wandermg of the mind, forgetfulness, sfeep, phjsieal and nervous impatience and restlessness etc. The second is an increasing purity and calm of the inner consciousness (citia) out of which thought and emotion arise, i.e. a freedom frona all disturb i ng reactions, such as anger, grief, depression, anxiet>' about w-orldly happenings etc. Mental perfection and moral are always closely allied to each other.
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
Consciousness and energy ::: Consdousness is that which is aware of things ; energy is a force put in action which does things. Consciousness may have energy and keep it in or put it out, but that does not mean that it has to go out when the energy goes out and that it cannot stand back and observe the energy in action.
consonant ::: a speech sound produced by a partial or complete obstruction of the air stream by any of various constrictions of the speech organs, such as (p), (f), (r), (w), and (h).
convention ::: a method, practice or procedure widely observed in a group, especially to facilitate social interaction; a custom. conventions.
cosmic mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes, — towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” *The Life Divine
"If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, — not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
"There is one cosmic Mind, one cosmic Life, one cosmic Body. All the attempt of man to arrive at universal sympathy, universal love and the understanding and knowledge of the inner soul of other existences is an attempt to beat thin, breach and eventually break down by the power of the enlarging mind and heart the walls of the ego and arrive nearer to a cosmic oneness.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"[The results of the opening to the cosmic Mind:] One is aware of the cosmic Mind and the mental forces that move there and how they work on one"s mind and that of others and one is able to deal with one"s own mind with a greater knowledge and effective power. There are many other results, but this is the fundamental one.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness has many levels — the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga*
crabbed ::: 1. Difficult to understand; complicated; obscure. 2. Difficult to read; cramped; as crabbed handwriting.
crannies ::: 1. Small, narrow openings in a wall, rock, etc.,; chinks, crevices, fissures. 2. Small out-of-the-way places or obscure corners; nooks.
cult ::: 1. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing. 2. A specific system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and deity. 3. A group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal. cults.
culty of spontaneous aspiration come. This dryness is a well- known obstacle in all sadhana. But one has to persist and not be discouraged. If one keep? the will fixed even in these barren periods, they pass and after their passage a greater force of aspi-
curse ::: n. 1. The expression of a wish that misfortune, evil, doom, etc., befall a person, group, etc. 2. A formula or charm intended to cause such misfortune to another. 3. An evil brought or inflicted upon one. 4. The cause of evil, misfortune, or trouble. 5. A profane or obscene expression or oath. curses. v. 6. To wish harm upon; invoke evil upon. 7. To invoke supernatural powers to bring harm to (someone or something). cursed.
dams ::: 1. Barriers to obstruct the flow of water, esp. one of earth, masonry, etc., built across a stream or river. 2. Any barriers resembling dams.
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.**
darkened ::: 1. Became or made dark by lack of light; lit. and fig. **2.* Fig.* Made dark or obscure in meaning or intelligibility.
darkling ::: 1. Dark; obscure. 2. Vaguely threatening or menacing.
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.
Dats ::: Forces of the night, i.c. ignorant movements finding a lodging in the obscurity of the unenlightened nature.
Day ::: Madhav: “Day is luminous consciousness and night is obscure consciousness.” The Book of the Divine Mother
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.
DEPRESSION. ::: The rule in yoga is not to let the depression depress you, but to stand back from it, observe its cause and
difficult ::: 1. Hard to do or accomplish; demanding considerable effort or skill; arduous. 2. Not easily or readily done; requiring much labour, skill, or planning to be performed successfully. 3. Hard to understand or solve; perplexing, puzzling, obscure.
Difficulties and perplexities can never be got rid of by the mind brooding over them and trying in that way to get out of them*; this habit of the mind only makes them recur without a solu- tion and keeps up by brooding the persistent tangfe. I( is from something above and outside the perplexities that the solution , must come. It is a subtle law of the action of consciousness that if you stress difficulties — you have to observe them, of course, but not stress them, they will quite sufficiently do that for themselves — the difficulties tend to slick or even increase ; on the contrary, if you put your whole stress on faith and aspira-
difficulty ::: 1. The condition or quality of being difficult; 2. Something that is hard to do, understand or surmount; an impediment or obstacle.
dim ::: 1. Obscure to the mind or the senses. 2. Not clearly seen; indistinct; faint. 3. Having weak or indistinct vision. 4. Faintly outlined; indistinct. 5. Lacking in brightness. v. 1. To cause to seem less bright, as by comparison. 2. Make dim or lusterless. dimly, dim-eyed, dim-heart, dim-hearted, dim-masked, dim-souled.
dimming ::: making or becoming dim, lacking sharpness or brightness; indistinct; obscure to the mind or the senses.
discouraged ::: 1. Deprived of courage, hope, or confidence; disheartened; dispirited. 2. Obstructed by opposition or difficulty; hindered. discouraging.
discoverer ::: someone who is the first to observe something unknown or unseen. discoverers.
Divine and surrender more and more one’s ordinary persona! ideas, desires, attachments, urges to action or habits of actions so that the Divine may lake up cveiything. Surrender means that, to give up our little mind and its mental ideas and prefe- rences into a divine Light and a greater knowledge, our petty persona] troubled blind stumbling will into a great calm, tran- quil, luminous Will and Force, our little, restless, tormented feel- ings into a wide intense divine Love and Ananda, our small suffering personality into the one Person of which it is an obs- cure outcome. If one insists on one's own ideas and reasonfogs, the greater Light and Knowledge cannot come or else is marked and obstructed in the coming at every step by a lower inter- ference ,* if one insists on one’s desires and fancies, that great luminous Will and Force cannot act in its own true power— for you ask it to be the servant of your desires ; if one refuses to give up one’s petty ways of feeling, eternal Love and supreme
Divine Force working in him or of its results at least and does not obstruct its descent or its action by his own mental activi- ties, vital restlessness or physical obscurity and inertia.
Divine, rejecting what has to be rejected, opening oneself to the true Light and true Force, calling it down quietly, steadfastly, without tiring, without depression or impatience, until one feels the Divine Force at work and the obstacle beginning to give way.
Divine sacrifice is the descent of the Divine into the obscurity of the unconsciousness.
dragon ::: “the black dragon of the Inconscience sustains with its vast wings and its back of darkness the whole structure of the material universe; its energies unroll the flux of things, its obscure intimations seem to be the starting-point of consciousness itself and the source of all life-impulse.” The Life Divine
Dreams irom the subconscient ::: It is one of the most embar- rassing elements of yogic experience to find how obstinately the subconscient retains what has been settled and done with in the upper layers of the consciousness. But just for that reason these dreams are often a useful indication as they enable us to pursue things to their obscure roots in this underworld and excise them.
echo ::: n. **1. A repetition of sound produced by the reflexion of sound waves from a wall, mountain, or other obstructing surface. 2. A sound heard again near its source after being reflected. 3. A lingering trace or effect. echoes. v. 4. To resound with or as if with an echo; reverberate. echoes, echoing, re-echoed.**
eclipse ::: n. **1. A temporary or permanent dimming or cutting off of light. 2. A fall into obscurity or disuse; a decline. v. 3. To obscure; darken. eclipsed, eclipsing.**
Elephant ::: Strength, sometimes Strength illumined with Wb- dom, sometimes strength remoring obstacles.
emerge ::: 1. To come forth into view or notice, as from concealment, or obscurity. 2. To rise or come forth from or as if from water or other liquid. 3. To come into existence; develop. 4. To rise, as from an inferior or unfortunate state or condition. emerges, emerged, emerging.
EMOTION, Emotion h a good element in yoga ; but emo- tional desire becomes easily a cause of perturbation and an obstacle. Turn your emotions towards the Divine, aspire for their purification ; they will then become a help and no longer a cause of suffering.
"Emotion is a good element in yoga; but emotional desire becomes easily a cause of perturbation and an obstacle. Turn your emotions towards the Divine, aspire for their purification; they will then become a help on the way and no longer a cause of suffering.” Letters on Yoga*
“Emotion is a good element in yoga; but emotional desire becomes easily a cause of perturbation and an obstacle. Turn your emotions towards the Divine, aspire for their purification; they will then become a help on the way and no longer a cause of suffering.” Letters on Yoga
enforce ::: to put or keep in force; compel obedience to; compel acceptance or observance of. enforced.
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.
error ::: “In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal.” The Life Divine
experience ::: 1. Knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone. 2. Philos. The totality of the cognitions given by perception; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered. **world-experience.
extinguished ::: 1. Put an end to (hopes, for example); destroyed. 2. Put out, quenched. 3. Obscured; eclipsed.
extraordinarily difficult to read or comprehend; obscure; incomprehensible.
Faith — fouf kinds ::: Mental fmth combats doubt and helps to open to the true knowledge ; \Ual faith prevents the attacks of the hostile forces or defeats them and helps to open to the true spiritual will and action ; physical faith keeps one firm through all physical obscurity, inertia or suffering and helps to open to the foundation of the true consciousness ; psychic faith
**"Faith in the heart is the obscure & often distorted reflection of a hidden knowledge.” Essays Divine and Human
“Faith in the heart is the obscure & often distorted reflection of a hidden knowledge.” Essays Divine and Human
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
Force can work In you without anything refusing or obstructing her action. If the min d is shut up in its own ideas and refuses to allow her to bring in the Eight and the Truth, if the vital clings to its desires and does not admit the true initiative and impulsions* that the Mother's power brings, if the physical is shut up In its desire habits and inertia and does not allow the Light and Force to enter in it and work, then one is not open. It is not possible to be entirely open all at once in all the mo^’emeots, but there must be a central opening in each part.
". . . 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*
GANESHA. ::: The Power that removes obstacles by the force of Knowledge.
haze ::: 1. An aggregation in the atmosphere of very fine, widely dispersed, solid or liquid particles, or both, giving the air an opalescent appearance that subdues colours. 2. Reduced visibility in the air as a result of condensed water vapour, dust, etc., in the atmosphere. 3. Vagueness of obscurity, as of the mind or perception; confused or vague thoughts, feelings, etc.
hinder ::: to obstruct or delay the progress of.
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
I£ light, strength, the Mother’s consciousness is brought into the body it can penetrate the subconsclent also and convert its obscurity and resistance.
::: "Identity is the first truth of existence; division is the second truth; all division is a division in oneness. There is one Existence which looks at itself from many self-divided unities observing other similar and dissimilar self-divided unities by the device of division. Being is one; division is a device or a secondary condition of consciousness; but the primary truth of consciousness also is a truth of oneness and identity.” Essays Divine and Human
“Identity is the first truth of existence; division is the second truth; all division is a division in oneness. There is one Existence which looks at itself from many self-divided unities observing other similar and dissimilar self-divided unities by the device of division. Being is one; division is a device or a secondary condition of consciousness; but the primary truth of consciousness also is a truth of oneness and identity.” Essays Divine and Human
"I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights, — yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam.” Letters on Yoga
“I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,—yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam.” Letters on Yoga
“If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
IGNORANCE. ::: Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life.
This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth.
Sevenfold Ignorance ::: If we look at this Ignorance in which ordinarily we live by the very circumstance of our separative existence in a material, ip a spatial and temporal universe, wc see that on its obscurer side it reduces itself, from whatever direction we look at or approach it, into the fact of a many- sided self-ignorance. We are Ignorant of the Absolute which is the source of all being and becoming ; we take partial facts of being, temporal relations of the becoming for the whole truth of existence — that is the first, the original ignorance. We are ignorant of the spaceless, timeless, immobile and immutable Self ; we take the constant mobility and mutation of the cosmic becom- ing in Time and Space for the whole truth of existence — that is the second, the cosmic ignorance. We are ignorant of our universal self, the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness, our infinite unity with all being and becoming ; we take our limited egoistic mentality, vitality, corporeality for our true self and regard everything other than that as not-sclf — that is the tViTid, \Vie egoistic ignorance. V/c aie ignorant of oat eteinai becoming in Time ; we take this Uttle life in a small span of Time, in a petty field of Space for our beginning, our middle and our end, — that is the fourth, the temporal ignorance. Even within this brief temporal becoming we are ignorant of our large and complex being, of that in us which is super-conscient, sub- conscient, intraconscient, circumcooscient to our surface becoming; we take that surface becoming with its small selection of overtly mentalised experiences for our whole existence — that is the fifth, the psychological ignorance. We are ignorant of the true constitution of our becoming ; we take the mind or life or body or any two or all three tor our true principle or the whole account of what we are, losing sight of that which constitutes them and determines by its occult presence and is meant to deter- mine sovereignly by its emergence from their operations, — that is the sixth, the constitutional ignorance. As a result of all these ignorances, we miss the true knowledge, government and enjoy- ment of our life in the world ; we are ignorant in our thought, will, sensations, actions, return wrong or imperfect responses at every point to the questionings of the world, wander in a maze of errors and desires, strivings and failures, pain and pleasure, sin and stumbling, follow a crooked road, grope blindly for a changing goal, — that is the seventh, the practical ignorance.
"Ignorance, this matrix of sin, has in its substantial effect the appearance of a triple cord of limited mind, inefficient life, obscure physical animality, the three ropes with which the Rishi Shunahshepa in the parable was bound as a victim to the sacrificial post.” The Secret of the Veda
“Ignorance, this matrix of sin, has in its substantial effect the appearance of a triple cord of limited mind, inefficient life, obscure physical animality, the three ropes with which the Rishi Shunahshepa in the parable was bound as a victim to the sacrificial post.” The Secret of the Veda
II ADIT. ::: The physical is the slave of certain forces which create a habit and drive it ilirouch the mechanical power of the habit. So long ns the mind gives consent, you do not notice the slavery ; but if the mind withdraws its consent, then you feel the servitude, you feci a force pushing you in spite of the mind's will. It is very obstinate and repeats itself till the habit, the inner habit revealing itself in the outward act, is broken. If is like a machine which once set in motion repeats the same move* ment. A quiet persistent aspiration will bring you to the point where the habit breaks and you arc free.
Illness marks some imperfection or weakness or else opening to adverse touches in the physical nature and is often connected also with some obscurity or dlsbannony in the low'd vital or the phj^ical mind or elsewhere.
Immediate past. A greater readiness of essential doubt and sceptical reserve ; a habit of mental activity as a necessity of the nature which makes it more difScuIt to achiere a complete mental silence ; a stronger turn towards outside things bom of the plenitude of active life ; a habit of mental and vital self- assertion and sometimes an aggressively vigUant independence which renders difficult any completeness of internal surrender even to a greater Ught and Knowledge, even to the dirine influ- ence — these are frequent obstacles.
impediments ::: things that impede, hinder, or obstruct; obstacles.
IMPURITY. ::: The Anaoda descending cannot be held if there is too much sexual impurity creating an intoxicant or degrading mixture ; the Power recedes, if there is ambition, vanity or other aggressive form of lower self, the Oght if there is an attachment to obscurity or to any form of the Ignorance, the Presence if the chamber of the heart has not been made pure.
inconscience ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Inconscience is an inverse reproduction of the supreme superconscience: it has the same absoluteness of being and automatic action, but in a vast involved trance; it is being lost in itself, plunged in its own abyss of infinity.” *The Life Divine
"All aspects of the omnipresent Reality have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Thus even the aspect or power of Inconscience, which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, yet corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. It is, when we look closely at it, the Infinite"s power of plunging the consciousness into a trance of self-involution, a self-oblivion of the Spirit veiled in its own abysses where nothing is manifest but all inconceivably is and can emerge from that ineffable latency. In the heights of Spirit this state of cosmic or infinite trance-sleep appears to our cognition as a luminous uttermost Superconscience: at the other end of being it offers itself to cognition as the Spirit"s potency of presenting to itself the opposites of its own truths of being, — an abyss of non-existence, a profound Night of inconscience, a fathomless swoon of insensibility from which yet all forms of being, consciousness and delight of existence can manifest themselves, — but they appear in limited terms, in slowly emerging and increasing self-formulations, even in contrary terms of themselves; it is the play of a secret all-being, all-delight, all-knowledge, but it observes the rules of its own self-oblivion, self-opposition, self-limitation until it is ready to surpass it. This is the Inconscience and Ignorance that we see at work in the material universe. It is not a denial, it is one term, one formula of the infinite and eternal Existence.” *The Life Divine
"Once consciousnesses separated from the one consciousness, they fell inevitably into Ignorance and the last result of Ignorance was Inconscience.” Letters on Yoga
*inconscience.
Inertia itself is not a dynanaic principle. The nature of inertia is apravrtti the action of the mechanical mind is a pravrtti,^ though a tamasic obscure pravrtii.
". . . in fact matter itself is only an obscure form of the spirit. . . .” The Synthesis of Yoga
“… in fact matter itself is only an obscure form of the spirit….” The Synthesis of Yoga
inner ::: 1. Of or pertaining to the mind or spirit; mental; spiritual. 2. Situated within or farther within; interior. 3. Not obvious; hidden or obscure.
innerness ::: more profound or obscure; less apparent; relating to the soul, mind, spirit, consciousness, etc.
INNER SIGHT. ::: When one tries to meditate, the first obstacle in the beginning is sleep. When you get over this obstacle, there comes a condition in which, with the eyes closed, you begin to see things, people, scenes of all kinds. It is a good sign and means that you are making progress in yoga. There is, besides the outer physical sight which sees external objects, an inner .sight in us which can see things yet unseen and unknown, things at a distance, things belonging to another place or time or to other worlds.
Inner vision is vivid like actual sight, always precise and contains a truth in it. In mental vision the images are invented by the mind and are partly true, partly a play of possibilities. Or a mental vision like the vital may be only a suggestion,- that is a formation of some possibility on the mental or vital plane which presents itself to the sādhaka in the hope of being accepted and helped to realise itself.
INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.
Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.
Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.
Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.
Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.
Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.
The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.
Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.
Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.
Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.
Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.
Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.
Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.
The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.
This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.
Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.
Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.
The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.
Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.
It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.
If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.
(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.
Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.
It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.
Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.
in the way. Forming a hindrance, impediment, or obstruction.
In this yoga the position is that one must overcome sex, other- wise there can be no transformation of the lower vital and phjsi- cal nature. All physical sexual connections should cease, other- wise one exposes oneself to serious dangers. The sex-push must also be overcome but it is not a fact that there can be no sadhana or no experience before it is entirely overcome, only without that conquest one cannot go to the end and it must be clearly recog- nised as one of the more serious obstacles and indulgence of it as a cause of considerable disturbance.
intuition ::: direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process. intuition"s, intuitions, half-intuition.
Sri Aurobindo: "Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude.” *The Life Divine
"Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings"". When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"I use the word ‘intuition" for want of a better. In truth, it is a makeshift and inadequate to the connotation demanded of it. The same has to be said of the word ‘consciousness" and many others which our poverty compels us to extend illegitimately in their significance.” *The Life Divine - Sri Aurobindo"s footnote.
"For intuition is an edge of light thrust out by the secret Supermind. . . .” The Life Divine
". . . intuition is born of a direct awareness while intellect is an indirect action of a knowledge which constructs itself with difficulty out of the unknown from signs and indications and gathered data.” The Life Divine
"Intuition is above illumined Mind which is simply higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration.” Letters on Yoga
"Intuition sees the truth of things by a direct inner contact, not like the ordinary mental intelligence by seeking and reaching out for indirect contacts through the senses etc. But the limitation of the Intuition as compared with the supermind is that it sees things by flashes, point by point, not as a whole. Also in coming into the mind it gets mixed with the mental movement and forms a kind of intuitive mind activity which is not the pure truth, but something in between the higher Truth and the mental seeking. It can lead the consciousness through a sort of transitional stage and that is practically its function.” Letters on Yoga
“Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings’’. When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” The Life Divine
intuitive ::: 1. Obtained through intuition rather than from reasoning or observation. 2. Fig. Concerning spiritual vision or perception.
IS a valuable power helpful in the s5t£an5 and shfu"' discouraged. But one must see and observe i J ”« <» keeping always the main object in front, realisS' ft"’’™™!.
It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our appa- rent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term as constituents of Prakrit!, of phenomenal Nature, crea- tions of Maya, the phenomenal consciousness. So it is able to arrive at its right ideotiflcadon with the pure and unique Self which is not mutable or perishable, not determinable by any phenomenon or combination of phenomena. From this point the path, as ordinarily followed, leads to the rejection of the phenomenal worlds from the consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the supreme.
“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
It is the cryptic verses of the Veda that help us here; for they contain, though concealed, the gospel of the divine and immortal Supermind and through the veil some illumining flashes come to us. We can see through these utterances the conception of this Supermind as a vastness beyond the ordinary firmaments of our consciousness in which truth of being is luminously one with all that expresses it and assures inevitably truth of vision, formulation, arrangement, word, act and movement and therefore truth also of result of movement, result of action and expression, infallible ordinance or law. Vast all-comprehensiveness; luminous truth and harmony of being in that vastness and not a vague chaos or self-lost obscurity; truth of law and act and knowledge expressive of that harmonious truth of being: these seem to be the essential terms of the Vedic description.” *The Life Divine
It is the cryptic verses of the Veda that help us here; for they contain, though concealed, the gospel of the divine and immortal Supermind and through the veil some illumining flashes come to us. We can see through these utterances the conception of this Supermind as a vastness beyond the ordinary firmaments of our consciousness in which truth of being is luminously one with all that expresses it and assures inevitably truth of vision, formulation, arrangement, word, act and movement and therefore truth also of result of movement, result of action and expression, infallible ordinance or law. Vast all-comprehensiveness; luminous truth and harmony of being in that vastness and not a vague chaos or self-lost obscurity; truth of law and act and knowledge expressive of that harmonious truth of being: these seem to be the essential terms of the Vedic description.” The Life Divine
It is usual for these resistances to rise up, for they have to manifest themselves in order that they may be dealt with and thrown out. It is best not to struggle with the resistances but to stand back from them, observe as witness, reject these move- ments and call on the Divine Power to remove them.
Krishna's lights ::: Krishna’s light is a special light ; in the mind it brings clarity, freedom from obscurity, mental error and per- version ::: in the vital it clears all perilous stuff and where it is, there is a pure and divine happiness and gladness.
.legc — for then it would not be Grace. I have always seen that . there has been really a long unobserved preparation before the
Let your faith be pure, candid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke-obs- cured flame that cannot bum upwards to heaven.
“Light is a general term. Light is not knowledge but the illumination that comes from above and liberates the being from obscurity and darkness.” The Mother
light ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . light is primarily a spiritual manifestation of the Divine Reality illuminative and creative; material light is a subsequent representation or conversion of it into Matter for the purposes of the material Energy.” *The Life Divine
"Our sense by its incapacity has invented darkness. In truth there is nothing but Light, only it is a power of light either above or below our poor human vision"s limited range.
For do not imagine that light is created by the Suns. The Suns are only physical concentrations of Light, but the splendour they concentrate for us is self-born and everywhere.
God is everywhere and wherever God is, there is Light.” *The Hour of God
"Light is a general term. Light is not knowledge but the illumination that comes from above and liberates the being from obscurity and darkness.” The Mother
The Mother: "The light is everywhere, the force is everywhere. And the world is so small.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15. ::: *Light, light"s, lights, light-petalled, light-tasselled, half-light.
Madhav: “Aswapathy is in the mid-world. He is neither in the nether realms of struggle and obscurity nor in the brighter worlds above of power and rapture. He is in realms of Beauty that point to still happier altitudes. The Birds of Wonder are the marvellous beings of that region, the angels, who call upon the higher worlds of Light to manifest in their world.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Now here is a reference to the Vedic imagery where the Rishi speaks of the child being suckled by two mothers. He refers to two mothers, one dark and the other rosy—Night and Dawn or Day signifying movement of obscurity and movement of light. This divine soul, soul that is given to the Divine is nursed by both the mothers. He needs the succour of night and the nourishment of the day. To rest for a while he needs to be in the lap of Mother Night. To be active he is in the lap of Mother Dawn.” Sat-Sang Vol. IX
Meditation is the easiest process for the human mind, but the narrtyftest in its results ; contemplation more difficult, but greater; self-observation and liberation from the chains of Thought the most difficult of all, but the widest and greatest in its fruits.
MEMORY. ::: Indispensable aid of the mind to preserve its past observations, the memory of the individual but also of the race.
Mind and the Divine Sakti ::: Be on your guard and do not try to understand and judge the Divine Mother by your little earthly mind that loves to subject even the things that arc beyond it to its own norms and standards, its narrow reasonings and erring impressions, its bottomless aggressive ignorance and its petty self-confident knowledge. The human mind shut in the prison of its half-lit obscurity cannot follow the many-sided freedom of the steps of the Divine Shakti. The rapidity and com- plexity of her vision and action outrun its stumbling comprehen- sion ; the measures of her movement are not its measures. Open rather your soul to her and be content to feel her with the psychic nature and see her with the psychic vision that alone make a straight response to the Truth.
mind, silent ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The first thing to do in the sadhana is to get a settled peace and silence in the mind. Otherwise you may have experiences, but nothing will be permanent. It is in the silent mind that the true consciousness can be built. ::: A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no thoughts or mental movements at all, but that these will be on the surface and you will feel your true being within separate from them, observing but not carried away, able to watch and judge them and reject all that has to be rejected and to accept and keep to all that is true consciousness and true experience.” *Letters on Yoga
mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The ‘Mind" in the ordinary use of the word covers indiscriminately the whole consciousness, for man is a mental being and mentalises everything; but in the language of this yoga the words ‘mind" and ‘mental" are used to connote specially the part of the nature which has to do with cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reactions of thought to things, with the truly mental movements and formations, mental vision and will, etc., that are part of his intelligence.” *Letters on Yoga
"Mind in its essence is a consciousness which measures, limits, cuts out forms of things from the indivisible whole and contains them as if each were a separate integer.” The Life Divine
"Mind is an instrument of analysis and synthesis, but not of essential knowledge. Its function is to cut out something vaguely from the unknown Thing in itself and call this measurement or delimitation of it the whole, and again to analyse the whole into its parts which it regards as separate mental objects.” The Life Divine
"The mind proper is divided into three parts — thinking Mind, dynamic Mind, externalising Mind — the former concerned with ideas and knowledge in their own right, the second with the putting out of mental forces for realisation of the idea, the third with the expression of them in life (not only by speech, but by any form it can give).” Letters on Yoga
"The difference between the ordinary mind and the intuitive is that the former, seeking in the darkness or at most by its own unsteady torchlight, first, sees things only as they are presented in that light and, secondly, where it does not know, constructs by imagination, by uncertain inference, by others of its aids and makeshifts things which it readily takes for truth, shadow projections, cloud edifices, unreal prolongations, deceptive anticipations, possibilities and probabilities which do duty for certitudes. The intuitive mind constructs nothing in this artificial fashion, but makes itself a receiver of the light and allows the truth to manifest in it and organise its own constructions.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"He [man] has in him not a single mentality, but a double and a triple, the mind material and nervous, the pure intellectual mind which liberates itself from the illusions of the body and the senses, and a divine mind above intellect which in its turn liberates itself from the imperfect modes of the logically discriminative and imaginative reason.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Our mind is an observer of actuals, an inventor or discoverer of possibilities, but not a seer of the occult imperatives that necessitate the movements and forms of a creation. . . .” *The Life Divine
"The human mind is an instrument not of truth but of ignorance and error.” Letters on Yoga
"For Mind as we know it is a power of the Ignorance seeking for Truth, groping with difficulty to find it, reaching only mental constructions and representations of it in word and idea, in mind formations, sense formations, — as if bright or shadowy photographs or films of a distant Reality were all that it could achieve.” The Life Divine
The Mother: "The true role of the mind is the formation and organization of action. The mind has a formative and organizing power, and it is that which puts the different elements of inspiration in order for action, for organizing action. And if it would only confine itself to that role, receiving inspirations — whether from above or from the mystic centre of the soul — and simply formulating the plan of action — in broad outline or in minute detail, for the smallest things of life or the great terrestrial organizations — it would amply fulfil its function. It is not an instrument of knowledge. But is can use knowledge for action, to organize action. It is an instrument of organization and formation, very powerful and very capable when it is well developed.” Questions and Answers 1956, MCW Vol. 8.*
mist ::: 1. A cloudlike aggregation of minute globules of water suspended in the atmosphere at or near the earth"s surface reducing the visibility to a lesser degree than fog. 2. Something that dims, obscures or blurs. mists.
misty ::: obscured or clouded by or as if by mist.
monitors ::: those who observe, supervise, or keep under review; esp. for the purpose of regulation or control.
Mother take its place. C^st from the mind all insistence on your personal ideas and judgment, then you will have the wisdom to understand her. Let there be no obsession of self-will, ego- drive in the action, love of persona! authority, attachment to personal preference, then the Mother's force will be able to act eJeariy in you and you ivifl get the inexhaustible energy for which you ask and your service will be perfect.
muddy ::: 1. Full of or covered with mud. 2. Fig. Not clear; obscure; vague; muddled. 3. Not pure in character.
"No system indeed by its own force can bring about the change that humanity really needs; for that can only come by its growth into the firmly realised possibilities of its own higher nature, and this growth depends on an inner and not an outer change. But outer changes may at least prepare favourable conditions for that more real amelioration, — or on the contrary they may lead to such conditions that the sword of Kalki can alone purify the earth from the burden of an obstinately Asuric humanity. The choice lies with the race itself; for as it sows, so shall it reap the fruit of its Karma.” The Human Cycle*
“No system indeed by its own force can bring about the change that humanity really needs; for that can only come by its growth into the firmly realised possibilities of its own higher nature, and this growth depends on an inner and not an outer change. But outer changes may at least prepare favourable conditions for that more real amelioration,—or on the contrary they may lead to such conditions that the sword of Kalki can alone purify the earth from the burden of an obstinately Asuric humanity. The choice lies with the race itself; for as it sows, so shall it reap the fruit of its Karma.” The Human Cycle
not continuing firmly or obstinately in a state, opinion, purpose, or course of action, esp. against opposition, or remonstrance.
not perceived by the senses; not noticed or observed.
objective ::: of or pertaining to something that can be known, or to something that is an object or a part of an object; existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality.
' OBSCURITY. ::: When one is working on the physical consci- ousness this sense of obscurity rises up. One has to react quickly against it and persistently bring dosvn the Light. When the physical and the subconscient are fully permeated it need come no more.
OBSESSION. ::: When the vital takes hold of a thing, it is often like that — it fixes it conlinualiy on the mind till it is cither satisfied or the hold thrown off.
Obstacles ::: (1) normal habit of relying on outward means for everything ; (2) ego, substituting its suggestions for the right answer ; (3) mental activity ; (4) intruder nuisances.
OBSTRUCTION. ::: The obstruction of the lower Nature or the pressure of the adverse forces can often act successfully for a time, even for a long time, against the necessary change. One has then to persist, to put always the will on the side of the
— one by the action of a vigilant mind and vital seeing, observ- ing, thinking and deciding what Is or is not to be done. Of course it acts with the Divine Force behind it, drawing or call- ing in that Force — for otherwise nothing much can be done.
One ought not to settle down into a fixed idea of one’s own incapacity or allow it to become an obsession ; for such an atti- tude has no true justification and unnecessarily renders the way harder. Where there is a soul that has once become awake, there is surely a capacity within that can outweigh all surface defects and can in the end conquer.
"One starts by an intense idea and will to know or reach the Divine and surrenders more and more one"s ordinary personal ideas, desires, attachments, urges to action or habits of action so that the Divine may take up everything. Surrender means that, to give up our little mind and its mental ideas and preferences into a divine Light and a greater Knowledge, our petty personal troubled blind stumbling will into a great, calm, tranquil, luminous Will and Force, our little, restless, tormented feelings into a wide intense divine Love and Ananda, our small suffering personality into the one Person of which it is an obscure outcome.” Letters on Yoga
“One starts by an intense idea and will to know or reach the Divine and surrenders more and more one’s ordinary personal ideas, desires, attachments, urges to action or habits of action so that the Divine may take up everything. Surrender means that, to give up our little mind and its mental ideas and preferences into a divine Light and a greater Knowledge, our petty personal troubled blind stumbling will into a great, calm, tranquil, luminous Will and Force, our little, restless, tormented feelings into a wide intense divine Love and Ananda, our small suffering personality into the one Person of which it is an obscure outcome.” Letters on Yoga
opacity ::: the quality or state of a body that makes it impervious to the rays of light; the condition of being in darkness; obscurity.
oppose ::: 1. To be in contention or conflict with. 2. To set as an obstacle or hindrance. 3. To be hostile or adverse to, as in opinion. opposes, opposed, opposing.
opposed ::: 1. Being in opposition or having an opponent. 2. Resisted or obstructed.
Or, if it is willing, then it is unable. Or, if it is able, then it turns the action given to it by the Light or the Force into a new mechanical routine and so takes out of it all soul and life. It is obscure, stupid, indolent, full of ignorance and inertia, dark- ness and slowness of tamas.
“Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the Spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind,—but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin,—as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realising its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge.” The Life Divine
“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
overcast ::: 1. Clouded over. 2. Overshadowed; obscured.
overleap ::: 1. To jump across or leap over (an obstacle). 2. To leave undone or leave out. 3. Fig. to surpass, exceed. 4. To defeat (oneself) by going too far. overleaping.
overpass ::: 1. To pass over or traverse (a region, space, etc.). 2. To go beyond; surpass; transcend. 3. To get over (obstacles, difficulties, etc.); surmount. overpassed, overpassing.
overshadow ::: 1. To cast a shadow or gloom; darken or obscure. 2. To make insignificant by comparison; dominate. 3. To make sad or hang heavily over; cast a pall on. overshadowed, overshadowing.
overt ::: open and observable; not hidden, concealed, or secret.
pall ::: 1. A covering that darkens, conceals, or obscures, as a cloud, etc. palls.
pamful, first, because it is obscure and docs not understand and, secondly, because there arc parts of it that want to be left to their crude notions and not to change. That is why the inter- vention of a psychic attitude is so heJpfuI. For the psychic has the happy confidence, the ready understanding and response, the spontaneous surrender ; it knows that the touch of the Guru is meant to help and not to hurt, or, like Radha in the poem, that whatever the Beloved does is meant to lead to the Divine
Partial realisation ::: At a certain stage of the sadhana, in the beginning (or near it) of the more intense experiences, it some- times happens that there is the intense realisation of some aspect of the Divine, a sort of communion with it, and that is seen everj'whcre and all as that. It is a transitory phase and after- wards one gets the larger experience of the Divine in all its aspects and beyond all aspects. Throughout the experience there should be one part of the being that observes and understands — for, sometimes ignorant sadbakas are carried away by their experience and stop short there or fall into extravagance. It must be taken as an experience through which you are passing.
persevered ::: persisted in or remained constant to a purpose, idea, or task in the face of obstacles or discouragement.
persisted ::: 1. Continued to be obstinately repetitious, insistent, or tenacious. 2. Continued in existence; lasted. persists.
perverse ::: 1. Directed away from what is right or good; perverted. 2. Obstinately persisting in an error or fault; wrongly self-willed or stubborn. perversity, Perversity.
PHYSICAL. ::: No doubt the physical is an obstinate obstacle, but it must be enlightened, persuaded, pressed even to change, but not oppressed or violently driven.
PHYSICAL OPENING. ::: The opening of the physical and the subconscient always takes a long time as it is a thing of habits and constant repetition of the old movements, obscure and stiff and not plastic, yielding only little by little. The physical mind can be more easily opened and converted than the rest but the vital-physical and the mental-physical arc obstinate. The old things are always recurring there without reason and by force of habit. Much of the vital-physical and most of the material are in the subconsciencc or depend upon it. U needs a strong and sustained action to progress there.
possessed ::: controlled by or as if by a spirit or other force; obsessed.
powerful can come. It is the inert passivity of physical Nature that leaves it at the mercy of every obscure or undivine inHueace.
precisian ::: one who is strict and precise in adherence to established rules, forms, or standards, especially with regard to religious observance or moral behaviour.
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.
press ::: n. 1. A crowd, throng, or multitude. 2. A crowding, thronging, or pressing together; a collective force. 3. Pressure or demands of affairs; urgency, haste, hurry. v. 4. To exert weight, force or pressure. 5. To advance or carry on vigorously despite obstacles in one"s way. 6. To impress (a thing) upon the mind, etc., emphasize, inculcate. 7. To beset or harass; afflict. 8. To cause to move in some direction or into some position by pressure; to push, drive, thrust. 9. To compress or squeeze. 10. To squeeze out or express, as juice. 11. To urge or entreat strongly or insistently. 12. To hold closely as in an embrace; clasp. presses, pressed, pressing.
Principles of practice of yaga ::: AU Yoga proceeds in its method by three principles of practice; first, purification, that is to say, the removal of all abeirations, disorders, obstructions brought about by the mixed and irregular action of the energy of being in our physical, moral and mental system ; secondly, concentfStiof?, tlyit is to say, the bringing to its full intensity and the mastered and self-directed empleyment of that energy of
"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
prophecy ::: “If this higher buddhi {{understanding in the profoundest sense] could act pure of the interference of these lower members, it would give pure forms of the truth; observation would be dominated or replaced by a vision which could see without subservient dependence on the testimony of the sense-mind and senses; imagination would give place to the self-assured inspiration of the truth, reasoning to the spontaneous discernment of relations and conclusion from reasoning to an intuition containing in itself those relations and not building laboriously upon them, judgment to a thought-vision in whose light the truth would stand revealed without the mask which it now wears and which our intellectual judgment has to penetrate; while memory too would take upon itself that larger sense given to it in Greek thought and be no longer a paltry selection from the store gained by the individual in his present life, but rather the all-recording knowledge which secretly holds and constantly gives from itself everything that we now seem painfully to acquire but really in this sense remember, a knowledge which includes the future(1) no less than the past.
PrUijayQma is a very powerful thing but if done haphazardly it may lead to the raising of obstructions and even in extreme cases illness in the body.
quest ::: “The quest of man for God, which becomes in the end the most ardent and enthralling of all his quests, begins with his first vague questionings of Nature and a sense of something unseen both in himself and her. Even if, as modern Science insists, religion started from animism, spirit-worship, demon-worship, and the deification of natural forces, these first forms only embody in primitive figures a veiled intuition in the subconscient, an obscure and ignorant feeling of hidden influences and incalculable forces, or a vague sense of being, will, intelligence in what seems to us inconscient, of the invisible behind the visible, of the secretly conscious spirit in things distributing itself in every working of energy. The obscurity and primitive inadequacy of the first perceptions do not detract from the value or the truth of this great quest of the human heart and mind, since all our seekings,—including Science itself,—must start from an obscure and ignorant perception of hidden realities and proceed to the more and more luminous vision of the Truth which at first comes to us masked, draped, veiled by the mists of the Ignorance. Anthropomorphism is an imaged recognition of the truth that man is what he is because God is what He is and that there is one soul and body of things, humanity even in its incompleteness the most complete manifestation yet achieved here and divinity the perfection of what in man is imperfect.” The Life Divine
rebellious ::: hard or impossible to manage; stubbornly disobedient; obstinate.
recede ::: 1. To retreat; withdraw; become fainter or more distant. 2. To move away or be perceived as moving away from an observer, esp. as giving the illusion of space. recedes, receded, receding, fast-receding.
refusing to regard its desires and clamours as one’s own, and cultivates an entire equality and equanimity in the consciousness with respect to them that the lower vital itself becomes gradually purified and itself also calm and equal. Each wave of desire as it comes must be observed, as quietly and with as much unmoved detachment as you would observe something going on outside you, and must be allowed to pass, rejected from the cons- ciousness, and the true movement, the true consciousness steadily put in its place.
religion ::: Sri Aurobindo: "There is no word so plastic and uncertain in its meaning as the word religion. The word is European and, therefore, it is as well to know first what the Europeans mean by it. In this matter we find them, — when they can be got to think clearly on the matter at all, which is itself unusual, — divided in opinion. Sometimes they use it as equivalent to a set of beliefs, sometimes as equivalent to morality coupled with a belief in God, sometimes as equivalent to a set of pietistic actions and emotions. Faith, works and pious observances, these are the three recognised elements of European religion . . . . ::: Religion in India is a still more plastic term and may mean anything from the heights of Yoga to strangling your fellowman and relieving him of the worldly goods he may happen to be carrying with him. It would therefore take too long to enumerate everything that can be included in Indian religion. Briefly, however, it is Dharma or living religiously, the whole life being governed by religion.” *From an unpublished essay
religion ::: “There is no word so plastic and uncertain in its meaning as the word religion. The word is European and, therefore, it is as well to know first what the Europeans mean by it. In this matter we find them,—when they can be got to think clearly on the matter at all, which is itself unusual,—divided in opinion. Sometimes they use it as equivalent to a set of beliefs, sometimes as equivalent to morality coupled with a belief in God, sometimes as equivalent to a set of pietistic actions and emotions. Faith, works and pious observances, these are the three recognised elements of European religion . . . .
report ::: n. 1. An account or statement describing in detail an event, situation, or the like, usually as the result of observation, inquiry, etc. v. **2. **To make or present an often official, formal, or regular account of.
RESISTANCE. ::: When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt — which may create mental and vital su/Tering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature ivhose principal characer is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffer- ing of the mind and vital parts. The pbj-sical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incom- prehension, an inability to respond to the higher consciousness, a habit of helplessly responding to the lower mechanically, even when it docs not want to do so ; both lital and physical suffer- ing may be the consequence. There is, moreover, the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence in the continuation of the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses, desires, feelings, responses continue even after they are thrown out and rejected, and can return like an invading army from outside, until the whole nature, given to (he
Right Force and wrong ::: If it works to purify or open the system, or brings with it light or peace, or prepares the change of the thought, ideas, feelings, character in the sense of turning towards a higher consciousness, then it is the right force. If it is dark or obscure or perturbs the being with rajasic or egoistic suggestions or excites the lower nature, then it is an adverse force.
rub ::: a difficulty or obstacle.
RULES. ::: In the things of the subtle kind having to do with the working of consciousness in the sadhana. one has to Icam to feel and observe and sec with the inner consciousness and to decide by the intuition with a plastic look on things which docs not make set definitions and rules as one has to do in ouUvard life.
scan ::: 1. To examine (especially look at with the eyes) the particulars or points of minutely; scrutinize. 2. To peer out at or observe repeatedly or sweepingly, as a large expanse; survey. scans, scanned, scanning.
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.
seeingly ::: in an observant, discerning or insightful manner.
seem ::: 1. To have an aspect of truth and probability. 2. To give the impression of being; to appear to be, to be apparently. 3. To appear to be, feel or do something. 4. To appear to one"s own senses, mind, observation, judgement, etc. seems, seemed.
seer ::: 1. A person gifted with profound spiritual insight or knowledge; a wise person or sage who possesses intuitive powers or one to whom divine revelations are made in visions. 2. One who sees; an observer. **Seer, seers, seer-evenings, seer-summit, seer-vision"s.
seer ::: “The seer does not need the aid of thought in its process as a means of knowledge, but only as a means of representation and expression,—thought is to him a lesser power and used for a secondary purpose. If a further extension of knowledge is required, he can come at it by new seeing without the slower thought processes that are the staff of support of the mental search and its feeling out for truth,—even as we scrutinise with the eye to find what escaped our first observation” The Synthesis of Yoga
SELF-ESTEEM. ::: A very strong self-esteem and a self- righteous spirit stand in the way of pedcction and constitute a very serious obstacle. So long as a sadhaka has that, the attempt of the Truth to manliest in him wiD always be baffled by his changing it into mental and \^tal constructions which distort it, turn it into ineffective haJf-lruib, even make truth itself a source of error.
self-will ::: wilful or obstinate persistence in following one"s own desires, aims or opinions.
shadow ::: n. 1. A dark figure or image cast on the ground or some surface by a body intercepting light. 2. Shade or comparative darkness, as in an area. 3. Darkness that is caused by the interception of light. 4. A phantom; a ghost. 5. An obscure indication; a symbol, type; a prefiguration, foreshadowing. 6. A hint or faint, indistinct image or idea; intimation. 7. A mere semblance. 8. A mirrored image or reflection. 9. Shelter; protection. 10. A dominant or pervasive threat, influence, or atmosphere, esp. one causing gloom, fear, doubt, or the like. Shadow, shadow"s, shadows. v. 11. To represent faintly, prophetically; to indicate obscurely or in slight outline; to symbolize, typify, prefigure. (Often followed by forth.) shadowed. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.) shadowlike, shadow-hung, shadow-self, shadow-soul, shadow-Sphinx.
shadow ::: n. 1. A dark figure or image cast on the ground or some surface by a body intercepting light. 2. Shade or comparative darkness, as in an area. 3. Darkness that is caused by the interception of light. 4. A phantom; a ghost. 5. An obscure indication; a symbol, type; a prefiguration, foreshadowing. 6. A hint or faint, indistinct image or idea; intimation. 7. A mere semblance. 8. A mirrored image or reflection. 9. Shelter; protection. 10. A dominant or pervasive threat, influence, or atmosphere, esp. one causing gloom, fear, doubt, or the like. Shadow, shadow’s, shadows. v. 11. To represent faintly, prophetically; to indicate obscurely or in slight outline; to symbolize, typify, prefigure. (Often followed by forth.) shadowed. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.) shadowlike, shadow-hung, shadow-self, shadow-soul, shadow-Sphinx.
shadowy ::: 1. Abounding in shadow; shady. 2. Full or dark with shadows; enveloped in shadow; obscured by shadows. 3. Unsubstantial, illusory; transitory, fleeting; unreal, imaginary. 4. Resembling a shadow in faintness; slightness; faintly perceptible, indistinct, vague. 5. Spectral, ghostly. Shadowy.
sign ::: n. 1. An act or gesture used to convey an idea, a desire, information, or a command. 2. Any object, action, event, pattern, etc., that conveys a meaning. 3. A mark used to mean something; a symbol that sets something apart from others of its kind. 4. Something that indicates or acts as a token of a fact, condition, etc., that is not immediately or outwardly observable. 5. A signal. 6. A conventional figure or device that stands for a word, phrase, or operation; a symbol, as in mathematics or in musical notation. 7. A displayed structure such as a banner bearing lettering or symbols. 8. An act or significant event that is experienced as indication of divine intervention. 9. A portent of things to come. Sign, sign"s, signs, signless, sign-burdened, flame-signs. v. 10. To affix one"s signature to. 11. To indicate by or as if by a sign; betoken. signs, signed, signing.
Silence and thoughts ::: To silence the mind it is not enough to throw back each thought as it comes, that can only be a subordinate movement. One must get back from all thought and be separate from it, a silent consciousness observing the thoughts if they come, but not oneself thinking or identified with the thoughts. Thoughts must be felt as outside things altogether.
SINKING OF CONSCIOUSNESS. ::: An occasional sinking of the consciousness happens to everybody. The causes are various, some touch from outside, something not yet changed or not sufficiently changed In the vital, especially the lower vital, some inertia or obscurity rising up from the physical parts of nature. \Vhen it comes, remain quiet, open yourself to the
sob ::: n. 1. The act or sound of weeping aloud with convulsive gasping. 2. Transf. A sound resembling that of loud weeping. sobs. v. 3. To weep with a convulsive catching of the breath.
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.
spectator ::: 1. A person viewing anything; onlooker; observer. 2. An observer or an event. spectators. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.)
Sri Aurobindo: "Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "If this higher buddhi {{understanding in the profoundest sense] could act pure of the interference of these lower members, it would give pure forms of the truth; observation would be dominated or replaced by a vision which could see without subservient dependence on the testimony of the sense-mind and senses; imagination would give place to the self-assured inspiration of the truth, reasoning to the spontaneous discernment of relations and conclusion from reasoning to an intuition containing in itself those relations and not building laboriously upon them, judgment to a thought-vision in whose light the truth would stand revealed without the mask which it now wears and which our intellectual judgment has to penetrate; while memory too would take upon itself that larger sense given to it in Greek thought and be no longer a paltry selection from the store gained by the individual in his present life, but rather the all-recording knowledge which secretly holds and constantly gives from itself everything that we now seem painfully to acquire but really in this sense remember, a knowledge which includes the future(1) no less than the past. ::: Footnote: In this sense the power of prophecy has been aptly called a memory of the future.]” *The Synthesis of Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "the black dragon of the Inconscience sustains with its vast wings and its back of darkness the whole structure of the material universe; its energies unroll the flux of things, its obscure intimations seem to be the starting-point of consciousness itself and the source of all life-impulse.” The Life Divine ::: **Unused, guarded beneath Night"s dragon paws,**
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 quest of man for God, which becomes in the end the most ardent and enthralling of all his quests, begins with his first vague questionings of Nature and a sense of something unseen both in himself and her. Even if, as modern Science insists, religion started from animism, spirit-worship, demon-worship, and the deification of natural forces, these first forms only embody in primitive figures a veiled intuition in the subconscient, an obscure and ignorant feeling of hidden influences and incalculable forces, or a vague sense of being, will, intelligence in what seems to us inconscient, of the invisible behind the visible, of the secretly conscious spirit in things distributing itself in every working of energy. The obscurity and primitive inadequacy of the first perceptions do not detract from the value or the truth of this great quest of the human heart and mind, since all our seekings, — including Science itself, — must start from an obscure and ignorant perception of hidden realities and proceed to the more and more luminous vision of the Truth which at first comes to us masked, draped, veiled by the mists of the Ignorance. Anthropomorphism is an imaged recognition of the truth that man is what he is because God is what He is and that there is one soul and body of things, humanity even in its incompleteness the most complete manifestation yet achieved here and divinity the perfection of what in man is imperfect.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: *"The seer does not need the aid of thought in its process as a means of knowledge, but only as a means of representation and expression, — thought is to him a lesser power and used for a secondary purpose. If a further extension of knowledge is required, he can come at it by new seeing without the slower thought processes that are the staff of support of the mental search and its feeling out for truth, — even as we scrutinise with the eye to find what escaped our first observation” The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "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
stubborn ::: unreasonably, often perversely unyielding; bullheaded; obstinate.
study ::: n. 1. A room furnished with books and intended or equipped for studying or writing. 2. The pursuit of knowledge, as by reading, observation, or research. v. 3. To examine closely; scrutinize. Also fig. studies, studied, studying.
— stumblings and deviations, hard and seemingly insuperable obstacles and wounds and suffering cannot be escaped and even death or utter downfall are not impossible. Only when the cons- cious integral surrender to the Divine has been learned by mind and life and body, can the way of the Yoga become easy, straight, swift and safe.
subconscient ::: “In our yoga we mean by the subconscient that quite submerged part of our being in which there is no wakingly conscious and coherent thought, will or feeling or organised reaction, but which yet receives obscurely the impressions of all things and stores them up in itself and from it too all sorts of stimuli, of persistent habitual movements, crudely repeated or disguised in strange forms can surge up into dream or into the waking nature. No, subliminal is a general term used for all parts of the being which are not on the waking surface. Subconscient is very often used in the same sense by European psychologists because they do not know the difference. But when I use the word, I mean always what is below the ordinary physical consciousness, not what is behind it. The inner mental, vital, physical, the psychic are not subconscious in this sense, but they can be spoken of as subliminal.” The Synthesis of Yoga.
subconscient ::: Sri Aurobindo: "In our yoga we mean by the subconscient that quite submerged part of our being in which there is no wakingly conscious and coherent thought, will or feeling or organised reaction, but which yet receives obscurely the impressions of all things and stores them up in itself and from it too all sorts of stimuli, of persistent habitual movements, crudely repeated or disguised in strange forms can surge up into dream or into the waking nature. No, subliminal is a general term used for all parts of the being which are not on the waking surface. Subconscient is very often used in the same sense by European psychologists because they do not know the difference. But when I use the word, I mean always what is below the ordinary physical consciousness, not what is behind it. The inner mental, vital, physical, the psychic are not subconscious in this sense, but they can be spoken of as subliminal.” *The Synthesis of Yoga.
"The subconscient is a concealed and unexpressed inarticulate consciousness which works below all our conscious physical activities. Just as what we call the superconscient is really a higher consciousness above from which things descend into the being, so the subconscient is below the body-consciousness and things come up into the physical, the vital and the mind-nature from there.
Just as the higher consciousness is superconscient to us and supports all our spiritual possibilities and nature, so the subconscient is the basis of our material being and supports all that comes up in the physical nature.” Letters on Yoga
"That part of us which we can strictly call subconscient because it is below the level of mind and conscious life, inferior and obscure, covers the purely physical and vital elements of our constitution of bodily being, unmentalised, unobserved by the mind, uncontrolled by it in their action. It can be held to include the dumb occult consciousness, dynamic but not sensed by us, which operates in the cells and nerves and all the corporeal stuff and adjusts their life process and automatic responses. It covers also those lowest functionings of submerged sense-mind which are more operative in the animal and in plant life.” *The Life Divine
"The subconscient is a thing of habits and memories and repeats persistently or whenever it can old suppressed reactions, reflexes, mental, vital or physical responses. It must be trained by a still more persistent insistence of the higher parts of the being to give up its old responses and take on the new and true ones.” Letters on Yoga
"About the subconscient — it is the sub-mental base of the being and is made up of impressions, instincts, habitual movements that are stored there. Whatever movement is impressed in it, it keeps. If one impresses the right movement in it, it will keep and send up that. That is why it has to be cleared of old movements before there can be a permanent and total change in the nature. When the higher consciousness is once established in the waking parts, it goes down into the subconscient and changes that also, makes a bedrock of itself there also.” Letters on Yoga
"The sub-conscious is the evolutionary basis in us, it is not the whole of our hidden nature, nor is it the whole origin of what we are. But things can rise from the subconscient and take shape in the conscious parts and much of our smaller vital and physical instincts, movements, habits, character-forms has this source.” Letters on Yoga
"The subconscient is the support of habitual action — it can support good habits as well as bad.” Letters on Yoga
"For the subconscient is the Inconscient in the process of becoming conscious; it is a support and even a root of our inferior parts of being and their movements.” The Life Divine *subconscient"s.
SUBCONSCIENT. ::: That quite submerged part of our being in which there is no wakingly conscious or coherent thought, will or feeling or organised reaction, but which yet receives obscurely the impressions of all things and stores them up in itself and from it too all sorts of stimulii, of persistent habitual movements, crudely repeated or disguised in strange forms can surge up into dream or into the waking nature.
(supported by the lowest part of the vital proper) is therefore the agent of most of the lesser movements of our external life ; its habitual reactions and obstinate pettinesses are the chief stumbling-block in the way of transformation of the outer cons- ciousness by the yoga. It is also largely responsible for most of the suffering and disease of mind or body to which the physical being is subject in Nature.
Surrender of the nature is not an easy thing and may take a long lime ; surrender of the self, if one can do it, is easier and once that is done, that of the nature will come about sooner or later. For that it is necessary to detach oneself from the action of the Prakriti and see oneself as separate. To observe the movements as a witness without being discouraged or disturbed is the best way to cfTccl the necessary detachment and separation.
survey ::: n. 1. The act of looking, seeing, or observing. v. 2. To inspect, examine, carefully scrutinize. 3. To examine or look at comprehensively. Surveys, surveyed, surveying.
taking heed; giving close and thoughtful attention; carefully observant.
TAMAS. ::: One of the three gut^as, fundamental qualities or modes of Nature ; principle of inertia of consciousness and force ; translates in quality as obscurity and incapacity and inaction.
that are behind it. Sleep is a going inward in which the surface self and the outside world are put away from our sense and rision. But in ordinary sleep we do not become aware of the worlds within; the being seems submerged in a deep sub- conscience On the surface of the subconscience Soau an obscure layer in which dreams take place, as it seems to us but, mote correctly it may be said, are recorded.
“That part of us which we can strictly call subconscient because it is below the level of mind and conscious life, inferior and obscure, covers the purely physical and vital elements of our constitution of bodily being, unmentalised, unobserved by the mind, uncontrolled by it in their action. It can be held to include the dumb occult consciousness, dynamic but not sensed by us, which operates in the cells and nerves and all the corporeal stuff and adjusts their life process and automatic responses. It covers also those lowest functionings of submerged sense-mind which are more operative in the animal and in plant life.” The Life Divine
"The call, once decisive, stands; the thing that has been born cannot eventually be stifled. Even if the force of circumstances prevents a regular pursuit or a full practical self-consecration from the first, still the mind has taken its bent and persists and returns with an ever-increasing effect upon its leading preoccupation. There is an ineluctable persistence of the inner being, and against it circumstances are in the end powerless, and no weakness in the nature can for long be an obstacle.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The call, once decisive, stands; the thing that has been born cannot eventually be stifled. Even if the force of circumstances prevents a regular pursuit or a full practical self-consecration from the first, still the mind has taken its bent and persists and returns with an ever-increasing effect upon its leading preoccupation. There is an ineluctable persistence of the inner being, and against it circumstances are in the end powerless, and no weakness in the nature can for long be an obstacle.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"The characteristic power of the reason in its fullness is a logical movement assuring itself first of all available materials and data by observation and arrangement, then acting upon them for a resultant knowledge gained, assured and enlarged by a first use of the reflective powers, and lastly assuring itself of the correctness of its results by a more careful and formal action, more vigilant, deliberate, severely logical which tests, rejects or confirms them according to certain secure standards and processes developed by reflection and experience.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The characteristic power of the reason in its fullness is a logical movement assuring itself first of all available materials and data by observation and arrangement, then acting upon them for a resultant knowledge gained, assured and enlarged by a first use of the reflective powers, and lastly assuring itself of the correctness of its results by a more careful and formal action, more vigilant, deliberate, severely logical which tests, rejects or confirms them according to certain secure standards and processes developed by reflection and experience.” The Synthesis of Yoga
The consciousness (higher) is alwa>’s there ; the body «s tamasic and obscure and the greater part of it Is subconscient.
The course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they have strong family resemblance. One can even- tually overcome If one begins to realise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of observing them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf, finally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and refusing the mind's sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl and the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions. In the end, these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature ; the recurrence becomes feeble, or has no power to last ; even, if the detach- ment is strong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once.
"The elementary state of material Force is, in the view of the old Indian physicists, a condition of pure material extension in Space of which the peculiar property is vibration typified to us by the phenomenon of sound. But vibration in this state of ether is not sufficient to create forms. There must first be some obstruction in the flow of the Force ocean, some contraction and expansion, some interplay of vibrations, some impinging of force upon force so as to create a beginning of fixed relations and mutual effects. Material Force modifying its first ethereal status assumes a second, called in the old language the aerial, of which the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations. Still we have not as yet real forms but only varying forces. A sustaining principle is needed. This is provided by a third self-modification of the primitive Force of which the principle of light, electricity, fire and heat is for us the characteristic manifestation. Even then, we can have forms of force preserving their own character and peculiar action, but not stable forms of Matter. A fourth state characterised by diffusion and a first medium of permanent attractions and repulsions, termed picturesquely water or the liquid state, and a fifth of cohesion, termed earth or the solid state, complete the necessary elements.” The Life Divine*
“The elementary state of material Force is, in the view of the old Indian physicists, a condition of pure material extension in Space of which the peculiar property is vibration typified to us by the phenomenon of sound. But vibration in this state of ether is not sufficient to create forms. There must first be some obstruction in the flow of the Force ocean, some contraction and expansion, some interplay of vibrations, some impinging of force upon force so as to create a beginning of fixed relations and mutual effects. Material Force modifying its first ethereal status assumes a second, called in the old language the aerial, of which the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations. Still we have not as yet real forms but only varying forces. A sustaining principle is needed. This is provided by a third self-modification of the primitive Force of which the principle of light, electricity, fire and heat is for us the characteristic manifestation. Even then, we can have forms of force preserving their own character and peculiar action, but not stable forms of Matter. A fourth state characterised by diffusion and a first medium of permanent attractions and repulsions, termed picturesquely water or the liquid state, and a fifth of cohesion, termed earth or the solid state, complete the necessary elements.” The Life Divine
“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 feeling of all being conscious or alive comes when our own physical consciousness — and not the mind only — awakes out of its obscurity and becomes aware of the One in all things, the Divine everywhere.
— the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender. Let your faith be pure, cancfid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by arabidoo, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for petty satisfaction of the lower nature is a low and smokc-obscurcd flame that cannot bum upwards to heaven. Regard your life as given you only for the divine work and to help in the dirine manifestation.
The more complete y-our faith, sincerity and surrender, the more will grace and protection be with you. And when the grace and protection of the Divine Mother arc with you, what is there lliat can touch you or whom need you fear? A little of it even will carry you through all diiliculties, obstacles and dangers ; surrounded by its full presence you can go securely on your way because it is hers, careless of all menace, unaffected by any hostility however powerful, whether from this world or from worlds invisible. Its touch can turn difficulties into oppor- tunities, failure into success and weakness into unfaltering strength. For the grace of the Divine Mother is the sanction of the Supreme and now or tomorrow its ciTect is sure, a thing decreed. Inevitable and irresistible.
The more complete your faith, sincerity and surrender, the mote will grace and protection be with you. And when the grace and protection of the Divine Mother are with you, what is there that can touch you or whom need you fear? A little of it even will carry you through all difficulties, obstacles and dangers ; surrounded by its full presence you can go securely on your way because it is hers, careless of all menace, unaffected by any hostility however powerful, whether from this world or from worlds invisible. Its touch can turn difficulties into oppor- tunities, failure into success and weakness into unfaltering strength.
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: "The snake is not the symbol of power but of energy, and just as there are obscure and perverted energies, so too the snake can be the symbol of unregenerate and anti-divine forces.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.*
The Mother: “The snake is not the symbol of power but of energy, and just as there are obscure and perverted energies, so too the snake can be the symbol of unregenerate and anti-divine forces.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
themselves obscure, incoherent or tricky and it is dangerous to associate with them or to undergo any influence.
The personal effort required Is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender ; an aspiration vigilant, constant, un- ceasing — the mind’s will, the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature ; rejection of the movements of the lower nature — rejection of the mind’s ideas, opinions, prefer- ences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find room in a silent mind, — rejection of the vital nature’s desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arro- gance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being, — rejection of the physical nature’s stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine ; surrender of oneself and all one is and has and every plane of the consciousness and every movement to the Divine and the ShaUi.
"The progress of Life involves the development and interlocking of an immense number of things that are in conflict with each other and seem often to be absolute oppositions and contraries. To find amid these oppositions some principle or standing-ground of unity, some workable lever of reconciliation which will make possible a larger and better development on a basis of harmony and not of conflict and struggle, must be increasingly the common aim of humanity in its active life-evolution, if it at all means to rise out of life"s more confused, painful and obscure movement, out of the compromises made by Nature with the ignorance of the Life-mind and the nescience of Matter. This can only be truly and satisfactorily done when the soul discovers itself in its highest and completest spiritual reality and effects a progressive upward transformation of its life-values into those of the spirit; for there they will all find their spiritual truth and in that truth their standing-ground of mutual recognition and reconciliation. The spiritual is the one truth of which all others are the veiled aspects, the brilliant disguises or the dark disfigurements, and in which they can find their own right form and true relation to each other.” *The Human Cycle, etc.
“The progress of Life involves the development and interlocking of an immense number of things that are in conflict with each other and seem often to be absolute oppositions and contraries. To find amid these oppositions some principle or standing-ground of unity, some workable lever of reconciliation which will make possible a larger and better development on a basis of harmony and not of conflict and struggle, must be increasingly the common aim of humanity in its active life-evolution, if it at all means to rise out of life’s more confused, painful and obscure movement, out of the compromises made by Nature with the ignorance of the Life-mind and the nescience of Matter. This can only be truly and satisfactorily done when the soul discovers itself in its highest and completest spiritual reality and effects a progressive upward transformation of its life-values into those of the spirit; for there they will all find their spiritual truth and in that truth their standing-ground of mutual recognition and reconciliation. The spiritual is the one truth of which all others are the veiled aspects, the brilliant disguises or the dark disfigurements, and in which they can find their own right form and true relation to each other.” The Human Cycle, etc.
". . . the proper function of the thought-mind is to observe, understand, judge with a dispassionate delight in knowledge and open itself to messages and illuminations playing upon all that it observes and upon all that is yet hidden from it but must progressively be revealed, messages and illuminations that secretly flash down to us from the divine Oracle concealed in light above our mentality whether they seem to descend through the intuitive mind or arise from the seeing heart.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“… the proper function of the thought-mind is to observe, understand, judge with a dispassionate delight in knowledge and open itself to messages and illuminations playing upon all that it observes and upon all that is yet hidden from it but must progressively be revealed, messages and illuminations that secretly flash down to us from the divine Oracle concealed in light above our mentality whether they seem to descend through the intuitive mind or arise from the seeing heart.” The Synthesis of Yoga
There are two words used in English to express the Indian idea of dhyana, * meditation ’ and ‘ contemplation ’. Meditation means properly the concentration of the mind on a single train of ideas which work out a single subject. Contemplation means regarding mentally a single object, image, idea so that the know- ledge about the object, image or idea may arise naturally in the mind by force of the concentration. Both these things are forms of dhyana, for the principle of dh)ona is mental concentration whether in thought, vision or knowledge. There are other forms of dhyana. You stand back from your thoughts, let them occur in your mind as they will and simply observe them and see what they are. This may be called concentration in self-observation.
Therefore, while our effort is personal. Time appears as a resist- ance, for It presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the per- sonal are combined in our consciousness, It appears as a medium and condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument.
The right attitude is neither to worry always about the sex weakness and be obsessed by its importance so as to be in constant struggle and depression over it, nor to be too careless as to allow it to grow'. It is perhaps the most difficult of all to get rid of entirely ; one has to recogjise quietly its importance and its difficulty nod go quietly and steadily about the control of it.
These are formations of the vital plane, sometimes things that try to happen but not necessarily effective. One can observe and understand, but not allow them to influence the mind ; for often adverse forces try to influence the mind by suggestion through these dream experiences.
the sex difficulty, then these dreams or discharges without dream can only be a rising up of old dormant impressions in the sub- conscient. Such risings often take place when the Force is work- ing in the subconscient to clear it. It is also just possible that the discharges may be due, especially when there are no dreams, to purely materia? causes, c.g. the pressure of undischar^d urine or faecal matter near the bladder. But in any case, the thing is not to be disturbed and to put a force or will on the sex-cenlre or sex organ for these things to cease. This can be done just before sleeping. Usually after a time, if done regularly, it has an effect. A calm general pressure of will or force on the physi- cal subconscient is to be put. The subconscient may be often obstinate in its continual persistence, but it can and does accom- modate itself quickly or slowly to the will of the conscious being.
“… 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 true soul secret in us,—subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil,—this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” The Life Divine
"The universe is certainly or has been up to now in appearance a rough and wasteful game with the dice of chance loaded in favour of the Powers of darkness, the Lords of obscurity, falsehood, death and suffering. But we have to take it as it is and find out — if we reject the way out of the old sages — the way to conquer. Spiritual experience shows that there is behind it all a wide terrain of equality, peace, calm, freedom, and it is only by getting into it that we can have the eye that sees and hope to gain the power that conquers.” Letters on Yoga
“The universe is certainly or has been up to now in appearance a rough and wasteful game with the dice of chance loaded in favour of the Powers of darkness, the Lords of obscurity, falsehood, death and suffering. But we have to take it as it is and find out—if we reject the way out of the old sages—the way to conquer. Spiritual experience shows that there is behind it all a wide terrain of equality, peace, calm, freedom, and it is only by getting into it that we can have the eye that sees and hope to gain the power that conquers.” Letters on Yoga
the vital nature’s desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hosti- lity to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being ; rejection of the physical nature’s stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine.
"The will of self-giving forces away by its power the veil between God and man; it annuls every error and annihilates every obstacle. Those who aspire in their human strength by effort of knowledge or effort of virtue or effort of laborious self-discipline, grow with much anxious difficulty towards the Eternal; but when the soul gives up its ego and its works to the Divine, God himself comes to us and takes up our burden.” Essays on the Gita
“The will of self-giving forces away by its power the veil between God and man; it annuls every error and annihilates every obstacle. Those who aspire in their human strength by effort of knowledge or effort of virtue or effort of laborious self-discipline, grow with much anxious difficulty towards the Eternal; but when the soul gives up its ego and its works to the Divine, God himself comes to us and takes up our burden.” Essays on the Gita
' Th’o rvnj'J of doing the yoga ::: One by the action of a vigi- lant mind and s’ital seeing, observing, thinking and deciding wbat is or not to be done. The other way h that of the psychic being, the consciousness opening to the Divine, not only opening the psychic and bringing it forward, but opening the mind, the vital and the physical, receiving the light, perceiving what is to be done, feeling and seeing it done by the Divine Force itself and helping constantly by its own vigilant and conscious assent to and call for the Divine Worldng.
Those feeling do not really help, on the contrary, they are an immense obstacle and hamper the progress. They belong to the reli^ous, not to the yopc mentality. The yo^ should look on all the defects of the nature calmly, firmly and persistently with full confidence in the Divine Power — without weakness or dep- ression or negligence and without excitement, impatience or violence.
thought-Mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the Spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind, — but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin, — as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realising its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge. " *The Life Divine
Thoughts are not the essence of mind*bcinc, they arc only an activity of mental nature ; if that activity ceases, what appears then as a tbought-fiee existence that manifests in its place is not a blank or void but something ytry real, substantial, con- crete we may say — a mental being that extends itself widely and can be its own field of existence silent or active as well as the Witness Knower,, Master of that field and its action. Some feel it first as a void but that is because their observ-ation is un- trained and insufficient and loss of activity gives them the sense of blank ; an emptiness tKete is, but it is an emptiness of the ordinary activities, not a blank of eiustencc.
thread ::: n. 1. A fine cord of flax, cotton, or other fibrous material spun out to considerable length, especially when composed of two or more filaments twisted together. 2. Any fine line, stream, mark, or piece. 3. Fig. Likened to a thread in passing (one"s way) through or over (something). 4. Something having the fineness or slenderness of a filament, as a thin continuous stream of liquid, a fine line of colour, etc. threads. *v. 5. To make one"s way, as through a passage or between obstacles. 6. To pass (thread, film, magnetic tape, etc.) through (something. Also fig. 7. To pervade. *threaded, threading.
throb ::: n. 1. The act of throbbing; a beating, palpitation, or vibration. 2. Any pulsation or vibration. 3. A strong rhythmic vibration or beat. throbs, heart-throb, wave-throbs. v. 4. To beat strongly or with increased force or rapidity, as the heart under the influence of emotion or excitement; palpitate. throbs, throbbed.
"Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and working out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and a condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and working out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and a condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument.” The Synthesis of Yoga
To be always observing faults and wrong mo>’ements brings depression and discourages faith. Turn your eyes more to the incoming light and less to any immediate darkness.
track ::: n. 1. A mark or succession of marks left by something that has passed. 2. A path made or beaten by or as if by the feet of people or animals; trail. 3. A path along which something moves or has moved, such as a wheel-rut; the wake of a ship; a series of footprints; etc. tracks. v. 4. To follow the tracks of; trail. 5. To observe, plot, or mark the path of something. tracked.
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.
Truth, of the inner Warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine.
turbid ::: 1. Not clear or transparent because of stirred-up sediment or the like; clouded; opaque; obscured. 2. In a state of turmoil; muddled. Also fig.
TVall of obscKriiy ::: Most people live in their ordinary outer ignorant personality which does not easily open to the Divine ; but there is an Inner being within them of which they do not know, which can easily open to the Truth and the Light.
unclouded ::: fig. Not darkened or obscured.
"Unconsciousness is only an intermediate swoon of the conscious or its obscure sleep; . . . .” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga*
“Unconsciousness is only an intermediate swoon of the conscious or its obscure sleep; …” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
unnoticed, unobserved.
v. 1. Lacking definite shape, form, or character; indistinct. 2. Not definitely established, determined, confirmed, or known; uncertain. 3. Indefinite or indistinct in nature or character. 4. Not clearly expressed; inexplicit. 5. Not clear in meaning or application. n. 6. An empty or obscure expanse.
veiled ::: 1. Not distinct; obscured; muffled. 2. Fig. Disguised. ever-veiled, half-veiled.
victorious ::: 1. Being the winner in a contest or struggle; triumphant over obstacles or adversaries. 2. Characteristic of or expressing a sense of victory or fulfilment.
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.
wakeful ::: watchful; alert; vigilant; observant. ever-wakeful.
walled ::: 1. Having an immaterial or intangible barrier, obstruction, etc., suggesting a wall. 2. Enclosed, shut off, divided, protected, etc. with or as if with a wall, often followed by in.
watcher ::: one who watches or observes.
watchful ::: vigilant or alert; closely observant.
watching ::: looking or observing attentively or carefully; being closely observant.
watch ::: n. 1. The act or process of keeping awake or mentally alert, especially for the purpose of guarding. 2. The act of observing closely or the condition of being closely observed; surveillance. v. 3. To keep under attentive view or observation, as in order to see or learn something; view attentively or with interest. 4. To guard, tend, or oversee, esp. for protection or safe keeping. watches, watched, watching, serpent-watched.
wave ::: 1. A disturbance on the surface of a liquid body, as the sea or a lake, in the form of a moving ridge or swell. 2. Any surging or progressive movement resembling a wave of the sea. 3. A surge or rush, as of sensation. waves, wave-depths, wave-sparks", wave-throbs.
weeping ::: n. 1. The process of shedding tears (usually accompanied by sobs or other inarticulate sounds). adj. 2. Dropping rain.
—we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; for though we have applied that word for want of a better to any supra-intellectual direct way of knowing, yet what we actually know as intuition is only one special movement of self-existent knowledge. This new range is its origin; it imparts to our intuitions something of its own distinct character and is very clearly an intermediary of a greater Truth-Light with which our mind cannot directly communicate. At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance….
When the physical consciousness is being changed,' the chkl resistance comes from the subconscient. It is constantly main- taining or bringing back the inertia, weakness, obscurity, lack of intelligence which afflict the physical mind and vitd or' the obscure fears, desires, angers, Jiisis of the physical vital, or the illnesses, dullnesses, pains, incapabilUies to which the body- nature is prone.
(When the psychic comes in front) one is aware of the psy- chic being with its simple, spontaneous self-giving and feels its increasing direct control (not merely a veiled or half-veiled influence) over mind, vital and physical. Especially there is the psychic discernment which at once lights up the thoughts, emo- tional movements, vital pushes, physical habits and leaves nothing there obscure, substituting the right movements for the wrong ones.
"When we study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth with Matter as its basis, we observe that essentially it is a form of the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance. This would tend to show that the natural opposition we make between death and life is an error of our mentality, one of those false oppositions — false to inner truth though valid in surface practical experience — which, deceived by appearances, it is constantly bringing into the universal unity.” The Life Divine ::: *life"s, life-born, life-curve, life-delight"s, life-drift, life-foam, life-giving, life-impulse, life-impulse"s, life-motives, life-nature"s, life-pain, life-plan, life-power, life-room, life-scene, life-self, life-thought, life-wants, all-life, sense-life.
“When we study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth with Matter as its basis, we observe that essentially it is a form of the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance. This would tend to show that the natural opposition we make between death and life is an error of our mentality, one of those false oppositions—false to inner truth though valid in surface practical experience—which, deceived by appearances, it is constantly bringing into the universal unity.” The Life Divine
Will, there are many tangfed knots that have to be loosened and cannot be cut abruptly asunder. The Asura and Rakshasa hold this evolving earthly nature and have to be met and conquered on their own terms in their own long-conquered fief and pro- vince ; the human in us has to be led and prepared to transcend its limits and is too weak and obscure to be lifted up suddenly to a form far beyond it. The Divine Consciousness and Force are there and do at each moment the thing that is needed in the conditions of the labour, take always the step that fs decreed and shape In the midst of imperfection the perfection that is to come. But only when the supermiod has descended in you can she deal directly as the supramental Shakti with supramental natures. If you follow your mind, it will not recognise the hiother even when she is manifest before you. Follow your soul and not your mind, your soul that answers to the Truth, not your mind that leaps at appearances ; trust the Divine Power and she will free the godlike elements in you and shape all into an expression of Divine Nature.
Work and silence ::: A sort of stepping backward into some- thing silent and observant within which is not involved in the action, yet sees and can shed Its light upon it. There are then two parts of the being, one inner looking at and witnessing and knowing, the other executive and Instrumeotai and doing. This gives not only freedom but power — and in this inner being one can get into touch with the Divine not through mental activity but through tbe substance of tbe being, by a certah inward touch, perception, reception, receiving abo the right inspiration or intuition of the work.
KEYS (10k)
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
2 Elise Sax
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
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1:Obs were mediums and necromancers condemned by Torah, the Law of God. They were to be executed by the state for their spiritually heinous activity of consulting the dead and divining spirits. In Philistia, such activities were not outlawed as they were in Israel, but were rather encouraged. The Ob’s residence stood on the outskirts of the city near the foothills, because of the spiritual nature of mountains as cosmic connections between heaven and earth, and as gateways to Sheol. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
2:How can trade be bad if you don’t make money
even when it’s good?” inquired Gleed, reasonably
applying the information Harrison had given him.
Jeff’s big moon eyes went over him slowly then
turned to Harrison. “So he’s another bum off your
boat, eh? What’s he talking about?”
“Money,” explained Harrison. “It’s stuff we use to
simplify trade. It’s printed stuff, like documentary
obs of various sizes.”
“That tells me a lot,” Jeff Baines observed. “It
tells a crowd that has to make a printed record of
every ob is not to be trusted — because they don’t
even trust each other. ~ Eric Frank Russell,#NFDB
3:Saul’s face went pale. Those words hit him like a dagger to the heart —the exact words that Samuel used, another prince “after his own heart.” He knew Obs were slithery sorceresses and necromancers. But who was this Ob of Endor and how did she know that secret? Saul had recently beaten the Philistines at Michmash. He had been told by Samuel to wait at Gilgal for his arrival and they would sacrifice to Yahweh. But Samuel had been delayed. Saul worried that the Philistines might attack again before he could entreat the Lord, so he had gone ahead and sacrificed without Samuel. When Samuel finally arrived, he was angry with Saul. He cursed the king saying that because he had not kept the command of Yahweh, his kingdom would not continue. Then he had said, “Yahweh has sought out a man after his own heart, and Yahweh has commanded him to be prince over his people. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
4:The thing I remember from the Letters Page in those antique days was the way the OBs signed off. There was Yours faithfully, Yours sincerely, and I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant. But the ones I always looked for - and which I took to be the true sign of an Old Bastard - simply ended like this: Yours etc. And then the newspaper drew even more attention to the sign-off by printing it: Yours &c.
Yours &c. I used to muse about that. What did it mean? Where did it come from? I imagined some bespatted captain of industry dictating his OB’s views to his secretary for transmission to the Newspaper of Record which he doubtless referred to with jocund familiarity as ‘The Thunderer’. When his oratorical belch was complete, he would say ‘Yours, etc,’ which Miss ffffffolkes would automatically transcribe into, ‘I have the honour to be, sir, one of the distinguished Old Bastards who could send you the label off a tin of pilchards and you would still print it above this my name,’ or whatever, and then it would be, ‘Despatch this instanter to The Thunderer, Miss ffffffolkes.’
But one day Miss ffffffolkes was away giving a handjob to the Archbishop of York, so they sent a temp. And the temp wrote Yours, etc, just as she heard it and The Times reckoned the OB captain a very gusher of wit, but decided to add their own little rococo touch by compacting it further to &c., whereupon other OBs followed the bespatted lead of the captain of industry, who claimed all the credit for himself. There we have it: Yours &c.
Whereupon, as an ardent damp-ear of sixteen, I took to the parodic sign-off: Love, &c. Not all my correspondents unfailingly seized the reference, I regret to say. One demoiselle hastened her own de-accessioning from the museum of my heart by informing me with hauteur that use of the word etc., whether in oral communication or in carven prose, was common and vulgar. To which I replied, first, that ‘the word’ et cetera was not one but two words, and that the only common and vulgar thing about my letter - given the identity of its recipient - was affixing to it the word that preceded etc. Alack, she didn’t respond to this observation with the Buddhistic serenity one might have hoped.
Love, etc. The proposition is simple. The world divides into two categories: those who believe that the purpose, the function, the bass pedal and principal melody of life is love, and that anything else - everything else - is merely an etc.; and those, those unhappy many, who believe primarily in the etc. of life, for whom love, however agreeable, is but a passing flurry of youth, the pattering prelude to nappy-duty, but not something as solid, steadfast and reliable as, say, home decoration. This is the only division between people that counts. ~ Julian Barnes,#NFDB
1569 Integral Yoga
242 Poetry
192 Occultism
133 Christianity
108 Philosophy
105 Fiction
86 Yoga
64 Psychology
30 Science
27 Hinduism
17 Mythology
17 Education
14 Integral Theory
13 Theosophy
12 Mysticism
9 Buddhism
8 Cybernetics
7 Sufism
6 Baha i Faith
4 Philsophy
4 Kabbalah
1 Zen
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
999 Sri Aurobindo
668 The Mother
344 Satprem
237 Nolini Kanta Gupta
83 Aleister Crowley
78 H P Lovecraft
62 Carl Jung
59 James George Frazer
50 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
41 William Wordsworth
40 Plotinus
39 Sri Ramakrishna
31 Saint Augustine of Hippo
31 Percy Bysshe Shelley
28 Robert Browning
27 Swami Krishnananda
23 A B Purani
22 Rudolf Steiner
20 Jorge Luis Borges
20 Aldous Huxley
19 Vyasa
17 John Keats
15 Walt Whitman
15 Swami Vivekananda
14 Saint John of Climacus
12 Plato
11 Ovid
11 Nirodbaran
11 Friedrich Nietzsche
10 Saint Teresa of Avila
10 George Van Vrekhem
9 Paul Richard
9 Lucretius
8 Peter J Carroll
8 Norbert Wiener
7 Sri Ramana Maharshi
7 Baha u llah
6 William Butler Yeats
6 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
6 Joseph Campbell
6 Jordan Peterson
6 Henry David Thoreau
6 Edgar Allan Poe
6 Aristotle
5 Thubten Chodron
5 Rabindranath Tagore
5 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
5 Friedrich Schiller
5 Franz Bardon
5 Bokar Rinpoche
5 Anonymous
5 Al-Ghazali
4 Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
4 Patanjali
4 Jetsun Milarepa
3 R Buckminster Fuller
3 Rainer Maria Rilke
3 Ken Wilber
3 Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia
3 Hakim Sanai
2 Thomas Merton
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Kabir
2 Jean Gebser
2 Jalaluddin Rumi
2 Ibn Arabi
2 Alice Bailey
462 Record of Yoga
118 The Synthesis Of Yoga
81 Prayers And Meditations
78 Lovecraft - Poems
59 The Golden Bough
56 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
52 The Life Divine
52 Magick Without Tears
46 Letters On Yoga IV
46 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
43 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
41 Wordsworth - Poems
41 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
41 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
38 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
38 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
35 Agenda Vol 04
35 Agenda Vol 01
33 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
33 Letters On Yoga II
32 Agenda Vol 08
31 Shelley - Poems
31 Liber ABA
30 Questions And Answers 1956
29 Agenda Vol 03
28 Browning - Poems
27 The Study and Practice of Yoga
27 Questions And Answers 1953
27 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
26 Savitri
26 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
25 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
25 Agenda Vol 02
23 Questions And Answers 1954
23 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
23 Essays On The Gita
22 The Human Cycle
22 City of God
22 Agenda Vol 11
22 Agenda Vol 10
22 Agenda Vol 06
22 Agenda Vol 05
21 The Practice of Psycho therapy
21 Questions And Answers 1955
21 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
20 The Perennial Philosophy
20 The Future of Man
20 Mysterium Coniunctionis
20 Agenda Vol 13
20 Agenda Vol 09
19 Vishnu Purana
19 Essays Divine And Human
18 Agenda Vol 07
17 Keats - Poems
16 Words Of The Mother II
16 On Education
16 Letters On Yoga III
16 Letters On Yoga I
16 Labyrinths
15 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
15 Agenda Vol 12
14 Whitman - Poems
14 The Phenomenon of Man
14 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
12 Words Of Long Ago
12 The Secret Of The Veda
12 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
12 Some Answers From The Mother
12 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
12 On the Way to Supermanhood
11 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
11 Theosophy
11 The Bible
11 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
11 Talks
11 Metamorphoses
10 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
10 Preparing for the Miraculous
10 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
10 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
10 Let Me Explain
10 Isha Upanishad
10 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
10 Collected Poems
10 Aion
9 Of The Nature Of Things
9 Letters On Poetry And Art
9 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
8 Vedic and Philological Studies
8 Twilight of the Idols
8 The Problems of Philosophy
8 Raja-Yoga
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
8 Liber Null
8 Cybernetics
8 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
6 Yeats - Poems
6 Words Of The Mother III
6 Walden
6 The Way of Perfection
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
6 Poetics
6 Maps of Meaning
6 Hymn of the Universe
6 5.1.01 - Ilion
5 The Alchemy of Happiness
5 Tara - The Feminine Divine
5 Tagore - Poems
5 Schiller - Poems
5 Poe - Poems
5 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
5 Amrita Gita
4 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
4 Milarepa - Poems
4 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
4 General Principles of Kabbalah
4 Emerson - Poems
4 Dark Night of the Soul
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
3 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
3 The Practice of Magical Evocation
3 The Book of Certitude
3 The Blue Cliff Records
3 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Rilke - Poems
3 Faust
3 Bhakti-Yoga
2 Words Of The Mother I
2 The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Essentials of Education
2 The Divine Comedy
2 Symposium
2 Rumi - Poems
2 Initiation Into Hermetics
2 Goethe - Poems
2 Borges - Poems
2 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
2 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thus had we mused in the heart of our ancient forest while we were still hesitating between unlikely flakes of gold and a civilization that seemed to us quite toxic and obsolete, however mathematical. But other mathematics were flowing through our veins, an equation as yet unformed between this mammoth world and a little point replete with a light air and immense forebodings.
It was at this point that we met Mother, at this intersection of the anthropoid rediscovered and the 'something' that had set in motion this unfinished invention momentarily ensnared in a gilded machine. For nothing was finished, and nothing had been invented, really, that would instill peace and wideness in this heart of no species at all.
--
Yes, She was in the midst of a spiritual 'horde,' for the pioneer of a new species must always fight against the best of the old: the best is the obstacle, the snare that traps us in its old golden mire.
As for the worst, we know that it is the worst. But then we come to realize that the best is only the pretty muzzle of our worst, the same old beast defending itself, with all its claws out, with its sanctity or its electronic gadgets. Mother was there for something else.
'Something else' is ominous, perilous, disrupting - it is quite unbearable for all those who resemble the old beast. The story of the Pondicherry 'Ashram' is the story of an old clan ferociously clinging to its 'spiritual' privileges, as others clung to the muscles that had made them kings among the great apes. It is armed with all the piousness and all the reasonableness that had made logical man so 'infallible' among his less cerebral brothers. The spiritual brain is probably the worst obstacle to the new species, as were the muscles of the old orangutan for this fragile stranger who no longer climbed so well in the trees and sat, pensive, at the center of a little, uncertain clearing.
There is nothing more pious than the old species. There is nothing more legal. Mother was searching for the path of the new species as much against all the virtues of the old as against all its vices or laws. For, in truth, 'Something Else' ... is something else.
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
--
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.
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Integral Yoga
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to brea the the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
--
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, everything, 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
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It may be asked why the dog has been chosen as the symbol of Intuition. In the Vedas, the cow and the horse also play a large part; even the donkey and the frog have their own assigned roles. These objects are taken from the environment of ordinary life, and are those that are most familiar to the external consciousness, through which the inner experiences have to express themselves, if they are to be expressed at all. These material objects represent various kinds of forces and movements and subtle and occult and spiritual dynamisms. Strictly speaking, however, symbols are not chosen in a subtle or spiritual experience, that is to say, they are not arbitrarily selected and constructed by the conscious intelligence. They form part of a dramatization (to use a term of the Freudian psychology of dreams), a psychological alchemy, whose method and process and rationale are very obscure, which can be penetrated only by the vision of a third eye.
I. The Several Lights
--
The 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.
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attri bute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty in heavenkavi kavitv divi rpam sajat.1Thus the essence of poetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly forms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and embodies? HeavenDyaushas a very definite connotation in the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind 2the mind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the external senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording faithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a perfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra is the lord of this world and he can be approached only with an enkindled intelligence, ddhay man,3a faultless understanding, sumedh. He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic power,Tash, the maker of perfect forms, surpa ktnum.4 All the gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets, attain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty.5 Indra is also the master of the senses, indriyas, who are his hosts. It is through this mind and the senses that the poetic creation has to be manifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet's weaving;6 the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right thinking in the sacrificial labour of creation.7 But that creation is made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses that are alive to the subtle formation of a vaster knowledge.8 The poet envisages the golden forms fashioned out of the very profundity of the consciousness.9 For the substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.10 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation-the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth.11The form of beauty is the body of the Truth.
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his,nigam, pracetas; his is the eye of the Sun,srya caku.13 He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.14 In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer; he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, ncak;15 he is the Seer-Will,kavikratu.16 He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-Iuminousness.17 The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, srya satyasava, satyya satyaprasavya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator,savit, he is also the builder or fashioner,ta, and he is the organiser,vedh is personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara, of the Truth.18 As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,19 the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;20 it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice.21 He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward;22 he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond 23into the world of felicity.
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The age-old advice, "Know thyself," is more imperative than ever. The tempo of science has accelerated to such a degree that today's discoveries frequently make yesterday's equations obsolescent almost before they can be chalked up on a blackboard. Small wonder, then that every other hospital bed is occupied by a mental patient. Man was not constructed to spend his life at a crossroads, one of which leads he knows not where, and the other to threatened annihilation of his species.
In view of this situation it is doubly reassuring to know that, even in the midst of chaotic concepts and conditions there still remains a door through which man, individually, can enter into a vast store-house of knowledge, knowledge as dependable and immutable as the measured tread of Eternity.
--
Those who, armed with the tools provided by the Qabalah, have made the journey within and crossed beyond the barriers of illusion, have returned with an impressive quantity of knowledge which conforms strictly to the definition of "science" in Winston's College Dictionary: "Science: a body of knowledge, general truths of particular facts, obtained and shown to be correct by accurate observation and thinking; knowledge condensed, arranged and systematized with reference to general truths and laws."
Over and over their findings have been confirmed, proving the Qabalah contains within it not only the elements of the science itself but the method with which to pursue it.
--
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
follows that all politics and warring are obsolete and invalid. We no longer need to
rationalize selfishness. No one need ever again "earn a living." Further living for all
--
discovery and comprehension of nature is the obscurity of the mathematical
language of science. Fortunately, however, nature is not using the strictly
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
SRI RAMAKRISHNA, the God-man of modern India, was born at Kamarpukur. This village in the Hooghly District preserved during the last century the idyllic simplicity of the rural areas of Bengal. Situated far from the railway, it was untouched by the glamour of the city. It contained rice-fields, tall palms, royal banyans, a few lakes, and two cremation grounds. South of the village a stream took its leisurely course. A mango orchard dedicated by a neighbouring zemindar to the public use was frequented by the boys for their noonday sports. A highway passed through the village to the great temple of Jagannath at Puri, and the villagers, most of whom were farmers and craftsmen, entertained many passing holy men and pilgrims. The dull round of the rural life was broken by lively festivals, the observance of sacred days, religious singing, and other innocent pleasures.
About his parents Sri Ramakrishna once said: "My mother was the personification of rectitude and gentleness. She did not know much about the ways of the world; innocent of the art of concealment, she would say what was in her mind. People loved her for her open-heartedness. My father, an orthodox brahmin, never accepted gifts from the sudras. He spent much of his time in worship and meditation, and in repeating God's name and chanting His glories. Whenever in his daily prayers he invoked the Goddess Gayatri, his chest flushed and tears rolled down his cheeks. He spent his leisure hours making garlands for the Family Deity, Raghuvir."
--
served them in various ways. Meanwhile, he was observing their meditation and worship.
At the age of nine Gadadhar was invested with the sacred thread. This ceremony conferred upon him the privileges of his brahmin lineage, including the worship of the Family Deity, Raghuvir, and imposed upon him the many strict disciplines of a brahmin's life. During the ceremony of investiture he shocked his relatives by accepting a meal cooked by his nurse, a sudra woman. His father would never have dreamt of doing such a thing But in a playful mood Gadadhar had once promised this woman that he would eat her food, and now he fulfilled his plighted word. The woman had piety and religious sincerity, and these were more important to the boy than the conventions of society.
--
Mathur and Rani Rasmani began to ascribe the mental ailment of Sri Ramakrishna in part, at least, to his observance of rigid continence. Thinking that a natural life would relax the tension of his nerves, they engineered a plan with two women of ill fame. But as soon as the women entered his room, Sri Ramakrishna beheld in them the manifestation of the Divine Mother of the Universe and went into samadhi uttering Her name.
--- HALADHARI
--
Sri Ramakrishna set himself to the task of practising the disciplines of Tantra; and at the bidding of the Divine Mother Herself he accepted the Brahmani as his guru. He performed profound and delicate ceremonies in the Panchavati and under the bel-tree at the northern extremity of the temple compound. He practised all the disciplines of the sixty-four principal Tantra books, and it took him never more than three days to achieve the result promised in any one of them. After the observance of a few preliminary rites, he would be overwhelmed with a strange divine fervour and would go into samadhi, where his mind would dwell in exaltation. Evil ceased to exist for him. The word "carnal" lost its meaning. The whole world and everything in it appeared as the lila, the sport, of Siva and Sakti. He beheld held everywhere manifest the power and beauty of the Mother; the whole world, animate and inanimate, appeared to him as pervaded with Chit, Consciousness, and with Ananda, Bliss.
He saw in a vision the Ultimate Cause of the universe as a huge luminous triangle giving birth every moment to an infinite number of worlds. He heard the Anahata Sabda, the great sound Om, of which the innumerable sounds of the universe are only so many echoes. He acquired the eight supernatural powers of yoga, which make a man almost omnipotent, and these he spurned as of no value whatsoever to the Spirit. He had a vision of the divine Maya, the inscrutable Power of God, by which the universe is created and sustained, and into which it is finally absorbed. In this vision he saw a woman of exquisite beauty, about to become a mother, emerging from the Ganges and slowly approaching the Panchavati. Presently she gave birth to a child and began to nurse it tenderly. A moment later she assumed a terrible aspect, seized the child with her grim jaws, and crushed it. Swallowing it, she re-entered the waters of the Ganges.
--
Thus, after nirvikalpa samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized maya in an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from before his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that maya operates in the relative world in two ways, and he termed these "avidyamaya" and "vidyamaya". Avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the round of man's birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidyamaya is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion. Vidyamaya elevates man to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya the devotee rids himself of avidyamaya; he then becomes mayatita, free of maya. The two aspects of maya are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and She stands beyond them both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining through and standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes, conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.
The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain, in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness, the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. He was to keep himself at the "sixth centre" of Tantra, from which he could see not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the Kundalini in the lower centres. He gently oscillated back and forth across the dividing line. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of Reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the world.
--
Sri Ramakrishna, dressed in a red-bordered dhoti, one end of which was carelessly thrown over his left shoulder, came to Jaygopal's garden house accompanied by Hriday. No one took notice of the unostentatious visitor. Finally the Master said to Keshab, "People tell me you have seen God; so I have come to hear from you about God." A magnificent conversation followed. The Master sang a thrilling song about Kali and forthwith went into samadhi. When Hriday uttered the sacred "Om" in his ears, he gradually came back to consciousness of the world, his face still radiating a divine brilliance. Keshab and his followers were amazed. The contrast between Sri Ramakrishna and the Brahmo devotees was very interesting. There sat this small man, thin and extremely delicate. His eyes were illumined with an inner light. Good humour gleamed in his eyes and lurked in the corners of his mouth. His speech was Bengali of a homely kind with a slight, delightful stammer, and his words held men enthralled by their wealth of spiritual experience, their inexhaustible store of simile and metaphor, their power of observation, their bright and subtle humour, their wonderful catholicity, their ceaseless flow of wisdom. And around him now were the sophisticated men of Bengal, the best products of Western education, with Keshab, the idol of young Bengal, as their leader.
Keshab's sincerity was enough for Sri Ramakrishna. Henceforth the two saw each other frequently, either at Dakshineswar or at the temple of the Brahmo Samaj. Whenever the Master was in the temple at the time of divine service, Keshab would request him to speak to the congregation. And Keshab would visit the saint, in his turn, with offerings of flowers and fruits.
--
^The term "woman and gold", which has been used throughout in a collective sense, occurs again and again in the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna to designate the chief impediments to spiritual progress. This favourite expression of the Master, "kaminikanchan", has often been misconstrued. By it he meant only "lust and greed", the baneful influence of which retards the aspirant's spiritual growth. He used the word "kamini", or "woman", as a concrete term for the sex instinct when addressing his man devotees. He advised women, on the other hand, to shun "man". "Kanchan", or "gold", symbolizes greed, which is the other obstacle to spiritual life.
Sri Ramakrishna never taught his disciples to hate any woman, or womankind in general. This can be seen clearly by going through all his teachings under this head and judging them collectively. The Master looked on all women as so many images of the Divine Mother of the Universe. He paid the highest homage to womankind by accepting a woman as his guide while practising the very profound spiritual disciplines of Tantra. His wife, known and revered as the Holy Mother, was his constant companion and first disciple. At the end of his spiritual practice he literally worshipped his wife as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Divine Mother. After his passing away the Holy Mother became the spiritual guide not only of a large number of householders, but also of many monastic members of the Ramakrishna Order.
--
Pratap Hazra, a middle-aged man, hailed from a village near Kamarpukur. He was not altogether unresponsive to religious feelings. On a moment's impulse he had left his home, aged mother, wife, and children, and had found shelter in the temple garden at Dakshineswar, where he intended to lead a spiritual life. He loved to argue, and the Master often pointed him out as an example of barren argumentation. He was hypercritical of others and cherished an exaggerated notion of his own spiritual advancement. He was mischievous and often tried to upset the minds of the Master's young disciples, criticizing them for their happy and joyous life and asking them to devote their time to meditation. The Master teasingly compared Hazra to Jatila and Kutila, the two women who always created obstructions in Krishna's sport with the gopis, and said that Hazra lived at Dakshineswar to "thicken the plot" by adding complications.
--- SOME NOTED MEN
--
The first of these young men to come to the Master was Latu. Born of obscure parents, in Behar, he came to Calcutta in search of work and was engaged by Ramchandra Dutta as house-boy. Learning of the saintly Sri Ramakrishna, he visited the Master at Dakshineswar and was deeply touched by his cordiality. When he was about to leave, the Master asked him to take some money and return home in a boat or carriage. But Latu declared he had a few pennies and jingled the coins in his pocket. Sri Ramakrishna later requested Ram to allow Latu to stay with him permanently. Under Sri Ramakrishna's guidance Latu made great progress in meditation and was blessed with ecstatic visions, but all the efforts of the Master to give him a smattering of education failed. Latu was very fond of kirtan and other devotional songs but remained all his life illiterate.
--- RAKHAL
--
Hariprasanna, a college student, visited the Master in the company of his friends Sashi and Sarat. Sri Ramakrishna showed him great favour by initiating him into spiritual life. As long as he lived, Hariprasanna remembered and observed the following drastic advice of the Master: "Even if a woman is pure as gold and rolls on the ground for love of God, it is dangerous for a monk ever to look at her."
--- KALI
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
and straightforward, sometimes its obscure oracles
demand deep knowledge of the Qabalah for inter-
pretation, others contain obscure allusions, play
upon words, secrets expressed in cryptogram, double
--
will observed upon pronouncing it.
[29]
--
because of the author's observation as a naturalist.
Paragraph 1 mere repeats Chapter 4 in quintessence;
--
(It is to be observed that the philosopher having first
committed the syllogistic error quaternis terminorum,
--
The last paragraph is even obscurer to those unfamiliar to the masterpiece
referred to in the note; for the eye of Horus (see 777, Col.
--
Ay! let us offer the obscene Kiss!
Let us seek the Mystery of the Gnarled Oak, and of
--
the obscene and distorted character of much of the
universe is a whim of the Creator.
--
ear, identifying the vastness of the Most Holy with the obscene worm that
gnaws the bowels of the damned.
--
But all this is again only a glamour of Maya, as previously observed in the
text (Chapter 31). All this is true and false, and it is true and false to say
--
veils) of truth are obscure and many, the Truth itself plain
and one; but that the latter must be reached through the
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
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.
--
Besides the prompting of his inherent instinct, the main inducement for M. to keep this diary of his experiences at Dakshineswar was his desire to provide himself with a means for living in holy company at all times. Being a school teacher, he could be with the Master only on Sundays and other holidays, and it was on his diary that he depended for 'holy company' on other days. The devotional scriptures like the Bhagavata say that holy company is the first and most important means for the generation and growth of devotion. For, in such company man could hear talks on spiritual matters and listen to the glorification of Divine attri butes, charged with the fervour and conviction emanating from the hearts of great lovers of God. Such company is therefore the one certain means through which Sraddha (Faith), Rati (attachment to God) and Bhakti (loving devotion) are generated. The diary of his visits to Dakshineswar provided M. with material for re-living, through reading and contemplation, the holy company he had had earlier, even on days when he was not able to visit Dakshineswar. The wealth of details and the vivid description of men and things in the midst of which the sublime conversations are set, provide excellent material to re-live those experiences for any one with imaginative powers. It was observed by M.'s disciples and admirers that in later life also whenever he was free or alone, he would be pouring over his diary, transporting himself on the wings of imagination to the glorious days he spent at the feet of the Master.
During the Master's lifetime M. does not seem to have revealed the contents of his diary to any one. There is an unconfirmed tradition that when the Master saw him taking notes, he expressed apprehension at the possibility of his utilising these to publicise him like Keshab Sen; for the Great Master was so full of the spirit of renunciation and humility that he disliked being lionised. It must be for this reason that no one knew about this precious diary of M. for a decade until he brought out selections from it as a pamphlet in English in 1897 with the Holy Mother's blessings and permission. The Holy Mother, being very much pleased to hear parts of the diary read to her in Bengali, wrote to M.: "When I heard the Kathmrita, (Bengali name of the book) I felt as if it was he, the Master, who was saying all that." ( Ibid Part I. P 37.)
--
And Swamiji added a post script to the letter: "Socratic dialogues are Plato all over you are entirely hidden. Moreover, the dramatic part is infinitely beautiful. Everybody likes it here or in the West." Indeed, in order to be unknown, Mahendranath had used the pen-name M., under which the book has been appearing till now. But so great a book cannot remain obscure for long, nor can its author remain unrecognised by the large public in these modern times. M. and his book came to be widely known very soon and to meet the growing demand, a full-sized book, Vol. I of the Gospel, translated by the author himself, was published in 1907 by the Brahmavadin Office, Madras. A second edition of it, revised by the author, was brought out by the Ramakrishna Math, Madras in December 1911, and subsequently a second part, containing new chapters from the original Bengali, was published by the same Math in 1922. The full English translation of the Gospel by Swami Nikhilananda appeared first in 1942.
In Bengali the book is published in five volumes, the first part having appeared in 1902
0.00 - The Wellspring of Reality, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
While it takes but meager search to discover that many well-known concepts are false, it takes considerable search and even more careful examination of one's own personal experiences and inadvertently spontaneous reflexing to discover that there are many popularly and even professionally unknown, yet nonetheless fundamental, concepts to hold true in all cases and that already have been discovered by other as yet obscure individuals. That is to say that many scientific generalizations have been discovered but have not come to the attention of what we call the educated world at large, thereafter to be incorporated tardily within the formal education processes, and even more tardily, in the ongoing political-economic affairs of everyday life. Knowledge of the existence and comprehensive significance of these as yet popularly unrecognized natural laws often is requisite to the solution of many of the as yet unsolved problems now confronting society. Lack of knowledge of the solution's existence often leaves humanity confounded when it need not be.
Intellectually advantaged with no more than the child's facile, lucid eagerness to understand constructively and usefully the major transformational events of our own times, it probably is synergetically advantageous to review swiftly the most comprehensive inventory of the most powerful human environment transforming events of our totally known and reasonably extended history. This is especially useful in winnowing out and understanding the most significant of the metaphysical revolutions now recognized as swiftly tending to reconstitute history. By such a comprehensively schematic review, we might identify also the unprecedented and possibly heretofore overlooked pivotal revolutionary events not only of today but also of those trending to be central to tomorrow's most cataclysmic changes.
--
There could be produced a synergetic understanding of humanity's cosmic functioning, which, until now, had been both undiscovered and unpredictable due to our deliberate and exclusive preoccupation only with the separate statistics of separate events. As a typical consequence of the latter, we observe our society's persistent increase of educational and employment specialization despite the already mentioned, well-documented scientific disclosure that the extinctions of biological species are always occasioned by overspecialization. Specialization's preoccupation with parts deliberately forfeits the opportunity to apprehend and comprehend what is provided exclusively by synergy.
Today's news consists of aggregates of fragments. Anyone who has taken part in any event that has subsequently appeared in the news is aware of the gross disparity between the actual and the reported events. The insistence by reporters upon having advance "releases" of what, for instance, convocation speakers are supposedly going to say but in fact have not yet said, automatically discredits the value of the largely prefabricated news. We also learn frequently of prefabricated and prevaricated events of a complex nature purportedly undertaken for purposes either of suppressing or rigging the news, which in turn perverts humanity's tactical information resources. All history becomes suspect. Probably our most polluted resource is the tactical information to which humanity spontaneously reflexes.
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
perspective of our own observation. In its early, naive stage,
science, perhaps inevitably, imagined that we could observe
phenomena in themselves, as they would take place in our
--
that even the most objective of their observations are steeped in
the conventions they adopted at the outset and by forms or
--
It is tiresome and even humbling for die observer to be thus
fettered, to be obliged to carry with him everywhere the centre
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I ask you to discard all obstinacy and to be perfectly sincere.
Go and see with no preconceived idea.
--
Self-love is the great obstacle.
Divine love is the great remedy.
--
Such ignorant and obstinate desires are unworthy of a child of
the Mother."
--
faster. After observing it for a day, he agreed to shorten the
pendulum and now the clock is working perfectly all right.
--
for seeing and observing, on one's physical-mental knowledge
for judging and deciding, and that the laws of Nature are laws -
--
want them to use their powers of observation and their technical
knowledge to give me as precise and exact information as they
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If, then, this inferior equilibrium is the basis and first means of the higher movements which the universal Power contemplates and if it constitutes the vehicle in which the Divine here seeks to reveal Itself, if the Indian saying is true that the body is the instrument provided for the fulfilment of the right law of our nature, then any final recoil from the physical life must be a turning away from the completeness of the divine Wisdom and a renunciation of its aim in earthly manifestation. Such a refusal may be, owing to some secret law of their development, the right attitude for certain individuals, but never the aim intended for mankind. It can be, therefore, no integral Yoga which ignores the body or makes its annulment or its rejection indispensable to a perfect spirituality. Rather, the perfecting of the body also should be the last triumph of the Spirit and to make the bodily life also divine must be God's final seal upon His work in the universe. The obstacle which the physical presents to the spiritual is no argument for the rejection of the physical; for in the unseen providence of things our greatest difficulties are our best opportunities. A supreme difficulty is Nature's indication to us of a supreme conquest to be won and an ultimate problem to be solved; it is not a warning of an inextricable snare to be shunned or of an enemy too strong for us from whom we must flee.
Equally, the vital and nervous energies in us are there for a great utility; they too demand the divine realisation of their possibilities in our ultimate fulfilment. The great part assigned to this element in the universal scheme is powerfully emphasised by the catholic wisdom of the Upanishads. "As the spokes of a wheel in its nave, so in the Life-Energy is all established, the triple knowledge and the Sacrifice and the power of the strong and the purity of the wise. Under the control of the LifeEnergy is all this that is established in the triple heaven."2 It is therefore no integral Yoga that kills these vital energies, forces them into a nerveless quiescence or roots them out as the source
--
If the bodily life is what Nature has firmly evolved for us as her base and first instrument, it is our mental life that she is evolving as her immediate next aim and superior instrument. This in her ordinary exaltations is the lofty preoccupying thought in her; this, except in her periods of exhaustion and recoil into a reposeful and recuperating obscurity, is her constant pursuit wherever she can get free from the trammels of her first vital and physical realisations. For here in man we have a distinction which is of the utmost importance. He has in him not a single mentality, but a double and a triple, the mind material and nervous, the pure intellectual mind which liberates itself from the illusions of the body and the senses, and a divine mind above intellect which in its turn liberates itself from the imperfect modes of the logically discriminative and imaginative reason. Mind in man is first emmeshed in the life of the body, where in the plant it is entirely involved and in animals always imprisoned. It accepts this life as not only the first but the whole condition of its activities and serves its needs as if they were the entire aim of existence. But the bodily life in man is a base, not the aim, his first condition and not his last determinant. In the just idea of the ancients man is essentially the thinker, the Manu, the mental being who leads the life and the body,3 not the animal who is led by them. The true human existence, therefore, only begins when the intellectual mentality emerges out of the material and we begin more and more to live in the mind independent of the nervous and physical obsession and in the measure of that liberty are able to accept rightly and rightly to use the life of the body. For freedom and not a skilful subjection is the true means of mastery. A free, not a compulsory acceptance of the conditions, the enlarged and sublimated conditions of our physical being, is the high human ideal. But beyond this intellectual mentality is the divine.
The mental life thus evolving in man is not, indeed, a
--
Moreover the whole trend of modern thought and modern endeavour reveals itself to the observant eye as a large conscious effort of Nature in man to effect a general level of intellectual equipment, capacity and farther possibility by universalising the opportunities which modern civilisation affords for the mental life. Even the preoccupation of the European intellect, the protagonist of this tendency, with material Nature and the externalities of existence is a necessary part of the effort. It seeks to prepare a sufficient basis in man's physical being and vital energies and in his material environment for his full mental possibilities. By the spread of education, by the advance of the backward races, by the elevation of depressed classes, by the multiplication of labour-saving appliances, by the movement
The Three Steps of Nature
--
Consciousness. The evolution which we observe and of which
saccidananda.
--
So dazzling is even a glimpse of this supreme existence and so absorbing its attraction that, once seen, we feel readily justified in neglecting all else for its pursuit. Even, by an opposite exaggeration to that which sees all things in Mind and the mental life as an exclusive ideal, Mind comes to be regarded as an unworthy deformation and a supreme obstacle, the source of an illusory universe, a negation of the Truth and itself to be denied and all its works and results annulled if we desire the final liberation. But this is a half-truth which errs by regarding only the actual limitations of Mind and ignores its divine intention.
The ultimate knowledge is that which perceives and accepts God in the universe as well as beyond the universe; the integral Yoga is that which, having found the Transcendent, can return upon the universe and possess it, retaining the power freely to descend
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You must keep your aspiration intact and your will to conquer all obstacles; you must have an unshakable faith in the
divine grace and the sure victory.
--
It is good to observe yourself in order to see your weaknesses
and be able to correct them.
--
Be careful, child, do not open the door to depression, discouragement and revolt - this leads far, far away from consciousness and makes you sink into the depths of obscurity
where happiness can no longer enter. Your great strength was
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The schools of Indian Yoga lent themselves to the compromise. Individual perfection or liberation was made the aim, seclusion of some kind from the ordinary activities the condition, the renunciation of life the culmination. The teacher gave his knowledge only to a small circle of disciples. Or if a wider movement was attempted, it was still the release of the individual soul that remained the aim. The pact with an immobile society was, for the most part, observed.
The utility of the compromise in the then actual state of the world cannot be doubted. It secured in India a society which lent itself to the preservation and the worship of spirituality, a country apart in which as in a fortress the highest spiritual ideal could maintain itself in its most absolute purity unoverpowered by the siege of the forces around it. But it was a compromise, not an absolute victory. The material life lost the divine impulse to growth, the spiritual preserved by isolation its height and purity, but sacrificed its full power and serviceableness to the world. Therefore, in the divine Providence the country of the Yogins and the Sannyasins has been forced into a strict and imperative contact with the very element it had rejected, the element of the progressive Mind, so that it might recover what was now wanting to it.
--
Therefore from a concrete view of human life in its threefold potentialities we come to the same conclusion that we had drawn from an observation of Nature in her general workings and the three steps of her evolution. And we begin to perceive a complete aim for our synthesis of Yoga.
Spirit is the crown of universal existence; Matter is its basis; Mind is the link between the two. Spirit is that which is eternal; Mind and Matter are its workings. Spirit is that which is concealed and has to be revealed; mind and body are the means by which it seeks to reveal itself. Spirit is the image of the Lord of the Yoga; mind and body are the means He has provided for reproducing that image in phenomenal existence. All Nature is an attempt at a progressive revelation of the concealed Truth, a more and more successful reproduction of the divine image.
0.04 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
the places, many things are observed on that day. Horns
are painted in red and blue colour, no work is given and
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Path of Knowledge aims at the realisation of the unique and supreme Self. It proceeds by the method of intellectual reflection, vicara, to right discrimination, viveka. It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our apparent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term as constituents of Prakriti, of phenomenal Nature, creations of
Maya, the phenomenal consciousness. So it is able to arrive at its right identification with the pure and unique Self which is not mutable or perishable, not determinable by any phenomenon or combination of phenomena. From this point the path, as ordinarily followed, leads to the rejection of the phenomenal worlds from the consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the Supreme.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No obscurity must be allowed to manifest through you.
12 April 1934
--
my making any progress. It seems that all the obscurities
and falsehoods are rising up on every side, inside and
--
the obscurity and illumine it.
Mother,
--
they increase the confusion and obscurity.
The only remedy lies in opening to the higher forces in
--
your heart, dissolve the obstacles.
My dear child,
--
no obstacles - we shall dispel them all.
With all my love.
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
We observe, first, that there still exists in India a remarkable
Yogic system which is in its nature synthetical and starts from a great central principle of Nature, a great dynamic force of
--
liberating itself by joyous acceptance in power and practice of its own energies, elements and potentialities. But in both paths there was in the end an obscuration of principles, a deformation of symbols and a fall.
If, however, we leave aside, here also, the actual methods and practices and seek for the central principle, we find, first, that Tantra expressly differentiates itself from the Vedic methods of Yoga. In a sense, all the schools we have hitherto examined are Vedantic in their principle; their force is in knowledge, their method is knowledge, though it is not always discernment by the intellect, but may be, instead, the knowledge of the heart expressed in love and faith or a knowledge in the will working out through action. In all of them the lord of the Yoga is the Purusha, the Conscious Soul that knows, observes, attracts, governs. But in Tantra it is rather Prakriti, the Nature-Soul, the Energy, the
Will-in-Power executive in the universe. It was by learning and applying the intimate secrets of this Will-in-Power, its method, its Tantra, that the Tantric Yogin pursued the aims of his discipline, - mastery, perfection, liberation, beatitude. Instead of drawing back from manifested Nature and its difficulties, he confronted them, seized and conquered. But in the end, as is the general tendency of Prakriti, Tantric Yoga largely lost its principle in its machinery and became a thing of formulae and occult mechanism still powerful when rightly used but fallen from the clarity of their original intention.
--
its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sadhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine
--
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
--
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in
Nature, in the other it becomes swift and self-conscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
of union with God. And this latter night is a more obscure and dark and
terrible purgation, as we shall say afterwards.2
--
his observations, but because, even in spite of himself, he betrays the sublimity of
his own mystical experiences. Once more, too, we may admire the crystalline
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Remove from me all obscurity which blinds me, and be
always with me.
--
is the great play, obscure and semi-conscious, of the forces of
unillumined nature; and as soon as one succeeds in escaping
--
will not be there. All your observations should lead you to one
certainty, that by oneself one is nothing and can do nothing.
--
When one reads a dirty book, an obscene novel, does
not the vital enjoy it through the mind?
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!
--
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
rest, peace and joy. When you have to get rid of an obstinate
resistance, you must not make more delay than when you have
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The inconscient is that part of Nature which is so obscure and
asleep that it seems to be wholly devoid of consciousness; at any
--
being can take the attitude of the witness who observes without
reacting or participating, then one can notice the effect that the
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
from any obstacle, any difficulty. It is a long and minute work
which must be undertaken with sincerity and continued with an
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This mastery will be effected not merely in will, but in mind and heart also. For the New Man will know not by the intellect which is egocentric and therefore limited, not by ratiocination which is an indirect and doubtful process, but by direct vision, an inner communion, a soul revelation. The new knowledge will be vast and profound and creative, based as it will be upon the reality of things and not upon their shadows. Truth will shine through every experience and every utterance"a truth shall have its seat on our speech and mind and hearing", so have the Vedas said. The mind and intellect will not be active and constructive agents but the luminous channel of a self-luminous knowledge. And the heart too which is now the field of passion and egoism will be cleared of its noise and obscurity; a serener sky will shed its pure warmth and translucent glow. The knot will be rent asunderbhidyate hridaya granthih and the vast and mighty streams of another ocean will flow through. We will love not merely those to whom we are akin but God's creatures, one and all; we will love not with the yearning and hunger of a mortal but with the wide and intense Rasa that lies in the divine identity of souls.
And the new society will be based not upon competition, nor even upon co-operation. It will not be an open conflict, neither will it be a convenient compromise of rival individual interests. It will be the organic expression of the collective soul of humanity, working and achieving through each and every individual soul its most wide-winging freedom, manifesting the godhead that is, proper to each and every one. It will be an organisation, most delicate and subtle and supple, the members of which will have no need to live upon one another but in and through one another. It will be, if you like, a henotheistic hierarchy in which everyone will be the greatest, since everyone is all and all everyone simultaneously.
01.01 - The One Thing Needful, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This is a slow and difficult process; the road is long and it is hard to establish even the necessary basis. The old existing nature resists and obstructs and difficulties rise one after another and repeatedly till they are overcome. It is therefore necessary to be sure that this is the path to which one is called before one finally decides to tread it.
01.01 - The Symbol Dawn, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Troubled the far rim of life's obscure sleep.
Arrived from the other side of boundlessness
--
Accepting life's obscure terrestrial robe,
Hiding herself even from those she loved,
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its, spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually exclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot of separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres of the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and Overmind meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each distinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all together forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely composite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into Supermind one sees something moreOneness gathering into itself all diversity, not destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness that is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness, the initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in when the supramental light enters the penumbra of the mental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement of light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving, absolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness of Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential and unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression of each one assured truth entering into and upholding every other and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no trial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests on all others and on that which harmonises them all and does not act as a Power diverging from and even competing with other Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play of divergent possibilities the simple, direct, united and absolute certainties of the supramental consciousness retire, as it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out through the interaction first of separately individualised and then of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind there is a conscious underlying Unity but yet each Power, Truth, Aspect of that Unity is encouraged to work out its possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are used by it for its own enhancement until in the denser and darker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of blind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation or manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being into a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends' towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the Spirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakeningsMatter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit.
The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescienceof Involutionhas been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic Time-Space the splendours of the timeless Reality. The material body came into existence bringing with it inevitably, as it seemed, mortality; it appeared even to be fashioned out of mortality, in order that in this very frame and field of mortality, Immortality, the eternal Spirit Consciousness which is the secret truth and reality in Time itself as well as behind it, might be established and that the Divine might be possessed, or rather, possess itself not in one unvarying mode of the static consciousness, as it does even now behind the cosmic play, but in the play itself and in the multiple mode of the terrestrial existence.
--
The first decisive step in Yoga is taken when one becomes conscious of the psychic being, or, looked at from the other side, when the psychic being comes forward and takes possession of the external being, begins to initiate and influence the movements of the mind and life and body and gradually free them from the ordinary round of ignorant nature. The awakening of the psychic being means, as I have said, not only a deepening and heightening of the consciousness and its release from the obscurity and limitation of the inferior Prakriti, confined to the lower threefold status, into what is behind and beyond; it means also a return of the deeper and higher consciousness upon the lower hemisphere and a consequent purification and illumination and regeneration of the latter. Finally, when the psychic being is in full self-possession and power, it can be the vehicle of the direct supramental consciousness which will then be able to act freely and absolutely for the entire transformation of the external nature, its transfiguration into a perfect body of the Truth-consciousness in a word, its divinisation.
This then is the supreme secret, not the renunciation and annulment, but the transformation of the ordinary human nature : first of all, its psychicisation, that is to say, making it move and live and be in communion and identification with the light of the psychic being, and, secondly, through the soul and the ensouled mind and life and body, to open out into the supramental consciousness and let it come down here below and work and achieve.
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now the centre of this energy, the matrix of creativity is the soul itself, one's own soul. If you want to createlive, grow and be real-find yourself, be yourself. The simple old wisdom still remains the eternal wisdom. It is because we fall off from our soul that we wander into side-paths, paths that do not belong to our real nature and hence that lead to imitation and repetition, decay and death. This is what happens to what we call common souls. The force of circumstances, the pressure of environment or simply the momentum of custom or habit compel them to choose the easiest and the readiest way that may lie before them. They do not consult the demand of the inner being but the requirement of the moment. Our bodily needs, our vital hungers and our mental prejudices obsess and obscure the impulsions that thrill the hidden spirit. We hasten to gratify the immediate and forget the eternal, we clutch at the shadow and let go the substance. We are carried away in the flux and tumult of life. It is a mixed and collective whirla Weltgeist that moves and governs us. We are helpless straws drifting in the current. But manhood demands that we stop and pause, pull ourselves out of the Maelstrom and be what we are. We must shape things as we want and not allow things to shape us as they want.
Let each take cognisance of the godhead that is within him for self is Godand in the strength of the soul-divinity create his universe. It does not matter what sort of universe he- creates, so long as he creates it. The world created by a Buddha is not the same as that created by a Napoleon, nor should they be the same. It does not prove anything that I cannot become a Kalidasa; for that matter Kalidasa cannot become what I am. If you have not the genius of a Shankara it does not mean that you have no genius at all. Be and become yourselfma gridhah kasyachit dhanam, says the Upanishad. The fountain-head of creative genius lies there, in the free choice and the particular delight the self-determination of the spirit within you and not in the desire for your neighbours riches. The world has become dull and uniform and mechanical, since everybody endeavours to become not himself, but always somebody else. Imitation is servitude and servitude brings in grief.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We left out the Metaphysicals, for they can be grouped as a set apart. They are not so much metaphysical as theological, religious. They have a brain-content stirring with theological problems and speculations, replete with scintillating conceits and intricate fancies. Perhaps it is because of this philosophical burden, this intellectual bias that the Metaphysicals went into obscurity for about two centuries and it is precisely because of that that they are slowly coming out to the forefront and assuming a special value with the moderns. For the modern mind is characteristically thoughtful, introspective"introvert"and philosophical; even the exact physical sciences of today are rounded off in the end with metaphysics.
The growth of a philosophical thought-content in poetry has been inevitable. For man's consciousness in its evolutionary march is driving towards a consummation which includes and presupposes a development along that line. The mot d'ordre in old-world poetry was "fancy", imaginationremember the famous lines of Shakespeare characterising a poet; in modern times it is Thought, even or perhaps particularly abstract metaphysical thought. Perceptions, experiences, realisationsof whatever order or world they may beexpressed in sensitive and aesthetic terms and figures, that is poetry known and appreciated familiarly. But a new turn has been coming on with an increasing insistencea definite time has been given to that, since the Renaissance, it is said: it is the growing importance of Thought or brain-power as a medium or atmosphere in which poetic experiences find a sober and clear articulation, a definite and strong formulation. Rationalisation of all experiences and realisations is the keynote of the modern mentality. Even when it is said that reason and rationality are not ultimate or final or significant realities, that the irrational or the submental plays a greater role in our consciousness and that art and poetry likewise should be the expression of such a mentality, even then, all this is said and done in and through a strong rational and intellectual stress and frame the like of which cannot be found in the old-world frankly non-intellectual creations.
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is Reason, the faculty that is said to be the proud privilege of man, the sovereign instrument he alone possesses for the purpose of knowing? What is the value of knowledge that Reason gives? For it is the manner of knowing, the particular faculty or instrument by which we know, that determines the nature and content of knowledge. Reason is the collecting of available sense-perceptions and a certain mode of working upon them. It has three component elements that have been defined as observation, classification and deduction. Now, the very composition of Reason shows that it cannot be a perfect instrument of knowledge; the limitations are the inherent limitations of the component elements. As regards observation there is a two-fold limitation. First, observation is a relative term and variable quantity. One observes through the prism of one's own observing faculty, through the bias of one's own personality and no two persons can have absolutely the same manner of observation. So Science has recognised the necessity of personal equation and has created an imaginary observer, a "mean man" as the standard of reference. And this already takes us far away from the truth, from the reality. Secondly, observation is limited by its scope. All the facts of the world, all sense-perceptions possible and actual cannot be included within any observation however large, however collective it may be. We have to go always upon a limited amount of data, we are able to construct only a partial and sketchy view of the surface of existence. And then it is these few and doubtful facts that Reason seeks to arrange and classify. That classification may hold good for certain immediate ends, for a temporary understanding of the world and its forces, either in order to satisfy our curiosity or to gain some practical utility. For when we want to consider the world only in its immediate relation to us, a few and even doubtful facts are sufficient the more immediate the relation, the more immaterial the doubtfulness and insufficiency of facts. We may quite confidently go a step in darkness, but to walk a mile we do require light and certainty. Our scientific classification has a background of uncertainty, if not, of falsity; and our deduction also, even while correct within a very narrow range of space and time, cannot escape the fundamental vices of observation and classification upon which it is based.
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.
--
Does this mean that real knowledge is irrational or against Reason? Not so necessarily. There is a super-rational power for knowledge and Reason may either be a channel or an obstacle. If we take our stand upon Reason and then proceed to know, if we take the forms and categories of Reason as the inviolable schemata of knowledge, then indeed Reason becomes an obstacle to that super-rational power. If, on the other hand, Reason does not offer any set-form from beforehand, does not insist upon its own conditions, is passive and simply receives and reflects what is given to it, then it becomes a luminous and sure channel for that higher and real knowledge.
The fact is that Reason is a lower manifestation of knowledge, it is an attempt to express on the mental level a power that exceeds it. It is the section of a vast and unitarian Consciousness-Power; the section may be necessary under certain conditions and circumstances, but unless it is viewed in its relation to the ensemble, unless it gives up its exclusive absolutism, it will be perforce arbitrary and misleading. It would still remain helpful and useful, but its help and use would be always limited in scope and temporary in effectivity.
01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Evidently the eminent politician and his school of activism are labouring under a Himalayan confusion: when they speak of Sri Aurobindo, they really have in their mind some of the old schools of spiritual discipline. But one of the marked aspects of Sri Aurobindo's teaching and practice has been precisely his insistence on putting aside the inert and life-shunning quietism, illusionism, asceticism and monasticism of a latter-day and decadent India. These ideals are perhaps as much obstacles in his way as in the way of the activistic school. Only Sri Aurobindo has not had the temerity to say that it is a weakness to seek refuge in contemplation or to suggest that a Buddha was a weakling or a Shankara a poltroon.
This much as regards what Sri Aurobindo is not doing; let us now turn and try to understand what he is doing. The distinguished man of action speaks of conquering Nature and fighting her. Adopting this war-like imagery, we can affirm that Sri Aurobindo's work is just such a battle and conquest. But the question is, what is nature and what is the kind of conquest that is sought, how are we to fight and what are the required arms and implements? A good general should foresee all this, frame his plan of campaign accordingly and then only take the field. The above-mentioned leader proposes ceaseless and unselfish action as the way to fight and conquer Nature. He who speaks thus does not know and cannot mean what he says.
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Tracked out by Life on Matter's obscure ground.
In his climb to a peak no feet have ever trod,
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That is to say, the change has been in the soul of man himself, the being has veered round and taken a new orientation. It is this which one must envisage, recognise and consciously possess, in order that one may best fulfil the call of the age. But what we are doing instead is to observe the mere external signs and symbols and symptoms, to fix upon the distant quiverings, the echoes on the outermost rim, which are not always faithful representations, but very often distorted images of the truth and life at the centre and source and matrix. We must know that if there has been going on a redistribution and new-marshalling of forces, it is because the fiat has come from the Etat Major.
Now, in order to understand the new orientation of the spirit of the present age, we may profitably ask what was the inspiration of the past age, the characteristic note which has failed to satisfy us and which we are endeavouring to transform. We know that that age was the Scientific age or the age of Reason. Its great prophets were Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists or if you mount further up in time, we may begin from Bacon and the humanists. Its motto was first, "The proper study of mankind is man" and secondly, Reason is the supreme organon of knowledge, the highest deity in manla Desse Raison. And it is precisely against these two basic principles that the new age has entered its protest. In face of Humanism, Nietzsche has posited the Superman and in face of Reason Bergson has posited Intuition.
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
--
The modern critical self-consciousness in the artist originated with the Romantics. The very essence of Romanticism is curiosity the scientist's pleasure in analysing, observing, experimenting, changing the conditions of our reactions, mental or sentimental or even nervous and physical by way of discovery of new and unforeseen or unexpected modes of "psychoses" or psychological states. Goethe, Wordsworth, Stendhal represented a mentality and initiated a movement which led logically to the age of Hardy, Housman and Bridges and in the end to that of Lawrence and Joyce, Ezra Pound and Eliot and Auden. On the Continent we can consider Flaubert as the last of the classicists married to the very quintessence of Romanticism. A hard, self-regarding, self-critical mentality, a cold scalpel-like gaze that penetrates and upturns the reverse side of things is intimately associated with the poetic genius of Mallarm and constitutes almost the whole of Valry's. The impassioned lines of a very modern poet like Aragon are also characterised by a consummate virtuosity in chiselled artistry, conscious and deliberate and willed at every step and turn.
The consciously purposive activity of the poetic consciousness in fact, of all artistic consciousness has shown itself with a clear and unambiguous emphasis in two directions. First of all with regard to the subject-matter: the old-world poets took things as they were, as they were obvious to the eye, things of human nature and things of physical Nature, and without questioning dealt with them in the beauty of their normal form and function. The modern mentality has turned away from the normal and the obvious: it does not accept and admit the "given" as the final and definitive norm of things. It wishes to discover and establish other norms, it strives to bring about changes in the nature and condition of things, envisage the shape of things to come, work for a brave new world. The poet of today, in spite of all his effort to remain a pure poet, in spite of Housman's advocacy of nonsense and not-sense being the essence of true Art, is almost invariably at heart an incorrigible prophet. In revolt against the old and established order of truths and customs, against all that is normally considered as beautiful,ideals and emotions and activities of man or aspects and scenes and movements of Natureagainst God or spiritual life, the modern poet turns deliberately to the ugly and the macabre, the meaningless, the insignificant and the triflingtins and teas, bone and dust and dustbin, hammer and sicklehe is still a prophet, a violent one, an iconoclast, but one who has his own icon, a terribly jealous being, that seeks to pull down the past, erase it, to break and batter and knead the elements in order to fashion out of them something conforming to his heart's desire. There is also the class who have the vision and found the truth and its solace, who are prophets, angelic and divine, messengers and harbingers of a new beauty that is to dawn upon earth. And yet there are others in whom the two strains mingle or approach in a strange way. All this means that the artist is far from being a mere receiver, a mechanical executor, a passive unconscious instrument, but that he is supremely' conscious and master of his faculties and implements. This fact is doubly reinforced when we find how much he is preoccupied with the technical aspect of his craft. The richness and variety of patterns that can be given to the poetic form know no bounds today. A few major rhythms were sufficient for the ancients to give full expression to their poetic inflatus. For they cared more for some major virtues, the basic and fundamental qualitiessuch as truth, sublimity, nobility, forcefulness, purity, simplicity, clarity, straightforwardness; they were more preoccupied with what they had to say and they wanted, no doubt, to say it beautifully and powerfully; but the modus operandi was not such a passion or obsession with them, it had not attained that almost absolute value for itself which modern craftsmanship gives it. As technology in practical life has become a thing of overwhelming importance to man today, become, in the Shakespearean phrase, his "be-all and end-all", even so the same spirit has invaded and pervaded his aesthetics too. The subtleties, variations and refinements, the revolutions, reversals and inventions which the modern poet has ushered and takes delight in, for their own sake, I repeat, for their intrinsic interest, not for the sake of the subject which they have to embody and clothe, have never been dream by Aristotle, the supreme legislator among the ancients, nor by Horace, the almost incomparable craftsman among the ancients in the domain of poetry. Man has become, to be sure, a self-conscious creator to the pith of his bone.
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.
--
But the evolutionary urge, as I have said, has always been to bring down or instil more and more light and self-consciousness into the depths of the heart too: and the first result has been an intellectualisation, a rationalisation of the consciousness, a movement of scientific observation and criticism which very naturally leads to a desiccation of the poetic enthusiasm and fervour. But a period of transcendence is in gestation. All efforts of modern poets and craftsmen, even those that seem apparently queer, bizarre and futile, are at bottom a travail for this transcendence, including those that seem contradictory to it.
Whether the original and true source of the poet's inspiration lies deep within or high above, all depends upon the mediating instrument the mind (in its most general sense) and speech for a successful transcription. Man's ever-growing consciousness demanded also a conscious development and remoulding of these two factors. A growth, a heightening and deepening of the consciousness meant inevitably a movement towards the spiritual element in things. And that means, we have said, a twofold change in the future poet's make-up. First as regards the substance. The revolutionary shift that we notice in modern poets towards a completely new domain of subject-matter is a signpost that more is meant than what is expressed. The superficialities and futilities that are dealt with do not in their outward form give the real trend of things. In and through all these major and constant preoccupation of our poets is "the pain of the present and the passion for the future": they are, as already stated, more prophets than poets, but prophets for the moment crying in the wildernessalthough some have chosen the path of denial and revolt. They are all looking ahead or beyond or deep down, always yearning for another truth and reality which will explain, justify and transmute the present calvary of human living. Such an acute tension of consciousness has necessitated an overhauling of the vehicle of expression too, the creation of a mode of expressing the inexpressible. For that is indeed what human consciousness and craft are aiming at in the present stage of man's evolution. For everything, almost everything that can be normally expressed has been expressed and in a variety of ways as much as is possible: that is the history of man's aesthetic creativity. Now the eye probes into the unexpressed world; for the artist too the Upanishadic problem has cropped up:
--
Ifso long the poet was more or less a passive, a half-conscious or unconscious intermediary between the higher and the lower lights and delights, his role in the future will be better fulfilled when he becomes fully aware of it and consciously moulds and directs his creative energies. The poet is and has to be the harbinger and minstrel of unheard-of melodies: he is the fashioner of the creative word that brings down and embodies the deepest aspirations and experiences of the human consciousness. The poet is a missionary: he is missioned by Divine Beauty to radiate upon earth something of her charm and wizardry. The fullness of his role he can only play up when he is fully conscious for it is under that condition that all obstructing and obscuring elements lying across the path of inspiration can be completely and wholly eradicated: the instrument purified and tempered and transmuted can hold and express golden truths and beauties and puissances that otherwise escape the too human mould.
"The Last Voyage" by Charles Williams-A Little Book of Modern Verse, (Faber and Faber).
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Of what we observe and touch and thought can guess
And rarely dawns the light of the Unknown
--
In a body obscuring the immortal Spirit
A nameless Resident vesting unseen powers
--
Of a magic earth's obscure geography.
In her material order's fixed design
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The riddle grew plain and lost its catch obscure.
A larger lustre lit the mighty page.
--
Into the deep obscurities of form:
Death lay beneath him like a gate of sleep.
--
Overpowered were earth and Nature's obsolete rule;
The python coils of the restricting Law
--
Thence to the initiate who observes her laws
She brings the light of her mysterious realms:
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact it is not so. The glimpses of a higher form of consciousness we can see even now present in self-consciousness. We have spoken of the different stages of evolution as if they were separate and distinct and incommensurate entities. They may be described as such for the purpose of a logical understanding, but in reality they form a single progressive continuum in which one level gradually fuses into another. And as the higher level takes up the law of the lower and evolves out of it a characteristic function, even so the law of the higher level with its characteristic function is already involved and envisaged in the law of the lower level and its characteristic function. It cannot be asserted positively that because man's special virtue is self-consciousness, animals cannot have that quality on any account. We do see, if we care to observe closely and dispassionately, that animals of the higher order, as they approach the level of humanity, show more and more evident signs of something which is very much akin to, if not identical with the human characteristic of self-consciousness.
So, in man also, especially of that order which forms the crown of humanityin poets and artists and seers and great men of actioncan be observed a certain characteristic form of consciousness, which is something other than, greater than the consciousness of the mere self. It is difficult as yet to characterise definitely what that thing is. It is the awakening of the self to something which is beyond itselfit is the cosmic self, the oversoul, the universal being; it is God, it is Turiya, it is sachchidanandain so many ways the thing has been sought to be envisaged and expressed. The consciousness of that level has also a great variety of names given to it Intuition, Revelation, cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness. It is to be noted here, however, that the thing we are referring to, is not the Absolute, the Infinite, the One without a second. It is not, that is to say, the supreme Reality the Brahmanin its static being, in its undivided and indivisible unity; it is the dynamic Brahman, that status of the supreme Reality where creation, the diversity of Becoming takes rise, it is the Truth-worldRitam the domain of typal realities. The distinction is necessary, as there does seem to be such a level of consciousness intermediary, again, between man and the Absolute, between self-consciousness and the supreme consciousness. The simplest thing would be to give that intermediate level of consciousness a negative namesince being as yet human we cannot foresee exactly its composition and function the super-consciousness.
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.)
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Each time I have encountered an obstacle in my
life, each time I have been deprived of some happiness
--
long. I have often tried to observe and find out the cause
of this fleeting joy, but in vain.
--
(Regarding someone's observations on the captain's
character)
--
A superficial observation cannot help. And so long as one
is not in contact with one's psychic being, it would be better to
--
find the Divine, but is it an obstacle? If You think it
is better for me not to have it, all right, I accept Your
--
What is an obstacle to the spiritual life is to attach importance to
material comfort and to take one's desires for needs - in other
--
carefully observe your movements and reactions with a will to
overcome desires, and aspire to find your psychic being and unite
--
by a very attentive and sincere observation (that is to say, free
from bias and preference) that one gradually learns to discern
--
Through regular, persevering, obstinate, unflagging exercise - I
mean exercise of concentration and will.
--
But there are considerable obstacles to the realisation of this
hierarchy:
--
By wanting to do so, with persistence and obstinacy. By doing every day a mental exercise of reading, organisation and
development.
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
German obscured the spirit of a Greek.
Sri Aurobindo
The year 1949 has just celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great force of light that was Goethe. We too remember him on the occasion, and will try to present in a few words, as we see it, the fundamental experience, the major Intuition that stirred this human soul, the lesson he brought to mankind. Goe the was a great poet. He showed how a language, perhaps least poetical by nature, can be moulded to embody the great beauty of great poetry. He made the German language sing, even as the sun's ray made the stone of Memnon sing when falling upon it. Goe the was a man of consummate culture. Truly and almost literally it could be said of him that nothing human he considered foreign to his inquiring mind. And Goe the was a man of great wisdom. His observation and judgment on thingsno matter to whatever realm they belonghave an arresting appropriateness, a happy and revealing insight. But above all, he was an aspiring soulaspiring to know and be in touch with the hidden Divinity in man and the world.
Goe the and the Problem of Evil
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A Russian artist (Monsieur Benois) has stressed upon the primitivealmost aboriginalelement in Roerich and was not happy over it. Well, as has been pointed out by other prophets and thinkers, man today happens to be so sophisticated, artificial, material, cerebral that a [all-back seems to be necessary for him to take a new leap forward on to a higher ground. The pure aesthete is a closed system, with a consciousness immured in an ivory tower; but man is something more. A curious paradox. Man can reach the highest, realise the integral truth when he takes his leap, not from the relatively higher levels of his consciousness his intellectual and aesthetic and even moral status but when he can do so from his lower levels, when the physico-vital element in him serves as the springing-board. The decent and the beautiful the classic grace and aristocracyform one aspect of man, the aspect of "light"; but the aspect of energy and power lies precisely in him where the aboriginal and the barbarian find also a lodging. Man as a mental being is naturally sattwic, but prone to passivity and weakness; his physico-vital reactions, on the other hand, are obscure and crude, simple and vehement, but they have life and energy and creative power, they are there to be trained and transfigured, made effective instruments of a higher illumination.
All elemental personalities have something of the unconventional and irrational in them. And Roerich is one such in his own way. The truths and realities that he envisages and seeks to realise on earth are elemental and fundamental, although apparently simple and commonplace.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
an obstacle to realisation.
23 December 1967
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To achieve that, one must have an obstinate will and a great
patience. But once one has taken the resolution to do it, the
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Grant that nothing in us may be an obstacle to the fulfilment
of Thy Will.
--
all obstacles.
Let us live for the new creation and we shall grow stronger
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Thus far, She has not found what is needed. Men remain obstinately men and do not want to or are unable to become supermen. All they can receive and express is a love at their own dimension: a human lovewhereas the supreme bliss of divine Ananda eludes their perception.
At times, finding the world unready to receive Her, She contemplates withdrawing. But how cruel a loss this would be!
--
But the vibrations of divine Bliss and those of pleasure cannot cohabit in the same vital and physical house. We must therefore TOTALLY renounce all feelings of pleasure to be ready to receive the divine Ananda. But rare are those who can renounce pleasure without thereby renouncing all active participation in life or sinking into a stern asceticism. And among those who realize that the transformation is to be wrought in active life, some pretend that pleasure is a form of Ananda gone more or less astray and legitimize their search for self-satisfaction, thereby creating a virtually insuperable obstacle to their own transformation.
Now, if there is anything else you wish to ask me Anyone may ask, anyoneanyone who has something to saynot just the students.
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.
0 1955-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
You may go to Almora if you think it will help you break this shell of the outer consciousness, so obstinately impenetrable.
Perhaps being far away from the Ashram for a while will help you feel the special atmosphere that exists here and that cannot be found anywhere else to the same extent.
0 1955-06-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
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.
0 1955-09-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
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 1956-08-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
In fact, following the 'Supramental Manifestation' of February 29, 1956, all of Mother's physical difficulties increased, as though all the obscurities in the physical consciousness were surging forth beneath the pressure of the new light. The same observation applies to the disciples who were around Mother and undoubtedly to the world as a whole. A strange 'mysterious acceleration' was beginning to take hold of the world.
***
0 1956-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
What if the human is too heavy, too narrow, too obscure to follow you?
No, it is exactly the opposite of what you are saying. It is not that the Divine in his divinity is opposed to his own manifested selfHe is very far beyond, beyond the necessity for Grace; He perceives his unique and exclusive responsibility, and that it is He and He alone who must change in His Manifestation so that all may change.
0 1957-10-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
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.
Your child,
0 1958-02-03b - The Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
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.
0 1958-04-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I was waiting for things to be well established in me before writing you again. An important change has occurred: it seems that something in me has clickedwhat Sri Aurobindo calls the central will, perhapsand I am living literally in the obsession of divine realization. This is what I want, nothing else, it is the only goal in life, and at last I have understood (not with the head) that the outer realization in the world will be the consequence of the inner realization. So thousands of times a day, I repeat, Mother, I want to be your instrument, ever more conscious, I want to express your truth, your light. I want to be what you want, as you want, when you want. There is in me now a kind of need for perfection, a will to abolish this ego, a real understanding that to become your instrument means at the same time to find the perfect plenitude of ones personality. So I am living in an almost constant state of aspiration, I feel your force constantly, or nearly so, and if I am distracted a few minutes, I experience a void, an uneasiness that calls me back to you.
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.
--
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.
0 1958-05-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
In a considerable number of people, it is their body, the physical body, that obstinately resists.
The difficulty is greater for Westerners than for Indians. Its as though their substance were steeped in falsehood. It also happens with Indians, of course, but generally the falsehood is much more in the vital than in the physicalbecause after all, the physical has been utilized by bodies belonging to enlightened beings. The European substance seems steeped in rebellion; in the Indian substance this rebelliousness is subdued by an influence of surrender. The other day, someone was telling me about some Europeans with whom he corresponds, and I said, But tell them to read, to learn, to follow The Synthesis of Yoga!it leads you straight to the path. Whereupon he replied, Oh, but they say its full of talk on surrender, surrender, always surrender and they want none of it.
--
From the negative point of view I mean the difficulties to be overcomeone of the most serious obstacles is that the ignorant and falsifying outer consciousness, the ordinary consciousness legitimizes all the so-called physical laws, causes, effects and consequences, all that science has discovered physically and materially. All this is an unquestionable reality to the consciousness, a reality that remains independent and absolute even in the face of the eternal divine Reality.
And it is so automatic that it is unconscious.
--
Well, to be able to cure that, which of all the obstacles is the greatest (I mean the habit of putting spiritual life on one side and material life on the other, of acknowledging the right of material laws to exist), one must make a resolution never to legitimize any of these movements, at any cost.
To be able to see the problem as it is, it is absolutely indispensable, as a first step, to get out of the mental consciousness, even out of a mental transcription (in the highest mind) of the supramental vision and truth. A thing cannot be seen as it is, in its truth, except in the supramental consciousness, and if you try to explain, it immediately begins to escape you because you are obliged to give it a mental formulation.
--
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.
This last sentence was later added by Mother in writing.
0 1958-05-11 - the ship that said OM, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
One of the things that most gives me the feeling of the miraculous is when these obscure throngs1really tamasic2 beings, in fact, with children crying, people coughingwhen all that is gathered there, and then suddenly silence.
Each time that happens, I have truly the feeling of a miracle! I immediately say, Oh, Lord! Your Grace is infinite!
--
Tamas: in Indian psychology, inertia and obscurity.
The waters off Pondicherry occasionally serve as a port.
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
But yesterday, in fact, I was looking (with all these mantras and these prayers and this whole vibration that has descended into the atmosphere, creating a state of constant calling in the atmosphere), and I remembered the old movements and how everything now has changed! I was also thinking of the old disciplines, one of which is to say, I am That.7 People were told to sit in meditation and repeat, I am That, to reach an identification. And it all seemed to me so obsolete, so childish, but at the same time a part of the whole. I looked, and it seemed so absurd to sit in meditation and say, I am That! I, what is this I who is That; what is this I, where is it? I was trying to find it, and I saw a tiny, microscopic point (to see it would almost require some gigantic instrument), a tiny, obscure point in an im-men-sity of Light, and that little point was the body. At the same timeit was absolutely simultaneous I saw the Presence of the Supreme as a very, very, very, VERY immense Being, within which was I in an attitude of (I was only a sensation, you see), an attitude (gesture of surrender) like this. There were no limits, yet at the same time, one felt the joy of being permeated, enveloped and of being able to widen, widen, widen indefinitelyto widen the whole being, from the highest consciousness to the most material consciousness. And then, at the same time, to look at this body and to see every cell, every atom vibrating with a divine, radiant Presence with all its Consciousness, all its Power, all its Will, all its Loveall, all, really and a joy! An extraordinary joy. And one did not disturb the other, nothing was contradictory and everything was felt at the same time. That was when I said, But truly! This body had to have the training it has had for more than seventy years to be able to bear all that without starting to cry out or dance or leap up or whatever it might be! No, it was calm (it was exultant, but it was very calm), and it remained in control of its movements and its words. In spite of the fact that it was really living in another world, it could apparently act normal due to this strenuous training in self-control by the REASONby the reasonover the whole being, which has tamed it and given it such a great cohesive power that I can BE in the experience, I can LIVE this experience, and at the same time respond with the most amiable of smiles to the most idiotic questions!
And then, it always ends in the same way, by a canticle to the action of the grace: O, Lord! You are truly marvelous! All the experiences I have needed to pass through You have given to me, all the things I needed to do to make this body ready You have made me do, and always with the feeling that it was You who was making me do itand with the universal disapproval of all the right-minded humanity!
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
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.
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.
***
--
Each time we try to realize something and we encounter a resistance or an obstacle, or even a failurewhat appears to be a failurewe should know, we should NEVER forget, that it is exclusively, absolutely, to make the realization more perfect.
So this habit of cringing, of being discouraged or even feeling ill at ease or abusing oneself, saying, There, Ive done it again All this is absolute foolishness.
Rather, simply say, We do not know how to do things as they should be done, well then, let them be done for us and come what may! If we could only see how everything that looks like a difficulty, an error, a failure or an obstacle is simply there to help us make the realization more perfect.
Once we know this, everything becomes easy.
0 1958-11-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
So in fact, only the final wording is correct, but from the point of view of the historical unfolding, it is interesting to observe the passage. It was exactly the same phenomenon for the experience of the Supramental Manifestation. Both these things, the experience of November 7 and of the Supramental, occurred in the same way, identically: I WAS the experience, and nothing else. Nothing but the experience at the time it was occurring. And only slowly, while coming out of it, did the previous knowledge, the previous experiences, all the accumulation of what had come before, examine it and put it in its place.
This is why I arrive at a verbal expression progressively, gropingly; these are not literary gropingsit is aimed at being precise, specific and concise at the same time.
--
It has made the Inconscient aggressiveit was not so before. Aggressive, resistant, obsTINATE. That was not there before.
Yes, thats it. It was not an original Inconscient. It was a mentalized Inconscient. With all that the mind has brought in in the way of OPPOSITIONof resistance, hardness, rigidity.
--
It is not the experience, which I had once before, of the original Inconscient. The experience I had this time is of the Inconscient that has undergone the influence of the Mind in creation. It has become It has become a FAR greater obstacle than before. Before, it did not even have the power to resist, it had nothing, it was truly unconscious. Now it is an Inconscient organized in its refusal to change!
It was a very new experience.
0 1958-11-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
I had two visions which are certainly related to this. The most recent one was yesterday, and it concerned a past life in India. It is something that took place in India about one thousand years ago, perhaps a little more (I am not yet sure about this). And it contains both things. Its strange, both things together the origin of the power of realization in this life and the obstacle to be conquered.
I had the last vision yesterday evening. You were much taller than you are now; you were wearing the orange robe, and you were backed up against a door of bronze, a bronze door like the door of a temple or a palace but at the same time it was symbolic (it was a fact, it actually took place like this, but at the same time it was symbolic). And unfortunately, it didnt last because I was disturbed. But it contained the key.
0 1958-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
But when here the difficulties returned and because of their obstinacy, their appearance of an inevitable fatality I concluded that it was a karma, although I knew it with certainty only now.
But I always had a presentiment of the true thing: that only a VERY COURAGEOUS act of self-giving could efface the thingnot courageous or difficult from the material point of view, not that There is a certain zone of the vital in you, a mentalized vital but still very material, which is very much under the influence of circumstances and which very much believes in the effectiveness of outer measuresthis is what is resisting.
0 1958-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
That is why the journey is so long, so difficult. For if one would truly consent no longer to be, everything would become so easy, so swift, so luminous, so joyousthough perhaps not in the way men conceive of joy and ease. At heart, there are very few beings who are not enamored of struggle. There are very few who would consent to having no darkness or who can conceive of light as anything other than the opposite of obscurity: Without shadow, there would be no painting. Without struggle, there would be no victory. Without suffering, there would be no joy. That is what they think, and as long as they think like that, they are not yet born to the spirit.
***
0 1958-11-27 - Intermediaries and Immediacy, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
That interested me very much. Because one of the obstacles I had felt was that although the Force was acting well, there was a time lag that appeared inevitable, a time element in the work which seemed unavoidablea play left to the forces of Nature. But with their knowledge of the processes, the tantrics can dispense with all that. So I understood why those who have studied, who are initiated and follow the prescribed methods are apparently more powerfulmore powerful even than those who are conscious in the highest consciousness.
What interested me is that in their case (those who follow tantric or other initiations), what is doubtful is whether or not they can succeed in receiving the response of the true Power, the divine power, the supreme power; they do everything they can, but this question still remains. Whereas for me, it is the opposite situation: the Power is there, I have it, but how can I make it act here in matter? The process for making it act immediately was missingthough not totally; I know from the psychological standpoint, but there is something other than the psychological power, there is the whole play of conscious, individualized forces that are everywhere in Nature and that have the right to exist. Since it was created this way, it must express something of the supreme Will, otherwise He wouldnt have made use of intermediaries but in His plan, it is obvious that the intermediary has a legitimate place.
0 1958 12 - Floor 1, young girl, we shall kill the young princess - black tent, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Two or three days after I retired to my room upstairs,1 early in the night I fell into a very heavy sleep and found myself out of the body much more materially than I do usually. This degree of density in which you can see the material surroundings exactly as they are. The part that was out seemed to be under a spell and only half conscious. When I found myself at the first floor where everything was absolutely black, I wanted to go up again, but then I discovered that my hand was held by a young girl whom I could not see in the darkness but whose contact was very familiar. She pulled me by the hand telling me laughingly, No, come, come down with me, we shall kill the young princess. I could not understand what she meant by this young princess and, rather unwillingly, I followed her to see what it was. Arriving in the anteroom which is at the top of the staircase leading to the ground floor, my attention was drawn in the midst of all this total obscurity to the white figure of Kamala2 standing in the middle of the passage between the hall and Sri Aurobindos room. She was as it were in full light while everything else was black. Then I saw on her face such an expression of intense anxiety that to comfort her I said, I am coming back. The sound of my voice shook off from me the semi-trance in which I was before and suddenly I thought, Where am I going? and I pushed away from me the dark figure who was pulling me and in whom, while she was running down the steps, I recognized a young girl who lived with Sri Aurobindo and me for many years and died five years back. This girl during her life was under the most diabolical influence. And then I saw very distinctly (as through the walls of the staircase) down below a small black tent which could scarcely be perceived in the surrounding darkness and standing in the middle of the tent the figure of a man, head and face shaved (like the sannyasin or the Buddhist monks) covered from head to foot with a knitted outfit following tightly the form of his body which was tall and slim. No other cloth or garment could give an indication as to who he could be. He was standing in front of a black pot placed on a dark red fire which was throwing its reddish glow on him. He had his right arm stretched over the pot, holding between two fingers a thin gold chain which looked like one of mine and was unnaturally visible and bright. Shaking gently the chain he was chanting some words which translated in my mind, She must die the young princess, she must pay for all she has done, she must die the young princess.
Then I suddenly realized that it was I the young Princess and as I burst into laughter, I found myself awake in my bed.
0 1959-01-27, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
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 enemy, 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
0 1960-05-28 - death of K - the death process- the subtle physical, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
So you see, the outer signs Its not the first time Ive noticed this the doctors observe all the outer signs, then they declare you dead, but youre still in your body!
In other words, he was still in his body.
--
But as he was accustomed to going out of his body, he didnt know! He even used to make experimentshe would go out, circle around in his room, see his body from outside, observe the difference between the subtle physical and the material physical, etc. So he didnt know. And its only when they burned his body
I tried to delay the moment, but he was in the hospital, so it was difficult. I was in my room when they burned his body, and then suddenly I saw him arrivesobbingsaying, But But I m dead. I DIDNT WANT to die! Why am I dead, I DIDNT WANT to die! It was dreadful. So I kept him and held him against me to quiet him down.
0 1960-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Its tamas that gives you a bad sleep. There are two kinds of bad sleep that which makes you heavy and leaden, as if the result of all your effort the day before were wasted, and that which exhausts you, as if you had spent the whole time fighting. And Ive observed that if you cut your sleep up into sections (it becomes a habit), the nights get better. In other words, you must be able to come back to your normal consciousness and your normal aspiration at certain intervals, come back to the call of your consciousness But you must not use an alarm clock. When in trance, its not good to be jolted.
Just as you are drifting off, you can make a formation and say, I shall wake up at such-and-such time (children do it very easily).
0 1960-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but thats so much better! Much better. That is the very obstacle for most people: they want to see me as I am but as I am, as my body is, its stupid. Its absolutely stupid.
No, no thats not what I mean. Im speaking of the relationship I have with you, the true onewhat I was telling you about just a moment ago. Because, you see, Im going to tell you everything! (Mother laughs) I have the impression that it would go much faster if I could pick you up, put you here (Mother touches her heart), carry you here and tell you, Calm yourself, listen! But its not possible (alas). Youre always fast on your feet with your head touching this very low ceiling. Myself, I cant be like that. Im not even sure (laughing) if my feet would get in!
0 1960-07-12 - Mothers Vision - the Voice, the ashram a tiny part of myself, the Mothers Force, sparkling white light compressed - enormous formation of negative vibrations - light in evil, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
So, the observing mind, the intelligence that watches, looked at all thisAh, thats what its like (an intelligence that watches without interfering in the least). Its like a spectator talking to himself.
So in my vision, my body was as big as the universe, and that (the Ashram) was so tiny, so tiny.
0 1960-07-23 - The Flood and the race - turning back to guide and save amongst the torrents - sadhana vs tamas and destruction - power of giving and offering - Japa, 7 lakhs, 140000 per day, 1 crore takes 20 years, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And it happened quite early in the nightat such an early hour, they are not visions or things you observe: they are things you do.
Ive been seeing for a long time that nights are actions. They are no longer images or symbols or representations they are all actions. And they take place certainly not on a human scale.
--
And sometimes things stagnate, they seem so absolutely obscure and stupid. And then, if you simply go like this (gesture of offering), simply, trulydo it, not think itits instantly like a shower of bliss A tiny point, something very small which looks stubbornly stupid and obstinate, if only you do this (and if you want, you can): Take, take! Give it to Him, simply, like this, truly give it to Him: Its You, its Yours, take it, do with it what You want. And instantly, instead of this shrinking and this painful feelingWhat in the world can I do with all this?a shower, it comes like a shower. Truly Ananda. Of course, if you are stupid enough to call back the difficulty, it returns. But if you remain quiet, if you keep your head quiet, it goesfinished, cured. But there are thousands and thousands and thousands of such points
With my japa, Ive reached about seven lakhs2. I repeat it 1,400 times a day. But you must be much further than I!3
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
And he isnt aware of this, actually, he isnt aware at all. If he were told, he would absolutely deny it for him, its an opening onto Infinity! But in fact, its always like that, we are always shut in, each of useach one is enclosed inside certain limits which he doesnt feel, for should he feel it, he would get out! Oh, I know this feeling very well, for when I was with Sri Aurobindo I was open in this way (gesture towards the heights), and I always had this feeling of Yes, my child He tolerated me the way I was and waited for it to change. Thats truly how things are, you know. And now I feel my limits, which are the limits of the world as it is at present, but beyond that theres an unmanifested immensity, eternity and infinityto which we are closed. It merely seeps init is not the great opening. What I am trying to bring about is the great opening. Only when it has opened wide will there really be the (how should I put it?) the irreducible thing, and all the worlds resistance, all its inertia, even its obscurity will be unable to swallow it up the determining and transforming thing I dont know when it will come.
But this experience with X was really interesting. I learned many things that day, many things If you concentrate long enough on any one point, you discover the Infinite (and in his own experience he found the infinite), what could be called your own Infinite. But this is not what WE want, not this; what we want is the direct and integral contact between the manifested universe and the Infinite out of which this universe has emerged. So then it is no longer an individual or personal contact with the Infinite, its a total contact. And Sri Aurobindo insists on this, he says that its absolutely impossible to have the transformation (not the contact, but the supramental transformation) without becoming universalized that is the first condition. You cannot become supramental before being universal. And to be universal means to accept everything, be everything, become everythingreally to accept everything. And as for all those who are shut up in a system, even if it belongs to the highest regions of thought, it is not THAT.
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
However, he recalls them repeatedly telling him this: You have no family; that name is not yours; you are called by such-and-such-a-name (they gave him another name); you are all alone and depend exclusively upon us. But then, probably this boy had a slightly deeper consciousness, for although his brain did not seem to be working outwardly, something deep down was able to observe and remember.
Finally, they had him work as a waiter in a small caf in Ahmedabad, near the station. One day it even happened that his brother and his brothers friend stopped by (he vaguely recalls having seen them) but he was incapable of speaking to them or of getting them to recognize him. Another time, he tried to leave and headed towards the station, but after awhile he could no longer walk, he was suddenly stopped by something (he doesnt know what), and he had to go back. Thats how it wasquite a unique state. But one day, a friend of the brother stopped at this caf to drink something, and this same boy served him. He had changed a lot, but the other fellow recognized him all the same and asked, Whats your name? He saw that the boy seemed dazed and couldnt answer. So he didnt say anything but ran immediately to where the elder brother lived; they came back, took the boy into a corner and doused his face with seltzer water. It seems that then he started becoming more alive. Then they led him away and informed the police.
--
Even tiny, the tiniest mental or vital reactionsso tiny that to our ordinary consciousness they dont appear to have the LEAST importanceact upon the bodys cells and can create disorders You see, when you observe carefully, you suddenly become aware of a very slight uneasiness, a mere nothing (when youre busy, you dont even notice it), and then if you follow this uneasiness to see what it is, you perceive that it comes from something quite imperceptible and insignificant to our active consciousness but its enough to create an uneasy feeling in the body.
Which is whyunless you are intentionally and constantly in what here is called the Brahmic consciousness it is practically impossible to control. And this is what gives the impression of certain things happening in the body independently of not only of our will but of our consciousness BUT IT IS NOT TRUE.
--
The problem is that when you enter into the ordinary consciousness, these things become so subtle and require such a scrupulous observance that people are justified (they FEEL justified) in having the attitude, Oh, its Nature, its Fate, its the Divine Will! But with that conviction, the Yoga of Perfection is impossible and appears as a mere utopian fantasy but this is FALSE. The truth is something else entirely.
(long silence)
0 1960-11-05, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Its an interesting experience to follow and observe.
***
0 1960-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
So for persons who are severe and grave (there are two such examples here, but its not necessary to name them) There are beings who are grave, so serious, so sincere, who find it hypocritical; and when it borders on certain (how shall I put it?) vital excesses, they call it vice. There are others who have lived their entire lives in a yogic or religious discipline, and they see this as an obstacle, illusion, dirtyness (Mother makes a gesture of rejecting with disgust), but above all, its this terrible illusion that prevents you from nearing the Divine. And when I saw the way these two people here reacted, in fact, I said to myself, but you see, I FELT So strongly that this too is the Divine, it too is a way of getting out of something that has had its place in evolution, and still has a place, individually, for certain individuals. Naturally, if you remain there, you keep turning in circles; it will always be (not eternally, but indefinitely) the woman of my life, to take that as a symbol. But once youre out of it, you see that this had its place, its utilityit made you emerge from a kind of very animal-like wisdom and quietude that of the herd or of the being who sees no further than his daily round. It was necessary. We mustnt condemn it, we mustnt use harsh words.
The mistake we make is to remain there too long, for if you spend your whole life in that, well, youll probably need many more lifetimes. But once the chance to get out of it comes, you can look at it with a smile and say, Yes, its really a sort of love for fiction!people love fiction, they want fiction, they need fiction! Otherwise its boring and all much too flat.
0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
But generally and this is something Theon had told me (Theon was very qualified on the subject of hostile forces and the workings of all that resists the divine influence, and he was a great fighteras you might imagine! He himself was an incarnation of an asura, so he knew how to tackle these things!); he was always saying, If you make a VERY SMALL concession or suffer a minor defeat, it gives you the right to a very great victory. Its a very good trick. And I have observed, in practice, that for all things, even for the very little things of everyday life, its trueif you yield on one point (if, even though you see what should be, you yield on a very secondary and unimportant point), it immediately gives you the power to impose your will for something much more important. I mentioned this to Sri Aurobindo and he said that it was true. It is true in the world as it is today, but its not what we want; we want it to change, really change.
He wrote this in a letter, I believe, and he spoke of this system of compensation for example, those who take an illness on themselves in order to have the power to cure; and then theres the symbolic story of Christ dying on the cross to set men free. And Sri Aurobindo said, Thats fine for a certain age, but we must now go beyond that. As he told me (its even one of the first things he told me), We are no longer at the time of Christ when, to be victorious, it was necessary to die.
0 1960-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Not last night but the night before, I touched at least one of the causes (at that time it felt like THE cause) of a certain powerlessness to act directly on Matter You see, when the Will and the Power come, they are extremely effective everywhere UP TO A CERTAIN REGION (in other words, whether people are receptive or not, open or not, makes no differencewhen the Will is applied it is all-powerful UP TO a certain region) but once it arrives here, at the most material material, its efficacy depends on many thingsand a power which depends on something is no power! For a long, long time I have been searching for the reasons behind this powerlessness. Ive located a few, one after another, and upon these points there was an immediate effect. But some things resisted (oh, quite a number, in a number of ways), for example it had difficulty acting on illnesses, on the cells, on doubt (not mental doubt, but rather the doubt of the physical consciousness which cant accept certain things that seem impossible to itwhat Sri Aurobindo calls disbelief,1 not a mental doubt, but the disbelief of the physical consciousness which cant accept what is contrary to its own nature and its own working). And as for illnesses, sometimes it has an immediate effect, but sometimes it drags on and has to follow its so-called normal course. On all these three points, I clearly felt that something was hampering it. These are the Enemys strongholds; all that doesnt want the Divine seizes upon it and even the working of the Power coming from above is obstructed, for when it must work here in the body, it is stopped or deformed or altered or diminished.
All this goes on in the subconscient; these are things that were pushed out of the physical consciousness down into the subconscient, so theyre there and they come back up whenever they please.
0 1960-12-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Its a FACT. Its not a thought, not something you observeyou arent a witness: its A FACT which is LIVED. So if you want to translate the experience, youd have to say the most paradoxical of things, like Sri Aurobindoso paradoxical that they are almost offensive to reason! Yes, more, far more than paradoxical.
***
0 1960-12-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
But later I observed, I saw that this had helped drain him of all the weight of his past education. Very interesting Night after night, night after night, night after nightplenty of things! You could write novels about it all.
'This wonderful world of Delight waiting at our gates for our call, to come down upon earth.'
0 1961-01-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is quite elementary: never take notice of evil, never speak of the evil present in others, never perpetuate the vibrations of evil by observation, criticism or giving undue attention to the evil deed. This is what Buddha taught: each time you mention an evil you help spread it.
This skirts the issue.
0 1961-01-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But until then, there is this kind of indignation stemming from the fact that one is not entirely above: its a period when one totally disapproves of certain things and would be incapable of doing them. And up to this point, there is nothing to say, unless one gives an external, violent expression to his indignation. If anger interferes, it indicates an entire contradiction between the feeling one wants to have and this reaction towards others. Because anger is a deformation of vital power originating from an obscure and thoroughly unregenerate vital,1 a vital still subject to all the ordinary actions and reactions. When an ignorant, egoistic individual will exploits this vital power and encounters opposition from other individual wills around it, then under the pressure of opposition this power changes into anger and tries to obtain through violence what could not be achieved by the pressure of the Force alone.
Anger, moreover, like all forms of violence, is always a sign of weakness, impotence and incapacity. Here the deception comes from the approval one gives it or the flattering adjective one covers it with; for rage can be no more than blind, ignorant and asuricopposed to the light.
0 1961-01-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When I got up today, I was going over all this to myself, and my first instinct was not to speak of it, to observe and see what would happen; but then I received a distinct and precise Command to tell it to you this morning. The experience had to be noted down just as it occurred, recorded in its exact form.
In the body now, there is a very clear not only a certitude, but a feeling that a certain omnipotence is not far away, and that very soon when it sees (it sees it! There is only one It in this whole affair, which is neither he nor she nor), when it sees that something must be, it automatically will be.
--
Indra represents the king of the gods, the master of mental power freed from the limitations and obscurities of the physical consciousness.
The body-consciousness.
0 1961-01-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have done these things beforeits a knowledge I already hadand it always had its effect when I did them; its not that I am passing from powerlessness to power, not at all. But its this kind of yes, something definite, absolutea kind of absolute in vision, in knowledge, in action and ABOVE ALL in powera kind of absolute that doesnt need to conquer obstacles and resistances, but ANNULS the resistance automatically. Then I saw that something had truly changed.
(After a digression, Mother gives another example of the change:)
0 1961-01-31, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ah, yes! (How to explain?) On the 21st, these photos could still have created a kind of difficulty in Xs consciousness (a semiconscious difficulty) because of all the obstacles, all the contradictions, all that was coming to put up a figh the is very sensitive to these things and I didnt want to put him in contact with that realm. Later, though they had been given a good thump on the head (Mother abruptly bangs down both hands) and were keeping still. Then I said, All right, now you can send them.
I always avoid putting him in contact with the realm of conflicts and contradictions because he is extremely sensitive and it causes him difficulties. Thats why I said, No, dont bother. Afterwards, it was fine!
--
Now I have begun reading those hymns2. Oh, now I understand! All those obstacles were a preparation straight from Sri Aurobindo. Now I understand! (What I mean by understand is that its a help for making progress.) I understand the nature of certain obstructions and certain difficulties, and what allows certain forces to oppose each other I understand it quite clearly.
I have read only two hymns so far. By the time I reach the end I will probably have found something.
0 1961-01-Undated, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But up to this point there is still a small corner [of the I] somewheregenerally the observer, the witness who is watching.
(silence)
0 1961-02-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So, mon petit. Sri Aurobindo always said the greatest obstacle to true understanding and participation in the Work is common sense. He said thats why Nature creates madmen from time to time! They are people not strong enough to bear the dismantling of this petty stupidity called common sense.
Its time to go now. Do you have anything to say?
0 1961-02-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But here also, all depends on the sincerity and the endurance with which the chosen path is followed. Because here also, there are difficulties and obstacles to surmount.
So, in life, nothing comes without an effort and a struggle.
0 1961-02-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This one is the Constant Remembrance of the Divine.1 This is Life Energy2 and Purified Life Energy.3 Then Faithfulness4: the peace of FaithfulnessFaithfulness to the Divine, of course, thats understood! This is Divine Solicitude5; this is the Aspiration for Transformation,6 and the response: see how beautiful it islike velvet! its the Promise of Realization.7 Here is Light Without obscurity,8 and finally Realization9the first flower from the tree at Nanteuil.10
There you are.
--
All this [the world, the Ashram] is held in my consciousness with a kind of essential compassion applying equally to all things, all difficulties, all obstacles. I receive letters by the dozens, as you know, and each person comes to me with his own little misery or problem, inner or outer (a tiny pimple becomes a mountain). When people come to me, my inner consciousness always responds in the same way, with a kind of equality and compassion for all. But when people are talking to me or I am reading a letter and my body grows conscious of what it calls the to-do they make over their miseries, it has a kind of feeling (I mean there is a feeling in the cells): Why do they take things like that! They are making things much more difficult. The body understands. It understands that their way of taking the least little difficulty in such a blind, egotistical and self-centered manner, increases its difficulties furiously!
Its a rather amusing sensation, a combination of sensation and feeling, that the ordinary human attitude towards things multiplies and magnifies the difficulties to FANTASTIC proportions; while if they simply had the true attitudea NORMAL attitude, quite simple, uncomplicatedahh, all life would be much easier. For the body feels the vibrations (those very vibrations which concentrate to form a body), it feels their nature and sees that its normal reaction, a peaceful and confident reaction, makes things so much easier! But as soon as this agitation of anxiety, fear, discontent comes in, the reaction of a will that doesnt want any of it oh, right away it becomes like water boiling: pff! pff! pff! like a machine. While if the difficulty is accepted with confidence and simplicity, its reduced to its minimum, and I mean purely materially, in the material vibration itself.
0 1961-04-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As for him, even now his way of working consists in eliminating all obstaclesjust the opposite of what Sri Aurobindo was doing. Sri Aurobindo used to envelop them, like this (Mother opens her arms to embrace everything), and then act upon them so that they would no longer be obstacles. But the first thing X said when he first came to the Ashram was, Oh, there are a lot of elements which shouldnt be here! And he would talk about a purge: eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. But if you eliminate everything from life which is unresponsive to the Divine, what will be left?
He certainly hasnt understood Sri Aurobindos yoga. And its useless to try to explain anything to him.
--
The adverse force is what keeps the Divine from blossoming miraculously whenever He appears. Because I know that wherever Matter is not under the influence of this adverse will to any degree, it blossoms immediately. And everything in the human heart, in human consciousness, in human thought, all that is slightly sheltered from this adverse influencesheltered by the psychic, the divine Presenceblossoms, becomes immediately becomes marvelous, without any obstacleall the obstacles come from that source. So its all very well to call it an accident, but.
Its obviously reparable, theres no doubt about that, but at what price? And how it complicates things!
0 1961-04-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I live in the constant feeling of PUSHING against a world of tremendous obstacles, with the certainty thatsuddenly the resistance will give way and there will be enlightenmentno, far more than that!
Thats all.
0 1961-04-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday, this ardor of the Flame was thereburning all to offer all. It was absolutely concrete, an intensity of vibrations; I could see the vibrationsall the movements of obscurity and ignorance were cast into that. And I recall a time when I was translating these hymns to Agni with Sri Aurobindo, and Agni was real for me. Well, yesterday it wasnt that, it wasnt the god Agni, it was a STATE OF BEING. It was a state of the Supreme, and as such, it was intimate, clear, intense, vibrant and living.
(silence)
--
We always reserve a part of ourselves for looking and observing; but if we were capable of including everything, without exception, all the relationships would remain the same I have experienced this.
Remain the same?
0 1961-04-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here, this is Grace.5 Here, Balance6 (how lovely!). Here, Light without obscurity.7 And this is purity: an Integral Conversion8 (in the cup of this flower, Mother has placed two other flowers: Service9 and Sri Aurobindos Compassion10), an integral conversion, with Sri Aurobindo, with his compassionhis compassion which gives us the opportunity to serve him.
Oh, mon petit, we need to say something a bit intelligent, dont you think? Im counting on you.
--
But the difficulty. You see, so far as Mind is concerned, the whole yoga has been donelike a path blazed through the virgin forest. And since it has been done, its relatively simple: the landmarks are there and one follows them. But here, nothing has been done! One doesnt know which end to take hold ofno one has ever done it! [186] You meet all the same obstacles before which others have simply said, Its impossible. Sri Aurobindo explains that its not impossible, but nothing more. And he himself hadnt done it.
No, for the least little thing, the whole mechanism has to be discovered, and discovered in a realm of the most total ignorance, where, really, unconsciousness is the most unconscious and ignorance the most ignorant.
0 1961-05-19, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But then the difficulty is that for the ordinary consciousness and unfortunately I am surrounded by a lot of people who have a very ordinary consciousness (at least it seems very ordinary to me, although from the human standpoint they are probably rather remarkable people)for the ordinary consciousness I seem to be in a stupor, a coma, a state of imbecility, of yes, of torpor. It has all those appearances. Something which becomes immobile, unresponsive, stopped short (same gesture as before); one can no longer think, one can no longer observe, one can no longer react, one can no longer do anything, one is like that (same gesture). But all these things keep coming from outside, all the time, coming and trying to interrupt that state; yet if I manage to prevent this, if I can keep this condition, after a while it becomes something so MASSIVE! So concrete in its power, so massive in its immobility, ohh! It must lead somewhere.
But I could not remain in that state long enough (it would have to go on for HOURS), I could not, due to all these constant interruptions. And then, when the body is pulled brusquely out of it, it seems to lose its balanceit has a few difficult moments.
0 1961-05-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its obviously a type of filariasis which obstinately refuses to go away, but anyway. It causes only one inconvenience now: it makes the legs very weakvery weak. I go through what seem like terrible gymnastics to climb the stairs. Other than that it doesnt matter. From time to time it pricks, it stings, it bites, it swells up but its nothing.
X said it would go away completely. The doctor said, It will not go away. So my body is observing the phenomenon! (Mother laughs)
***
0 1961-07-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am putting this purposely into rather childish terms so that it will be clearly understood. But this is the way it is. I am sure of it because I have observed it in myself for a VERY long time, and I had to. Due to the whole subconscious formation of childhoodenvironment, education, and so forthwe have to DRUM into this (Mother touches her body) the consciousness of Unity : the absolute, EXCLUSIVE unity of the Divineexclusive in the sense that nothing exists apart from this Unity, even the things which seem most repulsive.
Sri Aurobindo also had to struggle against this because he too received a Christian education. And these Aphorisms are the result the floweringof the necessity to struggle against the subconscious formation which has produced such questions (Mother takes on a scandalized tone): How can God be weak? How can God be foolish? How. But there is nothing but God! He alone exists, there is nothing outside of Him. And whatever seems repugnant to us is something He no longer wishes to existHe is preparing the world so that this no longer manifests, so that the manifestation can pass beyond this state to something else. So of course we violently reject everything in us that is destined to leave the active manifestation. There is a movement of rejection.
--
All the believers, all the faithful (those from the West in particular) think in terms of something else when they speak of GodHe cannot be weak, ugly, imperfect, He is something immaculate but this is wrong thinking. They are dividing, separating. For subconscious thought (I mean thinking without reflecting, instinctively, out of habit, without observing oneself thinking), what is generally considered perfection is precisely what is seen or felt or postulated as being virtuous, divine, beautiful, admirable but its not that at all! Perfection means something in which nothing is missing. The divine perfection is a totality. The divine perfection is the Divine in his wholeness, with nothing left out. The divine perfection is the whole of the Divine, with nothing subtracted from it. For the moralists it is the exact opposite: divine perfection is nothing but the virtues they stand for!
From the true standpoint, the divine perfection is the whole (Mother makes a global gesture), and the fact that within this whole nothing can be missing is precisely what makes it perfect.1 Consequently, perfection means that each thing is in its place, exactly what it should be, and that relationships among things are also exactly what they should be.
0 1961-07-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But it doesnt keep them from starting up again! They did so particularly after I read the passage where Sri Aurobindo affirms, THIS time I have come for THATand I shall do it. The day when I read this I turned towards him, not actually putting the question to him but simply turning towards him, and he told me, Read the book through to the end. And I know, I know its truewhen I have read the book through to the end I will understand what he has done and I will even have the power to reply to all these suggestions. But meanwhile, everything that wants to keep me from doing it, all this obscure and subconscious ill will, tries its best to keep me from reading, including giving me this eye hemorrhage.
Well, since I believerightly or wrongly, I dont know that the doctor has more experience than I, that from the therapeutic and biological standpoint he knows a bit more, I showed him the eye and asked, Can I read? Better not read until its finished, he replied, and told me to wash my eyes with glucose. (Its a useful piece of information for those with tired eyes: mix the glucoseliquid glucose, the kind that comes in ampoules for injectionwith something like the blue water we make here, half and half. Open the ample, put a third of it in the eye-cup, then add the blue water.) I have already tried it once and found that it gives a great deal of strength to the eyes. Tomorrow Im going to start doing it regularly. There you are.
--
Some months ago, when this body had once again become a battlefield and was confronting all the obstacles, when it was suspended, asking itself whether it wasnt wondering intellectually, but asking for a kind of perception, wanting to touch something: it wondered which direction it was taking, which way things were going to tilt. And suddenly, in all the cells, there was this feeling (and I know where it came from): If we are dissolved out of this amalgam, if this assemblage is dissolved and can no longer go on, then we shall all go straight, straight as an arrow and it was like a marvelous flamestraight to rejoin Sri Aurobindo in his supramental world, which is right here at our door. And there was such joy! Such enthusiasm, such joy flooded all the cells! They didnt care at all whether or not they would be dissociated. Oh, they felt, so what!
This was truly a decisive stage in the work of illuminating the body.
--
Because evidently I cant say that my experiences are the result of a mental aspiration or will or knowledge I dont know, I dont know at all. I dont know how it should be, nor what it should be, nor anything at all. I dont know what should be done, I dont know what should not be donenothing. Its truly a blind march (gesture of groping along), in a desert riddled with all possible traps and difficulties and obstaclesall this heaped together. Eyes blindfolded, knowing nothing (same gesture of groping blindly), one plods on.
The only thing to do is to be like this (Mother turns her hands towards the Heights in a gesture of abandonment). Provided you dont fall asleep! You mustnt enter into a beatific state where you. No, we must keep moving on.
0 1961-07-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In my experience, it is; and it has come to the point where the more concentrated the Force, the more things turn up at the very moment they ought to, people come just when they should and do just what they ought to be doing, the things around me fall into place naturally and this goes for the LEAST little detail. And simultaneously it brings with it a sense of harmony and rhythm, a joya very smiling joy in organization, as if everything were joyously participating in this restructuring. For example, you want to tell someone something and he comes to you; you need someone to do a particular work and he appears; something has to be organizedall the required elements are at hand. All with a kind of miraculous harmony, but nothing miraculous about it! Essentially its simply the inner force meeting with a minimum of obstacles, and so things get molded by its action. This happens to me very often, VERY often; and sometimes it goes on for hours.
But its rather delicate, like a very, very delicate clockwork, like a precision machine, and the least little thing throws everything out of gear. When someone has a bad reaction, for instance, or a bad thought, or an agitated vibration, or an anxietyanything of this nature is enough to dissolve all the harmony. For me, its translated straight-away into a malaise in my body, a very particular type of malaise; then disorder sets in, and the ordinary routine returns. So again I have to gather up, as it were, the Presence of the Lord and begin to infuse it everywhere. Sometimes it goes quickly, sometimes it takes longer; when the disorganization is a little more radical, it takes a little longer.
--
Tamas: the principle of inertia and obscurity.
Pralaya: The destruction of a universe at the end of a cycle. According to Hindu cosmology, the formation of each universe begins with an 'age of truth' (satya-yuga) which slowly degenerates, like the stars, till there is no truth left at all; it becomes a 'dark age'(kali-yuga) like ours, and ends with a cataclysm. Then a new universe is reborn out of this cataclysm and the cycle begins again. There is a correspondence here with a modern cosmological theory according to which a phase of contraction, of galaxies collapsing upon themselves, follows a phase of expansion and precedes a new explosion ('Big Bang') of the 'primal egg'and so on, in a recurring and apparently endless and aimless series of cosmic births which, like our own human births, develop, attain some sort of 'summit,' then collapse, always to begin again. According to Theon, our present universe is the seventh but where is the 'beginning'?
0 1961-08-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I remember once (I must have been ten or twelve years old at the time), there was a luncheon at my parents house for a dozen or so people, all decked out in their Sunday bestthey were family but all the same it was a luncheon and there was a certain protocol; in short, one had to behave properly. I was at one end of the table next to a first-cousin of mine who later became director of the Louvre for a while (he had an artistic intelligence, a rather capable young man). So there we were, and I remember I was observing something rather interesting in his atmosphere (mind you, although the faculties were already there, I knew nothing about occult things; if someone had spoken to me of auras and all that. I knew nothing). I was observing a kind of sensation I had felt in his atmosphere and then, just as I was putting the fork into my mouth, I took off! What a scolding I got! I was told that if I didnt know how to behave, I shouldnt come to the table! (Mother goes into peals of laughter)
It was during this period that I used to go out of my body every night and do the work Ive spoken of in Prayers and Meditations (I only mentioned it in passing).8 Every night at the same hour, when the whole house was very quiet, I would go out of my body and have all kinds of experiences. And then my body gradually became a sleepwalker (that is, the consciousness of the form became more and more conscious, while the link remained very solidly established). I got into the habit of getting up but not like an ordinary sleepwalker: I would get up, open my desk, take out a piece of paper and write poems. Yes, poems I, who had nothing of the poet in me! I would jot things down, then very consciously put everything back into the drawer, lock everything up again very carefully and go back to bed. One night, for some reason or other, I forgot and left it open. My mother came in (in France the windows are covered with heavy curtains and in the morning my mother would come in and violently throw open the curtains, waking me up, brrm!, without any warning; but I was used to it and would already be prepared to wake upotherwise it would have been most unpleasant!). Anyway, my mother came in, calling me with unquestionable authority, and then she found the open desk and the piece of paper: Whats that?! She grabbed it. What have you been up to? I dont know what I replied, but she went to the doctor: My daughter has become a sleepwalker! You have to give her a drug.
--
Tamas: inertia, obscurity.
February 22, 1914.
0 1961-09-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I had a clear vision of the two kinds of opposites in nature (not only in nature but in life) which almost everyone carries within himself: one is the possibility of realization, the other is the path chosen to attain it. There is always (its probably inevitable) the stormy path of struggle, and then there is the sunlit path. After much study and observation, I have had a sort of spiritual ambition (if it can be called that) to bring to the world a sunlit path, to eliminate the necessity for struggle and suffering: something that aspires to replace this present phase of universal evolution with a less painful phase.
It greatly interested me when I read your letter. I was looking at why you have so many difficulties; twice in your note you wrote that it [writing] is a suffering. You have very often written this word, very often spoken it, and it seems dominant in one aspect of your beingwhile in the other is the glory of a supreme joy, the very stuff of the future realization.
0 1961-10-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And within all this, I no longer existed. I seemed to vanish into a kind of trance, yet I was consciousnot I: the consciousness was conscious of what Sri Aurobindo was conscious of. And he was following the reading. But I couldnt remember anything; at the time, it was impossible to observe. I can only describe it all to you now because the experience remained for at least an hour and a half afterwards; when I left here, I began to objectify it, to see what it wasaside from that, it was merely a STATE I found myself in. But in this state there was an awareness of what he was hearing, and at two or three places in your reading he seemed to be saying (I cant be exact, I can only give the impression), Not necessary. In fact, thats what made me call this passage too philosophical (although when you first asked my opinion I was in a peculiar condition, nothing was active in me). With him, it was very clear, it was almost as if there were a certain number of words about which he said, That, not necessary. That, not necessary. Not many, not often, but once in a while. Especially at the end (he was still there inside my head while you were talking), when you were saying that its necessary to explain to people; there he very clearly said, No, not necessary.
But I was incapable of remembering or of registering anything the only head present there was his.
0 1961-10-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is not surprising, therefore, that exegetes have seen the Vedas primarily as a collection of propitiatory rites centered around sacrificial fires and obscure incantations to Nature divinities (water, fire, dawn, the moon, the sun, etc.), for bringing rain and rich harvests to the tribes, male progeny, blessings upon their journeys or protection against the thieves of the sunas though these shepherds were barbarous enough to fear that one inauspicious day their sun might no longer rise, stolen away once and for all. Only here and there, in a few of the more modern hymns, was there the apparently inadvertent intrusion of a few luminous passages that might have justifiedjust barely the respect which the Upanishads, at the beginning of recorded history, accorded to the Veda. In Indian tradition, the Upanishads had become the real Veda, the Book of Knowledge, while the Veda, product of a still stammering humanity, was a Book of Worksacclaimed by everyone, to be sure, as the venerable Authority, but no longer listened to. With Sri Aurobindo we might ask why the Upanishads, whose depth of wisdom the whole world has acknowledged, could claim to take inspiration from the Veda if the latter contained no more than a tapestry of primitive rites; or how it happened that humanity could pass so abruptly from these so-called stammerings to the manifold richness of the Upanishadic Age; or how we in the West were able to evolve from the simplicity of Arcadian shepherds to the wisdom of Greek philosophers. We cannot assume that there was nothing between the early savage and Plato or the Upanishads.5
***
0 1961-11-06, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is no proof that the Rishis used another method, although, to effect this transformation (if they ever did), they must necessarily have fought their way through the powers of inconscience and obscurity.
***
0 1961-11-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I learned to do the same thing, and with great dexterity; I could halt on any plane, do what I had to do there, move around freely, see, observe, and then speak about what I had seen. And my last stage, which Theon called pathtisme,2 a very barbaric but very expressive word, bordered on the Formlesshe sometimes used the Jewish terminology, calling the Supreme The Formless. (From this last stage one passed to the Formless there was no further body to leave behind, one was beyond all possible forms, even all thoughtforms.) In this domain [the last stage before the Formless] one experienced total unityunity in something that was the essence of Love; Love was a manifestation more dense, he would always say (there were all sorts of different densities); and Love was a denser expression of That, the sense of perfect Unityperfect unity, identitywith no longer any forms corresponding to those of the lower worlds. It was a Light! An almost immaculate white light, yet with something of a golden-rose in it (words are crude). This Light and this Experience were truly wonderful, inexpressible in words.
Well, one time I was there (Theon used to warn against going beyond this domain, because he said you wouldnt come back), but there I was, wanting to pass over to the other side, whenin a quite unexpected and astounding way I found myself in the presence of the principle, a principle of the human form. It didnt resemble man as we are used to seeing him, but it was an upright form, standing just on the border between the world of forms and the Formless, like a kind of standard.3 At that time nobody had ever spoken to me about it and Madame Theon had never seen itno one had ever seen or said anything. But I felt I was on the verge of discovering a secret.
--
It is by rising to the summit of consciousness through a progressive ascent (thats what I meant just now by leaving the body, but without going into details), that one unites with the Supermind. But as soon as the union is achieved, one knows and one sees that the Supermind exists in the heart of the Inconscient as well. When one is in that state, there is neither high nor low. But GENERALLY, (I emphasized this to make it clear that I am not making an absolute assertion) it is by REDESCENDING through the levels of the being with a supramentalized consciousness that one can accomplish the permanent transformation of physical nature. (This can be experienced in all sorts of ways, but what WE want and what Sri Aurobindo spoke of is a change that will never be revoked, that will persist, that will be as durable as the present terrestrial conditions. That is why I put permanent.) There is no proof that the Rishis used another method, although, to effect this transformation (if they ever did) they must necessarily have fought their way through the powers of inconscience and obscurity.
Yes, the Rishis give an absolutely living description of what you experience and experience continuallyas soon as you descend into the Subconscient: all these battles with the beings who conceal the Light and so on. I experienced these things continually at Tlemcen and again with Sri Aurobindo when we were doing the Workits raging quite merrily even now!
0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Dear Sir I must begin by telling you that although this text is an excellent essay, it is not, in its present form, a book for the Spiritual Masters series. Let us enumerate the reasons for this. First of all, the general impression is of an ABSTRACT text. I can straight-away imagine your reaction to this and I dread misunderstandings! But putting myself in the readers place, since, once again, it does involve a collection intended for a wide public that we are beginning to know well, I can assure you that this public will not be able to follow page after page of reflections upon what one is bound to call a philosophical and spiritual system. Obviously this impression is caused primarily by the fact that you have begun with twenty-one pages where the reader is assumed to already know of Sri Aurobindos historical existence and the content of the Vedas and the Upanishads, plus I dont know how many other notions of rite, truth, divinity, wisdom, etc., etc. In my view, and the solution is going to appear cruel to you, for you certainly value these twenty-one pages [on the Secret of the Veda], they should purely and simply be deleted, for everything you say there, which is very rich in meaning, can only become clear when one has read what follows. There are many books in which readers can be asked to make the effort entailed in not understanding the beginning until they have read the end: but not books of popular culture. One could envisage an introduction of three or four pages to situate the spiritual climate and cultural world in which Sri Aurobindos thought has taken place, provided, however, that it is sufficiently descriptive, and not a pre-synthesis of everything to be expounded upon in what follows. In a general way you are going to smile, finding me quite Cartesian! But the readership we address is more or less permeated by a widespread Cartesianism, and you can help them, if you like, to reverse their methodology, but on the condition that you make yourself understood right from the start. Generally, you dont make enough use of analysis and, even before analysis, of a description of the realities being analyzed. That is why the sections of pure philosophical analysis seem much too long to us, and, even apart from the abstract character of the chapter on evolution (which should certainly be shorter), one feels at a positive standstill! After having waited patiently, and sometimes impatiently, for some light to be thrown on Sri Aurobindos own experience, one reads with genuine amazement that one can draw on energies from above instead of drawing on them from the material nature around oneself, or from an animal sleep, or that one can modify his sleep and render it conscious master illnesses before they enter the body. All of that in less than a page; and you conclude that the spirit that was the slave of matter becomes again the master of evolution. But how Sri Aurobindo was led to think this, the experiences that permitted him to verify it, those that permit other men to consider the method transmittable, the difficulties, the obstacles, the realizationsdoesnt this constitute the essence of what must be said to make the reader understand? Once again, it is the question of a pedagogy intimately tied in with the spirit of the collection. Let me add as well that I always find it deplorable when a thought is not expressed purely for its own sake, but is accompanied by an aggressive irony towards concepts which the author does not share. This is pointless and harms the ideas being presented, all the more so because they are expressed in contrast with caricatured notions: the allusions you make to such concepts as you think yourself capable of evoking the soul, creation, virtue, sin, salvationwould only hold some interest if the reader could find those very concepts within himself. But, as they are caricatured by your pen, the reader is given the impression of an all too easily obtained contrast between certain ideas admired and others despised. Whereas it would be far more to the point if they corresponded to something real in the religious consciousness of the West. I have too much esteem for you and the spiritual world in which you live to avoid saying this through fear of upsetting you.
Amen.
--
I feel that this man himself is the obstacle and that if the book came out, it would be understoodnot everywhere, but it would be understood. Not by those shut up in Catholicism (theres nothing to do for them), but Im sure its accessible to all who couldnt care less about that, who dont have Christian prejudices.
But I know that if we publish it here it will have a wide public in Europe and America swallowing it down like holy bread, and it will do a magnificent work. IF it comes from here. Not because of what they think of us [the Ashram], but because of what will be in it.
0 1962-01-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And so I looked. Is it something particular to this body? I wondered. To everyone who has lived closely with it, my body gives the impression of two things: a very concentrated, very stubborn will, and such endurance! Sri Aurobindo used to tell me he had never dreamed a body could have such endurance. And thats probably why. But I dont want to curtail this ability in any way, because it is a CELLULAR will, and a cellular endurance toowhich is quite intriguing. Its not a central will and central endurance (thats something else altogether)its cellular. Thats why Sri Aurobindo used to tell me this body had been specially prepared and chosen for the Workbecause of its capacity for obstinate endurance and will. But thats no reason to exercise this ability uselessly! So I am making sure it relaxes now; I tell it constantly, Now, now! Just let go! Relax, have some fun, wheres the harm in it? I have to tell it to be quiet, very quiet. And its very surprised to hear that: Ah! Can I live that way? I dont have to hurry? I can live that way?
So thats why I am resting. Am I better or not? Things are always the same. Were I to start doing what I was doing before, which I KNEW all along was absolutely unreasonable. Its not that I didnt know it; I did know and I wasnt happy about it, because I knew I was doing something I shouldnt. I have no intention of starting again, but if I had said, I am withdrawing for good, it would have been. If you knew how MANY things have gone slack [in the Ashram]! And how many people I am telling off: Well, you wouldnt have done that a week ago! Oh, thats an experience in itselfto see what peoples so-called faithfulness depends on.
--
All this is exactly what I have been observing and studying these past few days. I will tell you about it next time.
I was particularly struck at the time.
0 1962-01-12 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I mentioned the principal psychological requirement in my answer to that American: a state of perfect equality. This is an ABSOLUTE condition. Over the years since that experience I have observed that no supramental vibration whatsoever can be transmitted without this perfect equality. The slightest contradiction of that equalityin other words, the least movement of ego, of egoistic preference and everything is blocked, transmission stops. This is already quite a large stumbling block.
And, over and above this, for the realization to be total, there are two other conditions, which arent easy either. Intellectually, theyre not too difficult; in fact, for someone who has practiced yoga, followed a discipline (I am not speaking here of just anyone), theyre relatively easy. Psychologically too, given this equality, theres no great difficulty. But as soon as you come to the material plane the physical plane and then to the body, it isnt easy. These two conditions are first, the power to expand, to widen almost indefinitely, enabling you to widen to the dimensions of the supramental consciousness which is total. The supramental consciousness is the consciousness of the Supreme in his totality. By totality, I mean the Supreme in his aspect of Manifestation. Naturally, from a higher point of view, from the viewpoint of the essence the essence of that which in Manifestation becomes the Supermindwhats necessary is a capacity for total identification with the Supreme, not only in his aspect of Manifestation, but in his static or nirvanic aspect, outside of the Manifestation: Nonbeing. But in addition, one must be capable of identifying with the Supreme in the Becoming. And that implies both these things: an expansion that is nothing less than indefinite, and that should simultaneously be a total plasticity enabling one to follow the Supreme in his Becoming. You dont merely have to be as vast as the universe at one point in time, but indefinitely in the Becoming. These are the two conditions. They must be potentially present.
--
So long as theres no question of physical transformation, the psychological and in large part, the subjective point of view is sufficientand thats relatively easy. But when it comes to incorporating matter into the work, matter as it is in this world where the very starting point is false (we start off in unconsciousness and ignorance), well, its very difficult. Because, to recover the consciousness it has lost, Matter has had to individualize itself, and for that for the form to last and retain this possibility of individualityit has been created with a certain indispensable measure of rigidity. And that rigidity is the main obstacle to the expansion, to the plasticity and suppleness necessary for receiving the Supermind. I constantly find myself facing this problem, which is utterly concrete, absolutely material when youre dealing with cells that have to remain cells and not vaporize into some nonphysical reality, and at the same time have to have a suppleness, a lack of rigidity, enabling them to widen indefinitely.
There have been times, while working in the most material mind (the mind ingrained in the material substance), when I felt my brain swelling and swelling and swelling, and my head becoming so large it seemed about to burst! On two occasions I was forced to stop, because it was (was it only an impression, or was it a fact?) in any event it seemed dangerous, as if the head would burst, because what was inside was becoming too tremendous (it was that power in Matter, that very powerful deep blue light which has such powerful vibrations; it is able to heal, for example, and change the functioning of the organsreally a very powerful thing materially). Well then, thats what was filling my head, more and more, more and more, and I had the feeling that my skull was (it was painful, you know) that there was a pressure inside my skull pushing out, pushing everything out. I wondered what was going to happen. Then, instead of following the movement, helping it along and going with it, I became immobile, passive, to see what would happen. And both times it stopped. I was no longer helping the movement along, you see, I simply remained passive and it came to a halt, there was a sort of stabilization.
0 1962-01-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This sort of will in people for purity, for Good (which in ordinary mentality is expressed by a need to be virtuous) is actually the GREAT obsTACLE to true self-giving. Its the root of Falsehood, the very source of hypocrisy: the refusal to take up ones share of the burden of difficulties. And thats what Sri Aurobindo has touched on in this aphorism, directly and very simply.
Do not try to be virtuous. See to what extent you are united, ONE with all that is antidivine. Take up your share of the burden; accept to be impure and false yourself, and in so doing you will be able to take up the Shadow and offer it. And insofar as you are able to take it and offer it, things will change.3
--
It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners,is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges. If one wishes to purify and transform the nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being. Even this should be done with care, not prematurely or rashly, following a higher guidance, keeping always the right attitude; for otherwise the force that is drawn down may be too strong for an obscure and weak frame of nature. But to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of ones way to invite trouble. First, one should make the higher mind and vital strong and firm and full of light and peace from above; afterwards one can open up or even dive into the subconscious with more safety and some chance of a rapid and successful change.
The system of getting rid of things by anubhava [experience] can also be a dangerous one; for on this way one can easily become more entangled instead of arriving at freedom. This method has behind it two well-known psychological motives. One, the motive of purposeful exhaustion, is valid only in some cases, especially when some natural tendency has too strong a hold or too strong a drive in it to be got rid of by vicra [intellectual reflection] or by the process of rejection and the substitution of the true movement in its place; when that happens in excess, the sadhak has sometimes even to go back to the ordinary action of the ordinary life, get the true experience of it with a new mind and will behind and then return to the spiritual life with the obstacle eliminated or else ready for elimination. But this method of purposive indulgence is always dangerous, though sometimes inevitable. It succeeds only when there is a very strong will in the being towards realisation; for then indulgence brings a strong dissatisfaction and reaction, vairagya, and the will towards perfection can be carried down into the recalcitrant part of the nature.
The other motive for anubhava is of a more general applicability; for in order to reject anything from the being one has first to become conscious of it, to have the clear inner experience of its action and to discover its actual place in the workings of the nature. One can then work upon it to eliminate it, if it is an entirely wrong movement, or to transform it if it is only the degradation of a higher and true movement. It is this or something like it that is attempted crudely and improperly with a rudimentary and insufficient knowledge in the system of psycho-analysis. The process of raising up the lower movements into the full light of consciousness in order to know and deal with them is inevitable; for there can be no complete change without it. But it can truly succeed only when a higher light and force are sufficiently at work to overcome, sooner or later, the force of the tendency that is held up for change. Many, under the pretext of anubhava, not only raise up the adverse movement, but support it with their consent instead of rejecting it, find justifications for continuing or repeating it and so go on playing with it, indulging its return, eternising it; afterwards when they want to get rid of it, it has got such a hold that they find themselves helpless in its clutch and only a terrible struggle or an intervention of divine grace can liberate them.Some do this out of a vital twist or perversity, others out of sheer ignorance; but in yoga, as in life, ignorance is not accepted by Nature as a justifying excuse. This danger is there in all improper dealings with the ignorant parts of the nature; but none is more ignorant, more perilous, more unreasoning and obstinate in recurrence than the lower vital subconscious and its movements. To raise it up prematurely or improperly for anubhava is to risk suffusing the conscious parts also with its dark and dirty stuff and thus poisoning the whole vital and even the mental nature. Always therefore one should begin by a positive, not a negative experience, by bringing down something of the divine nature, calm, light, equanimity, purity, divine strength into the parts of the conscious being that have to be changed; only when that has been sufficiently done and there is a firm positive basis, is it safe to raise up the concealed subconscious adverse elements in order to destroy and eliminate them by the strength of the divine calm, light, force and knowledge. Even so, there will be enough of the lower stuff rising up of itself to give you as much of the anubhava as you will need for getting rid of the obstacles; but then they can be dealt with with much less danger and under a higher internal guidance.
***
I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam. The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above. The self-chosen field of these psychologists is besides poor, dark and limited; you must know the whole before you can know the part and the highest before you can truly understand the lowest. That is the promise of the greater psychology awaiting its hour before which these poor gropings will disappear and come to nothing.4
Questioned about the meaning of these words, Mother said, "The state I was in was like a memory."
0 1962-02-03, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For some time now I have been running into difficulties with my morning japa. Its complex. I wont go into details, but certain things seemed to be trying to interfere, either preventing me from going on to the end, or plunging me into a kind of trance that brought everything to a halt. So I began wondering what it was and why. A very, very long curve was involved, but the result of my observations is the following. (All this is purely from the bodys standpoint; I mean it doesnt concern the conscious, living, independent being that would remain the same even without the bodyto be exact, the being whose life, consciousness, freedom and action do not depend on the body. I am speaking here of that which needs the body for its manifestation; that alone was in question.)
There has been a kind of perception of a variety of bodily activities, a whole series of them, having to do exclusively (or so it seems) with the maintenance of the body. Some are on the borderlinesleep, for instance: one portion of it is necessary for good maintenance of the body, and another portion puts it in contact with other parts and activities of the being; but one portion of sleep is exclusively for maintaining the bodys balance. Then there is food, keeping clean, a whole range of things. And according to Sri Aurobindo, spiritual life shouldnt suppress those things; whatever is indispensable for the bodys well-being must be kept up. For ordinary people, all other bodily activities are used for personal pleasure and benefit. The spiritual man, on the other hand, has given his body to serve the Divine, so that the Divine may use it for His work and perhaps, as Sri Aurobindo said, for His joyalthough given the present state of Matter and the body, that seems to me unlikely or at best very intermittent and partial, because this body is much more a field of misery than a field of joy. (None of this is based on speculation, but on personal experience I am relating my personal experience.) But with work, its different: when the body is at work, its in full swing. Thats its joy, its needto exist only to serve Him. To exist only to serve. And of course, to reduce maintenance to a bare minimum while trying to find a way for the Divine to participate in the very restricted, limited and meager possibilities of joy this maintenance may give. To associate the Divine with all those movements and things, like keeping clean, sleeping (although sleep is different, its already a lot more interesting); but especially with personal hygiene, eating and other absolutely indispensable things, the attempt is to associate them with the Divine Presence so that they may be as much an expression of divine joy as possible. (This is realized to a certain extent.)
--
In the course of my observation, I also saw the position of X and people like him, who practically spend their lives doing japa, plus meditation, puja,4 ceremonies (I am talking only about sincere people, not fakers). Well, thats their way of working for the world, of serving the Divine, and it seems the best way to themperhaps even the only way but its a question of mental belief. In any case, its obvious that even a bit of not exactly puja, but some sort of ceremony that you set yourself to dohabitual gestures symbolizing and expressing a particular inner statecan also be a help and a way of offering yourself and relating to the Divine and thus serving the Divine. I feel its important looked at in this waynot from the traditional viewpoint, I cant stand that traditional viewpoint; I understand it, but it seems to me like putting a brake on true self-giving to the Divine. I am speaking of SELF-IMPOSED japa and rules (or, if someone gives you the japa, rules you accept with all your heart and adhere to). These self-imposed rules should be followed as a gesture of love, as a way of saying to the Divine, I love You. Do you see what I mean? Like arranging flowers in a certain way, burning incense, dozens of little things like that, made beautiful because of what is put into themit is a form of self-giving.
Now, I think that doing japa with the will and the idea of getting something out of it spoils it a little. You spoil it. I dont much like it when somebody says, Do this and you will get that. Its trueits true, but its a bit like baiting a fish. I dont much like it.
0 1962-02-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But is it necessary? Is all this disorganization necessary? Perhaps I call it disorganization when it isnt. You know, we are totally ignorant in that realm. We have our old human ways of seeing, but when it comes to the bodys functioning, we know nothing about whats good or not. Or even whats painful or not: the bodys initial impulse is to feel the pain, but upon reflection and attentive observation, we see it is simply an intensity of sensation were not used to. So it could well have been that. And if we were used to it (and especially if we didnt think of it as something troublesome), we would feel quite differently about it. In any case, its not something unbearablewe can bear a lot of things, much more than we imagine.
I am not sure, you see. We keep going on with old notions, old routines and old habitswhat can we possibly know!
0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Take the case of someone you know well and are used to seeing materially: seeing him in the subtle physical, certain aspects become more prominent, more visible, more marked; physically they went unseen because in the material grayness they had blended with many other things. Certain character traits that never showed up physically now become so marked as to be quite visible. When you look at someone physically, you see the color of his complexion, the shape of his features, his expression. Seeing him at the same moment in the subtle physical, you suddenly notice different colors on different parts of the face, in the eyes an expression or a particular light you hadnt seen beforea strong impression of a very different overall appearance, which to our physical eyes would seem rather outlandish. But for the subtle vision its all very expressive and revealing of the persons character, or even of the influences hes under (what I am talking about is something I observed a few days ago).
So, according to the plane where you are conscious and can see, you perceive images and see events from varying distances and with varying degrees of accuracy. The only true and sure vision is the vision of the Divine Consciousness. The problem, therefore, is to become conscious of the Divine Consciousness and constantly maintain it in all lifes details.
0 1962-03-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, all those little rules were enjoined to follow: Above all, dont do that; and be sure to do this, dont forget that. Like ablutions, for instance, or attitudes, or what to eattheres no dearth of them. A mountain of dos and dontsall completely swept away! And swept away to the point where sometimes a rule, something highly recommended (Be sure to do this, be careful to do thatan attitude or an action) becomes an obstacle. I hardly dare say it, but one example is having a regular schedulealways making ablutions at the same hour, always doing japa in the same manner and so on. And I am perfectly aware that Sri Aurobindo himself puts all sorts of trivial obstacles in my way obstacles I could hurdle with a single second of reflection; he sets them up as if in play. Do you remember the aphorism where he says he was quarreling with the Lord and the Lord made him fall in the mud?2 Thats just what I feel. He puts a stick in my spokes and laughs. So I say, All right, thats enough, I dont give a hoot! Ill do whatever You want, its not my problem; I can do it or not do it, do it this way or that. It has all gone up in smoke now.
What has become constant, though. I shouldnt say it, because its going to get me into trouble again! But anyway, whats trying to be constant is DISCRIMINATION: taking all circumstances, vibrations, relationships, what comes from the people around me, what responds, and putting each in its proper place. A second-to-second discrimination. I know where things are coming from, why they come, their effect, where theyre going to lead me, and so on. Its growing more and more frequent, constant, automaticlike a state of being.
--
One day I was all tensed up; things had become so intolerable, as people say, that something in the most material vital went into whats usually considered a fit of rage (it was totally under control I mean it was working as a safety valve and being observed as such in all its vibrations). I was alone in the bathroom, nobody to see me; I grabbed hold of I dont remember what and smashed it on the floor!
Aah, what a relief!
0 1962-05-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And it is very silent there is no thought; there is barely, barely the ability to observe. And all kinds of movements, an infinity of movements and vibrations of something that could be the essence of thoughts, move there, rhythmically, in a movement of waves without beginning or end, with a condensation like this (gesture from above down), with a condensation like that (horizontal gesture), and a movement of expansion (gesture like a pulsating ocean). That is, a sort of contraction, concentration, and then expansion, diffusion.2
Yesterday I had the total experience I let myself go completely. It lasted something like forty minutes as I walked around the room.
--
But thats my experience. Yesterday I observed it with special care, to be able to tell you about it.
But are you making a distinction between the body-consciousness and the physical consciousness?
0 1962-05-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a wonderful story, seen as I see it. And I have observed it very carefully: it isnt an ordinary story seen with an exceptional knowledge, but a true Knowledge and a true Consciousness witnessing an exceptional story. Those three people may not be aware of how utterly exceptional it is, but thats simply because their consciousness is not sufficiently awake. But they too have been, and continue to be, exceptional.
The whole story is a fairy tale.
0 1962-05-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Through yoga I had come to a sort of relationship with the material world based on the notion of the fourth dimension (of the innumerable inner dimensions opened up by yoga) and on the utilization of this attitude and state of consciousness. Using this sense of inner dimensions, and through perfecting the consciousness of the inner dimensions, I used to observe the relation between the material and the spiritual worldsthis was prior to my last experience.
Of course, its been a long time since there has been any question of three dimensionsall that belongs ABSOLUTELY to the world of illusion and falsehood. But now the whole use of the sense of the fourth dimensionalong with all it entailsseems superficial to me! And so much so that I cant recapture it. The other world, the three-dimensional world, is completely unreal; but now that one (what can I say?) seems conventional to me. Like a conventional transcription opening a particular type of approach to you.
0 1962-05-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What I say there is quite true. When I dont observe, formulate or explain, the state is absolutely tranquil, peaceful, contented, sufficient unto itself. And out of it, I can see that something will definitely emerge.
But as soon as I try to make it emerge, it all fades awaymeaning it isnt ripe yet.
0 1962-05-31, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One day I will certainly use the same method on those room changes, but for that it will have to become very clear and distinct, well defined in the consciousness. Because that change of room (intellectually you would call it a change of consciousness, but that means nothing at all; were dealing here with something very, very material) I have sometimes gone through it without experiencing ANY CHANGE OF EFFECT, which probably means I was centered not in the material consciousness but in a higher consciousness dwelling and looking on from elsewherea witness consciousness and I was in a state where everything flows flows like a river of tranquil peace. Truly, its marvelousall creation, all life, all movements, all things, and everything like a single mass, with the body in the midst of it all, blending homogeneously with the whole and it all flows on like a river of peace, peaceful and smiling, on to infinity. And then oops! You trip (gesture of inversion2) and once again find yourself SITUATEDyou ARE somewhere, at some specific moment of time; and then theres a pain here, a pain there, a pain. And sometimes I have seen, I have witnessed the change from the one to the other WITHOUT feeling the pains or experiencing the thing concretely, which means that I wasnt at all in the body, I wasnt BOUND to the body I was seeing, only seeing, just like a witness. And its always accompanied by the kind of observation an indulgent (but not blind) friend might make: But why? Why that again? Thats how it comes. Whats the use of that? And I cant catch hold of what makes it happen.
It will come.
0 1962-06-02, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Last night I spent almost all my time in such a building. And all the people who help the work were symbolized there but its always a material help, either work or money or. I remember being particularly struck by one character last night. (Again, there were a lot of aggravations, but someone or something was always on the scene when I arrived and it all sorted itself outit was the exact opposite of the dreams I was talking about the other day: all the difficulties sorted themselves out when I arrived.) Then I came to a rather difficult place to cross (you had to flounder about on slippery scaffoldings) and suddenly, facing me, there was a man (of course, it was probably a symbol rather than a man, but it might really be someone physical). He was one of the workers, a master mason (when I woke up this morning, I thought of the symbolism of Freemasonry and wondered if it might give a clue to the experience). Nearby, people were coming to supervise, observe, direct, people who thought themselves highly superior but they were never any help in solving practical problems! They were creating more problems than they were helping to solve. Anyway, this master mason appeared to be around fifty, with a beautiful facea workers face, beautiful and concentrated. There was a difficult place to cross, and he had worked the thing out very efficiently, with a lot of care. Then, when it was all done and I was able to go on my way, I felt a great surge of love go out to him, with neither gesture nor word and he received it, he felt and received it. His face lit up and he implored me, with wonderful humility, Never let me forget this moment, the most beautiful moment of my life. (I dont know what language he used because it didnt come to me in words.) It was such an intense experience. His humility, his receptivity, his response were all so beautiful and pure that when I woke upwhen I came out of the experience, at any rate I was left with a most delightful impression.
What he represents might be partly manifested by somebody here. A beautiful face a man around fifty. Or it may be symbolic: such characters are sometimes put together with features from several people, to make it very clear that they represent a state of consciousness and not an individual. Its far more often a state of consciousness than an individual.
--
You remember all the difficulties I encountered in those other visions at night. Well, this was very interesting because it was just the opposite: I was in a very complicated place full of obstacles and difficulties, but someone or something was always there when I arrivedeverything would get sorted out and I would go on my way. It all sorted itself out automatically the feeling of a power putting everything in order. And I remember when the mason arrived, just as I was facing that rather big obstacle, there was someone on my right (someone very official, wearing a dark coat) who thought (the contact was through thought rather than words), Oh! Shes always calling on the workers for help instead of. And I answered, The workers are more efficient and their goodwill (all that business of caste, you know, or of society or social position). The workers have simple hearts, I said, they are efficient in their work and have more goodwill than the people who think theyre so smart! It was funny. So this made two interesting experiences yesterday, one after the other.
The afternoon experience was very intriguing; I was busy working (organizing things for one of the departments, I no longer remember which) and then I said to the person I was with, Now I am going to my cousins place! When I was very young I had a cousin, the eldest son of one of my fathers brothers (he had a large family, such as you seldom see in France). This cousin became some kind of engineera civil engineer, maybe, or a mechanical engineer (he was an outstanding chemist). Anyway, this boy was very attracted to me. He went off to the war as an officer and caught some disease (I forget what) and died around 1915, at the time I returned to France. Well, in my experience yesterday afternoon, a certain family living HERE gave me exactly the same sensation I had had towards those people when I was young. And especially for this cousin (for the rest of the family it was more vague, like a background to the experience). I am going to their place, I said. They have a lovely estate here, just as they had a lovely estate in France before (they had Madame de Sevignes chateau at Sucy, near Parisa beautiful property). And it was all so concrete! It wasnt coming through the head; it wasnt a thought but a sensation. I have to go see him now, I said. And even as I was having my vision I was telling myself, You must be going crazy! Can they really be here in Pondicherry? This uncle with whom I had only rather distant relations and this cousin I never saw much of, but whom I knew to be very nice and very loyalAre they really here?! The sensation was most strange (the head wasnt functioning at all; it was a SENSATION). So off I went to see this cousin, and it was on the way to see him that I had the experience of crossing the river. And on the way back, after the discussion with the spiritual brother (whom I really told off: Get out of here! I dont need you!), after that, when I found myself back on the bank, I started collecting my consciousness again, telling myself, Look here now! Lets try to see clearly. And then I realized that the cousin who died prematurely during the war had reincarnated in someone here. How strange, I thought. And the dates coincided.
0 1962-06-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It took maybe a second or a fraction of a second thats why I was able to observe both states.
And as far as I remember (because I never remember fully), this sort of haziness, as it were, was my constant state at the start of that so-called illness; everything was that waypeople, things, life, the universe. Thats how it was, with only that special Vibration, so soft, so enveloping. And it has stayed, it is still here.
--
No, thats just the obstacle, that hardening in you.
Oh, mon petit, if you knew how hard some things become in the being! Oh, how much Ive had to struggle and struggle and struggle. This experience [of April 13] did the job, but otherwise it was a minute-to-minute struggle. Life turns you into something hard as iron (Mother makes a fist).
0 1962-06-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is a period of study and observation. There is absolutely nothing to say. Its a whole world of minute observations which, I hope, will lead me towards something more positive. More exactly, its a demonstration of the inadequacy of the usual methods when it comes to acting according to Truth and it goes on night and day.
Two nights ago, I had an experience I hadnt had for perhaps more than a year. A sort of concentration and accumulation of divine Energy in the cells of the body. During a certain period (I dont remember when), every night I had a kind of recharging of batteries through contact with universal forces; I had it again two nights ago, spontaneously. Then last night, when I wanted to look, to study, to understand how it worked, I was given a lavish demonstration of the inadequacy and utter uselessness of all processes of consciousness working through the mind. They are useless, they simply spoil the experience.
--
This is obviously being prepared (Mother touches her body) so that it wont put the usual obstacles in the way of expression.
But I would much prefer the thing to BE rather than just talk about it. That would be more interesting. So for the moment I prefer to say nothing.
--
Last night I said to myself, Now look, thats not so brilliantif we are still no farther than that. You see, I was having an experience of (it wasnt an experience, really, but quite a normal state that was continuing and, as far as I could see, was practically continuous) a recharging of batteries. But there was also a kind of receiving and observing devicedetestable! And I used to think it was excellent! For years before last April, everything was very calm, the mind was always turned this way (gesture above), silent, and there was a sort of functioning I thought it was very good! Well, I have realized that its worthless. Mind you, I wish everyone could have what I had! It was extremely handy, far beyond ordinary mental methods but in fact, its not true. It is still a a gimmick. Not the TRUE thing. Its still one of the things that keep life from being divine, so its worthless!
But what in our present existence doesnt keep life from being divine? Nothing I know of! (Mother laughs) happily, Sri Aurobindo and I were the same on this point [a sense of humor]. Effortlessly, from a very young age, something in me has always laughed. It sees all the catastrophes, sees all the suffering, sees it all and cant help laughing the way one laughs at something that pretends to be but isnt.
--
But this is still a period of preparation; the best thing to do now is to look and look and look again, observe and observe and observe again; and to have experiences, lots of experiences, because all that is nothing the thing ITSELF must be grasped. Weve got to catch the tail of the true functioning, so it can be substituted for the other at will. Thats it exactly.
And that requires minute-to-minute observation.
Someone reads me a letter, for instance, and I have to answer; and there, superimposed, are both functionings: the ordinary reaction coming from above (nothing from here: it comes from above but its the ordinary reaction) and if I follow that and start writing, after a moment comes a kind of sensation that its inadequate; and then theres the other functioning which is not yet (whats the word? I should be speaking in English!) handy, not yet at my disposal. I have to keep myself quiet, then it starts operating [the new functioning]. But when theres something to be done, the two are superimposed and I have to keep the old one quiet for the other to come. And the other one ohh, it has some unexpected ways! I answer a letter, for example, or I want to say something to someone: my old way is an expression of what comes from above (it is luminous enough, but ADAPTED) but then theres that sensation of inadequacyit wont do. All right. I step back and something else comes; and what comes, I must admit its enough to drive people crazy! Its so MUCH SOMETHING ELSE!
0 1962-07-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For several hours afterwards I had a vision of this state of mind and found absolutely no need to make hypotheses (you see, Pavitra was speaking of hypothesizing the existence of different states of being). Its just as I told you: I have passed that stage; I dont need inner dimensions any more.1 And observing this materialistic state of mind, it occurred to me that, on the basis of their own experiments, they are bound to admit onenessat least the oneness of matter; and to admit oneness is enough to obtain the key to the whole problem!
Once again it made me realize that this last experience [of April 13] may in reality have come to free me from ALL past knowledge, and that to live the Truth none of it is needed. I need neither all this terminology nor Sri Aurobindos terminology nor, of course, anyone elses; I dont need all these classifications, I dont need all sorts of experiences I need ONE experience, the one I have. And I have it in all things and in all circumstances: the experience of eternal, infinite, absolute Oneness manifesting in the finite, the relative and the temporal. And the process of change I am pursuing seems less and less of a problem; after looking like the ultimate problem, it doesnt seem to be one any more, because but that that cant be utteredit pleases Him to be that way, so He is that way.
0 1962-07-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what I observe when I am put in contact with the outside world, Europe.
But anyway, the Old World is an OLD world in the true sense of the word. India is much, much older, but more alive. Yet now it strikes me as so very rotten! They went rotten. You know what happens when a rotten apple is put next to a good one: England came and stayed much too long. It made things go quite rotten. Very, very rotten; its difficult to heal. Otherwise, whats not rotten is truly good.
0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You write about the Deva Samgha and say, I am not a god, I am only a piece of much hammered and tempered iron. No one is a God but in each man there is a God and to make Him manifest is the aim of divine life. That we can all do. I recognize that there are great and small adharas [vessels]. I do not accept, however, your description of yourself as accurate. Still whatever the nature of the vessel, once the touch of God is upon it, once the spirit is awake, great and small and all that does not make much difference. There may be more difficulties, more time may be taken, there may be a difference in the manifestation, but even about that there is no certainty. The God within takes no account of these hindrances and deficiencies. He breaks his way out. Was the amount of my failings a small one? Were there less obstacles in my mind and heart and vital being and body? Did it not take time? Has God hammered me less? Day after day, minute after minute, I have been fashioned into I know not whether a god or what. But I have become or am becoming something. That is sufficient, since God wanted to build it. It is the same as regards everyone. Not our strength but the Shakti of God is the sadhaka [worker] of this yoga.
Let me tell you in brief one or two things about what I have long seen. My idea is that the chief cause of the weakness of India is not subjection nor poverty, nor the lack of spirituality or dharma [ethics] but the decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the motherl and of Knowledge. Everywhere I see inability or unwillingness to thinkthought-incapacity or thought-phobia. Whatever may have been in the middle ages, this state of things is now the sign of a terrible degeneration. The middle age was the night, the time of the victory of ignorance. The modern world is the age of the victory of Knowledge. Whoever thinks most, seeks most, labors most, can fathom and learn the truth of the world, and gets so much more Shakti. If you look at Europe, you will see two things: a vast sea of thought and the play of a huge and fast-moving and yet disciplined force. The whole Shakti of Europe is in that. And in the strength of that Shakti it has been swallowing up the world, like the tapaswins [ascetics] of our ancient times, by whose power even the gods of the world were terrified, held in suspense and subjection. People say Europe is running into the jaws of destruction. I do not think so. All these revolutions and upsettings are the preconditions of a new creation.
0 1962-07-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then at a very young age (about eight or ten), along with my studies I began to paint. At twelve I was already doing portraits. All aspects of art and beauty, but particularly music and painting, fascinated me. I went through a very intense vital development during that period, with, just like in my early years, the presence of a kind of inner Guide; and all centered on studies: the study of sensations, observations, the study of technique, comparative studies, even a whole spectrum of observations dealing with taste, smell and hearinga kind of classification of experiences. And this extended to all facets of life, all the experiences life can bring, all of themmiseries, joys, difficulties, sufferings, everythingoh, a whole field of studies! And always this presence within, judging, deciding, classifying, organizing and systematizing everything.
Then conscious yoga made a sudden entry into the picture when I met Thon; I must have been about twenty-one. Lifes orientation changed, a whole series of experiences took place, with the development of the vital giving interesting occult results.
--
Is it different for men? I dont know. Sri Aurobindos case was quite special, and apart from him I dont see any convincing example. But generally speaking, what is most developed in a man, along with the mind, is the physical consciousness; the vital is very impulsive, practically ungoverned. Thats my experience of the hundreds and hundreds of men I have met. Theres normally a physical strength built up through games and exercises, and side by side a more or less advanced, but primarily mental development, very mental. The vital is terribly impulsive and barely organized, except in artists, and even there. I lived among artists for ten years and found this ground to be mostly fallow. I mingled with all the great artists of the time, I was like a kid sister to them (it was at the turn of the century, with the Universal Exposition in 1900; and these were the leading artists of the epoch); so I was by far the youngest, much younger than any of themthey were all thirty, thirty-five, forty years old, while I was nineteen or twenty. Well I was much more advanced in their own fieldnot in what I was producing (I was a perfectly ordinary artist), but from the viewpoint of consciousness: observations, experiences, studies.
I am not sure, but it seems to me that the problem of consciousness ought to come first.
--
Its the Shakti. He said, you know (I am still translating it), that the shakti drawn up from below (this is what happens in the individual process) is already what could be called a veiled shakti (it has power, but it is veiled). While the Shakti drawn down from above is a PURE Shakti; and if it can be brought down carefully and slowly enough so that it isnt (how shall I put it?) polluted or, in any case, obscured as it enters matter, then the result is immediately much better. As he has explained, if you start out with this feeling of a great power in yourself (because its always a great power no matter where it awakens), theres inevitably a danger of the ego meddling in. But if it comes pure and you are very careful to keep it pure, not to rush the movement but let it purify as it descends, then half the work is done.
Its a problem. When you contact the Supraconscient and the Shakti emerges at the crown of the head, its something rising from below, isnt it? Is it then another movement, an ascending movement?
0 1962-08-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive been observing all this in a neuro-physical realm, subtle-physical, that is but its still physical and in a complete mental silence where all judgments (you know, judgments) have disappeared, along with a certain way of observing things. Thats why I cant talk about it.
These vibrations have various qualities; if they were expressed through a mental observation, it would be done through such things as taste, color, and so forth, everything Ive just mentioned1but thats not how theyre expressed. They come almost exclusively as sensations, but those sensations some, I mean some vibrations, have rounded edges. Some come horizontally (I was in fact studying everything that comes horizontally), others result from the state of consciousness (vertical gesture from top to bottom). While at the same time, others are. Yes, its like looking through a high-powered microscope: some are rounded, others pointed; some are darker, some brighter. Some are very upsetting to the body, and some even feel dangerous. On the other hand, certain ones make the body receptive to the vibration, which we might call the Lords Vibration, the supreme Vibration. You see, all this is the outcome of a discipline, a tapasya, for preparing the body to receive the Lords Vibrations (the first step is receiving, being able to receive them; afterwards you have to hold on to and then manifest them). Those vibrations are unmistakable, they are something else entirely. But other vibrations are helpful, beneficial, while still others are disruptive, contradictory.
And each one is beginning to reveal its own particular nature. There are those stemming from peoples thoughts (I sense them in my body, not in the mind: the material consequence of peoples psychological state, and even their state of health). Some things are general and last a bit longer; others are momentary, lasting only a few seconds. The first step is to study the different vibrational qualitiesyou could practically draw diagrams: if we had a machine sensitive enough to record these things, it would produce all kinds of zigs and zags.2 Certain vibrations immediately stop or change or are dissolved or repelled. Others are adopted, as it were, and transformed. The majority are simply pushed back and worked on from a distancequite a distance! I keep them at a fair distance (Mother laughs). Very few are let in. But some are let in for the sake of the experience, to see how much they upset the body. Theres also the effect of peoples permanent auras: I know a certain person is arriving by his auras effect on the body; because (laughing) each vibration has its particular effect on the bodyperfectly prosaic things, maybe, but by studying them you realize that each thing has its own law.
0 1962-08-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I understand your question. You want to know if this has an effect on all identical vibratory modes in the world. In principle, yes. But the effects may not be immediately visible; in the first place, our field of observation is nothingmaterially, what do we know? Only our immediate surroundings thats nothing. In 1920, for example, I had an experience of that type, which resulted in a symbolic but terrestrial action. It was a vision (I dont remember enough details to make it interesting) where each nation was represented by a symbolic entity, and there was a certain type of horrorof terror, rather. A certain will of terror was trying to manifest in that gathering of all nations. And I was witness to the whole thing. I remember it being a very conscious and rather long and detailed vision with a more intense reality than physical things have (it was in the subtle physical). And after it was over and I had done what needed to be done (I am not saying what because I dont remember all the details, and without accuracy it loses its value), when I came out of it I could say with TOTAL conviction: Terror has been overcome in the world. Of course, its not literally true, plenty of people still feel terror, but a certain type of terror was as if UNDERMINED at the foundations. What had already manifested kept on and is gradually being exhausted, but the terror that was trying to increase and dominate the life of nations was stopped cold.
I have had other similar experienceson Durgas day, for instance, when Sri Aurobindo was still here (you know, thats the day when Durga masters an asura; she doesnt kill him, she masters him). Well, each year one particular type of thing was undermined (and my experiences were never mental: the experience would suddenly come, and AFTERWARDS I would realize it was Durgas day), and each time I used to tell Sri Aurobindo, Looktoday this (or that) thing has been cut off at the roots. Thats how it works with the adverse forcesyes, like something being uprooted from the world. Whatever has already spread out keeps going and follows its karma, but the SOURCE is dried up. Thats also what happened (it was in 1904, I believe) when the Asura of Consciousness and Darkness made his surrender and was converted; he told me, I have millions and millions of emanations, and these will keep on living, but their source has now run dry.4 How much time will it take to exhaust it all? We cant say, but the source has dried up and that is something extremely important. In 1920, that terror was trying to spread all over the world and to become really catastrophic; and then in my inner vision I could see that a whole movement had dried up at its source. This means that little by little, little by little, little by little the karma is being exhausted.
--
To change a karma, to stop a karma, to withdraw a certain number of vibrations from circulation, as it were, requires yet another movement, another movement altogether and that Power isnt yet at hand. Thats what will yield visible, tangible results. The other movement has very tangible and concrete results, but theyre invisible (to human observation, that is, which is much too limited and superficial). But it obviously does have results. That vision of terror clearly diverted the course of events that nations were being pushed into. But only someone with inner vision can see it.
(silence)
0 1962-08-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The feeling is rather one of vibrations gathered together and coagulated somewhere and even at that, theres a very supple inner play, for it spreads out like this (Mother makes a gesture of diffusion or expansion all around her) through a sort of subtilization or etherization. And its limitlesshow could it have any limits! It goes like this (same radiating gesture)these same vibrations are everywhere, in all bodies and all things. What people call this body is merely the result of a willed concentration organized in a specific way; thats how it spontaneously feels, all the time (not that its observing itself, but if something forces it to observe itself, thats what it spontaneously feels). And the delimitation that exists in all beings, and which WAS in this body (was it this body? Havent the cells changed? I dont know), which once existed in what people call this body, has completely disappeared. Before (thirty years or so ago), it used to feel like something separate moving among other separate things thats all gone.
I have tried several times, telling myself, Ah, lets have a good lookis there anything, anywhere, that feels that separation? (I am looking at the body from above.) Theres nothingtruly? Are you one hundred percent spontaneously sincere? Nothing at all? Its impossible to find a thing. Impossible.
0 1962-09-05, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The experiences that left the most acute impressions on me (Mother makes a poignant gesture)you know, the kind of things that make you say, Oh, no, not that again, Ive had enough!are connected with my lives as a monarch: empress, queen and the like oh! Those are painful impressions, the most painful of all. And I have a keen memory of a resolution taken in my last life as an empress: Never again! I said. Ive had enough, I want no more of it! Id rather be not even Id rather be, I chose deliberately: I WANT to be an obscure being in an obscure family, free at last to do what I want! And thats the first thing I remembered this time: Yes, its an obscure family, an obscure being in an obscure milieu, so I may be free to do what I want; there isnt a horde of people watching me and spying on everything I do and plaguing me with rules about what I ought to be doing.
It didnt last long! (Mother laughs.)
--
For a long, long time, that was also the one thing I felt was worth living forConsciousness. When I met Thon and came to understand the mechanism, I also understood why I wasnt conscious at a certain level. I think Ive told you how I spent ten months one year working to connect two layerstwo layers of consciousness; the contact wasnt established and so I couldnt have the spontaneous experience of a whole spectrum of things. Madame Thon told me, Its because theres an undeveloped layer between this part and that part. I was very conscious of all the gradations: Thon had explained it all in the simplest terms, so you didnt need to be, as I said, a genius to understand. He had made a quadruple division, and each of them was divided into four, and then again into four, making innumerable divisions of the being; but with that mental simplification you could make in-depth psychological studies of your own being. And so by observation and elimination I eventually discovered that between this and that (gesture indicating two levels of Mothers consciousness), there was an undeveloped layerit wasnt conscious. So I worked for ten months on nothing but that: absolutely no results. I didnt care, I kept right on, telling myself, Well, it may take me fifty years to get anywhere, who knows. And then I left for the country (I was living in Paris at the time). I lay down on the grass, and all at once, with the contact of earth and grass, poof! There was a sort of inner explosion the link was established, and full consciousness came, along with all the ensuing experiences. Well, I said to myself, it was worth all the trouble!
And I am sure thats how the work is done, slowly, imperceptibly, like a chick being formed in the egg: you see the shell, you see only the shell, you dont know whats inside, whether its just an egg or a chick (normally, I meanof course, you could see through with special instruments) and then the beak goes peck-peck! And then cheep! Out comes the chick, just like that. Its the same thing exactly for the contact with the psychic being. For months on end, sometimes years, you may be sitting before a closed door, push, push, pushing, and feeling, feeling the pressure (it hurts!), and theres nothing, no results. Then all at once, you dont know why or how, you sit down and poof! Everything bursts wide open, everything is ready, everything is doneits over, you emerge into a full psychic consciousness and become intimate with your psychic being. Then everything changeseverything changesyour life completely changes, its a total reversal of your whole existence.
--
Stubbornly. You have to be stubbornstubborn, stubborn, stubborn. Youre up against all the resistance of unconsciousness and ignorance, up against all the power of unconsciousness and ignorance something obstinate and unyielding. But its like the story of the drop of water on the rock: a matter of time. The water will eventually wear its way through the rock. It takes ages, but it will succeed, for it falls persistently, drop after drop. First it runs off, eventually it makes a hole, and you have a wide river flowing below. Nature gives us this wonderful example to follow. Thats it: we must be like the water dripping on the rock.
Water is vital energy. The rock is unconsciousness.
0 1962-09-22, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the middle of the First World War, Sri Aurobindo noted with prophetic force: The defeat of Germany could not of itself kill the spirit then incarnate in Germany; it may well lead merely to a new incarnation of it, perhaps in some other race or empire, and the whole battle would then have to be fought over again. So long as the old gods are alive, the breaking or depression of the body which they animate is a small matter, for they know well how to transmigrate. Germany overthrew the Napoleonic spirit in France in 1813 and broke the remnants of her European leadership in 1870; the same Germany became the incarnation of that which it had overthrown. The phenomenon is easily capable of renewal on a more formidable scale.2 Today we are finding that the old gods know how to transmigrate. Gandhi himself, seeing all those years of nonviolence culminate in the terrible violence that marked Indias partition in 1947, ruefully observed shortly before his death: The attitude of violence which we have secretly harboured now recoils on us, and makes us fly at each others throats when the question of distribution of power arises. Now that the burden of subjection is lifted, all the forces of evil have come to the surface. For neither nonviolence nor violence touch upon the root of Evil.
Ahimsa: nonviolence.
0 1962-09-26, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is just what I am observing these days. To me, the overmental consciousness is a magnified consciousness: far lovelier, far loftier, far more powerful, far happier, far with lots of far mores to it. But. I can tell you one thing: the gods dont have the sense of Oneness. For instance, in their own way they quarrel among themselves, which shows they have no sense of Oneness, no sense of all being one, of all being various expressions of the Divine the unique Divine. So they are still on this side, but with magnified forms, and powers beyond our comprehension: the power to change form at will, for example, or to be in many places at the same timeall sorts of things that poor human beings can only dream of having. The gods have it all. They live a divine life! But its not supramental.
The Supermind is knowledgePure Knowledge. Yes, it is knowingknowing what is to be known.
0 1962-09-29, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Beyond the shadow of a doubt, modern scientific perception comes much closer to expressing universal reality than, say, Stone Age perceptions did. Yet even science will suddenly find itself completely surpassed and probably turned upside down by the intrusion of something that DID NOT EXIST in the observed universe.
The trouble is, Sri Aurobindo said the thing was INSIDE already, involved. He always says its involved and then evolves.
0 1962-11-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because my impression was that the higher I rise, the more I notice things below. I wasnt making a doctrine or theory of it, of course I got rid of that habit a long time ago. But I was looking at it, merely taking note of the fact, without telling myself it was for this or that reason (as you explain here in your book). I observed the phenomenon and was able to say: the more I feel this constant, luminous Presence, the more I see those things. So it has become very clear to me that it is impossible to manifest THAT integrally without everything below being offered up to the Light.
My method is essentially very simple: for each thing that comes, I say, Here, Lord, its for You; change it, transform it. A work of offering and dedication (gesture of presenting something to the Light). And this morning there was a sort of replynot exactly to a question, but as though I were wondering How do I do it? (because the Lord tells me I am here for His work), How do I do His work? Whats the new way of doing the Work? We know all the old ways, but whats the new way? And the reply came, very concrete, without words: By bringing the two extremes together. Everything you see, everything that comes to you or that you discover is automatically put in the presence of the Most High, of the Supreme. You join the two extremes. Your whole work is to make the junction.
0 1962-11-17, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But outwardly, from what I have seen, from all Ive observed (I mean the more I am IN the thing): the world is not ready. People they dont even understand what it is! So how could they. When you tell them something or show them something from up here (gesture above), they dont understand. They dont understand. To make it understandable, they immediately distort it, disfigure it. So I dont know whether.
(long silence)
--
Somewhere, in a place which is not here [physically], some place (Mother gestures into the distance behind her being), there is something that keeps very still, somewhere, very still and beyond all the movements of forces; something seated, as it were, established somewhere, very still and beyond public observation (by public I dont necessarily mean terrestrial, I mean the whole world), something that keeps like this (gesture backwards, eyes closed, motionless as a statue), and DOES NOT WANT IT.
I perceive that very distinctly.
0 1962-11-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Is it silver, is it? Its indefinable. Thats just what makes that grass so exquisite. Well, the tulle was that color. Afterwards, a long time after, when I began to observe and to not actually think, but to try to formulate it, I noticed the color was identical. Now I know why I named it Humility! I said to myself. Its like being in a domain where things are known quite naturally, you understand theres no seeking.
How lovely it was! The sense of delicate beauty in things.
0 1963-01-09, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You cant overdo it, because disruption is no good, of course! Ive been observing that lately. When you came last time, I was I was going through a upheaval.3
The consciousness is there (gesture, standing back), but it intervenes only if it is absolutely indispensable. Its just that it tries locally to make the cells (not understand, it isnt understand because theres no mind) have the right sensation, the right experience the right experienceuntil they start saying, Oh! Oh!
0 1963-01-12, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At the time, there were all the minute details of observation that make the experience so concrete. If I were to write it all, it would be worthwhile. But they are countless! I would spend my days writing down my nights! What to do?
This is ONE kindthere are so many different kinds. For the body too, there are countless observations: for example, a vibration like this (gesture) brings eternal bliss; a MINUSCULE shift (it looks like a shiftis it a shift? Is it what? A distortion? An addition? Or is it its all kinds of different things at once), and it turns into anguish and dreadful discomfort THE VERY SAME THING. And so forth. Tons of things that could be written down!
And if it were all noted down clearly, accurately, down to the last detail, it would be worth it, but just look (Mother shows a pile of papers beside her): work everywhere! Letters and letters! Three, four, five, ten, twenty every day, not to mention all the decisions I must make instantly and write on the spot. This morning I wrote four urgent notes like that when Nolini was here, and you saw how it was with Pavitra.
0 1963-01-14, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive had this experience even just recently. All that comes to me from people who have dedicated their lives to spiritual life, people who do a yoga in the traditional way, who are very solemn, who see adversaries everywhere, obstacles everywhere, taboos everywhere, prohibitions everywhere, oh, how they complicate life and how far they are from the Divine! I saw this the other day with someone you know. With that kind of people, you should not do this, should not do that, should not At such and such time you must not do this, on such and such day you must not do that; you should not eat this, you should not And then, for heavens sake, dont you go mixing your daily life with your sacred life!thats how you dig an abyss.
Its the exact, exact opposite of what I feel now: no matter what happens something wrong in the body, something wrong with people, something wrong in circumstancesinstantly, the first movement: O my sweet Lord, my Beloved! And I laugh! And then all is well. I did this the other day (its spontaneous and instantaneous, it isnt thought out or willed or plannednone of itit just happens), it happened the other day (I dont recall the details but it was over a circumstance that hardly seemed sacred): I saw myself, and I started laughing. I said, But look! I dont need to be serious, I dont need to be solemn!
0 1963-02-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And, I must say, I was observing this because, originally, the first time I heard of it, this conception shocked me, in the sense that (I dont know, it wasnt an idea, it was a feeling), as though it meant lending reality to something which in my consciousness, for a very long time (at least millennia perhaps, I dont know), had been the Falsehood to be conquered. The Falsehood that must cease to exist. Its the aspect of Truth that must manifest itself, its not all that: doing anything whatsoever just for the fun of it, simply because you have the full power. You have the power to do everything, so you do everything, and knowing that there is a Truth behind, you dont give a damn about consequences. That was something something which, as far back as I can remember, I have fought against. I have known it, but it seems to me it was such a long, long time ago and I rejected it so strongly, saying, No, no! and implored the Lord so intensely that things may be otherwise, beseeched Him that his all-powerful Truth, his all-powerful Purity and his all-powerful Beauty may manifest and put an end to all that mess. And at first I was shocked when Sri Aurobindo told me that; previously, in this life, it hadnt even crossed my mind. In that sense Theons explanation had been much more (what should I say?) useful to me from the standpoint of action: the origin of disorder being the separation of the primal Powers but thats not it! HE is there, blissfully worshipping all this confusion!
And naturally this time around, when I started translating it came back. At first there was a shudder (Mother makes a gesture of stiffening). Then I told myself, Havent you got beyond that! And I let myself flow into the thing. Then I had a series of nights with Sri Aurobindo so marvelous! You understand, I see him constantly and I go into that subtle physical world where he has his abode; the contact is almost permanent (at any rate, thats how I spend all my nights: he shows me the work, everything), but still, after this translation of Savitri he seemed to be smiling at me and telling me, At last you have understood! (Mother laughs) I said, It isnt that I didnt understand, its that I didnt want it! I didnt want, I dont WANT things to be like that any more, for thousands of years I have wanted things to be otherwise!
0 1963-02-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday evening (was it yesterday? No, the day before), when I went out on the balcony-terrace,3 the difference in perception between the consciousness I have now and the one I had before felt enormous! Before, as I have always said, I would stay there, call the Lord, be in His presence, and only when He withdrew would I come in again thats how it was. And I had a certain relationship with people, things, the outside world (outside, well, not outsideanyway, the world). The day before yesterday, when I went to the balcony, I wasnt thinking of anything or observing anything, I simply went I didnt want to know what was going on, it didnt interest me, I wasnt observing. The other experience [of the previous balcony, one year ago] seemed to go back centuries! It was so much OTHER! And so spontaneous, so natural, and so immense too! The earth was tiny. Yet it was very much here: I wasnt over there, the BODY itself was feeling that way. And at the same time (I was two floors above people), every time I looked, I recognized scores and scores of people, they seemed to leap to my eyesa crystal clear vision, much sharper (the vision I had before was always a bit hazy because what I saw wasnt entirely physical: I saw the movement of forces), and yesterday, it was as if as if I had risen above the very possibility of haziness! It was far less physicalFAR MORE accurate.4
Formerly too, I used to sense the Force, the Consciousness, the Power concentrated in a particular point and then spreading out. While here, there was an IMMENSITY of Power, of Light, of Consciousness, of perception, concentrated in a tiny point: the people gathered there.
0 1963-03-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact, for education, people should always encourage both tendencies side by side: the thirst for the Marvelous, the seemingly unrealizable, for something that fills you with a sense of divinity, while at the same time encouraging, in the perception of the world as it is, an exact, correct and sincere observation, the abolition of all imaginings, a constant control, and a most practical and meticulous feeling for exactness in details. Both tendencies should go side by side. Generally, people kill one with the idea that its necessary in order to develop the otherwhich is totally erroneous. The two can coexist, and as knowledge grows, a moment comes when you understand that they are two aspects of the same thing, namely, a clear vision, a superior discernment. But instead of the vision and discernment being limited and narrow, they become absolutely sincere, correct, exactAND immense, embracing an entire field thats not yet part of the concrete Manifestation.
This is very important from an educational point of view.
To see the world as it is, accurately, starkly, in the most practical and down-to-earth way, and to see the world as it can be, with the highest and freest vision, filled with hope and aspiration and a marvelous certainty these are the two poles of discernment. All the most splendid, marvelous, powerful, expressive and total things we are able to imagine are nothing compared to what they can be; and at the same time, our minute observation of the smallest detail can never be sufficiently exact. Both things must go together. When you know this (gesture below) and you know That (gesture above), you are able to make the two meet.
This is the best possible use of the need for miracles. The need for miracles is a gesture of ignorance: Oh, I wish it were that way! Its a gesture of ignorance and impotence. On the other hand, those who tell you, You live in a world of miracles, know only the lower end of things (and quite imperfectly at that), and they are impervious to anything else.
0 1963-03-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have always observed very carefully every time somebody died here in the Ashram, and well (one or two persons have died since that experience, in particular the old doctors sister), well, since then it has been ABSOLUTELY DIFFERENT. It was something I saw from above. There was no longer any mystery. But if you ask me to explain That I cantwords, the mind, no. But the POSITION of the consciousness was different the position of the consciousness. Altogether different.
And it happened the same way every time.1 But it may take years to turn into a conscious power. And IN THE PRESENT CASE, the conscious power would mean the power to give or prevent death equally; to effect the necessary movement of forcesalmost almost an action on the cells, a mechanical action on the cells. With that power, you can give death, you can prevent death.
0 1963-03-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
These last few days, while walking in meditation, I said to the Lord, What do I have? I have no certainty, no foreknowledge, no absolute power, I have nothing. (I dont mean I, I mean the bodythis body.) The body was saying: Do you see my condition? I am still full of (it was complaining bitterly), oh, full of the silliest movements. Petty movements of apprehension, petty movements of uncertainty, petty movements of anxiety, petty movements of all kinds of very, very petty thingsthose who live a normal life dont take any notice, they dont know, but when you observe whats going on deep down with that discernment oh, mon petit! Its so petty, so petty, so petty.
Only one thing (which is not even absolute): a sort of equality that has come into the bodynot an equality of soul (laughing): an equality in the cells! It has come into the body. There is no longer that clash of joy and painalways and for everything, every minute, every reaction, You, Lord, to You, Lord. As though the cells were chanting, To You Lord, to You Lord, to You Lord. And well, thats how it is.
0 1963-03-30, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But its so dull! So dull, so lackluster, so unchanging, souninteresting, really dull that the slightest light shines like a bright star! The smallest, slightest, tiniest progress seems like an extraordinary thing. Like, for example, the attitude in certain cells towards a physical disorder which, naturally, like all physical disorders, tends to recur. The attitude in the cells changesnot the disorder (!), the disorder changes only because of the cells reaction, thats what makes it change; but it recurs with clockwork regularity thats its job. It is the way its received by the cells, their reaction to it, that brings about the change. And there is now a difference in the cells reaction. The result of my observation (an impersonal, general observation) is that there are two types of change (I cant call it progress), two types of change in the reaction: a change that goes on improving, in the sense that the reaction grows less sharp, the cells are less affected and become not only more conscious but more IN COMMAND of the reaction (something people are not generally conscious of, but which is what brings about the cure). And, on the other hand, deterioration: under the unrelenting attack, the cells panic, become more and more affected and afraid, and it eventually results in a terrible mess and a catastrophe. Well, the whole thing is observed, studied, experienced; but (laughing) in ordinary medicine its explained away in two words! You see, what I see now is the process they dont know the process, only the result. And, well, I notice that as the consciousness grows, the cells panic less and less and a sort of mastery develops. Of course, its a pleasing observation, if I may say so, but it doesnt even make me happy! It seems rather obvious. Also the proportion is such that to get a really telling result, it would take years and years and years! Oh, how many years! How slow things are.
So I dont feel impelled to talk about it. Id rather concern myself with something else I do the work, but thats all.
0 1963-04-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All this takes place in the material consciousness. Physically, the body has all the sensations but not the hemorrhage, you understand. But it does have the sensations, that is, the effects: all the sensory effects. It goes on for a while and then follows a whole curve. All right. Once the battle is over, I take a look and wonder (I observe the whole thing, I see my body, which has been fairly shaken, mind you), I say to myself, What in the world is all this? But just for a second, then I forget about it.
A few days afterwards, I receive a letter from someone very close, who has an ardent faith and really holds on to me with almost perfect faith, exceptional. In the letter: the whole story, the attack, the hemorrhage, how suddenly the being is SEIZED, the consciousness is SEIZED with an irresistible will, and hears words the very words that were uttered HERE. The result: saved (he was dying), saved, cured.
--
And I dont try to observe or study or understandGod knows! There is no need to understand: its self-evident.
Only one thing is always present: to keep intact and POWERFULLY conscious the sense of the divine Presence thats all. Thats the single concern of the cells.
0 1963-05-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the perception of a terrestrial movement more than anything else. So the details are unimportant in themselves, but they are symptomatic of the whole. I mean that difficulties, obstacles, battles, victories, advances are in themselves nothing but indications of a general movement: at times, the resistance and opposition are formidable; at other times there are fantastic advances or progress, seemingly miraculous. If you see everything together, you feel, you feel a sort of thrustan overall thrustin which a small cellular concentration seems really unimportant in itself; its importance diminishes with its lack of resistance, in the sense that the more it allows the Work to be done without hindering or distorting the movementwithout hindering it or making it more complicated the more the sense of its importance diminishes. In other words, it appears important only insofar as it hinders.
There is evidently a twofold movement: on one hand, something that tries to draw less and less the attention and concentration of others, that is, to lessen the sense of intermediary necessary for forces and thoughts to spread (more and more there is an attempt to undo that1), and on the other hand, an increaseat times prodigious, staggeringof power. Now and then (seldom, and I must say I dont at all try to make it happen more often), now and then, for a minutenot even a minute: a few secondscomes a sense of absolute Power; but immediately it is covered over, veiled. The effect at a distance is becoming greater and greater, but that is not the result of a conscious will I mean there is no attempt to have more power, none at all. Now and then, theres the observation (a very amusing observation, sometimes) that for a moment (but its a matter of seconds), the Power is absolute, and then the usual hodgepodge takes over again.
The effect on others is increasing considerably, though it too isnt the result of an attempt in that direction, not at all: those things are automatic. Yet, as I said, at certain seconds, there rises something that wills. Wills, but not in the ordinary way: something that its between knowing, seeing and willing. A little something that has something of all three and is as hard as diamond (oh, how can I explain it? I dont know, there are no words for it), it has something of the emotive vibration, but thats not it; it has nothing to do with anything intellectual, nothing at all; its neither intellectual vision nor supramental knowledge, thats not it, its something else. It is a diamondlike, live forcelive, living. And thats all-powerful. But extremely fleetingit immediately gets covered over by a heap of things, like visions, supramental vision, understanding, discernmentall this has become a constant mass, you understand.
0 1963-05-29, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And in as much as the very cells of the body no longer feel their separateness (that is almost entirely gone, even in the sensation), then something is done (or takes place), but without any self- observation. Somewhere (gesture above), something knows, wills and acts; somewhere else, there is a certain number of things in a state of happy receptivity, and absolutely, extraordinarily passive, not interfering. And the less it observes, the better. It remains in an inner contemplation, or rather turned to the Heights (a Height that is everywhere, of course, not just above), a Height perfectly luminous, perfectly conscious, perfectly effective. And thats all that is needed.
The less the consciousness is turned to the outside, the less it perceives obstacles, resistancesall that appears more and more unreal, transient, extremely relative.
In the necessary and unavoidable everyday contact with people, there is a growing perception that whatever the circumstance (which in itself is so simple, simpler than a child, you knowa perfect simplicity), as soon as it comes into contact with the terrestrial human atmosphere, it becomes ever so complicated! And quite unnecessarily. It seems as if the normal human occupation is to complicate all that could be extremely simple. I see this day after day, for all the small events of every day, of each and every minute. With certain consciousnesses as soon as it touches certain consciousnesses it is twisted, sometimes into terrible knots. Then it takes a fantastic labor to undo it the whole thing PERFECTLY unnecessary!
These last few days, in fact, I have been observing it all and wondering, Why are things this way? It must have been the meansprobably the most effective means, I dont knowto emerge from inertia, from tamas. If everything worked in that Simplicity, that perfect Quietness, well, human consciousness would be in such a state that it would have simply fallen asleep. It would have reached the state not even of an animal, perhaps of a slumbering plant!
That must be the reason.
0 1963-06-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And there is too an obscure mind of the body, of the very cells, molecules, corpuscles. Haeckel, the German materialist, spoke somewhere of the will in the atom, and recent science, dealing with the incalculable individual variation in the activity of the electrons, comes near to perceiving that this is not a figure but the shadow thrown by a secret reality. This body-mind is a very tangible truth; owing to its obscurity and mechanical clinging to past movements and facile oblivion and rejection of the new, we find in it one of the chief obstacles to permeation by the supermind Force and the transformation of the functioning of the body. On the other hand, once effectively converted, it will be one of the most precious instruments for the stabilisation of the supramental Light and Force in material Nature.
(XXII.340)
--- Overview of noun ob
The noun ob has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
1. Ob, Ob River ::: (a major river of western Siberia; flows generally northward and westward to the Gulf of Ob and the Kara Sea)
2. obstetrics, OB, tocology, midwifery ::: (the branch of medicine dealing with childbirth and care of the mother)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun ob
2 senses of ob
Sense 1
Ob, Ob River
INSTANCE OF=> river
=> stream, watercourse
=> body of water, water
=> thing
=> physical entity
=> entity
Sense 2
obstetrics, OB, tocology, midwifery
=> medicine, medical specialty
=> medical science
=> life science, bioscience
=> natural science
=> science, scientific discipline
=> discipline, subject, subject area, subject field, field, field of study, study, bailiwick
=> knowledge domain, knowledge base, domain
=> content, cognitive content, mental object
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun ob
1 of 2 senses of ob
Sense 2
obstetrics, OB, tocology, midwifery
=> fetology, foetology
=> perinatology
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun ob
2 senses of ob
Sense 1
Ob, Ob River
INSTANCE OF=> river
Sense 2
obstetrics, OB, tocology, midwifery
=> medicine, medical specialty
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun ob
2 senses of ob
Sense 1
Ob, Ob River
-> river
HAS INSTANCE=> Aare, Aar, Aare River
HAS INSTANCE=> Acheron, River Acheron
HAS INSTANCE=> Adige, River Adige
HAS INSTANCE=> Aire, River Aire, Aire River
HAS INSTANCE=> Alabama, Alabama River
HAS INSTANCE=> Allegheny, Allegheny River
HAS INSTANCE=> Amazon, Amazon River
HAS INSTANCE=> Amur, Amur River, Heilong Jiang, Heilong
HAS INSTANCE=> Angara, Angara River, Tunguska, Upper Tunguska
HAS INSTANCE=> Apalachicola, Apalachicola River
HAS INSTANCE=> Araguaia, Araguaia River, Araguaya, Araguaya River
HAS INSTANCE=> Aras, Araxes
HAS INSTANCE=> Arauca
HAS INSTANCE=> Argun, Argun River, Ergun He
HAS INSTANCE=> Arkansas, Arkansas River
HAS INSTANCE=> Arno, Arno River, River Arno
HAS INSTANCE=> Avon, River Avon, Upper Avon, Upper Avon River
HAS INSTANCE=> Avon, River Avon
HAS INSTANCE=> Bighorn, Bighorn River
HAS INSTANCE=> Big Sioux River
HAS INSTANCE=> Brahmaputra, Brahmaputra River
HAS INSTANCE=> Brazos, Brazos River
HAS INSTANCE=> Caloosahatchee, Caloosahatchee River
HAS INSTANCE=> Cam, River Cam, Cam River
HAS INSTANCE=> Canadian, Canadian River
HAS INSTANCE=> Cape Fear River
HAS INSTANCE=> Chao Phraya
HAS INSTANCE=> Charles, Charles River
HAS INSTANCE=> Chattahoochee, Chattahoochee River
HAS INSTANCE=> Cimarron, Cimarron River
HAS INSTANCE=> Clinch River
HAS INSTANCE=> Clyde
HAS INSTANCE=> Cocytus, River Cocytus
HAS INSTANCE=> Colorado, Colorado River
HAS INSTANCE=> Colorado, Colorado River
HAS INSTANCE=> Columbia, Columbia River
HAS INSTANCE=> Congo, Congo River, Zaire River
HAS INSTANCE=> Connecticut, Connecticut River
HAS INSTANCE=> Coosa, Coosa River
HAS INSTANCE=> Cumberland, Cumberland River
HAS INSTANCE=> Danube, Danube River, Danau
HAS INSTANCE=> Darling, Darling River
HAS INSTANCE=> Delaware, Delaware River
HAS INSTANCE=> Demerara
HAS INSTANCE=> Detroit River
HAS INSTANCE=> Dnieper, Dnieper River
HAS INSTANCE=> Don, Don River
HAS INSTANCE=> Ebro, Ebro River
HAS INSTANCE=> Elbe, Elbe River
HAS INSTANCE=> Elizabeth River
HAS INSTANCE=> Euphrates, Euphrates River
HAS INSTANCE=> Flint, Flint River
HAS INSTANCE=> Forth, Forth River
HAS INSTANCE=> Fox River
HAS INSTANCE=> Ganges, Ganges River
HAS INSTANCE=> Gan Jiang, Kan River
HAS INSTANCE=> Garonne, Garonne River
HAS INSTANCE=> Gila, Gila River
HAS INSTANCE=> Grand River
HAS INSTANCE=> Green, Green River
HAS INSTANCE=> Housatonic, Housatonic River
HAS INSTANCE=> Huang He, Hwang Ho, Yellow River
HAS INSTANCE=> Hudson, Hudson River
HAS INSTANCE=> IJssel, IJssel river
HAS INSTANCE=> Illinois River
HAS INSTANCE=> Indigirka, Indigirka River
HAS INSTANCE=> Indus, Indus River
HAS INSTANCE=> Irrawaddy, Irrawaddy River
HAS INSTANCE=> Irtish, Irtish River, Irtysh, Irtysh River
HAS INSTANCE=> Isere, Isere River
HAS INSTANCE=> James, James River
HAS INSTANCE=> James, James River
HAS INSTANCE=> Jordan, Jordan River
HAS INSTANCE=> Kanawha, Kanawha River
HAS INSTANCE=> Kansas, Kansas River, Kaw River
HAS INSTANCE=> Kasai, Kasai River, River Kasai
HAS INSTANCE=> Kissimmee, Kissimmee River
HAS INSTANCE=> Klamath, Klamath River
HAS INSTANCE=> Kura, Kura River
HAS INSTANCE=> Lehigh River
HAS INSTANCE=> Lena, Lena River
HAS INSTANCE=> Lethe, River Lethe
HAS INSTANCE=> Limpopo, Crocodile River
HAS INSTANCE=> Little Bighorn, Little Bighorn River, Little Horn
HAS INSTANCE=> Little Missouri, Little Missouri River
HAS INSTANCE=> Little Sioux River
HAS INSTANCE=> Little Wabash, Little Wabash River
HAS INSTANCE=> Loire, Loire River
HAS INSTANCE=> Mackenzie, Mackenzie River
HAS INSTANCE=> Madeira, Madeira River
HAS INSTANCE=> Magdalena, Magdalena River
HAS INSTANCE=> Mekong, Mekong River
HAS INSTANCE=> Merrimack, Merrimack River
HAS INSTANCE=> Meuse, Meuse River
HAS INSTANCE=> Milk, Milk River
HAS INSTANCE=> Mississippi, Mississippi River
HAS INSTANCE=> Missouri, Missouri River
HAS INSTANCE=> Mobile, Mobile River
HAS INSTANCE=> Mohawk River
HAS INSTANCE=> Monongahela, Monongahela River
HAS INSTANCE=> Moreau River
HAS INSTANCE=> Murray, Murray River
HAS INSTANCE=> Murrumbidgee, Murrumbidgee River
HAS INSTANCE=> Namoi, Namoi River
HAS INSTANCE=> Nan, Nan River
HAS INSTANCE=> Neckar, Neckar River
HAS INSTANCE=> Neosho, Neosho River
HAS INSTANCE=> Neva, Neva River
HAS INSTANCE=> New River
HAS INSTANCE=> Niagara, Niagara River
HAS INSTANCE=> Niger, Niger River
HAS INSTANCE=> Nile, Nile River
HAS INSTANCE=> Niobrara, Niobrara River
HAS INSTANCE=> North Platte, North Platte River
HAS INSTANCE=> Ob, Ob River
HAS INSTANCE=> Oder, Oder River
HAS INSTANCE=> Ohio, Ohio River
HAS INSTANCE=> Orange, Orange River
HAS INSTANCE=> Orinoco, Orinoco River
HAS INSTANCE=> Osage, Osage River
HAS INSTANCE=> Outaouais, Ottawa, Ottawa river
HAS INSTANCE=> Ouachita, Ouachita River
HAS INSTANCE=> Ouse, Ouse River
HAS INSTANCE=> Parana, Parana River
HAS INSTANCE=> Parnaiba, Parnahiba
HAS INSTANCE=> Pearl River
HAS INSTANCE=> Pecos, Pecos River
HAS INSTANCE=> Pee Dee, Pee Dee River
HAS INSTANCE=> Penobscot, Penobscot River
HAS INSTANCE=> Ping, Ping River
HAS INSTANCE=> Platte, Platte River
HAS INSTANCE=> Po, Po River
HAS INSTANCE=> Potomac, Potomac River
HAS INSTANCE=> Purus, Purus River
HAS INSTANCE=> Rappahannock, Rappahannock River
HAS INSTANCE=> Red, Red River
HAS INSTANCE=> Republican, Republican River
HAS INSTANCE=> Rhine, Rhine River, Rhein
HAS INSTANCE=> Rhone, Rhone River
HAS INSTANCE=> Rio Grande, Rio Bravo
HAS INSTANCE=> Ruhr, Ruhr River
HAS INSTANCE=> Russian River
HAS INSTANCE=> Saale, Saale River
HAS INSTANCE=> Sabine, Sabine River
HAS INSTANCE=> Sacramento River
HAS INSTANCE=> Saint Francis, Saint Francis River, St. Francis, St. Francis River
HAS INSTANCE=> Saint John, Saint John River, St. John, St. John River
HAS INSTANCE=> Saint Johns, Saint Johns River, St. Johns, St. Johns River
HAS INSTANCE=> Saint Lawrence, Saint Lawrence River, St. Lawrence, St. Lawrence River
HAS INSTANCE=> Salmon, Salmon River
HAS INSTANCE=> Sambre, Sambre River
HAS INSTANCE=> San Joaquin River
HAS INSTANCE=> Sao Francisco
HAS INSTANCE=> Saone, Saone River
HAS INSTANCE=> Savannah, Savannah River
HAS INSTANCE=> Scheldt, Scheldt River
HAS INSTANCE=> Seine, Seine River
HAS INSTANCE=> Severn, River Severn, Severn River
HAS INSTANCE=> Severn, Severn River
HAS INSTANCE=> Seyhan, Seyhan River
HAS INSTANCE=> Shari, Shari River, Chari, Chari River
HAS INSTANCE=> Shenandoah River
HAS INSTANCE=> Snake, Snake River
HAS INSTANCE=> South Platte, South Platte River
HAS INSTANCE=> Styx, River Styx
HAS INSTANCE=> Sun River
HAS INSTANCE=> Suriname River, Surinam River
HAS INSTANCE=> Susquehanna, Susquehanna River
HAS INSTANCE=> Tagus, Tagus River
HAS INSTANCE=> Tallapoosa, Tallapoosa River
HAS INSTANCE=> Tennessee, Tennessee River
HAS INSTANCE=> Thames, River Thames, Thames River
HAS INSTANCE=> Tiber, Tevere
HAS INSTANCE=> Tigris, Tigris River
HAS INSTANCE=> Tocantins, Tocantins River
HAS INSTANCE=> Tombigbee, Tombigbee River
HAS INSTANCE=> Trent, River Trent, Trent River
HAS INSTANCE=> Trinity River
HAS INSTANCE=> Tunguska, Lower Tunguska
HAS INSTANCE=> Tunguska, Stony Tunguska
HAS INSTANCE=> Tyne, River Tyne, Tyne River
HAS INSTANCE=> Uruguay River
HAS INSTANCE=> Vetluga, Vetluga River
HAS INSTANCE=> Vistula, Vistula River
HAS INSTANCE=> Volga, Volga River
HAS INSTANCE=> Volkhov, Volkhov River
HAS INSTANCE=> Volta
HAS INSTANCE=> Wabash, Wabash River
HAS INSTANCE=> Weser, Weser River
HAS INSTANCE=> White, White River
HAS INSTANCE=> Willamette, Willamette River
HAS INSTANCE=> Wisconsin, Wisconsin River
HAS INSTANCE=> Yalu, Yalu River
HAS INSTANCE=> Chang Jiang, Changjiang, Chang, Yangtze, Yangtze River, Yangtze Kiang
HAS INSTANCE=> Yazoo, Yazoo River
HAS INSTANCE=> Yellowstone, Yellowstone River
HAS INSTANCE=> Yenisei, Yenisei River, Yenisey, Yenisey River
HAS INSTANCE=> Yukon, Yukon River
HAS INSTANCE=> Zambezi, Zambezi River
HAS INSTANCE=> Zhu Jiang, Canton River, Chu Kiang, Pearl River
Sense 2
obstetrics, OB, tocology, midwifery
-> medicine, medical specialty
=> allergology
=> anesthesiology
=> angiology
=> bacteriology
=> biomedicine
=> biomedicine
=> cardiology
=> dentistry, dental medicine, odontology
=> prosthetics
=> dermatology
=> emergency medicine
=> endocrinology
=> epidemiology
=> forensic medicine, forensic pathology
=> gastroenterology
=> geriatrics, gerontology
=> gynecology, gynaecology
=> hematology, haematology
=> hygiene, hygienics
=> immunology
=> internal medicine, general medicine
=> nephrology
=> nuclear medicine
=> neurology, clinical neurology
=> neuropsychiatry
=> nosology, diagnostics
=> obstetrics, OB, tocology, midwifery
=> oncology
=> ophthalmology
=> otology
=> pharmacology, pharmacological medicine, materia medica
=> pharmacy, pharmaceutics
=> psychiatry, psychopathology, psychological medicine
=> pediatrics, paediatrics, pediatric medicine, pedology
=> podiatry, chiropody
=> proctology
=> rheumatology
=> rhinolaryngology, otorhinolaryngology, otolaryngology
=> space medicine
=> sports medicine
=> therapeutics
=> thoracic medicine
=> traumatology, accident surgery
=> tropical medicine
=> urology, urogenital medicine
=> veterinary medicine
=> virology
--- Grep of noun obs
aletta jacobs
gobs
jacobs
jane jacobs
obscenity
obscurantism
obscurantist
obscureness
obscurity
obsequiousness
observance
observation
observation dome
observation post
observation station
observation tower
observatory
observed fire
observer
observer's meridian
obsession
obsessive
obsessive-compulsive
obsessive-compulsive disorder
obsessive-compulsive personality
obsessiveness
obsessivity
obsidian
obsolescence
obsoleteness
obstacle
obstacle race
obstetrical delivery
obstetrical toad
obstetrician
obstetrics
obstinacy
obstinance
obstipation
obstreperousness
obstructer
obstruction
obstruction of justice
obstructionism
obstructionist
obstructive shock
obstructor
obstruent
w. w. jacobs
william wymark jacobs
Grep of noun ob
bay of ob
blob
blowjob
bob
boob
book of job
captain bob
carob
coaching job
cob
corn cob
corncob
doob
doorknob
fob
francois jacob
glob
gob
gulf of ob
hand job
hatchet job
heartthrob
hob
inside job
jacob
job
kabob
knob
kob
kobus kob
lob
lynch mob
may blob
mob
nabob
nob
nose job
ob
ob river
obadiah
obbligato
obduracy
obeah
obeche
obechi
obedience
obedience plant
obedient plant
obeisance
obelion
obelisk
oberson
obesity
obesity diet
obfuscation
obi
obidoxime chloride
obiism
obit
obiter dictum
obituary
object
object-oriented database
object-oriented database management system
object-oriented programing
object-oriented programing language
object-oriented programming
object-oriented programming language
object ball
object code
object glass
object language
object lens
object lesson
object of a preposition
object of the verb
object program
object recognition
objectification
objection
objectionableness
objective
objective case
objective lens
objectiveness
objectivity
objector
objet d'art
objurgation
oblanceolate leaf
oblate
oblateness
oblation
obligate anaerobe
obligation
obligato
obliger
obligingness
oblique
oblique angle
oblique bandage
oblique case
oblique triangle
oblique vein of the left atrium
obliqueness
obliquity
obliteration
obliterator
oblivion
obliviousness
oblong
oblong leaf
oblong woodsia
oblongness
obloquy
obnoxiousness
oboe
oboe d'amore
oboe da caccia
oboist
obolus
obovate leaf
obscenity
obscurantism
obscurantist
obscureness
obscurity
obsequiousness
observance
observation
observation dome
observation post
observation station
observation tower
observatory
observed fire
observer
observer's meridian
obsession
obsessive
obsessive-compulsive
obsessive-compulsive disorder
obsessive-compulsive personality
obsessiveness
obsessivity
obsidian
obsolescence
obsoleteness
obstacle
obstacle race
obstetrical delivery
obstetrical toad
obstetrician
obstetrics
obstinacy
obstinance
obstipation
obstreperousness
obstructer
obstruction
obstruction of justice
obstructionism
obstructionist
obstructive shock
obstructor
obstruent
obtainment
obtention
obtrusiveness
obturator
obturator vein
obtuse-angled triangle
obtuse angle
obtuse leaf
obtuse triangle
obtuseness
obverse
obviation
obviousness
plumb bob
pob
skibob
slob
snob
snow job
sob
stob
swob
thingamabob
thingmabob
thingumabob
throb
yob