TERMS STARTING WITH
Receptivity: (Lat. recipere, to take back) The collective name for receptive or sensory functions of the mind in contrast to its active or motor functions. In the Kantian terminology, receptivity is defined as the faculty of receiving representations in contrast to spontaneity, the faculty of knowing an object by means of concepts. See Kant, Critique of Pare Reason, A 50-B 74. -- L.W.
Receptivity
Receptivity to the Force ; I mean a certain receptivity in the consciousness — mind, vital, physical, whichever is needed.
receptivity ::: n. --> The state or quality of being receptive.
The power or capacity of receiving impressions, as those of the external senses.
RECEPTIVITY. ::: The capacity of admitting and retaining the Divine workings.
receptivity ::: the power to receive the Divine Force and to feel its presence and allow it to work, guiding one's sight and will and action; the capacity of admitting and retaining the divine workings. "One may be receptive, yet externally unaware of how things are being done and of what is being done. The force works...behind the veil; the results remain packed behind and come out afterwards, often slowly, little by little" [S24:1361]
TERMS ANYWHERE
3. receptivity/acquiescence (S. ksānti; T. bzod pa; C. ren 忍)
acalA. (T. mi g.yo ba; C. budong di; J. fudoji; K. pudong chi 不動地). In Sanskrit, "immovable" or "steadfast"; the name for the eighth of the ten BODHISATTVA grounds or stages (BHuMI) according to the DAsABHuMIKASuTRA. At this level of the path (MARGA), the bodhisattva realizes the acquiescence or receptivity to the nonproduction of dharmas (ANUTPATTIKADHARMAKsANTI) and is no longer perturbed by either cause or absence of cause. The eighth-stage bodhisattva is able to project different transformation bodies (NIRMAnAKAYA) anywhere in the universe. This bhumi is sometimes correlated with mastery of the eighth perfection of resolve or aspiration (PRAnIDHANAPARAMITA). According to some commentators, upon reaching this bhumi, the bodhisattva has abandoned all of the afflictive obstructions (KLEsAVARAnA) and is thus liberated from any further rebirth in a realm where he would be subject to defilement; for this reason, the eighth, ninth, and tenth bhumis are sometimes called "pure bhumis."
ANANDA. ::: Delight; essential principle of delight; bliss; spiritual ecstasy; the bliss of the Spirit which is the secret source· and support of all existence.
Ānanda is the secret delight from which all things are born, by which all is sustained in existence and to which all can rise in the spiritual culmination.
It is the Divine Bliss which comes from above. It is not joy or pleasure, but something self-existent, pure and quite beyond what any joy or pleasure can be.
Something greater than peace or joy, something that, like Truth and Light, is the very nature of the supramental Divine. It can come by frequent inrushes or descents, partially or for a time, but it cannot -remain in the system so long as the system has not been prepared for it.
It can come not only with its fullest intensity but with a more enduring persistence when the mind is at peace and the heart delivered from ordinary joy and sorrow. If the mind and heart are restless, changeful, unquiet, Ānanda of a kind may come, but it is mixed with vital excitement and cannot abide. One must get peace and calm fixed in the consciousness first, then there is a solid basis on which Ānanda can spread itself and in its turn become an enduring part of the consciousness and the nature.
Ānanda (ascension into) ::: It is quite impossible to ascend to the real Ānanda plane (except in a profound trance), until after the supramental consciousness has been entered, realised and possessed; but it is quite possible and normal to feel some form of Ānanda consciousness on any level. This consciousness, wherever it is felt, is a derivation from the Ānanda plane, but it is very much diminished in power and modified to suit the lesser power of receptivity of the inferior levels.
Ānanda (divine) in the physical ::: self-existent in its essence, its manifestation is dependent only on an inner union with the Divine.
Ānanda (of the Brahman) ::: there is an absoluteness of immutable ecstasy in it, a concentrated intensity of silent and inalienable rapture.
anutpattikadharmaksAnti. (T. mi skye ba'i chos la bzod pa; C. wushengfaren; J. mushobonin; K. musaeng pobin 無生法忍). In Sanskrit, the "acquiescence" or "receptivity" "to the nonproduction of dharmas." In the MAHAYANA, a BODHISATTVA is said to have attained the stage of "nonretrogression" (AVAIVARTIKA) when he develops an unswerving conviction that all dharmas are "unproduced" (ANUTPADA) and "empty" (suNYATA) in the sense that they lack any intrinsic nature (NIḤSVABHAVA). This stage of understanding has been variously described as occurring on either the first or eighth BHuMIs of the bodhisattva path. This conviction concerning emptiness is characterized as a kind of "acquiescence," "receptivity," or "forbearance" (KsANTI), because it sustains the bodhisattva on the long and arduous path of benefiting others, instilling an indefatigable equipoise, and preventing him from falling back into the selfish preoccupation with personal liberation. The bodhisattva "bears" or "acquiesces to" the difficulty of actively entering the world to save others by residing in the realization that ultimately there is no one saving others and no others being saved. In other words, all dharmas-including sentient beings and the rounds of rebirth-are originally and eternally "unproduced" or "tranquil." This realization of nonduality-of the self and others, and of SAMSARA and NIRVAnA-inoculates the bodhisattva from being tempted into a premature attainment of "cessation," wherein one would escape from personal suffering through the extinction of continual existence, but at the cost of being deprived of the chance to attain the even greater goal of buddhahood through sustained practice along the bodhisattva path. AnutpattikadharmaksAnti is sometimes used in a nonpolemical context, where it refers both to the MahAyAna realization of the truth of "emptiness" and to the non-MahAyAna realization of no-self (ANATMAN) and the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. In a non-MahAyAna context, the term corresponds to the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA).
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.
Asamvedana: Non-receptivity of the mind; imperishable state of quiescent Jnana; Nirvikalpa Samadhi; thoughtless state.
asamvedana&
Aspiration ::: Aspiration in everyone, no matter who it is, has the same power. But the effect of this aspiration is different. For aspiration is aspiration: if you have aspiration, in itself it has a power. Only, this aspiration calls down an answer, and this answer, the effect, which is the result of the aspiration, depends upon each one, for it depends upon his receptivity. I know many people of this kind: they say, "Oh! but I aspire all the time and still I receive nothing." It is impossible that they should receive nothing, in the sense that the answer is sure to come. But it is they who do not receive. The answer comes but they are not receptive, so they receive nothing.. . . When you have an aspiration, a very active aspiration, your aspiration is going to do its work. It is going to call down the answer to what you aspire for. But if, later, you begin to think of something else or are not attentive or receptive, you do not even notice that your aspiration has received an answer. This happens very frequently. So people tell you: "I aspire and I don't receive anything, I get no answer!" Yes, you do have an answer but you are not aware of it, because you continue to be active in this way, like a mill turning all the time.
Ref: CWM, Vol. 06, Page:115
::: "Aspiration is to call the forces. When the forces have answered, there is a natural state of quiet receptivity concentrated but spontaneous.” Letters on Yoga
“Aspiration is to call the forces. When the forces have answered, there is a natural state of quiet receptivity concentrated but spontaneous.” Letters on Yoga
ASPIRATION. ::: The call in the being for the Divine or for the higher things that belong to the Divine Consciousness.
A call to the Divine; aspiration for the discovery and embodiment of the Divine Truth and to nothing else whatever.
An aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing- the mind’s will, the heart’s seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature.
There is no need of words in aspiration. It can be expressed or unexpressed in words.
Aspiration need not be in the form of thought; it can be a feeling within that remains even when the mind is attending to the work.
Aspiration is to call the forces. When the forces have answered, there is a natural state of quiet receptivity concentrated but spontaneous.
In aspiration there is a self-giving for the higher consciousness to descend and take possession ; the more intense the call, the greater the self-giving.
Aspiration keeps the consciousness open, prevents an inert state of acquiescence in all that comes and exercises a sort of pull on the sources of the higher consciousness.
The intensity of aspiration brings the intensity of the experience and by repeated intensity of the experience, the change. It is the psychic that gives the true aspiration; if the vital is purified and subjected to the psychic, then the vital gives intensity.
Aspiration in the physical consciousness ::: the physical consciousness is always in everybody in its own nature a little inert and in it a constant strong aspiration is not natural, it has to be created. But first there must be the opening, a purification, a fixed quietude, otherwise the physical vital will turn the strong aspiration into over-eagerness and impatience or rather it will try to give it that turn.
Birth moment: Astrologers use this term for what they generally regard as the true moment of birth: the moment of the first inspiration of breath after ligation of the umbilical cord, when the infant ceases to receive blood conditioned through the mother’s receptivities, and must grow channels of receptivity to cosmic frequencies that accord with those present in the Earth’s magnetic field, and through these receptivities it begins to condition its own blood.
Receptivity: (Lat. recipere, to take back) The collective name for receptive or sensory functions of the mind in contrast to its active or motor functions. In the Kantian terminology, receptivity is defined as the faculty of receiving representations in contrast to spontaneity, the faculty of knowing an object by means of concepts. See Kant, Critique of Pare Reason, A 50-B 74. -- L.W.
Receptivity
Receptivity to the Force ; I mean a certain receptivity in the consciousness — mind, vital, physical, whichever is needed.
But since no human system has this endless receptivity and unfailing capacity, the supramental Yoga can succeed only if the
commune ::: 1. To communicate intimately with; be in a state of heightened, intimate receptivity. 2. To be in intimate communication or rapport. communes, communed, communing.
CULTURE, STAGE OF The third of man&
dasabhumi. (T. sa bcu; C. shidi; J. juji; K. sipchi 十地). In Sanskrit, lit., "ten grounds," "ten stages"; the ten highest reaches of the bodhisattva path (MARGA) leading to buddhahood. The most systematic and methodical presentation of the ten BHuMIs appears in the DAsABHuMIKASuTRA ("Ten Bhumis Sutra"), where each of the ten stages is correlated with seminal doctrines of mainstream Buddhism-such as the four means of conversion (SAMGRAHAVASTU) on the first four bhumis, the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (CATVARY ARYASATYANI) on the fifth bhumi, and the chain of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA) on the sixth bhumi, etc.-as well as with mastery of one of a list of ten perfections (PARAMITA) completed in the course of training as a bodhisattva. The list of the ten bhumis of the Dasabhumikasutra, which becomes standard in most MahAyAna traditions, is as follows: (1) PRAMUDITA (joyful) corresponds to the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA) and the bodhisattva's first direct realization of emptiness (suNYATA). The bodhisattva masters on this bhumi the perfection of giving (DANAPARAMITA), learning to give away those things most precious to him, including his wealth, his wife and family, and even his body (see DEHADANA); (2) VIMALA (immaculate, stainless) marks the inception of the path of cultivation (BHAVANAMARGA), where the bodhisattva develops all the superlative traits of character incumbent on a buddha through mastering the perfection of morality (sĪLAPARAMITA); (3) PRABHAKARĪ (luminous, splendrous), where the bodhisattva masters all the various types of meditative experiences, such as DHYANA, SAMAPATTI, and the BRAHMAVIHARA; despite the emphasis on meditation in this bhumi, it comes to be identified instead with the perfection of patience (KsANTIPARAMITA), ostensibly because the bodhisattva is willing to endure any and all suffering in order to master his practices; (4) ARCIsMATĪ (radiance, effulgence), where the flaming radiance of the thirty-seven factors pertaining to enlightenment (BODHIPAKsIKADHARMA) becomes so intense that it incinerates obstructions (AVARAnA) and afflictions (KLEsA), giving the bodhisattva inexhaustible energy in his quest for enlightenment and thus mastering the perfection of vigor or energy (VĪRYAPARAMITA); (5) SUDURJAYA (invincibility, hard-to-conquer), where the bodhisattva comprehends the various permutations of truth (SATYA), including the four noble truths, the two truths (SATYADVAYA) of provisional (NEYARTHA) and absolute (NĪTARTHA), and masters the perfection of meditative absorption (DHYANAPARAMITA); (6) ABHIMUKHĪ (immediacy, face-to-face), where, as the name implies, the bodhisattva stands at the intersection between SAMSARA and NIRVAnA, turning away from the compounded dharmas of saMsAra and turning to face the profound wisdom of the buddhas, thus placing him "face-to-face" with both the compounded (SAMSKṚTA) and uncompounded (ASAMSKṚTA) realms; this bhumi is correlated with mastery of the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNAPARAMITA); (7) DuRAnGAMA (far-reaching, transcendent), which marks the bodhisattva's freedom from the four perverted views (VIPARYASA) and his mastery of the perfection of expedients (UPAYAPARAMITA), which he uses to help infinite numbers of sentient beings; (8) ACALA (immovable, steadfast), which is marked by the bodhisattva's acquiescence or receptivity to the nonproduction of dharmas (ANUTPATTIKADHARMAKsANTI); because he is now able to project transformation bodies (NIRMAnAKAYA) anywhere in the universe to help sentient beings, this bhumi is correlated with mastery of the perfection of aspiration or resolve (PRAnIDHANAPARAMITA); (9) SADHUMATĪ (eminence, auspicious intellect), where the bodhisattva acquires the four analytical knowledges (PRATISAMVID), removing any remaining delusions regarding the use of the supernatural knowledges or powers (ABHIJNA), and giving the bodhisattva complete autonomy in manipulating all dharmas through the perfection of power (BALAPARAMITA); and (10) DHARMAMEGHA (cloud of dharma), the final bhumi, where the bodhisattva becomes autonomous in interacting with all material and mental factors, and gains all-pervasive knowledge that is like a cloud producing a rain of dharma that nurtures the entire world; this stage is also described as being pervaded by meditative absorption (DHYANA) and mastery of the use of codes (DHARAnĪ), just as the sky is filled by clouds; here the bodhisattva achieves the perfection of knowledge (JNANAPARAMITA). As the bodhisattva ascends through the ten bhumis, he acquires extraordinary powers, which CANDRAKĪRTI describes in the eleventh chapter of his MADHYAMAKAVATARA. On the first bhumi, the bodhisattva can, in a single instant (1) see one hundred buddhas, (2) be blessed by one hundred buddhas and understand their blessings, (3) live for one hundred eons, (4) see the past and future in those one hundred eons, (5) enter into and rise from one hundred SAMADHIs, (6) vibrate one hundred worlds, (7) illuminate one hundred worlds, (8) bring one hundred beings to spiritual maturity using emanations, (9) go to one hundred BUDDHAKsETRA, (10), open one hundred doors of the doctrine (DHARMAPARYAYA), (11) display one hundred versions of his body, and (12) surround each of those bodies with one hundred bodhisattvas. The number one hundred increases exponentially as the bodhisattva proceeds; on the second bhumi it becomes one thousand, on the third one hundred thousand, and so on; on the tenth, it is a number equal to the particles of an inexpressible number of buddhaksetra. As the bodhisattva moves from stage to stage, he is reborn as the king of greater and greater realms, ascending through the Buddhist cosmos. Thus, on the first bhumi he is born as king of JAMBUDVĪPA, on the second of the four continents, on the third as the king of TRAYATRIMsA, and so on, such that on the tenth he is born as the lord of AKANIstHA. ¶ According to the rather more elaborate account in chapter eleven of the CHENG WEISHI LUN (*VijNaptimAtratAsiddhi), each of the ten bhumis is correlated with the attainment of one of the ten types of suchness (TATHATA); these are accomplished by discarding one of the ten kinds of obstructions (Avarana) by mastering one of the ten perfections (pAramitA). The suchnesses achieved on each of the ten bhumis are, respectively: (1) universal suchness (sarvatragatathatA; C. bianxing zhenru), (2) supreme suchness (paramatathatA; C. zuisheng zhenru), (3) ubiquitous, or "supreme outflow" suchness (paramanisyandatathatA; C. shengliu zhenru), (4) unappropriated suchness (aparigrahatathatA; C. wusheshou zhenru), (5) undifferentiated suchness (abhinnajAtīyatathatA; C. wubie zhenru), (6) the suchness that is devoid of maculations and contaminants (asaMklistAvyavadAtatathatA; C. wuranjing zhenru), (7) the suchness of the undifferentiated dharma (abhinnatathatA; C. fawubie zhenru), (8) the suchness that neither increases nor decreases (anupacayApacayatathatA; C. buzengjian), (9) the suchness that serves as the support of the mastery of wisdom (jNAnavasitAsaMnisrayatathatA; C. zhizizai suoyi zhenru), and (10) the suchness that serves as the support for mastery over actions (kriyAdivasitAsaMnisrayatathatA; C. yezizai dengsuoyi). These ten suchnessses are obtained by discarding, respectively: (1) the obstruction of the common illusions of the unenlightened (pṛthagjanatvAvarana; C. yishengxing zhang), (2) the obstruction of the deluded (mithyApratipattyAvarana; C. xiexing zhang), (3) the obstruction of dullness (dhandhatvAvarana; C. andun zhang), (4) the obstruction of the manifestation of subtle afflictions (suksmaklesasamudAcArAvarana; C. xihuo xianxing zhang), (5) the obstruction of the lesser HĪNAYANA ideal of parinirvAna (hīnayAnaparinirvAnAvarana; C. xiasheng niepan zhang), (6) the obstruction of the manifestation of coarse characteristics (sthulanimittasamudAcArAvarana; C. cuxiang xianxing zhang), (7) the obstruction of the manifestation of subtle characteristics (suksmanimittasamudAcArAvarana; C. xixiang xianxing zhang), (8) the obstruction of the continuance of activity even in the immaterial realm that is free from characteristics (nirnimittAbhisaMskArAvarana; C. wuxiang jiaxing zhang), (9) the obstruction of not desiring to act on behalf of others' salvation (parahitacaryAkAmanAvarana; C. buyuxing zhang), and (10) the obstruction of not yet acquiring mastery over all things (fa weizizai zhang). These ten obstructions are overcome by practicing, respectively: (1) the perfection of giving (dAnapAramitA), (2) the perfection of morality (sīlapAramitA), (3) the perfection of forbearance (ksAntipAramitA), (4) the perfection of energetic effort (vīryapAramitA), (5) the perfection of meditation (dhyAnapAramitA), (6) the perfection of wisdom (prajNApAramitA), (7) the perfection of expedient means (upAyapAramitA), (8) the perfection of the vow (to attain enlightenment) (pranidhAnapAramitA), (9) the perfection of power (balapAramitA), and (10) the perfection of knowledge (jNAnapAramitA). ¶ The eighth, ninth, and tenth bhumis are sometimes called "pure bhumis," because, according to some commentators, upon reaching the eighth bhumi, the bodhisattva has abandoned all of the afflictive obstructions (KLEsAVARAnA) and is thus liberated from any further rebirth. It appears that there were originally only seven bhumis, as is found in the BODHISATTVABHuMI, where the seven bhumis overlap with an elaborate system of thirteen abidings or stations (vihAra), some of the names of which (such as pramuditA) appear also in the standard bhumi schema of the Dasabhumikasutra. Similarly, though a listing of ten bhumis appears in the MAHAVASTU, a text associated with the LOKOTTARAVADA subsect of the MAHASAMGHIKA school, only seven are actually discussed there, and the names given to the stages are completely different from those found in the later Dasabhumikasutra; the stages there are also a retrospective account of how past buddhas have achieved enlightenment, rather than a prescription for future practice. ¶ The dasabhumi schema is sometimes correlated with other systems of classifying the bodhisattva path. In the five levels of the YogAcAra school's outline of the bodhisattva path (PANCAMARGA; C. wuwei), the first bhumi (pramuditA) is presumed to be equivalent to the level of proficiency (*prativedhAvasthA; C. tongdawei), the third of the five levels; while the second bhumi onward corresponds to the level of cultivation (C. xiuxiwei), the fourth of the five levels. The first bhumi is also correlated with the path of vision (DARsANAMARGA), while the second and higher bhumis correlate with the path of cultivation (BHAVANAMARGA). In terms of the doctrine of the five acquiescences (C. ren; S. ksAnti) listed in the RENWANG JING, the first through the third bhumis are equivalent to the second acquiescence, the acquiescence of belief (C. xinren; J. shinnin; K. sinin); the fourth through the sixth stages to the third, the acquiescence of obedience (C. shunren; J. junnin; K. sunin); the seventh through the ninth stages to the fourth, the acquiescence to the nonproduction of dharmas (anutpattikadharmaksAnti; C. wushengren; J. mushonin; K. musaengin); the tenth stage to the fifth and final acquiescence, to extinction (jimieren; J. jakumetsunin; K. chongmyorin). FAZANG's HUAYANJING TANXUAN JI ("Notes Plumbing the Profundities of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA") classifies the ten bhumis in terms of practice by correlating the first bhumi to the practice of faith (sRADDHA), the second bhumi to the practice of morality (sĪLA), the third bhumi to the practice of concentration (SAMADHI), and the fourth bhumi and higher to the practice of wisdom (PRAJNA). In the same text, Fazang also classifies the bhumis in terms of vehicle (YANA) by correlating the first through third bhumis with the vehicle of humans and gods (rentiansheng), the fourth through the seventh stage to the three vehicles (TRIYANA), and the eighth through tenth bhumis to the one vehicle (EKAYANA). ¶ Besides the list of the dasabhumi outlined in the Dasabhumikasutra, the MAHAPRAJNAPARAMITASuTRA and the DAZHIDU LUN (*MahAprajNApAramitAsAstra) list a set of ten bhumis, called the "bhumis in common" (gongdi), which are shared between all the three vehicles of sRAVAKAs, PRATYEKABUDDHAs, and bodhisattvas. These are the bhumis of: (1) dry wisdom (suklavidarsanAbhumi; C. ganhuidi), which corresponds to the level of three worthies (sanxianwei, viz., ten abidings, ten practices, ten transferences) in the srAvaka vehicle and the initial arousal of the thought of enlightenment (prathamacittotpAda) in the bodhisattva vehicle; (2) lineage (gotrabhumi; C. xingdi, zhongxingdi), which corresponds to the stage of the "aids to penetration" (NIRVEDHABHAGĪYA) in the srAvaka vehicle, and the final stage of the ten transferences in the fifty-two bodhisattva stages; (3) eight acquiescences (astamakabhumi; C. barendi), the causal incipiency of stream-enterer (SROTAAPANNA) in the case of the srAvaka vehicle and the acquiescence to the nonproduction of dharmas (anutpattikadharmaksAnti) in the bodhisattva path (usually corresponding to the first or the seventh through ninth bhumis of the bodhisattva path); (4) vision (darsanabhumi; C. jiandi), corresponding to the fruition or fulfillment (PHALA) level of the stream-enterer in the srAvaka vehicle and the stage of nonretrogression (AVAIVARTIKA), in the bodhisattva path (usually corresponding to the completion of the first or the eighth bhumi); (5) diminishment (tanubhumi; C. baodi), corresponding to the fulfillment level (phala) of stream-enterer or the causal incipiency of the once-returner (sakṛdAgAmin) in the srAvaka vehicle, or to the stage following nonretrogression before the attainment of buddhahood in the bodhisattva path; (6) freedom from desire (vītarAgabhumi; C. liyudi), equivalent to the fulfillment level of the nonreturner in the srAvaka vehicle, or to the stage where a bodhisattva attains the five supernatural powers (ABHIJNA); (7) complete discrimination (kṛtAvibhumi), equivalent to the fulfillment level of the ARHAT in the srAvaka vehicle, or to the stage of buddhahood (buddhabhumi) in the bodhisattva path (buddhabhumi) here refers not to the fruition of buddhahood but merely to the state in which a bodhisattva has the ability to exhibit the eighteen qualities distinctive to the buddhas (AVEnIKA[BUDDHA]DHARMA); (8) pratyekabuddha (pratyekabuddhabhumi); (9) bodhisattva (bodhisattvabhumi), the whole bodhisattva career prior to the fruition of buddhahood; (10) buddhahood (buddhabhumi), the stage of the fruition of buddhahood, when the buddha is completely equipped with all the buddhadharmas, such as omniscience (SARVAKARAJNATĀ). As is obvious in this schema, despite being called the bhumis "common" to all three vehicles, the shared stages continue only up to the seventh stage; the eighth through tenth stages are exclusive to the bodhisattva vehicle. This anomaly suggests that the last three bhumis of the bodhisattvayāna were added to an earlier srāvakayāna seven-bhumi scheme. ¶ The presentation of the bhumis in the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ commentarial tradition following the ABHISAMAYĀLAMKĀRA uses the names found in the Dasabhumikasutra for the bhumis and understands them all as bodhisattva levels; it introduces the names of the ten bhumis found in the Dazhidu lun as levels that bodhisattvas have to pass beyond (S. atikrama) on the tenth bodhisattva level, which it calls the buddhabhumi. This tenth bodhisattva level is not the level of an actual buddha, but the level on which a bodhisattva has to transcend attachment (abhinivesa) to not only the levels reached by the four sets of noble persons (ĀRYAPUDGALA) but to the bodhisattvabhumis as well. See also BHuMI.
dharmaksānti. (T. chos bzod; C. faren; J. honin; K. pobin 法忍). In Sanskrit, "acquiescence," "receptivity," or "forbearance" (KsĀNTI) to the "truth" or the "doctrine" (DHARMA); a term that occurs in SARVĀSTIVĀDA descriptions of the path of vision (DARsANAMĀRGA). In this path schema, the path of vision consists of fifteen thought moments, with a subsequent sixteenth moment marking the beginning of the path of cultivation (BHĀVANĀMĀRGA). There are four moments of "acquiescence" to, or realization of, the "dharmas" of each of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvāry āryasatyāni). The first moment is that of acquiescence to the truth of suffering with regard to the sensuous realm (KĀMADHĀTU); in this moment, the afflictions (KLEsA) of the sensuous realm associated with the truth of suffering are abandoned. This is followed by a moment of doctrinal knowledge (dharmajNāna) of the truth of suffering with regard to the sensuous realm, which is the understanding that the klesas of that realm associated with the truth of suffering have been abandoned. This is then followed by a moment of subsequent acquiescence (anvayaksānti) to the truth of suffering in which the klesas of the upper realms of existence (the RuPADHĀTU and ĀRuPYADHĀTU) associated with the truth of suffering are abandoned. This is followed finally by a fourth moment, called subsequent knowledge (anvayajNāna) of the truth of suffering, which is the understanding that the klesas of the two upper realms associated with the truth of suffering have been abandoned. This same fourfold sequence is repeated for the truth of origin, the truth of cessation, and the truth of the path. The sixteenth moment, that is, the moment of subsequent knowledge (anvayajNāna) of the truth of the path (MĀRGASATYA) is, in effect, the knowledge that all of the klesas of both the subtle-materiality realm and the upper immaterial realm that are associated with the four truths have been abandoned. This moment marks the beginning of the path of cultivation (bhāvanāmārga). The term is also sometimes an abbreviation for the receptivity to the nonproduction of dharmas (ANUTPATTIKADHARMAKsĀNTI). For an explanation of dharmaksānti and the other instants from a Mahāyāna perspective, based on the ABHIDHARMASAMUCCAYA, see DARsANAMĀRGA.
energy and receptivity which is alluring to the mind and the usual reactions of hunger, \scakness, intestinal disturbance etc. can be avoided. But the body sulTers by diminution and there can easily develop in the vital a morbid overstrained condition due to the inrush of more vital energy than the nervous system can assimilate or co-ordinate.
er ren. (J. ninin; K. i in 二忍). In Chinese, "the two kinds of forbearances (KsĀNTI)": The first is the endurance, patience, and forbearance a BODHISATTVA has toward sentient beings, referring to the ability to withstand insults and obstacles posed by them and to undertake altruistic deeds (sheng ren). The second is ANUTPATTIKADHARMAKsĀNTI, the receptivity to the fact that dharmas are unproduced (fa ren).
How the being receives the higher dynamism depends on the condition of the body or rather of the physical and most material consciousness. In one condition it is tamasic, inert, unopen and cannot bear or cannot receive or cannot contain the force ; in another rajas predominates and tries to seize on the dynamism, but wastes and spills and loses it ; in another, there is receptivity, harmony, balance and the result is a harmonious action without strain or eflort.
ihalokadr.s.t.i (ihalokadrishti) ::: vision of this world by means other ihalokadrsti than the physical senses, a form of lokadr.s.t.i; it includes the knowledge, by direct perception or through symbolic images, of "things concealed from the limited receptivity or beyond the range of the physical organs, distant forms, scenes and happenings, things that have passed out of physical existence or that are not yet in physical existence"...70
Inspiration: A state of psychic receptivity to creative spiritual influence.
INSTRUMENT. ::: To be able to receive the Divine Power and let it act through you in the things of the outward life, there are three necessary conditions ::: (I) Quietude, equality — not to be disturbed by anything that happens, to keep the mind still and firm, seeing the play of forces, but itself tranquil. (2) Absolute faith — faith that what is for the best will happen, but also that if one can make oneself a true instrument, the fruit will be that which one's will guided by the Divine Light sees as the thing to be done. (3) Receptivity — the power to receive the Divine Force and to feel its presence and the presence of the Mother in it and allow it to work, guiding one’s sight and will and action.
If this power and presence can be felt and this plasticity made the habit of the consciousness in action, — but plasticity to the Divine Force alone without bringing in any foreign clement, — the eventual result is sure.
Conditions to become an instrument of the Divine ::: A receptive silence of the mind, an effacemenl of the mental ego and the reduction of the mental being to the position of a witness, a close 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 tapasya needed too constant and intense.
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 receiving there must be no inability to contain, no breaking down of anything In the system, mind or life or nerv'e or body under the traasmudng stress. There must be an endless receptivity, an always increasing edacity to bear an ever stronger and more and more insistent action of the divine Force. Other- wise notlung great or permanent can be done ; the Yoga will end in a break-down or an inert stoppage or a stultifying or a disastrous arrest in a process which must be absolute and integral if it is not to be a failure.
::: "It may be said that perfection is attained, though it remains progressive, when the receptivity from below is equal to the force from above which wants to manifest.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
“It may be said that perfection is attained, though it remains progressive, when the receptivity from below is equal to the force from above which wants to manifest.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
JAPA. ::: Japa is usually successful only on one of two condi- tions ::: if it is repeated with a sense of its significance, a dwelling of something in the mind on the nature, power, beauty, attrac- tion of the Godhead it signifies and is to bring into the cons- ciousness, — - that is the mental way ; or if it comes up from the heart or rings in it with a certain sense or feeling of bhak'ti making it alive, — that is the emotional way. Either the mind or the vital has to give it support or sustenance. But if it makes the mind dry and the vital restless, it must be missing that sup- port and sustenance. There « of course a third way, the reliance on the power of the Mantra or name in itself ; but then one has to go on till that power has sufficiently impressed its vibra- tion on the inner being to make it at a given moment suddenly open to the Presence or the Touch. But Jf there is a struggling or insistence for the result, then this c/Tect which needs a quiet receptivity In the mind is impeded.
Jhumur: “That is the god, the order of light, the Divine Presence. He [Sri Aurobindo] uses many images, the golden nimbus, the white spiritual ray, the secret voice. In so many ways the divine presence makes itself felt. Sometimes as a voice, sometimes as a nimbus, sometimes as a very much more concrete presence, according to one’s receptivity.”
ksānti. (P. khanti; T. bzod pa; C. renru; J. ninniku; K. inyok 忍辱). In Sanskrit, "patience," "steadfastness," or "endurance"; alt. "forbearance," "acceptance," or "receptivity." Ksānti is the third of the six (or ten) perfections (PĀRAMITĀ) mastered on the BODHISATTVA path; it also constitutes the third of the "aids to penetration" (NIRVEDHABHĀGĪYA), which are developed during the "path of preparation" (PRAYOGAMĀRGA) and mark the transition from the mundane sphere of cultivation (LAUKIKA-BHĀVANĀMĀRGA) to the supramundane vision (DARsANA) of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvāry āryasatyāni). The term has several discrete denotations in Buddhist literature. The term often refers to various aspects of the patience and endurance displayed by the bodhisattva in the course of his career: for example, his ability to bear all manner of abuse from sentient beings; to bear all manner of hardship over the course of the path to buddhahood without ever losing his commitment to liberate all beings from SAMSĀRA; and not to be overwhelmed by the profound nature of reality but instead to be receptive or acquiescent to it. This last denotation of ksānti is also found, for example, in the "receptivity to the fact of suffering" (duḥkhe dharmajNānaksānti; see DHARMAKsĀNTI), the first of the sixteen moments of realization of the four noble truths, in which the adept realizes the reality of impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and nonself and thus overcomes all doubts about the truth of suffering; this acceptance marks the inception of the DARsANAMĀRGA and the entrance into sanctity (ĀRYA). Ksānti as the third of the aids to penetration (nirvedhabhagīya) is distinguished from the fourth, highest worldly dharmas (LAUKIKĀGRADHARMA), only by the degree to which the validity of the four noble truths is understood: this understanding is still somewhat cursory at the stage of ksānti but is fully formed with laukikāgradharma.
kusalamula. (P. kusalamula; T. dge ba'i rtsa ba; C. shangen; J. zengon; K. son'gŭn 善根). In Sanskrit, the term "wholesome faculties," or "roots of virtue," refers to the cumulative meritorious deeds performed by an individual throughout his or her past lives. Different schools offer various lists of these wholesome faculties. The most common list is threefold: nongreed (ALOBHA), nonhatred (ADVEsA), and nondelusion (AMOHA)-all factors that encourage such wholesome actions (KARMAN) as giving (DĀNA), keeping precepts, and learning the dharma. These three factors thus will fructify as happiness in the future and will provide the foundation for liberation (VIMUKTI). These three wholesome roots are the converse of the three unwholesome faculties, or "roots of nonvirtue" (AKUsALAMuLA), viz., greed (LOBHA), hatred (DVEsA), and delusion (MOHA), which lead instead to unhappiness or even perdition. In place of this simple threefold list, the VAIBHĀsIKA school of ABHIDHARMA offers three separate typologies of kusalamulas. The first class is the "wholesome roots associated with merit" (punyabhāgīya-kusalamula), which lead to rebirth in the salutary realms of humans or heavenly divinities (DEVA). These include such qualities as faith, energy, and decency and modesty, the foundations of moral progress. Second are the "wholesome roots associated with liberation" (MOKsABHĀGĪYA-KUsALAMuLA), which eventually lead to PARINIRVĀnA. These are factors associated with the truth of the path (MĀRGASATYA) or various factors conducive to liberation. Third are the "wholesome roots associated with spiritual penetration" (NIRVEDHABHĀGĪYA-kusalamula), which are the four aspects of the direct path of preparation (PRAYOGAMĀRGA): heat (usMAN), summit (MuRDHAN), receptivity (KsĀNTI), and highest worldly dharmas (LAUKIKĀGRADHARMA). These nirvedhabhāgīyas open access to the path of vision (DARsANAMĀRGA), where the first stage of sanctity, stream-entry (SROTAĀPANNA), is won. The nirvedhabhāgīya differ so markedly from the two previous categories of wholesome roots that they are often listed independently as the four wholesome faculties (catvāri kusalamulāni). The wholesome roots may be dedicated toward a specific aim, such as rebirth in a heavenly realm; toward the benefit of a specific person, such as a parent or relative; or toward the achievement of buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings.
Manticism [from Greek mantis seer from mainomai to act ecstatically under a divine impulse] A seer, one inspired with divine ecstasy; according to Plato, one who uttered oracles while under a divine impulse, which in its lowest forms was a kind of frenzy, while a prophetes (prophet) was one who interpreted the oracles. Frenzy, now used only to denote madness or anger, meant in classic times a state of exaltation both of mind and psychical nature which enabled inner faculties of perception to come into play, whereby seership and prophetic power were attained. Certain exhalations from the earth would often act upon the body of the seer or seeress, inducing a state of physical receptivity, as occurred in the grotto of Delphi; and Cicero speaks highly of the better side of the power thus conferred. The condition produced by Bacchic rites was similar, but in later times degenerated into mere frenzy or ravings in the modern sense of the word; and as these rites became degraded into profligacy, the meaning of the word frenzy naturally altered pari passu.
Messenger ::: In the theosophical sense, an individual who comes with a mandate from the Lodge of the Masters ofWisdom and Compassion to do a certain work in the world.Only real genius -- indeed something more than merely human genius -- only extraordinary spiritual andintellectual capacity, native to the constitution of some lofty human being, could explain the reason forthe choice of such messengers. But, indeed, this is not saying enough; because in addition to genius andto merely native spiritual and intellectual capacity such a messenger must possess through initiatorytraining the capacity of throwing at will the intermediate or psychological nature into a state of perfectquiescence or receptivity for the stream of divine-spiritual inspiration flowing forth from the messenger'sown inner divinity or monadic essence. It is obvious, therefore, that such a combination of rare andunusual qualities is not often found in human beings; and, when found, such a one is fit for the work tobe done by such a messenger of the Association of great ones.The Masters of Wisdom and Compassion and Peace send their envoys continuously into the world ofmen, one after the other, and in consequence these envoys are working in the world among men all thetime. Happy are they whose hearts recognize the footfalls of those crossing the mountaintops of theMystic East. The messengers do not always do public work before the world, but frequently work in thesilences and unknown of men, or relatively unknown. At certain times, however, they are commissionedand empowered and directed to do their work publicly and to make public announcement of theirmission. Such, for instance, was the case of H. P. Blavatsky.
Mystical night: The practice of the Sufis consisting in “disconnecting” all physical senses of perception, shutting out all external impressions and all emotions in order to induce a state of mystic contemplation and receptivity to inner enlightenment.
Nativity: In astrology: (1) The birth moment; the instant when the native drew his first breath, thereby commencing a process of blood conditioning that up to that moment had been accomplished through the receptivities of another. During the first days of life, in accordance with the law of adaptability, there ensues a growth of channels of receptivity to cosmic energy which results in a life-pattern of cosmic stimulation. (2) A Figure, or horoscope, cast for a date, moment and place of birth, as distinguished from an Electional or Horary Figure.
nirvedhabhāgīya. (T. nges par 'byed pa'i cha dang mthun pa; C. shunjuezefen; J. junketchakubun; K. sun'gyolt'aekpum 順決擇分). In Sanskrit, "aids to penetration," the constituent stages developed during the path of preparation (PRAYOGAMĀRGA), the second segment of the five-path schema outlined in the VAIBHĀsIKA ABHIDHARMA system, which mark the transition from the mundane sphere of cultivation (LAUKIKA[BHĀVANĀ]MĀRGA) to the supramundane vision (DARsANA) of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvāry āryasatyāni); also called the "virtuous faculties associated with penetration" (nirvedhabhāgīya-KUsALAMuLA) or the "four virtuous faculties" (CATUsKUsALAMuLA). The nirvedhabhāgīya are the third of the three types of virtuous faculties (KUsALAMuLA) recognized in the VAIBHĀsIKA school, along with the punyabhāgīya and MOKsABHĀGĪYA kusalamulas. In distinction to the moksabhāgīyas, however, which are the remote path of preparation, the nirvedhabhāgīyas constitute instead the proximate path of preparation and are associated specifically with the type of wisdom that is generated through one's own meditative experience (BHĀVANĀMĀYĪPRAJNĀ). The four aids to penetration are (1) heat (usMAN [alt. usmagata]), (2) summit (MuRDHAN), (3) acquiescence or receptivity (KSĀnTI), (4) and highest worldly dharmas (LAUKIKĀGRADHARMA). After accumulating the preliminary skills necessary for religious cultivation on the preceding path of accumulation (SAMBHĀRAMĀRGA), the practitioner continues on to develop the mindfulness of mental constituents (dharma-SMṚTYUPASTHĀNA) on the path of preparation. This path involves the four aids to penetration, which mark successive stages in understanding the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths and are each subdivided into various categories, such as weak, medium, and strong experiences. While the first two of these NIRVEDHABHĀGĪYAs are subject to retrogression and thus belong to the worldly path of cultivation (laukikabhāvanāmārga), the latter two are nonretrogressive (AVAIVARTIKA) and lead inevitably to insight (DARsANA). Mastery of the four aids to penetration culminates in the "unimpeded concentration" (ĀNANTARYASAMĀDHI), in which the meditator acquires fully all the highest worldly dharmas; this distinctive concentration provides access to the third stage of the path, the path of vision (DARsANAMĀRGA), which marks the entrance into sanctity (ĀRYA) as a stream-enterer (SROTAĀPANNA). Thus the nirvedhabhāgīyas are the pivotal point in the progression of an ordinary person (PṚTHAGJANA) to the status of a noble one (ĀRYA). According to the ABHIDHARMAMAHĀVIBHĀsĀ, disciples (sRĀVAKA) and solitary buddhas (PRATYEKABUDDHA) may develop the nirvedhabhāgīyas either before or during any of the four stages of the meditative absorptions (DHYĀNA), while bodhisattvas develop all four in one sitting during their final lifetimes.
oestrus ::: a regularly occurring period of sexual receptivity in most female mammals, except humans, during which ovulation occurs and copulation can take place; heat. [from Latin oestrus gadfly, hence frenzy, from Greek oistros]
receptivity - Measure of a material's resistance to current flow.
qixian. (J. shichiken; K. ch'irhyon 七賢). In Chinese, lit. "seven sagacities," seven stages on the path of preparation (PRAYOGAMĀRGA) derived from the Chinese translation of the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA. The first stage involves the cultivation of meditative "antidotes" (PRATIPAKsA) such as the contemplation of foulness, the contemplation of loving-kindness, and the contemplation of the breath to counter, respectively, the excessive tendencies toward lust, ill will, and discursiveness. The second involves the practice of the so-called four foundations of mindfulness, which involves insight (VIPAsYANĀ) into real-time experiences as they unfold in the body and mind. The third focuses on the contemplation of the three marks of existence (TRILAKsAnA), noticing the characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and selflessness in those psychophysical experiences. The fourth through seventh stages correspond to the "wholesome roots associated with the knowledge that penetrates reality" (NIRVEDHABHĀGĪYA-KUsALAMuLA): heat (usMAN), summit (MuRDHAN), receptivity or acquiescence (KsĀNTI), and highest worldly dharmas (LAUKIKĀGRADHARMA). These nirvedhabhāgīya open access to the path of vision (DARsANAMĀRGA) where the first stage of sanctity, stream-entry (SROTAĀPANNA), is won.
Reason: (Lat. ratio, Ger. Vernunft) In Kant: The special mental faculty (distinct from sensibility and understanding) which in thinking Ideas of absolute completeness and unconditionedness transcends the conditions of possible experience. See Ideas of Pure Reason. All those mental functions and relations characterized by spontaneity rather than receptivity In this sense, reason includes both reason (1) and the understanding, but excludes the sensibility. The source of all a priori synthetic forms in experience. In this sense, reason includes elements of sensibility, understanding and reason (1). When Kant says, "reason is a law-giver to Nature," he employs the term in the third sense. See Kantianism, Understanding, Ratio.
receptivity ::: n. --> The state or quality of being receptive.
The power or capacity of receiving impressions, as those of the external senses.
RECEPTIVITY. ::: The capacity of admitting and retaining the Divine workings.
receptivity ::: the power to receive the Divine Force and to feel its presence and allow it to work, guiding one's sight and will and action; the capacity of admitting and retaining the divine workings. "One may be receptive, yet externally unaware of how things are being done and of what is being done. The force works...behind the veil; the results remain packed behind and come out afterwards, often slowly, little by little" [S24:1361]
Striges (Latin) [from Greek] Also strygis. Screech owls or some such nocturnal bird of prey; applied in classical mythology to a species of vampire which sucked the blood of children. A distinct mythologic reference to astral entities more or less earthbound, which can at times come into even physical relation with human beings, whether younger or older, at the time in a state of negative receptivity. Corresponds to the Hindu pisacha.
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.
There is no sufTicient utility in fasting, since the higher energy and receptivity ought to come not by artificial or physical means but by intensity of the consciousness and strong will for the saclliana.
vis.ayadr.s.t.i (vishayadrishti) ::: subtle sense-perception (sūks.ma dr.s.t.i) visayadrsti .. in general or any particular form of such perception, especially perception of the sūks.ma vis.ayas of sound, touch, smell and taste (sabda, sparsa, gandha and rasa), with vision of rūpa often mentioned separately; the faculty or faculties constituting the instrumentation of saṁjñana or "sense in its purity", which "exists behind and beyond the mind it uses and is a movement of the self, a direct and original activity of the infinite power of its consciousness", capable of presenting to us "things concealed from the limited receptivity or beyond the range of the physical organs, . . . scenes, forms, happenings, symbols of the vital, psychical, mental, supramental, spiritual worlds".
When there is full faith and consecration, there comes also a receptivity to the Force which makes one do the right thing and take the right means and then circumstances adapt themselves and the result is visible.
You must always try to keep the quietude, never allow dep- ressing or dbturbing thoughts or feelings to enter you or take hold of your mind or your speech. And if the mind keeps its quietude and receptivity to higher forces only, it can then easily pass on that quietude and receptivity to the body consciousness and even to the material cells of the body.
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1:Receptivity is proportionate to self-giving. ~ The Mother, Some Answers, S10, #KEYS
2:Receptivity is the capacity of admitting and retaining the Divine Workings.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
3:The Twelve Powers of the Mother manifested for Her Work: Sincerity, Peace, Equality, Generosity, Goodness, Courage, Progress, Receptivity, Aspiration, Perserverance, Gratitude, Humility
~ The Mother?,#KEYS
4:Q : How can I meditate? What is meant by opening? Where should I open?
The Mother ,: An inner purity and receptivity that freely lets in the Mother's influence. Begin with the heart. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
5:How can I meditate? What is meant by opening? Where should I open?
An inner purity and receptivity that freely lets in the Mother's influence. Begin with the heart.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
6:Metaphysics requires more than debunking epistemological foundationalism: it presupposes a receptivity to principles that lie beyond linguistic pragmatism as well as beyond epistemic subjectivism. Above all, it must accept the fundamental givenness of the real. ~ Louis Dupré, #KEYS
7:Who is worthy or unworthy in front of the Divine Grace?
All are children of the one and the same Mother. Her love is equally spread over all of them. But to each one She gives according to his nature and receptivity.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
8:Sincerity, Aspiration, Faith, Devotion and Self-Giving, Surrender to the Divine Will, Love, Openness and Receptivity, Purity and Humility, Gratitude and Faithfulness, Will and Perseverance, Enthusiasm, Hope and Straightforwardness, Happiness and Joy, Heroism and Bravery, Prudence and Balance, Truth and Speech ~ ?, toc, #KEYS
9:If I work I feel all right, but the fatigue comes after that. Why? What to do?
It is because you are receptive to the force when you work and that sustains you. But when you are not under the strain of the work you are less receptive. You must learn to be receptive in all circumstances and always - especially when you take rest - it must not be the 'rest' of inertia but a true rest of receptivity.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
10:To me any activity is more important than its cost to me, even if the cost is unreasonable. Money should never be the criterion for such decisions. If we say we can't have something because of its cost, we limit our receptivity to the Grace and hamper its workings. Money is only a medium of exchange, it is all relative and the Divine resources are inexhaustible. Is this attitude a correct one?
You are quite right and I approve of your attitude.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
11:True humility is humility before the Divine, that is, a precise, exact, living sense that one is nothing, one can do nothing, understand nothing without the Divine, that even if one is exceptionally intelligent and capable, this is nothing in comparison with the divine Consciousness, and this sense one must always keep, because then one always has the true attitude of receptivity - a humble receptivity that does not put personal pretensions in opposition to the Divine. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, #KEYS
12:The centre of the Mother's symbol represent the Divine Consciousness, the Supreme Mother, the Mahashakti.
The four petals of the Mother's symbol represent the four Aspects or Personalities of the Mother; Maheshwari (Wisdom), Mahalakshmi(Harmony), Mahakali(Strength) and Mahasaraswati (Perfection).
The twelve petals of the Mother's symbol represent; Sincerity, Humility, Gratitude, Perseverance, Aspiration, Receptivity, Progress, Courage, Goodness, Generosity, Equality, Peace.
~ ?, https://www.auroville.com/silver-ring-mother-s-symbol.html, [T5],#KEYS
13:There is no method in this Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one's own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother's Power and Presence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
14:The contribution of the psychic being to the sadhana is: (1) love and bhakti, a love not vital, demanding and egoistic but unconditioned and without claims, self-existent; (2) the contact or the presence of the Mother within; (3) the unerring guidance from within; (4) a quieting and purification of the mind, vital and physical consciousness by their subjection to the psychic influence and guidance; (5) the opening up of all this lower consciousness to the higher spiritual consciousness above for its descent into a nature prepared to receive it with a complete receptivity and right attitude - for the psychic brings in everything, right thought, right perception, right feeling, right attitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, #KEYS
15:Please initiate me into a tangible form of Yoga. I make this assurance that I shall follow your instructions to the very letter and refer to you my doubts and difficulties on the way.
There is no method in this Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one's own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother's Power and Presence. 30 November 1934 ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
16:To be able to receive the Divine Power and let act through you in the things of the outward life, there are three necessary conditions:
(i) Quietude, equality - not to be disturbed by anything that happens, to keep the mind still and firm, seeing the play of forces, but itself tranquil.
(ii) Absolute faith - faith that what is for the best will happen, but also that if one can make oneself a true instrument, the fruit will be that which one's will guided by the Divine Light sees as the thing to be done - kartavyam karma.
(iii) Receptivity - the power to receive the Divine Force and to feel its presence and the presence of the Mother in it and allow it to work, guiding one's sight and will and action. If this power and presence can be felt and this plasticity made the habit of the consciousness in action, - but plasticity to the Divine force alone without bringing in any foreign element, - the eventual result is sure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
17:It is always better to try to concentrate in a centre, the centre of aspiration, one might say, the place where the flame of aspiration burns, to gather in all the energies there, at the solar plexus centre and, if possible, to obtain an attentive silence as though one wanted to listen to something extremely subtle, something that demands a complete attention, a complete concentration and a total silence. And then not to move at all. Not to think, not to stir, and make that movement of opening so as to receive all that can be received, but taking good care not to try to know what is happening while it is happening, for it one wants to understand or even to observe actively, it keeps up a sort of cerebral activity which is unfavourable to the fullness of the receptivity - to be silent, as totally silent as possible, in an attentive concentration, and then be still. If one succeeds in this, then, when everything is over, when one comes out of meditation, some time later - usually not immediately - from within the being something new emerges in the consciousness: a new understanding, a new appreciation of things, a new attitude in life - in short, a new way of being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, [where to concentrate?],#KEYS
18:Aspiration in everyone, no matter who it is, has the same power But the effect of this aspiration is different. For aspiration is aspiration: if you have aspiration, in itself it has a power. Only, this aspiration calls down an answer, and this answer, the effect, which is the result of the aspiration, depends upon each one, for it depends upon his receptivity. I know many people of this kind: they say, "Oh! but I aspire all the time and still I receive nothing." It is impossible that they should receive nothing, in the sense that the answer is sure to come. But it is they who do not receive. The answer comes but they are not receptive, so they receive nothing.. . . When you have an aspiration, a very active aspiration, your aspiration is going to do its work. It is going to call down the answer to what you aspire foR But if, later, you begin to think of something else or are not attentive or receptive, you do not even notice that your aspiration has received an answer. This happens very frequently. So people tell you: "I aspire and I don't receive anything, I get no answer!" Yes, you do have an answer but you are not aware of it, because you continue to be active in this way, like a mill turning all the time. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954, #KEYS
19:But if somewhere in your being - either in your body or even in your vital or mind, either in several parts or even in a single one - there is an incapacity to receive the descending Force, this acts like a grain of sand in a machine. You know, a fine machine working quite well with everything going all right, and you put into it just a little sand (nothing much, only a grain of sand), suddenly everything is damaged and the machine stops. Well, just a little lack of receptivity somewhere, something that is unable to receive the Force, that is completely shut up (when one looks at it, it becomes as it were a little dark spot somewhere, a tiny thing hard as a stone: the Force cannot enter into it, it refuses to receive it - either it cannot or it will not) and immediately that produces a great imbalance; and this thing that was moving upward, that was blooming so wonderfully, finds itself sick, and sometimes just when you were in the normal equilibrium; you were in good health, everything was going on well, you had nothing to complain about. One day when you grasped a new idea, received a new impulse, when you had a great aspiration and received a great force and had a marvellous experience, a beautiful experience opening to you inner doors, giving you a knowledge you did not have before; then you were sure that everything was going to be all right.... The next day, you are taken ill. So you say: "Still that? It is impossible! That should not happen." But it was quite simply what I have just said: a grain of sand. There was something that could not receive; immediately it brings about a disequilibrium. Even though very small it is enough, and you fall ill.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 175,#KEYS
20:A difficulty comes or an arrest in some movement which you have begun or have been carrying on for some time. How is it to be dealt with?—for such arrests are inevitably frequent enough, not only for you, but for everyone who is a seeker; one might almost say that every step forward is followed by an arrest—at least, that is a very common, if not a universal experience. 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 the 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 impedes the recovery, prolongs the difficulties, helps the obstructions to recur with force instead of progressively diminishing in their incidence. It is an attitude whose persistence or recurrence you must resolutely throw aside if you want to get over the obstruction which you feel so much—which the depressed attitude only makes, while it lasts, more acute. ~ Sri Aurobindo, LOY4, Imperfections and Periods of Arrest,#KEYS
21:Disciple: What are the conditions of success in this yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: I have often told of them. Those go through who have the central sincerity. It does not mean that the sincerity is there in all the parts of the being. In that sense no one is entirely ready. But if the central sincerity is there it is possible to establish it in all the parts of the being.
The second thing necessary is a certain receptivity in the being, what we call, the "opening" up of all the planes to the Higher Power.
The third thing required is the power of holding the higher Force, a certain ghanatwa - mass - that can hold the Power when it comes down.
And about the thing that pushes there are two things that generally push: One is the Central Being. The other is destiny. If the Central Being wants to do something it pushes the man. Even when the man goes off the line he is pushed back again to the path. Of course, the Central Being may push through the mind or any other part of the being. Also, if the man is destined he is pushed to the path either to go through or to get broken,
Disciple: There are some people who think they are destined or chosen and we see that they are not "chosen".
Sri Aurobindo: Of course, plenty of people think that they are specially "chosen" and that they are the first and the "elect" and so on. All that is nothing.
Disciple: Then, can you. say who is fit out of all those that have come?
Sri Aurobindo: It is very difficult to say. But this can be said that everyone of those who have come in has some chance to go through if he can hold on to it.
Disciple: There is also a chance of failure.
Sri Aurobindo: Of course, and besides, the whole universe is a play of forces and one can't always wait till all the conditions of success have been fulfilled. One has to take risks and take his chance.
Disciple: What is meant by "chance"? Does it mean that it is only one possibility out of many others, or does it mean that one would be able to succeed in yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: It means only that he can succeed if he takes his chance properly. For instance, X had his chance.
Disciple: Those who fall on the path or slip, do they go down in their evolution?
Sri Aurobindo: That depends. Ultimately, the Yoga may be lost to him.
Disciple: The Gita says: Na hi kalyānkṛt - nothing that is beneficial - comes to a bad end.
Sri Aurobindo: That is from another standpoint. You must note the word is kalyān kṛt - it is an important addition.
~ Sri Aurobindo, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, RECORDED BY A B PURANI (20-09-1926),#KEYS
22:What do you mean by these words: 'When you are in difficulty, widen yourself'?
I am speaking, of course, of difficulties on the path of yoga, incomprehension, limitations, things like obstacles, which prevent you from advancing. And when I say "widen yourself", I mean widen your consciousness.
Difficulties always arise from the ego, that is, from your more or less egoistic personal reaction to circumstances, events and people around you, to the conditions of your life. They also come from that feeling of being closed up in a sort of shell, which prevents your consciousness from uniting with higher and vaster realities.
One may very well think that one wants to be vast, wants to be universal, that all is the expression of the Divine, that one must have no egoism - one may think all sorts of things - but that is not necessarily a cure, for very often one knows what one ought to do, and yet one doesn't do it, for one reason or another.
But if, when you have to face anguish, suffering, revolt, pain or a feeling of helplessness - whatever it may be, all the things that come to you on the path and which precisely are your difficulties-if physically, that is to say, in your body- consciousness, you can have the feeling of widening yourself, one could say of unfolding yourself - you feel as it were all folded up, one fold on another like a piece of cloth which is folded and refolded and folded again - so if you have this feeling that what is holding and strangling you and making you suffer or paralysing your movement, is like a too closely, too tightly folded piece of cloth or like a parcel that is too well-tied, too well-packed, and that slowly, gradually, you undo all the folds and stretch yourself out exactly as one unfolds a piece of cloth or a sheet of paper and spreads it out flat, and you lie flat and make yourself very wide, as wide as possible, spreading yourself out as far as you can, opening yourself and stretching out in an attitude of complete passivity with what I could call "the face to the light": not curling back upon your difficulty, doubling up on it, shutting it in, so to say, into yourself, but, on the contrary, unfurling yourself as much as you can, as perfectly as you can, putting the difficulty before the Light - the Light which comes from above - if you do that in all the domains, and even if mentally you don't succeed in doing it - for it is sometimes difficult - if you can imagine yourself doing this physically, almost materially, well, when you have finished unfolding yourself and stretching yourself out, you will find that more than three-quarters of the difficulty is gone. And then just a little work of receptivity to the Light and the last quarter will disappear.
This is much easier than struggling against a difficulty with one's thought, for if you begin to discuss with yourself, you will find that there are arguments for and against which are so convincing that it is quite impossible to get out of it without a higher light. Here, you do not struggle against the difficulty, you do not try to convince yourself; ah! you simply stretch out in the Light as though you lay stretched on the sands in the sun. And you let the Light do its work. That's all. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers, Volume-8, page no.286-288),#KEYS
23:HOW CAN I READ SAVITRI?
An open reply by Dr Alok Pandey to a fellow devotee
A GIFT OF LOVE TO THE WORLD
Most of all enjoy Savitri. It is Sri Aurobindo's gift of Love to the world. Read it from the heart with love and gratitude as companions and drown in its fiery bliss. That is the true understanding rather than one that comes by a constant churning of words in the head.
WHEN
Best would be to fix a time that works for you. One can always take out some time for the reading, even if it be late at night when one is done with all the daily works. Of course, a certain receptivity is needed. If one is too tired or the reading becomes too mechanical as a ritual routine to be somehow finished it tends to be less effective, as with anything else. Hence the advice is to read in a quiet receptive state.
THE PACE
As to the pace of reading it is best to slowly build up and keep it steady. To read a page or a passage daily is better than reading many pages one day and then few lines or none for days. This brings a certain discipline in the consciousness which makes one receptive. What it means is that one should fix up that one would read a few passages or a page or two daily, and then if an odd day one is enjoying and spontaneously wants to read more then one can go by the flow.
COMPLETE OR SELECTIONS?
It is best to read at least once from cover to cover. But if one is not feeling inclined for that do read some of the beautiful cantos and passages whose reference one can find in various places. This helps us familiarise with the epic and the style of poetry. Later one can go for the cover to cover reading.
READING ALOUD, SILENTLY, OR WRITING DOWN?
One can read it silently. Loud reading is needed only if one is unable to focus with silent reading. A mantra is more potent when read subtly. I am aware that some people recommend reading it aloud which is fine if that helps one better. A certain flexibility in these things is always good and rigid rules either ways are not helpful.
One can also write some of the beautiful passages with which one feels suddenly connected. It is a help in the yoga since such a writing involves the pouring in of the consciousness of Savitri through the brain and nerves and the hand.
Reflecting upon some of these magnificent lines and passages while one is engaged in one\s daily activities helps to create a background state for our inner being to get absorbed in Savitri more and more.
HOW DO I UNDERSTAND THE MEANING? DO I NEED A DICTIONARY?
It is helpful if a brief background about the Canto is known. This helps the mind top focus and also to keep in sync with the overall scene and sense of what is being read.
But it is best not to keep referring to the dictionary while reading. Let the overall sense emerge. Specifics can be done during a detailed reading later and it may not be necessary at all. Besides the sense that Sri Aurobindo has given to many words may not be accurately conveyed by the standard dictionaries. A flexibility is required to understand the subtle suggestions hinted at by the Master-poet.
In this sense Savitri is in the line of Vedic poetry using images that are at once profound as well as commonplace. That is the beauty of mystic poetry. These are things actually experienced and seen by Sri Aurobindo, and ultimately it is Their Grace that alone can reveal the intrinsic sense of this supreme revelation of the Supreme. ~ Dr Alok Pandey,#KEYS
24:Mental Education
OF ALL lines of education, mental education is the most widely known and practised, yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient.
Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. And when a child has been made to undergo, for a number of years, a methodical training which is more like cramming than true schooling, it is considered that whatever is necessary for his mental development has been done. Nothing of the kind. Even conceding that the training is given with due measure and discrimination and does not permanently damage the brain, it cannot impart to the human mind the faculties it needs to become a good and useful instrument. The schooling that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a system of gymnastics to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulations given to these various branches each constitute a special and well-defined language.
A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five principal phases. Normally these phases follow one after another, but in exceptional individuals they may alternate or even proceed simultaneously. These five phases, in brief, are:
(1) Development of the power of concentration, the capacity of attention.
(2) Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness.
(3) Organisation of one's ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life.
(4) Thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants.
(5) Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.
It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations on points of detail can be given.
Undeniably, what most impedes mental progress in children is the constant dispersion of their thoughts. Their thoughts flutter hither and thither like butterflies and they have to make a great effort to fix them. Yet this capacity is latent in them, for when you succeed in arousing their interest, they are capable of a good deal of attention. By his ingenuity, therefore, the educator will gradually help the child to become capable of a sustained effort of attention and a faculty of more and more complete absorption in the work in hand. All methods that can develop this faculty of attention from games to rewards are good and can all be utilised according to the need and the circumstances. But it is the psychological action that is most important and the sovereign method is to arouse in the child an interest in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for learning more and always more.
For that, to attention and concentration should be added observation, precise recording and faithfulness of memory. This faculty of observation can be developed by varied and spontaneous exercises, making use of every opportunity that presents itself to keep the child's thought wakeful, alert and prompt. The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart, mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know.
This will bring us quite naturally to the second phase of development in which the mind should be widened and enriched.
You will gradually show the child that everything can become an interesting subject for study if it is approached in the right way. The life of every day, of every moment, is the best school of all, varied, complex, full of unexpected experiences, problems to be solved, clear and striking examples and obvious consequences. It is so easy to arouse healthy curiosity in children, if you answer with intelligence and clarity the numerous questions they ask. An interesting reply to one readily brings others in its train and so the attentive child learns without effort much more than he usually does in the classroom. By a choice made with care and insight, you should also teach him to enjoy good reading-matter which is both instructive and attractive. Do not be afraid of anything that awakens and pleases his imagination; imagination develops the creative mental faculty and through it study becomes living and the mind develops in joy.
In order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of his mind, one should see not only that he studies many varied topics, but above all that a single subject is approached in various ways, so that the child understands in a practical manner that there are many ways of facing the same intellectual problem, of considering it and solving it. This will remove all rigidity from his brain and at the same time it will make his thinking richer and more supple and prepare it for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis. In this way also the child will be imbued with the sense of the extreme relativity of mental learning and, little by little, an aspiration for a truer source of knowledge will awaken in him.
Indeed, as the child grows older and progresses in his studies, his mind too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid chaos in one's thoughts. All contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. It is always good to consider every problem from all possible standpoints so as to avoid partiality and exclusiveness; but if the thought is to be active and creative, it must, in every case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the points of view adopted. And if you want to make the totality of your thoughts into a dynamic and constructive force, you must also take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of this synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organise and harmonise.
It goes without saying that this work of organisation cannot be done once and for all. The mind, if it is to keep its vigour and youth, must progress constantly, revise its notions in the light of new knowledge, enlarge its frame-work to include fresh notions and constantly reclassify and reorganise its thoughts, so that each of them may find its true place in relation to the others and the whole remain harmonious and orderly.
All that has just been said concerns the speculative mind, the mind that learns. But learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, which is at least equally important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to form and thus prepare action. This very important part of mental activity has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing and disciplining this faculty of formation; and as soon as they try it, they have to face difficulties so great that they appear almost insurmountable.
And yet control over this formative activity of the mind is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can say that without it no mental mastery is possible. As far as study is concerned, all ideas are acceptable and should be included in the synthesis, whose very function is to become more and more rich and complex; but where action is concerned, it is just the opposite. The ideas that are accepted for translation into action should be strictly controlled and only those that agree with the general trend of the central idea forming the basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be set before the central idea; if it finds a logical place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be rejected so that it can have no influence on the action. This work of mental purification should be done very regularly in order to secure a complete control over one's actions.
For this purpose, it is good to set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order. Once the habit is acquired, you can maintain control over your thoughts even during work and action, allowing only those which are useful for what you are doing to come to the surface. Particularly, if you have continued to cultivate the power of concentration and attention, only the thoughts that are needed will be allowed to enter the active external consciousness and they then become all the more dynamic and effective. And if, in the intensity of concentration, it becomes necessary not to think at all, all mental vibration can be stilled and an almost total silence secured. In this silence one can gradually open to the higher regions of the mind and learn to record the inspirations that come from there.
But even before reaching this point, silence in itself is supremely useful, because in most people who have a somewhat developed and active mind, the mind is never at rest. During the day, its activity is kept under a certain control, but at night, during the sleep of the body, the control of the waking state is almost completely removed and the mind indulges in activities which are sometimes excessive and often incoherent. This creates a great stress which leads to fatigue and the diminution of the intellectual faculties.
The fact is that like all the other parts of the human being, the mind too needs rest and it will not have this rest unless we know how to provide it. The art of resting one's mind is something to be acquired. Changing one's mental activity is certainly one way of resting; but the greatest possible rest is silence. And as far as the mental faculties are concerned a few minutes passed in the calm of silence are a more effective rest than hours of sleep.
When one has learned to silence the mind at will and to concentrate it in receptive silence, then there will be no problem that cannot be solved, no mental difficulty whose solution cannot be found. When it is agitated, thought becomes confused and impotent; in an attentive tranquillity, the light can manifest itself and open up new horizons to man's capacity. Bulletin, November 1951
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Nothing can be forced, receptivity is everything. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove 2:Purity is receptivity, the ability to sit and wait patiently, for as long as necessary, for the coming of the light. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 3:Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything. ~ rainer-maria-rilke, @wisdomtrove 4:In order to reprogram the subconscious mind, you need to relax the body. Release the tension. Let the emotions go. Get to a state of openness and receptivity. You are always in change. You are always safe. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 5:Things which we see are not by themselves what we see ... It remains completely unknown to us what the objects may be by themselves and apart from the receptivity of our senses. We know nothing but our manner of perceiving them. ~ immanuel-kant, @wisdomtrove 6:A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 7:Education to independence demands that young people should be accustomed early to consult their own sense of propriety and their own reason. To regard study as mere receptivity and memory work is to have a most incomplete view of what instruction means. ~ georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel, @wisdomtrove 8:Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 9:You cannot be an educator or a teacher without relating to children with full insight. Their urge to imitate has been transformed into a receptivity based on a natural and uncontested relationship of authority, and you must take this into account in the broadest possible sense. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 10:It is not a pumping-in from the outside that gives wisdom; it is the power and extent of your inner receptivity that determines how much you can attain of true knowledge, and how rapidly. You can quicken your evolution by awakening and increasing the receptive power of your brain cells. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 11:God is beyond definition. But according to one's own vision or receptivity, one will define God in one's own way. Some will say that God is all Love. Others will say that God is all Power. Each one will see God according to his own necessity, his own receptivity and, finally, according to the way God wants him to see the ultimate Truth. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 12:The search for a "suitable" church makes the man a critic where God wants him to be a pupil. What he wants from the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise- does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Constant repetition dulls receptivity. ~ Rose Wilder Lane, #NFDB
2:By revolt the doors of receptivity are closed. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
3:Nothing can be forced, receptivity is everything. ~ B K S Iyengar, #NFDB
4:Active receptivity is needed, not a passive agitation. ~ Ravi Ravindra, #NFDB
5:Real devotion is an unbroken receptivity to the truth ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
6:By revolt the doors of receptivity are closed. ~ ~ The Motherby Rubynkka, #NFDB
7:Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
8:The receptivity of the artist must never be confused with passivity. ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
9:By surrendering, you create an energy field of receptivity for the solution to appear. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
10:Real love is a humble receptivity of a silent heart that is prepared to melt and merge… ~ Banani Ray, #NFDB
11:Receptivity is the capacity of admitting and retaining the Divine Workings.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#NFDB
12:It is the mission of the press to disseminate intellect and at the same time destroy receptivity to it. ~ Karl Kraus, #NFDB
13:@SGGautam2 @istmgroup In silence lies the greatest aspiration.We pray that the greatest receptivity may also be there. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
14:Purity is receptivity, the ability to sit and wait patiently, for as long as necessary, for the coming of the light. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
15:What can you give when there is no self, when you have no sensitivity, no receptivity, no warmth, nothing to contact others with? ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
16:Fearlessness requires attention and receptivity-it takes focus to stand in the still eye of a tornado and not be swept away by it. ~ Susan Piver, #NFDB
17:Receptivity requires a nimbleness, a fine-honed sensitivity in order to let one's self be the vehicle of whatever vision may emerge. ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
18:A low capacity for getting along with those near us often goes hand in hand with a high receptivity to the idea of the brotherhood of men. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
19:Recreational development is a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind. ~ Aldo Leopold, #NFDB
20:You’ll forgive me for saying so, my dear, but I perceive very little aura around you. Very little receptivity to the resonances of the future. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
21:That's my policy - to be positive, to just hope that something will happen. If you start with all your fears, your receptivity is for the negative. ~ Julie Taymor, #NFDB
22:... the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul. ~ Josef Pieper, #NFDB
23:Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
24:The receptivity of the artist must never be confused with passivity. Receptivity is the artist's holding him or herself alive and open to hear what being may speak. ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
25:At root what is needed for scientific inquiry is just receptivity to data, skill in reasoning, and yearning for truth. Admittedly, ingenuity can help too. ~ Willard Van Orman Quine, #NFDB
26:Meditation is like the moon: it transforms the energy of lust into love, anger into compassion, greed into sharing, aggressiveness into receptivity, ego into humbleness. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
27:Real devotion is an unbroken receptivity to the truth. Real devotion is rooted in an awed and reverent gratitude, but one that is lucid, grounded, and intelligent. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
28:I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which they had in common was spiritual receptivity. Something in them was open to heaven, something which urged them Godward. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
29:A good ritual facilitates, first and foremost, not only engagement with the Holy but the receptivity and vulnerability of head and heart space that makes that possible. ~ Galina Krasskova, #NFDB
30:The sense organs experience the external light, sound, etc. with difficulty; the different sense organs only have a so-called specific receptivity for particular stimuli. ~ Johannes Peter Muller, #NFDB
31:Q : How can I meditate? What is meant by opening? Where should I open?
The Mother ,: An inner purity and receptivity that freely lets in the Mother's influence. Begin with the heart. ~ The Mother,#NFDB
32:The Twelve Powers of the Mother manifested for Her Work: Sincerity, Peace, Equality, Generosity, Goodness, Courage, Progress, Receptivity, Aspiration, Perserverance, Gratitude, Humility
~ The Mother?,#NFDB
33:QBLH(qabbalah) which means to receive. The Qabbalah is not handed down from generation to generation but something which requires receptivity in those who are initiated into the mysteries. ~ Paul Foster Case, #NFDB
34:How can I meditate? What is meant by opening? Where should I open?
An inner purity and receptivity that freely lets in the Mother's influence. Begin with the heart.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#NFDB
35:There is a sense then in which the self is a lifelong project, as long as we remember that it is a project that requires as much passivity as activity both receptivity and taking hold, yin and yang. ~ John Loudon, #NFDB
36:HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Receptivity is a superpower. ~ Rob Brezsny, #NFDB
37:In order to reprogram the subconscious mind, you need to relax the body. Release the tension. Let the emotions go. Get to a state of openness and receptivity. You are always in change. You are always safe. ~ Louise Hay, #NFDB
38:Angelo is a brilliant jazz talent. His receptivity, seriousness, his ability to execute ideas simple or complex, combined with his love and feel for the substance of jazz reveal why he is an exceptional artist. ~ Mulgrew Miller, #NFDB
39:We have learned so well how to absorb novelty that receptivity itself has turned into a kind of tradition- "the tradition of the new." Yesterdays avant-garde experiment is today's chic and tomorrows cliche. ~ Richard Hofstadter, #NFDB
40:Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
41:Things which we see are not by themselves what we see ... It remains completely unknown to us what the objects may be by themselves and apart from the receptivity of our senses. We know nothing but our manner of perceiving them. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
42:A danger of travel is that we may see things at the wrong time, before we have had an opportunity to build up the necessary receptivity, so that new information is as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
43:A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
44:It is necessary for the birthing process to begin to move in its own organic time. It is necessary that the artist have this sense of timing, that he or she respect... periods of receptivity as part of the mystery of creativity and creation. ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
45:Non-attachment is not the elimination of desire. It is the spaciousness to allow any quality of mind, any thought or feeling, to arise without closing around it, without eliminating the pure witness of being. It is an active receptivity to life. ~ Stephen Levine, #NFDB
46:The only way to teach focus is to present the eye with opportunities for steady perception—best supplied by the contemplation of art. Looking at art requires stillness and receptivity, which realign our senses and produce a magical tranquillity. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
47:Who is worthy or unworthy in front of the Divine Grace?
All are children of the one and the same Mother. Her love is equally spread over all of them. But to each one She gives according to his nature and receptivity.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#NFDB
48:No one...can live in this heightened state of reflective receptivity forever. Because this empathy's involuntary, there's terror here. Loss of control, a seepage. Becoming someone else or worse: becoming nothing but the vibratory field between two people. ~ Chris Kraus, #NFDB
49:Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms. Whereas Israelites are always tempted to acquisitiveness, Sabbath is an invitation to receptivity, an acknowledgment that what is needed is given and need not be seized. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
50:Schiller writes in a letter [to Goethe, 17 December 1795] of a 'poetic mood'. I think I know what he means, I think I am familiar with it myself. It is the mood of receptivity to nature and one in which one's thoughts seem as vivid as nature itself. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #NFDB
51:This is because only when you are blissful will you be in the highest state of receptivity, and truly willing to explore all aspects of life. Otherwise, you would not dare, because if keeping yourself pleasant is a big challenge, you can’t take on other challenges. ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
52:Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
53:Practically every desire that has become part of human nature, from sexuality to aggression, from a longing for security to a receptivity to change, has been exploited as a source of social control by politicians, churches, corporations, and advertisers. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
54:Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. Any ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
55:Education to independence demands that young people should be accustomed early to consult their own sense of propriety and their own reason. To regard study as mere receptivity and memory work is to have a most incomplete view of what instruction means. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, #NFDB
56:Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the mind; the first is the capacity of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity [in the production] of concepts). ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
57:Reading teaches us receptivity....It teaches us to receive, in stillness and attentiveness, a voice possessed temporarily, on loan....And as we grow accustomed to receiving books in stillness and attentiveness, so we can grow to receive the world, also possessed temporarily. ~ Lynne Sharon Schwartz, #NFDB
58:What Jesus longs to see in radical disciples is what he saw in little children: a spirit of sheer receptivity, utter dependence, and radical reliance on the power and mercy and grace of God mediated through the Spirit of Christ. He said, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
59:It is not a pumping-in from the outside that gives wisdom; it is the power and extent of your inner receptivity that determines how much you can attain of true knowledge, and how rapidly. You can quicken your evolution by awakening and increasing the receptive power of your brain cells. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
60:Sincerity, Aspiration, Faith, Devotion and Self-Giving, Surrender to the Divine Will, Love, Openness and Receptivity, Purity and Humility, Gratitude and Faithfulness, Will and Perseverance, Enthusiasm, Hope and Straightforwardness, Happiness and Joy, Heroism and Bravery, Prudence and Balance, Truth and Speech ~ ?, toc, #NFDB
61:Jesus doesn’t call people to childish behavior but to childlike faith. The qualities of humility, trust, receptivity and a lack of self-sufficiency all characterize the person of faith. The kingdom of God is not earned by human effort but is received in childlike trust as a gift of the mercy and grace of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
62:That is, tapping in to the essence of originating Spirit, emulating the attributes of the creative force of intention, and manifesting into your life anything that you desire that’s consistent with the universal mind—which is creativity, kindness, love, beauty, expansion, abundance, and peaceful receptivity. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
63:Generosity is not limited to the giving of material things. We can be generous with our kindness and receptivity. Generosity can mean the simple giving of a smile or extending ourselves to really listen to a friend. Paradoxically, even being willing to receive the generosity of others can be a form of generosity. ~ Gil Fronsdal, #NFDB
64:Moon is associated with, astrologically speaking: feelings, emotions, mothers, parenting, memories, femininity, the Goddess, witches, women, childhood, cycles, nourishment, heritage, habits, sensitivity, moods, fluctuations, subconscious, receptivity, domestic life, the public, feeding, nurturing, home, needs, and more. ~ Yasmin Boland, #NFDB
65:Aristotle writes that persuasion is based on three things: the ethos, or personal character of the speaker; the pathos, or getting the audience into the right kind of emotional receptivity; and the logos, or the argument itself, carried out by abbreviated syllogisms, or something like deductive syllogisms, and by the use of example. ~ Randal Marlin, #NFDB
66:God is beyond definition. But according to one's own vision or receptivity, one will define God in one's own way. Some will say that God is all Love. Others will say that God is all Power. Each one will see God according to his own necessity, his own receptivity and, finally, according to the way God wants him to see the ultimate Truth. ~ Sri Chinmoy, #NFDB
67:The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
68:A really wise man is feminine, receptive, passive. That's why Buddha looks so feminine. That quality of passiveness, that quality of receptivity... He is just a receptacle. He reflects life: he allows life to reflect in him, to be reflected through him. He sings the song that existence wants to sing through him. He has no ideas of his own; he does not hinder. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
69:The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry, to equanimity, receptivity, and peace, is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium, those changes of personal centre of energy, which I have analyzed so often; and the chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about, not by doing, but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down. ~ William James, #NFDB
70:Receptivity is the first requisite of the disciple, and of anyone who wants to learn anything. We can be anything else we like: we can be wicked, we can be stupid, we can be full of faults, we can backslide. In a sense, it doesn’t matter. But we must be spiritually receptive; we have to be willing and ready to learn. When we know that we do not know, everything is possible. ~ Sangharakshita, #NFDB
71:The institution of marriage in all societies is a pattern within which the strains put by civilization on males and females alike must be resolved, a pattern within which men must learn, in return for a variety of elaborate rewards, new forms in which sexual spontaneity is still possible, and women must learn to discipline their receptivity to a thousand other considerations. ~ Margaret Mead, #NFDB
72:The attitudes of receptivity are various, and Will had sincerely tried many of them. He was not excessively fond of wine, but he had several times taken too much, simply as an experiment in that form of ecstasy; he had fasted till he was faint, and then supped on lobster; he had made himself ill with doses of opium. Nothing greatly original had resulted from these measures; and ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
73:Mysticism on this planet evolved only in those places where people learned the technology of being ecstatic by their own nature. This is because only when you are blissful will you be in the highest state of receptivity, and truly willing to explore all aspects of life. Otherwise, you would not dare, because if keeping yourself pleasant is a big challenge, you can’t take on other challenges. ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
74:If you are seeking for security, certainty, your eyes will become closed. And you will be less and less surprised and you will lose the capacity to wonder. Once you lose the capacity to wonder, you have lost religion. Religion is the opening of your wondering heart. Religion is a receptivity for the mysterious that surrounds us. Don't seek security; don't seek advice on how to live your life. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
75:I think I entered the market around the time when there was getting to be less snobbery about the difference between feature films and television. I think there's been a lot more receptivity on television to interesting adult stories that in the '60s and '70s would have been made into feature films. I have no problem jumping back and forth. If anything, I find it less restrictive working in television. ~ Joe Dante, #NFDB
76:Our receptivity to praise stands in no relationship to our vulnerability to mean disdain and spiteful abuse. No matter how stupid such abuse is, no matter how plainly impelled by private rancors, as an expression of hostility it occupies us far more deeply and lastingly than praise. Which is very foolish, since enemies are, of course, the necessary concomitant of any robust life, the very proof of its strength. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
77:Some of the true signs of being unstuck are friendliness, lightheartedness, receptivity, and joy. It’s a friendliness born of aliveness, awe, and fascination. You become able to look kindly into the eyes of others without fear because there’s nothing in the way—no shame, judgments, secrets, or agitation. Authentic warmth and friendliness are hallmarks of people who are free in their hearts and in their lives. ~ Charlotte Kasl, #NFDB
78:You can convert this human system into absolute receptivity, where you can perceive life in ways that you have never believed possible. If you keep all your ideas, emotions and your nonsense aside, maybe you can take a step, move one inch. One little step existentially is worth more than all the scriptures that you can read on the planet. One little step is far more important than all the philosophies that you can spout. ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
79:Over against all this cloudy vagueness stands the clear scriptural doctrine that God can be known in personal experience. A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene. Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting Himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
80:We underestimated human potential, both the strength of man's intellect and the weakness of his flesh, and therefore his receptivity to satanic inspiration -- but ultimately he is our creature, and so what we've really underestimated is our own creativity. What we made has turned out to be more than what we thought we had made. So ultimately in our failure there is a compliment to us: our creativity is greater than ourselves! ~ Harry Mulisch, #NFDB
81:If I work I feel all right, but the fatigue comes after that. Why? What to do?
It is because you are receptive to the force when you work and that sustains you. But when you are not under the strain of the work you are less receptive. You must learn to be receptive in all circumstances and always - especially when you take rest - it must not be the 'rest' of inertia but a true rest of receptivity.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#NFDB
82:History bears witness to the vital part that the ‘prophets’ have played in human progress—which is evidence of the ultimate practical value of expressing unreservedly the truth as one sees it. Yet it also becomes clear that the acceptances and spreading of that vision has always depended on another class of men—“leaders” who had to be philosophical strategists, striking a compromise between truth and men’s receptivity to it. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru, #NFDB
83:The surya namaskar is essentially about building a dimension within you where your physical bodily cycles are in sync with the sun’s cycles, which run about twelve and a quarter years. It is not by accident but by intent that it has been structured with twelve postures. If your system is in a certain level of vibrancy and readiness, and in a high state of receptivity, then naturally your cycle will be in sync with the solar cycle. Young ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
84:Language is not primarily informational but revelatory. The Holy Scriptures give witness to a living voice sounding variously as Father, Son and Spirit, addressing us personally and involving us personally as participants. This text is not words to be studies in the quiet preserves of a library, but a voice to be believed and loved and adored in workplace and playground, on the streets and in the kitchen. Receptivity is required. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
85:The search for a "suitable" church makes the man a critic where God wants him to be a pupil. What he wants from the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise- does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
86:The fruit does not come from the outside, the fruit is created within you. Whatever you do, you develop receptivity for it inside yourself. Someone who wants love should give his love. Someone who wants bliss should start sharing his bliss. Someone who wants flowers to shower in his home should shower flowers in other people's homes. There is no other way. So compassion is an emotion that each person has to develop in order to enter into meditation. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
87:What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know. But what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
88:To me any activity is more important than its cost to me, even if the cost is unreasonable. Money should never be the criterion for such decisions. If we say we can't have something because of its cost, we limit our receptivity to the Grace and hamper its workings. Money is only a medium of exchange, it is all relative and the Divine resources are inexhaustible. Is this attitude a correct one?
You are quite right and I approve of your attitude.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#NFDB
89:Be passive. In your passivity, God comes. Be feminine. In your femininity, God comes. Have you not watched it? Buddha looks very feminine, Krishna looks very feminine. Why? - because it is simply a metaphor. They have been depicted as feminine, graceful, to show that that is their inner quality - receptivity. When you are doing something you are being aggressive. When you are not doing anything you are non-aggressive. And God cannot be conquered; you can only allow him to conquer you. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
90:In general, however, grand opera, by more and more deadening our musical receptivity through its three-hours duration and at the same time putting our patience to the test through the snail's pace of what is usually a very trite action, is in itself intrinsically and essentially boring; which failing can be overcome only by the excessive excellence of an individual achievement: that is why in this genre only the masterpieces are enjoyable and everything mediocre is unendurable. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
91:Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held, and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards, will be delighted with what he finds there. Let ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
92:True humility is humility before the Divine, that is, a precise, exact, living sense that one is nothing, one can do nothing, understand nothing without the Divine, that even if one is exceptionally intelligent and capable, this is nothing in comparison with the divine Consciousness, and this sense one must always keep, because then one always has the true attitude of receptivity - a humble receptivity that does not put personal pretensions in opposition to the Divine. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, #NFDB
93:Meditation is basically the process of witnessing: looking from your centre all that is happening. Many things are happening on the outside - the noise of the train far away; something is happening in you body - your knees are hurting - right? Your mind is churning many thoughts, that 'What am I doing here?' Your heart is feeling many emotions, you have waited for this moment for so long. There is joy in the heart, a certain ecstasy, a mood, a receptivity. All those things have to be watched very minutely. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
94:And with listening, too, it seems to me, it is not the ear that hears, it is not the physical organ that performs the act of inner receptivity. It is the total person who hears. Sometimes the skin seems to be the best listener, as it prickles and thrills, say to a sound or a silence; or the fantasy, the imagination: how it bursts into inner pictures as it listens and then responds by pressing its language, its forms, into the listening clay. To be open to what we hear, to be open in what we say. . ~ Mary Caroline Richards, #NFDB
95:The centre of the Mother's symbol represent the Divine Consciousness, the Supreme Mother, the Mahashakti.
The four petals of the Mother's symbol represent the four Aspects or Personalities of the Mother; Maheshwari (Wisdom), Mahalakshmi(Harmony), Mahakali(Strength) and Mahasaraswati (Perfection).
The twelve petals of the Mother's symbol represent; Sincerity, Humility, Gratitude, Perseverance, Aspiration, Receptivity, Progress, Courage, Goodness, Generosity, Equality, Peace.
~ ?, https://www.auroville.com/silver-ring-mother-s-symbol.html, [T5],#NFDB
96:You will have to learn ways of relaxing in the present. Enlightenment is not an effort to achieve something. It is a state of effortlessness. It is a state of no-action. It is a state of tremendous passivity, receptivity. You are not doing anything, you are not thinking anything, you are not planning for anything, you are not doing yoga exercises, and you are not doing any technique, any method - you are simply existing, just existing. And in that very moment... the sudden realization that all is as it should be. That`s what enlightenment is! ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
97:Practice emptiness to the extreme.
Keep stillness whole.
Myriad things act in concert.
I therefore watch their return.
All things flourish, and each returns to its root.
Return to the root is called Quietude.
Quietude is called Way of Life.
Way of Life is called Constant.
Acting without knowing this constant can be harmful.
Understanding this Constant is called receptivity, which is impartial.
Impartiality is Kingship.
Kingship is Heaven.
Heaven is the Tao.
Though you lose the body, you do not die. ~ Lao Tzu,#NFDB
98:I had confidence that although life itself might contain many difficulties, the period of mere passive receptivity had come to an end, and I had at last finished with the ever-lasting "preparation for life," however prepared I might be.
It was not until years afterward that I came upon Tolstoy's phrase "the snare of preparation," which he insists we spread before the feet of young people, hopelessly entangling them in a curious inactivity at the very period of life when they are longing to construct the world anew and to conform it to their own ideals. ~ Jane Addams,#NFDB
99:Look at the great athletes, musician, artists, and writers. They all tap into a source. Some call that source God or soul or spirit or consciousness. The Seven Faces of Intention: creativity, kindness, love, beauty, expansion, abundance, and receptivity. And all seven are expressions of what I imagine that source to look like. The very fact that we exist is proof to me that the nature of that source is creative at its core. And there isn't a person reading this who does not have a gnawing sense inside that there's something they're here to do, something creative. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
100:I would say the 1980s, most importantly, there's been a witnessing of the bankruptcy of the liberal philosophy and the anti-moral and amoral philosophies that were so prevalent in the 1960s and '70s, the rebellion of young people, which brought about the drug epidemic in so many to break down the family. Particularly during this decade, the spiritual rebirth. I'm an evangelical, and I've watched the evangelical church here and around the world preaching Christ, the death, burial, resurrection of the savior, receiving more receptivity everywhere, and that growth. ~ Jerry Falwell, #NFDB
101:Let us say it again: The Universal Presence is a fact. God is here. The whole universe is alive with His life. And He is no strange or foreign God, but the familiar Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whose love has for these thousands of years enfolded the sinful race of men. And always He is trying to get our attention, to reveal Himself to us, to communicate with us. We have within us the ability to know Him if we will but respond to His overtures. (And this we call pursuing God!) We will know Him in increasing degree as our receptivity becomes more perfect by faith and love and practice. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
102:Merely by manipulating the size of a group, we can dramatically improve its receptivity to new ideas. By tinkering with the presentation of information, we can significantly improve its stickiness. Simply by finding and reaching those few special people who hold so much social power, we can shape the course of social epidemics. In the end, Tipping Points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of intelligent action. Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push—in just the right place—it can be tipped. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
103:All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be ... The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
104:All domination in recorded history up to today was patriarchal domination. So if we should indeed live to see not only equality of the woman before the law but the deployment of what is called the specific “feminine” qualities throughout society: for example, nonviolence, receptivity, tenderness. This would indeed be, or could be, the beginning of a different society, the very antithesis of male domination with its violent and brutal character. Now I, myself, am very conscious of the fact that these so-called ‘feminine’ qualities are socially conditioned—but to a great extent, they are available, they are there, so why not use them? ~ Herbert Marcuse, #NFDB
105:Mary, mother of Jesus, pays for her maternity by giving up her body, almost entirely: she foregoes both (hetero) sexual pleasure (Christ's birth is a virgin and "spiritual" birth) and physical prowess. She has no direct worldly power but, like her crucified son, is easily identified with by many people, especially women, as a powerless figure. Mary symbolizes power achieved through receptivity, compassion, and a uterus. (There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a consciously willed "receptivity" to the universe; on the contrary, it is highly desirable, and should certainly include "receptivity" to many things other than holy sperm and suffering.) ~ Phyllis Chesler, #NFDB
106:Body Image AT about 4 to 5 months of age, at the peak of symbiosis, behavioral phenomena seem to indicate the beginning of the first subphase of separation-individuation, namely differentiation. During the symbiotic months —through that activity of the pre-ego which Spitz has described as coenesthetic receptivity—the young infant has familiarized himself with the mothering half of his symbiotic self, as indicated by the unspecific, social smile. This smile gradually becomes the specific (preferential) smiling response to the mother, which is the crucial sign that a specific bond between the infant and his mother has been established (Bowlby, 1958). ~ Margaret S Mahler, #NFDB
107:Everything is linked,' said an enraptured Baremboim on stage; 'everyone is linked, all our actions have ramifications, and music is a teacher of this interconnected reality.' There was, however, in the letter a mundane, prosaic footnote that nibbled at the very edges of possible understanding, since understanding must always be preceded by human curiosity. Perhaps it will vanish in the charged space between one suicide bomber and the next military bulldozer that buries human beings alive within the imagined security of their own homes; perhaps it will join other shards of recollected moments of curiosity and discovery, to weld into a vessel of receptivity and response. ~ Wole Soyinka, #NFDB
108:Here, I believe, was mercy; and, lying very close to it, the root of the novelist’s art. The novel’s structure is a structure of suggnômê—of the penetration of the life of another into one’s own imagination and heart. It is a form of imaginative and emotional receptivity, in which the reader, following the author’s lead, comes to be inhabited by the tangled complexities and struggles of other concrete lives.54 Novels do not withhold all moral judgment, and they contain villains as well as heroes. But for any character with whom the form invites our participatory identification, the motives for mercy are engendered in the structure of literary perception itself. VII. ~ Martha C Nussbaum, #NFDB
109:We can educate our conscience by: • reading and pondering over the wisdom literature of the ages to broaden our awareness of the true north principles that run as common themes throughout time • standing apart from and learning from our own experience • carefully observing the experience of others • taking time to be still and listen to that deep inner voice • responding to that voice It’s not enough just to listen to conscience; we must also respond. When we fail to act in harmony with our inner voice, we begin to build a wall around the conscience that blocks its sensitivity and receptivity. As C. S. Lewis observed, “disobedience to conscience makes conscience blind. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
110:What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a worldwide scale I do not claim to know; but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held, and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards, will be delighted with what he finds there. Let ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
111:I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which they had in common was spiritual receptivity. Something in them was open to heaven, something which urged them Godward. Without attempting anything like a profound analysis I shall say simply that they had spiritual awareness and that they went on to cultivate it until it became the biggest thing in their lives. They differed from the average person in that when they felt the inward longing they did something about it. They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response. They were not disobedient to the heavenly vision. As David put it neatly, “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek” (p. 67). ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
112:There is no method in this Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one's own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother's Power and Presence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#NFDB
113:But if there is difficulty and volatility in the world of the Tipping Point, there is a large measure of hopefulness as well. Merely by manipulating the size of a group, we can dramatically improve its receptivity to new ideas. By tinkering with the presentation of information, we can significantly improve its stickiness. Simply by finding and reaching those few special who hold so much social power, we can shape the course of social epidemics. In the end, Tipping Points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of intelligent action. Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push-in just the right place-it can be tipped. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
114:The contribution of the psychic being to the sadhana is: (1) love and bhakti, a love not vital, demanding and egoistic but unconditioned and without claims, self-existent; (2) the contact or the presence of the Mother within; (3) the unerring guidance from within; (4) a quieting and purification of the mind, vital and physical consciousness by their subjection to the psychic influence and guidance; (5) the opening up of all this lower consciousness to the higher spiritual consciousness above for its descent into a nature prepared to receive it with a complete receptivity and right attitude - for the psychic brings in everything, right thought, right perception, right feeling, right attitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, #NFDB
115:Creativity is, by its nature, fitful and inconstant, easily upset by constraint, foreboding, insecurity, external pressure. Any great preoccupation with the problems of ensuring animal survival exhausts the energies and disturbs the receptivity of the sensitive mind. Such creativity as was first achieved in the city came about largely through an arrogation of the economic means of production and distribution by a small minority, attached to the temple and the palace. In the epic of creation Marduk remarks of man: "Let him be burdened with the toil of the gods that they may freely breathe." Shall we err greatly if we translate this as: "Let our subjects be burdened with daily toil that the king and the priesthood may freely breathe"? ~ Lewis Mumford, #NFDB
116:Perhaps the single most important determinant of the receptivity of the buyer to a new product or service is the nature of the expected benefit. We can imagine a continuum of benefits ranging from a new product that offers a performance advantage unachievable through other means to one that offers solely a cost advantage. Intermediate cases are those offering an advantage in performance but one that could be replicated through other means at higher cost. The earliest markets purchasing a new product, other things being equal, are usually those in which the advantage is one of performance. This situation occurs because the achievement of a cost advantage in practice is often viewed with suspicion when buyers confront the newness, uncertainty, and often erratic performance of the emerging industry, ~ Michael E Porter, #NFDB
117:Sadhana You can experiment: arrange the best possible meal for yourself, get angry with something, curse the whole world, and then eat it. You will see that day how food behaves within you. At the next meal, approach your food with the reverence that the life-making material deserves and eat it. You will now see how it will behave within you. (Of course, if you’re sensible, you’ll ignore the first and only do the second!) Most people can bring down the quantum of food they are eating to a third and be much more energetic and not lose weight. It is just a question of how much receptivity you have created within yourself. Accordingly your body receives. If you can do the same amount of work, maintain all the bodily processes, with thirty percent of the food that you eat, that definitely means you are running a much more efficient machine. ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
118:For society, the interesting outcome of this situation is that progress seldom occurs through the abrupt expulsion by a group of its old ideas in favor of new ideas, but rather through the rearrangement of the thought of the individuals in these groups with respect to each other and with respect to the entire membership of society. It is precisely this interlapping of groups—the variety, the inconsistency of the average man’s mental, social and psychological commitments which makes possible the gradual change from one state of affairs or from one state of mind to another. Few people are life members of one group and of one group only. The ordinary person is a very temporary member of a great number of groups. This is one of the most powerful forces making for progress in society because it makes for receptivity and open-mindedness. ~ Edward L Bernays, #NFDB
119:Writing, too, is 90 percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you wrote, it pours out of you. If you can capture that reality around you, your writing needs nothing else. You don't only listen to the air, the chair, and the door. And go beyond the door. Take in the sound of the season, the sound of the color coming in through the windows. Listen to the past, future, and present right where you are. Listen with your whole body, not only with your ears, but with your hands, your face, and the back of your neck.
Listening is receptivity. The deeper you can listen, the better you can write. You can take in the way things are without judgment, and the next day you can write the truth about the way things are."
...If you can capture the way things are that's all the poetry you ever need. ~ Natalie Goldberg,#NFDB
120:You should know about this energy because it’s yours. It’s your birthright, and it’s unlimited. You can call upon it any time you want. It has nothing to do with age. Some eighty-year-old people have the energy and enthusiasm of a child. They can work long hours for seven days a week. It’s just energy. Energy doesn’t get old, it doesn’t get tired, and it doesn’t need food. What it needs is openness and receptivity. This energy is equally available to everybody. The sun does not shine differently on different people. If you’re good, it shines on you. If you did something bad, it shines on you. It’s the same with the inner energy. The only difference is that with the inner energy, you have the ability to close up inside and block it. When you close, the energy stops flowing. When you open, all the energy rushes up inside of you. True spiritual teachings are about this energy and how to open to it. ~ Michael A Singer, #NFDB
121:2. Innovation is both conceptual and perceptual. The second imperative of innovation is therefore to go out to look, to ask, to listen. This cannot be stressed too often. Successful innovators use both the right side and the left side of their brains. They look at figures, and they look at people. They work out analytically what the innovation has to be to satisfy an opportunity. And then they go out and look at the customers, the users, to see what their expectations, their values, their needs are. Receptivity can be perceived, as can values. One can perceive that this or that approach will not fit in with the expectations or the habits of the people who have to use it. And then one can ask: ‘What does this innovation have to reflect so that the people who have to use it will want to use it, and see in it their opportunity?’ Otherwise one runs the risk of having the right innovation in the wrong form ~ Peter F Drucker, #NFDB
122:Please initiate me into a tangible form of Yoga. I make this assurance that I shall follow your instructions to the very letter and refer to you my doubts and difficulties on the way.
There is no method in this Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one's own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother's Power and Presence. 30 November 1934 ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#NFDB
123:What comes to us - or may come to us - is a gift from God which is adjusted to our receptivity, but is none the less out of all proportion to our deserts. Our principle task is to make ourselves ready. What is offered is clear and simple but, faced even with the possibility of this gift, we find ourselves to be a mass of contradictions, not merely unfit to receive it but incapable of taking it in.
The profane man's selfhood is a debris of memories and dreams, false hopes and lingering guilts, or hard little pebbles of self-concern, desire and fear. This is the 'hardened heart' of which the Quran speaks of so often. A vessel must be emptied before it can be refilled, and only someone who has expelled this debris from the centre of his being can hope that something of the divine plenitude may flow into him. There is not room in the human heart for two, as the mystics have said on a number of occasions. ~ Charles Le Gai Eaton,#NFDB
124:I looked at the sofa. I wanted to lie down on it and close my eyes. I wanted him to just do the therapy to me, suck it out of me while I slept. I wanted a complete overhaul. I wanted new limbs. I wanted a new neck to hold up a whole new head. I wanted to be hypnotized, brainwashed, monitored, imploded, reconstituted, turned invisible. turned inside out, and cured. I wanted my organs replaced with all new organs, no scars. I wanted him to hover over me and infuse the stew of me with clear insights and shiny bits. I wanted all this change to happen while I lay semi-dozing, in a state of beauty and receptivity, quietly thrumming, on the couch. But it wasn’t a lie-down kind of a couch. It was a forward-facing, upright, massive ship of a thing – a sofa for adults, for work, for serious conversation, maybe for reading John Steinbeck or drafting torts. There had never been a free association on this sofa in its entire life. ~ Heather Sellers, #NFDB
125:A man shouldn’t claim to know even himself as he really is by knowing himself through inner sensation—i.e. by introspection. For since he doesn’t produce himself (so to speak) or get his concept of himself a priori but only empirically, it is natural that he gets his knowledge of himself through inner sense and consequently only through how his nature appears and how his consciousness is affected. But beyond the character of his own subject, which is made up out of these mere appearances, he necessarily assumes something else underlying it, namely his I as it is in itself. Thus in respect to mere perception and receptivity to sensations he must count himself as belonging to the sensible world; but in respect to whatever pure activity there may be in himself (which reaches his consciousness directly and not by affecting the inner or outer senses) he must count himself as belonging to the intellectual world—though he doesn’t know anything more about it. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
126:To be able to receive the Divine Power and let act through you in the things of the outward life, there are three necessary conditions:
(i) Quietude, equality - not to be disturbed by anything that happens, to keep the mind still and firm, seeing the play of forces, but itself tranquil.
(ii) Absolute faith - faith that what is for the best will happen, but also that if one can make oneself a true instrument, the fruit will be that which one's will guided by the Divine Light sees as the thing to be done - kartavyam karma.
(iii) Receptivity - the power to receive the Divine Force and to feel its presence and the presence of the Mother in it and allow it to work, guiding one's sight and will and action. If this power and presence can be felt and this plasticity made the habit of the consciousness in action, - but plasticity to the Divine force alone without bringing in any foreign element, - the eventual result is sure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#NFDB
127:It seems that unlike the continuous, enduring contentment that we anticipate, our actual happiness with, and in, a place must be a brief and, at least to the conscious mind, apparently haphazard phenomenon: an interval in which we achieve receptivity to the world around us, in which positive thoughts of past and future coagulate and anxieties are allayed. The condition rarely endures for longer than ten minutes. New patterns of anxiety inevitably form on the horizon of consciousness, like the weather fronts that mass themselves every few days off the western coasts of Ireland. The past victory ceases to seem so impressive, the future acquires complications and the beautiful view becomes as invisible as anything which is always around.
I was to discover an unexpected continuity between the melancholic self I had been at home and the person I was to be on the island, a continuity quite at odds with the radical discontinuity in the landscape and climate, where the very air seemed to be made of a different and sweeter substance. ~ Alain de Botton,#NFDB
128:I am alive to a usual objection to what is clearly part of my programme for the metier of poetry. The objection is that the doctrine requires a ridiculous amount of erudition (pedantry), a claim which can be rejected by appeal to the lives of poets in any pantheon. It will even be affirmed that much learning deadens or perverts poetic sensibility. While, however, we persist in believing that a poet ought to know as much as will not encroach upon his necessary receptivity and necessary laziness, it is not desirable to confine knowledge to whatever can be put into a useful shape for examinations, drawing rooms, or the still more pretentious modes of publicity. Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum. What is to be insisted upon is that the poet must develop this consciousness throughout his career.
What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. ~ T S Eliot,#NFDB
129:It is always better to try to concentrate in a centre, the centre of aspiration, one might say, the place where the flame of aspiration burns, to gather in all the energies there, at the solar plexus centre and, if possible, to obtain an attentive silence as though one wanted to listen to something extremely subtle, something that demands a complete attention, a complete concentration and a total silence. And then not to move at all. Not to think, not to stir, and make that movement of opening so as to receive all that can be received, but taking good care not to try to know what is happening while it is happening, for it one wants to understand or even to observe actively, it keeps up a sort of cerebral activity which is unfavourable to the fullness of the receptivity - to be silent, as totally silent as possible, in an attentive concentration, and then be still. If one succeeds in this, then, when everything is over, when one comes out of meditation, some time later - usually not immediately - from within the being something new emerges in the consciousness: a new understanding, a new appreciation of things, a new attitude in life - in short, a new way of being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, [where to concentrate?],#NFDB
130:Unitive experiences often occur spontaneously, and often outside of obviously religious contexts. Many times they are quickly repressed or denied. Still, they constitute the basic form of spiritual experience,...
It is possible to increase one's openness, receptivity, and responsiveness to unitive experiences, but it is not possible to make them happen.
An experience of union, of course, does not imply that an individual is really any more at one than before or after the experience. Rather, it must be understood that the experience constitutes a realization (in the literal sense) of an aspect of life that is constantly true but that goes unrecognized most of the time. In this regard, unitive experiences can be seen as one kind of contemplative state. In classic language they are a form of "infused" contemplation, that which comes solely as a gift, as compared to "acquired" contemplation, that which comes partly from personal effort and intention....
In practice one can examine the self-losing aspect of unitive experience by asking What was your sense of yourself during the experience? In the true experience, there will be no sense of self; self will be forgotten. ~ Gerald G May,#NFDB
131:Aspiration in everyone, no matter who it is, has the same poweR But the effect of this aspiration is different. For aspiration is aspiration: if you have aspiration, in itself it has a power. Only, this aspiration calls down an answer, and this answer, the effect, which is the result of the aspiration, depends upon each one, for it depends upon his receptivity. I know many people of this kind: they say, "Oh! but I aspire all the time and still I receive nothing." It is impossible that they should receive nothing, in the sense that the answer is sure to come. But it is they who do not receive. The answer comes but they are not receptive, so they receive nothing.. . . When you have an aspiration, a very active aspiration, your aspiration is going to do its work. It is going to call down the answer to what you aspire foR But if, later, you begin to think of something else or are not attentive or receptive, you do not even notice that your aspiration has received an answer. This happens very frequently. So people tell you: "I aspire and I don't receive anything, I get no answer!" Yes, you do have an answer but you are not aware of it, because you continue to be active in this way, like a mill turning all the time. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954, #NFDB
132:The safest course for an Infinite Way student to follow is to admit freely that he does not know how to pray, how to go out or come in, or what to pray for, and then open himself in receptivity to that still small Voice which is within, closer than breathing, and let It pray through him, let It utter Its voice, let It have Its way. If you are praying for someone else, let It inform you, let It inform your patient or your student.
Do not try to be Omniscience yourself in your praying, because you can be Omniscience only when you are completely absent from the personal sense of self, when you are absent from any knowledge, when you have attained that place of unknowing in which you definitely know that you do not know, and do not even want to know, but are willing and open to receive spiritual wisdom, spiritual guidance, spiritual strength.
When you are praying or meditating for someone else, do not try to transfer thoughts to him, do not try to know what is right for him or best for him, but sit in a state of complete receptivity, and then let the Father function as your consciousness. You may not receive any message for your patient or student, but you do not need any. He will receive it, and he will receive it not from you, but from the Source of you. Your consciousness acts only as the instrument of contact, and you yourself may never know what the message is, or even whether any message has been received ~ Joel S Goldsmith,#NFDB
133:It's this human porosity that bothers me and that I can't escape since it is the faith of my skin, the extra sense which is everywhere in my being, this lack of eyelids on the face of the soul, or perhaps this imaginary lack of imaginary lids, this excessive facility I have for catching others, I am caught by persons or things animated or unanimated that I don't even frequent, and even the verb catch I catch or rather I am caught by it, for, note this please, it's not I who wish to change, it's the other who gets his hooks in me for lack of armor. All it takes is for me to be plunged for an hour or less into surroundings where the inevitable occurs--cafe, bus, hair salon, train carriage, recording studio--there must be confinement and envelopment, and there I am stained intoxicated, practically any speaker can appropriate my mental cells and poison my sinuses, shit, idiocies, cruelties, vulgar spite, trash, innumerable particles of human hostility inflame the windows of my brain and I get off the transport sick for days. It isn't the fault of one Eichmann or another. I admit to being guilty of excessive receptivity to mental miasma. The rumor of a word poisons me for a long time. Should I read or hear such and such a turn of phrase or figure of speech, right away I can't breathe my mucous membranes swell up, my lips go dry, I am asthmaticked, sometimes I lose my balance and crash to the ground, or on a chair if perchance one is there, in the incapacity of breathing the unbreathable. ~ H l ne Cixous, #NFDB
134:I need the wisdom, reasoning, and apologetics of C. S. Lewis, though some of his theological beliefs are different from mine. I need the preaching and charisma of Charles Spurgeon, though his view of baptism is different from mine. I need the resurrection vision of N. T. Wright and the theology of Jonathan Edwards, though their views on church government are different from mine. I need the passion and prophetic courage of Martin Luther King Jr., the cultural intelligence of Soong-Chan Rah, and the Confessions of St. Augustine, though their ethnicities are different from mine. I need the justice impulse and communal passion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, though his nationality is different from mine. I need the spiritual thirst and love drive of Brennan Manning and the prophetic wit of G. K. Chesterton, though both are Roman Catholics and I am a Protestant. I need the hymns and personal holiness of John and Charles Wesley, though some of their doctrinal distinctives are different from mine. I need the glorious weakness of Joni Eareckson Tada, the spirituality of Marva Dawn, the trusting perseverance of Elisabeth Elliot, the long-suffering spirit of Amy Carmichael, the transparency of Rebekah Lyons, the thankfulness of Ann Voskamp, the Kingdom vision of Amy Sherman, and the integrity of Patti Sauls, though their gender is different from mine. As St. Augustine reputedly said, “In nonessentials, liberty.” To this we might add, “In nonessentials, open-minded receptivity.” We Christians must allow ourselves to be shaped by other believers. The more we move outside the lines of our own traditions and cultures, the more we will also be moving toward Jesus. ~ Scott Sauls, #NFDB
135:But if somewhere in your being - either in your body or even in your vital or mind, either in several parts or even in a single one - there is an incapacity to receive the descending Force, this acts like a grain of sand in a machine. You know, a fine machine working quite well with everything going all right, and you put into it just a little sand (nothing much, only a grain of sand), suddenly everything is damaged and the machine stops. Well, just a little lack of receptivity somewhere, something that is unable to receive the Force, that is completely shut up (when one looks at it, it becomes as it were a little dark spot somewhere, a tiny thing hard as a stone: the Force cannot enter into it, it refuses to receive it - either it cannot or it will not) and immediately that produces a great imbalance; and this thing that was moving upward, that was blooming so wonderfully, finds itself sick, and sometimes just when you were in the normal equilibrium; you were in good health, everything was going on well, you had nothing to complain about. One day when you grasped a new idea, received a new impulse, when you had a great aspiration and received a great force and had a marvellous experience, a beautiful experience opening to you inner doors, giving you a knowledge you did not have before; then you were sure that everything was going to be all right.... The next day, you are taken ill. So you say: "Still that? It is impossible! That should not happen." But it was quite simply what I have just said: a grain of sand. There was something that could not receive; immediately it brings about a disequilibrium. Even though very small it is enough, and you fall ill.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 175,#NFDB
136:When you love a woman, what do you really love in her? It will be different with different people and it will be different at different times. If love really grows, this is the way: first you fall in love with the woman because her body is beautiful. That is the first available beauty - her face, her eyes, her proportion, her elegance, her dancing, pulsating energy. Her body is beautiful. That is the first approach. You fall in love.
Then after a few days you start going deeper into the woman. You start loving her heart. Now a far more beautiful revelation is coming to you. The body becomes secondary; the heart becomes primary. A new vision has arisen, a new peak. If you go on loving the woman, sooner or later you will find there are peaks beyond peaks, depths beyond depths. Then you start loving the soul of the woman. Then it is not only her heart - now that has become secondary. Now it is the very person, the very presence, the very radiance, the aliveness, that unknown phenomenon of her being - that she is. The body is very far away, the heart has also gone away - now the being is.
And then one day this particular woman's being becomes far away. Now you start loving womanhood in her, the femininity, the feminineness, that receptivity. Now she is not a particular woman at all, she simply reflects womanhood, a particular form of womanhood. Now it is no longer individual, it is becoming more and more universal. And one day that womanhood has also disappeared - you love the humanity in her. Now she is not just a representative of woman, she is also a representative of man as much. The sky is becoming bigger and bigger. Then one day it is not humanity, but existence. That she exists, that's all that you want - that she exists. You are coming very close to God.
Then the last point comes - all formulations and all forms disappear and there is God. You have found God through your woman, through your man. Each love is an echo of God's love. ~ Osho,#NFDB
137:You will also be tempted to try to hold onto a sense of presence, to make a steady state of it. It will not work. If you are lucky, you’ll just miss the moment and be frustrated. If you are successful in holding on, things will be much worse. At some point you will discover that what you are holding is not real; it is something you yourself have contrived. You will also discover that you have been suppressing and deceiving yourself in order to keep it.
. . . In trying to maintain a state, we are naturally expressing our deep desire for wakeful presence in love. But it is a wrong way of expressing it. This way becomes willful so quickly and insidiously that we lose touch with our relationship with grace . . . And grace, thank God, is not dependent upon our state of mind.
Some traditions would disagree with my advice. Much of the spirituality of the early Christian desert, for example, advised using all one’s mental strength to hold onto remembrance of Christ. Some Hindu and Buddhist disciplines encourage a similar forcefulness. Such effortful concentration may have a place in monastic settings and can be helpful as a temporary mental stretch before yielding into simple presence. But I do not recommend it as a steady diet for people who live in the world of families, homes, and workplaces. I have tried it myself, and it only created great trouble for me. I became depressed and irritable inside and absolutely obnoxious around friends and family.
. . . I suggest you become familiar with the feeling you have inside when you make a resolution or strive to cling to something . . . Get to know the feeling well, so that whenever you feel it you can stop what you’re doing, take a breath, relax, yield a little, and let your real self turn to the real God. . . Seek to encourage yourself instead of manipulating yourself. Cultivate your receptivity to the little interior glances instead of grasping for them. Live, love, and yearn with unbearable passion, but don’t try to make it happen and don’t try to hold on when it does happen. ~ Gerald G May,#NFDB
138:It is very easy to grow tired at collecting; the period of a low tide is about all men can endure. At first the rocks are bright and every moving animal makes his mark on the attention. The picture is wide and colored and beautiful. But after an hour and a half the attention centers weary, the color fades, and the field is likely to narrow to an individual animal. Here one may observe his own world narrowed down until interest and, with it, observation, flicker and go out. And what if with age this weariness becomes permanent and observation dim out and not recover? Can this be what happens to so many men of science? Enthusiasm, interest, sharpness, dulled with a weariness until finally they retire into easy didacticism? With this weariness, this stultification of attention centers, perhaps there comes the pained and sad memory of what the old excitement was like, and regret might turn to envy of the men who still have it. Then out of the shell of didacticism, such a used-up man might attack the unwearied, and he would have in his hands proper weapons of attack. It does seem certain that to a wearied man an error in a mass of correct data wipes out all the correctness and is a focus for attack; whereas the unwearied man, in his energy and receptivity, might consider the little dross of error a by-product of his effort. These two may balance and produce a purer thing than either in the end. These two may be the stresses which hold up the structure, but it is a sad thing to see the interest in interested men thin out and weaken and die. We have known so many professors who once carried their listeners high on their single enthusiasm, and have seen these same men finally settle back comfortably into lectures prepared years before and never vary them again. Perhaps this is the same narrowing we observe in relation to ourselves and the tide pool—a man looking at reality brings his own limitations to the world. If he has strength and energy of mind the tide pool stretches both ways, digs back to electrons and leaps space into the universe and fights out of the moment into non-conceptual time. Then ecology has a synonym which is ALL. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
139:Disciple: What are the conditions of success in this yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: I have often told of them. Those go through who have the central sincerity. It does not mean that the sincerity is there in all the parts of the being. In that sense no one is entirely ready. But if the central sincerity is there it is possible to establish it in all the parts of the being.
The second thing necessary is a certain receptivity in the being, what we call, the "opening" up of all the planes to the Higher Power.
The third thing required is the power of holding the higher Force, a certain ghanatwa - mass - that can hold the Power when it comes down.
And about the thing that pushes there are two things that generally push: One is the Central Being. The other is destiny. If the Central Being wants to do something it pushes the man. Even when the man goes off the line he is pushed back again to the path. Of course, the Central Being may push through the mind or any other part of the being. Also, if the man is destined he is pushed to the path either to go through or to get broken,
Disciple: There are some people who think they are destined or chosen and we see that they are not "chosen".
Sri Aurobindo: Of course, plenty of people think that they are specially "chosen" and that they are the first and the "elect" and so on. All that is nothing.
Disciple: Then, can you. say who is fit out of all those that have come?
Sri Aurobindo: It is very difficult to say. But this can be said that everyone of those who have come in has some chance to go through if he can hold on to it.
Disciple: There is also a chance of failure.
Sri Aurobindo: Of course, and besides, the whole universe is a play of forces and one can't always wait till all the conditions of success have been fulfilled. One has to take risks and take his chance.
Disciple: What is meant by "chance"? Does it mean that it is only one possibility out of many others, or does it mean that one would be able to succeed in yoga?
Sri Aurobindo: It means only that he can succeed if he takes his chance properly. For instance, X had his chance.
Disciple: Those who fall on the path or slip, do they go down in their evolution?
Sri Aurobindo: That depends. Ultimately, the Yoga may be lost to him.
Disciple: The Gita says: Na hi kalyānkṛt - nothing that is beneficial - comes to a bad end.
Sri Aurobindo: That is from another standpoint. You must note the word is kalyān kṛt - it is an important addition.
~ Sri Aurobindo, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, RECORDED BY A B PURANI (20-09-1926),#NFDB
140:Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of our mind; the first is to receive representations (receptivity of impressions), the second is the faculty of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity of concepts). Through the first an object is *given* to us, through the second the object is *thought* in relation to that representation (which is a mere determination of the mind). Intuition and concepts constitute, therefore, the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts can yield knowledge. Both are either pure or empirical. They are empirical when they contain sensation (sensation presupposes the actual presence of the object). They are *pure* when no sensation is mixed in with the representation. Sensation may be called the matter of sensible knowledge. Pure intuition, therefore, contains only the form under which something is intuited, and the pure concepts contains only the form of thinking an object in general. Pure intuitions and pure concepts alone are possible *a priori*, empirical intuitions and empirical concepts only *a posteriori*.
We call *sensibility* the *receptivity* of our mind to receive representations insofar as it is in some wise affected, while the *understanding*, on the other hand, is our faculty of producing representations by ourselves, or the *spontaneity* of knowledge. We are so constituted that our intuition can never be other than *sensible*; that is, it contains only the mode in which we are affected by objects. The faculty, on the contrary, which enables us to *think* the object of sensible intuition is the *understanding*. Neither of these properties is to be preferred to the other. Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. It is, therefore, just as necessary to make our concepts sensible (i.e., to add the object to them in intuition) as to make our intuitions understandable (i.e., to bring them under concepts). These two faculties or capacities cannot exchange their functions. The understanding cannot intuit anything, the senses cannot think anything. Only from their union can knowledge arise. But this is no reason for confounding their respective contributions; rather, it gives us a strong reason for carefully separating and distinguishing the one from the other. We therefore distinguish the science of the rules of sensibility in general, i.e., aesthetic, from the science of the rules of the understanding in general, i.e., logic."
―Transcendental Doctrine of Elements. Transcendental Logic: The Idea of a Transcendental Logic ~ Immanuel Kant,#NFDB
141:The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar. The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul. For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame. We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs. We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied. To put it differently, we have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward. Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt wire grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed. It will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to Biblical ways. But it can be done. Every now and then in the past Christians have had to do it. History has recorded several large-scale returns led by such men as St. Francis, Martin Luther and George Fox. Unfortunately there seems to be no Luther or Fox on the horizon at present. Whether or not another such return may be expected before the coming of Christ is a question upon which Christians are not fully agreed, but that is not of too great importance to us now. What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know: but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
142:While women have come far in their ability to speak on their own behalf, there are many women who compromise what they want to say and what they actually say. Almost all women experience a dissonance between inner and outer. As a matter of emotional and sometimes physical survival, women have found it necessary to split their speech into two parts. One kind of speech is suppressed, occurring only in safe settings with intimates or within the ultimate safety of a woman's own mind.
The second kind of speech is the publicly acceptable type that conforms to social expectations. The injunction to suppress certain feelings or thoughts can be so powerful that a woman may not be aware of it and may honestly believe that publicly acceptable speech is all she has in her. Carol Gilligan's work describes the destructive effects of this splitting of voice, especially in young girls who, as they embark on adolescence, have trouble speaking with clarity and strength.
An emphasis on listening cultivates a stronger expression of voice. Listening is a crucial component in Imago Theory, where couples are taught to mirror, or repeat back, each other's thoughts, feelings, and needs as a way of building not only their partner's sense of self, but their own. Our core self becomes stronger when it is mirrored back. Voice that is not mirrored dies. When the process of mirroring is followed by validating and empathizing, a deep listening is done with feeling. All of us need validation -- that who we are, what we think, and how we feel does make sense. And the deepest form of listening is empathy, by which we are able to resonate on a soul level with the feelings and needs of one another.
A wise proverb states that "Speech is silver, Silence is gold," reminding us of the forgotten value of silence. Feminist theorist Patrocinio Schweickart chose those words as the title of her article on talking and listening that parallels the inward and outward rhythm of Imago dialogue. She points our attention to the value of quiet as a tool that helps us notice the complex interplay of inner and outer that characterizes any creative process. For something new to happen, we need silence and receptivity as well as action and productivity. While some theorists see speaking as active and listening as passive, Schweickart and Imago Theory both point to the reality that both speaking and listening are active. Listening is a way of meaning-making. Theologian Nelle Morten refers to this dynamic as "hearing each other into speech."
Ultimately, the development of authentic voice is a process that involves that involves a flow between speaking and listening. In listening, one becomes attuned to the surroundings so that speech becomes relevant and meaningful. This undulating rhythm of speaking and listening is the bedrock for dialogue in Imago Theory and for all of us who care about relationship. ~ Helen LaKelly Hunt,#NFDB
143:What do you mean by these words: 'When you are in difficulty, widen yourself'?
I am speaking, of course, of difficulties on the path of yoga, incomprehension, limitations, things like obstacles, which prevent you from advancing. And when I say "widen yourself", I mean widen your consciousness.
Difficulties always arise from the ego, that is, from your more or less egoistic personal reaction to circumstances, events and people around you, to the conditions of your life. They also come from that feeling of being closed up in a sort of shell, which prevents your consciousness from uniting with higher and vaster realities.
One may very well think that one wants to be vast, wants to be universal, that all is the expression of the Divine, that one must have no egoism - one may think all sorts of things - but that is not necessarily a cure, for very often one knows what one ought to do, and yet one doesn't do it, for one reason or another.
But if, when you have to face anguish, suffering, revolt, pain or a feeling of helplessness - whatever it may be, all the things that come to you on the path and which precisely are your difficulties-if physically, that is to say, in your body- consciousness, you can have the feeling of widening yourself, one could say of unfolding yourself - you feel as it were all folded up, one fold on another like a piece of cloth which is folded and refolded and folded again - so if you have this feeling that what is holding and strangling you and making you suffer or paralysing your movement, is like a too closely, too tightly folded piece of cloth or like a parcel that is too well-tied, too well-packed, and that slowly, gradually, you undo all the folds and stretch yourself out exactly as one unfolds a piece of cloth or a sheet of paper and spreads it out flat, and you lie flat and make yourself very wide, as wide as possible, spreading yourself out as far as you can, opening yourself and stretching out in an attitude of complete passivity with what I could call "the face to the light": not curling back upon your difficulty, doubling up on it, shutting it in, so to say, into yourself, but, on the contrary, unfurling yourself as much as you can, as perfectly as you can, putting the difficulty before the Light - the Light which comes from above - if you do that in all the domains, and even if mentally you don't succeed in doing it - for it is sometimes difficult - if you can imagine yourself doing this physically, almost materially, well, when you have finished unfolding yourself and stretching yourself out, you will find that more than three-quarters of the difficulty is gone. And then just a little work of receptivity to the Light and the last quarter will disappear.
This is much easier than struggling against a difficulty with one's thought, for if you begin to discuss with yourself, you will find that there are arguments for and against which are so convincing that it is quite impossible to get out of it without a higher light. Here, you do not struggle against the difficulty, you do not try to convince yourself; ah! you simply stretch out in the Light as though you lay stretched on the sands in the sun. And you let the Light do its work. That's all. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers, Volume-8, page no.286-288),#NFDB
144:HOW CAN I READ SAVITRI?
An open reply by Dr Alok Pandey to a fellow devotee
A GIFT OF LOVE TO THE WORLD
Most of all enjoy Savitri. It is Sri Aurobindo's gift of Love to the world. Read it from the heart with love and gratitude as companions and drown in its fiery bliss. That is the true understanding rather than one that comes by a constant churning of words in the head.
WHEN
Best would be to fix a time that works for you. One can always take out some time for the reading, even if it be late at night when one is done with all the daily works. Of course, a certain receptivity is needed. If one is too tired or the reading becomes too mechanical as a ritual routine to be somehow finished it tends to be less effective, as with anything else. Hence the advice is to read in a quiet receptive state.
THE PACE
As to the pace of reading it is best to slowly build up and keep it steady. To read a page or a passage daily is better than reading many pages one day and then few lines or none for days. This brings a certain discipline in the consciousness which makes one receptive. What it means is that one should fix up that one would read a few passages or a page or two daily, and then if an odd day one is enjoying and spontaneously wants to read more then one can go by the flow.
COMPLETE OR SELECTIONS?
It is best to read at least once from cover to cover. But if one is not feeling inclined for that do read some of the beautiful cantos and passages whose reference one can find in various places. This helps us familiarise with the epic and the style of poetry. Later one can go for the cover to cover reading.
READING ALOUD, SILENTLY, OR WRITING DOWN?
One can read it silently. Loud reading is needed only if one is unable to focus with silent reading. A mantra is more potent when read subtly. I am aware that some people recommend reading it aloud which is fine if that helps one better. A certain flexibility in these things is always good and rigid rules either ways are not helpful.
One can also write some of the beautiful passages with which one feels suddenly connected. It is a help in the yoga since such a writing involves the pouring in of the consciousness of Savitri through the brain and nerves and the hand.
Reflecting upon some of these magnificent lines and passages while one is engaged in one\s daily activities helps to create a background state for our inner being to get absorbed in Savitri more and more.
HOW DO I UNDERSTAND THE MEANING? DO I NEED A DICTIONARY?
It is helpful if a brief background about the Canto is known. This helps the mind top focus and also to keep in sync with the overall scene and sense of what is being read.
But it is best not to keep referring to the dictionary while reading. Let the overall sense emerge. Specifics can be done during a detailed reading later and it may not be necessary at all. Besides the sense that Sri Aurobindo has given to many words may not be accurately conveyed by the standard dictionaries. A flexibility is required to understand the subtle suggestions hinted at by the Master-poet.
In this sense Savitri is in the line of Vedic poetry using images that are at once profound as well as commonplace. That is the beauty of mystic poetry. These are things actually experienced and seen by Sri Aurobindo, and ultimately it is Their Grace that alone can reveal the intrinsic sense of this supreme revelation of the Supreme. ~ Dr Alok Pandey,#NFDB
145:Mental Education
OF ALL lines of education, mental education is the most widely known and practised, yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient.
Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. And when a child has been made to undergo, for a number of years, a methodical training which is more like cramming than true schooling, it is considered that whatever is necessary for his mental development has been done. Nothing of the kind. Even conceding that the training is given with due measure and discrimination and does not permanently damage the brain, it cannot impart to the human mind the faculties it needs to become a good and useful instrument. The schooling that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a system of gymnastics to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulations given to these various branches each constitute a special and well-defined language.
A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five principal phases. Normally these phases follow one after another, but in exceptional individuals they may alternate or even proceed simultaneously. These five phases, in brief, are:
(1) Development of the power of concentration, the capacity of attention.
(2) Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness.
(3) Organisation of one's ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life.
(4) Thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants.
(5) Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.
It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations on points of detail can be given.
Undeniably, what most impedes mental progress in children is the constant dispersion of their thoughts. Their thoughts flutter hither and thither like butterflies and they have to make a great effort to fix them. Yet this capacity is latent in them, for when you succeed in arousing their interest, they are capable of a good deal of attention. By his ingenuity, therefore, the educator will gradually help the child to become capable of a sustained effort of attention and a faculty of more and more complete absorption in the work in hand. All methods that can develop this faculty of attention from games to rewards are good and can all be utilised according to the need and the circumstances. But it is the psychological action that is most important and the sovereign method is to arouse in the child an interest in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for learning more and always more.
For that, to attention and concentration should be added observation, precise recording and faithfulness of memory. This faculty of observation can be developed by varied and spontaneous exercises, making use of every opportunity that presents itself to keep the child's thought wakeful, alert and prompt. The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart, mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know.
This will bring us quite naturally to the second phase of development in which the mind should be widened and enriched.
You will gradually show the child that everything can become an interesting subject for study if it is approached in the right way. The life of every day, of every moment, is the best school of all, varied, complex, full of unexpected experiences, problems to be solved, clear and striking examples and obvious consequences. It is so easy to arouse healthy curiosity in children, if you answer with intelligence and clarity the numerous questions they ask. An interesting reply to one readily brings others in its train and so the attentive child learns without effort much more than he usually does in the classroom. By a choice made with care and insight, you should also teach him to enjoy good reading-matter which is both instructive and attractive. Do not be afraid of anything that awakens and pleases his imagination; imagination develops the creative mental faculty and through it study becomes living and the mind develops in joy.
In order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of his mind, one should see not only that he studies many varied topics, but above all that a single subject is approached in various ways, so that the child understands in a practical manner that there are many ways of facing the same intellectual problem, of considering it and solving it. This will remove all rigidity from his brain and at the same time it will make his thinking richer and more supple and prepare it for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis. In this way also the child will be imbued with the sense of the extreme relativity of mental learning and, little by little, an aspiration for a truer source of knowledge will awaken in him.
Indeed, as the child grows older and progresses in his studies, his mind too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid chaos in one's thoughts. All contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. It is always good to consider every problem from all possible standpoints so as to avoid partiality and exclusiveness; but if the thought is to be active and creative, it must, in every case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the points of view adopted. And if you want to make the totality of your thoughts into a dynamic and constructive force, you must also take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of this synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organise and harmonise.
It goes without saying that this work of organisation cannot be done once and for all. The mind, if it is to keep its vigour and youth, must progress constantly, revise its notions in the light of new knowledge, enlarge its frame-work to include fresh notions and constantly reclassify and reorganise its thoughts, so that each of them may find its true place in relation to the others and the whole remain harmonious and orderly.
All that has just been said concerns the speculative mind, the mind that learns. But learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, which is at least equally important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to form and thus prepare action. This very important part of mental activity has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing and disciplining this faculty of formation; and as soon as they try it, they have to face difficulties so great that they appear almost insurmountable.
And yet control over this formative activity of the mind is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can say that without it no mental mastery is possible. As far as study is concerned, all ideas are acceptable and should be included in the synthesis, whose very function is to become more and more rich and complex; but where action is concerned, it is just the opposite. The ideas that are accepted for translation into action should be strictly controlled and only those that agree with the general trend of the central idea forming the basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be set before the central idea; if it finds a logical place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be rejected so that it can have no influence on the action. This work of mental purification should be done very regularly in order to secure a complete control over one's actions.
For this purpose, it is good to set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order. Once the habit is acquired, you can maintain control over your thoughts even during work and action, allowing only those which are useful for what you are doing to come to the surface. Particularly, if you have continued to cultivate the power of concentration and attention, only the thoughts that are needed will be allowed to enter the active external consciousness and they then become all the more dynamic and effective. And if, in the intensity of concentration, it becomes necessary not to think at all, all mental vibration can be stilled and an almost total silence secured. In this silence one can gradually open to the higher regions of the mind and learn to record the inspirations that come from there.
But even before reaching this point, silence in itself is supremely useful, because in most people who have a somewhat developed and active mind, the mind is never at rest. During the day, its activity is kept under a certain control, but at night, during the sleep of the body, the control of the waking state is almost completely removed and the mind indulges in activities which are sometimes excessive and often incoherent. This creates a great stress which leads to fatigue and the diminution of the intellectual faculties.
The fact is that like all the other parts of the human being, the mind too needs rest and it will not have this rest unless we know how to provide it. The art of resting one's mind is something to be acquired. Changing one's mental activity is certainly one way of resting; but the greatest possible rest is silence. And as far as the mental faculties are concerned a few minutes passed in the calm of silence are a more effective rest than hours of sleep.
When one has learned to silence the mind at will and to concentrate it in receptive silence, then there will be no problem that cannot be solved, no mental difficulty whose solution cannot be found. When it is agitated, thought becomes confused and impotent; in an attentive tranquillity, the light can manifest itself and open up new horizons to man's capacity. Bulletin, November 1951
~ The Mother, On Education,#NFDB
184 Integral Yoga
7 Occultism
7 Christianity
6 Philosophy
2 Theosophy
2 Education
1 Psychology
141 The Mother
78 Satprem
47 Sri Aurobindo
12 Nolini Kanta Gupta
6 Rudolf Steiner
6 Plotinus
6 A B Purani
2 Franz Bardon
12 Letters On Yoga IV
11 Agenda Vol 08
9 Letters On Yoga II
9 Agenda Vol 05
8 The Synthesis Of Yoga
8 Questions And Answers 1953
8 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
8 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
7 Some Answers From The Mother
7 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
7 Questions And Answers 1954
7 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
7 Agenda Vol 10
7 Agenda Vol 04
6 Questions And Answers 1956
6 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
6 Agenda Vol 13
6 Agenda Vol 12
6 Agenda Vol 06
5 Words Of The Mother II
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
5 Agenda Vol 09
4 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
4 Record of Yoga
4 Questions And Answers 1955
4 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
4 Agenda Vol 03
3 The Life Divine
3 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
3 Agenda Vol 11
3 Agenda Vol 07
3 Agenda Vol 02
3 Agenda Vol 01
2 Words Of Long Ago
2 Theosophy
2 Prayers And Meditations
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
2 On the Way to Supermanhood
2 On Education
2 Letters On Yoga III
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
0 0.03 - 1951-1957. Notes and Fragments, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The lack of the earth's Receptivity and the behavior of Sri Aurobindo's disciples 1 are largely responsible for what happened to his body. But one thing is certain: the great misfortune that has just beset us in no way affects the truth of his teaching. All he said is perfectly true and remains so.
Time and the course of events will make this abundantly clear.
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
of faith or of Receptivity) and then it is very difficult to detect
as it does not correspond to any wrong thought or feeling, the
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
are able to receive. Open yourself, increase your Receptivity by
giving yourself more, and you will see that all discontentment
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
one's Receptivity.
During this period the Mother stood for a while every morning on a balcony facing
--
the Receptivity.
12 October 1959
--
fixed hour if possible; this facilitates the brain's Receptivity.
2 November 1959
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
pour down on us, depending only on our Receptivity?
The Grace is always there, eternally present and active, but Sri
--
wanted to say is that in our best moments of Receptivity,
we are in contact with a Presence to whom we feel an
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The difference between living organism and dead matter is that while the former is endowed with creative activity, the latter has only passive Receptivity. Life adds, synthetises, new-createsgives more than what it receives; matter only sums up, gathers, reflects, gives just what it receives. Life is living, glad and green through its creative genius. Creation in some form or other must be the core of everything that seeks vitality and growth, vigour and delight. Not only so, but a thing in order to be real must possess a creative function. We consider a shadow or an echo unreal precisely because they do not create but merely image or repeat, they do not bring out anything new but simply reflect what is given. The whole of existence is real because it is eternally creative.
So the problem that concerns man, the riddle that humanity has to solve is how to find out and follow the path of creativity. If we are not to be dead matter nor mere shadowy illusions we must be creative. A misconception that has vitiated our outlook in general and has been the most potent cause of a sterilising atavism in the moral evolution of humanity is that creativity is an aristocratic virtue, that it belongs only to the chosen few. A great poet or a mighty man of action creates indeed, but such a creator does not appear very frequently. A Shakespeare or a Napoleon is a rare phenomenon; they are, in reality, an exception to the general run of mankind. It is enough if we others can understand and follow themMahajano yena gatahlet the great souls initiate and create, the common souls have only to repeat and imitate.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because of the rhythm of the universal forces, a person is supposed to have a special Receptivity on his birthday each year.
He can therefore take advantage of this Receptivity by making good resolutions and fresh progress on the path of his
integral development.
--
How can one increase one's Receptivity?
Receptivity is proportionate to self-giving.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Transformation demands a very high degree of aspiration, surrender and Receptivity, doesn't it?
Transformation demands a total and integral consecration. But
--
our Receptivity by far.
25 November 1968
Can one say, Mother, that perfect Receptivity comes only
with constant union with the Divine?
If we call "perfect Receptivity" the Receptivity that receives only
the Divine Influence and no other, it is certain - and at the same
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
work and a Receptivity full of trust and peace which makes the
task easier.
--
In silence lies the greatest Receptivity. And in an immobile silence
the vastest action is done.
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But if She is ever to reside and act here, She has to find at least a minimal Receptivity, at least one human being with the required vital and physical qualities, a kind of super-Parsifal gifted with an innate and integral purity, yet possessing at the same time a body strong enough and poised enough to bear unwaveringly the intensity of the Ananda She brings.
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.
--
But there was a formidable battle with the Inconscient, for when I saw that the level of Receptivity was not what it should have been, I blamed the Inconscient and tried to wage the battle there.
I dont say it was ineffectual, but between the result obtained and the result hoped for, there was a considerable difference. But as I said, you who are all so near, so steeped in this atmosphere who among you noticed anything?You simply went on with your little lives as usual.
--
Yes, certainly had there been any Receptivity when She came down and had She been able to manifest with the power with which She came But I can tell you one thing: even before Her coming, when, with Sri Aurobindo, I had begun going down (for the Yoga) from the mental plane to the vital plane, when we brought our yoga down from the mental plane into the vital plane, in less than a month (I was forty years old at the time I didnt seem very old, I looked less than forty, but I was forty anyway), after no more than a month of this yoga, I looked exactly like an 18 year old! And someone who knew me and had stayed with me in Japan5 came here, and when he saw me, he could scarcely believe his eyes! He said, But my god, is it you? I said, Of course!
Only when we went down from the vital plane into the physical plane, all this went awaybecause on the physical plane, the work is much harder and we had so much to do, so many things to change.
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is likely that the greatest resistance will be in the most conscious beings due to a lack of mental Receptivity, due to the mind itself which wants things to continue (as Sri Aurobindo has written) according to its own mode of ignorance. So-called inert matter is much more easily responsive, much moreit does not resist. And I am convinced that among plants, for example, or among animals, the response will be much quicker than among men. It will be more difficult to act upon a very organized mind; beings who live in an entirely crystallized, organized mental consciousness are as hard as stone! It resists. According to my experience, what is unconscious will certainly follow more easily. It was a delight to see the water from the tap, the mouthwash in the bottle, the glass, the spongeit all had such an air of joy and consent! There is much less ego, you see, it is not a conscious ego.
The ego becomes more and more conscious and resistant as the being develops. Very primitive, very simple beings, little children will respond first, because they dont have an organized ego. But these big people! People who have worked on themselves, who have mastered themselves, who are organized, who have an ego made of steel, it will be difficult for them.
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It depends upon the progress in the consciousness. The more the action is supramentalized, the more its reception is IMPOSED upon the consciousness of each one. The actions progress makes it more and more perceptible IN SPITE OF each ones condition. The milieu obviously limits and altersdistortswhat it receives, but the quality of the Work acts upon this Receptivity and imposes itself on it in a more and more efficient and imperious way.
There is an interdependence between the individual progress and the collective progress, between that which works and that which is worked upon. It proceeds like this (gesture of intermeshing), and as one progresses, the other progresses. The progress above not only hastens the progress below but brings the two nearer together, thus changing the distance in the relationship; that is, the distance will not remain the same, the ratio between the progress here and the progress above wont always be identical.
The progress above follows a certain trajectory, and in some cases the distance increases, in others it decreases (although on the whole, the distance remains relatively unchanged), but my feeling is that the collective Receptivity will increase as the action becomes increasingly supramentalized. And the need for an individual Receptivitywith all its distortions and alterations and limitationswill decrease in importance as the supramental influence increasingly imposes its power. This influence will impose itself in such a way that it will no longer be subject to the defects in Receptivity.
***
0 1961-01-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But as its all-powerful, a certain Receptivity must be prepared on earth so its effects are not devastating. Sri Aurobindo has explained it in one of his letters. Someone asked him, Why doesnt this Love come now?, and he replied something like this: If divine Love in its essence were to manifest on earth, it would be like an explosion; for the earth is not supple enough or receptive enough to widen to the measure of this Love. The earth must not only open itself but become wide and supple. Matternot just physical Matter, but the substance of the physical consciousness as wellis still much too rigid.
***
--
Oh no, my child, you dont see at all! To speak I must have a receptive atmosphere! The idea of talking aloud all alone in my room would never occur to me. Sound doesnt come: what comes is a direct transmission and if I manage to connect it to my hand and write its transmitted, although it always gets somewhat pulled down. I can be doing anything at all, it doesnt matter, but it must be something that doesnt monopolize my attention, like brushing my hair in the morning for example: then it comes directly and nothing stops it! But I would never think of uttering a word! That only happens when I find some Receptivity in front of me, something I can use.
What I say to people depends entirely upon their inner state. Thats precisely why I had such enormous difficulty at the Playground3the atmosphere was so mixed! It was a STRUGGLE to find someone receptive so I could speak. And if Im in the presence of people who understand nothing, I cant say a word. On the other hand, some people come prepared to receive and then suddenly it all comes but usually theres no tape-recorder!
0 1961-02-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a curious thing speaking evidently helps me follow the experience. But I cant just begin speaking all alone up in my room! And talking to a tape recorder is useless. Up to now, it certainly flows the best with youby far. I havent tried with others, although occasionally Ive said something to Nolini, but his Receptivity is fuzzy (I dont know whether you can understand this impression: its as though my. words were going into cotton-wool). Once, as I told you, I spoke with R., and with him I felt that three quarters of it was absolutely lostand as a matter of fact it was. But with you I begin to SEE, and the need to formulate makes me concentrate on my vision. And this I experience with you more than I ever have with anyone. So.
So you are bearing the consequences!
0 1961-10-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Correct? Many doors are open, and through these open doors things immeasurable for you can act through what you have written, bringing infinitely more to the reading than you think you have put there. People will be brought into contact with the thing, and each one, according to his Receptivity, will catch hold of something. And this is very importantit must not be touched.4
I dont mind reading it, but it will take up your time
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.
0 1962-08-28, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You see, the subtle physical seems to DOSE OUT its power and light and capacity of consciousness according to the amount of Receptivity in the purely physical vibration. Thats why the effects stretch over a long period of time. Its being done very, very gradually. But its an almost continuous work. Only when theres some bodily activity and the consciousness must turn outwards (not in the same way as before, thats impossible, but still in a way that seems like a continuation of the old consciousness), then, if the work continues at all, its invisible and maybe it doesnt continue. I dont know. But as soon as all activity stops and the body is concentrated or immobileperhaps no more than simply passive that penetration is perceptible: its visible. Visible. And its not like something more subtle penetrating something less subtle without altering it; the essential point is that this penetration actually changes the composition. Its not merely a degree of subtlety, its a change in the internal composition. Ultimately, this action probably has an effect on the atomic level. And thats how the practical possibility of transformation can be accounted for.
Its an experience I have all the time.
0 1962-10-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And these kinds of revelations happen only in a silent mindor at least a mind at rest. Unless the mind is absolutely tranquil and still, it doesnt come. Or if it does come, you dont even notice anything with all the racket youre making! And of course, these experiences help the tranquillity, the silence and Receptivity to become better and better established. This sense of something utterly immobile, but not closedimmobile, but open and receptivegets more established the more you have these experiences. There is a big difference between a dead, lackluster, unresponsive silence and the receptive silence of a quieted mind. It makes a big difference. And it results from these experiences. All the progress we make is always, quite naturally, the result of truths coming down from above.
It has an effect: all these things have an effect on the way the body functions the workings of the organs, the brain, the nerves and so forth. And this will certainly take place long before there is any effect on the external form.
0 1962-11-17, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yet people have fought beforepeople have fought everywhere, havent they? Since the last war they have never stopped fighting in one place or another: in Africa, in Asia, everywhere. Theyve been constantly fighting. There was always something, constantly. This whole Algerian story terrible things went on there; and all the trouble in the Congo and so forthbattles everywhere. But I dont know why (its not that I wasnt concerned with these events, they were in my consciousness), but this time two things have happened: a greater Power has descended (something very concrete, almost tangible), a great Power has descended, has been especially sent; and also a certain Receptivityeverywhere, even in the Chinese (I dont mean locally: its all over the world). Is it because, materially, theres some anxiety at the idea of? If a new world war starts, its obviously going to be something unspeakable, frightful, frightfulwhole civilizations will be swallowed up. It will put a stop to life on earth in a terrible way. Is that what made people? Has this awakened some aspiration? Possibly. Theres clearly a greater Receptivity. I see this from the fact that whenever the Will spreads out (Mother makes a gesture of emanation), well, it has a more concrete and more immediate effect.
The other conflicts were really very superficial, like minor ailmentsskin diseases! Superficial things. There were some appalling horrors, utterly repugnant things, too, everywhere (I remember what happened in Algeria, I was kept informed and I knew what took place: horrible things) and yet they seemed yes, they seemed like skin diseases of the earth! They were very superficial. But then suddenly up there [in Nefa and Ladakh], oh, it became something different.
0 1963-03-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the same with people who get cured. That I know, to some extent: the Power acts so forcefully that it is almost miraculousat a distance. The Power I am very conscious of the Power. But, I must say, I find it doesnt act here so well as it does far away. On government or national matters, on the terrestrial atmosphere, on great movements, also as inspirations on the level of thought (in certain people, to realize certain things), the Power is very clear. Also to save people or cure themit acts very strongly. But much more at a distance than here! (Although the Receptivity has increased since I withdrew because, necessarily, it gave people the urge to find inside something they no longer had outside.) But here, the response is very erratic. And to distinguish between the proportion that comes from faith, sincerity, simplicity, and what comes from the Power Some people I am able to save (naturally, in my view, its because they COULD be saved), this is something that for a very long time I have been able to foresee. But now I dont try to know: it comes like this (gesture like a flash). If, for instance, I am told, So and so has fallen ill, well, immediately I know if he will recover (first if its nothing, some passing trouble), if he will recover, if it will take some time and struggle and difficulties, or if its fatalautomatically. And without trying to know, without even trying: the two things come together.2 This capacity has developed, first because I have more peace, and because, having more peace, things follow a more normal course. But there were two or three little instances where I said to the Lord (gesture of presenting something, palms open upward), I asked Him to do a certain thing, and then (not very often, it doesnt happen to me often; at times it comes as a necessity, a necessity to present the thing with a commentfrom morning to evening and evening to morning I present everything constantly, thats my movement [same gesture of presenting something] but here, there is a comment, as if I were asking, Couldnt this be done?), and then the result: yes, immediately. But I am not the one who presents the thing, you see: its just the way it is, it just happens that way, like everything else.3 So my conclusion is that its part of the Plan, I mean, a certain vibration is necessary, enters [into Mother], intervenes, and No stories to tell, mon petit! Nothing to fill people with enthusiasm or give them trust, nothing.
Three or four days ago, a very nice man, whom I like a lot, who has been very useful, fell ill. (He has in fact been ill for a long time, and he is struggling; for all sorts of reasons of family, milieu, activities and so on, he isnt taken care of the way he should be, he doesnt take care of his body the way he should.) He had a first attack and I saw him afterwards. But I saw him full of life: his body was full of life and of will to live. So I said, No need to worry. Then after some time, maybe not even a month, another attack, caused not by the same thing but by its consequences. I receive a letter in which I am informed that he has been taken to the hospital. I was surprised, I said, But no! He has in himself the will to live, so why? Why has this happened? The moment I was informed and made the contact, he recovered with fantastic speed! Almost in a few hours. He had been rushed to the hospital, they thought it was most serious, and two days later he was back home. The hospital doctor said, Why, he has received a new life! But thats not correct: I had put him back in contact with his bodys will, which, for some reason or other, he had forgotten. Things like that, yes, theyre very clear, they take place very consciously but anyway, nothing worth talking about!
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.
0 1963-06-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its clear that wherever there is a Receptivity, the Force acts, theres no doubt.
***
--
He may have felt something they are very thick-skinned, you know, necessarily so: overworked, full of self-conceit, naturally, and convinced that they know everything and can do everything (and unfortunately they can do a lot), so the whole of life is organized so as to BLOCK all inner Receptivity.
But he did have the bath!
--
(Mother smiles) Not so extraordinary. But at any rate, its proof of a certain Receptivity.
Theyd rather have a mental and political domination than wage war. They arent bent on slaughtering people, you understand.
0 1963-07-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The end of December. The Force, the Power may act, mind youonly, X as an instrument is barely conscious. It may pass through him I dont say it wont. Because the remarkable point in the meditations (I took a good look this time) is that at the moment of his best, most complete Receptivity, I had to come down to Xs most material form to find a formall the rest, there was no more form. Which means the inner being isnt individualized: its identified, merged. And thats precisely what Sri Aurobindo explains so well: the difference between one who identifies with the Supreme through self-annihilation and one who can express the Supreme (gesture of pulling downward) in a perfected being and everywhere. Thats what makes the whole difference. Of X there remained only the outer husk, so to say (a coarse enough husk, besides, thick and heavy, with very heavy vibrations), it was there, sitting in front of me and empty: the consciousness was gone (gesture showing the consciousness spread out or dissolved in the Infinite). So his power acts in an almost mediumistic manner, which means that when it is X who speaks, its something quite ordinary, but the Force can come through him.
But curiously enough, that yantram seems to exasperate the physical mind.
0 1963-09-04, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
From the standpoint of a higher Receptivity, it has a very, very considerable importance I mean Receptivity to the new forces, a preparation to receive the new forces.
(silence)
0 1963-10-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If divine Love were to descend first, before divine Truth, certain beings with a special power or Receptivity might draw it into themselves, personally, and then all those wrong impulses might occur.1 But if this divine Love descends only in the Truth, in the Truth-Consciousness, it will enter someone only if that person is ready to receive it. Without a preparation of Truth, there might occur a very powerful attraction of elements unable to keep that Love in its purity; whereas if the preparation of Truth has been done, with that preparation, It will CHOOSE, in order to manifest, the persons, the individualities, who are ready.
***
0 1963-11-04, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But during that period of time, I made a study and observation of the phenomenon: how the vibration of desire is added to the vibration of the Will sent out by the Supreme (for small everyday acts). And with the vision from above (if you take care, of course, to remain conscious of that vision from above), you see how the vibration sent out was exactly the one sent out by the Supreme, but instead of producing the immediate result which the superficial consciousness expected, it was intended to trigger a whole set of vibrations in order to reach another result, more distant and more complete. I am not talking of big things or terrestrial actions, I am talking of very small things in life. For example, you tell someone, Give me this, and the person, instead of giving that, misunderstands and gives something else; so if you dont take care to keep an overall vision, a certain vibration may occur, say of impatience, or a dissatisfaction, along with the feeling that the Lords vibration is neither understood nor received. Well, its that little ADDED vibration of impatience (or, in fact, of incomprehension of what happens), its that feeling of a lack of Receptivity or response that has the quality of desirewe cant call it a desire, but its the same kind of vibration. And thats what comes and complicates things. If you have the complete, exact vision, you know that Give me this will produce a result different from the immediate one and that that other result will bring about yet another, which is exactly what should be. I dont know whether I am making myself clear, its a bit complicated! But it gave me the key to the difference in quality between the vibration of the Will and the vibration of desire. And together with this, the possibility of doing away with that vibration of desire through a broader and more total visionbroader, more total, more distant, that is to say, the vision of a vaster totality.
I am insisting on this, because it eliminates all moral elements. It eliminates the derogatory notion of desire. The vision increasingly eliminates all those notions of good and evil, good and bad, inferior and superior, and so forth. There is only what I might almost call a difference of vibratory qualityquality still evokes the idea of superiority and inferiority, it isnt quality, not intensity either, I dont know the scientific term they use to distinguish one vibration from another, but thats it.
0 1964-01-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Dont be under the illusion that I am not there. I am there, the force, the consciousness are there, but there is no Receptivity. During the Chinese trouble, I was in those places in the front, concretely, but I am sorry to say that the only people who were receptive were the Chinese. The impulsion to come forward disappeared. That is Receptivity. No one knew why they withdrew! On the Indian side a few were touched and they told me of terrible conditions.
Since World War II, I have been keeping Kali2 quiet, but she is restless! Times are critical, anything may happen. If people will only give up their ego!
0 1964-02-26, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So, if by our next meeting you feel something or see something or think of something, or have a dream, you will tell me. I dont have much hope left because these last few days there has been a great intensity, rather hard to beartremendousand this morning when I got up, the intensity had lifted a little. The night was good (I perceive the general subconscient and the state of Receptivity, the conditionsit wasnt bad, it was rather satisfying), but I noticed that the Pressure, the intensity of the Pressure, had lessened.
It was only during the work here [with the secretaries], that hour of work (labor, not work), I felt something here (gesture to the forehead and temple) that was a bit tired, like a fatigue coming from outside. Anyway
0 1964-03-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ultimately, it will depend on your Receptivity. If you can get used to holding the chargeyou understand, to keeping the atmosphere around you, in order to protect yourself.
Well see.
0 1964-03-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Even from that point of view, I have seen You know, the ordinary idea that the phenomenon [of transformation] must necessarily occur first in the body in which the Consciousness is expressed the most constantly seems to me quite unnecessary and secondary. On the contrary, it occurs at the same time wherever it can occur the most easily and totally, and this aggregate of cells (Mother points to her own body) isnt necessarily the most ready for this operation. It may therefore remain a very long time as it apparently is, even if its understanding and Receptivity are special. I mean that this bodys awareness, its conscious perception is infinitely superior to the one all the bodies it comes into contact with can have, except for a few minutesa few minuteswhen other bodies, as if through a grace, have the Perception. While for it, its a natural and constant state; its the effective result of this Truth-Consciousness being more constantly concentrated on this collection of cells than on othersmore directly. But the substitution of one vibration for another in facts, in actions, in objects, occurs wherever the result is the most striking and effective.
I dont know if I can make myself understood, but it is something I have felt very, very clearly, and which one cannot feel as long as the physical ego is there, because the physical ego has the sense of its own importance, and that disappears entirely with the physical ego. When it disappears, one has a clear perception that the intervention or manifestation of the true Vibration doesnt depend on egos or individualities (human or national individualities, or even individualities of Nature: animals, plants and so on), it depends on a certain play of the cells and Matter in which there are aggregates particularly favorable for the transformation to occurnot transformation: the substitution, to be precise, the substitution of the Vibration of Truth for the vibration of Falsehood. And the phenomenon may be very independent of groupings and individualities (it may happen in one part here, another part there, one thing here, another thing there); and it always corresponds to a certain quality of vibration that causes a sort of swellinga receptive swelling and then, the thing can occur.
0 1964-07-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That doesnt matter; what he needs is to learn to receive, to universalize his Receptivity. Thats just what Sri Aurobindo was saying: that inwardness. Not to depend exclusively on outward means, but to lean more on the universal Will (gesture above the head) than on the individual will; that way, you always have an inexhaustible source instead of depending on what you eat, how much rest you get, this and that.
Thats the method exactly: to broaden your Receptivity indefinitely and depend on the forces that circulate constantly in the world, so that only the most physical materiality is dependent on food and sleep. Because even what you eat feeds you differently according to your Receptivity, your inner attitude; there is a capacity for extracting the Force from things, which can be gained from a broadening of the Receptivity.
He CAN do that, he can.
--
For instance, when you show me photos, what I see is the proportion between the vibrations; I dont see a character with a destiny (all that is no longer true, its only very superficially and relatively true, like a story you read in a novel), but the TRUE THING is precisely the extent to which the vibrations are arranged in a given spot, centralize and spread according to the Receptivity to the Vibration of Light and Order, and to the possible use of that cellular aggregate.
People who are quite shut up in their bag of skin, in their vital and mental ego, give you the feeling of something totally artificial, hardhard, dry and artificial. And exact. Thats troublesome, you feel like taking a hammer and bashing themit happens!
0 1964-07-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I was very happy with the American doctors Receptivity.
And when I received Els telegram saying it was proof that S. would be cured by a supramental intervention and not by surgery, in her telegram there was a lightE. is a very impassioned person, but suddenly I saw the light of a revelation. So I thought, Thats why.
--
But from the beginning, Ive seen that he couldnt be cured, because he doesnt really have faith. He has a sort of diluted knowledge that there are forces behind the material forces, but still, for him, the concrete reality is Matter and its mechanism, and so remedies must be mechanical. Because I tried to cure him several times, but there was no Receptivity, nonelike a stone, you know.
Maybe it will be better now?
0 1964-08-29, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its so amusing every minute when you can discern the TRUE THING from whats added on by the mental functioning, by mental creation and activity the two things stand out so clearly! But Wisdom lets you know that it would be pointless to want to make an arbitrary purification, that circumstances should be left to unfold as they have to so your knowledge may be TRUE, not arbitraryat the appropriate time, in the appropriate conditions and with the appropriate Receptivity.
One must learn how to wait.
0 1964-11-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I was read a letter from a young Italian boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, who had remarkable experiences on silence, how he obtains silence and what goes on inside himtruly remarkable. I told you also that I had received a letter from England and the analogy with Zs experiences, with merely the nuance that spontaneous sincerity gives. Then, there are here a few people who hadnt budged for years: suddenly they are on the move, theyre beginning to have experiences. But whats really interesting is that those who have experiences are for the most part Westerners, particularly Europeans, as though their past of negation had intensified the aspiration and prepared something in their Receptivityit struck me. Not the Americans the Americans are still as frivolous as children (Mother laughs). But the Indians obviously they are ahead, but they arent where they ought to be: its as if humanity had followed a curve and those who are (or were, rather) at the summit go down again, and then they have to climb up again the Indians are climbing up again. The others, the Westerners, seem to have a past that was squeezed, that was as if compressed, and which has burst all of a sudden.
***
0 1964-11-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I saw very clearly: some time ago (a year, or maybe more), I believed that the thought and attitude and convictions of certain people [around Mother] were partially the cause of certain difficulties (with regard to age, especially), but thats not true! What people think and what they feel is exactly whats needed to act on this! All that is USED to teach the body what it must know: where its lack of Receptivity is, where its inertia is, where Oh, the slavery to the habit of vibration is a terrible thing, terrible!
From the standpoint of health, its terrible. And health doesnt exist, it means nothing; it no longer means anything. Disease no longer means anything, it really doesnt: its distortions of vibrations and shiftings of vibrations, and (what can I call it?) encrustationsfrom the point of view of movement, its like bottlenecks, and from the point of view of the cell, its like encrustations: its what remains of the old Inertia out of which we came.
0 1965-03-20, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Naturally, there is a progress (a work that can be noted, discerned) in the consciousness of the cells, in their Receptivity and their resistance to Disorder; but its just a progress, meaning that the possibility, and even the recurrence of disorder, decomposition, disharmony, wrong functioning, none of that is conquered at all, not at all. There is a growing feeling of being the docile instrument of the supreme Will, to such a point that the cells feel that whatever they may be asked to do they can do, but there is at the same time the very clear perception that the field of what is asked of them is still very limitedvery limited and that they would be unable to do better or more. And thats what gives weight to the notion of wear and tear, of agingnot that they feel like that, but in material fact, what is asked of them is very limited.
(silence)
0 1965-03-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its an extraordinarily sensitive mechanism, and with an almost infinite field of Receptivity (gesture of gradation).
My means of knowing people now is also like that. But for a long time now, when I see a photograph, for instance, it hasnt been going through thought at all; there are neither deductions nor intuitions: the photograph causes a vibration somewhere. And funny things happen, too; the other day, they gave me the photograph of a person, so I have a very clear perception: from the place that is touched, from the vibration that responds, I know that this man is used to handling ideas and that he has the self-assurance of someone who teaches. I ask (just to see), What does this man do? They tell me, He is a businessman. I said, Well, he isnt made to be a businessman, he doesnt know the first thing about business! And three minutes after, they tell me, Oh, excuse me, I am sorry, I made a mistake, he is a teacher! (Mother laughs) Thats how it is.
0 1965-04-21, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What I meant by an improved physical body is that sort of mastery over the body thats being gained nowadays through physical training. I have seen lately magazines showing how it had started: the results in the beginning and todays results; and from the standpoint of the harmony of forms (I am not talking about excesses there are excesses everywhere I am talking about what can be done in the best possible conditions), from the standpoint of the harmony of forms, of strength and a certain sense of beauty, of the development of certain capacities of endurance and skill, of precision in the execution combined with strength, its quite remarkable if you think of how recent physical training is. And its spreading very quickly nowadays, which means that the proportion of the human population that is interested in it and practices it is snowballing. So when I saw all those photos (for me, its especially through pictures that I see), it occurred to me that through those qualities, the cells, the cellular aggregates acquire a plasticity, a Receptivity, a force that make the substance more supple for the permeation of the supramental forces.
Lets take the sense of form, for example (I am giving one example among many others). Evolution is openly moving towards diminishing the difference between the female and the male forms: the ideal thats being created makes female forms more masculine and gives male forms a certain grace and suppleness, with the result that they increasingly resemble what I had seen all the way up, beyond the worlds of the creation, on the threshold, if I can call it that, of the world of form. At the beginning of the century, I had seen, before even knowing of Sri Aurobindos existence and without having ever heard the word supramental or the idea of it or anything, I had seen there, all the way up, on the threshold of the Formless, at the extreme limit, an ideal form that resembled the human form, which was an idealized human form: neither man nor woman. A luminous form, a form of golden light. When I read what Sri Aurobindo wrote, I said, But what I saw was the supramental form! Without having the faintest idea that it might exist. Well, the ideal of form we are now moving towards resembles what I saw. Thats why I said: since there is an evolutionary concentration on this point, on the physical, bodily form, it must mean that Nature is preparing something for that Descent and that embodimentit seems logical to me. Thats what I meant by an improved physical form.
0 1965-08-31, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But there is increasingly a sort of certitude in the cells that everything that happens is with a view to this transformation and this transfer of the directing power. And at the very moment when things are materially painful (not even physically: materially painful), the cells keep that certitude. And so they withstand, they endure the suffering without being depressed or affected in the least, with that certitude that it is to prepare for the transformation, that it is even the process of transformation and of the transfer of the directing power. As I said, its in the nerves that the experience is the most painful (naturally, since they are the most sensitive cells, those with the sharpest sensation). But they have a very great Receptivity, and very spontaneous, a spontaneously strong Receptivity and effortlessto the harmonious physical vibration (which is very rare, but still it exists in some individuals), and that physical vibration what we could call a physical FORCE, a harmonious physical vibration (spontaneously harmonious, of course, without the need for mental interventionlike the vibrations of a flower, for instance; there are physical vibrations that are like that, that carry in themselves a harmonious force), and the nerves are extremely sensitive and receptive to that vibration, which immediately puts them right again.
Its very interesting, it explains many, many things. A day will come when all this will be explained and put in its proper place. Now isnt the time to reveal it yet, but its very interesting.
0 1965-09-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a vicious circle. The impression is that the transformation cannot come about without a development or a general Receptivity on the earth, a greater preparation on the earth, and at the same time, that greater preparation on the earth isnt possible without an acceleration of your transforming force.
Yes, but it acts, only its an infinitesimal action. Thats why millions of years are nothing. This stagnation, for instance, exists only for our consciousness; its because the human consciousness, after all, measures everything on its own scale. For it, the history of the earth is an infiniteit isnt so in universal history, but for the human being, the impression is of an infinite (he knows very well that it isnt so, but thats theoretical knowledge), so then, on this scale, nothing changes but thats not true.
0 1965-11-13, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Bringing that and keeping it. Holding it, learning to hold it. Its fantastic! And then it becomes just a question of Receptivity, thats all. And the Receptivity must be in proportion to the goodwill (thats what the old experience is saying for the moment, I have no proof), the Receptivity must be in proportion to the goodwill or to the aspiration (but the two are very similar), to this something that wants something else. People who are very content, very satisfied and (this is an interesting illustration) and who have realized a harmony in life (some people have realized a harmony in this life: everything appears so harmonious, so comfortable, they succeed in everything they do, everything that happens to them is), I think those still have a long way to go before they can receive.
That [vibration] has nothing, but nothing to do with that whole path, that long, long, long path one has walked to prepare oneself, and with such blows, oh! THAT (gesture like a burst of light), and all the rest no longer matters.
0 1966-04-16, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The body now really has an impression (its an impression, not a knowledgeits not a thought, not a knowledge: its an impression, but a strong one) that this is what kills, this is what makes you die: this sort of refusal of the Vibrationnot always even awilled refusal, because its not even conscious the way will is (that happens, but then it means battle), but its in Matter. One wonders if there isnt a residuea residue of dust thats incapable of any Receptivity? I dont know.
I dont know.
0 1966-09-28, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I think its something that has been felt, experienced (partially and very fleetingly) through all ages, but which is beginning to be concentrated and almost concretized on earth. But physical Matter in its cellular form has, we cant say a fear or an anxiety, but a sort of apprehension of new vibrations, and that apprehension naturally takes away from the cells their Receptivity and takes on the appearance of a discomfort (its not a suffering but a discomfort). But when that apprehension is counterbalanced and cured by aspiration and the will for total surrender and the act of total surrender, then that sort of apprehension having disappeared, there comes supreme ease.
All this is like microscopic studies of the phenomena of consciousness independent of mental intervention. The need to use words to express ourselves brings in that mental intervention, but in the experience it doesnt exist. And its very interesting because the pure experience holds a content of truth, of reality, which disappears as soon as the mind intervenes. There is a flavor of true reality which totally eludes expression for that reason. Its the same difference as between an individual and his portrait, between a fact and the story told about it. Thats how it is. But its far more subtle.
0 1966-12-07, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And as Sri Aurobindo very well put it (I understand quite well what he means), miracles do occur, but they are momentary; that is, for the space of a few minutes, sometimes a few hours (but thats rare), things are wholly different. But they dont remain that waythey dont, they go back to the old movement. Because EVERYTHING must have reached a certain degree (I suppose), a certain degree of Receptivity, of preparation in the Receptivity, so that may be established; otherwise, the old movement and the old law continue.
I can see that with the bodys cells: at times, for a few seconds or a few minutes (at the most a few hours, but not with physical things; with physical things, its always seconds and minutes), all of a sudden a sort of perfection manifestsand then it disappears. And you see very clearly that it cannot stay on because of a ceaseless invasion of everything around, which is imperfect. So then, its engulfed. Like the first day when the supramental forces descended [in 1956]: I saw them descend, you know, and I saw those great billows of earth forces going brrf! brrf! (gesture of rising and engulfing), and then it was all swallowed up. It was descending in awesome masses, but those billows were still more awesome, rising, brrf! and swallowing and That disappeared.
0 1967-01-18, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This possibility of transformation in trance was announced to the body about yes, about sixty years ago, and periodically afterwards. And there has always been a prayer: No, may it not be necessary: its the method of laziness. Its the method of inertia. Now all those preferences, all that is gone. There is only an increasingly alerted, awakened consciousness, but awakened to the point of being alerted to the possibility of unconscious resistances, with the will for them to disappear. All depends on the plasticity, the Receptivity.
You understand, even if this body is told, You will have to last a hundred or two hundred years for the work to be done without trance, it says, Its all the same to me. All it wants is to be conscious. All it wants is, Lord, to be conscious of Your consciousness, nothing else. Thats its sole, exclusive will: To be conscious of Your consciousness, that is, to consciously become You in another mode. But it isnt in a hurry, because it has no reason to be in a hurry.
--
There are billions of elements in the body, so its a mixture of Receptivity and non- Receptivity. Its still mixed. And that mixture is why the appearance2 remains what it is. Well then, to make everything receptive in every element is a work, you understand, a formidable work. If it had to be done in detail, it would be impossible, but through the pressure of the Force it can be done. So then, the trance would be made necessary precisely so that its done quickly (relatively quickly). This work is BEING DONE (I am conscious of it), you understand (laughing), only it may stretch over hundreds of years! Thats what Sri Aurobindo said: a state of consciousness has to be established in which the collective life of the cells can be preserved for as long as desired; that means the Lords Will must be sufficiently active to keep the balance between all those elements for as long as necessary for all of them to change. And always, it has always been said that the most external form would be the last to change; that the whole internal, organic functioning would be changed before the external form, the appearance (its only an appearance, of course); that the appearance would be the last to change.
It seems to me to be the legacy of primordial habits the habits of Matter. This Matter, of course, comes from total unconsciousness, and throughout the ages and all the ways of being, it returns to total consciousness it goes from one extreme to the other; well, its these habits of static immobility that give this need for trance. It shouldnt be necessary. Only (how can I explain?), logically, as things are, it depends on the balance between the bodys capacity of Receptivity and its external activity: its obviously far more receptive when it is immobile, because its energies are occupied with the transformation.
There is also another thing which could change the course of events: its that the vital is becoming more and more receptive and collaborative. This whole vital zone, which was the zone of revolt and deliberate opposition to the divine transformation, is becoming more and more collaborative, and with its collaboration (because this vital zone is the zone of movement, action, energy put to use), with its conscious collaboration, the methods of transformation may become different (its something I have been studying these last few days). It may change the methods. But thats a whole world to be learned.
--
The mind will be transformed quite naturally, effortlessly; its not the same as with this body. But for the moment, it cant be used. It can be used only through aspiration, like this (gesture open to the above), a constant aspiration the constancy of aspiration and Receptivity to let the forces and the light come through.
There. So well meet again on Saturday.
0 1967-01-21, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The body was in the habit of fulfilling its functions automatically, as something natural, which means that for it, the question of their importance or usefulness did not arise: it didnt have that mental vision, for instance, or vital vision of things, of whats important or interesting and what isnt. That didnt exist. But now that the cells are becoming conscious, they seem to step back (Mother makes a gesture of stepping back): they look at themselves, they begin to watch themselves act, and they very much wonder, Whats the use of all this? And then, an aspiration: How? How should things truly be? Whats our function, our usefulness, our basis? Yes, what should be our basis and our standard of life? To express it mentally again, we could say, How will we be when we are divine? What will be the difference? Whats the divine way of being? And there, what speaks is that whole kind of physical base which is entirely made up of thousands of small things absolutely indifferent in themselves, whose raison dtre is only as a whole, as a totality, like a support to another action, but which in themselves seem devoid of any meaning. And then, its again the same thing: a sort of Receptivity, of silent opening to let oneself be permeated, and a very subtle perception of a way of being that would be luminous, harmonious.
That way of being is still quite indefinable; but in this search there is a constant perception (which translates itself in vision) of a multicoloured light, of all the coloursall the colours not in layers but as though (stippling gesture) a combination of dots, of all the colours. Two years ago (a little more than two years, I dont remember), when I met the Tantrics, when I came into contact with them, I started seeing that light, and I thought it was the tantric light, the tantric way of seeing the material world. But now, I see it constantly, associated with everything, and it seems to be what we might call a perception of true Matter. All possible colours are combined without being mixed together (same stippling gesture), and combined in luminous dots. Everything is as though made up of this. And it seems to be the true mode of being I am not yet sure, but in any case its a far more conscious mode of being.
0 1967-02-18, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The ideal is to have this suppleness and Receptivity and surrender, that is, so total an acceptance of the Influence that no matter what comes the instrument adapts itself instantly to express it naturally, spontaneously and effortlessly. With everything, of course: with the plastic arts, with music, with writing.
(silence)
0 1967-05-13, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That Thoth is really remarkable. Did I tell you what happened when I first saw him? (And I asked Y. very insistently whether she had taught him, but she hadnt said anything at all to himnei ther taught nor said anything.) He came with her, and as soon as he saw me (he was on Y.s arm), he folded his hands! And then he made a speech to me: his mouth moved; there werent any sounds, but his mouth moved. And an expression Then I complimented him, and he immediately leapt onto my knees, curled up in my arms, and went off into a semi-trancestopped moving, kept still. It lasted at least five minutes. After five minutes, I thought, He cant just stay here forever, he should go now!then he opened his eyes and went away! The Receptivity is far more remarkable than in human beings. Then he looked around him, looked out of the window, well, took interest in the place. Then he again looked towards me, came back on my knees, and rested against my shoulder.
Long afterwards, a year afterwards, I asked Y. if he was in the habit of greeting with folded hands; she told me, Hes never done it, he did it only with you. Its clearly a special sensitivity. You know, the sign of an absolute trust, like that, curled up against me.
--
But animals really have a lot of charm. I must say we are on very good terms. The whole perversion brought into the human consciousness by mental activity isnt there (except in those that have lived with man), but those that come straight from outside have a simplicity, a sort of ingenuousness which is very charming. And an uncanny Receptivity, you know, much more spontaneous than human Receptivity.
Now its different, there is a whole race of little children (I told you the other day), who are very receptive. And they are charming.
0 1967-09-13, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its very simple: when you say to people, Be humble, they immediately think of being humble towards others, and that humility is bad. True humility is humility towards the Divine, that is, the precise, exact, LIVING sense that you are nothing, can do nothing, understand nothing without the Divine, that even if you are an exceptionally intelligent and capable being, that is NOTHING in comparison with the divine Consciousness and one must keep that constantly, because then one constantly has the true attitude of Receptivity. A humble Receptivity that sets no personal pretension against the Divine.
***
0 1967-09-16, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its this extraordinary experience that when you take all that comes as the means to learn to be what you should beto increase your Receptivity, increase your effectivenessyou immediately feel a wonderful, all-powerful Presence, but concrete, like that.
Then you understand that nothing is impossible.
0 1967-10-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And everyone classifies himself, by himself, according to his own Receptivity and the quality of that Receptivityor else his refusal or incapacity.
All degrees are there, of course. When its refusal or incapacity, then the person HIMSELF flees, saying, Theyre fools, they are trying to do something impossible and unrealizable. (I know many such people, they think they have superior intelligence.) But even to place themselves, its they themselves who do it. She came with the idea of a hierarchy. I said yes, everything is always according to hierarchy, especially all conscious individuals, but there is no arbitrary will that classes them: its the people themselves who spontaneously take their place without knowing it, the place they must have. Its not, I told her, its not a decision, we dont want categories: this category, that category, and so this person will go here, that person will go thereall that I said, is mental constructions, its worthless! The true thing is that NATURALLY, according to his Receptivity, his capacity, his inner mission, everyone takes up the post which in the hierarchy he truly and spontaneously occupies, spontaneously without any decision.
What can be done to facilitate the organization is a sort of plan or general map, so that everyone need not build his position but will find it all ready for him thats all.
0 1967-11-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It began when the doctors declared I was seriously ill, that was the beginning.2 Because the entire body was emptied of its habits and forces, and then, slowly, slowly, the cells woke up to a new Receptivity and opened directly to the divine Influence.
Every cell is vibrating.
0 1967-12-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Does the transformation not demand a very high degree of aspiration, surrender and Receptivity?
I replied:
--
This is one of the things Ive learned lately by experienceuniversalisation, the contact with everything (horizontal gesture)and it has been shown to the body in such a precise way, in the detail of the vibration. In the state of Receptivity (vertical gesture to the Heights), of receptive passivity (the opposite of action, that is), the body must be turned exclusively to the Supreme (same vertical gesture): the body and the cells have been taught that, and theyve understood theyve understood and are now used to it. In the state of action (horizontal gesture), when you are one with (well, lets limit the problem to the earth), one with the whole earth, there must be an ACTIVE radiating vibration of the supreme Force. Receptivity like this (vertical gesture that receives the Force), and activity like this (horizontal gesture that spreads the Force out). And the cells have felt, theyve understood, they can do it. And the relationship with everything around you, down to the smallest detail, is something so wonderful, with an influence radiating farther and farther away.
When you realize those two attitudes simultaneously, the contagion is abolished: the mental contagion (the one Sri Aurobindo refers to here, the one you get when you admire something), the mental contagion, the vital contagion, and EVEN THE PHYSICAL CONTAGIONwhen the cells realize that, you stop catching illnesses. Because formerly (for a long time), whenever something occurred in the sphere of influence of the action, there used to be a repercussion (in Mother). For a very long time, it was dangerous. Then it became reduced to a sense of unease which would become conscious, and conscious of the why the why and the how. It was reduced to a state of unease, but it was still tiresome. And now its a kind of I cant say knowledge, because its not mental, but an awareness (theres no word for it in French), a perception and nothing more, it doesnt have any action (that is, any repercussion in Mothers body). So then, the whole problem lies there:
--
And its interesting because those two attitudes can be almost simultaneous, but they are From the standpoint of vibration, of vibratory sensation, they are two opposites that combine with each other: Receptivity like this (gesture), towards the Consciousness, the Force, Power, Light, all, that comes from above, and naturally Love (but about Love I will speak later). And it comes (gesture of descent), it comes down and everything, everything is ab-so-lute-ly passive and receptive (gesture of vertical opening): it absorbs and absorbs and absorbs, like that, totally given, in the state of a sponge that absorbs and absorbs and absorbs. At the same time, there is the relationship with the world (horizontal gesture) and the Power coming through and working, with the sense of the Force, the Action, the Thing imposing itself. Its magnificent. And in the SAME vibratory radiance of of That. Always the same all-powerful Perfection being absorbed and acting (gesture of flowing through Mother over the world in a perpetual movement).
That seems to be the secret of all-powerfulness. There is no need at all to go through mental knowledge that diminishes, shrinks, hardens.
0 1967-12-08, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You understand, its only happy in what it regards as its normal state when its fully conscious and vibrating with the Presence. But in the nights activities (how can I explain?) its becomes more more like something one is used to, you know, like a habit (gesture of a wave flowing); theres no longer the joy of a vibrating observation, but a normal state of things, and its not happy with that: it wants the same intensity (vibrating gesture) to be there at night. For instance, it doesnt tolerate the idea of fatigue, of the necessity of rest (although that never arises from the inconscient any more), but rest as a sort of turning in on oneself, like that, to repair wear and tearit doesnt like that: there must be no wear and tear, there must be a constant adaptation to anything asked of it. Later, it will probably not even accept effort there isnt much effort left, but instead of effort, theres a sort of conscious Receptivity that enables it to do things; and there are constant examples to show that if this conscious Receptivity isnt there, well, theres an awkwardness, or an impossibility, things like that, but it in the past, it used to feel that was unavoidable, but now it no longer wants it. Now it no longer wants it: it must not be like that. For example, to tidy up, or find something or do something, it sometimes feels a sense of difficulty (its never quite impossible because nothing is asked of it which is impossible), but at times its difficultit starts being displeased. It feels that as an infirmity, or a lack of Receptivity, you understand. Also the fact that it has become stooped: in the past it would say, Itll get better; now its beginning to lose patience. Thats quite new. It is since November 24. Because its not a selfish turning in on itself, its not that, its not for itself, its the sense of a lack of Receptivity to the Force, of limitation arising from incapacityit doesnt like that anymore.
***
0 1967-12-20, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The same principle is at work (its not a principle, its a way of doing or a way of being), is at work for all things: with fatigue, the onset of illness, that is, the cause of the illness (the internal disorder or the Receptivity to the disorder from outside), it works also in the same way. If you add to it the intensity of faith or adoration, then its much easier, but it works in the same way. So what exactly takes place? To the inner perception, the perception of the consciousness, it is a sort of principle of disordera principle, almost a taste for disorder, I dont know, its between a habit and a preference for disorderwhich gets replaced by yes (to be as general as possible), by a vibration of harmony. But that vibration of harmony is full of light, of sweetness, of warmth, intensity, and so wonderfully CALM! So when that takes the place of the other, then all that belongs to the world of disorder is dissolved. AND the rigidity of time disappears.2 Time perhaps we could say (its just a way of speaking), we could say that time is replaced by a succession (Mother remains absorbed for a long time).
And that belongs specifically to the material world.
0 1968-02-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This mornings experience was Everything was an immense ocean of luminous consciousness, and so powerful! Tremendously powerful. And something so sweet at the same time, so compassionate, but causeless there was no cause: just like that. Like Divine Love which is without object, its like that. So this body starts floating in that, lighter and lighter, more and more transparent, and still remains the impression is of bark, but not even all over. Its a strange impression of something that still has contradictions. But not deliberate contradictions, its not that: incapacitiesspots of powerlessness, a lack of Receptivity. But little by little, gradually, slowly, that gets cured.
Each experience and now its going fasteach experience points to a great step forward.
--
In my life, I have been given so many, so many experiences, as proof that EVERYTHING is possible. For instance, when I was twenty-two, one night, after an experience I had in the night (I forget the details of it) at the time women wore dresses that exactly touched the ground, just touched it without resting on it (gesture of skimming the ground), and in my experience at night, I had grown tallin the morning, there was one inch between the dress and the ground! Which means that the body had grown one inch WITH THE NIGHTS EXPERIENCE. You see, in the nights experience I had grown tall (I dont remember the details), and in the morning And Ive been given that material verification for many such experiences, so as to be sure, so the body may be convinced without having to repeat the experiences over and over again. So it KNOWS, it knows there is nothing impossible, it knows impossible doesnt mean anything. But it doesnt depend on an individual will, you understand. The Consciousness which rules things is a marvel of wisdom, patience, compassion, endurance. When there is destruction or disorder, it means its absolutely unavoidable, absolutelybecause matters resistance in the individual or in things is so strong that it quite naturally brings about disorder or destruction. But that doesnt form part of the Action, the supreme Action, which is a marvel. The body has understood that; it has understood, it is patient. Only, from time to time (how can I put it?) There are people whom I prevent from dyingseveral people. I dont yet have the consciousness, the conscious power to cure them, but the possibility is there and I maintain it above them. That is to say, its not all-powerful in the sense that a certain Receptivity, a certain response, a certain attitude are necessary which arent always there (human natures are very fluctuating, there are ups and downs and more ups and downs, and that makes the work very difficult), but at times, during a down spell, when a being suffers or sags, there is something in the consciousness [of Mother], a compassion (how can I explain that?) Affliction and all those movements are movements of weakness, but that is something at once very strong and very sweet, almost like sorrow, and the whole, entire consciousness in the body rises like a prayer and an aspirationa pure prayer: Why are things still in this pitiful state, why? Why? And it instantly has an effect [in the sick person]. Unfortunately, the effect doesnt last; it doesnt last because certain conditions in others are still necessary. But its wonderful, you know! Its something so wonderful. And it makes one understand the necessity of a presence on this side, a presence capable of feeling, understanding still IN THE OTHER WAY, so the suffering of others may be a reality. And that also is taken into account, that also means time is needed, patience is needed. Now the body knows ittheres no longer any impatience; there is only, now and then, that sort of sorrow, especially when beings are full of aspiration, goodwill, faith, and in spite of it this suffering is still there, clinging. That on one side, and on the other, one thing: there is still a sort of horror and reprobation of acts of cruelty, of THE cruelty; thats And then, there is this awesome Poweryou feel, you can feel that a mere nothing, a simple little movement would, oh, bring about a catastrophe. So you have to keep that still, still, still so what happens may always be the best.
Now stupidity, imbecility, ignorance, all those things are looked at with a patience which waits for them to grow. But bad will and crueltyespecially viciousness, cruelty, what LOVES to cause suffering thats still difficult, one still has to keep a hold on oneself. In figurative language (not language, but a way of being), its Kali that wants to strike, and I have to tell her, Keep still, keep still. But thats a human transcription. All those gods, all those beings are real, they exist, but its a transcription. True truth is beyond all that.
0 1968-02-20, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I wouldnt be able to say what they think; some people, for instance, can tell you very well, This or that is what you are thinking, but I couldnt. All that is mental is quite foreign to me. But I could say very clearly what is their state of Receptivity, of goodwill and aspiration and automatically, without trying to know it, simply from what is created in the atmosphere.
(silence)
0 1968-05-22, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
France is in a privileged situation: India first and France afterwards, for reasons of simply of Receptivity. France has always tried to be aheadwhich in fact is why this body was born there.
(silence)
0 1968-11-09, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
She must have dispersed herself deliberately, and gone inside all those who were close to her, receptivewhere there was a Receptivity.
Shes dispersed herself.
0 1968-11-27, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the attitude of perfect Receptivity in complete surrender.
Because thats true.
0 1969-03-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
These last few days, there were elections here1 (an awful mess), and I was put in contact with all that. (I should say that the Lieutenant Governor here has very great trust in me, and before it started he came here to get the forcethings arent going too well, anyway theyre rather chaotic, but he said, Oh, Mother is here, which means he feels he is being supported.) So, through him, I was put in contact with all that. And there was a whole series of very interesting experiences. There was a very acute sense of all the conventional in political parties, because under a single political flag there are the most opposite opinions, each one in the name of the same principle! So it became so clear, so clear! Generally I wasnt interested, because I always felt histrionics there, but I was put in contact because of the Governor (wordlessly: he didnt tell me anything, but because of him I wordlessly made contact with the atmosphere), and then I saw to what extent its really an illusiona complete illusion; politics is something in the name of the same principle, people do absolutely opposite things! In the name of the same political principle. Everyone is anxious that HIS party should have the upper hand and it appeared to me that it didnt matter in the least! It was only peoples quality of Receptivity that mattered, and also their level of consciousness. As far as the party was concernedanything.
It was a rather interesting study, which was made under the auspices of this new consciousness, and so in quite a general way, and very clearly, very clearly And with the sense of a GREAT power. This Consciousness contains a GREAT power. Especially a psychological power, that is, an immunity to any reaction from outside. Thats interesting. All anxiety, fear, desire, covetousness, all that was a whole world which I had always deliberately kept at arms length because it didnt interest me, but from this new angle some work can be done.
0 1969-04-05, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, you know, I concentrated a lot, but a lot, and I found the Pope extraordinarily receptiveonly, imprisoned. Thats it, you understand, a rather remarkable Receptivity, but (gesture under a bell-jar) imprisoned in his action. But where he can probably act, he has placed his confidence in P.L. Which means they want to use what he knows rather than try to stifle him. Its adroit. And it can be useful.
Have you written to him already?
0 1969-07-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Asram is not a religious association. Those who are here come from all religions and some are of no religion. There is no creed or set of dogmas, no governing religious body; there are only the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and certain psychological practices of concentration and meditation, etc., for the enlarging of the consciousness, Receptivity to the Truth, mastery over the desires, the discovery of the divine self and consciousness concealed within each human being, a higher evolution of the nature.8
Sri Aurobindo
0 1969-08-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its only the pressure of the Consciousness on the inconscientand then, in people, the measure of the resistance or of the Receptivity. its like that. In some people (and not always the apparently bad ones), theres such resistance! Its like like iron. While others
Its going much faster. Things are moving fast just now.
0 1969-09-27, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont know how to put it. My only contact with him is a Receptivity: he takes and takes and takes, absorbs and absorbs and absorbs.
But I dont at all feel that he draws anything from here (Mother points to her body or to herself), its I might say theres the Presence (vast gesture everywhere), and so its all the time like that. But what I am wondering about is why my body is in this state? I told you, I WANT to take it like that, as an acceleration of the work, and it seems to be true, but its very difficult. You see, for months and months and months, the work never used to tire me; now, all of a sudden, Ill feel exhausted the body. It has difficulty eating, and a constant impression of nausea. At the same time, if I concentrate and am careful, I feel the Presence as usual. But as I said, all this (Mother points to her head) is emptyalmost painfully empty.
0 1969-10-18, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And for the Force to be able to go through rapidly so as to reach the body, a GREAT passivity is needed. I can see that: every time there is a pressure so as to act on some part of the body or other, it always begins with an absolute passivity, which is the perfection of inertia, you understand? What inertia imperfectly representsits the perfection of that. Something with no activity of its ownwhich is VERY difficult precisely for those who have a great mental development, very difficult. Because its whole life long, the body has worked to be in that state of Receptivity to the mind, and that state, which is what brought about its obedience, docility and so on, is what needs to be abolished.
How can I explain? The development through the mind is a constant and general awakening of the whole beingeven the most material beingan awakening as a result of which there is also something thats the opposite of sleep. But to receive the supreme Force, whats needed is, on the contrary, the equivalent of stillness the stillness of sleep, but an ABSOLUTELY CONSCIOUS sleep, absolutely conscious. The body feels the difference. It feels the difference to such a point that for example, at night I lie down and I am like that, for hours I remain like that, and if after a while I drop into ordinary sleep, my body wakes up with a dreadful anguish! Then it slowly goes back to that State. That anguish, I feel it from time to timeit goes away instantly as soon as the body recaptures the true attitude, which is a state of stillness, but absolutely conscious. Stillness, I dont know how to explain that. Its almost the opposite of inertia in stillness.
0 1969-10-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the consciousness there (gesture above Mother) is very conscious that these (Mother touches her hands) arent hands! (Mother laughs) Try as you might, they arent! It may be a refined body, but they arent hands. And when I sit here, like that, when this body is sitting and someone is there, its no longer conscious of itself; its not at all conscious of a Force flowing through it, no longer conscious of itself theres the Divine Presence acting. And it becomes conscious of the others Receptivity, of the action of this Force in others, all of itand this (the body) no longer exists.
But its only a beginning.
0 1970-01-03, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The trouble ([laughing] I say trouble!) is that in people it expresses itself as disorders. People close to me for the work fall ill. One of them is at the nursing home, the other is in difficulty. And depending on their Receptivity, I must find a way to make them understand that they shouldnt worry, that its not an illness, but the bodys resistance. The body [Mothers body] has learned that at its own expense!Its constantly like that: if you are in the true position, everything is fineprovided you dont observe yourself, dont keep observing, Oh, the body is like this, or like that, it feels this way or As soon as you pay attention to it, as soon as the consciousness is turned to it, something goes wrong. It goes wrong. One has to be like this (gesture turned upward). And then, there is something that KNOWS all the same, something that knows, but without observing (I dont know how to explain). And you can see that as soon as the consciousness of the cells takes the true attitude, the thing that manifested as a disorder no longer manifests as such: the nature of the manifestation changeshow?
Not only that, the may Your Will be done (without worrying in the least about what it is, what that Will may be, in other words an acceptance of anything in advance) is replaced in a strange waya strange wayby something that has nothing to do with thought and less and less to do with vision, something superior which is a kind of perceptiona new kind of perception: you KNOW. But that has already come for a few seconds. Now and then it comes, and then the old habits start up again. Its above, far, far above thought, and above vision. Its a kind of perception: there is no more differentiation of the organs (Mother touches her eyes, her ears). And its a perception yes, which is total: its at the same time (if you want to explain it), at the same time vision, hearing, and knowledge. A perception something that is a new type of perception. So then, you KNOW. It replaces learning. But the moment you want to bring it to the plane of learning, its over, you lose contact.
0 1970-04-22, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then, in the contact with people I hardly know who the people I see are (just about), so I see them without a thought, you understand, as they are, and AFTERWARDS I ask, or I am told about them, and (laughing) I realize that most of the time, if a contact is made (when I see them, a contact is made, a Receptivity), its with the people most scorned by others, people who outwardly behave like real boors! Just recently again I had an experience like that.
One of the things hardest to bear is obviously self-righteous indignation. You know, people tell me whats going on (everyone tells me some story), and the vibrations hardest to bear, those that cause a (gesture of unpleasant friction) are those of self-righteous indignation.
Now, I have to say one thing: when people come to see me (people whom I dont know, not those I see all the time), all those visitors, its the best part of them that comes out. Several times I had contacts with people and the impression that something can be done, that they have a Receptivity and afterwards, those people misbehave, they cause disorder or trouble for others! But when they are in front of me, theyre not the same. They feel it, they feel its something else becoming active. But its the Presence that compels; then they go away, and they behave very badly, they quarrel, they Its very difficult!
I see people from Auroville in rotation (once a week), in fact to try and work on this material, and its really interesting (people I dont know: every time I am brought one or two or three new ones; some stay on, and others come in rotation). I said, Those who want a bath of silence can come in turn, and not a word is spoken. Its really interesting. Well, there are people there who behave like and despite everything, they feel that what they are here is superior to what they are there. But the others would need to have a lot of patience!
--
But it depends a lot I mean, it STILL dependson peoples Receptivity And these last few days, Ive had the impression, or something like a perception, an impression of an AWESOME Power! The Power that would seem capable of bringing a dead man back to life, you know. An awesome Power that uses this [the body] without conscious identification, but quite, quite naturally, without as if there were no resistance. Its a natural state, and its neither this nor that nor that, its its EVERYTHING (gesture showing an immense movement) which which acts according to circumstances.
Usually I dont say anything (its the first time Ive said that), because there is still a sort of memory of what was [in the past], something remaining conscious that if those things are said quite simply as they are, then the impression people would get I dont know. The body doesnt care, but something is watchful I see that something as a person (whom I dont know, besides) watching over my body and over circumstances, and stopping me from doing certain things so there may be no catastrophes.
0 1970-10-14, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If, for any reason, this body becomes unusable, the universal Mother will again start manifesting in hundreds of individualities according to their capacity and Receptivity, each one being a partial manifestation of the Universal Consciousness.
Thats important.
0 1971-01-16, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But personally, even physically I kept a contact with everyone I dont know who remained conscious of it, but I kept a contact with everyone, especially with you; with you I had the feeling that nothing stopped, that I was seeing you regularly, that nothing stopped. And I saw Sujata too. It all depends on peoples Receptivity. I didnt have the slightest feeling there was a break in our relationship or anything of that kindnot the slightest. And its only well, its only the day before yesterday that I thought, Oh, it must be time for the Bulletin, perhaps I should find out what hes done. And then there was that note of Zs (what shall I say?) it came as the result of something, and it was also the beginning of something, in a most definite manner. I didnt know, and Z was there at the time cleaning the room, so I told her, and after telling her, I thought perhaps it could be used.
I dont know how she noted it down, whether it makes sense.
0 1971-03-03, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I think I see the most exact thing to say is their condition, the state theyre in. And then, of course, there are those who are closed, so to say, who, for me, dont see, who are totally in the outer consciousness; and there are those who are openthere are some certain children are remarkable, its as if they were wide open (gesture like a flower to the sun) and ready to absorb. Its especially peoples Receptivity that I see, the condition theyre in: those who come with aspiration, those who come with curiosity, those who come out of a kind of obligation, and then those who are thirsty for lightthere arent too many, but there are several children. Today I saw one, he was so sweet! His father lives at the lake, he bought some property at the lake; he lives there with his wife and children, and it was the birthday of one of the childrenoh! (Mother opens her eyes wide) wonderful!
And I see only that. Not what they think or say (all that seems superficial and uninteresting): only the state of Receptivity they are in. Thats what I see above all.
(silence)
0 1971-10-16, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is actually the experience I am having now. The experience (as I told you) of changing the consequences of things I am having it. But its not mentalized, so I cant put it into words. But the cells really have to become capable of feeling, first, that they are entirely controlled by the Divine (which is expressed by What You want, what You want, that state), and then a sort of receptive (what shall I say?) its not immobile, its. Probably you would say a PASSIVE Receptivity (Mother opens her hands in a smile). But I dont know how to explain it.
(Mother closes her eyes in a smile)
0 1971-10-23, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh! But thats progressive, you see; you can go on working at it all the time, all the time, all the time. Its my constant occupation: eliminating all preferences. But the positive means is (we always come back to the same thing): What You want, what You want. What You want, what You want. And when youre completely still and free from any trepidation (what I call passive Receptivity, that is, there isnt any activity, and yet: what You want, what You want), then then onlyThat works. And you really have the feeling (I dont know how to say it), really that youre used only as a channel so the Thing the Force or the Actioncan go exactly where it is supposed to go. Thats what our consciousness is used for (gesture of a pipe).
***
0 1971-11-20, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The remedy lies in union with the divine forces which are at work and in a confident and quiet Receptivity that facilitates the process.
November 18, 1971
0 1971-12-18, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its very difficult to explain, but Ive had the experience recently (yesterday or the day before, its very recent), the experience of an attitude of unmixed Receptivityunmixed with any personal activityan activity whose impulse comes only from the Divine (I had this in connection with the war, the current events, and thats how I understood). But its beyond words.
(long silence)
0 1972-01-12, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother later ordered the list of the twelve powers or "qualities" in the following sequence: Sincerity, Humility, Gratitude, Perseverance, Aspiration, Receptivity, Progress, Courage, Goodness, Generosity, Equanimity, Peace.
The experience of joining the vision of the whole together with the vision of all the details.
0 1972-01-19, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
6) Receptivity
7) Progress
0 1972-05-17, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It means that instead of receiving directly, you see, without thinking, thoughts come in and unsettle they limit the Receptivity and disturb. Thats the point. I see it in myself, you know; Ive had to struggle so hard with this, in order to. The need to understand things, the need to find explanations is simply a return to the old habitual movements. We must consent to be imbecile for as long as necessary. Personally, as soon as I consent to be imbecile beatitude. But the old habits return.
For man, the foremost realization for man is understanding things. For the Supermind, realization means Power (Mother stretches out her arms in a sovereign gesture), the creative willpower.
0 1972-06-24, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Under that Pressure, the old remnants of authority, the remnants of the egos authority should disappear and be replaced by this (same gesture, hands open): a Receptivity and obedience (not obedience, because there is no need to understand): to be impelled exclusively by the Divine. This in place of the ego. The last traces of the ego getting erased, and (gesture, hands open) being replaced by (same gesture).
I continually have the feeling (fifty times a day, perhaps) of being a little baby (gesture, kicking hands and legs), completely wrapped in and tossed about by the divine forces! (laughter) Exactly like that.
0 1973-01-20, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother replied, "All depends on the world's Receptivity to the supramental consciousness." We publish in the Addendum an account of the Dalai Lama's questions and Mother's answers.
Message of November 26, 1972: "Before dying, falsehood rises in full swing. Still people understand only the lesson of catastrophe. Will it have to come before they open their eyes to the truth? I ask an effort from all so that it has not to be. It is only the Truth that can save us; truth in words, truth in action, truth in will, truth in feelings. It is a choice between serving the Truth or being destroyed."
0 1973-04-07, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, its in the consciousness, I knowit depends on the Receptivity.
Why, its a fantastic Grace!
05.33 - Caesar versus the Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In reality, however, to a vision that sees behind and beyond the appearances, spirituality the force of the Spiritis ever dynamic: the spiritual soul, even when it appears passive and inert, is most active not merely in the subtle psychological domain, but also in the material field. To the gross pragmatic eye Ramakrishna, for example, appears as a less dynamic personality, a less strong and heroic, if not positively weaker character than Vivekananda. Well, that is only face-value reading. Vivekananda himself knew and felt and said that he was only one of hundreds of Vivekanandas that his simple and, modest-looking Guru could create if he chose. Even so a Ramdas. Ramdas was not merely a spiritual adviser to Shivaji, concerned chiefly with the inner salvation and development of his disciple, and only secondarily with the gross material activities, the things of Caesar. The two domains are not separate at least in this case: the spiritual here directly and dynamically affects the physical. The spiritual guide is the dynamo the matrixof the power, the power spiritual; he wields and marshals the hidden, the secret forces that are behind the outward forms and movements. And the disciple by his attitude of obeisance and Receptivity becomes all the better a channel and instrument for the actual play and fulfilment of that force. A Govind Singh is another instance of spiritual power made dynamic in mundane things. And we always have the classical instance of Rajarshi Janaka.
Only, in the future a yet greater source of spiritual power is destined to be tapped and brought into play, into the plane of happenings, so that the material domain, the pattern of our actual day to day life will put on a different aspect; for a radiant consciousness will have breathed a new life into our very bodily cells.
07.10 - Diseases and Accidents, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is of course a relation between the mind and the body, quite a close relation. In most cases it is the mind that makes the body ill, at least it is the most important factor in the illness. I have said, there are people who keep their mind clear although their body suffers. But it is very rare and very difficult to keep the body healthy when the mind suffers or is un-balanced. It is not impossible, but very, very exceptional. For I explained to you that it is the mind which is the master of the body, the body is an obedient and obliging servant. Unfortunately, one does not usually know how to make use of one's mind, not only so, one makes bad use of it and as bad as possible. The mind possesses a considerable power of formation and of direct action on the body. It is precisely this power which is used by people to make their body ill. As soon as there is something which does not go well, the mind begins to worry about it, makes formations of coming catastrophes, indulges in all kinds of imaginary dangers ahead. Now, instead of thus letting the mind run amuck and play havoc, if the same energy were used for a better purpose, if good formations were made, namely, giving self-confidence to the body, telling it that there is nothing to be anxious about, it is only a passing unease and so on, in that case, the body would be put in a right condition of Receptivity and the illness pass away quietly even as it came. That is how the mind is to be taught to give good suggestions to the body and not to throw mud into it. Marvellous results follow if you do it properly.
When an accident happens there is in it a critical moment. For example, you slip and you fall. Now between the moment when you slip and the moment when you fall, there is just a fraction of a second when you are, as it were, given the choice. It can either be nothing or something very serious. Only to make the choice you must have a perfectly awakened consciousness and your being must be constantly in contact with the psychic. There is no time to bring in the contact, one must already be in contact. So, just between the slip and the fall, if the mental and psychic formation is sufficient, you come out unscathed. If, on the contrary, the body thinks, as it is its habit, Oh, I have slipped and becomes apprehensiveit is, as I say, a matter of a fraction of a second, even less then the catastrophe happens. You have the capacity to prevent an accident happening, you are given the choice at a momentary moment. But for that you must learn to be wide awake, to be fully conscious. When you are in that condition you can prevent an accident, you can stop an illness coming into you. But it is just the matter of a split second and you must not miss it.
07.37 - The Psychic Being, Some Mysteries, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It depends. As I have told you now, there are psychic beings that are just on the way of formation and growth, they usually cannot choose at the beginning, they cannot choose very much. But when they have come to a certain degree of development and consciousness, they make a choice; generally when they are still in the body, when they have gathered a certain amount of experience, they decide what is to be their next field of experience. I shall give you an illustration, although somewhat external. A psychic being, for example, needed the experience of power, authority, comm and and wanted to know the reactions of these movements and also how to turn them towards the Divine, to learn, in a word, what these things can teach. So the soul took the body of a king (or a queen). When it had the necessary experience, learnt what it had to learn, it gave up the body, being no longer useful. It is at that moment, when it decides to leave the body, that the soul still in the body makes the choice of the next experience. The choice very often takes a course of action and reaction. If the soul has experienced and studied a particular field, its choice falls upon a contrary field on the following occasion. Thus if the soul has had the experience of a kingly position and worked through that to enter into a conscious relation with the Divine, then at the moment of leaving the body that served with Power and authority and command, it perhaps would say: This time I shall take a middle position, neither high nor low, where there will be no need to lead mostly an external life, where one is neither in great luxury nor in great misery. With that resolution it returns to the psychic world for the necessary rest, for the assimilation of past experiences and preparation for the future. When the time comes for return upon earth, for the descent into a physical body, it remembers naturally the choice it had made, but from that higher and subtler plane at that moment the material world is not seen in the way we see it, it appears in a different form; still one can notice the differences in the surroundings and activities. One has not the vision of the details, but a total or global vision is there. It can choose an atmosphere, it can choose even a particular country. It has in view a certain kind of education, civilisation and influence, the kind of life that it wishes to lead. Then as it comes down and looks about, it distinguishes very clearly the different kinds of vibrations and makes its way accordingly. It aims, as it were, at the place where to drop. But it can hit the target only approximately. For there are one or two other factors besides which come into play. For there is not only its own choice, from above, there must also be a Receptivity from below, an aspiration that draws to it the particular being or the particular type of being. Usually the call is from a mother, sometimes from both the parents. If the parent has some aspiration or Receptivity, something that is sufficiently passive and open and looking up towards something higher, in that case, the thing appears to the psychic being as a luminous vibration which beckons it. It is the answer to its will. It shows the place it is to go to. It cannot fix the day of its birth. There will naturally be a period of uncertainty, but that is not expected to go beyond a year. The second factor that somewhat modifies or qualifies his choice comes from the nature of the birth itself. The soul, the conscious being, precipitates into the inconscience, for the physical world, even human consciousness, at its very best, is an inconscient thing when compared to the psychic consciousness. It is as though the soul fell head down-most. That makes it dazed and for a long time it does not know what is what. It does not know where it is, what it is doing nor why it is there; a complete blank possesses it. It is unable to express itself, especially as a baby, it has not the proper amount of brain to understand or manifest anything. Very rarely do children show the exceptional being that they have within them. Cases do occur indeed, but they are very few and far between. Generally it takes time for the soul to come to its own. It wakes up but slowly from its numbness, it is only gradually that it begins to understand that it is there for some reason and by choice. This oblivion is occasioned by the presence of the mind and mental education which completely shuts off the psychic consciousness. All kinds of circumstances, happenings, experiencesexternal and emotionalare then needed to strike open the doors; within, to bring the memory that one has come from elsewhere and for a very special reason. It is the normal longer process. But one may have the chance of meeting early enough some one who knows; then instead of groping and fumbling through ignorance and darkness, you get the light and the help that give you the swift and straight contact.
The psychic will and psychic development are things that are completely outside the range of common notions. Ideas of justice and reward and punishment have no place here at all. Any people come to me and complain: What have I done in my past life that I have to be under such difficult conditions now, to suffer so much! I always reply: But don't you see it is a blessing for you, the divine grace upon you? In your past life perhaps you yourself asked for such conditions so that you may make greater progress through them! This way of looking at the thing may seem very novel. But truth lies that way.
08.22 - Regarding the Body, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You have to enter into the disposition of the cells, your inner physical organisation, if the body is to answer to the force that descends. First of all, you must be conscious of your physical cells, you must know their different functions, the degree of Receptivity in each, which of them are in good condition and which are not. Even the simple thing you do not know whether you are tired or not, not to speak of why you are tired. You do not know if you have a pain somewhere, and why it is there. It is exactly for this reason that you run to the doctor. For you have the illusion that the doctor would know better how to look into what is there inside your body and what is happening there. That does not seem to be quite rational, but there is the habit. Who can look into oneself so precisely, accurately, positively, as to know exactly what is out of order, why it is out of order, how it has come to be so? All that is a matter of pure observation. And then only arises the problem of doing the thing that will bring about a new order which is a much more difficult affair. And yet this is only the ABC of body-transformation.
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08.24 - On Food, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
How does fasting bring about a state of Receptivity?
Usually the vital being is concentrated very much in the body. And when the body is well fed, it draws its force and energy through the foodit is one way of absorbing energy, almost the only way, at least the more important way, under the existing conditions of life, but it is a tamasic way.
08.35 - Love Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To begin, then, you must be able to come out of your ego. You will have to enter, as the first step, into something like a state of inexistence. Thereafter only will you begin to see things as they are, that is to say, from a height. If you want to see things as they truly are, you must become absolutely like a mirrorsilent, peaceful, immobile, impartial, with no preference, in a state of total Receptivity. You will begin to see many things that did not seem to be there before, but only now becoming active. Well, you may very well have gone inside one of these things instead of being shut up into a minute spot in the infinite universe, which you call yourself. There are many ways by which you can come out of yourself. Anyhow that is the one thing to be done, if you wish to see the world as it is, not as it seems to be, a function of yourself.
Now to come out of the ego, you must have naturally, first of all, the will to do so. The surest way to do it is to give yourself to the Divine, not to pull the Divine towards you but to abandon yourself to Him. That is how you start forgetting yourself. Usually when people think of the Divine, the immediate impulse in them is to pull Him (or whatever they represent Him to be) towards themselves, within themselves. The result generally is that they receive nothing; and they grumble: "Oh, I called and called, I prayed and prayed, but there was no answer, I received nothing, nothing came." But before grumbling, ask yourself if you had offered yourself. You would find that instead of offering yourself you had pulled. Instead of being generous, open-handed and open-hearted, you were a miser, a beggar. When you pull you remain wholly within yourself, shut up, sealed within your ego. You raise a wall of separation between you and the thing that is around you and wants to come in, which is thus not admitted, almost deliberately refused entrance. You enclose yourself within a prison and grumble that you have nothing, feel nothing. At least if you had opened a window you would have had something of the light and air about you.
09.02 - Meditation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is now nearly one year that we had one Wednesday the Manifestation of the Supramental Force. Since that moment the Power is working very actively, even if very few people are able to perceive it; and I think that the time has come now to help it as much as we can by making an effort towards collective Receptivity. Of course, the Force is not only acting in the Ashram, it is acting in the whole world and everywhere; wherever there is Receptivity it is working; the Ashram does not have exclusive monopoly or Receptivity in the world. But as we are all here, knowing more or less what has happened, we can collectively,individually I hope everyone is doing his best to profit by the circumstancesfacilitate its action by trying to unify the ground, produce a particularly fertile soil, so that the maximum of collective Receptivity may be obtained and that there be the least possible wastage of time and energy.
Now that you have been warned, it is for you to make an effort in this direction.
09.05 - The Story of Love, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a state of consciousness in which one experiences the Divine Love everywhere. One does not feel then a great difference between one creature and another except in their physical appearance. Even in unconsciousness and immobility, the apparently complete inertiaof the stone, for examplecan be found a dazzling light, the light of the divine Presence. There is much more aspiration than one thinks in objects that are usually called inanimate. In the stone precisely there is a spontaneous sense of what is there high above and although it cannot express it, it feels the thing and that affects it although in different ways. In the stone, in things and objects, there is a strange Receptivity that comes from this Presence.
You can take what you call a precious stone and concentrate a force or forces in it. It retains them. These forces radiate afterwards very slowly, but increasingly, progressively. And if you know how to do it, you can charge it with a quantity of force quite enough to last almost indefinitely so to say. There are stones that serve as intermediaries of union, stones that serve as accumulators of energy and stones that may serve as foretellers of circumstances, they may carry messages. Therefore, as they can serve as accumulators, it means that they carry in themselves the source of the Force itself, otherwise they would not be receptive.
100.00 - Synergy, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
ranges of the electromagnetic wave spectrum's human Receptivity
from cold "solids" through to the limit degrees of heat that are safely
1.02 - The Stages of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
from the lips of a true spiritual teacher has been experienced by him in this manner. But this does not mean that it is unimportant for us to acquaint ourselves with the writings of spiritual science before we can ourselves hear such inwardly instilled speech. On the contrary, the reading of such writings and the listening to the teachings of spiritual science are themselves means of attaining personal knowledge. Every sentence of spiritual science we hear is of a nature to direct the mind to the point which must be reached before the soul can experience real progress. To the practice of all that has here been indicated must be added the ardent study of what the spiritual researchers impart to the world. In all esoteric training such study belongs to the preparatory period, and all other methods will prove ineffective if due Receptivity for the teachings of the spiritual researcher is lacking. For since these instructions are culled from the living inner word, from the living inwardly instilled speech, they are themselves gifted with spiritual life. They are not mere words; they are living powers. And while you follow the words of one who knows, while you read a book that springs from real inner
p. 50
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But in any circumstances, one precaution is necessary, failing which it were better to leave untrodden all steps on the path to higher knowledge. It is necessary that the student should lose none of his qualities as a good and noble man, or his Receptivity for all physical reality. Indeed, throughout his training he must continually increase his moral strength, his inner purity, and his power of observation. To give an example:
p. 55
1.04 - Relationship with the Divine, #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Intimacy with the Divine: complete surrender to the Divine and total Receptivity to His influence, without any conditions to this intimacy.
Intimacy with the Divine in the physical is possible only for the one who lives exclusively by the Divine and for the Divine.
1.04 - The Silent Mind, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
truly the feeling of bathing in the Source. Indeed, this "descending force" is the very Force of the Spirit Shakti. Spiritual Force is not just a word. Ultimately, it will no longer be necessary to close our eyes and withdraw from the surface to feel it; it will be there every second of our life, no matter what we are doing, whether we are eating, reading, or speaking; we will see it take on a greater and greater intensity as our being becomes accustomed to it. It is actually a formidable mass of energy, limited only by the smallness of our Receptivity and capacity.
When the disciples speak of their experience with this descending Force, they call it "Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's Force." But they do not mean that this Shakti is the personal property of Sri Aurobindo and Mother; they merely express, unwittingly, the fact that it has no equivalent in any other known yoga. Here, experientially, we touch 36
1.05 - Mental Education, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(5) Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total Receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.
It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations on points of detail can be given.
1.05 - Some Results of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
further news which does not tally with the previous information. I am thereby obliged to reverse my previous judgment. The result is an unfavorable influence upon my sixteen-petalled lotus. Quite the contrary would have been the case had I, in the first place, suspended judgment, and remained silent both inwardly in thought and outwardly in word concerning the whole affair, until I had acquired reliable grounds for forming my judgment. Caution in the formation and pronouncement of judgments becomes, by degrees, the special characteristic of the student. On the other hand his Receptivity for impressions and experiences increases; he lets them pass over him silently, so as to collect and have the largest possible number of facts at his disposal when the time comes to form his opinions. Bluish-red and reddish-pink shades color the lotus flower as the result of such circumspection, whereas in the opposite case dark red and orange shades appear. (Students will recognize in the conditions attached to the development of the sixteen-petalled lotus the instructions given by the Buddha to his disciples for the Path. Yet there is no question here of teaching Buddhism,
p. 146
1.06 - The Transformation of Dream Life, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
This is the beginning of life and activity in a new world, and at this point esoteric training must set the student a twofold task. To begin with, he must learn to take stock of everything he observes in his dreams, exactly as though he were awake. Then, if successful in this, he is led to make the same observations during ordinary waking consciousness. He will so train his attention and Receptivity for these spiritual impressions
p. 194
1.06 - Wealth and Government, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To me any activity is more important than its cost to me, even if the cost is unreasonable. Money should never be the criterion for such decisions. If we say we cant have something because of its cost, we limit our Receptivity to the Grace and hamper its workings. Money is only a medium of exchange, it is all relative and the Divine resources are inexhaustible. Is this attitude a correct one?
You are quite right and I approve of your attitude.
1.07 - The Continuity of Consciousness, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
Now, when these experiences during deep sleep first come to the notice of the student, his next task must be to sense them as clearly and vividly as possible. At first this presents great difficulty, the perception of these experiences being exceedingly slight. The student knows very well, on waking, that he has had an experience, but is completely in the dark as regards its nature. The most important thing during this initial stage is to remain quiet and composed, and not for a moment lapse into any unrest or impatience. The latter is under all circumstances detrimental; it can never accelerate development, but only delays it. The student must cultivate a quiet and yielding Receptivity for the gift that is presented to him; all violence must be repressed. Should he at any period not become aware of experiences during
p. 208
1.08 - Independence from the Physical, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
This obsession has little importance in ordinary life, where the activities of the physical mind are lost in the general hubbub, and where we are, in fact, protected by our very lack of Receptivity, but when we have worked systematically at fostering transparency within ourselves and at increasing our Receptivity, the negative interference caused by the physical mind can become quite a serious, and even perilous, obstacle.
This mental, vital, and physical transparency is the key to a twofold independence. First, an independence from sensations: since the consciousness-force is no longer entangled at all the levels of our being but gathered into a maneuverable beam, as it were, it can be disconnected at will from a particular point from cold, hunger, pain,
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which are not directly related to any fault of ours: those that result from subconscious resistance (we will discuss them later with the purification of the subconscient) and those that may be called "yogic illnesses," which result from an uneven development between the higher levels of consciousness and our physical consciousness. For instance, our mental or vital consciousness may widen considerably and receive new intensities, while our physical consciousness still lags behind in old vibratory movements and cannot withstand this increased intensity. This leads to a loss of equilibrium that may bring on illnesses, not through the intrusion of any outer agent, microbe or virus, but through a disruption in the normal relationship among the inner parts of our being; such illnesses may include allergies, colloidal disorders of the blood, and nervous and mental disorders. Here we are touching the problem of matter's Receptivity to the higher forces of consciousness, one of the major problems of the supramental yoga.
This is also one of the reasons why Sri Aurobindo and Mother insist so much on the development of our physical body; without it, we may be able to go into ecstasy and soar straight into the Absolute, but we are unable to bring the intensity and plenitude of the Spirit down to our "lower" kingdom the mental, vital, and material realm in order to create a divine life there.
1.11 - The Change of Power, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
So the seeker learns of Harmony. He learns it step by step, by trial and error, tiny little errors that sow disease and confusion. At this stage, the experience no longer takes place in the intellect or heart; it takes place in the body. There is a minute play of sensations, as fleeting as must have been the first quiver of the radiolarian under the temperature changes in the Gulf Stream, and as laden with physical consequences as a storm over the lovely wheat fields of the mind or a typhoon over the murky seas of the vital. We are so dense and blind on our higher levels that we need to be hit over the head to understand that the man in front of us is angry and that murder is lurking in those eyes so transparent. But matter is refined; the more we experience it, the more we discover its incredible Receptivity, working in both directions, alas. A hundred times or a thousand times, the seeker is confronted with those microtyphoons, those minute whirlwinds that abruptly overturn the whole equilibrium of the being, becloud everything, give a taste of ashes and despair to the slightest gesture, decompose the air he breathes and decompose everything an instantaneous general decomposition for one second, ten seconds. A hardening of everything. The seeker is suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue; he sees illness coming and it is indeed coming straight at him. Which illness? The Illness. And just behind, lying in wait, death. In one second, ten seconds, one goes straight to the point; one touches the thing. It is right there, irrefutable: the whole mechanism out in the open, like a sudden call of death. Yet, outside, everything is the same. The circumstances are the same, the gestures the same; the sun still shines and the body comes and goes as usual. But everything is changed. It is a flash-death, an instantaneous cholera. Then it vanishes, dissipates like a cloud, one hardly knows why. But if one gives in, one truly falls ill, breaks a leg or has a real accident. And the seeker starts learning the reason for those minuscule reversals of equilibrium. He tracks down a minuscule hell, which is perhaps the first seed of the great million-faced Evil, the first hardening of death's great blissful petrification. Everything is contained there, in a black spark. But the day we catch hold of that tiny poisonous vibration, we will have the secret of immortality, or at least that of the prolongation of life at will. We die because we give in, and we give in in thousands of little instances. The choice between death and immortality must be made again at every instant.
But this is still a negative and human way of approaching the experience. In fact, the Harmony, the marvelous Harmony that attends to everything, does not want to teach us the laws of hell, even a minute hell. It wants the sunlit law. It flings its typhoons and illnesses at us, casts us down into the black pit, only as much as is necessary for us to learn the lesson, not one minute more. And the second we have recaptured the speck of sun, the little note, the miraculous and tranquil little flowing in the heart of things, everything changes, is cured, tilts into the light an instantaneous miracle. Actually, it is not a miracle. The miracle is everywhere, at each instant; it is the very nature of the universe, its air, its sun, its breathing of harmony. Only we keep blocking the way, putting up our walls, our sciences, our millions of devices that know better than this Harmony. We must learn to let it flow freely, to let go there is no other secret. It does not push us down to crush us or punish us, but to teach us the technique of mastery. It wants us to be the true masters of its solar Secret, to be fully what we have always been, free and kings and joyous, and it will pound and pound our miserable secrets until we are forced to knock at its sunlit door, to open our hands and let its sweetness flow over the world and into our hearts.
1.11 - Transformation, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We want an integral transformation, the transformation of the body and all its activities. But there is an absolutely indispensable first step that must be accomplished before anything else can be undertaken: the transformation of the consciousness. The starting-point is of course the aspiration for this transformation and the will to realise it; without that nothing can be done. But if in addition to the aspiration there is an inner opening, a kind of Receptivity, then one can enter into this transformed consciousness at a single stroke and maintain oneself there. This change of consciousness is abrupt, so to say; when it occurs, it occurs all of a sudden, although the preparation for it may have been long and slow. I am not speaking here of a mere change in mental outlook, but of a change in the consciousness itself. It is a complete and absolute change, a revolution in the basic poise; the movement is like turning a ball inside out. To the transformed consciousness everything appears not only new and different, but almost the reverse of what it seemed to the ordinary consciousness. In the ordinary consciousness you advance slowly, by successive experiences, from ignorance to a very distant and often doubtful knowledge. In the transformed consciousness your starting-point is knowledge and you proceed from knowledge to knowledge. However, this is a beginning; for the outer consciousness, the various planes and parts of the outer active being are transformed slowly and gradually as a result of the inner transformation.
There is a partial change of consciousness which makes you lose all interest in things that you once found desirable; but it is a change of consciousness and not what we call the transformation. For the transformation is fundamental and absolute; it is not merely a change, but a reversal of consciousness: the being turns inside out, as it were, and takes a completely different position. In this reversed consciousness the being stands above life and things and deals with them from there; it is at the centre of everything and directs its action outwards from there. Whereas in the ordinary consciousness the being stands outside and below: from outside it strives to reach the centre; from below, crushed by the weight of its own ignorance and blindness, it struggles desperately to rise above them. The ordinary consciousness is ignorant of what things are in reality; it sees their shell. But the true consciousness is at the centre, at the heart of reality and has the direct vision of the origin of all movements. Seated within and above, it knows the source, the cause and effect of all things and forces.
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
to the divine Sense, the life to the divine Life and by Receptivity to
constant touches and visitings of the highest be transfigured into
1.1.2 - Intellect and the Intellectual, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is not by intellect that one can progress in the Yoga, but by psychic and spiritual Receptivityas for knowledge and true understanding it grows in sadhana by the growth of the intuition, not of the physical intellect.
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1.13 - Conclusion - He is here, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Those of us who grieved over the tremendous loss received a sharp reprimand from the Mother, "To grieve is an insult to Sri Aurobindo who is here with us, conscious and alive." And "The lack of Receptivity of the earth and men is mostly responsible for the decision Sri Aurobindo has taken regarding his body. But one thing is certain: what has happened on the physical plane affects in no way the truth of his teaching. All that he has said is perfectly true and remains so. Time and the course of events will prove it abundantly." And how much he worked for us, for the world, can be gauged by the inscription in English and French on the Samadhi as an offering of the Mother's gratitude:
"To Thee who hast been the material envelope of our Master, to Thee our infinite gratitude. Before Thee who hast done so much for us, who hast worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, before Thee who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us, before Thee we bow down and implore that we may never forget, even for a moment, all we owe to Thee."
1.1.3 - Mental Difficulties and the Need of Quietude, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Then for the tumultuous activity of the mind which prevents your concentration. But that or else a more tiresome obstinate grinding mechanical activity is always the difficulty when one tries to concentrate and it takes a long time to get the better of it. That or the habit of sleep which prevents either the waking concentration or the conscious samadhi or the absorbed and all-excluding trance which are the three forms that Yogic concentration takes. But it is surely ignorance of Yoga, its processes and its difficulties that makes you feel desperate and pronounce yourself unfit for ever because of this quite ordinary obstacle. The insistence of the ordinary mind and its wrong reasonings, sentiments and judgments, the random activity of the thinking mind in concentration or its mechanical activity, the slowness of response to the veiled or the initial touch are the ordinary obstacles the mind imposes just as pride, ambition, vanity, sex, greed, grasping of things for ones own ego are the difficulties and obstacles offered by the vital. As the vital difficulties can be fought down and conquered, so can the mental. Only one has to see that these are the inevitable obstacles and neither cling to them nor be terrified or overwhelmed because they are there. One has to persevere till one can stand back from the mind as from the vital and feel the deeper and larger mental and vital Purushas within one which are capable of silence, capable of a straight Receptivity of the true Word and Force as of the true silence. If the nature takes the way of fighting down the difficulties first, then the first half of the way is long and tedious and the complaint of the want of the response of the Divine arises. But really the Divine is there all the time, working behind the veil as well as waiting for the recognition of his response and for the response to the response to be possible.
***
1.14 - The Book of Magic Formulae, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
The book of formulae, sometimes wrongly called the book of spirits, is the genuine magical diary of the magician practising ritual magic, in which he enters, step by step, the procedures of his ritual in order to be able to follow every point conscientiously up to his goal. Some readers might wish to know how mutilated charms, furmulae for incantation etc. could ever develop? From the days of yore the secret of magic has been restricted to high castes, potentates, kings and high priests. In order that the real truth, that true ideas and spiritual facts might never be known by the public, many code-words and secret formulae have been introduced, the deciphering of which has been reserved to the mature. The key for these codes was only transferred upon mature persons by word of mouth, and their profanation was punished with death. This is the reason why this science has remained a secret up to our time and it will continue to remain an occult and mystic science even if it is directly published, as the immature und profane person will regard it all as delusion or fantastic nonsense and, depending on his grade of maturity and psychic Receptivity, will always have at hand an individual interpretation or view of this science. The most secret matters will thus never lose their occult tradition and there will always be but a few people who will profit by it. If a person who is not an initiate gets such a book of magic formulae in his hands and does not know the key to it, he will take everything in its literal sense without knowing that the particular words and formulae are nothing but aids for the magician's memory and that it is a schematic layout for the ritual work of a true magician. This makes it clear why sometimes the most senseless words have been used as magic charms to evoke a certain being. But the book of formulae is a proper note-book in which the genuine magician writes the whole procedure of his magic operations from beginning to end. If he is not sure that his book will never fall into the hands of another person, he will have to use, point by point, code-names. I can only give here a few instructions. These will, however, enable the magician to procede according to his own taste and ideas.
1. Purpose of the operation
1.14 - The Victory Over Death, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Hence, it is not through an arbitrary and morbid decision of his own that the seeker will undertake this dark descent for a long time he has stopped willing anything, he only obeys the little rhythm, the flowing that is growing in him, and directs it here or there according to where it presses. The descent takes place gradually, almost unknown to him, but it is accompanied, as it were, by certain phenomena which become increasingly clear and define the psychological conditions of the descent. These psychological conditions are threefold. There is that little flowing we have often spoken about, there is that rhythm, and there is that fire of being which opens the doors of the new world. One may be tempted to think that this is a poetic fiction, an imagery for children, but it is nothing of the sort, and the whole world is a poem becoming true, an image becoming clear, a rhythm taking body. Little by little, a Child looks at the world with eyes of Truth and discovers the lovely Image that was always there; he listens to an undying Rhythm and, attuned to that Rhythm, he enters the immortality he had never ceased to be. That flowing actually grows, that rhythm becomes clearer, that fire intensifies as the first mental and vital layers are clarified. In fact, it is no longer simply a flowing but a sort of continuous current, a descending mass that envelops first the crown of the head and the nape of the neck, then the chest, the heart, the solar plexus, the abdomen, the sex organs, the legs, and which even seems to reach under the feet, as if there were an extension of being all the way down there, an abyss of existence. The farther the current descends, the warmer and more compact and denser, almost solid, it becomes it feels like an unmoving cataract. The descent is proportionate to our degree of clarification and the downthrust of the Force (which grows as we become clearer). No mental or psychoanalytical machinery has the power to reach those deeper layers. The movement is irresistibly powerful, sometimes even doubling one over, as if crushing one under the pressure. But at the same time as the power grows so does the stability, as if finally, at the end of the descent, there were a motionless mass of energy or with such an intense vibration, so swift and instantaneous, that it seems solidified, immobile, yet moving unbelievably fast in place a powdering of warm gold, says Mother. That is what Sri Aurobindo called the supramental Force. It would almost seem as if it became supramental, or acquired supramental qualities, as it descends into matter (that is to say, as we consent to let it go through, as the resistances fall away under its pressure and it victoriously penetrates all the way down to the bottom). We say supramental, but it is the same with this word as with everything else: there is only one Force, as there is only one moon, which gradually becomes full to our vision, but the moon was always full and the Force always the same. It is our Receptivity which changes and makes it look different from what it always was. It is that flowing which spontaneously, automatically, without any will or decision on our part (all our wills add more confusion), effects the descent, overturns obstacles, exposes falsehoods under its relentless searchlight, exposes the gray elf, brings to light all our hiding places, cleanses, purifies, widens and brings infinity to each level and into each cranny and does not give up, does not stop for a second until everything, down to the least detail, the smallest movement, is restored to its original joy, its infinity, its light, its clear vision, its right will and divine acquiescence. This is the Force of the yoga, the Consciousness-Force Sri Aurobindo spoke of. It is the one which forges the superman, the one which will forge the supramental being the one which will forge itself in that forgetfulness of itself.
Thy golden Light came down into my brain
1.15 - Truth, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
To truth belongs also the capacity of correctly differentiating among knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge depends, in all domains of the human existence, on the maturity, Receptivity and understanding of the mind, and the memory without regard to whether or not we have been able to enrich our knowledge by reading, transmitting or other experiences.
There is a wide difference between knowledge and wisdom and it is much easier to win knowledge than wisdom. Wisdom depends, not in the least, on knowledge, although both are identical up to a certain degree. The source of wisdom is in God, that is to say, in the causal principle (the akasa) on all planes of the material, astral, and mental worlds. Therefore wisdom does not depend on mind and memory but on the maturity, purity and perfection of the individual personality. Wisdom could also be considered as a developmental stage of the ego. Therefore, insights are not passed on thought the mind, but and this particularly through intuition or inspiration. The degree of wisdom is therefore determined by the state of development of the individual.
1.17 - The Transformation, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
According to Sri Aurobindo, the essential quality of supramentalized Matter is its Receptivity: it will be capable of responding to the conscious will and of changing according to the will's dictates, the way clay responds to a potter's fingers. As Matter releases the involved spiritual power it contains and becomes openly conscious, it will be able to respond to corresponding vibrations of the supramental consciousness, just as we now respond to a vibration of anger with anger or to a vibration of love with warmth in our heart.
Conscious malleability will be the essential attribute of supramentalized Matter. All other qualities derive from that fundamental characteristic: immortality (or at least a capacity to modify one's form or even change forms altogether), lightness, beauty,
--
the physical consciousness universalizes itself. Stillness, Receptivity,
and cellular expansion seem to be among the basic conditions for the bodily substance to be able to withstand Agni and to endure.
1.2.05 - Aspiration, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Aspiration is to call the forces. When the forces have answered, there is a natural state of quiet Receptivity concentrated but spontaneous.
Aspiration is a call to the Divine, - will is the pressure of a conscious force on Nature.
1.2.10 - Opening, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Truth or the Divine to which it is now shut - it indicates a state of Receptivity.
Opening is a thing that happens of itself by sincerity of will and aspiration. It means to be able to receive the higher forces that come from the Mother
--
Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one's own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a Receptivity to the Mother s Power and Presence.
A Fire in the heart is usually the psychic fire and that should rather grow and be fed by the tendency or aspiration to the personal sadhana. The main principle of the personal sadhana is the surrender, the aspiration to the Divine touch, presence, control in the heart - the opening of the psychic being from within and its coming in front to govern and change mind, vital, physical consciousness. There are two openings that are necessary, one from above, the other from within. The one from above which can come by the impersonal Path or by the personal and impersonal together, seems to have come to you. Your feeling about the Personal probably comes from the push from within for the psychic to emerge fully. It is this aspiration therefore that should be the beginning of the personal path and a reliance on the Inner Power to guide and do what is needed.
1.2.2 - The Place of Study in Sadhana, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I do not know about this Commentary [on the Taittiriya Upanishad], but most commentaries on the Upanishads are written out of the reasoning and speculating intellect. They may be of use to people who are trying to find out intellectually the meaning of the Upanishads but they can be of no help to you as a sadhak who are seeking experience; it is likely rather to confuse the mind by taking it off the true basis and throwing it out from the road of experience and spiritual Receptivity into the tangle of intellectual debate.
***
1.3.03 - Quiet and Calm, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All quietude of the mind makes good conditions for the Receptivity to act.
As I have said already, in all matters, work and study as well as in the inner progress in the Yoga, the same thing is needed if you want perfection - quietude of mind, becoming aware of the Force, opening to it, allowing it to work in you. To aim at perfection is all right, but restlessness of mind is not the way towards it. To dwell upon your imperfections and be always thinking how to do and what to do, is not the way either. Remain quiet, open yourself, allow the consciousness to grow - call the Force to work. As it grows and as the Force works, you will become aware not only of what is imperfect, but of the movement which will take you (not at one step, but progressively) out of the imperfection and you will then only have to follow that movement.
1.3.5.05 - The Path, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This opening is a throwing wide of all the nature on all its levels and in all its parts to receive into itself without limits the greater divine Consciousness which is there already above and behind and englobing this mortal half-conscious existence. In the receiving there must be no inability to contain, no breaking down of anything in the system, mind or life or nerve or body under the transmuting stress. There must be an endless Receptivity, an always increasing capacity to bear an ever stronger and more and more insistent action of the divine Force. Otherwise nothing great and permanent can be done; the Yoga will end in a break-down or an inert stoppage or a stultifying or a disastrous arrest in a process which must be absolute and integral if it is not [to] be a failure.
But since no human system has this endless Receptivity and unfailing capacity, the supramental Yoga can succeed only if the Divine Force as it descends increases the personal power and equates the strength that receives with the Force that enters from above to work in the nature. This is only possible if there is on our part a progressive surrender of the being into the hands
170
1.4.02 - The Divine Force, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is not, unless it is supramental Force, a Power that acts without conditions and limits. The conditions and limits under which Yoga or sadhana has to be worked out are not arbitrary or capricious; they arise from the nature of things. These including the will, Receptivity, assent, self-opening and surrender of the sadhak have to be respected by the Yoga-force - unless it receives a sanction from the Supreme to override everything and get something done - but that sanction is sparingly given.
It is only if the supramental Power came fully down, not merely sent its influences through the Overmind, that things could be very radically altered in this respect - and that is why my main effort is directed towards that object - for then the sanction would not be rare! For the Law of the Truth would be at work not constantly balanced by the law of the Ignorance.
1.4.03 - The Guru, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What the Guru can do for the sadhak depends upon the latter's Receptivity - not upon any method or rule of sadhana. Certain psychological conditions or attitudes of the consciousness tend to increase the Receptivity - e.g., humility towards the Guru, devotion, obedience, trust, a certain receptive passivity to his influence. The opposite things - independence, a critical attitude, questionings - go the other way and make it necessary for the Guru to help only indirectly or behind the veil. But the main thing is a kind of psychological openness in the consciousness which comes or increases of itself with the help of the will to receive and the right attitude. If there is that then it is not necessary to pull anything from the Guru, only to receive quietly.
Pulling from him often draws untruly or things for which the consciousness is not ready to assimilate.
1913 11 25p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The greatest enemy of a silent contemplation turned towards Thee is surely this constant subconscient registering of the multitude of phenomena with which we come into contact. So long as we are mentally active, our conscious thought veils for us this over-activity of our subconscious Receptivity; an entire part of our sensibility, and perhaps not the smallest, acts like a cine-camera without our knowledge and indeed to our detriment. It is only when we silence our active thought, which is relatively easy, that we see this multitude of little subconscious notations surging up from every side and often drowning us under their overwhelming flood. So it happens that, as soon as we attempt to enter the silence of deep contemplation, we are assailed by countless thoughtsif thoughts they could be calledwhich do not interest us in the least, do not represent for us any active desire, any conscious attachment, but only prove to us our inability to control what may be described as the mechanical Receptivity of our subconscient. A considerable labour is needed to silence all these useless noises, to stop this wearisome train of images and to purify ones mind of these thousand little nothings, so obstructing and worthless. And it is so much time uselessly lost; it is a terrible wastage.
And the remedy? In an over-simple way, certain ascetic disciplines recommend solitude and inaction: sheltering ones subconscient from all possible registration; that seems to me a childish remedy, for it leaves the ascetic at the mercy of the first surprise-attack; and if one day, confident of being perfectly master of himself, he wants to come back among his fellowmen in order to help them, his subconscient, so long deprived of its activity of reception, will surely indulge it more intensively than ever before, as soon as the least opportunity offers.
1914 06 21p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To be at once a passive and perfectly pure mirror, turned simultaneously without and within, to the results of the manifestation and the sources of this manifestation, so that the consequences may be placed before the guiding will, and to be also the realising activity of that will, this, more or less, is what a human being ought to be. To combine these two attitudes of passive Receptivity and realising activity is precisely the most difficult of all things. And that is what Thou expectest of us, O Lord, and as Thou dost expect it of us, there is no doubt that Thou wilt give us the means of realising it.
For what must be will be, more splendidly yet than we can imagine.
1929-04-14 - Dangers of Yoga - Two paths, tapasya and surrender - Impulses, desires and Yoga - Difficulties - Unification around the psychic being - Ambition, undoing of many Yogis - Powers, misuse and right use of - How to recognise the Divine Will - Accept things that come from Divine - Vital devotion - Need of strong body and nerves - Inner being, invariable, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You say that even Ramakrishna had periods of emotional excitement and would go about with hands uplifted, singing and dancing? The truth of the matter is this. The movement in the inner being may be perfect; but it puts you in a certain condition of Receptivity to forces that fill you with intense emotional excitement, if your external being is weak or untransformed. Where the external being offers resistance to the inner being or cannot hold the entirety of the Ananda, there is this confusion and anarchy in expression.
You must have a strong body and strong nerves. You must have a strong basis of equanimity in your external being. If you have this basis, you can contain a world of emotion and yet not have to scream it out. This does not mean that you cannot express your emotion, but you can express it in a beautiful harmonious way. To weep or scream or dance about is always a proof of weakness, either of the vital or the mental or the physical nature; for on all these levels the activity is for self-satisfaction. One who dances and jumps and screams has the feeling that he is somehow very unusual in his excitement; and his vital nature takes great pleasure in that.
1929-05-05 - Intellect, true and wrong movement - Attacks from adverse forces - Faith, integral and absolute - Death, not a necessity - Descent of Divine Consciousness - Inner progress - Memory of former lives, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now if there is awakened somewhere upon earth a Receptivity and openness sufficient to bring down in its purity something of the Divine Consciousness, this descent and manifestation in matter can change not only the inner life, but the material conditions also, the physical expression in man and Nature. This descent does not depend for its possibility upon the condition of humanity as a whole. If we had to wait for the mass of humanity to reach a state of harmony, unity and aspiration, strong enough to bring down the Light and change the material conditions and the movement of Nature, there would be little hope. But there is a possibility that an individual or a small group or limited number may achieve the descent. It is not quantity or extension that matters. One drop of the Divine Consciousness entering into the consciousness of the earth could change everything here.
It is the mystery of the contact and fusion of the higher and the lower planes of consciousness that is the great secret, the hidden key. Always it has a transforming force; only here it would be on a larger scale and reach a higher degree. If there is someone on earth who is capable of coming consciously into contact with a plane that has not yet been manifested here and if by rising into it in his consciousness he can make that plane and the material meet and harmonise, then the great decisive movement of Natures yet unrealised transformation can take place. A new power will descend and change the conditions of life upon earth.
1929-05-19 - Mind and its workings, thought-forms - Adverse conditions and Yoga - Mental constructions - Illness and Yoga, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Where does Yoga begin and where does it end? Is not the whole of your life Yoga? The possibilities of illness are always there in your body and around you; you carry within you or there swarm about you the microbes and germs of every disease. How is it that all of a sudden you succumb to an illness which you did not have for years? You will say it is due to a depression of the vital force. But from where does the depression come? It comes from some disharmony in the being, from a lack of Receptivity to the divine forces. When you cut yourself off from the energy and light that sustain you, then there is this depression, there is created what medical science calls a favourable ground and something takes advantage of it. It is doubt, gloominess, lack of confidence, a selfish turning back upon yourself that cuts you off from the light and divine energy and gives the attack this advantage. It is this that is the cause of your falling ill and not microbes.
But has it not been found that by improved sanitation the health of the average citizen improves?
1929-06-02 - Divine love and its manifestation - Part of the vital being in Divine love, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Love is one of the great universal forces; it exists by itself and its movement is free and independent of the objects in which and through which it manifests. It manifests wherever it finds a possibility for manifestation, wherever there is Receptivity, wherever there is some opening for it. What you call love and think of as a personal or individual thing is only your capacity to receive and manifest this universal force. But because it is universal, it is not therefore an unconscious force; it is a supremely conscious Power. Consciously it seeks for its manifestation and realisation upon earth; consciously it chooses its instruments, awakens to its vibrations those who are capable of an answer, endeavours to realise in them that which is its eternal aim, and when the instrument is not fit, drops it and turns to look for others. Men think that they have suddenly fallen in love; they see their love come and grow and then it fadesor, it may be, endures a little longer in some who are more specially fitted for its more lasting movement. But their sense in this of a personal experience all their own was an illusion. It was a wave from the everlasting sea of universal love.
Love is universal and eternal; it is always manifesting itself and always identical in its essence. And it is a Divine Force; for the distortions we see in its apparent workings belong to its instruments. Love does not manifest in human beings alone; it is everywhere. Its movement is there in plants, perhaps in the very stones; in the animals it is easy to detect its presence. All the deformations of this great and divine Power come from the obscurity and ignorance and selfishness of the limited instrument. Love, the eternal force, has no clinging, no desire, no hunger for possession, no self-regarding attachment; it is, in its pure movement, the seeking for union of the self with the Divine, a seeking absolute and regardless of all other things. Love divine gives itself and asks for nothing. What human beings have made of it, we do not need to say; they have turned it into an ugly and repulsive thing. And yet even in human beings the first contact of love does bring down something of its purer substance; they become capable for a moment of forgetting themselves, for a moment its divine touch awakens and magnifies all that is fine and beautiful. But afterwards there comes to the surface the human nature, full of its impure demands, asking for something in exchange, bartering what it gives, clamouring for its own inferior satisfactions, distorting and soiling what was divine.
1929-06-16 - Illness and Yoga - Subtle body (nervous envelope) - Fear and illness, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The force that comes down into one who is doing Yoga and helps him in his transformation, acts along many different lines and its results vary according to the nature that receives it and the work to be done. First of all, it hastens the transformation of all in the being that is ready to be transformed. If he is open and receptive in his mind, the mind, touched by the power of Yoga, begins to change and progress swiftly. There may be the same rapidity of change in the vital consciousness if that is ready, or even in the body. But in the body the transforming power of Yoga is operative only to a certain degree; for the Receptivity of the body is limited. The most material plane of the universe is still in a condition in which Receptivity is mixed with a large amount of resistance. But rapid progress in one part of the being which is not followed by an equivalent progress in other parts produces a disharmony in the nature, a dislocation somewhere; and wherever or whenever this dislocation occurs, it can translate itself into an illness. The nature of the illness depends upon the nature of the dislocation. One kind of disharmony affects the mind and the disturbance it produces may lead even as far as insanity; another kind affects the body and may show itself as fever or prickly heat or any other greater or minor disorder.
On one side, the action of the forces of Yoga hastens the movement of transformation of the being in those parts that are ready to receive and respond to the power that is at work upon it. Yoga, in this way, saves time. The whole world is in a process of progressive transformation; if you take up the discipline of Yoga, you speed up in yourself this process. The work that would require years in the ordinary course, can be done by Yoga in a few days and even in a few hours. But it is your inner consciousness that obeys this accelerating impulse; for the higher parts of your being readily follow the swift and concentrated movement of Yoga and lend themselves more easily to the continuous adjustment and adaptation that it necessitates. The body, on the other hand, is ordinarily dense, inert and apathetic. And if you have in this part something that is not responsive, if there is a resistance here, the reason is that the body is incapable of moving as quickly as the rest of the being. It must take time, it must walk at its own pace as it does in ordinary life. What happens is as when grown-up people walk too fast for children in their company; they have to stop at times and wait till the child who is lagging behind comes up and overtakes them. This divergence between the progress in the inner being and the inertia of the body often creates a dislocation in the system, and that manifests itself as an illness. This is why people who take up Yoga frequently begin by suffering from some physical discomfort or disorder. That need not happen if they are on their guard and careful. Or if there is a greater and unusual Receptivity in the body, then too they escape. But an unmixed Receptivity making the physical parts closely follow the pace of the inner transformation is hardly possible, unless the body has already been prepared in the past for the processes of Yoga.
In the ordinary life of man a progressive dislocation is the rule. The mental and the vital beings of man follow as best they can the movement of the universal forces, and the stream of the worlds inner transformation and evolution carries them a certain way; but the body bound to the law of the most material nature, moves very slowly. After some years, seventy or eighty, a hundred or two hundred, and that is perhaps the maximum, thedislocation is so serious that the outer being falls to pieces. The divergence between the demand and the answer, the increasing inability and irresponsiveness of the body, brings about the phenomenon of death. By Yoga the inner transformation that is in slow constant process in the creation is rendered more intense and rapid, but the pace of the outer transformation remains almost the same as in ordinary life. As a result, the disharmony between the inner and the outer being in one who is doing Yoga tends to be all the greater, unless precautions are taken and a protection secured that will help the body to follow the inner march as closely as possible. Even then it is the very nature of the body to hold you back. It is for this reason that to many we are obliged to say, Do not pull, do not hurry; you must give your body time to follow. Some have to be kept back even for years and not allowed to do much or progress far. Sometimes, to avoid the disequilibrium becomes impossible; and then you have a disturbance which varies according to the nature of the resistance and the measure of the care you have taken or your negligence. This too is the reason why each time that there is a strong movement of progress, it is almost invariably followed by a period of immobility, which seems to those who are not warned a spell of dullness and stagnation and discouragement in which all progress is stopped, and they think anxiously, What is the matter? Am I losing time? Nothing is being done. But the truth is that it is the time needed for assimilation; a pause is made for the body to open itself more and become receptive and approach nearer to the level attained by the inner consciousness. The parents have been walking too far ahead; they must halt so that the child left behind may run up and catch them by the hand; only then can they start again on the journey together.
1950-12-30 - Perfect and progress. Dynamic equilibrium. True sincerity., #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We may say that perfection will be attained in the individual, the collectivity, on the earth and in the universe, when, at every moment, the Receptivity will be equal in quality and quantity to the Force which wants to manifest.
That is the supreme equilibrium.
1951-01-04 - Transformation and reversal of consciousness., #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The starting-point of this transformation is Receptivity, we have already spoken about it. That is the indispensable condition for obtaining the transformation. Then comes the change of consciousness. This change of consciousness and its preparation have often been compared with the formation of the chicken in the egg: till the very last second the egg remains the same, there is no change, and it is only when the chicken is completely formed, absolutely alive, that it itself makes with its little beak a hole in the shell and comes out. Something similar takes place at the moment of the change of consciousness. For a long time you have the impression that nothing is happening, that your consciousness is the same as usual, and, if you have an intense aspiration, you even feel a resistance, as though you were knocking against a wall which does not yield. But when you are ready within, a last effort the pecking in the shell of the being and everything opens and you are projected into another consciousness.
I said that it was a revolution of the basic equilibrium, that is, a total reversal of consciousness comparable with what happens to light when it passes through a prism. Or it is as though you were turning a ball inside out, which cannot be done except in the fourth dimension. One comes out of the ordinary three-dimensional consciousness to enter the higher four-dimensional consciousness, and into an infinite number of dimensions. This is the indispensable starting-point. Unless your consciousness changes its dimension, it will remain just what it is with the superficial vision of things, and all the profundities will escape you.
1951-02-12 - Divine force - Signs indicating readiness - Weakness in mind, vital - concentration - Divine perception, human notion of good, bad - Conversion, consecration - progress - Signs of entering the path - kinds of meditation - aspiration, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because it is too strong for them. It is as though you were in the midst of a big cyclone. It happens at times that the wind is so violent that you are not able to standyou have to lie down and wait till it blows over. Now, the divine forces are a thousand times stronger than a cyclonic wind. If you do not have in you a very wide Receptivity, an extremely solid basis of calmness, of equality of soul and inner peace, they come and carry you away like a gale and you cannot resist them. It is the same thing with light; some people get a pain in the eyes when they look at the sun and are obliged to put on dark glasses because sunlight is too strong for them. But this is merely sunlight. When you are able to look at the supramental light, it appears to you so brilliant that sunlight seems like a black stain in comparison. One must have strong eyes and a solid brain to bear that, one must be well prepared, established in something extremely calm and vastit is as though one had such a strong basis of tranquillity that when the storm passes, when the light comes with a great intensity, one is able to remain immobile and receive what one can without being knocked over. But there is not one being in a million who can do it. Only those who have had a foretaste of inner experience can know what this means. But even if you enter consciously into the psychic, it is dazzling; and it is within your reach because it is your own psychic being, and yet it is so different from your external consciousness that the first time you enter it consciously, it seems to you truly dazzling, something infinitely more brilliant than the most brilliant sunlight.
The psychic is what may be called the Divine within the reach of man.
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In the meditations we formerly used to have there [at the Ashram], when we had a morning or evening meditation, my work was to unify the consciousness of everyone and lift it as high as I could towards the Divine. Those who were able to feel the movement followed it. This was ordinary meditation with an aspiration and ascent towards the Divine. Here, at the Playground, the work is to unify all who are here, make them open and bring down the divine force into them. It is the opposite movement and that is why this concentration cannot replace the other, even as the other cannot replace this one. What happens here is exceptionalin the other meditation [at the Ashram] I gathered together the consciousness of all who were present and, with the power of aspiration, lifted it towards the Divine, that is, made each one of you progress a little. Here, on the other hand, I take you as you are; each one of you comes saying, Here we are with our whole days activities, we were busy with our body, here it is, we offer to you all our movements, just as they were, just as we are. And my work is to unify all that, make of it a homogeneous mass and, in answer to this offering (which each one can make in his own way), to open every consciousness, widen the Receptivity, make a unity of this Receptivity and bring down the Force. So at that moment each one of you, if you are very quiet and attentive, will surely receive something. You will not always be aware of it, but you will receive something.
In March 1964, the following question was put to the Mother:
1951-02-17 - False visions - Offering ones will - Equilibrium - progress - maturity - Ardent self-giving- perfecting the instrument - Difficulties, a help in total realisation - paradoxes - Sincerity - spontaneous meditation, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, I told you this the other day, the concentration we have now is the opposite of meditation. In the common meditation we used to have, I tried to unify the consciousness of all who were present and to lift it in an aspiration towards higher regions; it was a movement of ascent, of aspirationwhereas what we do here, in concentration, is a movement of descent. Instead of an aspiration which rises up, what is required is a Receptivity which opens so that the Force may enter into you. There are many ways of doing this; each one according to his particular nature should find out the best method. What is asked here is a receptive offering, not of the body or the mind or the vital, of a piece of your being, but of your entire being. No other thing is asked of you, only to open yourself; the rest of the work I undertake.
In the meditation there2 I wanted each one to kindle in himself a flame of aspiration and to rise up as high as possible. Naturally, both are necessary; but the morning meditation, all who had a goodwill could join it at any stage of their development, while here the rule is that only those who really want the perfection of their physical body can come, not those who want to escape from life, escape from themselves, escape from their body to enter into the heights. That is why in the beginning the selection was very strictit is widening little by little, with profit, I hope. We wanted only those who had truly taken it into their head that they wished to perfect their physical body, who understood that their body had its own value and who sought to perfect it, who wanted to try to make it a receptacle of a higher truth, not an old rag one throws aside saying, Do not bother me! On the contrary, to take it up and make of it the best possible instrument, to make it grow, to perfect it as much as it will lend itself to the process.
1951-03-14 - Plasticity - Conditions for knowing the Divine Will - Illness - microbes - Fear - body-reflexes - The best possible happens - Theories of Creation - True knowledge - a work to do - the Ashram, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Where does Yoga begin and where does it end? Is not the whole of your life Yoga? The possibilities of illness are always there in your body and around you; you carry within you or there swarm about you the microbes and germs of every disease. How is it that all of a sudden you succumb to an illness which you did not have for years? You will say it is due to a depression of the vital force. But from where does the depression come? It comes from some disharmony in the being, from a lack of Receptivity to the divine forces. When you cut yourself off from the energy and light that sustain you, then there is this depression, there is created what medical science calls a favourable ground and something takes advantage of it. It is doubt, gloominess, lack of confidence, a selfish turning back upon yourself that cuts you off from the light and divine energy and gives the attack this advantage. It is this that is the cause of your falling ill and not microbes.
Questions and Answers 1929 (19 May)
1951-03-19 - Mental worlds and their beings - Understanding in silence - Psychic world- its characteristics - True experiences and mental formations - twelve senses, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The substance of the psychic world is a substance proper to it, with its own psychic characteristics: a sense of immortality, a complete Receptivity to the divine influence, an entire submission to this influence by which it is wholly impregnated. It is this exactly which distinguishes the psychic from the other parts of the being. When, for instance, I speak of organising the mind and the vital around the psychic centre, I do not mean that they become psychic; they remain the mind and the vital, but they are organised around the psychic as an army is organised around its leaderit does not become the leader, it obeys him, doesnt it? Well, it is the same thing here; the vital and the mind are organised around the psychic, they receive orders from the psychic and carry them out as well as they can. But their substance does not become psychic substance as a consequence. They can be under the influence of the psychic and assume its nature more or less but not its substance.
You said that our body can become receptive to forces which are concentrated in certain places or in certain countries. But can we have this physical sensation without a preliminary preparation of the consciousness? Or is it truly a spontaneous sensation like heat, cold or goose-flesh, for example?2
1951-03-31 - Physical ailment and mental disorder - Curing an illness spiritually - Receptivity of the body - The subtle-physical- illness accidents - Curing sunstroke and other disorders, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:1951-03-31 - Physical ailment and mental disorder - Curing an illness spiritually - Receptivity of the body - The subtle-physical- illness accidents - Curing sunstroke and other disorders
author class:The Mother
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I dont see any contradiction! There are two ways of curing an illness spiritually. One consists in putting a force of consciousness and truth on the physical spot which is affected. In this case the effect produced depends naturally on the Receptivity of the person. Supposing the person is receptive; the force of consciousness is put upon the affected part and its pressure restores order. Many of you here can tell how Sri Aurobindo cured them. It was like a hand which came and took away the pain. It is as clear as that.
In other cases, if the body lacks Receptivity altogether or if its Receptivity is insufficient, one sees the inner correspondence with the psychological state which has brought about the illness and acts on that. But if the cause of the illness is refractory, not much can be done. Let us say the origin is vital. The vital absolutely refuses to change, it clings terrifically to the condition in which it is; then that is hopeless. You put the force, and usually it provokes an increase in the illness, produced by the resistance of the vital which did not want to accept anything. I speak of the vital but it can be the mind or something else.
When the action is directly upon the body, that is, on the affected part, it is possible that one is relieved; then, some hours later or even after a few days, the illness returns. This means that the cause has not been changed, that the cause is in the vital and is still there; it is only the effect which has been cured. But if one can act simultaneously upon both the cause and the effect, and the cause is sufficiently receptive to consent to change, then one is completely cured, once for all.
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How can one increase the Receptivity of the body?
It depends on the part. The method is almost the same for all parts of the being. To begin with, the first condition: to remain as quiet as possible. You may notice that in the different parts of your being, when something comes and you do not receive it, this produces a shrinking there is something which hardens in the vital, the mind or the body. There is a stiffening and this hurts, one feels a mental, vital or physical pain. So, the first thing is to put ones will and relax this shrinking, as one does a twitching nerve or a cramped muscle; you must learn how to relax, be able to relieve this tension in whatever part of the being it may be.
The method of relaxing the contraction may be different in the mind, the vital or the body, but logically it is the same thing. Once you have relaxed the tension, you see first if the disagreeable effect ceases, which would prove that it was a small momentary resistance, but if the pain continues and if it is indeed necessary to increase the Receptivity in order to be able to receive what is helpful, what should be received, you must, after having relaxed this contraction, begin trying to widen yourselfyou feel you are widening yourself. There are many methods. Some find it very useful to imagine they are floating on water with a plank under their back. Then they widen themselves, widen, until they become the vast liquid mass. Others make an effort to identify themselves with the sky and the stars, so they widen, widen themselves, identifying themselves more and more with the sky. Others again dont need these pictures; they can become conscious of their consciousness, enlarge their consciousness more and more until it becomes unlimited. One can enlarge it till it becomes vast as the earth and even the universe. When one does that one becomes really receptive. As I have said, it is a question of training. In any case, from an immediate point of view, when something comes and one feels that it is too strong, that it gives a headache, that one cant bear it, the method is just the same, you must act upon the contraction. One can act through thought, by calling the peace, tranquillity (the feeling of peace takes away much of the difficulty) like this: Peace, peace, peace tranquillity calm. Many discomforts, even physical, like all these contractions of the solar plexus, which are so unpleasant and give you at times nausea, the sensation of being suffocated, of not being able to brea the again, can disappear thus. It is the nervous centre which is affected, it gets affected very easily. As soon as there is something which affects the solar plexus, you must say, Calm calm calm, become more and more calm until the tension is destroyed.
In thought also. For instance, you are reading something and come across a thought you dont understandit is beyond you, you understand nothing and so in your head it lies like a brick, and if you try to understand, it becomes more and more like a brick, a stiffening, and if you persist it gives you a headache. There is but one thing to do: not to struggle with the words, remain just like this (gesture, stretched out, immobile), create a relaxation, simply widen, widen. And dont try to understand, above all, dont try to understandlet it enter like that, quite gently, and relax, relax, and in this relaxing your headache goes away. You no longer think of anything, you wait for a few days and after some days you see from inside: Oh! How clear it is! I understand what I had not understood. It is as easy as that. When you read a book which is beyond you, when you come across sentences which you cannot understandone feels that there is no correspondence in the headwell, you must do this; one reads the thing once, twice, thrice, then remains calm and makes the mind silent. A fortnight later, one takes up the same passage again and it is clear as daylight. Everything has been organised in the head, the elements of the brain which were wanted for the understanding have been formed, everything has been done gradually and one understands. I knew many people who, when I used to tell them something, argued,they did not understand anything at all. They were shut up in their mind which could not catch the thought, which threw it out, refused it violently. You have said something, you dont insist; you have said it, thats all; if need be you say it a second time, but you dont insist. A week, a month later, those very people come looking for you and tell you with strong conviction, But things are like that, you dont understand, things are like that! It is exactly what you have told them, you know. But they tell you, I thought about it, now I know, it is this, it is truly this. If you have the misfortune to tell them, But this is exactly what I had told you, they pull a long face! And they dont understand any longer.
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Someone was seeking to establish a constant and conscious contactabsolutely constant and consciouswith the inner Godhead, not only with the psychic being but the divine Presence in the psychic being, and she had decided that she would be like this, that she would busy herself with nothing else, that is to say, whatever she might be doing, her concentration was upon this, and even when she went out walking in the street, her concentration was upon this. She lived in a big city where there was much traffic: buses, tramways, etc., many things, and to cross the street one had to be considerably careful, wide-awake and attentive, otherwise one could get run over, but this person had resolved that she would not come out of her concentration. One day when she was crossing one of the big avenues with all its cars and its tramways, still deep in her concentration, in her inner seeking, she suddenly felt at about an arms length a little shock, like this; she jumped back and a car passed just by her side. If she had not jumped back she would have been run over. This is an extreme point, but without going so far one can very easily feel a kind of little discomfort (it is not something which is imposed with a great force), a little uneasiness coming near you from anywhere at all: front, behind, above, below. If at that moment you are sufficiently alert, you say no, as though you were cutting off the contact with great strength, and it is finished. If you are not conscious at that moment, the next minute or a few minutes later you get a queer sick feeling inside, a cold in the back, a little uneasiness, the beginning of some disharmony; you feel a maladjustment somewhere, as though the general harmony had been disturbed. Then you must concentrate all the more and with a great strength of will keep the faith that nothing can do you harm, nothing can touch you. This suffices, you can throw off the illness at that moment. But you must do this immediately, you understand, you must not wait five minutes, it must be done at once. If you wait too long and begin to feel really an uneasiness somewhere, and something begins to get quite disturbed, then it is good to sit down, concentrate and call the Force, concentrate it on the place which is getting disturbed, that is to say, which is beginning to become ill. But if you dont do anything at all, an illness indeed gets lodged somewhere; and all this, because you were not sufficiently alert. And sometimes one is obliged to follow the entire curve to find the favourable moment again and get rid of the business. I have said somewhere that in the physical domain all is a question of methoda method is necessary for realising everything. And if the illness has succeeded in touching the physical-physical, well, you must follow the procedure needed to get rid of it. This is what medical science calls the course of the illness. One can hasten the course with the help of spiritual forces, but all the same the procedure must be followed. There are some four different stages. The very first is instantaneous. The second can be done in some minutes, the third may take several hours and the fourth several days. And then, once the thing is lodged there, all will depend not only on the Receptivity of the body but still more on the willingness of the part which is the cause of the disorder. You know, when the thing comes from outside it is in affinity with something inside. If it manages to pass through, to enter without ones being aware of it, it means there is some affinity somewhere, and the part of the being which has responded must be convinced.
I have known some truly extraordinary instances. If you can at the moment Wait, take an example which is quite concrete: sunstroke. This upsets you considerably, it is one of the things which makes you most illa sunstroke upsets everything, it disturbs the inner functions, it generally causes a congestion in the head and very high fever. So, if this has happened, if it has succeeded in getting through the protection and entering you, well, if you can just go into a quiet place, stretch yourself out flat, go out of your body (naturally, you must learn this; there are people who do this spontaneously, for others a long discipline is necessary), go out of your body, remain above in a way to be able to see the body (you know the phenomenon, seeing ones body when one is outside? This can be done at will, going out of ones body and remaining just above it), the body is stretched out on a bed, a bench, on the ground, anywhere; you are stretched just above it and from there, consciously, you pull the Force from above, and if you are used to doing it, if your aspiration is strong enough, you get the answer; and then, from there, taking care not to re-enter your body, you begin to push these forces into the body, like that, regularly, until you see the body receiving them (for, the first few moments they dont enter, because the body is quite upset by the illness, it is not receptive, it is curled up), you push them gently, gently, quietly, without nervousness, very peacefully, into the body. But you must not be disturbed by anyone. If someone comes along, sees you stretched out and shakes you, it is extremely dangerous. You must do this in quiet conditions, ask people not to disturb you or better shut yourself up where they cant disturb you. But you can concentrate slowly (this takes more or less timeten minutes, half an hour, one hour, two hoursdepends upon the seriousness of the disorder which has set in), slowly, from above, you concentrate the Force until you see that the body is receiving, that the Force is entering, the disorder is being set right and there is a relaxation in the body itself. Once that is done you can get back and you are cured. This has been done for a sunstroke, which is a fairly violent thing, and also for typhoid fever, and many other illnesses, as, for instance, for a liver which was suddenly upset somehow (not due to indigestion, but a liver which doesnt function properly for the moment); it may also be cured in the same way. There was a case of cholera which was healed like that. The cholera had just been caught, had entered, but was not yet lodged; it was completely cured. Consequently, when I say that if one masters the spiritual force and knows how to use it, there is no malady which cannot be cured. I dont say it just like that in the air; it is said from experience with the thing. Of course, you will say you dont know how to go out of the body, draw the Force, concentrate it, have all this mastery. It is not very frequent, but it is not impossible. And one can be sure that if one is helped In fact, there is a much easier method, it is to call for help.
1951-05-03 - Money and its use for the divine work - problems - Mastery over desire- individual and collective change, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ah! There we are. Is it possible to attain a total personal transformation without there being at least a correspondence in the collectivity? This does not seem possible to me. There is such an interdependence between the individual and the collectivity that, unless one does what the ascetics have preached, that is, escapes from the world, goes out of it completely, leaves it where it is and runs away selfishly leaving all the work to others, unless one does that. And even so I have my doubts. Is it possible to accomplish a total transformation of ones being so long as the collectivity has not reached at least a certain degree of transformation? I dont think so. Human nature remains what it isone can attain a great change of consciousness, that yes, one can purify ones consciousness, but the total conquest, the material transformation depends definitely to a large extent, on a certain degree of progress in the collectivity. Buddha said with reason that as long as you have in you a vibration of desire, this vibration will spread in the world and all those who are ready to receive it will receive it. In the same way, if you have in you the least Receptivity to a vibration of desire, you will be open to all the vibrations of desire which circulate constantly in the world. And that is why he concluded: Get out of this illusion, withdraw entirely and you will be free. I find this relatively very selfish, but after all, that was the only way he had foreseen. There is another: to identify oneself so well with the divine Power as to be able to act constantly and consciously upon all vibrations circulating through the world. Then the undesirable vibrations no longer have any effect upon you, but you have an effect upon them, that is, instead of an undesirable vibration entering into you without being perceived and doing its work there, it is perceived and immediately on its arrival you act upon it to transform it, and it goes back into the world transformed, to do its beneficent work and prepare others for the same realisation. This is exactly what Sri Aurobindo proposes to do and, more clearly, what he asks you to do, what he intends us to do:
Instead of running away, to bring into oneself the power which can conquer.
1953-05-13, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is very simple, when people are told be humble, they think immediately of being humble before other men and that humility is wrong. True humility is humility before the Divine, that is, a precise, exact, living sense that one is nothing, one can do nothing, understand nothing without the Divine, that even if one is exceptionally intelligent and capable, this is nothing in comparison with the divine Consciousness, and this sense one must always keep, because then one always has the true attitude of Receptivitya humble Receptivity that does not put personal pretensions in opposition to the Divine.
You have said: If you surrender you have to give up effort, but that does not mean that you have to abandon also all willed action.
1953-07-22, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am sure that most of you have felt this as, for example, when one does an exercise which is not done often or does it for the first time; these are tiny little vibrations which seize you in all the cells. And then naturally, you lose your full control over the movement. The body does not answer to the Force any more. When you want to put your will to do something, that brings about a kind of resistance and incapacity in the body. Only, you are not aware of it usually because your attention is drawn more to the mental apprehension or to the kind of vital recoil which is very apparent in the consciousness, whereas you are not so very conscious of the resistance produced in the body. Generally in all sports (athletics and all competitions), a certain incident occurs: you must have noticed with your friends that some do much better than usual, while others who usually do well are almost incapacitated at that moment. They do much worse. Well, this depends on those small vibrations. Because you lose your full control. Your will has no longer the full control over the body, for it vibrates and answers to forces other than yours. Naturally I am not speaking of those whose head is in a whirl or whose vital is altogether upset. Nothing can be done with them, it is better that they dont try. But I mean those who have some control over themselves, who undergo the training, you see, but at the time of the competition, cannot do as well as usual; it depends on a lack of Receptivity in the body which gets this little tremor in the cells of which you are not conscious but which acts as an obstruction. That prevents it from receiving the Force fully.
Are illnesses tests in the Yoga?
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Now, there is still another thing. You do the yoga according to your capacity. You have been told: Open yourself, you will receive the Force. You have been told: Have faith, be of goodwill and you will be protected. And indeed you are bathed in the Consciousness, bathed in the Force, bathed in the Protection and to the extent you have faith and open yourself, you receive all that, and it helps you in keeping fit and in rejecting the little inner disturbances and re-establishing order when these come, in protecting yourself against small attacks or accidents which might have happened. But if somewhere in your beingei ther in your body or even in your vital or mind, either in several parts or even in a single onethere is an incapacity to receive the descending Force, this acts like a grain of sand in a machine. You know, a fine machine working quite well with everything going all right, and you put into it just a little sand (nothing much, only a grain of sand), suddenly everything is damaged and the machine stops. Well, just a little lack of Receptivity somewhere, something that is unable to receive the Force, that is completely shut up (when one looks at it, it becomes as it were a little dark spot somewhere, a tiny thing hard as a stone: the Force cannot enter into it, it refuses to receive iteither it cannot or it will not) and immediately that produces a great imbalance; and this thing that was moving upward, that was blooming so wonderfully, finds itself sick, and sometimes just when you were in the normal equilibrium; you were in good health, everything was going on well, you had nothing to complain about. One day when you grasped a new idea, received a new impulse, when you had a great aspiration and received a great force and had a marvellous experience, a beautiful experience opening to you inner doors, giving you a knowledge you did not have before; then you were sure that everything was going to be all right The next day, you are taken ill. So you say: Still that? It is impossible! That should not happen. But it was quite simply what I have just said: a grain of sand. There was something that could not receive; immediately it brings about a disequilibrium. Even though very small it is enough, and you fall ill.
You see there are reasons!many reasons, numberless reasons. For all these things combine in an extraordinarily complex way, and in order to know, in order to be able to cure an illness, one must find out its cause, not its microbe. For it happens that (excuse me, I hope there are no doctors here!), it happens that when microbes are there, they find out magnificent remedies to kill the microbes, but these remedies cure some and make others much more ill! Nobody knows why. Perhaps I know why. Because the illness had another cause than the purely physical one; there was another. The first was only an outer expression of a different disorder, and unless you touched that, discovered that disorder, never would you be able to prevent the illness from coming. And to discover the disorder, you must have an extensive occult knowledge and also a deep knowledge of all the inner workings of each one.
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There is another reason. The origin of the microbes and their support lie in a disharmony, in the beings Receptivity to the adverse force. I will tell you a story. I do not know whether I have already told it to you, but I am going to tell you now for it will give you an illustration.
I was in Japan. It was at the beginning of January 1919. Anyway, it was the time when a terrible flu raged there in the whole of Japan, which killed hundreds of thousands of people. It was one of those epidemics the like of which is rarely seen. In Tokyo, every day there were hundreds and hundreds of new cases. The disease appeared to take this turn: it lasted three days and on the third day the patient died. And people died in such large numbers that they could not even be cremated, you understand, it was impossible, there were too many of them. Or otherwise, if one did not die on the third day, at the end of seven days one was altogether cured; a little exhausted but all the same completely cured. There was a panic in the town, for epidemics are very rare in Japan. They are a very clean people, very careful and with a fine morale. Illnesses are very rare. But still this came, it came as a catastrophe. There was a terrible fear. For example, people were seen walking about in the streets with a mask on the nose, a mask to purify the air they were breathing, so that it might not be full of the microbes of the illness. It was a common fear. Now, it so happened I was living with someone who never ceased troubling me: But what is this disease? What is there behind this disease? What I was doing, you know, was simply to cover myself with my force, my protection so as not to catch it and I did not think of it any more and continued doing my work. Nothing happened and I was not thinking of it. But constantly I heard: What is this? Oh, I would like to know what is there behind this illness. But could you not tell me what this illness is, why it is there? etc. One day I was called to the other end of the town by a young woman whom I knew and who wished to introduce me to some friends and show me certain things. I do not remember now what exactly was the matter, but anyway I had to cross the whole town in a tram-car. And I was in the tram and seeing these people with masks on their noses, and then there was in the atmosphere this constant fear, and so there came a suggestion to me; I began to ask myself: Truly, what is this illness? What is there behind this illness? What are the forces that are in this illness? I came to the house, I passed an hour there and I returned. And I returned with a terrible fever. I had caught it. It came to you thus, without preparation, instantaneously. Illnesses, generally illnesses from germs and microbes take a few days in the system: they come, there is a little battle inside; you win or you lose, if you lose you catch the illness, it is not complicated. But there, you just receive a letter, open the envelope, hop! puff! The next minute you have the fever. Well, that evening I had a terrible fever. The doctor was called (it was not I who called him), the doctor was called and he told me: I must absolutely give you this medicine. It was one of the best medicines for the fever, he had just a little (all their stocks were exhausted, everyone was taking it); he said: I have still a few packets, I shall give you some I beg of you, do not give it to me, I wont take it. Keep it for someone who has faith in it and will take it. He was quite disgusted: It was no use my coming here. So I said: Perhaps it was no use! And I remained in my bed, with my fever, a violent fever. All the while I was asking myself: What is this illness? Why is it there? What is there behind it At the end of the second day, as I was lying all alone, I saw clearly a being, with a part of the head cut off, in a military uniform (or the remains of a military uniform) approaching me and suddenly flinging himself upon my chest, with that half a head to suck my force. I took a good look, then realised that I was about to die. He was drawing all my life out (for I must tell you that people were dying of pneumonia in three days). I was completely nailed to the bed, without movement, in a deep trance. I could no longer stir and he was pulling. I thought: now it is the end. Then I called on my occult power, I gave a big fight and I succeeded in turning him back so that he could not stay there any longer. And I woke up.
1953-08-05, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And generally you try to open it precisely towards the highest thing, not towards anything whatever. For the other kind of Receptivity people unfortunately always have. It is impossible to be altogether shut up in an ivory towerbesides, I believe it would not be very favourable, it would be impossible to progress if one were completely shut up in oneself. One would be able only to rearrange whatever was in oneself. Just imagine you were like a closed globe, altogether closed, that there was no communication with outside youput out nothing, you receive nothing, you are shut upyou have a few elements of consciousness, movements, vibrations (call them what you like), all that is contained as within a ball, along with your consciousness also. You have no relation with things outside, you are conscious only of yourself. What can you do? Change the organisation within; that you can do, you can do many things by changing this organisation. But it is confined to that. It is a kind of inner progress, but there is no true progress in relation to the forces outside oneself. You would find yourself extremely limited after a time, you would be tired of yourself: turning and turning again, turning and turning again the elements insidenot very pleasant.
But all the while you externalise yourself and all the while you bring back something from this externalisation; it is like something porous: a force goes out and then a force comes in. There are pulsations like that. And this is why it is so important to choose the environment in which one lives, because there is constantly a kind of interchange between what you give and what you receive. People who throw themselves out a great deal in activity, receive more. But they receive on the same level, the level of their activity. Children, for example, who are younger, who always move about, always shout and romp and jump (very rarely do they keep quiet, except while asleep, and perhaps not even so), well, they spend much and they receive much, and generally it is the physical and vital energy that is spent and it is physical and vital energies that are received. They recuperate a good part of what they spend. So there, it is very important for them to be in surroundings where they can, after they have spent or while they are spending, recover something that is at least equal in quality to theirs, that is not of an inferior quality.
When you no longer have this generosity in your movements, you receive much less and this is one of the reasonsone of the chief reasonswhy physical progress stops. It is because you become thrifty, you try not to waste; the mind intervenes: Take care, dont tire yourself, dont do too much, etc. The mind intervenes and physical Receptivity diminishes a great deal. Finally, you do not grow any moreby growing reasonable, you stop growing altogether!
But Receptivity opens to other levels. Those who live in a world of desires and passions, increase their vital Receptivity so much at times that it reaches proportions very unpleasant to themselves and to their surroundings. And then there are those who live in the mental consciousness; their mental Receptivity grows very much. All who create mentally, study and live in mental activity, if the mental activity is constant, can progress indefinitely. Mind in the human being does not stop functioning even when the physical instrument has deteriorated. It may no longer manifest its intelligence materially, if there is a lesion in the brain, for example, but nothing can prevent the mind itself, independently of the instrument, from progressing, from continuing to grow. It is a being that lasts infinitely longer than the physical. It is still young when physically one is already old. Only when you do not take enough care to keep your brain in a good state, only if accidents occur and there are lesions then you can no longer express yourself. But the mind in itself continues to grow. And those who have a sufficient physical balance, for example, those who have not gone to excesses of any kind, who have never mistreated their body, who have never poisoned themselves like most peoplewho have never smoked, drunk alcohol and so onkeep their brain in a relatively good condition and they can progress, even in their expression, till the end of their life. It is only if in the last years of their life they make a kind of withdrawal within themselves, that they lose their power of expression. But the mind goes on progressing.
The vital is by nature immortal. But it is not organised, and in its normal state, it is over-excited, full of contradictory passions and impulses. So with all that it destroys itself. But otherwise the elements continue to exist. A desire, a passion is a very living thing and continues to live for a very long time, even independently of the being who is subjected to them, I might say, rather than creates them, because they are things that one is subjected to, that rush upon you from outside like a storm that seizes you and carries you away, unless you keep very calm like that, very still, very quiet, as though one were clinging to something solid and immobile in oneself, allowing the storm to pass over when it begins to blowit blows, but one must not stir, one must not let oneself tremble or shiver or shake; one must remain altogether immobile and know that these are passing storms. And when the storm has blown over, it passes and goes away; then one can heave a deep breath and resume ones normal balance; and there has been only a minimum destruction. In such cases, generally, things turn out well in the end.
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I can give you some rather external examples. For instance, a psychic being needed to have the experience of mastery, of power in order to know the reactions and how it is possible to turn all these movements towards the Divine: to learn what a life of power may teach you. It took birth in a king or a queen. These enjoyed some power and during that time they had their experiences; they reached the end of the field of experience. Now, they know what they wanted to know, they are about to go, they are going to leave their body thats now become useless, and they are going to prepare for the next experience. Well, at that time, when the psychic being is still in the body and has noted what it has learnt, it decides for the next occasion. And sometimes it is a movement of action and reaction: because it has studied one entire field, it needs to study the opposite field. And very often it chooses a very different life from the one it had. So before leaving, it says: Next time, it is in this domain that I shall take birth. Suppose, for example, the psychic has reached a stage of growth when it would like to have the chance of working on the physical body to make it capable of coming consciously into contact with the Divine and of transforming it. Now, it is about to leave the body in which it had authority, power, activity, the body it has used for its growth; it says: Next time I shall take birth in a neutral environment, neither low nor high, where it will not be necessary (how to put it?) to have a highly external life, where one will have neither great power nor great miseryaltogether neutral, as you know, the life in between. It chooses that. It returns to its own psychic world for the necessary rest, for assimilation of the experience gained, for preparation of the future experience. It naturally remembers its choice and, before coming down once more, when it has finished its assimilation, when it is time to return, to come down upon earth, it cannot, from that domain, see material things as we see them, you know: they appear to it in another form. But still the differences can be foreseen: the differences of environment, differences of activity in the environment are clearly seen, quite perceptible. It can have a vision that is total or global. It can choose. At times it chooses the country; when it wants a certain kind of education, civilisation, influence, it can choose its country beforehand. Sometimes it cant, sometimes it chooses only its environment and the kind of life it will lead. And then from up there, before it comes down, it looks for the kind of vibrations it wants; it sees them very clearly. It is as though it was aiming at the place where it is going to drop. But it is an approximation because of the fact that another condition is necessary: not only its choice but also a Receptivity from below and an aspiration. There must be someone in the environment it has chosen, generally the mother (sometimes both the parents, but the most indispensable is the mother), she must have an aspiration or a Receptivity, something sufficiently passive and open or a conscious aspiration towards something higher. And that kindles for the psychic being a little light. In the mass representing for it the environment in which it wants to be born, if under the influence of its own projected will a small light is kindled, then it knows that it is there it must go.
It is necessary, it is this that makes the difference in months or days, perhaps, not so much perhaps in years; however, this creates an uncertainty, and that is why it cannot foretell the exact date: On that date, that day, at that hour I shall take birth. It needs to find someone receptive. When it sees that, it rushes down. But what happens is something like an image: it is not exactly that, but something very similar. It throws itself down into an unconsciousness, because the physical world, even human consciousness whatever it may be, is very unconscious in comparison with the psychic consciousness. So it rushes into an unconsciousness. It is as though it fell on its head. That stuns it. And so generally, apart from some very very rare exceptions, for a long time it does not know. It does not know any longer where it is nor what it is doing nor why it is there, nothing at all. It finds a great difficulty in expressing itself, especially through a baby that has no brain, naturally; it is only the embryo of a brain which is hardly formed and it does not have the elements for manifesting itself. So it is very rare for a child to manifest immediately the exceptional being it contains. That happens. We have heard about such things. It happens, but generally some time is needed. Only slowly it awakens from its stupor and becomes aware that it is there for some reason and by choice. And usually this coincides with the intensive mental education which shuts you completely from the psychic consciousness. So a mass of circumstances, happenings of all kinds, emotions, all sorts of things are necessary to open the inner doors so that one might begin to remember that after all one has come from another world and one has come for a particular reason.
1953-08-19, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Even in things, even in objects, even in stones, there is a strange Receptivity which comes from this Presence. There are stonesif you know how to do it that can accumulate forces. They can accumulate forces, keep them and transmit them. One can take stones (what are called precious stones) and concentrate forces into them and they keep them. And these forces irradiate slowly, very gradually. But if one knows how to do it one can accumulate such a quantity as would last, so to speak, indefinitely.
Are these forces of any use when they come out from the stones?
1953-09-16, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The force that comes down into one who is doing Yoga and helps him in his transformation, acts along many different lines and its results vary according to the nature that receives it and the work to be done. First of all, it hastens the transformation of all in the being that is ready to be transformed. If he is open and receptive in his mind, the mind, touched by the power of Yoga, begins to change and progress swiftly. There may be the same rapidity of change in the vital consciousness if that is ready, or even in the body. But in the body the transforming power of Yoga is operative only to a certain degree; for the Receptivity of the body is limited. The most material plane of the universe is still in a condition in which Receptivity is mixed with a large amount of resistance. But rapid progress in one part of the being which is not followed by an equivalent progress in other parts produces a disharmony in the nature, a dislocation somewhere; and wherever or whenever this dislocation occurs, it can translate itself into an illness. The nature of the illness depends upon the nature of the dislocation.
Questions and Answers 1929-1931 (16 June 1929)
Why is the Receptivity of the body limited?
Because in the physical world, in order that things do not get mixed up, it was necessary that it should be somewhat fixed. If, for example, your body were so subtle and plastic that suddenly it began to melt just like that, in the presence of another person, it would be quite annoying! Or when you come nearer, if both were to get mixed up, it would be rather unpleasant! So, because of this, there was a greater concentration, a kind of fixity in the force to separate (it is indeed for the sake of separating) one individuality from another. And this fixity is just what prevents the body from progressing as rapidly as it could and should. And as one grows up and reaches ones normal height and constitution, one becomes still more rigid. For children have this plasticity of growth, they are changing all the time, they are visibly changing. Therefore so long as they are young and are growing and developing, they have a certain plasticity in them, but when you are over forty and as generally in life you then sit down and think that you have reached your goal and are about to gather the fruit of your labour, you become dry and hard like wood and even like stone in the end. And as the body is no longer able to adapt itself to the movement of inner transformation, it drags, it ages and cannot keep pace any more, it dries up.
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You have said that on the material plane Receptivity is mixed with a large amount of resistance.2 What is this resistance?
You have resistances in your body, havent you? When you want to do an exercise, can you do with your body whatever you want? And when you try to be in good health, does your body always obey? And when you want to learn your lesson, does your brain follow it without difficulty? That is the resistance, it is all that refuses to progress. And I believe that unfortunately the amount of resistance is much greater than the amount of Receptivity. One must work very hard to become receptive.
One does not knowit is perhaps something you will know one day, perhaps you will be told one day, perhaps one will be able to make you understand ityou cannot imagine the immense flood of force that is at your disposal! And generally you do not feel it even. When you feel it, something in you shrinks because it is too much and produces a kind of instinctive fear in your cells; and when you receive it, more than three-quarters of it is thrown away like an overfilled vessel! It gushes out, spills over, because you are not able to hold it. I have met a very large number of people who complained that they were receiving nothing, that is to say, they said they did not have the forces they needed. It was because they were absolutely incapable of receiving them, and there was a hundred thousand times more force than what they could receive. It is like that. You are all in a sea of tremendous vibrations, and you are not at all aware of it because you are not receptive. And there is such a resistance in you that if something succeeds in entering, three quarters of what enters is thrown out violently because you are not able to contain it. I do not speak of this usually, but since we are talking about the subject, I am telling you. And perhaps one day I shall give you examples of it. It is something unbelievable. For example, just take the consciousness of the Forces, like the force of love, the force of understanding or the force of creation (for everything, it is the same: the force of protection, the force of growth, all that, and the power for progress, for everything); take Consciousness, simply this Consciousness which surrounds everything, enters into everything, which is everywhere, which is in everything. Well, it is almost felt as a violence which seeks to impose itself upon the being that is unable to receive or bear it. And I am speaking of the very best; but in everyone there is a part more or less big, more or less important which does not yet have the goodwill, which is just on the border-line of bad will and does not want at any cost and rejects what is there. But if one were open and simply breathed innothing more, if one did that onlyone would brea the in the Consciousness, the Light, the Understanding, the Force, the Love and all the rest. And all that is wasted upon Earth because the Earth is not ready to take it. Voil.
1953-10-07, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It takes interest in the transformation of the worldin the descent of forces in the material world and its transformation, in its preparation so that it may be able to receive the supramental forces. And it is conscious of the difference between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be. Every moment it sees the gulf between what is and what should be, between the truth and the falsehood that is expressed. And constantly it keeps this vision of the Truth which broods over the world, so that as soon as there is a little opening, it may descend and manifest itself. And what to the ordinary awareness seems quite natural is for it usually a play of obscure, ignorant, altogether unconscious forces. And it does not find that at all natural. It finds that a detestable accident and tries with all its strength to remedy it. It seeks, looks, and if there is any Receptivity anywhere, it intensifies its action. It does not see men in their outward appearance but as vibrations more or less receptive and more or less dark or luminous, and wherever it sees a light it projects its force so that it may have its full effect. And instead of treating each being like a pawn on a chess-board, a small, well-defined person, it sees how forces enter, go out, stir, move and make all things move, how vibrations act. And it sees those vibrations which ascend and lead to progress and it sees those vibrations which cast you further and further into the darkness, which make you go down. And at times someone comes to you with ready-made words which he has learnt generally from books, but nevertheless, full of aspiration and goodwill, and he is answered by a strong rebuff and told that he should try to be sincerehe does not understand. This is because the Force sees that there is no sincerity the Force does not see the words, does not hear the words, doesnt even see the ideas in the head but only the state of consciousness, whether the state of consciousness is sincere or not. There are other instances of people who seem to be quite frivolous and stupid and busy with useless things, and suddenly one helps them, encourages them, treats them like friends and comrades, for one sees shining in the depth of all that a sincerity, an aspiration which may have a childish form outwardly but which is there and very pure at times. And so one does many things for them which people dont understand, for they cannot see the reality behind the appearance. That is why I say that it is in an entirely different way that the supermind is interested, an entirely different way that it sees, an entirely different way that it knows.
Isnt it more important to know oneself than to try to know others?
1953-11-25, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is not altogether like that. The divine Consciousness works always, everywhere and in the same way. The divine Grace is active everywhere, and in all circumstances in the same way. And so on. But according to your personal attitude, you create within yourself the conditions for receiving what is done or not receiving it. And trustindeed, trust in the Truth, trust in the Grace, trust in the divine Knowledgethis puts you in that state of Receptivity in which you can receive these things. Whilst, if you have no trust you may still try to receive something there are people, for instance, who fling a sort of challenge, they throw a challenge at the Divine and tell him: Heres the situation such as it is, I am in these conditions which seem to me at least inextricable, it is impossible to get out of them. But if the Divine pulls me out of the difficulty, I shall put my trust in him. There are many people they do not formulate it like this but many feel and think in this way. Well, this is the worst of all possible conditions. Generally it puts you into a complete hole. And it is exactly the state most opposed to trustfulness. And besides, it is quite a vulgar bargaining: If you do this for me, I shall have faith that you exist. I am going to try and see if you really exist and whether you are what they say. Do this, and we are going to see clearly if you succeed. Then I shall trust in you. And many people do that, even without being aware of it. Any number of men say: How can I have trust in the Divine? I have such a lamentable and unhappy life! That is to say, they limit the divine Consciousness to their little personal needs.
If one has the trust, does the help come automatically?
1953-12-23, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That depends on people, I told you. There are peopleas soon as the least thing happens to their body, their mind is completely upset. There are others still who may be very ill and yet keep their mind clear. It is rarer and more difficult to see a mind thats upset and the body remaining healthyit is not impossible but it is much rarer, for the body depends a great deal on the state of the mind. The mind (I have written it there in the book) is the master of the physical being. And I have said the latter was a very docile and obedient servant. Only one doesnt know how to use ones mind, rather the opposite. Not only does one not know how to use it, but one uses it illas badly as possible. The mind has a considerable power of formation and a direct action on the body, and usually one uses this power to make oneself ill. For as soon as the least thing goes wrong, the mind begins to shape and build all the catastrophes possible, to ask itself whether it could be this, whether it could be that, if it is going to be like that, and how it will all end. Well, if instead of letting the mind do this disastrous work, one used the same capacity to make favourable formationssimply, for example, to give confidence to the body, to tell it that it is just a passing disturbance and that it is nothing, and if it enters a real state of Receptivity, the disorder will disappear as easily as it has come, and one can cure oneself in a few secondsif one knows how to do that, one gets wonderful results.
There is a moment for choice, even in an accident. For instance, one slips and falls. Just between the moment one has slipped and the moment one falls there is a fraction of a second. At that moment one has the choice: it may be nothing much, it may be very serious. Only, the consciousness must naturally be wide awake and one must be in contact with ones psychic being constantly there is no time to make the contact, one must be in contact. Between the moment one slips and the moment one is on the ground, if the mental and psychic formation is sufficiently strong, then there is nothing, nothing will happennothing happens. But if at that moment, the mind according to its habit becomes a pessimist and tells itself: Oh! I have slipped. That lasts the fraction of a second; that doesnt take even a minute, it is a fraction of a second; during a fraction of a second one has the choice. But one must be so awake, every minute of ones life! For a fraction of a second one has the choice, there is a fraction of a second in which one can prevent the accident from being serious, can prevent the illness from entering in. One always has the choice. But it is for a fraction of a second and one must not miss it. If one misses it, it is finished.
1954-04-28 - Aspiration and receptivity - Resistance - Purusha and Prakriti, not masculine and feminine, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:1954-04-28 - Aspiration and Receptivity - Resistance - Purusha and Prakriti, not masculine and feminine
class:chapter
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You see, I think the question has been put badly. I believe the one who asked the questions wanted to say the effect of aspiration and he put power. That is, aspiration in everyone, no matter who it is, has the same power. But the effect of this aspiration is different. For aspiration is aspiration: if you have aspiration, in itself it has a power. Only, this aspiration calls down an answer, and this answer, the effect, which is the result of the aspiration, depends upon each one, for it depends upon his Receptivity. I know many people of this kind: they say, Oh! But I aspire all the time and still I receive nothing. It is impossible that they should receive nothing, in the see that the answer is sure to come. But it is they who do not receive. The answer comes but they are not receptive, so they receive nothing.
There are people, you know, who have a lot of aspiration. They call the force. The force comes to themeven enters deeply into them and they are so unconscious that they dont know it! That indeed happens quite frequently. It is their state of unconsciousness, which prevents them from even feeling the force which enters into them. It enters into them, and does its work. I knew people who were gradually transformed and yet were so unconscious that they were not even aware of it. The consciousness comes latervery much later. On the other hand, there are people who are more passive, so to speak, more open, more attentive, and even if a very slight amount of force comes, they become aware of it immediately and use it fully.
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Mother, on what does Receptivity depend?
It depends first of all upon sincerityon whether one really wants to receive and then yes, I believe the principal factors are sincerity and humility. There is nothing that closes you up more than vanity. When you are self-satisfied, you have that kind of vanity of not wanting to admit that you lack something, that you make mistakes, that you are incomplete, that you are imperfect, that you areThere is something in the nature, you know, which grows stiff in this way, which does not want to admitit is this which prevents you from receiving. You have, however, only to try it out and get the experience. If, by an effort of will you manage to make even a very tiny part of the being admit that Ah, well, yes, I am mistaken, I should not be like that, and I should not do that and should not feel that, yes, it is a fault, if you manage to make it admit this, at first, as I said just now, it begins by hurting you very much, but when you hold on firmly, until this is admitted, immediately it is openit is open and strangely a flood of light enters, and then you feel so glad afterwards, so happy that you ask yourself, Why, from what foolishness did I resist so long?
1954-05-19 - Affection and love - Psychic vision Divine - Love and receptivity - Get out of the ego, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:1954-05-19 - Affection and love - Psychic vision Divine - Love and Receptivity - Get out of the ego
class:chapter
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So, at first, to begin with, one must be able to get out of the ego. Afterwards, it has to be, you understand, in a certain state of inexistence. Then you begin to perceive things as they are, from a little higher up. But if you want to know things as they really are, you must be absolutely like a mirror: silent, peaceful, immobile, impartial, without preferences and in a state of total Receptivity. And if you are like that, you will begin to see that there are many things you are not aware of, but which are there, and which will start becoming active in you.
Then you will be able to be in these things instead of being exclusively enclosed within the little point you are in the universe.
1954-07-07 - The inner warrior - Grace and the Falsehood - Opening from below - Surrender and inertia - Exclusive receptivity - Grace and receptivity, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:1954-07-07 - The inner warrior - Grace and the Falsehood - Opening from below - Surrender and inertia - Exclusive Receptivity - Grace and Receptivity
class:chapter
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Automatonits just a little more than inert passivity. Automatonits a mechanical movement; and inert means unconscious. So it is an unconscious mechanical movement, something that has no soul, no spirit, no will, no urge, something that is merely a machine, that has no consciousness; and inert, absolutely without any consciousness and any Receptivity. It is yet dont think even a watch, for example, could be called an inert automaton. A watch has something like a soul: a machine, when it is very well made, has something like a soul, it responds, it has a certain Receptivity. But the other is something which has no Receptivity, no consciousness, and is only like a machine which one rewinds and which does just this (Mother makes automatic movements), you see, without knowing why or how!
Mother, what does helpful submission mean?
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Instead of self-opening we could put Receptivity, something that opens in order to receive. Now, instead of opening and receiving from all sides and from everyone, as is usually done, one opens only to the Divine to receive only the divine force. It is the very opposite of what men usually do. They are always open on the surface, they receive all the influences from all sides. And then this produces inside them what we might call a pot-pourri (Mother laughs) of all kinds of contradictory movements which naturally create countless difficulties. So here, you are advised to open only to the Divine and to receive only the divine force to the exclusion of everything else. This diminishes all difficulties almost entirely. Only one thing remain difficult. It is One can do it and, unless one is in a state of total alchemy, well, it is difficult to be in contact with people, to speak to them, for example, to have any kind of exchange with them without absorbing something from them. It is difficult. If one is in a kind of if one is in an atmosphere thats like a filter, then everything that comes from outside is filtered before it touches you. But it is very difficult; it requires a very wide experience. That is why, also, people who wanted the easiest path went into solitude to sit under a tree, did not speak any more and saw nobody; for this helps to diminish undesirable exchanges. Only, it has been noticed that these people begin to become enormously interested in the life of little animals, the life of plants, for it is difficult not to have any exchange with anything at all. So it is much better to face the problem squarely and be surrounded by an atmosphere so totally concentrated on the Divine that what comes through this atmosphere is filtered in its passage.
And then again, even when this has been done, there is still the problem of food; as long as our body is compelled to take in foreign matter in order to subsist, it will absorb at the same time a considerable amount of inert and unconscious forces or those having a rather undesirable consciousness, and this alchemy must take place inside the body. We were speaking of the kinds of consciousness absorbed with food, but there is also the Inconscience thats absorbed with foodquite a deal of it. And that is why in many yogas there was the advice to offer to the Divine what one was going to eat before eating it (Mother makes a gesture of offering, hands joined, palms open). It consists in calling the Divine down into the food before eating it. One offers it to Him that is, one puts it in contact with the Divine, so that it may be under the divine influence when one eats it. It is very useful, it is very good. If one knows how to do it, it is very useful, it considerably reduces the work of inner transformations which has to be done. But, you see, in the world as it is, we are all interdependent. You cannot take in the air without taking in the vibrations, the countless vibrations produced by all kinds of movements and all kinds of people, and you mustif you want to remain intactyou must constantly act like a filter, as I was saying. That is to say, nothing that is undesirable should be allowed to enter, as when one goes to infected areas, one wears a mask over the face so that the air may be purified before one breathes it in. Well, something similar has to be done. One must have around oneself so intense an atmosphere in a total surrender to the Divine, so intensified around oneself that everything that passes through is automatically filtered. Anyhow, it is very useful in life, for there arewe spoke about this toothere are bad thoughts, bad wills, people who wish you ill, who make formations. There are all kinds of absolutely undesirable things in the atmosphere. And so, if one must always be on the watch, looking around on all sides, one would think only of one thing, how to protect oneself. First of all, it is tiresome, and then, you see, it makes you waste much time. If you are well enveloped in this way, with this light, the light of a perfectly glad, totally sincere surrender, when you are enveloped with that, it serves you as a marvellous filter. Nothing that is altogether undesirable, nothing that has ill-will can pass through. So, automatically, these things return where they came from. If there is a conscious ill-will against you, it comes, but cannot pass; the door is closed, for it is open only to divine things, it is not open to anything else. So it returns very quietly to the source from where it came.
1954-07-14 - The Divine and the Shakti - Personal effort - Speaking and thinking - Doubt - Self-giving, consecration and surrender - Mothers use of flowers - Ornaments and protection, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sweet Mother, last time you said that stones have a kind of Receptivity.
Yes.
What kind of Receptivity?
Perhaps they have even something resembling sensitivity. For instance, if you have a precious stoneprecious stones of course have a much more perfect structure than ordinary ones, and with perfection consciousness increases but if you take a precious stone, you can charge it with consciousness and force; you can put, accumulate force within it. So it is receptive, otherwise it will not receive it, it could not keep it. You can charge it. As one charges an electric battery, you can charge a stone with force, put conscious force into a stone; it keeps it and can transmit it to someone. Therefore this stone has a Receptivity. Otherwise it could not do this.
Flowers are extremely receptive. All the flowers to which I have given a significance receive exactly the force I put into them and transmit it. People dont always receive it because most of the time they are less receptive than the flower, and they waste the force that has been put in it through their unconsciousness and lack of Receptivity. But the force is there, and the flower receives it wonderfully.
I knew this a very long time ago. Fifty years ago There was that occultist who later gave me lessons in occultism for two years. His wife was a wonderful clairvoyant and had an absolutely remarkable capacitypreciselyof transmitting forces. They lived in Tlemcen. I was in Paris. I used to correspond with them. I had not yet met them at all. And then, one day, she sent me in a letter petals of the pomegranate flower, Divines Love. At that time I had not given the meaning to the flower. She sent me petals of pomegranate flowers telling me that these petals were bringing me her protection and force.
1954-07-21 - Mistakes - Success - Asuras - Mental arrogance - Difficulty turned into opportunity - Mothers use of flowers - Conversion of men governed by adverse forces, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What is the difference between Receptivity and opening?
We have already spoken about this once. I have already answered. And I have told you I wont repeat twice the same thing, because I want you to get into the habit of remembering what I have said.
1954-08-18 - Mahalakshmi - Maheshwari - Mahasaraswati - Determinism and freedom - Suffering and knowledge - Aspects of the Mother, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(After a silence) It is all a it is a description of a very tiny part of the action. For when the action is integral and perfect, to this purely material knowledge there is added an internal knowledge, and a power to bring into play forces like the supramental forces, which can do instantaneously what takes in the material world a fairly long time, you see. There too, when one succeeds in bringing in not only the material knowledge which allows you to put things in their place as quickly as possible but also in making a supramental power and knowledge intervene, so that the force of truth can be projected upon the placein such a way that everything is put under the influence of this force, and that things, elements, the cells and everything, everything constituting them, all become receptive to this supramental power and the organisation is made according to a law of truth then this may be even an opportunity not only of curing the effects of the blow, repairing the damage caused by the accident, but of making great progress in the general consciousness and on the particular point alsoa great progress in the Receptivity of forces, in adaptation to these forces, in response to their influence.
This is how something bad can be turned into something very good, when one has the power. It is an unlimited power, this, in the see that if one has made a mistake and done something serious, if one has the power to bring this truth-consciousness, this supramental force, and let it act, it is an occasion for a tremendous progress. (Silence) Which means that one should never feel discouraged; or even if one has made mistakes many a time, one must keep the will not to make them any longer, and be sure that one day or another one will triumph over the difficulty if one persists in ones will.
1954-08-25 - Ananda aspect of the Mother - Changing conditions in the Ashram - Ascetic discipline - Mothers body, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But for her to be able to settle and act down here, she needed to meet with at least a minimum of Receptivity, to find at least one human being having the requisite qualities in the vital and physical nature, a kind of super-Parsifal endowed with a spontaneous and integral purity, but at the same time having a strong and balanced body in order to bear the intensity of the Ananda she had brought without giving way.
Till now she has not obtained what was necessary. Men obstinately remain men and do not want to or cannot become supermen. They can only receive and express a love cut to their measurea human love! And the marvellous joy of the divine Ananda escapes their perception.
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There was a terrible fight with the inconscient; for, as I saw that the Receptivity was not what it ought to be, I put the responsibility for it on the inconscient and it was there that I tried to give battle. I dont say that this had no result, but between the result obtained and the result hoped for, there was a great difference.
But I tell you this, you see you are all so close, you ba the in the atmosphere, but who was aware of anything? You continued to live your little life as usual, didnt you?
--
If I am surrounded by people who cannot receive her, I am useless for her. This is very clear. So it is not that which will make her stay; and it is certainly not for any selfish reason that I can ask her to stay. And then, all those aspects, all those personalities constantly manifest, but never manifest for personal reasons. Not a single one among them has ever thought of helping my body and I do not ask them, for they do not come for that. But it is obvious that if I had around me Receptivity and they could constantly manifest because there were people capable of receiving, this would help my body enormously. For, you see, all the vibrations would go through my body, and that would help it. But she has no opportunity to manifest, she has no chance. She only meets people who dont even feel that she is here, they are not even aware of it. It makes no difference at all to them! So, how could she manifest?
And I am not going to ask her, If you please, come and change my body. We dont have that kind of relation and the body itself would not want it. It has never thought of itself, it has never cared for itself. And it is only through work that it can be transformed. Yes, surely, when she came, if there had been a Receptivity and if she could have manifested with the power she came with Even before her arrival I can tell you one thing, that is, when I began with Sri Aurobindo to descend for the yoga, to descend from the mind into the vital, when we brought down our yoga from the mind into the vital, within one month I was forty at that time, I didnt look old, I looked younger than forty, but still I was forty and after a months yoga I looked exactly eighteen. And someone who had seen me before, who had lived with me in Japan and came here, found it difficult to recognise me. He asked me, But really, is it you? I said, Obviously!
Only when we descended from the vital into the physical, then it was gone, for in the physical the work is much harder. It was because there were many more things to change. But if a force like that could be manifested and received, it would have a tremendous action! Still, you see, it is I am speaking about it because I thought you would ask the questions otherwise it is not I am not in that kind of relation. You see, I mean, you take my body, this poor body; it is quite harmless, it does not at all try to draw either any attention or the forces, nor even to do anything else except its work as well as it can. And thats how it is, you know. Its importance for the work is in proportion to its usefulness and the importance the world gives it, because the action is for this world. In itself it is one body among countless others.
1955-02-23 - On the sense of taste, educating the senses - Fasting produces a state of receptivity, drawing energy - The body and food, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:1955-02-23 - On the sense of taste, educating the senses - Fasting produces a state of Receptivity, drawing energy - The body and food
author class:The Mother
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How does fasting produce a state of Receptivity?
It is because usually the vital being is very closely concentrated on the body and when the body is well fed it takes its strength from the food, its energy from the food, and it is one way... it is obviously almost the only way; not the only one, but the most important in the present conditions of life... but it is a very tamasic way of absorbing energy.
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It is not like your stomach which can digest only a certain amount of food, and therefore you can't take in more than that; and even the food you take liberates only a little bit, a very small quantity of vital energy. And so what can remain with you after all the work of swallowing, digesting, etc.? Not much, you see. But if you learn... and this indeed is a kind of instinct, one learns instinctively to draw towards himself the universal energies which move freely in the universe and are unlimited in quantity... as much of these as you are capable of drawing towards you, you can absorb-so instinctively when there is no support from below which comes from food, you make the necessary movement to recuperate the energies from outside, and absorb as much of them as you are capable of doing, and sometimes more. So this puts you in a kind of state of excitement, and if your body is very strong and can bear being without food for a certain length of time, then you keep your balance and can use these energies for all kinds of things, as for example, to progress, to become more conscious and transform your nature. But if your physical body doesn't have much in reserve and grows considerably weak from not eating, then this creates an imbalance between the intensity of the energies you absorb and the capacity of the body to hold them, and then this causes disturbances. You lose your balance, and all the balance of forces is destroyed, and anything at all may happen to you. In any case, you lose much control over yourself and become usually very excited, and you take this excitement for a higher state. But often it is simply an inner imbalance, nothing more. It sharpens the Receptivity very much. For example, precisely when one fasts and no longer takes the energies from below, well, if you breathe in the odour of a flower it nourishes you, the perfume nourishes you, it gives you a great deal of energy; but otherwise you do not notice it.
There are certain faculties which get intensified, and so one takes that for a spiritual effect. It has very little to do with the spiritual life except that there are people who eat much, think much about their food, are very deeply absorbed in it, and then when they have eaten well-and as I say, they must digest it, and so all their energies are concentrated on their digestion-these people are dull in mind, and this pulls them down very much towards matter; so if they stop eating and stop thinking about food-because there is one thing, that if one fasts and thinks all the time that he is hungry and would like to eat, then it is ten times worse than eating-and can truly fast because they think of something else and are occupied with something else and are not interested in food-then that can help one to climb to a slightly higher degree of consciousness, to free himself from the slavery to material needs. But fasting is above all good for those who believe in it-as everything. When you have the faith that this will make you progress, is going to purify you, it does you good. If you don't believe in it, it doesn't do much, except that it makes you thin.
1955-03-02 - Right spirit, aspiration and desire - Sleep and yogic repose, how to sleep - Remembering dreams - Concentration and outer activity - Mother opens the door inside everyone - Sleep, a school for inner knowledge - Source of energy, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A proportion has to be kept between the Receptivity and the expenditure. It is a kind of harmony in the being which must be established. Only, some people have an almost instinctive power of attracting towards them the vital forces or absorbing them the universal vital forces, I mean and so they make up their expense as they go along spending. These people can produce much more than others. Some of them, in certain conditions like sleep or a kind of repose or relaxation, can accumulate forces and later they exhaust them, so to say, in their activities and they must yet once again charge the battery afterwardsthis is already a much less favourable condition.
Some people dont know how to receive the forces at all. These live on the energies concentrated in the body for there is some concentrated energy in all the cells of the body. They live upon that, but after some time, they are drained out completely if they dont know how to recuperate; when they have spent all the energies which were concentrated inside them either they fall ill or they never recuperate them. So this cannot last very long; it lasts the average lifetime of human beings, and yet, at the end of a certain number of years they are no longer able to make the same effort or to produce as much, or above all to make any progress.
1955-05-04 - Drawing on the universal vital forces - The inner physical - Receptivity to different kinds of forces - Progress and receptivity, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:1955-05-04 - Drawing on the universal vital forces - The inner physical - Receptivity to different kinds of forces - Progress and Receptivity
class:chapter
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I dont think that forces have a limit, because in comparison with us they are certainly unlimited. But its our capacity of reception that is limited. We cannot absorb them beyond a certain measure, and then we must keep a balance between the expenditure and the capacity to receive. If one spends suddenly in a kind of impulse for example, in an impulsive movementif one spends much more than one has received, one needs a brief moment of concentration, calm, Receptivity to absorb universal forces. You must put yourself in a certain condition to receive them; and then, they last for a certain time, and once you have spent them you must begin again to receive them. It is in this sense that there are limits. It isnt the forces that are limited, it is the Receptivity.
Each person has a different Receptivity. No two receptivities are the same in quality and quantity, but specially in quality. One enters into contact with very pure, very intense forceswhat could be already called converted forces, that is, universal vital forces which are in contact with the Divine and not only receive the Divine but aspire to receive Him. So if you absorb these forces it gives you a great strength for progress. It is in this that the quality is much more important. And for the quality of the universal vital forces, it depends naturally a great deal on what one is, but also much on what one does.
If one uses these forces for a purely selfish action of a base kind, well, one makes it almost totally impossible for himself to receive any new ones of as fine a quality. All depends on the utilisation of the forces one receives. If, on the other hand, you use them to make progress, to perfect yourself, it gives you it increases your capacity of receiving enormously, and the next time you can have a lot more. All depends (in any case, principally) on the use made of them. There are people, for instance, who are short-tempered by nature and havent succeeded in controlling their anger. Well, if with an aspiration or by some method or other they have managed to receive some higher vital forces, instead of this calming their irritation or anger because they have no self-control it increases their anger, that is, their irritability, their movement of violence is full of a greater force, a greater energy, and becomes much more violent. So it is well said that to be in contact with universal forces does not make one progress. But this is because they make a bad use of them. Yet naturally in the long run, this bad use diminishes the capacity of receiving; but it takes time, it is not immediate. So it is very important to put yourself in a good condition to receive the higher forces and not the lower ones, and secondly, when you have received them use them for the best thing possible, in order to prepare yourself to receive those which are of a higher quality. But if you open yourself, receive the forces and afterwards, being satisfied with having received them you let yourself fall into all the ordinary movements, well, you close the door and the force no longer returns.
One can increase the Receptivity also?
How can we increase the Receptivity? By progressing.
One must first know how to open himself and then, in a great quietude know how to assimilate the forces one has received, not to throw them out again. One must know how to assimilate them.
1955-12-28 - Aspiration in different parts of the being - Enthusiasm and gratitude - Aspiration is in all beings - Unlimited power of good, evil has a limit - Progress in the parts of the being - Significance of a dream, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is only the physical being which grows and decomposes. But this comes from its lack of plasticity and Receptivity and by its very nature; it is not inevitable. Therefore there is room to think that at a given moment, as the physical consciousness itself progresses consciously and deliberately, well, to a certain extent and increasingly the body itself will be able, first to resist decaywhich, obviously, must be the first movementand then gradually begin to grow in inner perfection till it overcomes the forces of decomposition.
But truly speaking, its the only thing which for the moment does not progress. Everything else is progressing.
1956-02-01 - Path of knowledge - Finding the Divine in life - Capacity for contact with the Divine - Partial and total identification with the Divine - Manifestation and hierarchy, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And His manifestation is always adapted to each ones Receptivity and capacity. They may have a real, essential contact, but this contact is limited by their own capacity for receiving and approach. It is only if you are able to go out of all limits that you can meet the total Divine as He totally is.
And this capacity for contact is perhaps what constitutes the true hierarchy of beings. For everyone carries within himself the Divine, and therefore everyone has the possibility of uniting with the Divine that possibility is the same in all. But according to each ones capacityin fact, according to his position in the divine hierarchyhis approach will be more or less partial or total.
1956-06-20 - Hearts mystic light, intuition - Psychic being, contact - Secular ethics - True role of mind - Realise the Divine by love - Depression, pleasure, joy - Heart mixture - To follow the soul - Physical process - remember the Mother, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is all a matter of balance. And the period of Receptivity should be in proportion to the period of expenditure.
But if one confines oneself to what one can do at a given moment First of all it is impossible, for if one doesnt progress, one falls back. Therefore, one must always make a little effort to do a little more than before. Then one is on the upward path. If one is afraid of doing too much, one is sure to go down again and lose ones capacities.
One must always try a little more, a little better than one did the day before or the previous moment. Only, the more one increases ones effort, the more should one increase ones capacity of Receptivity and the opportunities to receive. For instance, from the purely physical point of view, if one wants to develop ones muscles, a progressive effort must be made by them, that is to say, a greater and greater effort, but at the same time one must do what is needed: massage, hydrotherapy, etc. to increase at the same time their capacity to receive.
And rest. A rest which is not a falling into the inconscientwhich generally tires you more than it refreshes but a conscious rest, a concentration in which one opens oneself and absorbs the forces which come, the universal forces.
1956-08-08 - How to light the psychic fire, will for progress - Helping from a distance, mental formations - Prayer and the divine - Grace Grace at work everywhere, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And when one is in this state of perfect Receptivity and perfect adherence, one diminishes to that extent the resistance of the world to the divine Action; consequently, this is the best collaboration one can bring to the Action of the Divine. One understands what He wants and, with all ones consciousness, adheres to His Will.
***
1956-08-15 - Protection, purification, fear - Atmosphere at the Ashram on Darshan days - Darshan messages - Significance of 15-08 - State of surrender - Divine Grace always all-powerful - Assumption of Virgin Mary - SA message of 1947-08-15, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I think it is the same thing that happens to people who are more receptive on their birthdays or who need to remember an event to awaken their Receptivity.
In the days when Sri Aurobindo used to give Darshan, before he gave it there was always a concentration of certain forces or of a certain realisation which he wanted to give to people. And so each Darshan marked a stage forward; each time something was added. But that was at a time when the number of visitors was very limited. It was organised in another way, and it was part of the necessary preparation.
1956-08-29 - To live spontaneously - Mental formations Absolute sincerity - Balance is indispensable, the middle path - When in difficulty, widen the consciousness - Easiest way of forgetting oneself, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But if, when you have to face anguish, suffering, revolt, pain or a feeling of helplessnesswhatever it may be, all the things that come to you on the path and which precisely are your difficultiesif physically, that is to say, in your body-consciousness, you can have the feeling of widening yourself, one could say of unfolding yourselfyou feel as it were all folded up, one fold on another like a piece of cloth which is folded and refolded and folded againso if you have this feeling that what is holding and strangling you and making you suffer or paralysing your movement, is like a too closely, too tightly folded piece of cloth or like a parcel that is too well-tied, too well-packed, and that slowly, gradually, you undo all the folds and stretch yourself out exactly as one unfolds a piece of cloth or a sheet of paper and spreads it out flat, and you lie flat and make yourself very wide, as wide as possible, spreading yourself out as far as you can, opening yourself and stretching out in an attitude of complete passivity with what I could call the face to the light: not curling back upon your difficulty, doubling up on it, shutting it in, so to say, into yourself, but, on the contrary, unfurling yourself as much as you can, as perfectly as you can, putting the difficulty before the Light the Light which comes from aboveif you do that in all the domains, and even if mentally you dont succeed in doing it for it is sometimes difficultif you can imagine yourself doing this physically, almost materially, well, when you have finished unfolding yourself and stretching yourself out, you will find that more than three-quarters of the difficulty is gone. And then just a little work of Receptivity to the Light and the last quarter will disappear.
This is much easier than struggling against a difficulty with ones thought, for if you begin to discuss with yourself, you will find that there are arguments for and against which are so convincing that it is quite impossible to get out of it without a higher light. Here, you do not struggle against the difficulty, you do not try to convince yourself; ah! you simply stretch out in the Light as though you lay stretched on the sands in the sun. And you let the Light do its work. Thats all.
1956-09-26 - Soul of desire - Openness, harmony with Nature - Communion with divine Presence - Individuality, difficulties, soul of desire - personal contact with the Mother - Inner receptivity - Bad thoughts before the Mother, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:1956-09-26 - Soul of desire - Openness, harmony with Nature - Communion with divine Presence - Individuality, difficulties, soul of desire - personal contact with the Mother - Inner Receptivity - Bad thoughts before the Mother
author class:The Mother
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Now, if one is able to consciously unite with ones psychic being, one can always be in this state of Receptivity, inner joy, energy, progress, communion with the divine Presence. And when one is in communion with That, one sees it everywhere, in everything, and all things take on their true meaning.
On what does that depend? On an inner rhythm. Perhaps a grace. In any case on a Receptivity to something that is beyond you.
Mother a well-developed soul, when it incarnates, does it have less difficulty in transforming this soul of desire?
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But if you believe that this contact is going to replace the inner Receptivity, you are mistaken, it is not much use. For example, people who are quite closed up, who receive nothing within, who have no opening to the forces and who imagine that because they are going to spend half an hour or an hour sitting in front of me and chatting, this is going to help them to transform themselves, they make a gross mistake. But if they are inwardly open, if they are in contact with the Force and make an effort to transform themselves, then, at a particular moment, perhaps a conversation or a material contact, a presence, may help them to make a more integral progress.
One may very easily live in close proximity, in ones daily life be apparently very near, and get nothing at all out of it, at least in the active consciousness. Perhaps there is a very slow and deep action which goes on but it seems to me that it would go on in any case. And if, while by my side for some reason or other the thought is elsewhere, the desires elsewhere, the preoccupations elsewhere, it is absolutely useless, it leads to nothing.
1957-02-07 - Individual and collective meditation, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And so, now, for our special case, I shall tell you what I am trying to do. It will soon be a year since, one Wednesday, we had the manifestation of the supramental force. Since then, it has been working very actively, even while very few people are aware of it! but still I thought the time had come forhow to put it?for us to help it a little in its work by making an effort of Receptivity.
Of course, it does not work only in the Ashram, it is working in the whole world and in all places where there is some Receptivity this Force is at work, and I must say the Ashram hasnt an exclusive Receptivity in the world, the monopoly of Receptivity. But since it so happens that all of us here more or less know what has taken place, well, I hope that individually each person is doing his best to benefit by the occasion; but collectively we can do something, that is, try to unify a ground, to produce a particularly fertile soil to obtain collectively the maximum Receptivity and to have as little wastage as possible of time and energies.
So now, you have been told in a general way what we want to try to do and you have only to to do it.
1957-06-05 - Questions and silence - Methods of meditation, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For me, for what I am trying to do, action in silence is always much more important. The force which is at work is not limited by words, and this gives it an infinitely greater strength, and it expresses itself in each consciousness in accordance with its own particular mode, which makes it infinitely more effective. A certain vibration is given out in silence, with a special purpose, to obtain a definite result, but according to the mental Receptivity of each person it is expressed in each individual consciousness exactly in the form which can be the most effective, the most active, the most immediately useful for each individual; while if it is formulated in words, this formula has to be received by each person in its fixity the fixity of the words given to itand it loses much of its strength and fullness of action because, first, the words are not always understood as they are said and then they are not always adapted to the understanding of each one.
So, unless a question immediately gives rise to an experience which can be expressed as a new formula, in my opinion it is always better to keep silent. Only when the question is living can it give rise to an experience which will be the occasion of a living teaching. And for a question to be alive, it must answer an inner need for progress, a spontaneous need to progress on some plane or otheron the mental plane is the most usual way, but if by chance it answers an inner aspiration, a problem one is tackling and wants to solve, then the question becomes interesting and living and truly useful, and it can give rise to a vision, a perception on a higher plane, an experience in the consciousness which can make the formula new so that it carries a new power for realisation.
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It is always better, for meditationyou see, we use the word meditation, but it does not necessarily mean moving ideas around in the head, quite the contraryit is always better to try to concentrate in a centre, the centre of aspiration, one might say, the place where the flame of aspiration burns, to gather in all the energies there, at the solar plexus centre and, if possible, to obtain an attentive silence as though one wanted to listen to something extremely subtle, something that demands a complete attention, a complete concentration and total silence. And then not to move at all. Not to think, not to stir, and make that movement of opening so as to receive all that can be received, but taking good care not to try to know what is happening while it is happening, for if one wants to understand or even to observe actively, it keeps up a sort of cerebral activity which is unfavourable to the fullness of the Receptivityto be silent, as totally silent as possible, in an attentive concentration, and then be still.
If one succeeds in this, then, when everything is over, when one comes out of meditation, some time laterusually not immediatelyfrom within the being something new emerges in the consciousness: a new understanding, a new appreciation of things, a new attitude in lifein short, a new way of being. This may be fugitive, but at that moment, if one observes it, one finds that something has taken one step forward on the path of understanding or transformation. It may be an illumination, an understanding truer or closer to the truth, or a power of transformation which helps you to achieve a psychological progress or a widening of the consciousness or a greater control over your movements, over the activities of the being.
And these results are never immediate. For if one tries to have them at once, one remains in a state of activity which is quite the contrary of true Receptivity. One must be as neutral, as immobile, as passive as one can be, with a background of silent aspiration not formulated in words or ideas or even in feelings; something that does this (gesture like a mounting flame) in an ardent vibration, but which does not formulate, and above all, does not try to understand.
With a little practice one reaches a state which may be obtained at will, in a few seconds, that is, one doesnt waste any of the meditation time. Naturally, in the beginning, one must slowly quieten the mind, gather up ones consciousness, concentrate; one loses three-quarters of the time in preparing oneself. But when one has practised the thing, in two or three seconds one can get it, and then one benefits from the whole period of Receptivity.
Naturally, there are still more advanced and perfected states, but that comes later. But already if one reaches that state, one profits fully by the meditation.
1957-06-19 - Causes of illness Fear and illness - Minds working, faith and illness, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother, I am asking you a small personal question. An incurable illness, an organic disease has been cured by your grace, but a purely functional illness is not. How can that be? In the same body. Is it a lack of Receptivity or?
It is something so personal, so individual, that it is impossible to reply. As I said, for each one the case is absolutely different, and one cant give an explanation for these things without going into the details of the functioning. For each one, the case is different.
1957-07-24 - The involved supermind - The new world and the old - Will for progress indispensable, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How long it will take is difficult to foresee. It will depend a great deal on the goodwill and the Receptivity of a certain number of people, for the individual always advances faster than the collectivity, and by its very nature, humanity is destined to manifest the Supermind before the rest of creation.
At the basis of this collaboration there is necessarily the will to change, no longer to be what one is, for things to be no longer what they are. There are several ways of reaching it, and all the methods are good when they succeed! One may be deeply disgusted with what exists and wish ardently to come out of all this and attain something else; one mayand this is a more positive wayone may feel within oneself the touch, the approach of something positively beautiful and true, and willingly drop all the rest so that nothing may burden the journey to this new beauty and truth.
1957-12-18 - Modern science and illusion - Value of experience, its transforming power - Supramental power, first aspect to manifest, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Since I am speaking to you about it, I would like to recommend something to you. In your desire for progress and your aspiration for realisation, take great care not to attempt to pull the forces towards you. Give yourself, open yourself with as much disinterestedness as you can attain through a constant self-forgetfulness, increase your Receptivity to the utmost, but never try to pull the Force towards you, for wanting to pull is already a dangerous egoism. You may aspire, you may open yourself, you may give yourself, but never seek to take. When things go wrong, people blame the Force, but it is not the Force that is responsible: it is ambition, egoism, ignorance and the weakness of the vessel.
Give yourself generously and with a perfect disinterestedness and from the deeper point of view nothing bad will ever happen to you. Try to take and you will be on the brink of the abyss.
1958-03-12 - The key of past transformations, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
On the side of consciousness the new manifestation, the human, could be accounted for by an upsurge of concealed Consciousness from the involution in universal Nature. But in that case it must have had some material form already existent for its vehicle of emergence, the vehicle being adapted by the force of the emergence itself to the needs of a new inner creation; or else a rapid divergence from previous physical types or patterns may have brought a new being into existence. But whichever the hypothesis accepted, this means an evolutionary process,there is only a difference in the method and machinery of the divergence or transition. Or there may have been, on the contrary, not an upsurgence but a descent of mentality from a Mind-plane above us, perhaps the descent of a soul or mental being into terrestrial Nature. The difficulty would then be the appearance of the human body, too complex and difficult an organ to have been suddenly created or manifested; for such a miraculous speed of process, though quite possible on a supraphysical plane of being, does not seem to figure among the normal possibles or potentials of the material Energy. It could only happen there by an intervention of a supraphysical force or law of Nature or by a creator Mind acting with full power and directly on Matter. An action of a supraphysical Force and a creator may be conceded in every new appearance in Matter; each such appearance is at bottom a miracle operated by a secret Consciousness supported by a veiled Mind- Energy or Life-Energy: but the action is nowhere seen to be direct, overt, self-sufficient; it is always super-imposed on an already realised physical basis and acts by an extension of some established process of Nature. It is more conceivable that there was an opening of some existing body to a supraphysical influx so that it was transformed into a new body; but no such event can lightly be assumed to have taken place in the past history of material Nature: in order to happen it would seem to need either the conscious intervention of an invisible mental being to form the body he intended to inhabit or else a previous development of a mental being in Matter itself who would be already able to receive a supraphysical power and impose it on the rigid and narrow formulas of his physical existence. Otherwise we must suppose that there was a pre-existent body already so much evolved as to be fitted for the reception of a vast mental influx or capable of a pliable response to the descent into it of a mental being. But this would suppose a previous evolution of mind in body to the point at which such a Receptivity would be possible. It is quite conceivable that such an evolution from below and such a descent from above cooperated in the appearance of humanity in earth-nature. The secret psychical entity already there in the animal might have itself called down the mental being, the Mind-Purusha, into the realm of living Matter in order to take up the vital-mental energy already at work and lift it into a higher mentality. But this would still be a process of evolution, the higher plane only intervening to assist the appearance and enlargement of its own principle in terrestrial Nature.
The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 839-40
1958-05-28 - The Avatar, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In every country, every tradition, the event has been presented in a special way, with different limitations, different details, particular features, but truly speaking, the origin of all these stories is the same, and that is what we could call a direct, conscious intervention of the Supreme in the darkest matter, without going through all the intermediaries, in order to awaken this Matter to the Receptivity of the Divine Forces.
The intervals separating these various incarnations seem to become shorter and shorter, as if, to the extent that Matter became more and more ready, the action could accelerate and become more and more rapid in its movement, more and more conscious too, more and more effective and decisive.
1958 09 19, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have already replied to this. When one opens oneself to the supramental regions, one puts oneself in the right state for receiving constant inspirations. Until then, the best method is to silence the mind as much as possible, to turn it upwards and to remain in a state of silent and attentive Receptivity. The more one is able to establish a silent, perfect calm in the mind, the more one becomes capable of receiving inspirations.
It was also asked whether inspirations are of different qualities.
1958 10 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is an admirable state; it is perfect peace of mind. There is no longer any need to accumulate acquired knowledge, received ideas which have to be memorised; it is no longer necessary to clutter ones brain with thousands and thousands of things in order to have at ones command, when the time comes, the knowledge that is needed to perform an action, to impart a teaching, to solve a problem. The mind is silent, the brain is still, everything is clear, quiet, calm; and at the right moment, by divine Grace a drop of light falls into the consciousness and what needs to be known is known. Why should one care to rememberwhy try to retain that knowledge? On the day or at the moment that it is needed one will have it again. At each second one is a blank page on which what must be known will be inscribedin the peace, the repose, the silence of a perfect Receptivity.
One knows what must be known, one sees what must be seen, and since what must be known and seen comes directly from the Supreme, it is Truth itself; and it completely eludes all notions of reason or folly. What is true is true that is all. And one has to sink very low to wonder whether it is folly or reason.
Silence and a modest, humble, attentive Receptivity; no concern for appearances or even any anxiety to beone is quite modestly, quite humbly, quite simply the instrument which of itself is nothing and knows nothing, but is ready to receive everything and transmit everything.
The first condition is self forgetfulness, a total self giving, the absence of ego.
1958 10 24, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Naturally, by the action of Grace, the veil may suddenly be rent from within, and at once you can enter the true truth; but even when that happens, in order to obtain the full value and full effect of the experience, you must maintain yourself in a state of inner Receptivity, and to do that, it is indispensable for you to go within each day.
24 October 1958
1960 04 07? - 28, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All will depend on the Receptivity of nations. If they open widely and quickly to the influence of the new forces and if they change rapidly enough in their conceptions and actions, war may be avoided. But it is always threatening and always in abeyance; every error, every darkening of the consciousness increases this threat.
And yet in the last analysis everything really depends on the Divine Grace and we should look towards the future with confidence and serenity, at the same time progressing as fast as we can.
1960 11 12? - 49, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But since it is all-powerful, some Receptivity must be prepared on earth so that the effects are not shattering. Sri Aurobindo has explained this in one of his letters. Someone asked him, Why does it not come immediately? He answered something like this: if divine love were to manifest in its essence upon earth, it would be like a bombshell; because the earth is neither supple nor receptive enough to be able to widen itself to the dimensions of this love. It not only needs to open, but to widen itself and to become more suppleMatter is still too rigid. And even the substance of the physical consciousness not only the most material Matter, but the substance of the physical consciousness is too rigid.
January 1961
1962 10 06, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This kind of revelation can only occur in a silent mindat least in a mind that is at rest, completely quiet and still, otherwise they do not come. Or if they come, you do not notice them, because of all the noise you are making. And of course, they help this quiet, this silence, this Receptivity to become better and better established. This feeling of something so still but not closed, still but open, still but receptiveis something which becomes established through repeated experiences. There is a great difference between a silence that is dead, dull, unresponsive and the receptive silence of a quietened mind. That makes a great difference. But that is the result of these experiences. All the progress we make always results, quite naturally, from truths coming from above.
They have an effect, all these things have an effect on the functioning of the body the functioning of the organs, of the brain, of the nerves, etc. That will surely happen beforelong before there is any effect on the external form.
1963 11 04, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact, during this period, I have studied and observed this phenomenon: how the vibration of desire is added to the vibration of Will emitted by the Supremein our little everyday actions. And with the vision from above, if we take care to maintain the consciousness of this vision from above, we can see how this vibration emitted was exactly the vibration emitted by the Supreme, but instead of obtaining the immediate result expected by the surface consciousness, it was meant to set off a whole series of vibrations and to achieve another, more distant and more complete result. I am not speaking of great things or of actions on a terrestrial scale, I am speaking of the very small things in life: for example, saying to someone, Give me this, and instead of giving it, that someone does not understand and gives something else. So if we do not take care to preserve an overall vision, a certain vibration may occur, for example a vibration of impatience or of dissatisfaction, together with the impression that the vibration from the Lord is not understood and not received. Well, this little added vibration of impatience or, in fact, of not understanding what is happening, this impression of a lack of Receptivity or response, is of the same quality as desireit cannot be called a desire, but it is the same kind of vibrationthis is what comes to complicate things. If we have the complete, exact vision, we know that Give me this will produce something other than the immediate result and that this other thing will bring in something else which is exactly what should be. I do not know if I am making myself clear, it is rather complicated! But this gave me the key to the difference in quality between the vibration of Will and the vibration of desire, and at the same time the possibility of eliminating this vibration of desire by a wider and more total visionwider, more total and far-seeing, that is to say, the vision of a greater whole.
I insist on this point, because this eliminates all moral factors. It eliminates this pejorative notion of desire. More and more, the vision is eliminating all notions of good and bad, right and wrong, inferior and superior, and all that. There is only what might almost be called a difference of vibratory qualityquality still gives the idea of superiority and inferiority; it is not quality, it is not intensity. I do not know the scientific term they use to distinguish one vibration from another, but thats what it is.
1964 03 25, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And from this point of view, I have even seen The ordinary idea that this phenomenon must necessarily occur first in the body where the Consciousness is expressed more constantly, seems absolutely useless and subordinate; on the contrary, it occurs everywhere at the same time, wherever it can do so most easily and completely, and it is not necessarily this agglomerate of cells (Mother points to her own body) that is most prepared for this operation. Therefore it may remain as it is in its appearance for a very long time, even if its understanding and Receptivity are exceptional. I mean that the awareness, the conscious perception of this body is infinitely superior to the awareness of all the others with which it is in contact, except at those moments the momentswhen other bodies, as if by Grace, have this perception; whereas for this body, it is a natural and constant state. It is the effective result of the fact that this Truth-Consciousness is more constantly concentrated on this group of cells than on any othermore directly. But the substitution of one vibration for the otherin circumstances, in action, in objectsoccurs at the point where it can have the most striking and effectual results.
It is something I have felt very, very clearly and which one cannot feel so long as the physical ego is there, because the physical ego has the sense of its own importance and that disappears entirely with the physical ego. And when it disappears one has the precise perception that the intervention or the manifestation of the true vibration does not depend on egos or individualitieshuman or national individualities or even those of Nature: animals, plants, etc. It depends on a certain play of the cells and Matter in which some agglomerates are particularly favourable to the transformationnot transformation, but substitution, to be precise: the substitution of the vibration of Truth for the vibration of Falsehood. And this phenomenon can be quite independent of any groupings or individualitiesit may be one piece here, one piece there, one thing here, one thing there and it always corresponds to a certain quality of vibration that brings about an expansiona receptive expansion. Then the phenomenon can take place.
2.03 - Karmayogin A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
the characteristic of passive Receptivity to outside surroundings
should be markedly predominant. Early man is active only under the pressure of hunger, or when moved by the primitive
2.03 - On Medicine, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Improvement in his cancer is encouraging. It shows Receptivity.
I had been working on those points where he finds improvement.
2.03 - The Mother-Complex, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
ecclesia spiritualis into reality; and a spiritual Receptivity which
makes him responsive to revelation.
2.03 - The Purified Understanding, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If this higher Buddhi 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 future298a no less than the past. Certainly, we are intended to grow in our Receptivity to this higher faculty of truth-conscious knowledge, but its full and unveiled use is as yet the privilege of the gods and beyond our present human stature.
We see then what we mean precisely by the understanding and by that higher faculty which we may call for the sake of convenience the ideal faculty and which stands to the developed intellect much in the same relation as the intellect stands to the half-animal reason of the undeveloped man. It becomes evident also what is the nature of the purification which is necessary before the understanding can fulfil rightly its part in the attainment of right knowledge. All impurity is a confusion of working, a departure from the dharma, the just and inherently right action of things which in that right action are pure and helpful to our perfection and this departure is usually the result of an ignorant confusion298b of Dharmas in which the function lends itself to the demand of other tendencies than those which are properly its own.
2.05 - Aspects of Sadhana, #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
An inner purity and Receptivity that freely lets in the Mothers influence. Begin with the heart.
4. I aspire for the higher life from above the head; but I always feel strained in the middle part of the forehead.
2.06 - Union with the Divine Consciousness and Will, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The force which, when absorbed in the Ignorance, takes the form of vital desires is the same which, in its pure form, constitutes the push, the dynamis towards transformation. Consequently, you must beware at the same time of indulging freely in desires, thinking them to be needs which must be satisfied, and of rejecting the vital force as positively evil. What you should do is to throw the doors of your being wide open to the Divine. The moment you conceal something, you step straight into Falsehood. The least suppression on your part pulls you immediately down into unconsciousness. If you want to be fully conscious, be always in front of the Truth-completely open yourself and try your utmost to let it see deep inside you, into every corner of your being. That alone will bring into you light and consciousness and all that is most true. Be absolutely modest-that is to say, know the distance between what you are and what is to be, not allowing the crude physical mentality to think that it knows when it does not, that it can judge when it cannot. Modesty implies the giving up of yourself to the Divine whole-heartedly, asking for help and, by submission, winning the freedom and absence of responsibility which imparts to the mind utter quietness. Not otherwise can you hope to attain the union with the Divine Consciousness and the Divine Will. Of course it depends on the path by which you approach the Divine whether the union with the Consciousness comes first or with the Will. If you go deep within, the former will naturally precede, whereas if you take a standpoint in the universal movement the latter is likely to be realised first; but it is not quite possible to make a cut and dried generalisation because the sadhana is a flexible and fluid thing and also because the Divine Consciousness and Will are very closely connected with each other, being two aspects of one single Being. Take note, however, that the merely external similarity of your thought or action does not prove that this union has been achieved. All such proofs are superficial, for the real union means a thorough change, a total reversal of your normal consciousness. You cannot have it in your mind or in your ordinary state of awareness. You must get clean out of that-then and not till then can you be united with the Divine Consciousness. Once the union is really experienced the very idea of proving it by the similarity of your thought and action with mine will make you laugh. People living together in the same house for years or coming in daily intimate contact with one another develop a sort of common mind-they think and act alike. But you cannot claim to be like the Divine by such merely mental contact; you must consent to have your consciousness entirely reversed! The genuine sign of the union is that your consciousness has the same quality, the same way of working as the Divine's and proceeds from the same supramental source of Knowledge. That you sometimes happen to act in the external field as the Divine appears to act may be nothing save coincidence, and to demonstrate the union by such comparisons is to try to prove a very great thing by a very small one! The true test is the direct experience of the Divine Consciousness in whatever you do. It is an unmistakable test, because it changes your being completely. Evidently, you cannot at once be fixed in the Divine Consciousness; but even before it settles in you, you can have now and then the experience of it. The Divine Consciousness will come and go, but while the union lasts you will be as if somebody else! The whole universe will wear a new face and you yourself as well as your perception and vision of things will be metamorphosed. So long as you lack the experience you are inclined to look for proofs: proofs and results are secondary-what the union fundamentally means is that in your consciousness you know more than a human being. It is all to the good if, owing to your acquiring a pure, calm and receptive mind, you manage to think and act in accordance with my intentions. But you must not mistake a step on the way for the final goal. For the chief difference between the positive union and mental Receptivity is that I have to formulate what I want you to carry out and put the formula into your pure and calm mind, whereas in the case of the actual union I need not formulate at all. I just put the necessary truth-consciousness in you and the rest automatically works out, because it is I myself who am then in you.... I dare say it is all rather difficult for you to imagine, the experience being well-nigh indescribable. It is, however, less difficult to imagine the union of the will with the Divine Will, for you can imagine a Will which is effective without struggle and victoriously manifest everywhere. And if all your will tends to unite with it, then there is something approaching a union. That is to say, you begin to lose your separate egoistic will and your being thirsts naturally to fulfil the Divine's behest and, without knowing even what the supreme Will is, wills exactly what the Divine wishes. But this means an unquestioning acceptance of the Higher Guidance. The energy in you which is deformed into vital desire but which is originally the urge towards realisation must unite with the Divine Will, so that all your power of volition mingles with it as a drop of water with the sea. No more then its own weaknesses and failings, but evermore the supreme quality of the Divine Will-Omnipotence!
***
2.09 - Memory, Ego and Self-Experience, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A mind with immeasurably wider and more subtle perceptions, a life-energy with a greater dynamism, a subtle-physical substance with a larger and finer Receptivity are building out of themselves our surface evolution. A psychic entity is there behind these occult activities which is the true support of our individualisation; the ego is only an outward false substitute: for it is this secret soul that supports and holds together our self-experience and world-experience; the mental, vital, physical, external ego is a superficial construction of Nature. It is only when we have seen both our self and our nature as a whole, in the depths as well as on the surface, that we can acquire a true basis of knowledge.
2.09 - On Sadhana, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Then there is the Guru. What do you mean by the Guru? If you mean myself, I may, for the sake of convenience, consent to be called the Guru, but there is no Guru in this Yoga as people ordinarily understand the term. It is the Higher Force that is coming down. Generally, whenever any such Higher Force comes down it prepares an instrument who discovers the Truth but really speaking, to whom it is revealed, and it manifests itself in him in proportion to his power of Receptivity; there, too, the power is given to him. When the Power that is coming down prepares one such instrument it becomes easy for it to come down into others who want to manifest it, who do not want to go their own way but want to have and live the Truth. Then there is the chance of success. (Pointing to himself) Here is the instrument. Whenever there is the human instrument it becomes easy for the Higher Truth to manifest itself in life. If you prefer to call it a 'dynamo' you can say so. Even then everyone has to do his own work.
In this Yoga, at any rate, you can't say that "the Guru will do everything", and leave the whole burden to him. I do not know about other Yogas; but this Yoga means growing conscious every moment of what is going on in oneself. One has to give consent to the higher working, rejecting the lower movement. That is the basis.
--
The second thing necessary is a certain Receptivity in the being, what we call the opening up of all the planes to the Higher Power.
The third thing required is the power of holding the higher Force, a certain ghanattva mass that can hold the Power when it comes down.
2.10 - Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Presence in it, the one Conscious in unconscious things, that determines the operation of its indwelling energies. If, as has been affirmed, a material object receives and retains the impression of the contacts of things around it and energies emanate from it, so that an occult knowledge can become aware of its past, can make us conscious of these emanating influences, the intrinsic unorganised Awareness pervading the form but not yet enlightening it must be the cause of this Receptivity and these capacities. What we see from outside is that material objects like plants and minerals have their powers, properties and inherent influences, but as there is no faculty or means of communication, it is only by being brought into contact with person or object or by a conscious utilisation by living beings that their influences can become active, - such a utilisation is the practical side of more than one human science. But still these powers and influences are attributes of Being, not of mere indeterminate substance, they are forces of the Spirit emerging by Energy from its self-absorbed Inconscience. This first crude mechanical action of an inherent absorbed conscious energy opens in the primary forms of life into submental life-vibrations that imply an involved sensation; there is a seeking for growth, light, air, life-room, a blind feeling out, which is still internal and confined within the immobile being, unable to formulate its instincts, to communicate, to externalise itself. An immobility not organised to establish living relations, it endures and absorbs contacts, involuntarily inflicts but cannot voluntarily impose them; the inconscience is still dominant, still works out everything by the secret involved knowledge by identity, it has not yet developed the surface contactual means of a conscious knowledge. This further development begins with overtly conscious life; what we see in it is the imprisoned consciousness struggling out to the surface: it is under the compulsion of this struggle that the separated living being strives, however blindly at first and within narrow limits, to enter into conscious relations with the rest of the world-being outside it. It is by the growing amount of contacts that it can receive and respond to and by the growing amount of contacts that it can put out from itself or impose in
572
2.13 - Psychic Presence and Psychic Being - Real Origin of Race Superiority, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Below the human level there is, ordinarily, hardly any individual formation there is only this presence, more or less. But when, by the growth of the body round the spark of Divine Consciousness, humanity began upon the earth, certain human organisms became in the course of this progressive growth sufficiently perfected, and by their opening and Receptivity allowed a junction with certain beings descending from above. This gave rise to a kind of divine humanity, what may be called a race of the lite. If only they had remained by themselves, these people would have continued as a race unique and superhuman. Indeed many races have made claims to be that: the Aryan, the Semitic and the Japanese have all in turn considered themselves the chosen race. But in fact there has been a general levelling of humanity, a lot of intermixture. For there arose the necessity of prolongation of the superior race, which drove it to intermix with the rest of humanitywith animal humanity, that is to say. Thus its value was degraded and led to that great Fall which is spoken of in the worlds scriptures, the coming out of Paradise, the end of the Golden Age. Indeed it was a loss from the point of view of consciousness, but not from that of material strength, since it was a tremendous gain to ordinary humanity. There were, certainly, some beings who had a very strong will not to mix, who resented losing their superiority; and it is just this that is the real origin of race-pride, race-exclusiveness, and a special caste distinction like that cherished by the Brahmins in India. But at present it cannot be said that there is any portion of mankind which is purely animal: all the races have been touched by the descent from above, and owing to the extensive intermixture the result of the Involution was more widely spread.
Of course one cannot say that every man has got a psychic being, just as one cannot refuse to grant it to every animal. Many animals that have lived near man have some beginnings of it, while so often one comes across people who do not seem to be anything else than brutes. Here, too, there has been a good deal of levelling. But on the whole, the psychic in the true sense starts at the human stage: that is also why the Catholic religion declares that only man has a soul. In man alone there is the possibility of the psychic being growing to its full stature even so far as to be able in the end to join and unite with a descending being, a godhead from above.
2.17 - December 1938, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: Oh yes, as the mind expands so also the heart expands and also the vital. If one sees those things outside oneself then that has only symbolic significance but if one feels the widening or coming of Light in himself then that increases the opening and the Receptivity of the being.
Disciple: What do you mean by the Divine or the Supreme?
2.2.01 - Work and Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A persistent faith which no circumstance or event can break. If difficulties occur, they raise not mental doubts or an inert acquiescence, but the firm belief that, with sincere consecration, the Divine Shakti will remove the difficulties, and with this belief a greater turning to her and dependence on her for that purpose. When there is full faith and consecration, there comes also a Receptivity to the Force which makes one do the right thing and take the right means and then circumstances adapt themselves and the result is visible.
To arrive at this condition the important thing is a persistent aspiration, call and self-offering, and a will to reject all in oneself or around that stands in the way. Difficulties there will always be at the beginning and for as long a time as is necessary for the change; but they are bound to disappear if they are met by a settled faith, will and patience.
2.2.02 - Becoming Conscious in Work, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The resistance you speak of and the insufficient Receptivity and the inability to continue in communion while doing work, must all be due to some part of the physical consciousness that is still not open to the Lightprobably something in the vital physical and the material subconscient which stands in the way of the physical mind being in its mass free and responsive.
There is no harm in raising the aspiration from below to meet the power from above. All that you have to be careful about is not to raise up the difficulty from below before the descending Power is ready to remove it.
2.2.03 - The Divine Force in Work, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3) Receptivity the power to receive the Divine Force and to feel its presence and the presence of the Mother in it and allow it to work, guiding ones sight and will and action. If this power and presence can be felt and this plasticity made the habit of the consciousness in action,but plasticity to the Divine Force alone without bringing in any foreign element,the eventual result is sure.
***
--
The true Ananda of creation is not the pleasure of the ego in having personally done well and in being somebody, that is an extraneous element which attaches itself to the true joy of work and creation. The Ananda comes by the inrush of a larger Might and Delight, vea; there is the thrill of being possessed and used by a superpersonal Power, the exultation and exaltation of the uplifting of the consciousness, the joy of its illumination and its greatened and heightened action and the joy of the beauty, power or perfection that is being created. How far, how intensely one feels these things, depends on the condition of the consciousness at the time, the temperament, the activity of the vital, the minds Receptivity and response. The Yogi (or even certain strong and calm minds) is not carried away, as the mind and the vital often are, by the Ananda,he holds and watches it and there is no mere excitement mixed with the divine flow of it through the conscious instrument and the body. There is a greater Ananda of samarpaa, of spiritual realisation or divine love, but in the spiritual consciousness and life the Ananda of creation has its place.
***
2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: On what does Receptivity depend?
Sri Aurobindo: On quietude, openness and wideness.
2.22 - 1941-1943, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: Receptivity includes these things; it is only a way of representing the inner life of the woman.
Sri Aurobindo: Because the female is passive, dependent (passively active) while the male is active, strong and self-reliant.
2.2.3 - Depression and Despondency, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Now as to the tension and stiffness. I may say in passing that consciousness and Receptivity are not the same thing; one may be receptive, yet externally unaware of how things are being done and of what is being done. But for such an external unconsciousness there must be a reason, and in you it was the stiffness created by a tension and a straining which made the consciousness thus rigid and closed it up. Not that it closed you to the Force or that it took away the inner Receptivity, but it did close you to the surface consciousness of what is being done. When that happens, the Force works, as I have repeatedly written, behind the veil; the results remain packed behind and come out afterwards, often slowly, little by little, until there is so much pressure that it breaks through somehow and forces open the external nature. There lies the difference between a mental and vital straining and pulling and a spontaneous psychic openness, and it is not at all the first time that we have spoken of the difference. It is not really a question of the right or the wrong key, but of putting the key in the lock in the right or the wrong way, whether because of some difficulty you try to force the lock turning the key this way and that with violence or confidently and quietly give it the right turn and the door opens.
It is not that this pulling and straining and tension can do nothing; in the end they prevail for some result or another, but with difficulty, delay, struggle, strong upheavals of the Force breaking through in spite of all. Ramakrishna himself began by pulling and straining and got his result but at the cost of a tremendous and perilous upsetting; afterwards he took the quiet psychic way whenever he wanted a result and got it with ease and in a minimum time. You say that this way is too difficult for you but it is on the contrary the easiest and simplest and most direct way and anyone can do it, if he makes his mind and vital quiet. It is the other way of tension and strain and hard endeavour that is difficult and needs a great force of Tapasya. Take the psychic attitude; follow the straight sunlit path, with the Divine openly or secretly upbearing youif secretly, he will yet show himself in good time,do not insist on the hard, hampered, roundabout and difficult journey.
2.23 - Man and the Evolution, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
On the side of consciousness the new manifestation, the human, could be accounted for by an upsurge of concealed Consciousness from the involution in universal Nature. But in that case it must have had some material form already existent for its vehicle of emergence, the vehicle being adapted by the force of the emergence itself to the needs of a new inner creation; or else a rapid divergence from previous physical types or patterns may have brought a new being into existence. But whichever the hypothesis accepted, this means an evolutionary process, - there is only a difference in the method and machinery of the divergence or transition. Or there may have been, on the contrary, not an upsurgence but a descent of mentality from a mind plane above us, perhaps the descent of a soul or mental being into terrestrial Nature. The difficulty would then be the appearance of the human body, too complex and difficult an organ to have been suddenly created or manifested; for such a miraculous speed of process, though quite possible on a supraphysical plane of being, does not seem to figure among the normal possibles or potentials of the material Energy. It could only happen there by an intervention of a supraphysical force or law of Nature or by a creator Mind acting with full power and directly on Matter. An action of a supraphysical Force and a creator may be conceded in every new appearance in Matter; each such appearance is at bottom a miracle operated by a secret Consciousness supported by a veiled Mind Energy or Life Energy: but the action is nowhere seen to be direct, overt, self-sufficient; it is always superimposed on an already realised physical basis and acts by an extension of some established process of Nature. It is more conceivable that there was an opening of some existing body to a supraphysical influx so that it was transformed into a new body; but no such event can lightly be assumed to have taken place in the past history of material Nature: in order to happen it would seem to need either the conscious intervention of an invisible mental being to form the body he intended to inhabit or else a previous development of a mental being in Matter itself who would be already able to receive a supraphysical power and impose it on the rigid and narrow formulas of his physical existence. Otherwise we must suppose that there was a preexistent body already so much evolved as to be fitted for the reception of a vast mental influx or capable of a pliable response to the descent into it of a mental being. But this would suppose a previous evolution of mind in body to the point at which such a Receptivity would be possible. It is quite conceivable that such an evolution from below and such a descent from above cooperated in the appearance of humanity in earth-nature. The secret psychical entity already there in the animal might have itself called down the mental being, the mind Purusha, into the realm of living Matter in order to take up the vital-mental energy already at work and lift it into a higher mentality. But this would still be a process of evolution, the higher plane only intervening to assist the appearance and enlargement of its own principle in terrestrial Nature.
Next, it may be conceded that each type or pattern of consciousness and being in the body, once established, has to be faithful to the law of being of that type, to its own design and rule of nature. But it may also very well be that part of the law of the human type is its impulse towards self-exceeding, that the means for a conscious transition has been provided for among the spiritual powers of man; the possession of such a capacity may be a part of the plan on which the creative Energy has built him. It may be conceded that what man has up till now principally done is to act within the circle of his nature, on a spiral of nature movement, sometimes descending, sometimes ascending, - there has been no straight line of progress, no indisputable, fundamental or radical exceeding of his past nature: what he has done is to sharpen, subtilise, make a more and more complex and plastic use of his capacities. It cannot truly be said that there has been no such thing as human progress since man's appearance or even in his recent ascertainable history; for however great the ancients, however supreme some of their achievements and creations, however impressive their powers of spirituality, of intellect or of character, there has been in later developments an increasing subtlety, complexity, manifold development of knowledge and possibility in man's achievements, in his politics, society, life, science, metaphysics, knowledge of all kinds, art, literature; even in his spiritual endeavour, less surprisingly lofty and less massive in power of spirituality than that of the ancients, there has been this increasing subtlety, plasticity, sounding of depths, extension of seeking. There have been falls from a high type of culture, a sharp temporary descent into a certain obscurantism, cessations of the spiritual urge, plunges into a barbaric natural materialism; but these are temporary phenomena, at worst a downward curve of the spiral of progress. This progress has not indeed carried the race beyond itself, into a self-exceeding, a transformation of the mental being. But that was not to be expected; for the action of evolutionary Nature in a type of being and consciousness is first to develop the type to its utmost capacity by just such a subtilisation and increasing complexity till it is ready for her bursting of the shell, the ripened decisive emergence, reversal, turning over of consciousness on itself that constitutes a new stage in the evolution. If it be supposed that her next step is the spiritual and supramental being, the stress of spirituality in the race may be taken as a sign that that is Nature's intention, the sign too of the capacity of man to operate in himself or aid her to operate the transition. If the appearance in animal being of a type similar in some respects to the ape-kind but already from the beginning endowed with the elements of humanity was the method of the human evolution, the appearance in the human being of a spiritual type resembling mental-animal humanity but already with the stamp of the spiritual aspiration on it would be the obvious method of Nature for the evolutionary production of the spiritual and supramental being.
2.25 - List of Topics in Each Talk, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
| 20-11-23 | Receptivity needs preparation, strong Adhar |
| 08-01-24 | Pitfalls in Yoga |
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| 02-03-26 | Higher Power and Receptivity; Guru and personal effort; Tirupati; central being and sincerity; conditions for transformation |
| 09-04-26 | Drinking, narcotics, Samadhi; Sri Aurobindo's experiences |
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| 31-12-40 | Receptivity |
| Chapter 22 | 1941 1943 |
2.3.02 - Mantra and Japa, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I am sorry the old reaction to the japa has recurred. Perhaps the mind is doing it too much as a means for a result. The japa is usually successful only on one of two conditions,if it is repeated with a sense of its significance, a dwelling of something in the mind on the nature, power, beauty, attraction of the Godhead it signifies and is to bring into the consciousness, that is the mental way,or if it comes up from the heart or rings in it with a certain sense or feeling of bhakti making it alive, that is the emotional way. Either the mind or the vital has to give it support or sustenance. But if it makes the mind dry and the vital restless, it must be missing that support and sustenance. There is of course a third way, the reliance on the power of the mantra or name in itself, but then one has to go on till that power has sufficiently impressed its vibrations on the inner being to make it at a given moment suddenly open to the Presence or the Touch. But if there is a struggling or insistence for the result, then this effect which needs a quiet Receptivity in the mind is impeded. That is why I insisted so much on mental quietude and on not too much straining or effortto give time to allow the psychic and the mind to develop the necessary condition of Receptivitya Receptivity as natural as when one receives an inspiration for poetry and music. It is also why I do not want you to discontinue your poetryit helps and does not hinder the preparation because it is a means of developing the right position of Receptivity and bringing out the bhakti which is there in the inner being. To spend all the energy on japa or meditation is a strain which even those who are accustomed to successful meditation find it difficult to dounless in periods when there is an uninterrupted flow of experiences from above.
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2.3.02 - Opening, Sincerity and the Mother's Grace, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is the Receptivity to the Mother's presence and her forces.
What is the right and perfect rule of opening?
2.3.03 - The Mother's Presence, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
While sitting in the meditation hall, I felt a sort of oneness with the Mother's consciousness. But these days it is not possible to go deep in meditation at all. Perhaps it is not even necessary if there is Receptivity in the waking state.
What is most important is the change of consciousness of which this feeling of oneness is a part. The going deep in meditation is only a means and it is not always necessary if the great experiences come easily without it.
2.3.04 - The Mother's Force, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For the rest one must not depend on one's own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a Receptivity to the Mother's Power and Presence.
30 November 1934
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Force depends on a certain power of Receptivity in the mind or vital or body - and openness is the first necessary condition for the Receptivity.
29 May 1933
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I may say in passing that consciousness and Receptivity are not the same thing; one may be receptive, yet externally unaware of how things are being done and of what is being done. The
Force works, as I have repeatedly written, behind the veil; the results remain packed behind and come out afterwards, often slowly, little by little, until there is so much pressure that it breaks through somehow and forces itself upon the external nature. There lies the difference between a mental and vital straining and pulling and a spontaneous psychic openness, and it is not at all the first time that we have spoken of the difference.
2.3.08 - The Mother's Help in Difficulties, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The best way to help X is to assist her by your own example and atmosphere to get the right attitude. Instead of the sense that she is very ill, she should be encouraged to have a bright and confident feeling, open to receive strength and health from us, contri buting by her own faith to a speedy recovery. These ideas that they do not see the Mother, are outside the atmosphere, at a distance, are just the wrong notions and most likely to come in the way of and block your sisters' Receptivity; it is surprising that you should accept or echo them and not react against them at once. They are here in the Asram (a little nearer or farther makes no difference), in the Mother's presence and atmosphere; meeting her every day at the Pranam where everyone who is open can receive as much of her touch and her help as they can hold, - that is what they should feel and make the most of their opportunity and not waste it by a negative attitude.
For yourself what you must have with other sadhaks (including your sisters) is a harmonious relation free from any vital attachment (indifference is not asked from you) and free from any indulgence in wrong vital movements of the opposite kind
2.4.1 - Human Relations and the Spiritual Life, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is a love in which the emotion is turned towards the Divine in an increasing Receptivity and growing union. What it receives from the Divine it pours out on others, but freely without demanding a return. If you are capable of that, then that is the highest and most satisfying way to love.1
The next day the correspondent asked, "What must one do to have this love?" Sri Aurobindo replied, "First you must want it in a continuous way."Ed.
2.4.2 - Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
You are mistaken in thinking that the sadhana of X, Y and Z does not suffer by the dispersion of their minds in all directions. They would have been far farther on the path if they did a concentrated Yogaeven Y who has an enormous Receptivity and is eager for progress might have gone thrice as far as he has done. Moreover, your nature is intense in all it does and it was therefore quite its natural path to take the straight way. Naturally, when once the higher consciousness is settled and both the vital and physical sufficiently ready for the sadhana to go on of itself, strict tapasya will no longer be necessary. But till then we consider it very useful and helpful and in many cases indispensable. But we do not insist on it when the nature is not willing. I see too that those who get into the direct line (there are not as yet very many), get of themselves the tendency to give up these mind-dispersing interests and occupations and throw themselves fully into the sadhana.
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3.03 - Faith and the Divine Grace, #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But to each one She gives according to his nature and Receptivity.
Say I have received his Grace: I must be worthy of it, and then all will be well.
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It is you who must keep your Receptivity living.
The Divine help is much vaster than what any human being is able to receive.
3.06 - Charity, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Nor in the field of forces is it possible to accumulate, for Receptivity occurs in proportion to expenditure: the more one expends usefully, the more one makes oneself capable of receiving. Thus the intelligence one can acquire is proportionate to the intelligence one uses. We are formed to manifest a certain quantity of intellectual forces, but if we develop ourselves mentally, if we put our brains to work, if we meditate regularly and above all if we make others benefit by the fruit, however modest, of our efforts, we make ourselves capable of receiving a greater quantity of ever deeper and purer intellectual forces. And the same holds true for love and spirituality.
We are like channels: if we do not allow what they have received to pour out freely, not only do they become blocked and no longer receive anything, but what they contain will spoil.
3.06 - Thought-Forms and the Human Aura, #Theosophy, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
It has become evident that the formations of any one of the three worlds can have reality for a man only when he has the capacities or the organs for perceiving them. A man perceives certain occurrences in space as light phenomena only because he has a correctly-constructed eye. It depends on the Receptivity of a being how much of what really is, reveals itself to it. Never therefore may a man say that only what he can perceive is real. There can be much that is real, for the perception of which he has no organs. Now the soul world and the spirit world are just as real as the sensible world, indeed they are real in a much higher sense. No physical eye can see feelings and ideas; but they are real. And as man
p. 179
3.1.1 - The Transformation of the Physical, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yes, certainly, that is what I am insisting on the bringing of realisation into this inert physical part which has made itself prominent. When any part of the being becomes prominent like this showing all its defects and limitationshere inertia or incapacity (apravtti), obscurity or forgetfulness (apraka), it is in order to get set right,it has come up for a first or preliminary transformation. Peace and light in the mind, love and sympathy in the heart, calm and power in the vital, a settled Receptivity and response (praka, pravtti) in the physical are the necessary change.
***
3.1.2 - Levels of the Physical Being, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It [how the body receives the higher dynamism] depends on the condition of the body or rather of the physical and the most material consciousness. In one condition it is tamasic, inert, unopen and cannot bear or cannot receive or cannot contain the force; in another rajas predominates and tries to seize on the dynamism, but wastes and spills and loses it; in another there is Receptivity, harmony, balance and the result is a harmonious action without strain or effort.
***
3.2.1 - Food, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is a fact that by fasting, if the mind and the nerves are solid or the will force dynamic, one can get for a time into a state of inner energy and Receptivity which is alluring to the mind and the usual reactions of hunger, weakness, intestinal disturbance, etc. can be wholly avoided. But the body suffers by diminution and there can easily develop in the vital a morbid overstrained condition due to the inrush of more vital energy than the nervous system can assimilate or coordinate. Nervous people should avoid the temptation to fast; it is often accompanied or followed by delusions and a loss of balance. Especially if there is a motive of hunger-strike or that element comes in, as it did in your case, fasting becomes perilous, for it is then an indulgence of a vital movement which may easily become a habit injurious and pernicious to the sadhana. Even if all these reactions are avoided, still there is no sufficient utility in fasting, since the higher energy and Receptivity ought to come not by artificial or physical means but by intensity of the consciousness and strong will for the sadhana.
***
3.2.4 - Sex, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
X seems in his letter to want only a liberation from sexual thoughts and desires by an intervention of anothers will; but this is not how it should be done. Those who practise this Yoga can escape from it by a rejection of sexual suggestions aided by the influence of the Divine Power which acts through the Mother, but it is not instantaneous, except in the case of those who have a complete Receptivity and an absolute faith. Usually it takes a steady tapasya to get rid of a lifelong habit.
***
3.3.1 - Illness and Health, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I am glad to know the disturbance was expelled last night. Now the Receptivity in the body consciousness has to be kept so that it may not at all return or, if it tries, may immediately be expelled. You must always try to keep the quietude, not allow depressing or disturbing thoughts or feelings to enter you or take hold of your mind or your speech there is no true reason after one has gained the inner quietness and wideness why that should be allowed to lapse and these things enter. And if the mind keeps its quietude and Receptivity to higher forces only, it can then easily pass on that quietude and Receptivity to the body consciousness and even to the material cells of the body.
***
3.4.1.01 - Poetry and Sadhana, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is not the question, for this is not a question of personal capacity but of the development of the Receptivity and for that the sole thing necessary is an entire or at least a dominant will to receive. What you call your mind and your soul are only a small surface part of you, not your whole being. Personal capacity belongs to the temporary surface personality which you have put forward in this life and which is mutable, is already changing and can change much farthere.g. the poems you are writing are certainly beyond what was your original capacity they belong to a range of experience to the Word of which you have opened by a development beyond your old mental selfa farther development beyond not only your old mental self but also your old vital self is needed to get the concrete realisation of that range of experience.
What is standing in the way is something that is still attached to the limitations of the old personality and hesitates to take the plunge because by doing so it may lose these cherished limitations. It stands back in apprehension from the plunge because it is afraid of being taken out of its depths but unless one is taken out of the very shallow depth of this small part of the self, how can one get into the Infinite at all? Further more, there is no real danger in finding oneself in the Infinite, it is a place of greater safety and greater riches, not less; but this something in you does not like the prospect because it has to merge itself into a larger self-existence. You asked the Mother to press on you the lighting of the fire within and she has been doing so, but this is standing back with the feeling Oh Lord! what will become of me if this flame gets lit. You must get rid of this clinging to the past self and life, then you can have a fire which will not be feeble. You have not fallen between two stools,you are hesitating between two consciousnesses, the old and the new, the small and the great, that is all.
36.08 - A Commentary on the First Six Suktas of Rigveda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
O Indra, do Thou manifest thyself before me to the extent of my Receptivity and, I pray, exceed not the limit.
The aspirant has to purify first his lower nature before invoking the truth and power in a large measure. Otherwise a reaction may at once take place. The subsequent riks deal with this matter. The second group of the three riks indicates the process of the gradual ascension of the aspirant. Spirituality is, as it were, a long upward march and the aspirant has to fight and toil faithfully all the way in order to go ahead. It will not do for an aspirant to make an effort to pull the power from above, himself remaining below. He has to raise himself. He has to look upon the Divine Being that resides in Indra, the deity of knowledge, in the pure mind, and according to the inspiration and guidance of the Being the aspirant has to proceed. When we shall be fully Prepared for the realization of the Godhead of Indra, the obscure and impure forces of ignorance cannot keep us enchained in the lower regions. They themselves will then open the new vistas for a higher journey and declare, "You have conquered us. Now go up, march onward, conquer all the forces that are challenging you from the higher regions." Even obstacles are necessary and useful. We become stronger when we meet with oppositions in our life. The foundation gets firm only after it has weathered some storms. When we are established in the quiet foundation of Indra, the powers that help the aspirant - the vigour behind his spiritual endeavour and power of action - will be able to make us the possessors of the highest good and perfect bliss.
4.04 - Weaknesses, #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is because you are receptive to the force when you work and that sustains you. But when you are not under the strain of the work you are less receptive. You must learn to be receptive in all circumstances and always especially when you take rest it must not be the rest of inertia but a true rest of Receptivity.
The forces behind the cyclone were not hostile but full of transforming power. You did the right thing, and I can assure you that to go inward and to receive the force is more helpful than to throw oneself into an agitated action. Certainly tamas is not good, but it is only through surrender to the Divine Consciousness that tamas can be changed.
4.0 - The Path of Knowledge, #Theosophy, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
By this exercise a man makes himself receptive to all that surrounds him. But to this Receptivity correct valuation must also be added. As long as a man is inclined to value himself too highly, at the expense of the world around him, he closes up the approach to higher knowledge. He who in regard to each thing or event in the world yields himself up to the pleasure or pain which they cause him, is enmeshed by such an overvaluation of himself. For through his pleasure and his pain he learns nothing about the things but merely something about himself. If I feel sympathy with a man, I feel to begin with
p. 204
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followed immediately by a judgment, an action, the more fine will be the sensitiveness he develops in himself. He will find that sympathy and antipathy of a higher kind awaken in him if he curb those which he already has. Even something that is at first most unattractive has hidden qualities; it reveals them if a man does not in his conduct obey his selfish feelings. He who has developed himself in this respect feels more finely in every direction than one who has not, because he does not allow his own personality to lead him into lack of Receptivity. Each inclination that a man follows blindly blunts the power to see the things in his environment in their true light. By obeying inclination we thrust ourselves, as it were, through the environment instead of laying ourselves open to it and feeling its true worth.
A man becomes independent of the changing impressions of the outer world when each pleasure and each pain, each sympathy and each antipathy, no longer calls forth in him an egotistical response and egotistical conduct. The pleasure one feels in a thing makes one at once dependent on it. One loses oneself in
4.2.1.02 - The Role of the Psychic in Sadhana, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(4) a quieting and purification of the mind, vital and physical consciousness by their subjection to the psychic influence and guidance; (5) the opening up of all this lower consciousness to the higher spiritual consciousness above for its descent into a nature prepared to receive it with a complete Receptivity and right attitude - for the psychic brings in everything right thought, right perception, right feeling, right attitude.
One can raise up one's consciousness from the mental and vital and bring down the power, ananda, light, knowledge from above; but this is far more difficult and uncertain in its result, even dangerous if the being is not prepared or not pure enough.
4.23 - The supramental Instruments -- Thought-process, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The supermind in its completeness reverses the whole order of the mind's thinking. It lives not in the phenomenal but in the essential, in the self, and sees all as being of the self and its power and form and movement, and all the thought and the process of the thought in the supermind must also be of that character. All its fundamental ideation is a rendering of the spiritual knowledge that acts by identity with all being and of the supramental vision. It moves therefore primarily among the eternal, the essential and the universal truths of self and being and consciousness and infinite power and delight of being (not excluding all that seems to our present consciousness non-being), and all its particular thinking originates from and depends upon the power of these eternal verities; but in the second place it is at home too with infinite aspects and applications, sequences and harmonies of the truths of being of the Eternal. It lives therefore at its heights in all that which the action of the pure ideative mind is an effort to reach and discover, and even on its lower ranges these things are to its luminous Receptivity present, near or easily grasped and available.
But while the highest truths or the pure ideas are to the ideative mind abstractions, because mind lives partly in the phenomenal and partly in intellectual constructions and has to use the method of abstraction to arrive at the higher realities, the supermind lives in the spirit and therefore in the very substance of what these ideas and truths represent or rather fundamentally are and truly realises them, not only thinks but in the act of thinking feels and identifies itself with their substance, and to it they are among the most substantial things that can be. Truths of consciousness and of essential being are to the supermind the very stuff of reality, more intimately and, as one might almost say, densely real than outward movement and form of being, although these too are to it movement and form of the reality and not, as they are to a certain action of the spiritualised mind, an illusion. The idea too is to it real-idea, stuff of the reality of conscious being, full of power for the substantial rendering of the truth and therefore for creation.
4.2.4.11 - Psychic Intensity, #Letters On Yoga III, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Ramakrishna's excesses or the fluctuations of Vivekananda's vital Receptivity between exaltation and depression or Chaitanya's viraha to do with the question in issue? These are difficulties of the body and the vital. The question was of the intensity of psychic and pure spiritual experience - psychic devotion and love, peace, Ananda. You cannot base a general denial on your own particular experience, because you have only the initial experiences of calm etc. and have not got to the intensities as
I have done and others before me have done. It is only when one lives centrally in the psychic with the mental, vital and physical as provinces held under its rule that one knows what psychic intensity is. It is only when the higher consciousness comes down in its floods that one can know what can be the intensities or ecstasies of spiritual peace, light, love, bliss. You can say, "I have not yet had these intensities", but you cannot say in a sweeping way, "They do not exist and I shall never have them", or "They are only tepid quiet little things, soothing and more capable of lasting, but not intense and glorious like the vital joys and pleasures." Do not cling to these notions born of the past limitations, but keep yourself open and plastic to greater possibilities in the future.
4.24 - The supramental Sense, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The supramental sense can act in its own power and is independent of the body and the physical life and outer mind and it is above too the inner mind and its experiences. It can be aware of all things in whatever world, on whatever plane, in whatever formation of universal consciousness. It can be aware of the things of the material universe even in the trance of Samadhi, aware of them as they are or appear to the physical sense, even as it is of other states of experience, of the pure vital, the mental, the psychical, the supramental presentation of things. It can in the waking state of the physical consciousness present to us the things concealed from the limited Receptivity or beyond the range of the physical organs, distant forms, scenes and happenings, things that have passed out of physical existence or that are not yet in physical existence, scenes, forms, happenings, symbols of the vital, psychical, mental, supramental, spiritual worlds and all these in their real or significant truth as well as their appearance. It can use all the other states of sense consciousness and their appropriate senses and organs adding to them what they have not, setting right their errors and supplying their deficiencies: for it is the source of the others and they are only inferior derivations from this higher sense, this true and illimitable samijnana.
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4.2.5 - Dealing with Depression and Despondency, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He can continue his endeavour and let us know if there is any result. The difficulties that have risen in him are quite normal and a natural reaction to the effort he is making. 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. If he perseveres, that should happen sooner or later. But it is best not to struggle with the resistances but to stand back from them, observe as a witness, reject these movements and call on the Divine Power to remove them. Surrender of the nature is not an easy thing and may take a long time; 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. But for that it is necessary to detach oneself from the action of the Prakriti and see oneself as separate. That is why I asked whether he had any (major) realisation from his previous sadhana. To observe the movements as a witness without being discouraged or disturbed is the best way to effect the necessary detachment and separation. This also would help to increase the Receptivity to any aid that may be given to him and to bring about the reliance, nirbhara.
If he turns to us, we will of course give him whatever help he can just now consciously or subconsciously receive.
4.25 - Towards the supramental Time Vision, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The second kind of mental construction belongs to the very nature of our mind and intelligence and its dealing with things in time. All is seen here by mind as a sum of realised actualities with their antecedents and natural consequences, an indeterminate of possibilities and, conceivably, although of this it is not certain, a determining something behind, a will, fate or Power, which rejects some and sanctions or compels others out of many possibles. Its constructions therefore are made partly of inferences from the actual, both past and present, partly of a volitional or an imaginative and conjectural selection and combining of possibilities and partly of a decisive reasoning or preferential judgment or insistent creative will-intelligence that tries to fix among the mass of actuals and possibles the definitive truth it is labouring to discover or determine. All this which is indispensable to our thought and action in mind, has to be excluded or transformed before the intuitive knowledge can have a chance of organising itself on a sound basis. A transformation is possible because the intuitive mind has to do the same work and cover the same field, but with a different handling of the materials and another light upon their significance. An exclusion is possible because all is really contained in the truth consciousness above and a silencing of the mind of ignorance and a pregnant Receptivity is not beyond our compass in which the intuitions descending from the truth-consciousness can be received with a subtle or strong exactitude and all the materials of the knowledge seen in their right place and true proportion. As a matter of practice it will be found that both methods are used alternatively or together to effect the transition from the one kind of mentality to the other.
The intuitive mind dealing with the triple time movement has to see rightly in thought sense and vision three things: actualities, possibles and imperatives. There is first a primary intuitive action developed which sees principally the stream of successive actualities in time, even as the ordinary mind, but with an immediate directness of truth and spontaneous accuracy of which the ordinary mind is not capable. It sees them first by a perception, a thought action, a thought sense, a thought vision, which at once detects the forces at work on persons and things, the thoughts, intentions, impulsions, energies, influences in and around them, those already formulated in them and those in process of formation, those too that are coming or about to come into or upon them from the environment or from secret sources invisible to the normal mind, distinguishes by a rapid intuitive analysis free from seeking or labour or by a synthetic total view the complex of these forces, discerns the effective from the ineffective or partly effective and sees too the result that is to emerge. This is the integral process of the intuitive vision of actualities, but there are others that are less complete in their character. For there may be developed a power of seeing the result without any previous or simultaneous perception of the forces at work or the latter may be seen only afterwards and the result alone leap at once and first into the knowledge. On the other hand, there may be a partial or complete perception of the complex of forces, but an incertitude of the definitive result or only a slowly arriving or relative certitude. These are stages in the development of the capacity for a total and unified vision of actualities.
5.05 - The War, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have visited trains, each one bringing between five and six hundred wounded from the front. It is a moving sight, not so much because of all that these unfortunate men are suffering, but above all because of the noble manner in which most of them bear their sufferings. Their soul shines through their eyes, the slightest contact with the deeper forces awakens it. And from the intensity, the fullness of the powers of true love which could, in their presence, be manifested in perfect silence, it was easy to realise the value of their Receptivity.
Then the mentality which takes pleasure in making constructions for realisation begins to imagine all that could be accomplished with the help of this Receptivity. And scenes, both vast and complex, of possible realisations follow one after another, streaming endlessly in the splendour of their light and love.
Besides, at present, the smallest incident, the slightest contact with the outside world serves as a pretext for innumerable constructions which to the mentality appear vast, luminous, full of an intense life and a great power for realisation. They are like so many outer frames or forms of manifestation offered for the approval and the choice of That which wants to manifest but at the side of the daring constructor stands the loving and docile child who, in an ardent aspiration towards the Supreme Principle of Truth, softly murmurs: Lord, I am ignorant of Thy Will in its entirety, I construct events which are commensurate with my paltry individual limitations and which probably fit very badly into the immensity of Thy plan. But Thou knowest that they are nothing but fleeting constructions which are dissolved as soon as they are created and which in no way mar the purity of the mental mirror ready to reflect at each moment the appropriate transcription of what Thou willest the integral instrument to execute. And then the whole being, in a vast and luminous and objectless ecstasy, ceases to be a being and becomes the Boundless. And in the silence of contemplation the mentality knows that all these diverse constructions which present themselves to it are part of a whole which will be given to it to manifest progressively, perhaps through the medium of several bodily instruments. And the simultaneous vision of That which is and that which is becoming takes hold of this consciousness and does not leave it for many hours, hours ever more frequent and lasting.
7.01 - The Soul (the Psychic), #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is a personal task that each individual must do for himself. The help is always there but the effectivity of its action is in the measure of the Receptivity and the conscious appeal.
After all it is a question of patience in the endeavour.
--
It is the Receptivity that is weak.
1 May 1972
7 - Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
the body would be put in a right condition of Receptivity
and the illness pass away quietly even as it came. That
--
a Receptivity from below, an aspiration that draws to it
the particular being or the particular type of being.
Conversations with Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
The Receptivity is good. As soon as you are seated, the force descends and you receive it. What is missing is something in the consciousness. You do not get sufficiently absorbed in the inner experience. If that were so you would return with the full knowledge of what happened.
Between your head and chest a line of light is set up, a column, but not round, a square column so to say, of gleaming light. It is like a cage, the preparation of,an abode for what is going to descend.
Diamond Sutra 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
However, the sudden appearance of such sutras as this several centuries after the Buddhas Nirvana can also be seen as a reflection of the changing Receptivity of their audience rather than proof of de novo compilation. Edward Conze, one of the first Westerners to devote himself to the study of these teachings and the teacher of many of those who now write on the subject, wrote, What seems to be doctrinal innovation may really be nothing but the gradual shifting of the line between esoteric and exoteric teachings. At first, even up to Ashoka (304-232 B.C.), the bulk of the doctrine, except for some moral maxims, and so on, was esoteric. (Buddhist Studies 1934-1972, p. 115) In the months that followed the au thentication of scriptures at Buddhisms First Council in 383 B.C., at least one other meeting was convened to consider additional sermons. Obviously, different groups of disciples honored different teachings, and such a sutra as this surely could not have been widely accepted by an audience that preferred asceticism and monastic discipline, which this sutra holds up to gentle rebuke.
Bhagavan: The term bhagavan was derived from bhaga (vulva) and originally meant like a vulva, and hence fecund or prosperous. Eventually, it was applied to one whose presence bestows prosperity. It is usually translated as Blessed One or World-Honored One and is one of every buddhas ten titles. Others that appear in this sutra include tathagata, sugata, and arhan.
ENNEAD 02.04a - Of Matter., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
1. Matter is a substrate (or subject) underlying nature, as thought Aristotle,278 and a residence for forms. Thus much is agreed upon by all authors who have studied matter, and who have succeeded in forming a clear idea of this kind of nature; but further than this, there is no agreement. Opinions differ as to whether matter is an underlying nature (as thought Aristotle),279 as to its Receptivity, and to what it is receptive.
THE STOIC CONCEPTION OF MATTER.
ENNEAD 02.09 - Against the Gnostics; or, That the Creator and the World are Not Evil., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
If, however, you pretend to scorn these (stars that are considered) divinities, and if you hold yourself in high esteem, on the plea that you are not far inferior to them, learn first that the best man is he who is most modest in his relations with divinities and men. In the second place, learn that one should think of the divinity only within limits, without insolence, and not to seek to rise to a condition that is above human possibilities. It is unreasonable to believe that there is no place by the side of the divinity for all other men, while impudently proposing alone to aspire to that dignity. This by itself would deprive the Soul of the possibility of assimilation to the Divinity to the limit of her Receptivity.354 This the Soul cannot attain unless guided by Intelligence. To pretend to rise above Intelligence,355 is to fall short of it. There are people insane enough to believe, without reflection, claims such as the following ("By initiation into secret knowledge, or gnosis), you will be better, not only than all men, but even than all the deities." These people are swollen with pride356; and men who before were modest, simple and humble, become arrogant on hearing themselves say, "You are a child of the divinity; the other men that you used to honor are not his children, any more than the stars who were worshipped by the ancients. You yourself, without working, are better than heaven itself." Then companions crowd around him, and applaud his utterance. He resembles a man who, though not knowing how to count, should, in the midst of a crowd of men, equally ignorant with him, hear it said by somebody that he was a thousand feet high while others were only five feet high. He would not realize what was meant by a thousand feet, but he would consider this measure very great.
619
--
17. Some (Gnostics) object that they hate the body because Plato379 complains much of it, as an obstacle to the soul, and as something far inferior to her. In this case, they should, making abstraction of the body of the world by thought, consider the rest; that is, the intelligible sphere which contains within it the form of the world, and then the incorporeal souls which, in perfect order, communicate greatness to matter by modeling it in space according to an intelligible model, so that what is begotten might, so far as possible, by its greatness, equal the indivisible nature of its model; for the greatness of sense-mass here below corresponds to the greatness of intelligible power. Let the (Gnostics) therefore consider the celestial sphere, whether they conceive of it as set in motion by the divine power that contains its principle, middle and end, or whether they imagine it as immovable, and not yet exerting its action on any of the things it governs by its revolution. In both ways they will attain a proper idea of the Soul that presides over this universe. Let them then conceive of this soul as united to a body, though remaining impassible, and still communicating to this body so far as the latter is capable of participating therein,380 some of its perfections, for the divinity is incapable of jealousy.381 Then they will form a proper idea of the world. They will understand how great is the power of the Soul, since she makes the body participate in her beauty to the limit of her Receptivity. This body has no beauty by nature, but when (it is beautified by the Soul) it entrances divine souls.
634
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380 That is, according to its Receptivity.
381 As thought Plato in the Timaeus, p. 29; C xi. 110, Cary, 10.
ENNEAD 04.06a - Of Sensation and Memory., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
Once more, the preservation of images in the soul would indicate weakness rather than strength, for the reception of several impressions would imply an easy yielding to all forms. Since every impression is an experience, memory would be measured by passive Receptivity; which, of course, is the very contrary of the state of affairs. Never did any exercise whatever render the exercising being more fitted to suffering (or, receptive experience).
835 Still another argument: in sensations, it is not the weak and impotent organ which perceives by itself; it is not, for instance, the eye that sees, but the active potentiality of the soul. That is why old people have both sensations and memories that are weaker. Both sensation and memory, therefore, imply some energy.
ENNEAD 04.08 - Of the Descent of the Soul Into the Body., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
6. Unity was not to exist alone; for if unity remained self-enclosed, all things would remain hidden in unity without having any form, and no beings would achieve existence. Consequently, even if constituted by beings born of unity, plurality would not exist, unless the inferior natures, by their rank destined to be souls, issued from those beings by the way of procession. Likewise, it was not sufficient for souls to exist, they also had to reveal what they were capable of begetting. It is likewise natural for each essence to produce something beneath it, to draw it out from itself by a development similar to that of a seed, a development in which an indivisible principle proceeds to the production of a sense-object, and where that which precedes remains in its own place at the same time as it begets that which follows by an inexpressible power, which is essential to intelligible natures. Now as this power was not to be stopped or circumscribed in its actions by jealousy, there was need of a continuous procession until, from degree to degree, all things had descended to the extreme limits of what was possible;178 for it is the characteristic of an inexhaustible130 power to communicate all its gifts to everything, and not to permit any of them to be disinherited, since there is nothing which hinders any of them from participating in the nature of the Good in the measure that it is capable of doing so. Since matter has existed from all eternity, it was impossible that from the time since it existed, it should not participate in that which communicates goodness to all things according to their Receptivity thereof.179 If the generation of matter were the necessary consequence of anterior principles, still it must not be entirely deprived of the good by its primitive impotence, when the cause which gratuitously communicated "being" to it remained self-enclosed.
SENSE-OBJECTS ARE NECESSARY AS REVEALERS OF THE ETERNAL.
ENNEAD 05.03 - The Self-Consciousnesses, and What is Above Them., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
11. Intelligence, therefore, becomes manifold when it wishes to think the Principle superior to it. By wishing to grasp Him in his simplicity, it abandons this simplicity, because it continues to receive within itself this differentiated and multiplied nature. It was not yet Intelligence when it issued from Unity; it found itself in the state of sight when not yet actualized. When emanating from Unity, it contained already what made it manifold. It vaguely aspired to1109 an object other than itself, while simultaneously containing a representation of this object. It thus contained something that it made manifold; for it contained a sort of impress produced by the contemplation (of the One); otherwise it would not receive the One within itself. Thus Intelligence, on being born of Unity, became manifold, and as it possessed knowledge, it contemplated itself. It then became actualized sight. Intelligence is really intelligence only when it possesses its object, and when it possesses it as intelligence. Formerly, it was only an aspiration, only an indistinct vision. On applying itself to the One, and grasping the One, it becomes intelligence. Now its Receptivity to Unity is continuous, and it is continuously intelligence, "being," thought, from the very moment it begins to think. Before that, it is not yet thought, since it does not possess the intelligible, and is not yet Intelligence, since it does not think.
THE ONE IS THE PRINCIPLE OF ALL WITHOUT BEING LIMITED THEREBY.
ENNEAD 06.04 - The One and Identical Being Is Everywhere Present As a Whole., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
38. Great340 magnitude is a hindrance for a body, if, instead of comparing it to things of the same kind, it is considered in relation with things of a different nature; for volume is, as it were, a kind of procession1244 of existence outside of itself, and a breaking up of its power. That which possesses a superior power is alien to all extension; for potentiality does not succeed in realizing its fulness until it concentrates within itself; it needs to fortify itself to acquire all its energy. Consequently the body, by extending into space, loses its energy, and withdraws from the potency that belongs to real and incorporeal existence; but real existence does not weaken in extension, because, having no extension, it preserves the greatness of its potency. Just as, in relation to the body, real existence has neither extension nor volume, likewise corporeal existence, in relation to real existence, is weak and impotent. The existence that possesses the greatest power does not occupy any extension. Consequently, though the world fill space, though it be everywhere united to real extension, it could not, nevertheless, embrace the greatness of its potency. It is united to real existence, not by parts, but in an indivisible and indefinite manner. Therefore, the incorporeal is present to the body, not in a local manner, but by assimilation, so far as the body is capable of being assimilated to the incorporeal, and as the incorporeal can manifest in it. The incorporeal is not present to the material, in so far as the material is incapable of being assimilated to a completely immaterial principle; however, the incorporeal is present to the corporeal in so far as the corporeal can be assimilated thereto. Nor is the incorporeal present to the material by Receptivity (in the sense that one of these two substances would receive something from the other); otherwise the material and the immaterial would be altered; the former, on receiving the immaterial, into which it would be transformed, and the latter, on becoming material. Therefore, when a relation is established between two substances that are as different as the corporeal and the incorporeal, an assimilation and participation that is reciprocal to the1245 power of the one, and the impotence of the other, occurs. That is why the world always remains very distant from the power of real existence, and the latter from the impotence of material nature. But that which occupies the middle, that which simultaneously assimilates and is assimilated, that which unites the extremes, becomes a cause of error in respect to them, because the substances it brings together by assimilation are very different.
RELATION OF INDIVIDUAL SOULS TO THE UNIVERSAL SOUL.
First Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
Your Receptivity
11 As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, 12 That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. 13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. 14 For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: 15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: 16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
r1913 12 27, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Telepathic drishti aided by the intuition arranged a kind of trikaldrishti perfect in all but exact detail of perspective. A more settled ideality, intolerant of intellectual tapas and manasic stress, now holds all the forms and instruments of knowledge and is extending itself to the Tapas. The mind in ketu is still active, but only for more perfect training in passive Receptivity of the vijnana; this manasa ketu is almost entirely void of intellectuality, at most there is sometimes a vague involved reasoning in the perception or, more often, a fantasy of stress upon remote or frail possibilities not properly connected with the actualities of the life or its proper mass of creative effort & forecast. The transformation of this manasic perception is now one of the main movements of the siddhi.
Kamananda is again recovering its force; tivrananda, for some time a little discouraged, is regularising its action and local arrangement; the rest are still irregular in their manifestation. Subjective ananda is being exposed to a revival of discomfort in its parts of physical nerve-organism, mainly in the sravana, in order that ananda even in the most effective forms of physical discomfort may be more firmly stamped on the nervous system, first psychically, then physically. The doubt about the sukshma character of the gandhadrishti,the idea, that is to say, that the abnormal perception of objective scents was being mistaken for sukshmadrishti,revived, but has once more been removed by still more unmistakable examples. The physical prakamya exists & will grow, but accounts for only a small part of the phenomena. Eg the smell of food at midnight, in a shut room, under the bed-clothes cannot be physical gandhadrishti.
r1914 08 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The 15 passed in a state of void and of passive Receptivity.
The suggestion of the complete Kalibhava is now fixed; ie the form of the egoistic consciousness with a name attached to it is repelled whenever it throws its shadow on the central consciousness, & there is instead the conception of the ego as an ansha of Prakriti or a vibhuti serving as an instrument and slave of the Ishwara or Para Purusha.
r1914 09 04, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is a clear illumination in the Sahitya & Veda. The word is not always immediately the best. There will be some delay in this respect, owing to the imperfect Receptivity of the brain, a part of which is still obscure and another admits fatigue. But, except when there is general obscuration, the Sruti acts in spite of all.
Power is again clearly & rapidly effective, although still resisted & in details & immediate movements with frequent success.
r1917 09 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Brilliant jyotirmaya action of the vijnana working sometimes upon the stumblings of the intellectual T. This is the real surya, still hampered by the limited Receptivity of the mind, but already presaging in type its opulence of plenary light.
***
Talks 151-175, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
D.: Why do masters insist on silence and Receptivity?
M.: What is silence? It is eternal eloquence.
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
greater Receptivity in us?
SRI AUROBINDO: The Power has increased, and so, Receptivity but only in particular cases and not in a general sense.
(To Nirodbaran after a while) I am told Satyendra does meditation while
--
to the Receptivity of the one who does the Tapasya and consequently due to
Grace.
--
Mother sees only once or twice a year. Receptivity is a complex phenomenon. One may be receptive in one way, another in another way.
CHAMPAKLAL: Sometimes people hear something said by the Mother about
--
SRI AUROBINDO: Past relation? Receptivity is a different thing. There is no single reason for which the Mother sees people.
CHAMPAKLAL: Of course, they also say that the Mother may see some people
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 2, #Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
NIRODBARAN: Do different parts have different degrees of Receptivity?
511
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their Receptivity.
SRI AUROBINDO: The answer would be followed by "How to do that?"
--
DR. MANILAL: What about Nirod's Receptivity question, Sir?
SRI AUROBINDO: You have to become quiet, become wide and open or
--
DR. MANILAL: What percentage of Receptivity have I, Sir?
SRI AUROBINDO: These things don't go by percentage. Besides, Receptivity is infinite.
DR. MANILAL: How to know if one is receptive?
The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
the period of incubatioii, in itself creates a state of Receptivity, a readi-
ness of the 'prepared mind' to pounce on favourable chance-constella-
The Coming Race Contents, #The Coming Race, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
has only passive Receptivity. Life adds,,
synthetises, new-createsgives more than
The Monadology, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
47. Thus God alone is the primary unity or original simple substance, of which all created or derivative Monads are products and have their birth, so to speak, through continual fulgurations of the Divinity from moment to moment, limited by the Receptivity of the created being, of whose essence it is to have limits. (Theod.
382-391, 398, 395.)
--- Overview of noun receptivity
The noun receptivity has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
1. receptiveness, receptivity, openness ::: (willingness or readiness to receive (especially impressions or ideas); "he was testing the government's receptiveness to reform"; "this receptiveness is the key feature in oestral behavior, enabling natural mating to occur"; "their receptivity to the proposal")
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun receptivity
1 sense of receptivity
Sense 1
receptiveness, receptivity, openness
=> willingness
=> disposition, temperament
=> nature
=> trait
=> attribute
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun receptivity
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun receptivity
1 sense of receptivity
Sense 1
receptiveness, receptivity, openness
=> willingness
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun receptivity
1 sense of receptivity
Sense 1
receptiveness, receptivity, openness
-> willingness
=> readiness, eagerness, zeal, forwardness
=> receptiveness, receptivity, openness
=> wholeheartedness
--- Grep of noun receptivity
receptivity
Wikipedia - Hypnosis -- State of increased receptivity to suggestion and direction
selforum - complex operation of chance receptivity
https://humanscience.fandom.com/wiki/Accomplishment_is_determined_by_receptivity
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