TERMS STARTING WITH
sigak 始覺. See SHIJUE
sigaultian ::: a. --> Pertaining to Sigault, a French physician. See Symphyseotomy.
sig block /sig blok/ [Unix; often written ".sig" there]. See {signature}. [{Jargon File}]
sig block ::: /sig blok/ [Unix; often written .sig there]. See signature.[Jargon File]
sig {signature}
sigger ::: v. i. --> Same as
sigh-born ::: a. --> Sorrowful; mournful.
sighed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Sigh
sigher ::: n. --> One who sighs.
sighing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Sigh ::: a. --> Uttering sighs; grieving; lamenting.
sigh ::: n. 1. An audible exhale following a long, deep breath, in weariness or relief. 2. Fig. A sound made by wind moving through the leaves of a tree. v. sighing. 3. Expressing with or as if with an audible exhalation.
sighted ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Sight ::: a. --> Having sight, or seeing, in a particular manner; -- used in composition; as, long-sighted, short-sighted, quick-sighted, sharp-sighted, and the like.
sightful ::: a. --> Easily or clearly seen; distinctly visible; perspicuous.
sightfulness ::: n. --> The state of being sightful; perspicuity.
sight-hole ::: n. --> A hole for looking through; a peephole.
sighting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Sight ::: --> a. & n. from Sight, v. t.
sightless ::: a. --> Wanting sight; without sight; blind.
That can not be seen; invisible.
Offensive or unpleasing to the eye; unsightly; as, sightless stains.
sightliness ::: n. --> The state of being sightly; comeliness; conspicuousness.
sightly ::: a. --> Pleasing to the sight; comely.
Open to sight; conspicuous; as, a house stands in a sightly place.
sightproof ::: a. --> Undiscoverable to sight.
sight-seeing ::: a. --> Engaged in, or given to, seeing sights; eager for novelties or curiosities. ::: n. --> The act of seeing sights; eagerness for novelties or curiosities.
sight-seer ::: n. --> One given to seeing sights or noted things, or eager for novelties or curiosities.
sights, four. See CATURNIMITTA.
sights, four
sight-shot ::: n. --> Distance to which the sight can reach or be thrown.
sightsman ::: n. --> One who reads or performs music readily at first sight.
sightsmen ::: pl. --> of Sightsman
sight ::: v. t. --> The act of seeing; perception of objects by the eye; view; as, to gain sight of land.
The power of seeing; the faculty of vision, or of perceiving objects by the instrumentality of the eyes.
The state of admitting unobstructed vision; visibility; open view; region which the eye at one time surveys; space through which the power of vision extends; as, an object within sight.
A spectacle; a view; a show; something worth seeing.
sigh ::: v. i. --> To inhale a larger quantity of air than usual, and immediately expel it; to make a deep single audible respiration, especially as the result or involuntary expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, or the like.
Hence, to lament; to grieve.
To make a sound like sighing.
A deep and prolonged audible inspiration or respiration of air, as when fatigued or grieved; the act of sighing.
sigil is pictured in Ambelain, La Kabbale Pratique,
sigil is shown facing p. 105 of Barrett, The Magus
sigil is shown in Waite, The Book of Black Magic
sigilla ::: pl. --> of Sigillum
sigillaria ::: n. pl. --> Little images or figures of earthenware exposed for sale, or given as presents, on the last two days of the Saturnalia; hence, the last two, or the sixth and seventh, days of the Saturnalia. ::: n. --> A genus of fossil trees principally found in the coal formation; -- so named from the seallike leaf scars in vertical rows on
sigillarid ::: n. --> One of an extinct family of cryptagamous trees, including the genus Sigillaria and its allies.
sigillated ::: a. --> Decorated by means of stamps; -- said of pottery.
sigillative ::: a. --> Fit to seal; belonging to a seal; composed of wax.
sigillum ::: n. --> A seal.
sigil ::: n. --> A seal; a signature.
sigil, see Ambelain, La Kabbale Pratique, p. 281.
sigil, see Budge, Amulets and Talismans, p. 389. In
sigil ::: Sigil Usually denotes a magical sigil, a glyph used in Ritual Magick as a focus, or for summoning angels, demons, or spirits. There are several methods of devising sigils for this use, usually involving special arrangements of magick squares, Enochian tables, etc., of letters or numbers, and tracing the desired word over this pattern to reveal a symbol, or by reducing alphabetical characters into a single glyph (a fancy word for a shape, a component that makes up an outline font). John Dee's (see Enochian Magick) AGLA Sigil was designed for the reverse of the Sigil of Ameth under the direction of the angel Uriel. He was instructed to re-create the Sigil of Ameth by the angels he contacted during his scrying sessions with Edward Kelley.
sigil.]
sigla ::: n. pl. --> The signs, abbreviations, letters, or characters standing for words, shorthand, etc., in ancient manuscripts, or on coins, medals, etc.
sigma function: 1. The Weierstrass sigma-function.
sigma notation: A summation through the use of the summation sign.
sigma ::: n. --> The Greek letter /, /, or / (English S, or s). It originally had the form of the English C.
sigmas ::: pl. --> of Sigma
sigmodont ::: n. --> Any one of a tribe (Sigmodontes) of rodents which includes all the indigenous rats and mice of America. So called from the form of the ridges of enamel on the crowns of the worn molars. Also used adjectively.
sigmoid ::: a. --> Alt. of Sigmoidal
sigmoidal ::: a. --> Curved in two directions, like the letter S, or the Greek /.
sigmoidally ::: adv. --> In a sigmoidal manner.
sigmoid curve: A type of curves whose shape captures some or all of a few properties such as strictly monotone, real differentiable, defined over the real line, asymptotic end behaviours (at both end) and having a first derivative in the shape of a single bump.
signable ::: a. --> Suitable to be signed; requiring signature; as, a legal document signable by a particular person.
signaled ::: / --> or Signalled (imp. & p. p.) of Signal
signaling ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Signal
signalist ::: n. --> One who makes signals; one who communicates intelligence by means of signals.
signality ::: n. --> The quality or state of being signal or remarkable.
signalize ::: a. --> To make signal or eminent; to render distinguished from what is common; to distinguish.
To communicate with by means of a signal; as, a ship signalizes its consort.
To indicate the existence, presence, or fact of, by a signal; as, to signalize the arrival of a steamer.
signalized ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Signalize
signalizing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Signalize
signalling ::: --> of Signal
signalling rate "communications" The number of times per second the {amplitude}, {frequency} or {phase} of the signal transmitted down a communications channel changes each second. The signalling rate is measured in {baud}. (1998-02-14)
signalling rate ::: (communications) The number of times per second the amplitude, frequency or phase of the signal transmitted down a communications channel changes each second. The signalling rate is measured in baud. (1998-02-14)
signally ::: adv. --> In a signal manner; eminently.
signalman ::: n. --> A man whose business is to manage or display signals; especially, one employed in setting the signals by which railroad trains are run or warned.
signalment ::: n. --> The act of signaling, or of signalizing; hence, description by peculiar, appropriate, or characteristic marks.
signal ::: n. 1. An indicator, such as a gesture or colored light, that serves as a means of communication. 2. Anything that acts as an incitement to action. Also fig. **signals. adj. 3. Used to give or act as a signal. signalling. 4. Serving as a warning, direction, command, or the like. signal fires, signal flares, signal light.**
signal ::: n. --> A sign made for the purpose of giving notice to a person of some occurence, command, or danger; also, a sign, event, or watchword, which has been agreed upon as the occasion of concerted action.
A token; an indication; a foreshadowing; a sign. ::: a. --> Noticeable; distinguished from what is ordinary; eminent;
signal ::: (operating system) A predefined message sent between two Unix processes or from the kernel to a process. Signals communicate the occurrence of signal handler set for each signal. Signals can be sent using the kill system call. (1996-12-10)
signal "operating system" A predefined message sent between two {Unix} {processes} or from the {kernel} to a process. Signals communicate the occurrence of unexpected external events such as the forced termination of a process by the user. Each signal has a unique number associated with it and each process has a signal handler set for each signal. Signals can be sent using the {kill} {system call}. (1996-12-10)
signal-to-noise ratio 1. "communications" (SNR, "s/n ratio", "s:n ratio") "Signal" refers to useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and "noise" to anything else on that medium. The ratio of these is usually expressed logarithmically, in {decibels}. 2. "networking" The term is often applied to {Usenet} newsgroups though figures are never given. Here it is quite common to have more noise (inappropriate postings which contribute nothing) than signal (relevant, useful or interesting postings). The signal gets {lost in the noise} when it becomes too much effort to try to find interesting articles among all the crud. Posting "noise" is probably the worst breach of {netiquette} and is a waste of {bandwidth}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-01-29)
signal-to-noise ratio ::: 1. (communications) (SNR, s/n ratio, s:n ratio) Signal refers to useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and noise to anything else on that medium. The ratio of these is usually expressed logarithmically, in decibels.2. (networking) The term is often applied to Usenet newsgroups though figures are never given. Here it is quite common to have more noise much effort to try to find interesting articles among all the crud. Posting noise is probably the worst breach of netiquette and is a waste of bandwidth.[Jargon File] (1996-01-29)
sign ::: Any aspect of reality that stands for another, to another. See Integral Semiotics.
sign are Iadara and Schaltiel.
signate ::: v. t. --> Having definite color markings.
signation ::: v. t. --> Sign given; marking.
signatory ::: a. --> Relating to a seal; used in sealing.
Signing; joining or sharing in a signature; as, signatory powers. ::: n. --> A signer; one who signs or subscribes; as, a conference of signatories.
signature 1. A set of function symbols with {arities}. 2. "messaging" (Or sig) A few lines of information about the sender of an {electronic mail} message or {news} {posting}. Most {Unix} mail and news software will {automagically} append a signature from a file called .signature in the user's {home directory} to outgoing mail and news. A signature should give your real name and your {e-mail address} since, though these appear in the {headers} of your messages, they may be {munged} by intervening software. It is currently (1994) hip to include the {URL} of your {home page} on the {web} in your sig. The composition of one's sig can be quite an art form, including an {ASCII} logo or one's choice of witty sayings (see {sig quote}, {fool file}). However, large sigs are a waste of {bandwidth}, and it has been observed that the size of one's sig block is usually inversely proportional to one's prestige on the net. See also {doubled sig}, {sig virus}. 2. "programming" A concept very similar to {abstract base classes} except that they have their own {hierarchy} and can be applied to compiled {classes}. Signatures provide a means of separating {subtyping} and {inheritance}. They are implemented in {C++} as patches to {GCC} 2.5.2 by Gerald Baumgartner "gb@cs.purdue.edu". {(ftp://ftp.cs.purdue.edu/pub/gb/)}. (2001-01-05)
signature ::: 1. A set of function symbols with arities.2. (messaging) (Or sig) A few lines of information about the sender of an electronic mail message or news posting. Most Unix mail and news software will automagically append a signature from a file called .signature in the user's home directory to outgoing mail and news.A signature should give your real name and your e-mail address since, though these appear in the headers of your messages, they may be munged by intervening software. It is currently (1994) hip to include the URL of your home page on the World-Wide Web in your sig.The composition of one's sig can be quite an art form, including an ASCII logo or one's choice of witty sayings (see sig quote, fool file). However, large sigs are a waste of bandwidth, and it has been observed that the size of one's sig block is usually inversely proportional to one's prestige on the net.See also doubled sig, sig virus.2. (programming) A concept very similar to abstract base classes except that they have their own hierarchy and can be applied to compiled classes. implemented in C++ as patches to GCC 2.5.2 by Gerald Baumgartner . .(2001-01-05)
signature ::: 1. The name of a person or a mark or sign representing his name, marked by himself or by an authorized deputy. 2. The act of signing one"s name. 3. Any unique, distinguishing aspect, feature, or mark of any kind. signatures.
signature ::: v. t. --> A sign, stamp, or mark impressed, as by a seal.
Especially, the name of any person, written with his own hand, employed to signify that the writing which precedes accords with his wishes or intentions; a sign manual; an autograph.
An outward mark by which internal characteristics were supposed to be indicated.
A resemblance between the external characters of a disease and those of some physical agent, for instance, that existing
signaturist ::: n. --> One who holds to the doctrine of signatures impressed upon objects, indicative of character or qualities.
signboard ::: n. --> A board, placed on or before a shop, office, etc., on which ssome notice is given, as the name of a firm, of a business, or the like.
signed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Sign
signed minor: Also known as cofactors. It is the minor of an element of a matrix which is augmented by + or - signs in a chequered pattern. Specifically an element of the matrix of cofactors ci,j=(-1)i+jmi,j where mi,j is an element of the matrix of minors.
signed number: Also known as a directed number.
signed ::: provided with a signature or signatures. Also fig.
signer ::: n. --> One who signs or subscribes his name; as, a memorial with a hundred signers.
signeted ::: a. --> Stamped or marked with a signet.
signet ::: n. --> A seal; especially, in England, the seal used by the sovereign in sealing private letters and grants that pass by bill under the sign manual; -- called also privy signet.
signifer ::: a. --> Bearing signs.
significance ::: 1. A meaning that is expressed. 2. Meaning; suggestiveness. 3. Importance, consequence. significances.
significance level: in inferential statistics, a statement of the probability that an observed outcome is due only to chance.
significance level: The probability below which an observation as extreme (or more) would have to be, by first assuming the null hypothesis, before the assumed null hypothesis is rejected, within the context of hypothesis testing.
significance ::: n. --> Alt. of Significancy
significance test: Another class="d-title" name for hypothesis testing.
significance tests: in statistics, inferential statistical procedures which are used to test whether observed results reflect real differences as a result of manipulation of variables, rather than chance variations.
significancy ::: n. --> The quality or state of being significant.
That which is signified; meaning; import; as, the significance of a nod, of a motion of the hand, or of a word or expression.
Importance; moment; weight; consequence.
significant ::: 1. Having or expressing a meaning; meaningful. 2. Having or expressing a covert meaning; suggestive; indicative.
significant ::: a. --> Fitted or designed to signify or make known somethingl having a meaning; standing as a sign or token; expressive or suggestive; as, a significant word or sound; a significant look.
Deserving to be considered; important; momentous; as, a significant event. ::: n.
significant figures: 1. Digits of a number which are essential in conveying the value of the number. i.e. all digits except for leading zeros and trailing (infinitely recurring) zeros.
significantly ::: adv. --> In a significant manner.
significate ::: n. --> One of several things signified by a common term.
signification ::: n. --> The act of signifying; a making known by signs or other means.
That which is signified or made known; that meaning which a sign, character, or token is intended to convey; as, the signification of words.
significative ::: a. --> Betokening or representing by an external sign.
Having signification or meaning; expressive of a meaning or purpose; significant.
significator ::: n. --> One who, or that which, signifies.
significatory ::: a. --> Significant. ::: n. --> That which is significatory.
significavit ::: n. --> Formerly, a writ issuing out of chancery, upon certificate given by the ordinary, of a man&
signified ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Signify
signified ::: The interior apprehension elicited by any sign or symbol. In Integral Theory, the signified is typically associated with the Upper-Left quadrant. See Integral Semiotics.
signifier ::: The material aspect of any sign or symbol. In Integral Theory, the signifier is typically associated with the Upper-Right quadrant. See Integral Semiotics.
signifying ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Signify
signify ::: n. --> To show by a sign; to communicate by any conventional token, as words, gestures, signals, or the like; to announce; to make known; to declare; to express; as, a signified his desire to be present.
To mean; to import; to denote; to betoken.
signing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Sign
signiorize ::: v. t. --> To exercise dominion over; to lord it over. ::: v. i. --> To exercise dominion; to seigniorize.
signior ::: n. --> Sir; Mr. The English form and pronunciation for the Italian Signor and the Spanish Seor.
signiorship ::: n. --> State or position of a signior.
signiory ::: n. --> Same as Seigniory.
sign language: a form of gestural communication used by the deaf.
signless. See ĀNIMITTA.
signless
sign ::: n. 1. An act or gesture used to convey an idea, a desire, information, or a command. 2. Any object, action, event, pattern, etc., that conveys a meaning. 3. A mark used to mean something; a symbol that sets something apart from others of its kind. 4. Something that indicates or acts as a token of a fact, condition, etc., that is not immediately or outwardly observable. 5. A signal. 6. A conventional figure or device that stands for a word, phrase, or operation; a symbol, as in mathematics or in musical notation. 7. A displayed structure such as a banner bearing lettering or symbols. 8. An act or significant event that is experienced as indication of divine intervention. 9. A portent of things to come. Sign, sign"s, signs, signless, sign-burdened, flame-signs. v. 10. To affix one"s signature to. 11. To indicate by or as if by a sign; betoken. signs, signed, signing.
sign ::: n. --> That by which anything is made known or represented; that which furnishes evidence; a mark; a token; an indication; a proof.
A remarkable event, considered by the ancients as indicating the will of some deity; a prodigy; an omen.
An event considered by the Jews as indicating the divine will, or as manifesting an interposition of the divine power for some special end; a miracle; a wonder.
Something serving to indicate the existence, or preserve the
sign of Aries (Ram) in the zodiac. [Rf. Prince of
sign of Capricorn in the zodiac.
sign of Capricorn. [Rf. Waite, The Lemegeton.]
sign of Leo. Nachiel’s cabalistic number is 111.
sign of Sagittarius. Adnachiel alternates with
sign of Scorpio (as cited by Camfield in A Theo¬
sign of Scorpio; in this office Riehol is assisted by
sign of Scorpio. [Rf. Prince of Darkness.]
sign of summer. [Rf. de Abano, The Heptameron ;
sign of the Ram (Aries). Sataaran shares this post
signora ::: n. --> Madam; Mrs; -- a title of address or respect among the Italians.
signore ::: n. --> Sir; Mr.; -- a title of address or respect among the Italians. Before a noun the form is Signor.
signorina ::: n. --> Miss; -- a title of address among the Italians.
signor ::: n. --> Alt. of Signore
signpost ::: n. --> A post on which a sign hangs, or on which papers are placed to give public notice of anything.
signposts ::: posts bearing signs that show the way.
signs and wonders as a basis for belief (John 4:48). When Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) declared that “no science
signs (Aries). He is a resident of the 4th Heaven
sign. See LAKsAnA; NIMITTA.
sign: see segno
sign
signs of the zodiac. For the names of all 72 angels,
signs (the sun) of the zodiac. [Rf Lenormant,
sign ::: The brief perpetual sign recurred above.
sigon 識蘊. See VIJNĀNASKANDHA
sig quote "messaging" /sig kwoht/ A maxim, quote, proverb, joke, or slogan embedded in one's {sig block} (as used in {Usenet} news) and intended to convey something of one's philosophical stance, pet peeves, or sense of humour. "Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes." [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-04)
sig quote ::: (messaging) /sig kwoht/ A maxim, quote, proverb, joke, or slogan embedded in one's sig block (as used in Usenet news) and intended to convey something of one's philosophical stance, pet peeves, or sense of humour. Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes.[Jargon File] (1994-11-04)
sigŭm 識陰. See VIJNĀNASKANDHA
sig virus A parasitic {meme} embedded in a {sig block}. There was a {meme plague} or fad for these on {Usenet} in late 1991. Most were equivalents of "I am a .sig virus. Please reproduce me in your .sig block.". Of course, the .sig virus's memetic hook is the giggle value of going along with the gag; this, however, was a self-limiting phenomenon as more and more people picked up on the idea. There were creative variants on it; some people stuck "sig virus antibody" texts in their sigs, and there was at least one instance of a sig virus eater. [{Jargon File}]
sig virus ::: A parasitic meme embedded in a sig block. There was a meme plague or fad for these on Usenet in late 1991. Most were equivalents of I am a .sig virus. were creative variants on it; some people stuck sig virus antibody texts in their sigs, and there was at least one instance of a sig virus eater.[Jargon File]
sig ::: v. t. --> Urine.
Sigālakamātā. See sṚGĀLAKAMĀTṚ
Sigalions [from Greek sigao to be silent] Images of Harpocrates, the deity borrowed by the Greeks from one aspect of the Egyptian Horus, said to have been born with his finger on his lips and so represented in his statues. He thus becomes the emblem of both neophyte and initiate who seals in silence of both mind and voice what has been learned in the initiation crypts.
Sigālovādasutta
Sigālovādasutta. (S. sīgālovādasutra; C. Shansheng jing; J. Zenshokyo; K. Sonsaeng kyong 善生經). In Pāli, "Instructions to Sigāla" (also known as the Singālovādasutta and Sigālakasutta); thirty-first discourse in the Pāli DĪGHANIKĀYA (several different recensions appear in Chinese translations, including a DHARMAGUPTAKA recension that is the sixteenth sutra in the DĪRGHĀGAMA, a SARVĀSTIVĀDA recension that is the 135th sutra in the MADHYAMĀGAMA, and other recensions as well in the EKOTTARĀGAMA and SAMYUKTĀGAMA); often interpreted within the tradition to offer the outlines of a code of conduct (VINAYA) for the laity. The buddha preached this discourse at Rājagaha (S. RĀJAGṚHA) to Sigāla [alt. Singāla], a young brāhmana householder. Following the wishes of his deceased father, it was Sigāla's practice to worship the six cardinal directions of east, south, west, north, nadir and zenith. The Buddha explains to him that the directions so worshipped are actually meant to symbolize, respectively, parents, teachers, wife and children, friends and associates, servants and workmen, and finally religious mendicants (sRAMAnA) and brāhmanas. True veneration thus consists of fulfilling one's incumbent responsibilities toward each of these six groups of people, responsibilities that should be reciprocated in turn by each group. For instance, students should minister to teachers by rising to greet them, waiting on them, paying intention to their instructions, serving them, and mastering what they are taught; teachers in turn should minister to their students by thoroughly instructing them, making sure they have understood, grounding them in essential skills, recommending them to colleagues, and offering them security. The Buddha also offers practical advice on how to follow a well-lived life as a layperson, such as avoiding six ways of squandering wealth (viz., alcoholism, wandering the streets at inappropriate times, attending fairs and shows, gambling, keeping bad company, laziness), each of which in turn has six dangers.
SIGBUS {bus error}
Sige (Greek) Silence; one of the fundamental hypostases in early Gnosticism. The gnosis was said to rest on a mystic square whose angles were sige (silence), bythos (the deep), nous (understanding), and aletheia (truth). In the Valentinian theogony, bythos and sige are the primordial binary. See also SILENCE
Sighra or Sighraga (Sanskrit) Śīghra, Śīghraga Swiftly moving; the father of Maru, “’who is still living through the power of Yoga, and will manifest himself in the beginning of the Krita age in order to re-establish the Kshattriyas in the nineteenth Yuga’ say the Puranic prophecies”; Moru (Morya, Maurya) standing for “the dynasty of Buddhist sovereigns of Pataliputra which began with the great King Chandragupta, the grandsire of King Asoka. It is the first Buddhist Dynasty” (TG 299).
Sight Among the elements, correlated with fire or light. Like the other senses it has its spiritual originant which expresses itself through its several forms, corresponding to the different planes. The organ of spiritual vision in the human body is the third eye. Some of the Atlantean magicians and initiates had this inner sight, which was even in their material race highly developed, so that their vision could pass any distance and penetrate opaque bodies.
Sight deposits - Deposits that can be withdrawn on demand without penalty.
Sight draft – Refers to a draft which is payable on demand.
SIGhyper ::: Special Interest Group on Hypertext and Multimedia of the SGML Users' Group.
SIGhyper Special Interest Group on Hypertext and Multimedia of the {SGML} Users' Group.
Sigil ::: A symbol, typically derived through gnosis, vision, or bespoke system, that has intent attached to it. This site qualifies sigils to be either representative of entities potentially to be worked with or symbols created by the magician in order to work magic. Note though that some might use the definition in broader terms than that.
SIGILS, CHARTS, PACTS 357
SIGILS, CHARTS, PACTS
SIGLA "robotics" SIGma LAnguage. A language for industrial robots from {Olivetti}. ["SIGLA: The Olivetti Sigma Robot Programming Language", M. Salmon, Proc 8th Intl Symp on Industrial Robots, 1978, pp. 358-363].
SIGLA ::: (robotics) SIGma LAnguage. A language for industrial robots from Olivetti.[SIGLA: The Olivetti Sigma Robot Programming Language, M. Salmon, Proc 8th Intl Symp on Industrial Robots, 1978, pp. 358-363].
SIGMA A scientific {visual programming} environment from NASA. {(http://fi-www.arc.nasa.gov/fia/projects/sigma/)}.
SIGMA ::: A scientific visual programming environment from NASA. .
Sigma (lowercase) ::: The abbreviation for the standard deviation of a population. (s)
Sigma (uppercase) ::: The abbreviation for summation. (S)
SIGNAL ::: (language) A synchronous language by Le Guernic et al of INRIA.[SIGNAL - A Data Flow-Oriented Language for Signal Processing, P. le Guernic, IEEE Trans Acoustics Speech & Signal Proc, ASSP-34(2):362-1986-04-374]. (1996-12-10)
SIGNAL "language" A synchronous language by Le Guernic et al of {INRIA}. ["SIGNAL - A Data Flow-Oriented Language for Signal Processing," P. le Guernic, IEEE Trans Acoustics Speech & Signal Proc, ASSP-34(2):362-1986-04-374]. (1996-12-10)
Signal_lines ::: are used in technical indicators, especially oscillators, to generate buy and sell signals or suggest a change in a trend. Often times, signal lines are moving averages of a technical indicator, such as the moving average convergence-divergence (MACD) and stochastics oscillator. A signal line is also commonly known as a "trigger line."
Signalling - An action taken by an informed party to reveal private information to an uninformed party.
Signalling System 7 "protocol" (SS7) A {protocol} suite used for communication with, and control of, telephone central office switches and their attached processors. (1995-03-01)
Signalling System 7 ::: (protocol) (SS7) A protocol suite used for communication with, and control of, telephone central office switches and their attached processors. (1995-03-01)
Signate: (In Schol.) Refers to the intention or direction of the agent; as distinguished from exercite, which refers to the effects of the work or the exercise. E.g., one who studies mathematics, signate intends to acquire the knowledge of truths concerning quantity, -- but exercite, or in the exercise itself of studying, renders the mind more able and apt for reasoning rightly. -- H.G.
Signature ::: A discrete feel to somebody, some place, something, or some experience that awareness attaches around and uses to bring up the physical reality of that which was attached to.
Signature of the demon Asmodee (Asmodeus) to a deed dated May 29, 1629, and executed in
Signature of the demon Asmodee (Asmodeus) to a deed dated May 29,1629, and executed in the Church of
Significance – Is often used to mean something that is not expressly stated but can be inferred, e.g. the significance of an increase in product demand can only be known after the financial effects are calculated.
Significant - Is important, essential, distinctive, or of sufficient nature to warrant special notice relative to a standard or norm.
Signifies: Theory of Meaning (q.v.). See Peirce, Semiotic. Signification: Signify may be synonymous with designate (q.v.), or it may be used rather for the meaning of words which are not or are not thought of as proper names, or it may be used to indicate the intensional rather than the extensional meaning of a word. -- A.C.
Sign: In astrology, one of the twelve divisions of the Zodiac. The annual revolution of the Earth round the Sun is divided into the 360° of a circle; the subdivisions of the circle into 12 equal arcs, distinguished by names, are known as the Signs of the Zodiac. They no longer bear any relationship to the constellations of the same name. (Cf. house.) The 12 Signs are: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. These twelve signs are generally divided into four basic groups: The Inspirational Group—the Fire signs; the Emotional Group—the Water signs; the Mental Group—the Air signs; the Practical Group—the Earth signs. These are termed the Elements, or Triplicities—since three signs are embraced in each group, as follows:
Sign-Language: A system of signs established either traditionally (primitive tribes) or technically (deaf-mutes) for the purpose of communicating concepts or sentences, rather than letters or sounds or words as in signalling The question of the priority of vocal and gesture speech is much debated, but there is no doubt that primitive peoples used signs for communicating intentions and expressing their needs, especially when dealing with tribes with a different tongue. This is almost a psychological reflex, as it may be noted in the elementary improvised mimic of travellers among people they do not understand, and also in the vivid gestures accompanying the utterances of even civilized people like those of the Mediternnean shores. Sign-languages have a psychological, sociological and ethnological importance, as they may reveal the fundamental trains of thought, the sociological status, the race peculiarities, the geographical segregation, and even the beliefs and rituals of those who use them. Their study would also give material for various syntactical, semantical and logical problems.
Sign off – Refers to the approval or agreement by an authorised person e.g. to sign-off on a purchase contract.
Sign
SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC
Sigron —in hechaloth lore, a name for Meta¬
Sig Signal Processing, Analysis, and Display program. An environment with an associated programming language by Jan Carter of {Argonne National Lab}. Telephone +1 (312) 972 7250. [{Jargon File}]
SIG {Special Interest Group}
Sigurd (Icelandic) [from sig victory] The hero of a long, involved tale in the Norse Edda, better known as the Wagnerian Siegfried. As a member of the Niflungen (Nibelungen) clan, he represents a very early humanity on this planet earth, before the globe and its components became physical as they are today.
Sigurd was persuaded by his teacher, the magician Regin, to slay the dragon Fáfnir who lay guarding his treasure on the heath. Sigurd did so with the magical sword to which he had fallen heir and, having tasted the dragon’s blood, became able to understand the language of the birds.
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. An image; a representation. 2. A sign or representation that stands for its object by virtue of a resemblance or analogy to it. icons.
1. Greatest in importance, degree, significance, character, or achievement. greatest; utmost; ultimate. 2. Highest in rank or authority; paramount; sovereign; chief. supremeness.
1. Having momentous significance or consequences; decisively important. 2. Fatal, deadly, or disastrous. 3. Controlled or determined by destiny; inexorable. 4. Prophetic; ominous.
1. Not seen; not apprehended by sight; unperceived, invisible. 2. Not seen previously or hitherto; esp. unfamiliar, strange, unknown. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as a n. and a proper n.)
1. Not yielding the desired outcome; fruitless; valueless; insignificant. 2. Worthless. 3. Empty; meaningless. 4. Excessively proud of one"s appearance, accomplishments, qualities; conceited. 5. in vain. To no avail; without success.
1. Passed out of sight, especially quickly; disappeared. 2. Passed out of existence. vanishes.
a- ::: --> A, as a prefix to English words, is derived from various sources. (1) It frequently signifies on or in (from an, a forms of AS. on), denoting a state, as in afoot, on foot, abed, amiss, asleep, aground, aloft, away (AS. onweg), and analogically, ablaze, atremble, etc. (2) AS. of off, from, as in adown (AS. ofd/ne off the dun or hill). (3) AS. a- (Goth. us-, ur-, Ger. er-), usually giving an intensive force, and sometimes the sense of away, on, back, as in arise, abide, ago. (4) Old English y- or i- (corrupted from the AS. inseparable particle ge-,
ab- ::: --> A prefix in many words of Latin origin. It signifies from, away , separating, or departure, as in abduct, abstract, abscond. See A-(6).
ablegate ::: v. t. --> To send abroad. ::: n. --> A representative of the pope charged with important commissions in foreign countries, one of his duties being to bring to a newly named cardinal his insignia of office.
aboveboard ::: adv. --> Above the board or table. Hence: in open sight; without trick, concealment, or deception.
abrogative ::: a. --> Tending or designed to abrogate; as, an abrogative law.
accident ::: n. --> Literally, a befalling; an event that takes place without one&
accomplish ::: v. t. --> To complete, as time or distance.
To bring to an issue of full success; to effect; to perform; to execute fully; to fulfill; as, to accomplish a design, an object, a promise.
To equip or furnish thoroughly; hence, to complete in acquirements; to render accomplished; to polish.
To gain; to obtain.
achievement ::: n. --> The act of achieving or performing; an obtaining by exertion; successful performance; accomplishment; as, the achievement of his object.
A great or heroic deed; something accomplished by valor, boldness, or praiseworthy exertion; a feat.
An escutcheon or ensign armorial; now generally applied to the funeral shield commonly called hatchment.
A child — especially a new-born child — usually signifies the birth (or awakening) of the soul or psychic being in the outward nature.
actively ::: adv. --> In an active manner; nimbly; briskly; energetically; also, by one&
acute ::: a. --> Sharp at the end; ending in a sharp point; pointed; -- opposed to blunt or obtuse; as, an acute angle; an acute leaf.
Having nice discernment; perceiving or using minute distinctions; penetrating; clever; shrewd; -- opposed to dull or stupid; as, an acute observer; acute remarks, or reasoning.
Having nice or quick sensibility; susceptible to slight impressions; acting keenly on the senses; sharp; keen; intense; as, a man of acute eyesight, hearing, or feeling; acute pain or pleasure.
adamant ::: n. --> A stone imagined by some to be of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness; but in modern mineralogy it has no technical signification. It is now a rhetorical or poetical name for the embodiment of impenetrable hardness.
Lodestone; magnet.
adsignification ::: n. --> Additional signification.
adsignify ::: v. t. --> To denote additionally.
adventure ::: n. --> That which happens without design; chance; hazard; hap; hence, chance of danger or loss.
Risk; danger; peril.
The encountering of risks; hazardous and striking enterprise; a bold undertaking, in which hazards are to be encountered, and the issue is staked upon unforeseen events; a daring feat.
A remarkable occurrence; a striking event; a stirring incident; as, the adventures of one&
adversary ::: n. --> One who is turned against another or others with a design to oppose or resist them; a member of an opposing or hostile party; an opponent; an antagonist; an enemy; a foe. ::: a. --> Opposed; opposite; adverse; antagonistic.
Having an opposing party; not unopposed; as, an
advisedly ::: adv. --> Circumspectly; deliberately; leisurely.
With deliberate purpose; purposely; by design.
aemail ombrant ::: --> An art or process of flooding transparent colored glaze over designs stamped or molded on earthenware or porcelain.
aeroscope ::: n. --> An apparatus designed for collecting spores, germs, bacteria, etc., suspended in the air.
aetiological ::: a. --> Pertaining to aetiology; assigning a cause.
aetiology ::: n. --> The science, doctrine, or demonstration of causes; esp., the investigation of the causes of any disease; the science of the origin and development of things.
The assignment of a cause.
affecting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Affect ::: a. --> Moving the emotions; fitted to excite the emotions; pathetic; touching; as, an affecting address; an affecting sight.
Affected; given to false show.
affidavit ::: n. --> A sworn statement in writing; a declaration in writing, signed and made upon oath before an authorized magistrate.
affiliation ::: n. --> Adoption; association or reception as a member in or of the same family or society.
The establishment or ascertaining of parentage; the assignment of a child, as a bastard, to its father; filiation.
Connection in the way of descent.
aforethought ::: a. --> Premeditated; prepense; previously in mind; designed; as, malice aforethought, which is required to constitute murder. ::: n. --> Premeditation.
aghast ::: v. t. --> To affright; to terrify.
See Agast, v. t. ::: a & p. p. --> Terrified; struck with amazement; showing signs of terror or horror.
aging ::: the process of growing old or maturing; showing signs of advancing age.
agraphia ::: n. --> The absence or loss of the power of expressing ideas by written signs. It is one form of aphasia.
aldine ::: a. --> An epithet applied to editions (chiefly of the classics) which proceeded from the press of Aldus Manitius, and his family, of Venice, for the most part in the 16th century and known by the sign of the anchor and the dolphin. The term has also been applied to certain elegant editions of English works.
alepole ::: n. --> A pole set up as the sign of an alehouse.
alestake ::: n. --> A stake or pole projecting from, or set up before, an alehouse, as a sign; an alepole. At the end was commonly suspended a garland, a bunch of leaves, or a "bush."
aleutic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a chain of islands between Alaska and Kamtchatka; also, designating these islands.
alferes ::: n. --> An ensign; a standard bearer.
alidade ::: n. --> The portion of a graduated instrument, as a quadrant or astrolabe, carrying the sights or telescope, and showing the degrees cut off on the arc of the instrument
alla breve ::: --> With one breve, or four minims, to measure, and sung faster like four crotchets; in quick common time; -- indicated in the time signature by /.
All depends upon the order of thin gs which the colours indi- cate in a particular case. There is an order of significances in which they indicate various psycbolo^cal dynamisms, c.g. faith, love, protection, etc. There is another order of significances In which they indicate the aura or the activity of divine beings,
alleluiah ::: n. --> An exclamation signifying Praise ye Jehovah. Hence: A song of praise to God. See Hallelujah, the commoner form.
allocate ::: v. t. --> To distribute or assign; to allot.
To localize.
allograph ::: n. --> A writing or signature made by some person other than any of the parties thereto; -- opposed to autograph.
allopathy ::: n. --> That system of medical practice which aims to combat disease by the use of remedies which produce effects different from those produced by the special disease treated; -- a term invented by Hahnemann to designate the ordinary practice, as opposed to homeopathy.
allotment ::: n. --> The act of allotting; assignment.
That which is allotted; a share, part, or portion granted or distributed; that which is assigned by lot, or by the act of God; anything set apart for a special use or to a distinct party.
The allowance of a specific amount of scrip or of a particular thing to a particular person.
allotted ::: 1. Divided or distributed by share or portion; apportioned. 2. Assigned as a portion, set apart, dedicated.
allot ::: v. t. --> To distribute by lot.
To distribute, or parcel out in parts or portions; or to distribute to each individual concerned; to assign as a share or lot; to set apart as one&
allowed ::: 1. Permitted the occurrence or existence of. 2. Allotted, assigned, bestowed. allows.
alphabet ::: n. --> The letters of a language arranged in the customary order; the series of letters or signs which form the elements of written language.
The simplest rudiments; elements. ::: v. t. --> To designate by the letters of the alphabet; to
al segno ::: --> A direction for the performer to return and recommence from the sign /.
alternate ::: a. --> Being or succeeding by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; by turns first one and then the other; hence, reciprocal.
Designating the members in a series, which regularly intervene between the members of another series, as the odd or even numbers of the numerals; every other; every second; as, the alternate members 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. ; read every alternate line.
Distributed, as leaves, singly at different heights of
alto ::: n. --> Formerly the part sung by the highest male, or counter-tenor, voices; now the part sung by the lowest female, or contralto, voices, between in tenor and soprano. In instrumental music it now signifies the tenor.
An alto singer.
Amal: “This is one of the perils awaiting one when one goes inward in search of one’s true self. The other perils are ‘the goblin Voice’ and ‘the enchantments of the demon Sign’. The opponent Snake’s ambush is the ultimate danger which can put an end to one’s inward search.”
amaurosis ::: n. --> A loss or decay of sight, from loss of power in the optic nerve, without any perceptible external change in the eye; -- called also gutta serena, the "drop serene" of Milton.
ambiguity ::: n. --> The quality or state of being ambiguous; doubtfulness or uncertainty, particularly as to the signification of language, arising from its admitting of more than one meaning; an equivocal word or expression.
ambiguous ::: a. --> Doubtful or uncertain, particularly in respect to signification; capable of being understood in either of two or more possible senses; equivocal; as, an ambiguous course; an ambiguous expression.
amblyopy ::: n. --> Weakness of sight, without and opacity of the cornea, or of the interior of the eye; the first degree of amaurosis.
amphi- ::: --> A prefix in words of Greek origin, signifying both, of both kinds, on both sides, about, around.
anagogical ::: a. --> Mystical; having a secondary spiritual meaning; as, the rest of the Sabbath, in an anagogical sense, signifies the repose of the saints in heaven; an anagogical explication.
annunciator ::: n. --> One who announces. Specifically: An officer in the church of Constantinople, whose business it was to inform the people of the festivals to be celebrated.
An indicator (as in a hotel) which designates the room where attendance is wanted.
anopsy ::: a. --> Want or defect of sight; blindness.
antedate ::: n. --> Prior date; a date antecedent to another which is the actual date.
Anticipation. ::: v. t. --> To date before the true time; to assign to an earlier date; thus, to antedate a deed or a bond is to give it a date anterior
an ::: --> This word is properly an adjective, but is commonly called the indefinite article. It is used before nouns of the singular number only, and signifies one, or any, but somewhat less emphatically. In such expressions as "twice an hour," "once an age," a shilling an ounce (see 2d A, 2), it has a distributive force, and is equivalent to each, every. ::: conj.
antiphone ::: n. --> The response which one side of the choir makes to the other in a chant; alternate chanting or signing.
antiphony ::: n. --> A musical response; also, antiphonal chanting or signing.
An anthem or psalm sung alternately by a choir or congregation divided into two parts. Also figuratively.
apennine ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or designating, the Apennines, a chain of mountains extending through Italy.
apo ::: --> A prefix from a Greek preposition. It usually signifies from, away from, off, or asunder, separate; as, in apocope (a cutting off), apostate, apostle (one sent away), apocarpous.
apophlegmatic ::: a. --> Designed to facilitate discharges of phlegm or mucus from mouth or nostrils. ::: n. --> An apophlegmatic medicine.
appall ::: a. --> To make pale; to blanch.
To weaken; to enfeeble; to reduce; as, an old appalled wight.
To depress or discourage with fear; to impress with fear in such a manner that the mind shrinks, or loses its firmness; to overcome with sudden terror or horror; to dismay; as, the sight appalled the stoutest heart.
appanage ::: n. --> The portion of land assigned by a sovereign prince for the subsistence of his younger sons.
A dependency; a dependent territory.
That which belongs to one by custom or right; a natural adjunct or accompaniment.
apparent ::: a. --> Capable of being seen, or easily seen; open to view; visible to the eye; within sight or view.
Clear or manifest to the understanding; plain; evident; obvious; known; palpable; indubitable.
Appearing to the eye or mind (distinguished from, but not necessarily opposed to, true or real); seeming; as the apparent motion or diameter of the sun.
apparent ::: readily seen; exposed to sight; open to view. 2. Capable of being easily perceived or understood; plain or clear; obvious; visible.
appear ::: 1. To come into sight; become visible; come into view, as from a place or state of concealment, or from a distance; esp. of angels, spirits, visions. 2. To come into existence; be created. 3. To be clear to the understanding. 4. To seem or look to be. appears, appeared, appearing.
appearance ::: n. --> The act of appearing or coming into sight; the act of becoming visible to the eye; as, his sudden appearance surprised me.
A thing seed; a phenomenon; a phase; an apparition; as, an appearance in the sky.
Personal presence; exhibition of the person; look; aspect; mien.
Semblance, or apparent likeness; external show. pl. Outward signs, or circumstances, fitted to make a particular impression
appear ::: v. i. --> To come or be in sight; to be in view; to become visible.
To come before the public; as, a great writer appeared at that time.
To stand in presence of some authority, tribunal, or superior person, to answer a charge, plead a cause, or the like; to present one&
appellation ::: n. --> The act of appealing; appeal.
The act of calling by a name.
The word by which a particular person or thing is called and known; name; title; designation.
appellatively ::: adv. --> After the manner of nouns appellative; in a manner to express whole classes or species; as, Hercules is sometimes used appellatively, that is, as a common name, to signify a strong man.
applaud ::: v. t. --> To show approval of by clapping the hands, acclamation, or other significant sign.
To praise by words; to express approbation of; to commend; to approve. ::: v. i. --> To express approbation loudly or significantly.
appointed ::: 1. Predetermined; arranged; set. 2. Fixed by, through or as a result of authority; ordained; chosen; designated; selected.
appointment ::: n. --> The act of appointing; designation of a person to hold an office or discharge a trust; as, he erred by the appointment of unsuitable men.
The state of being appointed to som/ service or office; an office to which one is appointed; station; position; an, the appointment of treasurer.
Stipulation; agreement; the act of fixing by mutual agreement. Hence:: Arrangement for a meeting; engagement; as, they made
appoint ::: v. t. --> To fix with power or firmness; to establish; to mark out.
To fix by a decree, order, command, resolve, decision, or mutual agreement; to constitute; to ordain; to prescribe; to fix the time and place of.
To assign, designate, or set apart by authority.
To furnish in all points; to provide with everything necessary by way of equipment; to equip; to fit out.
apportionment ::: n. --> The act of apportioning; a dividing into just proportions or shares; a division or shares; a division and assignment, to each proprietor, of his just portion of an undivided right or property.
apportion ::: v. t. --> To divide and assign in just proportion; to divide and distribute proportionally; to portion out; to allot; as, to apportion undivided rights; to apportion time among various employments.
appropriable ::: a. --> Capable of being appropriated, set apart, sequestered, or assigned exclusively to a particular use.
appropriation ::: n. --> The act of setting apart or assigning to a particular use or person, or of taking to one&
aqua ::: n. --> Water; -- a word much used in pharmacy and the old chemistry, in various signification, determined by the word or words annexed.
aquarelle ::: n. --> A design or painting in thin transparent water colors; also, the mode of painting in such colors.
aquarius ::: n. --> The Water-bearer; the eleventh sign in the zodiac, which the sun enters about the 20th of January; -- so called from the rains which prevail at that season in Italy and the East.
A constellation south of Pegasus.
arch- ::: --> A prefix signifying chief, as in archbuilder, archfiend.
archi- ::: --> A prefix signifying chief, arch; as, architect, archiepiscopal. In Biol. and Anat. it usually means primitive, original, ancestral; as, archipterygium, the primitive fin or wing.
architect ::: n. --> A person skilled in the art of building; one who understands architecture, or makes it his occupation to form plans and designs of buildings, and to superintend the artificers employed.
A contriver, designer, or maker.
architectonical ::: a. --> Pertaining to a master builder, or to architecture; evincing skill in designing or construction; constructive.
Relating to the systemizing of knowledge.
architecture ::: 1. The profession of designing buildings and other artificial constructions and environments, usually with some regard to aesthetic effect. 2. The character or style of building. 3. Construction or structure generally. architectures.
argufy ::: v. t. & i. --> To argue pertinaciously.
To signify.
argus-eyed ::: a. --> Extremely observant; watchful; sharp-sighted.
aries ::: n. --> The Ram; the first of the twelve signs in the zodiac, which the sun enters at the vernal equinox, about the 21st of March.
A constellation west of Taurus, drawn on the celestial globe in the figure of a ram.
A battering-ram.
armory ::: n. --> A place where arms and instruments of war are deposited for safe keeping.
Armor; defensive and offensive arms.
A manufactory of arms, as rifles, muskets, pistols, bayonets, swords.
Ensigns armorial; armorial bearings.
That branch of heraldry which treats of coat armor.
arms ::: n. --> Instruments or weapons of offense or defense.
The deeds or exploits of war; military service or science.
Anything which a man takes in his hand in anger, to strike or assault another with; an aggressive weapon.
The ensigns armorial of a family, consisting of figures and colors borne in shields, banners, etc., as marks of dignity and distinction, and descending from father to son.
The legs of a hawk from the thigh to the foot.
aroph ::: n. --> A barbarous word used by the old chemists to designate various medical remedies.
art ::: “The highest aim of the aesthetic being is to find the Divine through beauty; the highest Art is that which by an inspired use of significant and interpretative form unseals the doors of the spirit.” The Human Cycle etc.
art union ::: --> An association for promoting art (esp. the arts of design), and giving encouragement to artists.
art ::: v. archaic** A second person singular present indicative of be, now only poet., not in modern usage. All other references are to art as the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. Also, the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria. art"s, arts, art-parades.
assignability ::: n. --> The quality of being assignable.
assignable ::: a. --> Capable of being assigned, allotted, specified, or designated; as, an assignable note or bill; an assignable reason; an assignable quantity.
assignation ::: n. --> The act of assigning or allotting; apportionment.
An appointment of time and place for meeting or interview; -- used chiefly of love interviews, and now commonly in a bad sense.
A making over by transfer of title; assignment.
assignat ::: n. --> One of the notes, bills, or bonds, issued as currency by the revolutionary government of France (1790-1796), and based on the security of the lands of the church and of nobles which had been appropriated by the state.
assigned ::: appointed, designated, deputed, allotted, announced as a task. assigner.
assigned ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Assign
assignee ::: v. --> A person to whom an assignment is made; a person appointed or deputed by another to do some act, perform some business, or enjoy some right, privilege, or property; as, an assignee of a bankrupt. See Assignment (c). An assignee may be by special appointment or deed, or be created by jaw; as an executor.
In England, the persons appointed, under a commission of bankruptcy, to manage the estate of a bankrupt for the benefit of his creditors.
assigner ::: n. --> One who assigns, appoints, allots, or apportions.
assigning ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Assign
assignment ::: n. --> An allotting or an appointment to a particular person or use; or for a particular time, as of a cause or causes in court.
A transfer of title or interest by writing, as of lease, bond, note, or bill of exchange; a transfer of the whole of some particular estate or interest in lands.
The writing by which an interest is transferred.
The transfer of the property of a bankrupt to certain persons called assignees, in whom it is vested for the benefit of
assignor ::: n. --> An assigner; a person who assigns or transfers an interest; as, the assignor of a debt or other chose in action.
assign ::: v. t. --> To appoint; to allot; to apportion; to make over.
To fix, specify, select, or designate; to point out authoritatively or exactly; as, to assign a limit; to assign counsel for a prisoner; to assign a day for trial.
To transfer, or make over to another, esp. to transfer to, and vest in, certain persons, called assignees, for the benefit of creditors.
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
as it would be if; as though. (Introducing a supposition, or way of conceiving some entity or situation, that is not to be taken literally, but yields some insight or convenience in metaphysics.)
"A SPIRITUAL evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter in a constant developing self-formation till the form can reveal the indwelling Spirit, is then the keynote, the central significant motive of the terrestrial existence. This significance is concealed at the outset by the involution of the Spirit, the Divine Reality, in a dense material Inconscience; a veil of Inconscience, a veil of insensibility of Matter hides the universal Consciousness-Force which works within it, so that the Energy, which is the first form the Force of creation assumes in the physical universe, appears to be itself inconscient and yet does the works of a vast occult Intelligence.” The Life Divine
“A SPIRITUAL evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter in a constant developing self-formation till the form can reveal the indwelling Spirit, is then the keynote, the central significant motive of the terrestrial existence. This significance is concealed at the outset by the involution of the Spirit, the Divine Reality, in a dense material Inconscience; a veil of Inconscience, a veil of insensibility of Matter hides the universal Consciousness-Force which works within it, so that the Energy, which is the first form the Force of creation assumes in the physical universe, appears to be itself inconscient and yet does the works of a vast occult Intelligence.” The Life Divine
assembly ::: n. --> A company of persons collected together in one place, and usually for some common purpose, esp. for deliberation and legislation, for worship, or for social entertainment.
A collection of inanimate objects.
A beat of the drum or sound of the bugle as a signal to troops to assemble.
assident ::: a. --> Usually attending a disease, but not always; as, assident signs, or symptoms.
assurance ::: n. --> The act of assuring; a declaration tending to inspire full confidence; that which is designed to give confidence.
The state of being assured; firm persuasion; full confidence or trust; freedom from doubt; certainty.
Firmness of mind; undoubting, steadiness; intrepidity; courage; confidence; self-reliance.
Excess of boldness; impudence; audacity; as, his assurance is intolerable.
assure ::: v. t. --> To make sure or certain; to render confident by a promise, declaration, or other evidence.
To declare to, solemnly; to assert to (any one) with the design of inspiring belief or confidence.
To confirm; to make certain or secure.
To affiance; to betroth.
To insure; to covenant to indemnify for loss, or to pay a specified sum at death. See Insure.
"As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power.” The Life Divine*
"As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power.” The Life Divine
“As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power.” The Life Divine
“As there are Powers of Knowledge or Forces of the Light, so there are Powers of Ignorance and tenebrous Forces of the Darkness whose work is to prolong the reign of Ignorance and Inconscience. As there are Forces of Truth, so there are Forces that live by the Falsehood and support it and work for its victory; as there are powers whose life is intimately bound up with the existence, the idea and the impulse of Good, so there are Forces whose life is bound up with the existence and the idea and the impulse of Evil. It is this truth of the cosmic Invisible that was symbolised in the ancient belief of a struggle between the powers of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil for the possession of the world and the government of the life of man;—this was the significance of the contest between the Vedic Gods and their opponents, sons of Darkness and Division, figured in a later tradition as Titan and Giant and Demon, Asura, Rakshasa, Pisacha; the same tradition is found in the Zoroastrian Double Principle and the later Semitic opposition of God and his Angels on the one side and Satan and his hosts on the other,—invisible Personalities and Powers that draw man to the divine Light and Truth and Good or lure him into subjection to the undivine principle of Darkness and Falsehood and Evil.” The Life Divine
“As there is an inner sight other than the physical, so there is an inner hearing other than that of the external ear, and it can listen to voices and sounds and words of other worlds, other times and places, or those which come from supraphysical beings.” Letters on Yoga
Aswapati ::: Purani: “Aswapathy, the father of Savitri, has been significantly called by the poet ‘the Lord of Life’. (book II, Canto XV). The name suggests an affinity to Vedic symbolism. In the Veda, Aswa, the horse, is the symbol of life-energy or vital power. Aswa + aty, Lord, would mean the ‘Lord of Life’. In the poem King Aswapathy is the symbol of the aspiring soul of man as manifested in life on earth.”Savitri”—An Approach and a Study
auspice-hour ::: an auspice is any divine or prophetic token; a favourable sign or propitious circumstance, esp. an indication of a happy future. Sri Aurobindo combines the word ‘hour" with auspice to emphasize a special moment.
background ::: n.** 1. The general scene or surface against which designs, patterns, or figures are represented or viewed. 2. Fig. The complex of physical, cultural, and psychological factors that serves as the environment of an event or experience; the set of conditions against which an occurrence is perceived. backgrounds. adj. 3.** Of, pertaining to, or serving as a background.
basilicas ::: public buildings in ancient Rome having a central nave with an apse at one or both ends and two side aisles formed by rows of columns, which was used as an assembly hall – also Christian churches with a similar design.
beacon ::: 1. A source of guidance or inspiration. 2. A signalling or guiding device or warning signal as a light or signal fire.
beauty ::: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, colour, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else, (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest). Beauty, beauty"s, Beauty"s, beauty-drenched, earth-beauty"s.
beckoning ::: signalling, summoning.
beings ::: things or entities that exist, esp. things or entities that cannot be assigned to any category.
betray ::: 1. To be false or disloyal to. 2. To lead astray; deceive. 3. To divulge, disclose in a breach of confidence, a secret. 4. To show signs of; reveal; indicate. betrays, betrayed, betraying, moon-betrayed.
blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude.” The Life Divine
blind ::: adj. 1. Unable to see; lacking the sense of sight; sightless. Also fig. 2. Unwilling or unable to perceive or understand. 3. Lacking all consciousness or awareness. 4. Not having or based on reason or intelligence; absolute and unquestioning. 5. Not characterized or determined by reason or control. 6. Purposeless; fortuitous, random. 7. Undiscriminating; heedless; reckless. 8. Enveloped in darkness; dark, dim, obscure. 9. Dense enough to form a screen. 10. Covered or concealed from sight; hidden from immediate view. 11. Having no openings or passages for light; (a window or door) walled up. blindest, half-blind. v. 12. To deprive of sight permanently or temporarily. 13. To make sightless momentarily; dazzle. blinded.* n. 14. A blind person, esp. as pl., those who are blind. 15. Fig.* Any thing or action intended to conceal one"s real intention; a pretence, a pretext; subterfuge.
blinded ::: 1. Sightless; deprived of sight or withheld the light from. 2. Fig. Unable or unwilling to perceive or understand, lacking in perception or foresight; deprived or destitute of spiritual light or guidance. thought-blinded.
Blue ::: Fundamental colour of the Ananda ; Krishna’s special and significant colour, the colour of his aura when he manifests ;
"Body is the outward sign and lowest basis of the apparent division which Nature plunging into ignorance and self-nescience makes the starting-point for the recovery of unity by the individual soul, unity even in the midst of the most exaggerated forms of her multiple consciousness.” The Life Divine
“Body is the outward sign and lowest basis of the apparent division which Nature plunging into ignorance and self-nescience makes the starting-point for the recovery of unity by the individual soul, unity even in the midst of the most exaggerated forms of her multiple consciousness.” The Life Divine
brocade ::: a thick, rich fabric woven with a raised design, often using gold or silver threads. brocades.
broideries ::: embroidered needle-work designs in gold, silver, and other threads on cloth.
sigh ::: n. 1. An audible exhale following a long, deep breath, in weariness or relief. 2. Fig. A sound made by wind moving through the leaves of a tree. v. sighing. 3. Expressing with or as if with an audible exhalation.
signal ::: n. 1. An indicator, such as a gesture or colored light, that serves as a means of communication. 2. Anything that acts as an incitement to action. Also fig. **signals. adj. 3. Used to give or act as a signal. signalling. 4. Serving as a warning, direction, command, or the like. signal fires, signal flares, signal light.**
signature ::: 1. The name of a person or a mark or sign representing his name, marked by himself or by an authorized deputy. 2. The act of signing one"s name. 3. Any unique, distinguishing aspect, feature, or mark of any kind. signatures.
signed ::: provided with a signature or signatures. Also fig.
significance ::: 1. A meaning that is expressed. 2. Meaning; suggestiveness. 3. Importance, consequence. significances.
significant ::: 1. Having or expressing a meaning; meaningful. 2. Having or expressing a covert meaning; suggestive; indicative.
sign ::: n. 1. An act or gesture used to convey an idea, a desire, information, or a command. 2. Any object, action, event, pattern, etc., that conveys a meaning. 3. A mark used to mean something; a symbol that sets something apart from others of its kind. 4. Something that indicates or acts as a token of a fact, condition, etc., that is not immediately or outwardly observable. 5. A signal. 6. A conventional figure or device that stands for a word, phrase, or operation; a symbol, as in mathematics or in musical notation. 7. A displayed structure such as a banner bearing lettering or symbols. 8. An act or significant event that is experienced as indication of divine intervention. 9. A portent of things to come. Sign, sign"s, signs, signless, sign-burdened, flame-signs. v. 10. To affix one"s signature to. 11. To indicate by or as if by a sign; betoken. signs, signed, signing.
signposts ::: posts bearing signs that show the way.
sign ::: The brief perpetual sign recurred above.
burdened ::: 1. Weighed down; oppressed. 2. Bearing a heavy load of work, difficulties or responsibilities. 3. Laden with; charged with. pleasure-burdened, sign-burdened.
buried ::: v. 1. Deposited or hid under ground; covered up with earth or other material. Also fig. **2. Plunged or sunk deep in, so as to be covered from view; put out of sight. adj. 3. Put in the ground or in a tomb; interred. 4. Consigned to a position of obscurity, inaccessibility, or inaction. 5.* Fig.* Consigned to oblivion, put out of the way, abandoned and forgotten.
By its numerous asanas or fixed postures it first cures the body of that restlessness which is a sign of its inability to contain without working them off in action and movement the vital forces poured into it from the universal Life-Ocean, gives to ft an
call our mind ; in fact they come to us from a vast mental space or ether either as mind-waves of mind-force that carry a sigoi^cance which takes shape in our personal mind or as thought-formations ready made which we adopt and call ours.
can we hope to be directly aware of the Divine in us and directly in touch with the Divine Light and the Divine Force. Otherwise we can feel the Divine only through external signs and external results and that is a diflicult and uncertain way and very occa- sional and inconstant, and it leads only to belief and not to knowledge, not to the direct consciousness and awareness of the constant presence.
care ::: n. **1. A burdened state of mind, as that arising from heavy responsibilities; worry. 2. An object of or cause for concern. 3. Watchful oversight; charge or supervision. 4. An object or source of worry, attention, or solicitude. care, cares. v. 5. To be concerned or interested, have concern for. cares, cared.**
care-worn ::: showing signs of care or worry; fatigued by trouble or anxiety; haggard.
carving ::: v. **1. Sculpting into a desired shape. Also fig.* *n. 2. A figure or design produced by carving stone or wood. carving"s.**
Chakra (circular movement) ::: Always sign of energy in action, generally creative action.
charge ::: 1. An assigned duty or task; a responsibility given to one. 2. Care; custody. 3. An order, an impetuous onset or attack, command, or injunction. 4. The quantity of anything that a receptacle is intended to hold. v. 5. *Fig. To load to capacity; fill. *charged.
chemic ::: chemical. ::: cheque ::: a written order, usually on a standard printed form, directing a bank to pay money to a person or designated bearer. cheques.
Child ::: .Usually signifies the psychic being — new-born in the sense that it at last comes to the surface.
\cil of sleep — very largely indeed these two elements get mixed up together. For in fact a large part of our consciousness in sleep docs not sink into this subconscious slate ; it passes beyond the veil into other planes of being which arc connected with our own inner planes, planes of supraphj'sical existence, w'orlds of a larger life, mind or psychic which arc there behind and whose influences come to us without our knowledge. Occasionally we get a dream from these planes, something more than a dream, — a dream experience which is a record direct or symbolic of what happens to us or around us there. As the inner consciousness grows by sadhana, these dream experiences increase In number, dearness, coherence, accuracy and after some growth of experi- ence and consciousness, we can, if we observe, come to under- stand them and their significance to our loner life. Even we can by training become so coosetous as to follow our own passage, usually veiled to our arvarencss and memory, through many realms and the process of the return to the waking state. At a certain pitch of this inner wakefulness this kind of sleep, a sleep experience, can replace the ordinary subconscious slumber.
cittakasa. These may be transcriptions there or impresses of physical things, persons, scenes, happenings, whatever is, was or will be or may be in the ph^ical universe. These images are very variously seen and under all kinds of conditions ; in samadhi or in the waking stale, and in the latter with the bodily eyes closed or open, projected on or into a physical object or medium or seen as if materialised in the physical atmosphere or only in a psychical ether revealing itself through this grosser physical atmosphere ; seen through the physical eyes themselves as a secondary instrument and as if under the conditions of the physical vision or by the psychical vision alone and indepen- dently of the relations of our ordinary sight to space. The real agent is always the psychical sight and the power indicates that the consciousness is more or less awake, intermittently or nor- mally and more or less perfectly, in the psj’chical body. It is possible to see In this way the transcriptions or impressions of things at any distance beyond the range of the physical vision or the images of the past or the future.
classed ::: arranged, grouped, or rated according to qualities or characteristics; assigned to a class; classified.
COLOURS. ::: When the colours begin to lake definite shapes in the visions, it is a sign of some dynamic work of formation in the consciousness. The waves of colour mean a dynamic rush of forces.
consigned ::: handed over or given into the care or charge of another; entrusted.
conception ::: 1. Origin or beginning. 2. The act or power of forming notions, ideas, or concepts. 3. The act of conceiving; the state of being conceived; fertilization; inception of pregnancy. 4. Something conceived in the mind; a concept, plan, design, idea, or thought. conception"s.
::: "Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range which no more exhausts all the possible ranges of consciousness than human sight exhausts all the gradations of colour or human hearing all the gradations of sound — for there is much above or below that is to man invisible and inaudible. So there are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious, — supramental or overmental and submental ranges.” *Letters on Yoga
“Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range which no more exhausts all the possible ranges of consciousness than human sight exhausts all the gradations of colour or human hearing all the gradations of sound—for there is much above or below that is to man invisible and inaudible. So there are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious,—supramental or overmental and submental ranges.” Letters on Yoga
::: ‘Consecration" generally has a more mystical sense but this is not absolute. A total consecration signifies a total giving of one"s self; hence it is the equivalent of the word ``surrender"", not of the word (soumission} which always gives the impression that one accepts'' passively. You feel a flame in the wordconsecration"", a flame even greater than in the word offering''. To consecrate oneself isto give oneself to an action""; hence, in the yogic sense, it is to give oneself to some divine work with the idea of accomplishing the divine work.” Questions and Answers, MCW Vol. 4*.
‘Consecration’ generally has a more mystical sense but this is not absolute. A total consecration signifies a total giving of one’s self; hence it is the equivalent of the word surrender’’, not of the word (soumission} which always gives the impression that oneaccepts’’ passively. You feel a flame in the word consecration’’, a flame even greater than in the wordoffering’’. To consecrate oneself is ``to give oneself to an action’’; hence, in the yogic sense, it is to give oneself to some divine work with the idea of accomplishing the divine work.” Questions and Answers, MCW Vol. 4.
Consecration in work ::: Tbe signs of the consecration of iJw vital in action are these among others :::
consequence ::: 1. Something that logically or naturally follows from an action or condition. 2. Significance; importance.
contrivings ::: clever and ingenious designs, plans, schemes.
cosmic mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes, — towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” *The Life Divine
"If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, — not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
"There is one cosmic Mind, one cosmic Life, one cosmic Body. All the attempt of man to arrive at universal sympathy, universal love and the understanding and knowledge of the inner soul of other existences is an attempt to beat thin, breach and eventually break down by the power of the enlarging mind and heart the walls of the ego and arrive nearer to a cosmic oneness.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"[The results of the opening to the cosmic Mind:] One is aware of the cosmic Mind and the mental forces that move there and how they work on one"s mind and that of others and one is able to deal with one"s own mind with a greater knowledge and effective power. There are many other results, but this is the fundamental one.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness has many levels — the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga*
covering ::: n. **1. Anything that veils, screens, disguises or shuts from sight. 2. Something that covers or is laid, placed, or spread over or upon something else. v. 3. Protecting or shielding from harm, loss, or danger. coverings.**
create ::: 1. To cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes. 2. To evolve from one"s own thought or imagination, as a work of art or an invention. 3. To cause to happen; to bring about; arrange, as by intention or design. creates, created, creating, all-creating, self-creating, world-creating, new-create.
Creen is the vital energy of work and action. Green light is a vital force, a dynamic force of the emotional vital which has the force to purify, harmonise or cure. Active energy of the divine Truth for work. It can signify various things according to the context ::: in the emotional vital. It is the colour of a cer- tain form of emotional generosity; in the vital proper, an activity with vital abundance or vital generosity behind it ; in the vital physical, it signifies a force of health.
CrOH7i ::: Sign of fulfilment.
cross ::: 1. A structure consisting essentially of an upright and a transverse piece, upon which persons were formerly put to a cruel and ignominious death by being nailed or otherwise fastened to it by their extremities. 2. A representation or delineation of a cross on any surface, varying in elaborateness from two lines crossing each other to an ornamental design painted, embroidered, carved, etc.; used as a sacred mark, symbol, badge, or the like. 3. A trouble, vexation, annoyance; misfortune, adversity; sometimes anything that thwarts or crosses. v. 4. To go or extend across; pass from one side of to the other: pass over. 5. To extend or pass through or over; intersect. 6. To encounter in passing. crosses, crossed, crossing.
CROSS. ::: Sign of the Divine Descent barred and marred by the transversal line of a cosmic deformation which turns life into a state of sufFering and misfortune.
Cross ::: Sign of the triple being, transcendent, universal and individual.
cross ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the cross is the sign of the Divine Descent barred and marred by the transversal line of a cosmic deformation which turns it into a stake of suffering and misfortune. Only by the ascent to the original Truth can the deformation be healed and all the works of love, as too all the works of knowledge and of life, be restored to a divine significance and become part of an integral spiritual existence.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
cross ::: “… the cross is the sign of the Divine Descent barred and marred by the transversal line of a cosmic deformation which turns it into a stake of suffering and misfortune. Only by the ascent to the original Truth can the deformation be healed and all the works of love, as too all the works of knowledge and of life, be restored to a divine significance and become part of an integral spiritual existence.” The Synthesis of Yoga
crown ::: n. **1. An ornament worn on the head by kings and those having sovereign power, often made of precious metal and ornamented with gems. 2. A wreath or garland for the head, awarded as a sign of victory, success, honour, etc. 3. The distinction that comes from a great achievement; reward, honour. 4. The top or summit of something, esp. of a rounded object. etc. 5. The highest or more nearly perfect state of anything. 6. An exalting or chief attribute. 7. The acme or supreme source of honour, excellence, beauty, etc. v. 8. To put a crown on the head of, symbolically vesting with royal title, powers, etc. 9. To place something on or over the head or top of. crowns, crowned.**
DARK PATH. ::: The dark path is there and there are many who make a Gospel of spiritual suffering; many hold it to be the unavoidable price of victory. It may be so under certain circumstances, as it has been in so many lives at the beginning. or one may choose to make it so. But then the price has to be paid with resignation, fortitude or a tenacious resilience. Borne that way, the attacks of the dark forces or the ordeals they impose have a meaning. After each victory gained over them, there is then a sensible advance; often they seem to show us the difficulties in ourselves which we have to overcome. But all the same it is a too dark and difficult way which nobody need follow on whom the necessity does not lie.
DARSHAN. ::: ScU*revclation of the Deity to the devotee. It is an unveiling of his presence temporary or permanent, and may come as a vision or may come as a close feeling of his presence which is more intimate than sight and a frequent or constant communication with him ; that happens by the deepen- ing of the being into its inner self and growth of consciousness or by growth of the intensity of bhakti. When the crust of external consciousness is sufficiently broken by the pressure of increasing and engrossing bhakti, the contact comes.
design ::: n. 1. Purpose, aim, intention, especially with reference to a Divine Creator. 2. Plan or scheme. 3. A combination of details or features; pattern or motif. design"s, designs. *v. 4. To work out the structure or form of (something). 5. To plan and make (something) artistically or skilfully. *designed, designing.
designs or pictures transferred from engraved plates, wood blocks, lithographic stones or other media. flower-prints.
delivery ::: the carrying and turning over of letters, goods, etc. to a designated recipient.
demand and the full dedication of all you possess and receive and all your power of acquisition to the Divine Shakti and her work are the signs of this freedom. Any perturbation of mind with regard to money and its use, any claim, any grudging is a sure index of some imperfection or bondage.
demon Sign
deputed ::: assigned or appointed as a representative or agent.
desolate ::: 1. Uninhabited, laid waste, deserted, without any sign of life, barren. 2. Devoid of inhabitants; deserted. 3. Bereft of friends or hope; sad and forlorn. 4. Wretched or forlorn. 5. Dreary, dismal, gloomy. desolately.
device ::: 1. Something devised or framed by art or inventive power; an invention, contrivance for some particular purpose. 2. A plan or scheme, especially a malign one. 3. Something elaborately or fancifully designed. devices.
devised ::: formed, planned, or arranged in the mind; designed or contrived.
dimmed ::: v.**1. Made or became dim; lost brightness. Also fig. adj. 2. Not brilliant; dull in lustre. 3.** Dulled; indistinct; not seen clearly or in detail as of sight or vision.
disappear ::: 1. To pass out of sight; vanish. 2. To cease to exist. 3. Become less intense and fade away gradually. disappears, disappeared, disappearing.
discernment ::: **The act or process of exhibiting keen insight and keen perception; acuteness of judgement, discrimination and understanding. discernment"s.**
discern ::: to perceive by the sight or some other sense or by the intellect; see, recognize, distinguish, discriminate. discerned.
distinguishing ::: perceiving clearly by sight or other sense; discerning something as being different or distinct.
divine ::: adj. **1. Of or pertaining to God or the Supreme Being. 2. Of, relating to, emanating from, or being the expression of a deity. 3. Being in the service or worship of a deity; sacred. 4. Heavenly, celestial. 5. Supremely good or beautiful; magnificent. diviner, divinest, divinely, half-divine. v. 6. To perceive by intuition or insight. divines, divined, divining.**
DIVINE LOVE. ::: Love comes to us in many ways ; it may come as an awakening to the beauty of the Lover, by the sight of an ideal face and image of him, by his mysterious hints to us of himself behind the thousand faces of things in the world, by a slow or sudden need of the heart, by a vague thirst in the soul, by the sense of someone near us drawing us or pursuing us with love or of someone blissful and beautiful whom we must discover.
drain ::: v. 1. To deplete (a person or a thing) gradually, especially to the point of complete exhaustion. n. 2. A gradual depletion of energy or resources. 3. Something (a ditch, trench, waterpipe etc.) designed to carry away water. drained.
draw ::: 1. To cause to move in a given direction or to a given position, as by leading. 2. To bring towards oneself or itself, as by inherent force or influence; attract. 3. To cause to come by attracting; attract. 4. To cause to move in a particular direction by or as by a pulling force; pull; drag. 5. To get, take or obtain as from a source; to derive. 6. To bring, take, or pull out, as from a receptacle or source. 7. To draw a (or the) line (fig.) to determine or define the limit between two things or groups; in modern colloquial use (esp. with at), to lay down a definite limit of action beyond which one refuses to go. 8. To make, sketch (a picture or representation of someone or something) in lines or words; to design, trace out, delineate; depict; also, to mould, model. 9. To mark or lay out; trace. 10. To compose or write out in legal format. 11. To write out (a bill of exchange or promissory note). 12. To disembowel. 13. To move or pull so as to cover or uncover something. 14. To suck or take in (air, for example); inhale. 15. To extend, lengthen, prolong, protract. 16. To cause to move after or toward one by applying continuous force; drag. draws, drew, drawn, drawing, wide-drawn.
emblem ::: a sign, design, or figure that identifies or represents someone or something.
encounters ::: meetings, face to face, esp. undesignedly or casually.
engineers ::: those who design, plan or mastermind. Also fig.
enrich ::: to improve in quality, colour, flavour, etc.; to add greater value or significance to; to enhance. enriched.
epiphany ::: 1. An appearance or manifestation, esp. of a deity. 2. A sudden intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something. epiphanies.
". . . equality is the sign of unity with the Brahman, of becoming Brahman, of growing into an undisturbed spiritual poise of being in the Infinite. Its importance can hardly be exaggerated; for it is the sign of our having passed beyond the egoistic determinations of our nature, of our having conquered our enslaved response to the dualities, of our having transcended the shifting turmoil of the gunas, of our having entered into the calm and peace of liberation. Equality is a term of consciousness which brings into the whole of our being and nature the eternal tranquillity of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“… equality is the sign of unity with the Brahman, of becoming Brahman, of growing into an undisturbed spiritual poise of being in the Infinite. Its importance can hardly be exaggerated; for it is the sign of our having passed beyond the egoistic determinations of our nature, of our having conquered our enslaved response to the dualities, of our having transcended the shifting turmoil of the gunas, of our having entered into the calm and peace of liberation. Equality is a term of consciousness which brings into the whole of our being and nature the eternal tranquillity of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga
essence ::: the basic, real, and invariable nature of a thing or its significant individual feature or features; its true substance.
eternity ::: “The timeless Spirit is not necessarily a blank; it may hold all in itself, but in essence, without reference to time or form or relation or circumstance, perhaps in an eternal unity. Eternity is the common term between Time and the Timeless Spirit. What is in the Timeless unmanifested, implied, essential, appears in Time in movement, or at least in design and relation, in result and circumstance. These two then are the same Eternity or the same Eternal in a double status; they are a twofold status of being and consciousness, one an eternity of immobile status, the other an eternity of motion in status.” The Life Divine
evidence ::: something that makes plain or clear; an indication or sign. self-evidence.
Experiences of sounds, lights etc . ::: The sounds of bells and the seeing of lights and colours are signs of the opening of the inner consciousness which brings with it an opening also to sights and sounds of other planes than the physical. Some of these things like the sound of bells, crickets, etc. seem even to help the opening.
express ::: 1. To represent by a sign or a symbol; indicate; symbolize. 2. To set forth in words; state; verbalise. 3. To represent symbolically. 4. To manifest, reveal or communicate, as by a gesture; show. expresses, expressed, expressing.
eyeless ::: Tehmi: “Without the faculty of sight, not merely blind.”
eyeless ::: without eyes; blind, sightless.
FASTING. ::: Prolonged fasting may lead to an excitation of the nervous being which often brings vivid imaginations and hallucinations that are taken for true experiences ; such fasting h freqiKndy suggestsd by the vital Entities, because it puts the consciousness into an unbalanced state which favours their designs.
figured ::: decorated or patterned with a design.
fixed ::: 1. Securely placed or fastened or set. 2. Set or intent upon something; steadily directed (as of a person"s eyes, mind, etc.). 3. Definitely and permanently placed. 4. Not fluctuating or varying; definite. 5. Coming each year on the same calendar date. 6. Assigned to a definite place, time, etc.
flame ::: n. 1. Burning gas or vapor, as from wood or coal, that is undergoing combustion; a portion of ignited gas or vapor. 2. Fig. A brilliant light; fiery glow. 3. Fig. Intense ardour, zeal, passion, vitality. 4. Spiritual fire. 5. Inner fire. 6. Bright colouring; a streak or patch of color. Flame, flames, flame-ascensions, flame-born, flame-bright, flame-child, flame-discovery, flame-edge, flame-eyed, flame-foot, flame-hills, flame-pure, flame-signs, flame-stabs, flame-throw, flame-white, flame-wrapped, moon-flame. v. 8. To burn with a flame or flames; burst into flames; blaze. 7. To burn or glow as if with fire; become red or fiery 8. To burn or burst forth with strong emotion. flames, flamed. ::: flames out. Bursts out in or as if in flames.
flare ::: 1. A flaring or swaying flame or light as of torches in the wind. 2. A sudden blaze or burst of flame or light, e.g. lightening. 3. A bright blaze of fire or light used as a signal, a means of illumination or guidance, etc. 4. A sudden burst, as of zeal or anger. flares, flared, flaring, sky-flare.
flash ::: n.** 1. A brief, sudden burst of bright light. 2. A sudden thought, insight, inspiration, or vision. 3. A momentary brightness. 4. A very brief moment; instant. flashes, lightening-flash. v. 5. To move or proceed rapidly. 6. To communicate or reveal through flashes. 7. To appear or occur suddenly; come into perception. 8. To cause to flash, as powder by ignition or a sword by waving. flashes, flashed, flashing.**
folly ::: 1. Lack of good sense, understanding, or foresight. 2. An act or instance of foolishness. follies.
foresight ::: 1. Perception of the significance and nature of events before they have occurred. 2. Knowledge or insight gained by or as by looking forward; a view of the future; foreknowledge.
forego ::: to abstain from, go without, deny to oneself; to let go or pass, omit to take or use; to give up, part with, relinquish, renounce, resign. foregone.
FOREHEAD CENTRE. ::: In the forehead between the eyes but a little above is the afha cakra, the centre of the inner will, also of the inner vision, the dynamic mind etc. (This is not the ordinary outer mental will and sight, but something more power- ful, belonging to the inner being). When this centre opens and the Force there is active, then there is the opening of a greater will, power of decision, formation, effectiveness, beyond what the ordinary mind can achieve.
forge ::: n. 1. A special fireplace, hearth, or furnace in which metal is heated before shaping. v. 2. To form (metal, for example) by heating in a forge and beating or hammering into shape. 3. To form or make, esp. by concentrated effort or energy; shape, fabricate, fashion, mould. 4. To imitate (handwriting, a signature, etc.) fraudulently; to counterfeit; to commit forgery. forged.
For such thou wert ere from our sight removed,
foundation ::: “The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above.” Letters on Yoga
fretted ::: ornamented with elaborate patterns or angular designs.
gesture ::: 1. A motion of the limbs or body made to express or help express thought or to emphasize speech. 2. The act of moving the limbs or body as an expression of thought or emphasis. 3. An act or a remark made as a formality or as a sign of intention or attitude. gesture"s, gestures.
gif: is not a freak or an abnormaiity ; it is a universal faculty present in all human beings, but latent in most, in some rarely or intermittently active, occurring as if by accident in others, frequent or normally active in a few. But just as anyone can, uith some training, learn science and do things which would have seemed miracles to his forefathers, so almost anyone, if he wants, can with a little concentration and training develop the faculty of supraphjsical vision. When one starts Yoga, this power is often, though not in\'ariably — for some find it difficult — one of the first to come out from its latent condition and manifest itself, most often without any efTori, Intention or previous know- ledge on the part of the sadhaka. It comes more easily with the eyes shut than with the eyes open, but it does come in both ways. Tlic first sign of its opening in the externalised way is very often that seeing of “sparkles’* or small luminous dots, shapes, etc. ; a second is, often enough, most easily, round lumi- nous objects like a star ; seeing of colours 1$ a third initial experi- cnee — but (hey do not alw'ay's come in that order.
gift is not a freak or an abnonnality ; it is a universal faculty present in all human beings, but latent In most, in some rarely or intermittently active, occurring as if by accident in others, frequent or normally active in a few. But just as aayoas can, with some training, learn sdence and do things which would have seemed miracles to his forefathers, so almost anyone, if he wants, can with a little concentration and training develop the faculty of supraphysical rision. When one starts Yoga, this power is often, though not invariably — for some find it diScult — one of the first to come out from its latent condition and manifest itself, most often without any effort, intention or previous know- ledge on the part of the sadbaka. It comes more easily with the eyes shut than with the eyes open, but it does come in both ways. The first sign of its opening in the externalised way is very often that seeing of “ sparkles ” or small luminous dots, shapes, etc. ; a second is, often enough, most easily, round lumi- nous objects like a star ; seeing of colours is a third initial experi- ence'— but they do not always come in that order.
glimpse ::: n. 1. A very brief, passing look, sight, or view. 2. A momentary shining, a flash. lit. and fig. glimpses. v. 3. To catch sight of briefly or momentarily. 4. To obtain a brief, incomplete view of. Now only poet. glimpses, glimpsed, glimpsing.
ground ::: 1. Base; foundation. 2. Earth or soil. 3. Any material surface, lit. and fig. 4. Background. 5. An area of land designated for a particular purpose, lit. and fig. **6. The foundation for an argument, a belief, or an action; a basis. soul-ground.**
handle ::: n. 1. A part that is designed to be held or operated with the hand. v. 2. To deal with or have responsibility for; conduct.
happens ::: 1. Comes to pass. 2. Comes to pass by chance; occurs without apparent reason or design. happened.
hatred ::: “Hatred is the sign of a secret attraction that is eager to flee from itself and furious to deny its own existence. That too is God’s play in His creature.” Essays Divine and Human
hideous ::: repulsive, especially to the sight; revoltingly ugly.
hieroglyph ::: designating or pertaining to a pictographic script, particularly that of the ancient Egyptians, in which many of the symbols are conventionalized, recognizable pictures of the things represented. hieroglyphs.
If the Supramental Power is allowed by man’s discerning assent . and vigilant surrender to act according to Us own profound and subtle insight and flexible potency, it will bring about slowly or swiftly a divine transformation of our fallen and imperfect nature.
“If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
If we would understand the difference of this global Overmind Consciousness from our separative and only imperfectly synthetic mental consciousness, we may come near to it if we compare the strictly mental with what would be an overmental view of activities in our material universe. To the Overmind, for example, all religions would be true as developments of the one eternal religion, all philosophies would be valid each in its own field as a statement of its own universe-view from its own angle, all political theories with their practice would be the legitimate working out of an Idea Force with its right to application and practical development in the play of the energies of Nature. In our separative consciousness, imperfectly visited by glimpses of catholicity and universality, these things exist as opposites; each claims to be the truth and taxes the others with error and falsehood, each feels impelled to refute or destroy the others in order that itself alone may be the Truth and live: at best, each must claim to be superior, admit all others only as inferior truth-expressions. An overmental Intelligence would refuse to entertain this conception or this drift to exclusiveness for a moment; it would allow all to live as necessary to the whole or put each in its place in the whole or assign to each its field of realisation or of endeavour. This is because in us consciousness has come down completely into the divisions of the Ignorance; Truth is no longer either an Infinite or a cosmic whole with many possible formulations, but a rigid affirmation holding any other affirmation to be false because different from itself and entrenched in other limits. Our mental consciousness can indeed arrive in its cognition at a considerable approach towards a total comprehensiveness and catholicity, but to organise that in action and life seems to be beyond its power. Evolutionary Mind, manifest in individuals or collectivities, throws up a multiplicity of divergent viewpoints, divergent lines of action and lets them work themselves out side by side or in collision or in a certain intermixture; it can make selective harmonies, but it cannot arrive at the harmonic control of a true totality. Cosmic Mind must have even in the evolutionary Ignorance, like all totalities, such a harmony, if only of arranged accords and discords; there is too in it an underlying dynamism of oneness: but it carries the completeness of these things in its depths, perhaps in a supermind-overmind substratum, but does not impart it to individual Mind in the evolution, does not bring it or has not yet brought it from the depths to the surface. An Overmind world would be a world of harmony; the world of Ignorance in which we live is a world of disharmony and struggle. …
IGNORANCE. ::: Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life.
This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth.
Sevenfold Ignorance ::: If we look at this Ignorance in which ordinarily we live by the very circumstance of our separative existence in a material, ip a spatial and temporal universe, wc see that on its obscurer side it reduces itself, from whatever direction we look at or approach it, into the fact of a many- sided self-ignorance. We are Ignorant of the Absolute which is the source of all being and becoming ; we take partial facts of being, temporal relations of the becoming for the whole truth of existence — that is the first, the original ignorance. We are ignorant of the spaceless, timeless, immobile and immutable Self ; we take the constant mobility and mutation of the cosmic becom- ing in Time and Space for the whole truth of existence — that is the second, the cosmic ignorance. We are ignorant of our universal self, the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness, our infinite unity with all being and becoming ; we take our limited egoistic mentality, vitality, corporeality for our true self and regard everything other than that as not-sclf — that is the tViTid, \Vie egoistic ignorance. V/c aie ignorant of oat eteinai becoming in Time ; we take this Uttle life in a small span of Time, in a petty field of Space for our beginning, our middle and our end, — that is the fourth, the temporal ignorance. Even within this brief temporal becoming we are ignorant of our large and complex being, of that in us which is super-conscient, sub- conscient, intraconscient, circumcooscient to our surface becoming; we take that surface becoming with its small selection of overtly mentalised experiences for our whole existence — that is the fifth, the psychological ignorance. We are ignorant of the true constitution of our becoming ; we take the mind or life or body or any two or all three tor our true principle or the whole account of what we are, losing sight of that which constitutes them and determines by its occult presence and is meant to deter- mine sovereignly by its emergence from their operations, — that is the sixth, the constitutional ignorance. As a result of all these ignorances, we miss the true knowledge, government and enjoy- ment of our life in the world ; we are ignorant in our thought, will, sensations, actions, return wrong or imperfect responses at every point to the questionings of the world, wander in a maze of errors and desires, strivings and failures, pain and pleasure, sin and stumbling, follow a crooked road, grope blindly for a changing goal, — that is the seventh, the practical ignorance.
ignorance ::: “Ignorance is the absence of the divine eye of perception which gives us the sight of the supramental Truth; it is the non-perceiving principle in our consciousness as opposed to the truth-perceiving conscious vision and knowledge.” The Life Divine
ignorance ::: the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information. Ignorance, ignorance"s, Ignorance"s, ignorance", world-ignorance, World-Ignorance.
Sri Aurobindo: "Ignorance is the absence of the divine eye of perception which gives us the sight of the supramental Truth; it is the non-perceiving principle in our consciousness as opposed to the truth-perceiving conscious vision and knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"Ignorance is the consciousness of being in the successions of Time, divided in its knowledge by dwelling in the moment, divided in its conception of self-being by dwelling in the divisions of Space and the relations of circumstance, self-prisoned in the multiple working of the unity. It is called the Ignorance because it has put behind it the knowledge of unity and by that very fact is unable to know truly or completely either itself or the world, either the transcendent or the universal reality.” The Life Divine
"Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth, — truth of being, truth of divine consciousness, truth of force and action, truth of Ananda. As a result, instead of a world of integral truth and divine harmony created in the light of the divine Gnosis, we have a world founded on the part truths of an inferior cosmic Intelligence in which all is half-truth, half-error. . . . All in the consciousness of this creation is either limited or else perverted by separation from the integral Light; even the Truth it perceives is only a half-knowledge. Therefore it is called the Ignorance.” The Mother
". . . all ignorance is a penumbra which environs an orb of knowledge . . . .”The Life Divine
"This world is not really created by a blind force of Nature: even in the Inconscient the presence of the supreme Truth is at work; there is a seeing Power behind it which acts infallibly and the steps of the Ignorance itself are guided even when they seem to stumble; for what we call the Ignorance is a cloaked Knowledge, a Knowledge at work in a body not its own but moving towards its own supreme self-discovery.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"Knowledge is no doubt the knowledge of the One, the realisation of the Being; Ignorance is a self-oblivion of Being, the experience of separateness in the multiplicity and a dwelling or circling in the ill-understood maze of becomings: . . . .” The Life Divine*
illumined mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"The Illumined Mind does not work primarily by thought, but by vision; . . . .” The Life Divine
"As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power.” The Life Divine*
imperfection ::: “… our imperfection is the sign of a transitional state, a growth not yet completed, an effort that is finding its way; …” The Life Divine
insight ::: penetrating mental vision or discernment; faculty of seeing into the inner character or underlying truth of things.
insignia ::: a badge or emblem of membership, office, rank or dignity; an official or distinguishing sign.
insignificant ::: 1. Too small to be important. 2. Unimportant, trifling, or petty; of no consequence, influence or distinction. 3. Without meaning. insignificance.
index ::: 1. An alphabetized list of names, places, and subjects treated in a printed work, giving the page or pages on which each item is mentioned. 2. A sequential arrangement. 3. Something that reveals or indicates; a sign.
indicator ::: one who or that which points to or towards the presence, existence, or reality of (something); is a sign or symptom of, betokens.
"Influence is more important than example. Influence is not the outward authority of the Teacher over his disciple, but the power of his contact, of his presence, of the nearness of his soul to the soul of another, infusing into it, even though in silence, that which he himself is and possesses. This is the supreme sign of the Master. For the greatest Master is much less a Teacher than a Presence pouring the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“Influence is more important than example. Influence is not the outward authority of the Teacher over his disciple, but the power of his contact, of his presence, of the nearness of his soul to the soul of another, infusing into it, even though in silence, that which he himself is and possesses. This is the supreme sign of the Master. For the greatest Master is much less a Teacher than a Presence pouring the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.” The Synthesis of Yoga
initials ::: marks or signs with an initial letter or letters of a person"s name and surname esp. as a token of preliminary or informal approval.
INNER CONSCIOUSNESS (Divisions) ::: There are five main divisions. At the top above the head arc layers (or as we call them planes) of which we arc not conscious and which become conscious to us only by sadhana — those above the human mind — that is the higher consciousness. Below from the crown of the head to the throat are the layers (there are many of them) of the mind, the three principal being one at the top of the head communicating with the higher consciousness, another between the eye-brows where is the thought, sight and will, a third in the throat which is the externalising mind. A second division is from the shoulders to the navel ; these are the layers of the higher vital presided over by the heart centre where is the emotional being with the psychic behind it. From the navel downwards is the rest of the vital being containing several layers. From the bottom of the spine downward are the layers of the physical consciousness proper, the material, and below the feet is the sub- conscient which has also many levels.
INNER SIGHT. ::: When one tries to meditate, the first obstacle in the beginning is sleep. When you get over this obstacle, there comes a condition in which, with the eyes closed, you begin to see things, people, scenes of all kinds. It is a good sign and means that you are making progress in yoga. There is, besides the outer physical sight which sees external objects, an inner .sight in us which can see things yet unseen and unknown, things at a distance, things belonging to another place or time or to other worlds.
Inner vision is vivid like actual sight, always precise and contains a truth in it. In mental vision the images are invented by the mind and are partly true, partly a play of possibilities. Or a mental vision like the vital may be only a suggestion,- that is a formation of some possibility on the mental or vital plane which presents itself to the sādhaka in the hope of being accepted and helped to realise itself.
Inner vision h vivid like actual sight, always precise and con- tains a truth in it.
"Inner vision is vivid like actual sight, always precise and contains a truth in it.” Letters on Yoga
“Inner vision is vivid like actual sight, always precise and contains a truth in it.” Letters on Yoga
"Inner vision means the vision with the inner seeing as opposed to outer vision, the external sight with the surface mind in the surface eyes.” Letters on Yoga
“Inner vision means the vision with the inner seeing as opposed to outer vision, the external sight with the surface mind in the surface eyes.” Letters on Yoga
Inner vision means the vision with the inner seeing as opposed to outer vision, the external sight with the surface mind in the surface eyes.
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.
intelligence ::: “Intelligence does not depend on the amount one has read, it is a quality of the mind. Study only gives it material for its work as life also does. There are people who do not know how to read and write who are more intelligent than many highly educated people and understand life and things better. On the other hand, a good intelligence can improve itself by reading because it gets more material to work on and grows by exercise and by having a wider range to move in. But book-knowledge by itself is not the real thing, it has to be used as a help to the intelligence but it is often only a help to stupidity or ignorance—ignorance because knowledge of facts is a poor thing if one cannot see their true significance.” Letters on Yoga
intended ::: purposed; designed; meant; intentional. high-intended.
intention ::: design; purpose, aim.
intent ::: n. 1. Something that is intended; purpose; design. v. 2. To be firmly or steadfastly fixed or directed, as the eyes or mind. 3. To be determined or resolved; having the mind or will fixed on some goal.
interpret ::: 1. To give or provide the meaning of; explain; explicate; elucidate. 2. To conceive the significance of; construe. interpreted, interpreting, interpreter, interpreters, interpretation, interpretation"s, world-interpreting.
"In the inner sense of the Veda Surya, the Sun-God, represents the divine Illumination of the Kavi which exceeds mind and forms the pure self-luminous Truth of things. His principal power is self-revelatory knowledge, termed in the Veda ``Sight"". His realm is described as the Truth, the Law, the Vast. He is the Fosterer or Increaser, for he enlarges and opens man"s dark and limited being into a luminous and infinite consciousness. He is the sole Seer, Seer of Oneness and Knower of the Self, and leads him to the highest Sight.” The Upanishads*
“In the inner sense of the Veda Surya, the Sun-God, represents the divine Illumination of the Kavi which exceeds mind and forms the pure self-luminous Truth of things. His principal power is self-revelatory knowledge, termed in the Veda ``Sight’’. His realm is described as the Truth, the Law, the Vast. He is the Fosterer or Increaser, for he enlarges and opens man’s dark and limited being into a luminous and infinite consciousness. He is the sole Seer, Seer of Oneness and Knower of the Self, and leads him to the highest Sight.” The Upanishads
intuition ::: direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process. intuition"s, intuitions, half-intuition.
Sri Aurobindo: "Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude.” *The Life Divine
"Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings"". When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"I use the word ‘intuition" for want of a better. In truth, it is a makeshift and inadequate to the connotation demanded of it. The same has to be said of the word ‘consciousness" and many others which our poverty compels us to extend illegitimately in their significance.” *The Life Divine - Sri Aurobindo"s footnote.
"For intuition is an edge of light thrust out by the secret Supermind. . . .” The Life Divine
". . . intuition is born of a direct awareness while intellect is an indirect action of a knowledge which constructs itself with difficulty out of the unknown from signs and indications and gathered data.” The Life Divine
"Intuition is above illumined Mind which is simply higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration.” Letters on Yoga
"Intuition sees the truth of things by a direct inner contact, not like the ordinary mental intelligence by seeking and reaching out for indirect contacts through the senses etc. But the limitation of the Intuition as compared with the supermind is that it sees things by flashes, point by point, not as a whole. Also in coming into the mind it gets mixed with the mental movement and forms a kind of intuitive mind activity which is not the pure truth, but something in between the higher Truth and the mental seeking. It can lead the consciousness through a sort of transitional stage and that is practically its function.” Letters on Yoga
“… intuition is born of a direct awareness while intellect is an indirect action of a knowledge which constructs itself with difficulty out of the unknown from signs and indications and gathered data.” The Life Divine
investiture ::: 1. The act of presenting with a title or with the robes and insignia of an office or rank. Chiefly fig. **2. The formal bestowal, confirmation, or presentation of rank, office, etc. investitured.**
inview ::: A word coined by Sri Aurobindo. A sight afforded of something from a position stated or qualified, i.e. from within.
inview ::: a word coined by Sri Aurobindo. A sight afforded of something from a position stated or qualified, i.e. from within.
invisible ::: that cannot be seen; imperceptible by the sight, mind, etc.; hidden. invisibly.
is tio -picfoi cS an -oVdaiate Vneapawty \o arrive •, it is only a sign that there is something in oneself which has to be overcome, and if there is the will to reach the Divine, it can be overcome.
It is this which explains many of the phenomena of clair- voyance, clairaudience, etc. ; for these phenomena are only the exceptional admission of the waking mentality into a limited sensitiveness to what might be called the image memory of the subtle ether,' by which not only the signs of all things past and present, but even those of things future can be seized ; for things future are already accomplished to knowledge and vision on higher planes of mind and their images can be reflected upon mind in the present. But these things which are exceptional to the w’aking mentality, difficult and to be perceived only by the pos- session of a special power or else after assiduous training, are natural to the dream-state of trance consciousness in which the subliminal mind is free. And that mind can al^o take cognizance
“I use the word ‘intuition’ for want of a better. In truth, it is a makeshift and inadequate to the connotation demanded of it. The same has to be said of the word ‘consciousness’ and many others which our poverty compels us to extend illegitimately in their significance.” The Life Divine—Sri Aurobindo’s footnote.
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: “Anarchs is a strange word here because to me it symbolises rulers, forces that dominate, and yet anarchy is a state where there is no rule. So, the rulers of chaos and disorder. But there is always this core of anarchy which is a form of absolute inconscience, the original inconscience. At a very early level all form of order is a sign of consciousness, organisation, and this is the opposite, the first expression of the Inconscience, the descent into Night which is ruled by all these forces of darkness, the forces that refuse harmony.”
Jhumur: “You have the same word in French, capte—like a receiver that catches signals. I believe Sri Aurobindo often uses French words with the French connotation. Particularly I have noticed that sometimes he uses the word amour instead of love. When I asked myself why did he have to use a French word here, perhaps because it was a different kind of love, not the usual, something other. Time’s amour-song he says, and not a love song. There is something different about that song. It is not just a love song. It suggests something other when he uses a word from another language. It is not love that we ordinarily understand, he has added a quality of something special or rare or unusual by utilizing the same word but in another language. It gives it another colour.”
kakemono ::: A kakemono of significant forms,
Krishna’s colours ::: Violet is the colour of Krishna's face. It is also the radiance of Krishna’s protection. Blue is bis special and significant colour, the colour of his aura when he manifests ; that is why he is called Nila Kr^na.
language ::: any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, gestures, or the like used or conceived as a means of communicating thought, emotion, etc. God-language.
". . . liberation signifies an emergence into the true spiritual nature of being where all action is the automatic self-expression of that truth and there can be nothing else." *The Life Divine
“… liberation signifies an emergence into the true spiritual nature of being where all action is the automatic self-expression of that truth and there can be nothing else.” The Life Divine
Madhav: “A kakemono is a Japanese painting which is hung on the wall. It is a print in many colours, many designs. And this world picture is compared to a kakemono of significant forms. Each form is significant, each line is meaningful.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: Here it looks as if there is a reference to Christ, but it is not to him alone. Cross signifies suffering; whoever comes from on high and does something for the earth, the return is suffering inflicted upon him. So, not only Christ, but anybody like Christ who does something for humanity and the world , has to pay for it with pain and suffering. Sat-Sang Vol. VIII
Madhav: “Now here is a reference to the Vedic imagery where the Rishi speaks of the child being suckled by two mothers. He refers to two mothers, one dark and the other rosy—Night and Dawn or Day signifying movement of obscurity and movement of light. This divine soul, soul that is given to the Divine is nursed by both the mothers. He needs the succour of night and the nourishment of the day. To rest for a while he needs to be in the lap of Mother Night. To be active he is in the lap of Mother Dawn.” Sat-Sang Vol. IX
Madhav: “Rose, here, signifies Divine Love. It is deathless because it is immortal. They are realms of pure Love. Read Sri Aurobindo in his sonnet, Light: . . . in my heart where blooms deathless rose.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: Serpent signifies seething energy with a consciousness proper to its order. There is the serpent of the material zone, serpent of the vital and so on. And this consciousness is the Power of Evolution. This Power of Evolution combines with the force that has emerged from below. It lends to it its character of consciousness, step by step. The Force that was hitherto un-conscious, insensible is taken up and given a direction by Nature’s conscious, dynamic Power.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “The brief perpetual sign refers to the Dawn. Now the dawn is always brief but why is it perpetual? Perpetual because it is constant, it comes again and again. …always at some point on earth there is the break of dawn. That is why it is a perpetual feature of this earth; the dawn recurs again and again.” Sat-Sang Vol. VIII
Madhav: “The brilliant courtyard is the realm of the subtle-physical Matter that Aswapathy is leaving behind in his upward climb. He sees that with all its brilliant glow, this region is limited on all sides and it is only a courtyard—not yet the entrance proper—of the Mansion of Light, where the Light of God is ever manifest. Day in the spiritual symbolism signifies the reign of Light. Aswapathy seeks to enter the Order (symbolised by House) where the Light shines uninterrupted.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “the dragon bird, the vast enveloping bird of bliss; white to signify purity and fire to indicate the intensity of bliss.” Sat-Sang Vol. VIII
Madhav: “The earth is imaged to be travelling upon some wheel and it is a ‘jewelled wheel’, a perfectly designed, intricately constructed wheel. It is speeding and the earth is a prisoner of that speed.
Madhav: “There is an eternal light in every one of us. But it is as if guarded, protected from the profane, vulgar sight by a cave of darkness. Cave signifies a narrowing, dimming enclosure. This blanket of darkness guards that Light. Where there is such a concentration of thick darkness in yourself, you can be sure that deep inside there is the ‘Light Eternal’. This is the light of the Self of which the Rishi’s speak. It stands veiled by layers and layers of the darkness of Ignorance.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Madhav: “Zero does not stand for nothing. Zero does not signify emptiness, but has behind it the face of the immortal.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Man alive, your proposed emendations are an admirable exposition of the art of bringing a line down the steps till my poor "slow miraculous” above-mind line meant to give or begin the concrete portrayal of an act of some hidden Godhead finally becomes a mere metaphor thrown out from its more facile mint by a brilliantly imaginative poetic intelligence. First of all, you shift my "dimly” out of the way and transfer it to something to which it does not inwardly belongs make it an epithet of the gesture or an adverb qualifying its epithet instead of something that qualifies the atmosphere in which the act of the Godhead takes place. That is a preliminary havoc which destroys what is very important to the action, its atmosphere. I never intended the gesture to be dim, it is a luminous gesture, but forcing its way through the black quietude it comes dimly. Then again the bald phrase "a gesture came” without anything to psychicise it becomes simply something that "happened”, "came” being a poetic equivalent for "happened”, instead of the expression of the slow coming of the gesture. The words "slow” and "dimly” assure this sense of motion and this concreteness to the word"s sense here. Remove one or both whether entirely or elsewhere and you ruin the vision and change altogether its character. That is at least what happens wholly in your penultimate version and as for the last its "came” gets another meaning and one feels that somebody very slowly decided to let out the gesture from himself and it was quite a miracle that it came out at all! "Dimly miraculous” means what precisely or what "miraculously dim” — it was miraculous that it managed to be so dim or there was something vaguely miraculous about it after all? No doubt they try to mean something else — but these interpretations come in their way and trip them over. The only thing that can stand is the first version which is no doubt fine poetry, but the trouble is that it does not give the effect I wanted to give, the effect which is necessary for the dawn"s inner significance. Moreover, what becomes of the slow lingering rhythm of my line which is absolutely indispensable? Letters on Savitri
Man alive, your proposed emendations are an admirable exposition of the art of bringing a line down the steps till my poor”slow miraculous” above-mind line meant to give or begin the concrete portrayal of an act of some hidden Godhead finally becomes a mere metaphor thrown out from its more facile mint by a brilliantly imaginative poetic intelligence. First of all, you shift my”dimly” out of the way and transfer it to something to which it does not inwardly belongs make it an epithet of the gesture or an adverb qualifying its epithet instead of something that qualifies the atmosphere in which the act of the Godhead takes place. That is a preliminary havoc which destroys what is very important to the action, its atmosphere. I never intended the gesture to be dim, it is a luminous gesture, but forcing its way through the black quietude it comes dimly. Then again the bald phrase”a gesture came” without anything to psychicise it becomes simply something that”happened”,”came” being a poetic equivalent for”happened”, instead of the expression of the slow coming of the gesture. The words”slow” and”dimly” assure this sense of motion and this concreteness to the word’s sense here. Remove one or both whether entirely or elsewhere and you ruin the vision and change altogether its character. That is at least what happens wholly in your penultimate version and as for the last its”came” gets another meaning and one feels that somebody very slowly decided to let out the gesture from himself and it was quite a miracle that it came out at all!”Dimly miraculous” means what precisely or what”miraculously dim”—it was miraculous that it managed to be so dim or there was something vaguely miraculous about it after all? No doubt they try to mean something else—but these interpretations come in their way and trip them over. The only thing that can stand is the first version which is no doubt fine poetry, but the trouble is that it does not give the effect I wanted to give, the effect which is necessary for the dawn’s inner significance. Moreover, what becomes of the slow lingering rhythm of my line which is absolutely indispensable? Letters on Savitri
MANTRA. ::: Set words or sounds having a spiritual signifi- cance and power ; the expressive sound-symbol.
mantra ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The mantra as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry is a word of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspiration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater.” *The Future Poetry
mantra ::: Sri Aurobindo: “The mantra as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry is a word of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspiration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater.” The Future Poetry
mantra ::: : “The mantra as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry is a word of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspiration or from some very high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics are a language that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the words seems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born out of the Infinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely the mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing uttered, but its significance and figure in some fundamental and original consciousness which is behind all these and greater.” The Future Poetry
mark ::: n. **1. A sign, symbol, action, event or other indication that distinguishes something. 2. A visible impression on something. 3. A distinctive trait or characteristic. 4. A fixed or recognized standard. caste-mark, hoof-mark, question-mark. v. 5. To make a visible trace or impression on, as with a spot, line, or dent. Also fig. 6. To record; to indicate in writing, note. 7. Fig. To designate as if by placing a mark upon; to indicate. 8. To take notice. marks, marked, marking.**
meaning ::: 1. The end, purpose, or significance of something. 2. What is intended to be, or actually is, expressed or indicated; signification; import. meanings.
meaningful ::: full of meaning, significance, purpose, or value.
meaningless ::: without meaning, significance, purpose, or value; purposeless; insignificant.
mean ::: to have as its sense or signification; signify. means, meant.
mission ::: n. **1. The business with which a person or a body of persons is charged. 2. An assigned or self-imposed duty or task. v. 3. To send forth to someone. missioned.**
moment ::: n. **1. An indefinitely short period of time; an instant. 2. Now, the present instant. 3. A particular period of importance, influence, or significance in a series of events or developments 4. A specific instant or point in time. moment"s, moments, moments", momentless, moment-beats, moment-ridden. v. moments. 5.** Brings significance to the moment.
MONEY. ::: Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force m its manifestation on earth woris an the vitaf and physical planes and Is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and true action it belongs lo the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose.
mosaic ::: 1. A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface. 2. Something resembling such a picture or decoration in composition, esp. in being made up of diverse elements.
movement ::: 1. The act or an instance of moving; a change in place or position. A particular manner of moving. 2. Usually, movements, actions or activities, as of a person or a body of persons. ::: movement"s, movements, many-movemented.
Sri Aurobindo: "When we withdraw our gaze from its egoistic preoccupation with limited and fleeting interests and look upon the world with dispassionate and curious eyes that search only for the Truth, our first result is the perception of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that surpasses infinitely our ego or any ego or any collectivity of egos, in whose balance the grandiose products of aeons are but the dust of a moment and in whose incalculable sum numberless myriads count only as a petty swarm." *The Life Divine
". . . the purest, freest form of insight into existence as it is shows us nothing but movement. Two things alone exist, movement in Space, movement in Time, the former objective, the latter subjective.” The Life Divine
"The world is a cyclic movement (samsâra ) of the Divine Consciousness in Space and Time. Its law and, in a sense, its object is progression; it exists by movement and would be dissolved by cessation of movement. But the basis of this movement is not material; it is the energy of active consciousness which, by its motion and multiplication in different principles (different in appearance, the same in essence), creates oppositions of unity and multiplicity, divisions of Time and Space, relations and groupings of circumstance and Causality. All these things are real in consciousness, but only symbolic of the Being, somewhat as the imaginations of a creative Mind are true representations of itself, yet not quite real in comparison with itself, or real with a different kind of reality.” The Upanishads*
“My researches first convinced me that words, like plants, like animals, are in no sense artificial products, but growths,—living growths of sound with certain seed-sounds as their basis. Out of these seed-sounds develop a small number of primitive root-words with an immense progeny which have their successive generations and arrange themselves in tribes, clans, families, selective groups each having a common stock and a common psychological history. For the factor which presided over the development of language was the association, by the nervous mind of primitive man, of certain general significances or rather of certain general utilities and sense-values with articulate sounds. The process of this association was also in no sense artificial but natural, governed by simple and definite psychological laws.” The Secret of the Veda
mystic ::: n. **1. One who believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension and who has had spiritual experiences. mystic"s. adj. 2. Of occult character, power, or significance. 3. Of the nature of or pertaining to mysteries known only to the initiated; esoteric. 4.** Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding.
Name ::: “Name in its deeper sense is not the word by which we describe the object, but the total of power, quality, character of the reality which a form of things embodies and which we try to sum up by a designating sound, a knowable name, Nomen. Nomen in this sense, we might say, is Numen; the secret Names of the Gods are their power, quality, character of being caught up by the consciousness and made conceivable. The Infinite is nameless, but in that namelessness all possible names, Numens of the gods, the names and forms of all realities, are already envisaged and prefigured, because they are there latent and inherent in the All-Existence.” The Life Divine
name ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Name in its deeper sense is not the word by which we describe the object, but the total of power, quality, character of the reality which a form of things embodies and which we try to sum up by a designating sound, a knowable name, Nomen. Nomen in this sense, we might say, is Numen; the secret Names of the Gods are their power, quality, character of being caught up by the consciousness and made conceivable. The Infinite is nameless, but in that namelessness all possible names, Numens of the gods, the names and forms of all realities, are already envisaged and prefigured, because they are there latent and inherent in the All-Existence.” The Life Divine
nay ::: 1. A term signifying denial or refusal. 2. No. 3. And not only so but; not only that but also; indeed.
"Nothing can be more remarkable and suggestive than the extent to which modern Science confirms in the domain of Matter the conceptions and even the very formulae of language which were arrived at, by a very different method, in the Vedanta, — the original Vedanta, not of the schools of metaphysical philosophy, but of the Upanishads. And these, on the other hand, often reveal their full significance, their richer contents only when they are viewed in the new light shed by the discoveries of modern Science, — for instance, that Vedantic expression which describes things in the Cosmos as one seed arranged by the universal Energy in multitudinous forms.(1) Significant, especially, is the drive of Science towards a Monism which is consistent with multiplicity, towards the Vedic idea of the one essence with its many becomings.” The Life Divine
“Nothing can be more remarkable and suggestive than the extent to which modern Science confirms in the domain of Matter the conceptions and even the very formulae of language which were arrived at, by a very different method, in the Vedanta,—the original Vedanta, not of the schools of metaphysical philosophy, but of the Upanishads. And these, on the other hand, often reveal their full significance, their richer contents only when they are viewed in the new light shed by the discoveries of modern Science,—for instance, that Vedantic expression which describes things in the Cosmos as one seed arranged by the universal Energy in multitudinous forms.(1) Significant, especially, is the drive of Science towards a Monism which is consistent with multiplicity, towards the Vedic idea of the one essence with its many becomings.” The Life Divine
nothingness ::: 1. The condition, state or quality of being nothing; nonexistence. 2. Lack of consequence; insignificance. emptiness or worthlessness. Nothingness, nothingness"s.
not meaning anything; devoid of intelligence, sense, or significance, as words or actions; pointless; empty.
“ Now, that a conscious Infinite is there in physical Nature, we are assured by every sign, though it is a consciousness not made or limited like ours. All her constructions and motions are those of an illimitable intuitive wisdom too great and spontaneous and mysteriously self-effective to be described as an intelligence, of a Power and Will working for Time in eternity with an inevitable and forecasting movement in each of its steps, even in those steps that in their outward or superficial impetus seem to us inconscient. And as there is in her this greater consciousness and greater power, so too there is an illimitable spirit of harmony and beauty in her constructions that never fails her, though its works are not limited by our aesthetic canons. An infinite hedonism too is there, an illimitable spirit of delight, of which we become aware when we enter into impersonal unity with her; and even as that in her which is terrible is a part of her beauty, that in her which is dangerous, cruel, destructive is a part of her delight, her universal Ananda. Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
null ::: 1. Amounting to nothing; absent or nonexistent. 2. Of no consequence, effect, or value; insignificant.
obscured ::: adj. **1. Made unclear, vague, or hidden to the sight. v. 2. Made less visible or unclear; concealed. obscuring.**
obstructing ::: 1. Impeding, retarding, or interfering with; hindering. 2. Getting in the way of so as to hide from sight.
office ::: 1. A room where business is conducted. 2. A duty, service, or charge falling or assigned to one; a service or task to be performed. 3. A position of authority, duty, or trust given to a person, as in a government or corporation. offices.
::: "OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.” *Letters on Yoga
“OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.” Letters on Yoga
“OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in itsfour domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.” Letters on Yoga
opposite ::: adj. **1. Contrary or radically different in some respect common to both, as in nature, qualities, direction, result, or significance; opposed. 2. Situated, placed, or lying face to face with something else or each other, or in corresponding positions with relation to an intervening line, space, or thing. n. 2. One that is opposite or contrary to another. opposites, Opposites.**
"Our ego is only a face of the universal being and has no separate existence; our apparent separative individuality is only a surface movement and behind it our real individuality stretches out to unity with all things and upward to oneness with the transcendent Divine Infinity. Thus our ego, which seems to be a limitation of existence, is really a power of infinity; the boundless multiplicity of beings in the world is a result and signal evidence, not of limitation or finiteness, but of that illimitable Infinity.” The Life Divine
“Our ego is only a face of the universal being and has no separate existence; our apparent separative individuality is only a surface movement and behind it our real individuality stretches out to unity with all things and upward to oneness with the transcendent Divine Infinity. Thus our ego, which seems to be a limitation of existence, is really a power of infinity; the boundless multiplicity of beings in the world is a result and signal evidence, not of limitation or finiteness, but of that illimitable Infinity.” The Life Divine
“Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the Spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind,—but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin,—as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realising its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge.” The Life Divine
"Our thoughts are not really created within ourselves independently in the small narrow thinking machine we call our mind; in fact, they come to us from a vast mental space or ether either as mind-waves or waves of mind-force that carry a significance which takes shape in our personal mind or as thought-formations ready-made which we adopt and call ours. Our outer mind is blind to this process of Nature; but by the awakening of the inner mind we can become aware of it.” Letters on Yoga
“Our thoughts are not really created within ourselves independently in the small narrow thinking machine we call our mind; in fact, they come to us from a vast mental space or ether either as mind-waves or waves of mind-force that carry a significance which takes shape in our personal mind or as thought-formations ready-made which we adopt and call ours. Our outer mind is blind to this process of Nature; but by the awakening of the inner mind we can become aware of it.” Letters on Yoga
outview ::: A word coined by Sri Aurobindo. A sight afforded of something from a position stated or qualified, i.e. from without.
outview ::: a word coined by Sri Aurobindo. A sight afforded of something from a position stated or qualified, i.e. from without.
outweighs ::: is more significant than; exceeds in value or importance.
overshadow ::: 1. To cast a shadow or gloom; darken or obscure. 2. To make insignificant by comparison; dominate. 3. To make sad or hang heavily over; cast a pall on. overshadowed, overshadowing.
paltry ::: utterly worthless; petty, insignificant, trifling; contemptible, despicable; insultingly small.
parable ::: 1. A short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, spiritual principle, or moral lesson. 2. A statement or comment that conveys a meaning indirectly by the use of comparison, analogy, or the like, esp. concerning morality or ethics.
passing out of sight, especially quickly; disappearing.
pattern ::: 1. A model or original used as an archetype. 2. A plan or diagram used as a guide in making something. 3. An artistic or decorative design. 4. A combination of qualities, acts, tendencies, etc., forming a consistent or characteristic arrangement; order or form discernible in things, actions, ideas, situations, etc. patterns, patterned, many-patterned.
perceive ::: 1. To achieve understanding of; apprehend. 2. To become aware of directly through any of the senses, especially sight or hearing. perceives, perceived.
perception ::: immediate or intuitive recognition; insight, intuition, discernment. perception"s.
phenomenon ::: 1. An unusual, significant, or unaccountable fact or occurrence; a marvel. 2. Phil. An object as it is perceived by the senses.
::: ". . . philosophy is only a way of formulating to ourselves intellectually in their essential significance the psychological and physical facts of existence and their relation to any ultimate reality that may exist,. . . .” Essays on the Gita
“… philosophy is only a way of formulating to ourselves intellectually in their essential significance the psychological and physical facts of existence and their relation to any ultimate reality that may exist,….” Essays on the Gita
pictured ::: represented graphically by sketch or design or lines.
post ::: 1. An assigned position or station, as of a guard or sentry. 2 . Fig. A place to which someone is assigned for duty. posts. 3. Specific positions taken at a military base. posts.
Power of vision is sometimes inborn and habitual even with- out any effort of development, sometimes it wakes up of itself and becomes abundant or needs only a little practice to deve- . lop ; it is not necessarily a sign of spiritual attainment, but usually when by practice of yoga one begins to go inside or live within, the power of subtle vision awakes to a greater or less extent ; but this does not alwa^ happen easily, especially if one has been habituated to live mnch in the intelfect or in art out- ward vital consciousness.
prayer ::: “Prayer is only a particular form given to that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are very often crude and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but childish; but still it has a real power and significance. Its power and sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of man into touch with the divine Will as that of a conscious Being with whom we can enter into conscious and living relations.” The Synthesis of Yoga
prayer ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Prayer is only a particular form given to that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are very often crude and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but childish; but still it has a real power and significance. Its power and sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of man into touch with the divine Will as that of a conscious Being with whom we can enter into conscious and living relations.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
PRAYER. ::: The life of man is a life of wants and needs and therefore of desires, not only in his physical and vital, but in his mental and spiritual being. When he becomes conscious of a greater Power governing the world, he approaches it through prayer for the fulfilment of his needs, for help in his rough journey, for protection and aid in his struggle. Whatever crudi- ties there may be in the ordinary religious approach to God by prayer, and there are many, especially that attitude which ima- gines the Divine as if capable of being propitiated, bribed, flat- tered into acquiescence or indulgence by praise, entreaty and gifts and has often little te^td to the spirit in which he is approached, still this way of turning to the Divine is an essen- tial movement of our religious being and reposes on a universal truth.
The efficacy of prayer is often doubted and prayer itself supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. It is true that the universal will executes always its aim and cannot be deflected by egoistic propitiation and entreaty, it is true of the Transcendent who expresses himself in the universal order that, being omniscient, his larger knowledge must foresee the thing to be done and it does not need direction or stimulation by human thought and that the individual's desires are not and cannot be in any world-order the true determining factor. But neither is that order or the execution of the universal will altogether effected by mechanical Law, but by powers and forces of which for human life at least, human will, aspiration and faith are not among the least important. Prayer is only a particular form given to that will, aspiration and faith. Its forms are very often crude and not only childlike, which is in itself no defect, but childish; but still it has a real power and significance. Its power and sense is to put the will, aspiration and faith of man into touch with the divine Will as that of a conscious Being with whom we can enter into conscious and living relations. For our will and aspiration can act either by our own strength and endeavour, which can no doubt be made a thing great and effective whether for lower or higher purposes, -and there are plenty of disciplines which put it forward as the one force to be used, -- or it can act in dependence upon and with subordination to the divine or the universal Will. And this latter way, again, may either look upon that Will as responsive indeed to our aspiration, but almost mechanically, by a sort of law of energy, or at any rate quite impersonally, or else it may look upon it as responding consciously to the divine aspiration and faith of the human soul and consciously bringing to it the help, the guidance, the protection and fruition demanded, yogaksemam vahamyaham. ~ TSOY, SYN
Prayer helps to prepare this relation for us at first on the lower plane even while it is (here consistent with much that is mere egoism and self-delusion; but afterwards we can draw towards the spiritual truth which is behind it. It is not then the givinc of the thing asked for that matters, but the relation itself, the contact of man’s life with God, the conscious interchange.
In spiritual matters and in the seeking of spiritual gains, this conscious relation is a great power; it is a much greater power than our own entirely self-reliant struggle and effort and it brings a fuller spiritual growth and experience. Necessarily, in the end prayer either ceases in the greater thing for which it prepared us, -- in fact the form we call prayer is not itself essential so long as the faith, the will, the aspiration are there, -- or remains only for the joy of the relation. Also its objects, the artha or interest it seeks to realise, become higher and higher until we reach the highest motiveless devotion, which is that of divine love pure and simple without any other demand or longing.
Prayer for others ::: The fact of praying and the attitude it brings, especially unselfish prayer for others, itself opens you to the higher Power, even if there is no corresponding result in the person prayed for. 'Nothing can be positively said about that, for the result must necessarily depend on the persons, whe- ther they arc open or receptive or something in them can res- pond to any Force the prayer brings down.
Prayer must well up from the heart on a crest of emotion or aspiration.
Prayer {Ideal)'. Not prayer insisting on immediate fulfilment, but prayer that is itself a communion of the mind and heart with the Divine*and can have the joy and satisfaction of itself, trusting for fulfilment by the Divine in his own time.
Preface ::: This supplement to the Lexicon of an Infinite Mind, A Dictionary of Words and Terms in Savitri, is a selection of answers to our numerous questions posed to disciples and devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It is a rare treasure for generations to come for it provides a profound insight into the understanding of various terms and phrases in Savitri by those who knew Sri Aurobindo and had His darshan many times and a few others with a deep knowledge of specific terms in Savitri.
pregnant ::: 1. Fraught, filled or abounding. 2. Teeming or fertile; rich. 3. Of great importance; momentous. 4. Full of meaning or significance.
Prema Nandakumar: “The title itself, at any rate to Hindu ears, is charged with untold significance. A very gem of a title, Savitri has a self-sufficing beauty of its own; trisyllabic, trinitarian, a union of light, strength and silence, three circles radiating from one centre, Love. Again, ‘Savitri’, being the other name of the holiest and hoariest of the Vedic mantras—the Gayatri—which for some thousands of years Hindus have chanted morning, noon and evening, at once starts psychic vibrations of incommensurable potency.” A Study of Savitri
prescience ::: knowledge of actions or events before they occur; foresight; foreknowledge. prescient.
presence ::: 1. The state or fact of being present; current existence or occurrence. 2. A divine, spiritual, or supernatural spirit or influence felt or conceived as present. 3. The immediate proximity of someone or something.
Sri Aurobindo: "It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one"s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any further qualification or description. Thus, of the ‘ineffable Presence" it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance, — the essential perception of the essential Presence supporting everything else.” *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.” Essays Divine and Human
"But if we learn to live within, we infallibly awaken to this presence within us which is our more real self, a presence profound, calm, joyous and puissant of which the world is not the master — a presence which, if it is not the Lord Himself, is the radiation of the Lord within.” *The Life Divine
"The true soul secret in us, — subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, — this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” *The Life Divine
"If we need any personal and inner witness to this indivisible All-Consciousness behind the ignorance, — all Nature is its external proof, — we can get it with any completeness only in our deeper inner being or larger and higher spiritual state when we draw back behind the veil of our own surface ignorance and come into contact with the divine Idea and Will behind it. Then we see clearly enough that what we have done by ourselves in our ignorance was yet overseen and guided in its result by the invisible Omniscience; we discover a greater working behind our ignorant working and begin to glimpse its purpose in us: then only can we see and know what now we worship in faith, recognise wholly the pure and universal Presence, meet the Lord of all being and all Nature.” *The Life Divine
"The presence of the Spirit is there in every living being, on every level, in all things, and because it is there, the experience of Sachchidananda, of the pure spiritual existence and consciousness, of the delight of a divine presence, closeness, contact can be acquired through the mind or the heart or the life-sense or even through the physical consciousness; if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the farthest chambers of the outer being.” *The Life Divine
"There is a secret divine Will, eternal and infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, that expresses itself in the universality and in each particular of all these apparently temporal and finite inconscient or half-conscient things. This is the Power or Presence meant by the Gita when it speaks of the Lord within the heart of all existences who turns all creatures as if mounted on a machine by the illusion of Nature.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time He conceals Himself, and then in His own right time He will reveal His Presence.” *Letters on Yoga
"They [the psychic being and the Divine Presence in the heart] are quite different things. The psychic being is one"s own individual soul-being. It is not the Divine, though it has come from the Divine and develops towards the Divine.” *Letters on Yoga
"For it is quietness and inwardness that enable one to feel the Presence.” *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.” *Essays Divine and Human
The Mother: "For, in human beings, here is a presence, the most marvellous Presence on earth, and except in a few very rare cases which I need not mention here, this presence lies asleep in the heart — not in the physical heart but the psychic centre — of all beings. And when this Splendour is manifested with enough purity, it will awaken in all beings the echo of his Presence.” Words of the Mother, MCW, Vol. 15.
presence ::: “It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one›s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any further qualification or description. Thus, of the ‘ineffable Presence’ it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance,—the essential perception of the essential Presence supporting everything else.” Letters on Yoga
Pressure, throbbing, electrical vibrations are all signs of the working of the Force.
::: "Pressure, throbbing, electrical vibrations are all signs of the working of the Force. The places indicate the field of action — the top of the head is the summit of the thinking mind where it communicates with the higher consciousness; the neck or throat is the seat of the physical, externalising or expressive mind; the ear is the place of communication with the inner mind-centre by which thoughts etc. enter into the personal being from the general Nature.” Letters on Yoga
“Pressure, throbbing, electrical vibrations are all signs of the working of the Force. The places indicate the field of action—the top of the head is the summit of the thinking mind where it communicates with the higher consciousness; the neck or throat is the seat of the physical, externalising or expressive mind; the ear is the place of communication with the inner mind-centre by which thoughts etc. enter into the personal being from the general Nature.”
prevision ::: a knowing in advance; foreknowledge; foresight.
private ::: secluded from the sight, presence, or intrusion of others.
profound ::: n. 1. That which is eminently deep, or the deepest part of something; a vast depth; an abyss. lit. and fig; chiefly poetical. adj. 2. Situated at or extending to great depth; too deep to have been sounded or plumbed. 3. Coming as if from the depths of one"s being. 4. Of deep meaning; of great and broadly inclusive significance. 5. Being or going far beneath what is superficial, external, or obvious. 6. Showing or requiring great knowledge or understanding. profounder.
::: "Progress is the very heart of the significance of human life, for it means our evolution into greater and richer being; . . . .” *Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“Progress is the very heart of the significance of human life, for it means our evolution into greater and richer being; …” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
PSYCHIC POWERS. ::: The range of the psychic consciousness and its experiences is almost illimitable and the variety and com- plexity of its phenomena almost infinite The first and most prominent is the activity of the psychic senses of which the sight is the most developed ordinarily and the first to manifest itself with any largeness when the veil of the absorption in the surface consciousness which prevents the inner vision is broken. But all the physical senses have their corresponding powers in the psychical being, there is a p^hical hearing, touch, smell, taste ::: indeed the physical senses are themselves in reality only a pro- jection of the inner sense into a limited and externalised opera- tion in and through and upon the phenomena of gross matter.
puny ::: of inferior size, strength, or significance; weak.
Purani: “Aswapathy, the father of Savitri, has been significantly called by the poet ‘the Lord of Life’. (book II, Canto XV). The name suggests an affinity to Vedic symbolism. In the Veda, Aswa, the horse, is the symbol of life-energy or vital power. Aswa + aty, Lord, would mean the ‘Lord of Life’. In the poem King Aswapathy is the symbol of the aspiring soul of man as manifested in life on earth.”Savitri”—An Approach and a Study
purposeful ::: 1. Having a purpose; intentional. 2. Full of meaning; significant.
question-mark ::: a punctuation used to signify a question. Also fig.
Rain ::: Symbol of the descent of Grace or of the higher cons- ciousness which is the cause of the riches, the spiritual plenty. i?oinhou> ; Sign of peace and deliverance.
resignation ::: an accepting, unresisting attitude, state, etc.; submission; acquiescence.
resigned ::: acquiescent; marked by resignation.
resigns ::: gives up; submits; relinquishes; surrenders.
"Religion in fact is not knowledge, but a faith and aspiration; it is justified indeed both by an imprecise intuitive knowledge of large spiritual truths and by the subjective experience of souls that have risen beyond the ordinary life, but in itself it only gives us the hope and faith by which we may be induced to aspire to the intimate possession of the hidden tracts and larger realities of the Spirit. That we turn always the few distinct truths and the symbols or the particular discipline of a religion into hard and fast dogmas, is a sign that as yet we are only infants in the spiritual knowledge and are yet far from the science of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“Religion in fact is not knowledge, but a faith and aspiration; it is justified indeed both by an imprecise intuitive knowledge of large spiritual truths and by the subjective experience of souls that have risen beyond the ordinary life, but in itself it only gives us the hope and faith by which we may be induced to aspire to the intimate possession of the hidden tracts and larger realities of the Spirit. That we turn always the few distinct truths and the symbols or the particular discipline of a religion into hard and fast dogmas, is a sign that as yet we are only infants in the spiritual knowledge and are yet far from the science of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga
resonance ::: reverberating richness, sound or significance. resonances.
"Revelation is direct sight, the direct hearing or inspired memory of Truth. . . it is the highest experience and always accessible to renewed experience.” Essays Divine and Human*
“Revelation is direct sight, the direct hearing or inspired memory of Truth. . . it is the highest experience and always accessible to renewed experience.” Essays Divine and Human
reverse ::: n. **1. The side of a coin or medal that does not carry the principal design. v. 2. To revoke or set aside (a judgment, decree, etc.); annul. 3. To change into something different or contrary; alter completely. 4. To turn and proceed in the opposite direction. reversed, reversing.**
rude ::: 1. Rough, harsh or ungentle. 2. Lacking the graces and refinement of civilized life; uncouth; primitive. 3. Roughly made or formed; imperfect in design or execution; of a crude construction. 4. Coarse, vulgar, rough; uncivilised; violent in action.
rule ::: n. 1. Action, procedure, arrangement, etc. 2. Governing power or its possession or use; authority. 3. A usual, customary, or generalized course of action or behaviour. 4. The customary or normal circumstance, occurrence, manner, practice, quality, etc. 5. A thin metal strip of various widths and designs, used to print borders or lines, as between columns. Chiefly fig. rules, rule-maker, self-rule. *v. 6. To control or direct; exercise dominating power, authority, or influence over; govern. *rules, ruled, ruling.
sacrament ::: 1. Something regarded as possessing a sacred or mysterious significance. 2. A rite believed to be a means of or visible form of grace. 3. A sign, token or symbol. 4. A pledge. sacraments.
sceptre ::: a ceremonial ornamental staff carried by a monarch on important occasions as a sign of power.
scheme ::: 1. A plan, design, or program of action to be followed. 2. A systematic plan of action to achieve a specific end. 3. A diagram, map, or the like. schemes, schemed, scheme-lines, world-scheme.
scribe ::: a general designation for any public official (whether of high or low rank) concerned with writing or the keeping of accounts; a secretary, clerk. Scribe, scribes.
sculpture ::: the art or practice of shaping figures or designs in the round or in relief as by chiselling marble, modelling clay, or casting in metal.
seed-sounds ::: Sri Aurobindo: "My researches first convinced me that words, like plants, like animals, are in no sense artificial products, but growths, — living growths of sound with certain seed-sounds as their basis. Out of these seed-sounds develop a small number of primitive root-words with an immense progeny which have their successive generations and arrange themselves in tribes, clans, families, selective groups each having a common stock and a common psychological history. For the factor which presided over the development of language was the association, by the nervous mind of primitive man, of certain general significances or rather of certain general utilities and sense-values with articulate sounds. The process of this association was also in no sense artificial but natural, governed by simple and definite psychological laws.” *The Secret of the Veda
seeingly ::: in an observant, discerning or insightful manner.
seer ::: 1. A person gifted with profound spiritual insight or knowledge; a wise person or sage who possesses intuitive powers or one to whom divine revelations are made in visions. 2. One who sees; an observer. **Seer, seers, seer-evenings, seer-summit, seer-vision"s.
SELF-JUSTIFICATION. ::: Always a sign of ego and ignor- ance. ^Vhen one has a wider consciousness, one knows that each one has his o>vn way of looking at things and finds in that way his own justification so that both parties in a quarrel believe
sense ::: n. 1. Any of the faculties, as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch, by which humans and animals perceive stimuli originating from outside or inside the body. 2. Meaning, signification. 3. A more or less vague perception or impression. 4. Any special capacity or perception, estimation, appreciation, etc. 5. A mental or spiritual discernment, realization, or recognition of a dream, or of anything cryptic or symbolical. sense"s, senses, senses", sense-appeal, sense-formed, sense-life"s, sense-pangs, sense-pleasures, sense-railed, sense-shackled, soul-sense. v. 6. To apprehend, detect, or perceive, without or in advance of the evidence of the senses; to perceive instinctively. 7. To be inwardly aware; conscious of. sensed, sensing. *adj. *sensed.
SHAKING OF THE HEAD. ::: -When the pressure ol the Force works upon the consciousness, then in the plane on which it happens to be working, a great activity of different forces is set in play, e.g. if it is the mind, various mental forces, if it is the vital, various vital forces. It is not safe to take all these for true things, to be accepted without question. If the head shook for a long time, it is a sign that the mind or at best the mental physical was not able yet to receive all the force and assimilate it.
Shruti: “Occult signs which attract evil, such as the swastika tilted; attractive signs which hide a devilish intention.”
"Sincerity means more than mere honesty. It means that you mean what you say, feel what you profess, are earnest in your will.” The Mother - The Spiritual Significance of Flowers
“Sincerity means more than mere honesty. It means that you mean what you say, feel what you profess, are earnest in your will.” The Mother—The Spiritual Significance of Flowers
soul ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The word ‘soul", as also the word ‘psychic", is used very vaguely and in many different senses in the English language. More often than not, in ordinary parlance, no clear distinction is made between mind and soul and often there is an even more serious confusion, for the vital being of desire — the false soul or desire-soul — is intended by the words ‘soul" and ‘psychic" and not the true soul, the psychic being.” *Letters on Yoga
"The word soul is very vaguely used in English — as it often refers to the whole non-physical consciousness including even the vital with all its desires and passions. That was why the word psychic being has to be used so as to distinguish this divine portion from the instrumental parts of the nature.” *Letters on Yoga
"The word soul has various meanings according to the context; it may mean the Purusha supporting the formation of Prakriti, which we call a being, though the proper word would be rather a becoming; it may mean, on the other hand, specifically the psychic being in an evolutionary creature like man; it may mean the spark of the Divine which has been put into Matter by the descent of the Divine into the material world and which upholds all evolving formations here.” *Letters on Yoga
"A distinction has to be made between the soul in its essence and the psychic being. Behind each and all there is the soul which is the spark of the Divine — none could exist without that. But it is quite possible to have a vital and physical being supported by such a soul essence but without a clearly evolved psychic being behind it.” *Letters on Yoga
"The soul and the psychic being are practically the same, except that even in things which have not developed a psychic being, there is still a spark of the Divine which can be called the soul. The psychic being is called in Sanskrit the Purusha in the heart or the Chaitya Purusha. (The psychic being is the soul developing in the evolution.)” *Letters on Yoga
"The soul or spark is there before the development of an organised vital and mind. The soul is something of the Divine that descends into the evolution as a divine Principle within it to support the evolution of the individual out of the Ignorance into the Light. It develops in the course of the evolution a psychic individual or soul individuality which grows from life to life, using the evolving mind, vital and body as its instruments. It is the soul that is immortal while the rest disintegrates; it passes from life to life carrying its experience in essence and the continuity of the evolution of the individual.” *Letters on Yoga
". . . for the soul is seated within and impervious to the shocks of external events. . . .” *Essays on the Gita
". . . the soul is at first but a spark and then a little flame of godhead burning in the midst of a great darkness; for the most part it is veiled in its inner sanctum and to reveal itself it has to call on the mind, the life-force and the physical consciousness and persuade them, as best they can, to express it; ordinarily, it succeeds at most in suffusing their outwardness with its inner light and modifying with its purifying fineness their dark obscurities or their coarser mixture. Even when there is a formed psychic being able to express itself with some directness in life, it is still in all but a few a smaller portion of the being — ‘no bigger in the mass of the body than the thumb of a man" was the image used by the ancient seers — and it is not always able to prevail against the obscurity or ignorant smallness of the physical consciousness, the mistaken surenesses of the mind or the arrogance and vehemence of the vital nature.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
". . . the soul is an eternal portion of the Supreme and not a fraction of Nature.” The Life Divine
"The true soul secret in us, — subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, — this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” The Life Divine
*Soul, soul"s, Soul"s, souls, soulless, soul-bridals, soul-change, soul-force, Soul-Forces, soul-ground, soul-joy, soul-nature, soul-range, soul-ray, soul-scapes, soul-scene, soul-sense, soul-severance, soul-sight, soul-slaying, soul-space,, soul-spaces, soul-strength, soul-stuff, soul-truth, soul-vision, soul-wings, world-soul, World-Soul.
spells ::: 1. To decipher something; comprehend by studying. 2. To amount to; to signify, imply, or involve.
spirit of Delight ::: Sri Aurobindo: " Now, that a conscious Infinite is there in physical Nature, we are assured by every sign, though it is a consciousness not made or limited like ours. All her constructions and motions are those of an illimitable intuitive wisdom too great and spontaneous and mysteriously self-effective to be described as an intelligence, of a Power and Will working for Time in eternity with an inevitable and forecasting movement in each of its steps, even in those steps that in their outward or superficial impetus seem to us inconscient. And as there is in her this greater consciousness and greater power, so too there is an illimitable spirit of harmony and beauty in her constructions that never fails her, though its works are not limited by our aesthetic canons. An infinite hedonism too is there, an illimitable spirit of delight, of which we become aware when we enter into impersonal unity with her; and even as that in her which is terrible is a part of her beauty, that in her which is dangerous, cruel, destructive is a part of her delight, her universal Ananda. Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "As there are Powers of Knowledge or Forces of the Light, so there are Powers of Ignorance and tenebrous Forces of the Darkness whose work is to prolong the reign of Ignorance and Inconscience. As there are Forces of Truth, so there are Forces that live by the Falsehood and support it and work for its victory; as there are powers whose life is intimately bound up with the existence, the idea and the impulse of Good, so there are Forces whose life is bound up with the existence and the idea and the impulse of Evil. It is this truth of the cosmic Invisible that was symbolised in the ancient belief of a struggle between the powers of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil for the possession of the world and the government of the life of man; — this was the significance of the contest between the Vedic Gods and their opponents, sons of Darkness and Division, figured in a later tradition as Titan and Giant and Demon, Asura, Rakshasa, Pisacha; the same tradition is found in the Zoroastrian Double Principle and the later Semitic opposition of God and his Angels on the one side and Satan and his hosts on the other, — invisible Personalities and Powers that draw man to the divine Light and Truth and Good or lure him into subjection to the undivine principle of Darkness and Falsehood and Evil.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "As there is an inner sight other than the physical, so there is an inner hearing other than that of the external ear, and it can listen to voices and sounds and words of other worlds, other times and places, or those which come from supraphysical beings.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: A symbol, as I understand it, is the form on one plane that represents a truth of another. For instance, a flag is the symbol of a nation…. But generally all forms are symbols. This body of ours is a symbol of our real being and everything is a symbol of some higher reality. There are, however, different kinds of symbols: 1. Conventional symbols, such as the Vedic Rishis formed with objects taken from their surroundings. The cow stood for light because the same word `go ‘ meant both ray and cow, and because the cow was their most precious possession which maintained their life and was constantly in danger of being robbed and concealed. But once created, such a symbol becomes alive. The Rishis vitalised it and it became a part of their realisation. It appeared in their visions as an image of spiritual light. The horse also was one of their favourite symbols, and a more easily adaptable one, since its force and energy were quite evident. 2. What we might call Life-symbols, such as are not artificially chosen or mentally interpreted in a conscious deliberate way, but derive naturally from our day-to-day life and grow out of the surroundings which condition our normal path of living. To the ancients the mountain was a symbol of the path of yoga, level above level, peak upon peak. A journey, involving the crossing of rivers and the facing of lurking enemies, both animal and human, conveyed a similar idea. Nowadays I dare say we would liken yoga to a motor-ride or a railway-trip. 3. Symbols that have an inherent appositeness and power of their own. Akasha or etheric space is a symbol of the infinite all-pervading eternal Brahman. In any nationality it would convey the same meaning. Also, the Sun stands universally for the supramental Light, the divine Gnosis. 4.* Mental symbols, instances of which are numbers or alphabets. Once they are accepted, they too become active and may be useful. Thus geometrical figures have been variously interpreted. In my experience the square symbolises the supermind. I cannot say how it came to do so. Somebody or some force may have built it before it came to my mind. Of the triangle, too, there are different explanations. In one position it can symbolise the three lower planes, in another the symbol is of the three higher ones: so both can be combined together in a single sign. The ancients liked to indulge in similar speculations concerning numbers, but their systems were mostly mental. It is no doubt true that supramental realities exist which we translate into mental formulas such as Karma, Psychic evolution, etc. But they are, so to speak, infinite realities which cannot be limited by these symbolic forms, though they may be somewhat expressed by them; they might be expressed as well by other symbols, and the same symbol may also express many different ideas. Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Hatred is the sign of a secret attraction that is eager to flee from itself and furious to deny its own existence. That too is God"s play in His creature.” *Essays Divine and Human
Sri Aurobindo: "Intelligence does not depend on the amount one has read, it is a quality of the mind. Study only gives it material for its work as life also does. There are people who do not know how to read and write who are more intelligent than many highly educated people and understand life and things better. On the other hand, a good intelligence can improve itself by reading because it gets more material to work on and grows by exercise and by having a wider range to move in. But book-knowledge by itself is not the real thing, it has to be used as a help to the intelligence but it is often only a help to stupidity or ignorance — ignorance because knowledge of facts is a poor thing if one cannot see their true significance.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . our imperfection is the sign of a transitional state, a growth not yet completed, an effort that is finding its way; . . . .” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The Absolute cannot indeed be bound in its nature to manifest a cosmos of relations, but neither can it be bound not to manifest any cosmos. It is not itself a sheer emptiness; for a vacant Absolute is no Absolute, — our conception of a Void or Zero is only a conceptual sign of our mental inability to know or grasp it: it bears in itself some ineffable essentiality of all that is and all that can be; and since it holds in itself this essentiality and this possibility, it must also hold in itself in some way of its absoluteness either the permanent truth or the inherent, even if latent, realisable actuality of all that is fundamental to our or the world"s existence.” *The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "The highest aim of the aesthetic being is to find the Divine through beauty; the highest Art is that which by an inspired use of significant and interpretative form unseals the doors of the spirit.” The Human Cycle etc.*
*Sri Aurobindo: "The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above.” Letters on Yoga*
Sri Aurobindo: "The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained or do not yet know, or the means of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracles is the sign that man"s ascent is not yet finished.” Essays Divine and Human
*Sri Aurobindo: "The timeless Spirit is not necessarily a blank; it may hold all in itself, but in essence, without reference to time or form or relation or circumstance, perhaps in an eternal unity. Eternity is the common term between Time and the Timeless Spirit. What is in the Timeless unmanifested, implied, essential, appears in Time in movement, or at least in design and relation, in result and circumstance. These two then are the same Eternity or the same Eternal in a double status; they are a twofold status of being and consciousness, one an eternity of immobile status, the other an eternity of motion in status.” The Life Divine ::: "The spiritual fullness of the being is eternity; . . . ” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The Unseen with whom there can be no pragmatic relations, unseizable, featureless, unthinkable, undesignable by name, whose substance is the certitude of One Self, in whom world-existence is stilled, who is all peace and bliss — that is the Self, that is what must be known.” Mandukya Upanishad. The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "This idea of universality, of oneness not only with God or the eternal Self in me, but with all humanity and other beings, is growing to be the most prominent strain in our minds and it has to be taken more largely into account in any future idea or computation of the significance of rebirth and karma.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Stars ::: Signifies a creation or formation or the promise or power of a creation or formation. The star is always a promise of the Light to come ; the star changes into a sun when there is the descent of the Light. Stars indicate beginnings or pro- mises of Light.
station ::: 1. A place or position where a person or thing stands or is assigned to stand; a post. 2. Social position; rank stations.
stress ::: 1. Physical, mental or emotional strain or tension; a situation, occurrence, condition or factor causing strain. 2. Stimulus or pressure of the influence of an adverse force. 3. Special or exceptional emphasis or significance attached to something. stress-vision.
strong-eyed ::: with adj. prefix (strong-) Gifted with sight, clear-sighted, sharp-sighted. Also fig.
subtle vision ("s) ::: Sri Aurobindo: " This power of vision is sometimes inborn and habitual even without any effort of development, sometimes it wakes up of itself and becomes abundant or needs only a little practice to develop; it is not necessarily a sign of spiritual attainment, but usually when by practice of yoga one begins to go inside or live within, the power of subtle vision awakes to a greater or less extent; . . . .”*Letters on Yoga
"It is not necessary to have the mind quiet in order to see the lights — that depends only on the opening of the subtle vision in the centre which is in the forehead between the eyebrows. Many people get that as soon as they start sadhana. It can even be developed by effort and concentration without sadhana by some who have it to a small extent as an inborn faculty.” Letters on Yoga
"When the centres begin to open, inner experiences such as the seeing of light or images through the subtle vision in the forehead centre or psychic experiences and perceptions in the heart, become frequent — gradually one becomes aware of one"s inner being as separate from the outer, and what can be called a yogic consciousness with all its deeper movements develops in the place of the ordinary superficial mental and vital movements.” Letters on Yoga
summoned ::: 1. Called for the presence of, as by command, message, or signal; called. 2. Called into action; roused; called forth (often followed by up). summons, summoning.
summons ::: an authoritative command, message, or signal by which someone or something is called.
supernatural ::: “The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained or do not yet know, or the means of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracles is the sign that man’s ascent is not yet finished.” Essays Divine and Human
surrender. ::: v. Fig. To give over or resign oneself to something such as an influence. surrendered.
symbol ::: A symbol, as I understand it, is the form on one plane that represents a truth of another. For instance, a flag is the symbol of a nation…. But generally all forms are symbols. This body of ours is a symbol of our real being and everything is a symbol of some higher reality. There are, however, different kinds of symbols: 1. Conventional symbols, such as the Vedic Rishis formed with objects taken from their surroundings. The cow stood for light because the same word `go ‘ meant both ray and cow, and because the cow was their most precious possession which maintained their life and was constantly in danger of being robbed and concealed. But once created, such a symbol becomes alive. The Rishis vitalised it and it became a part of their realisation. It appeared in their visions as an image of spiritual light. The horse also was one of their favourite symbols, and a more easily adaptable one, since its force and energy were quite evident. 2. What we might call Life-symbols, such as are not artificially chosen or mentally interpreted in a conscious deliberate way, but derive naturally from our day-to-day life and grow out of the surroundings which condition our normal path of living. To the ancients the mountain was a symbol of the path of yoga, level above level, peak upon peak. A journey, involving the crossing of rivers and the facing of lurking enemies, both animal and human, conveyed a similar idea. Nowadays I dare say we would liken yoga to a motor-ride or a railway-trip. 3. Symbols that have an inherent appositeness and power of their own. Akasha or etheric space is a symbol of the infinite all-pervading eternal Brahman. In any nationality it would convey the same meaning. Also, the Sun stands universally for the supramental Light, the divine Gnosis. 4. Mental symbols, instances of which are numbers or alphabets. Once they are accepted, they too become active and may be useful. Thus geometrical figures have been variously interpreted. In my experience the square symbolises the supermind. I cannot say how it came to do so. Somebody or some force may have built it before it came to my mind. Of the triangle, too, there are different explanations. In one position it can symbolise the three lower planes, in another the symbol is of the three higher ones: so both can be combined together in a single sign. The ancients liked to indulge in similar speculations concerning numbers, but their systems were mostly mental. It is no doubt true that supramental realities exist which we translate into mental formulas such as Karma, Psychic evolution, etc. But they are, so to speak, infinite realities which cannot be limited by these symbolic forms, though they may be somewhat expressed by them; they might be expressed as well by other symbols, and the same symbol may also express many different ideas. Letters on Yoga
Tapasya. Not only so, but in fact a double process of Tapasya and increasing surrender persists for a long time even when the surrender has fairly well begun. But a time comes when one feels the Presence and the force constantly and more and more feels ’that that is doing everylhmg — so that the worst difficul- ties cannot disturb this sense and personal effort is no longer necessary, hardly even possible. That is the sign of the full surrender of the nature into the bands of the Divine. There are some who take this position in faith even before there is this experience and if the Bhakti and the faith are strong it carries them through till the experience is there. But all cannot take this position from the beginning — and for some it would be dangerous since they might pul themselves into the hand of a wrong Force thinking it to be the Divine. For most it is neces- sary to grow through Tapasya into surrender.
tapestry ::: n. 1. A heavy cloth woven with rich, often varicolored designs or scenes, usually hung on walls for decoration. tapestries. v. 2. To hang or decorate with or as with tapestry.
task ::: 1. A piece of work assigned or done as part of one"s duties. 2. A matter of considerable labour or difficulty. task"s, tasks, World-task.
tenuous ::: 1. Diluted or rarefied in consistency or density. 2. Fig. Insignificant or flimsy.
that does not see; lacking sight.
"The child usually signifies the psychic being — new-born in the sense that it at last comes to the surface.” Letters on Yoga
“The child usually signifies the psychic being—new-born in the sense that it at last comes to the surface.” Letters on Yoga
the Infinite ::: **A designation of the Deity or the absolute Being; God. Infinite"s. ::: *
"The inner Divinity is the eternal Avatar in man; the human manifestation is its sign and development in the external world.” Essays on the Gita
“The inner Divinity is the eternal Avatar in man; the human manifestation is its sign and development in the external world.” Essays on the Gita
The mantra Om should lead towards the opening of the con- sciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.
the method of psychological therapy originated by Sigmund Freud in which free association, dream interpretation, and analysis of resistance and transference are used to explore repressed or unconscious impulses, anxieties, and internal conflicts, in order to free psychic energy for mature love and work.
The Mother: "OM is the signature of the Lord.” *Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
The Mother: “OM is the signature of the Lord.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
::: The Mother: "Progress is the sign of the divine influence in creation.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
The Mother: “Progress is the sign of the divine influence in creation.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.**
"The Non-Manifestation is not a Non-Existence. Non-Existence is a term created by the mind and has no absolute significance; there is no such thing as an absolute Nihil or Zero. It is agreed even by the philosophies of the Nihil, Tao or Zero (Sunya) that the Non-Existence of which they speak is a Nought in which all is and from which all comes. Tao, Nihil or Zero is not different from the Absolute or the Supreme Brahman of Vedanta; it is only another way of describing or naming it. The Supreme is an Existence beyond what we know of our existence and therefore only it can seem to our mind as a Zero, a Nihil, a Non-Existence.” Essays Divine and Human*
“The Non-Manifestation is not a Non-Existence. Non-Existence is a term created by the mind and has no absolute significance; there is no such thing as an absolute Nihil or Zero. It is agreed even by the philosophies of the Nihil, Tao or Zero (Sunya) that the Non-Existence of which they speak is a Nought in which all is and from which all comes. Tao, Nihil or Zero is not different from the Absolute or the Supreme Brahman of Vedanta; it is only another way of describing or naming it. The Supreme is an Existence beyond what we know of our existence and therefore only it can seem to our mind as a Zero, a Nihil, a Non-Existence.” Essays Divine and Human
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, guid- ing one’s sight and will and action;
The psychical sight receives characteristically the images that arc formed in the subtle matter of the mental or psychical ether.
“… the purest, freest form of insight into existence as it is shows us nothing but movement. Two things alone exist, movement in Space, movement in Time, the former objective, the latter subjective.” The Life Divine
There are those that are sound as weD as those that are unsound ; those that are helpful, in the true line, sometimes sign- posts, sometimes stages on the way to realisation, sometimes stuff and material of realisation.
::: "There is an all-seeing purpose in the terrestrial creation; a divine plan is working itself out through its contradictions and perplexities which are a sign of the many-sided achievement towards which are being led the soul"s growth and the endeavour of Nature.” *The Life Divine
“There is an all-seeing purpose in the terrestrial creation; a divine plan is working itself out through its contradictions and perplexities which are a sign of the many-sided achievement towards which are being led the soul’s growth and the endeavour of Nature.” The Life Divine
::: "The shoreless stream of idea and thought, imagination and experience, name and form, sensation and vibration sweeps onward for ever, without beginning, without end, rising into view, sinking out of sight; through it the one Intelligence with its million self-expressions pours itself abroad, an ocean with innumerable waves. One particular self-expression may disappear into its source and continent, but that does not and cannot abolish the phenomenal universe. The One is for ever, and the Many are for ever because the One is for ever. So long as there is a sea, there will be waves.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“The shoreless stream of idea and thought, imagination and experience, name and form, sensation and vibration sweeps onward for ever, without beginning, without end, rising into view, sinking out of sight; through it the one Intelligence with its million self-expressions pours itself abroad, an ocean with innumerable waves. One particular self-expression may disappear into its source and continent, but that does not and cannot abolish the phenomenal universe. The One is for ever, and the Many are for ever because the One is for ever. So long as there is a sea, there will be waves.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
The sounds of bells arc signs of the opening of the inner consciousness which brings with it an opening also to sights and sounds of other planes than the physical. Some of these things like the sound* of bells, crickets etc. seem even to help the opening.
thin ::: 1. Having relatively little extent from one surface or side to the opposite; not thick. 2. Lean or slender in form, build, or stature. 3. Lacking radiance or intensity. 4. Not dense or concentrated; sparse. 5. Lacking substance or significance. 6. Scant; not abundant or plentiful. 7. (of sound) lacking resonance or volume. 8. Rarefied, as air.
This inward movement takes place in many difTercnt ways and there is sometimes a complex experience combining all the signs of the complete plunge. There is a sense of going in or deep down, a feeling of the movement towards inner depths ; there is often a stillness, a pleasant numbness, a stiffness of the hmhs.
This is the sign of the consciousness retiring from the body inwards under the pressure of a force from above, — that pres- sure stabilising the body into an immobile support of the inner
“ This power of vision is sometimes inborn and habitual even without any effort of development, sometimes it wakes up of itself and becomes abundant or needs only a little practice to develop; it is not necessarily a sign of spiritual attainment, but usually when by practice of yoga one begins to go inside or live within, the power of subtle vision awakes to a greater or less extent; …”Letters on Yoga
"This universal aesthesis of beauty and delight does not ignore or fail to understand the differences and oppositions, the gradations, the harmony and disharmony obvious to the ordinary consciousness; but, first of all, it draws a Rasa from them and with that comes the enjoyment, Bhoga. and the touch or the mass of the Ananda. It sees that all things have their meaning, their value, their deeper or total significance which the mind does not see, for the mind is only concerned with a surface vision, surface contacts and its own surface reactions. When something expresses perfectly what it was meant to express, the completeness brings with it a sense of harmony, a sense of artistic perfection; it gives even to what is discordant a place in a system of cosmic concordances and the discords become part of a vast harmony, and wherever there is harmony, there is a sense of beauty. ” Letters on Savitri*
“This universal aesthesis of beauty and delight does not ignore or fail to understand the differences and oppositions, the gradations, the harmony and disharmony obvious to the ordinary consciousness; but, first of all, it draws a Rasa from them and with that comes the enjoyment, Bhoga. and the touch or the mass of the Ananda. It sees that all things have their meaning, their value, their deeper or total significance which the mind does not see, for the mind is only concerned with a surface vision, surface contacts and its own surface reactions. When something expresses perfectly what it was meant to express, the completeness brings with it a sense of harmony, a sense of artistic perfection; it gives even to what is discordant a place in a system of cosmic concordances and the discords become part of a vast harmony, and wherever there is harmony, there is a sense of beauty.” Letters on Savitri
thought-Mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the Spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind, — but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin, — as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realising its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge. " *The Life Divine
thought ::: n. 1. The act or process of thinking; cogitation. 2. The faculty of thinking or reasoning. 3. Intention, design, or purpose. Thought, thought"s, Thought"s, thoughts, thought-blinded, thought-born, thought-conscious, thought-created, thought-driven, thought-food, thought-forms, thought-free, thought-hue, thought-racked, thought-screened, thought-shrouded, thought-sounds, thought-stare, thought-streams, million-thoughted. *v. 5. Pt. and pp. of think.
To arrive at full possession of the powers of the dream-state, it is necessary first to exclude the attack of the sights, sounds etc. of the outer world upon the physical organs. It is quite possible indeed to be aware in the dream-trance of the outer physical world through the subtle senses which belong to the subtle body ; one may be aware of them just so far as one chooses and on a much wider scale than In the waking condition ; for the subtle senses have a far more powerful range than the gross physical organs, a range which may be made practically unlimited. But this awareness of the phj-sical world through the subtle senses is something quite different from our normal awareness of it through the physical organs ; the latter is incompatible with the settled state of trance, for the pressure of the physical senses breaks the Samadhi and calls back the mind to live in their normal field where alone they have power. But the subtle senses have power both upon their own planes and upon the physical world, though this is to them more remote than their own world of being. In Yoga various devices are used to seal up the doors of the physical sense, some of them physical devices ; but the one all-sufficient means is a force of concentration by which the mind is drawn inward to depths where the call of physical things can no longer easily attain to it. A second necessity is to get rid of the intervention of physical sleep. The ordinary habit of the mind when it goes in away from contact with physical things is to fall into the torpor of sleep or its dreams, and therefore when called in for the purposes of Samadhi, it gives or lends to give, at the first chance, by sheer force of habit, not the response demanded, but its usual response of ph)sical slumber. This habit of the mind has to be got rid of ; the mind has to Icam to be awake in the dream-stale, in possession of itself, not with the outgoing, but with an ingathered wakefulness in which, though immersed in itself, it exercises all its powers.
tokens ::: things that serve as indications, proofs, or expressions of something else; symbols; signs.
trace ::: n. 1. A surviving mark, sign, or evidence of the former existence, influence, or action of some agent or event; vestige. 2. Evidence or an indication of the former presence or existence of something non-material; a vestige. 3. A barely discernable indication or evidence of some quality, quality, characteristic, expression, etc. v. 4. To make one"s way over, through, or along (something). Also fig. 5. To follow a course, trail, etc.; make one"s way. 6. To follow, make out, or determine the course or line of, especially by going backward from the latest evidence, nearest existence, etc. 7. To locate or discover by searching or researching evidence; follow the history of. 8. To draw an outline of something. Also fig. 9. To decorate with tracery. 10. To copy (a design, map, etc.) by drawing over the lines visible through a superimposed sheet of transparent paper or other material. 11. To draw or delineate a plan or diagram of. traced, tracing.
“‘Transformation’ is a word that I have brought in myself (like ‘supermind’) to express certain spiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral yoga. People are now taking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the significance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by the ‘influence’ of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; purification is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change—the word besides has many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose.” Letters on Yoga
transformation ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Transformation means that the higher consciousness or nature is brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower. There is a higher consciousness of the true self, which is spiritual, but it is above; if one rises above into it, then one is free as long as one remains there, but if one comes down into or uses mind, vital or body — and if one keeps any connection with life, one has to do so, either to come down and act from the ordinary consciousness or else to be in the self but use mind, life and body, then the imperfections of these instruments have to be faced and mended — they can only be mended by transformation.” *Letters on Yoga
"‘Transformation" is a word that I have brought in myself (like ‘supermind") to express certain spiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral yoga. People are now taking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the significance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by the ‘influence" of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; purification is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change — the word besides has many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose.” *Letters on Yoga
"It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit. Here a slow and tardy change need no longer be the law or manner of our evolution; it will be only so to a greater or less extent so long as a mental ignorance clings and hampers our ascent; but once we have grown into the truth-consciousness its power of spiritual truth of being will determine all. Into that truth we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit. The obscurations of earth will not prevail against the supramental truth-consciousness, for even into the earth it can bring enough of the omniscient light and omnipotent force of the spirit conquer. All may not open to the fullness of its light and power, but whatever does open must that extent undergo the change. That will be the principle of transformation.” The Supramental Manifestation
The Mother: "Transformation. The change by which all the elements and all the movements of the being become ready to manifest the supramental Truth.”
"One thing you must know and never forget: in the work of transformation all that is true and sincere will always be kept; only what is false and insincere will disappear.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
Triangle ::: In one position it can symbolise the three lo\ser planes, in another the symbol is of the three higher ones ::: so both can be combined together ia a single sign.
trivial ::: 1. Of very little importance or value; insignificant. 2. Ordinary; commonplace.
unblinded ::: 1. Not blinded or deprived of sight. 2. Fig. Not deluded or deceived; without illusions.
universality ::: “This idea of universality, of oneness not only with God or the eternal Self in me, but with all humanity and other beings, is growing to be the most prominent strain in our minds and it has to be taken more largely into account in any future idea or computation of the significance of rebirth and karma.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
unseen ::: “The Unseen with whom there can be no pragmatic relations, unseizable, featureless, unthinkable, undesignable by name, whose substance is the certitude of One Self, in whom world-existence is stilled, who is all peace and bliss—that is the Self, that is what must be known.” Mandukya Upanishad. The Life Divine
view ::: 1. Sight; vision. 2. Range of sight or vision. 3. A particular way of looking at something. 4. An individual and personal perception, judgment, or interpretation; an opinion. 5. A sight afforded of something from a position stated or qualified. self-view.
vision ::: 1. The mystical experience of seeing as if with the eyes the supernatural or a supernatural being. 2. A mystical insight. 3. Ability to see or conceive what might be attempted or achieved. 4. The faculty of sight; eyesight. 5. Something that is or has been seen. 6. A person, scene, etc., of extraordinary beauty. **Vision, vision"s, Vision"s, visions, All-vision, earth-vision, God-vision"s, seer-vision"s, self-vision, soul-vision, stress-vision, vision-plans.
visionless ::: 1. Lacking the faculty of sight; blind. 2. Lacking intelligent foresight or imagination; uninspired.
Visions — colours: When i!»c colours begin lo take definite shapes in the >jslons, it is a sign of some dynamic work of formation in the consciousness ::: a square, for instance, means that some kind of creation is in process in some field of the being ; the square indicates that the creation is to be complete in itself ; while the rectangle indicates somcihws partial and preliminary.
void ::: “The Absolute cannot indeed be bound in its nature to manifest a cosmos of relations, but neither can it be bound not to manifest any cosmos. It is not itself a sheer emptiness; for a vacant Absolute is no Absolute,—our conception of a Void or Zero is only a conceptual sign of our mental inability to know or grasp it: it bears in itself some ineffable essentiality of all that is and all that can be; and since it holds in itself this essentiality and this possibility, it must also hold in itself in some way of its absoluteness either the permanent truth or the inherent, even if latent, realisable actuality of all that is fundamental to our or the world’s existence.” The Life Divine
watch-fires ::: fires maintained during the night as signals and for providing light and warmth to sentinels.
—we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; for though we have applied that word for want of a better to any supra-intellectual direct way of knowing, yet what we actually know as intuition is only one special movement of self-existent knowledge. This new range is its origin; it imparts to our intuitions something of its own distinct character and is very clearly an intermediary of a greater Truth-Light with which our mind cannot directly communicate. At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance….
wheel ::: n. 1. A solid disk or a rigid circular ring connected by spokes to a hub, designed to turn around an axle passed through the centre. 2. Something resembling such a disk or ring in appearance or movement or having a wheel as its principal part or characteristic. 3. Moving, propelling, or animating agencies. 4. Fig. Signifying the eternal recurrence of all things. Wheel, Wheel"s, wheels, the wheels of Circumstance, the wheels of Doom, the wheel of God, the wheels of life, the wheel of works. v. 5. To turn or cause to turn on or as if on an axis. wheels, wheeled.
Wheel ::: Sign of an action of Force. Djiiamic action.
When the physical consciousness prevails, often one does not feel any signs or effect even if the experiences are there.
wisdom ::: 1. The quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgement as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight. 2. Accumulated knowledge or erudition or enlightenment. Wisdom, wisdom"s, Wisdom"s, wisdom-cry, wisdom-self, Wisdom-Splendour, wisdom-works, All-Wisdom, Mother-wisdom, Mother-Wisdom, Mother-Wisdom"s.
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10:At digte, – det er at holde dommedag over sig selv. ~ Henrik Ibsen, #NFDB
11:Det är inte konstverket man gör
Det är sig själv. ~ Gunnar Ekel f,#NFDB
12:Folk med hemligheter ska inte skaffa sig fiender (s. 75). ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
13:Betänk det här: all ungdom för sig själv en fara är. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
14:Livet är alldeles för kort för att man ska gräva ner sig i sorger ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
15:You're such a pain in the ass. (Butch)
Said the SIG to the Glock. (V) ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
16:A gun is not a weapon," Einar once said to Sig. "It's and answer... ~ Marcus Sedgwick, #NFDB
17:Det bringer nemesis over avkommet at gifte sig av udenforliggende grunde. ~ Henrik Ibsen, #NFDB
18:Alting havde ændret sig undtagen verden, som aldrig blev den samme ~ Einar M r Gu mundsson, #NFDB
19:Aggrottai la fronte e accennai un sorriso. «Vuoi scommettere?» (sig.ra Maddox) ~ Jamie McGuire, #NFDB
20:Det er tre ting en mand vil ha for sig selv, og det tredie er soveposen. ~ Peter Wessel Zapffe, #NFDB
21:Han lutade sig mot relingen, gav sin tribut till evigheten och spottade i havet. ~ Henning Mankell, #NFDB
22:At vove er at miste fodfæstet et kort ojeblik - ikke at vove er at miste sig selv. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
23:Når man har med mennesker at gore, så husk, at det drejer sig om ikke logiske væsener. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
24:At digte sig ind i en pige er en kunst, at digte sig ud af hende er et mesterstykke. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
25:Det begyndte å komme rotne flækker i mit indre, sorte svamper som bredte sig mere og mere. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
26:You any good with that SIG?” Matt asked. Parker’s voice held a trace of amusement. “Not bad. ~ Toni Anderson, #NFDB
27:...han hadde studeret det herlig ut av kokeboken, men også spurt sig for hos de handelsreisende. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
28:Hun gav sig omsider til at elske verden, men kun fordi den skulle udslettes sammen med hende. ~ Tove Ditlevsen, #NFDB
29:Man får ikke altid de rejser man onsker sig nieta, men du vil altid få den rejse du har brug for ~ Alyson Noel, #NFDB
30:We're still dancing to tunes created by men who thought that a thunderstorm was a sig of God's anger. ~ Raymond Khoury, #NFDB
31:Ni känner väl till släkten Pennyroyals motto:
'När det hettar till gömmer sig förståndigt folk under stora möbler'? ~ Philip Reeve,#NFDB
32:Kärleken är ett helhetskrav, vare sig den är smärtsam oro eller lycklig åtrå... Man älskar bara det man inte äger helt. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
33:Reportern hade funnit sig i den ljusa världen och alltså var det meningslöst att prata med honom. Det fanns inga ord. ~ John Ajvide Lindqvist, #NFDB
34:Det som förblir oförändrat för länge förstör sig själv. Skogen är evig därför att den dör och dör och därför lever." (s. 319) ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
35:Det er for ovrig ikke tvil om at det skal en viss grad av hjærnetomhet til for å kunne gå og være varig tilfreds med sig selv og alt. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
36:Når menneskenes had ikke medforer nogen risiko, bliver deres dumhed snart overbevist, motiverne kommer ganske af sig selv. ~ Louis Ferdinand C line, #NFDB
37:Helena (börjar gråta): Ser du, nu gråter jag. Det glada, fina livet är slut, det hemska, skitige livet kastar sig över oss. Så är det. ~ Ingmar Bergman, #NFDB
38:Hon hade lärt sig älska kärleken med all dess plåga, dess tårar, dess längtan .
- Bättre sorgsen med den än glad utan den, sade hon. ~ Selma Lagerl f,#NFDB
39:Inte konstigt att farfar fick en hjärtattack i sängen och dog. Antagligen vände han sig om en morgon och tog sig en ordentlig titt på sin fru. ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
40:At that moment, the Sig Sauer resting in his holster and the three dead bolts on the door to his apartment seemed terribly insubstantial. ~ Franck Thilliez, #NFDB
41:Hur ska man förhålla sig till människor som knappast är något annat än utropstecken på två ben? Hur ska man stoppa dem som inte skyr några medel? ~ Amos Oz, #NFDB
42:Vores hjerne forbrænder ca. 20% af de kalorier vi indtager. Den sjoveste måde at tabe sig er at læse tankevækkende boger. Gå på tankekur. ~ Svend ge Madsen, #NFDB
43:Solen er forlængst dukket under synsranden, fjældene er blit hvitlig gronne, de ser ut i sin fjærnhet og i sin vælde som en verden for sig selv. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
44:Frihed består ikke i en konstant kredsen om sig selv og sine indre lyster og onsker, men i en besindelse på det, man er en del af og kommer fra. ~ Svend Brinkmann, #NFDB
45:Det var dagen efter självständighetsdagen den 4 juli och lukten av svavel från fyrverkerierna blandade sig med lukten av salt från havet - det var sommar. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
46:Vid ett tillfälle var det ett ungt vårdbiträde som utan att tänka sig för sträckte ut sin hand när hon inte hade skyddshandskarna på och tråkade hans tårar. ~ Jonas Gardell, #NFDB
47:De som menar att det finns sanningar som bör undanhållas folket behöver inte oroa sig: folket läser inte. Det arbetar sex dar i veckan och den sjunde sitter det på krogen. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
48:Engang vil jeg skrive alle de ord ned, der gennemstrommer mig. Engang skal andre mennesker læse dem i en bog og undre sig over, at en pige alligevel kunne blive digter. ~ Tove Ditlevsen, #NFDB
49:Solen böjer rummet runt omkring sig och jorden kretsar inte kring den för att den vore dragen av en gåtfull kraft, utan för att den rör sig rakt fram i ett rum som böjs. ~ Carlo Rovelli, #NFDB
50:Vi drar båda av oss våra kängor och strumpor och även om det blir lite bättre kan jag svära på att han anstränger sig för att knäcka varje kvist vi stöter på (s. 257). ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
51:Mod Verdens Flok så ubonhorlig,
og med sig selv så let medgjorlig.
Farvel, nå har jeg rakt Dem Speilet
brug det og suk så: Herregud
slig ser en Himmelstormer ud. ~ Henrik Ibsen,#NFDB
52:She was interrupted by Sig’s growling. The coyote had strayed away from the snowmobiles, pressing his nose to the ground. His hackles had risen and his ears were perked forward. ~ Laura Bickle, #NFDB
53:Den store dikter avstedkommer en sammenknepen mund i sit ansigt, strammer sit fuglebryst ut til det ytterste og frembringer folgende ord: Å dikte er å holde dommedag over sig selv. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
54:Nu hvor jeg ser tilbage på det, ved jeg ikke, hvorfor det havde stresset mig så meget hele tiden.
Spojst, hvordan ting, man bekymrer sig vildt meget over, viser sig at være ingenting. ~ R J Palacio,#NFDB
55:Finch?" I ask him with my best fake smile. "Will you go to the stupid Sig Tau Valentine's Date party with me?"
Finch hugged me to his side. "Yes, But only because you called it stupid. ~ Jamie McGuire,#NFDB
56:Men Marco var full av tro på sig själv när vi gick uppför trapporna till mitt rum. (Jag tror det har med mödrar att göra. De får sina söner att känna sig som kungar, hur de än är beskaffade.) ~ Lina Wolff, #NFDB
57:Bristen på jämnåriga lekkamrater gjorde honom fördrömd. Han fick syssla med sig själv och förföll till självmedlidande och melankoli. Han ”tänkte” för mycket, men hade för litet förstånd. ~ Harry Martinson, #NFDB
58:Edevart var alene mand om alt om bord og på land... han skulde nok ha hat nogen til å koke mat for sig; men også det fik gå som det kunde, han levet på tormat og kaffe og klaget ikke over kostholdet. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
59:Guð einn veit, hverju fólki datt í hug að ljúga upp á mig,“ segir Jörgen, alltaf jafn viss í eigin sök og tilbúinn að skilja sjálfan sig. Enginn skildi Jörgen Jörgensen betur en hann sjálfur. ~ Einar M r Gu mundsson, #NFDB
60:I changed my name when I was about twelve because I didn't like being called Sue or Susie. I felt I needed a longer name because I was so tall. So what happened? Now everyone calls me Sig or Siggy. ~ Sigourney Weaver, #NFDB
61:Allting blir svårt när man vill äga saker, bära dem med sig och ha dem. Jag bara tittar på dem och när jag går min väg har jag dem inne i huvudet och kan ha roligare saker för mig än att bära kappsäckar. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
62:The guy with Bennett let go of his elbow and started patting his pockets. He came out with the switchblade, now closed up again, and a Sig Sauer automatic, a P226, I thought, favored by Special Forces everywhere. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
63:Han reste sig, lämnade toaletten. Lät blodfläcken på golvet vara. Låt någon se den, låt någon undra. Tro att någon blivit dödad här, eftersom någon hade blivit dödad här. För hundrade gången i ordningen. ~ John Ajvide Lindqvist, #NFDB
64:Det är en kväll för en sång, tänkte Snusmumriken. En ny visa som ska ha en del förväntan i sig och två delar vårmelankoli och resten bara hejdlös förtjusning över att få vandra och vara ensam och trivas med sig själv. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
65:Jag tror icke att en tänkare behöver söka ensamheten. Den ensamhet, han behöver, för han med sig, som snigeln sitt hus. Mitt i människovimlet följer den honom, ty den är ingen yttre omständighet, men en egenskap. ~ Hjalmar S derberg, #NFDB
66:Ja, han var gal, han var gal. Det måtte han være; for Sara bydde ham kaffe, mælk, te, bydde ham ol, bydde ham alt hun visste, men han reiste sig allikevel fra frokostbordet straks efter han hadde sat sig og lot maten stå. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
67:På kirkegården hjemme vokste nogen bringebær som hadde plantet sig selv og stod uten rokt. De kom igjen hvert år og vi born visste så vel hvor de stod. Hver av dem var en mundfuld av vin... (Under halvmånen, Stridende liv) ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
68:Engang kom han med skjorten åpen og han var tykt lodden på brystet. Det er som en eng å lægge sig i! tænkte jeg, for jeg var så ung. Jeg kysset ham nogen ganger, det er på det jeg vet at jeg aldrig har oplevet noget lignende. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
69:Intrigerna var gjorda för dom som skrev dem och inte för åskådarna, tänkte hon. De hade skrivit så länge på sitt verk att händelserna för dem tedde sig självklara. De skrev verket bakifrån medan tittarna såg det framifrån. ~ Lena Andersson, #NFDB
70:Jag skulle inte be en sjuk man att löpa kapplopp", sa Sparvhök. "Inte heller skulle jag lägga sten på en rygg som redan var för tungt lastad". Det framgick inte tydligt om han tänkte på sig själv eller på världen i stort. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
71:En av lärorna på Tlön går så långt att den förnekar tiden: den tänker sig att nuet är oändligt, att framtiden inte är verklig annat än som en förväntan i nuet, att det förflutna inte är verkligt annat än som ett minne i nuet. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
72:...vi var salige som vilde dyr med hverandre. Vi lå og sov sammen i vår undergang. Når vi våknet sa vi ikke noget, vi bare reiste os og gik, når en reiste sig og gik kom den andre efter. Vi horte sammen på en vei og gik efter hverandre. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
73:Fru Weasley vækkede dem tidligt den folgende onsdag.
Efter en let morgenmad bestående af et halvt dusin bacon-sandwiches hver klædte de sig på og gav sig til at vente”
(Harry Potter og Hemmelighedernes Kammer, J.K. Rowling) ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
74:Hvad var iveien med Edevart? Hans hænder var store og stærke, hans sener i orden, men hans sind var splittet. Her seilte han væk tom og hjemlos, han var litt isenn blit fra intet sted, hvorhelst han flakket om drog han rotterne efter sig. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
75:Når folk senere i livet horte, at Risten havde nordnorske aner, spurgte de ofte, om nordlyset ikke var et fantastisk syn. Jo, svarede hun så og skyndte sig at skifte emne. Sandheden var, at hun aldrig havde set det. Hun var jo ikke idiot. ~ Maren Uthaug, #NFDB
76:Genom att begränsa sin kontext till att bara gälla likasinnade uppnår man normalitet.
Det kan vara livsfarligt, men det kan också vara livsnödvändigt. Varje människa har behov av att åtminstone tillfälligtvis få uppleva sig normal. ~ Jonas Gardell,#NFDB
77:Dessutom kunde jag inte glömma vad min syster en gång hade sagt till mig medan hon ammade: ''Att skaffa barn är som att skaffa sig en tatuering i ansiktet. Man måste vara bergsäker på att det är så man vill ha det innan man sätter igång. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
78:Det är kanske det mest otroliga med de här första fotografierna, att de förhåller sig till tiden så att bara det mest beständiga syns, och att det mänskliga visar sig som så flyktigt och kortvarigt att det inte sätter avtryck någonstans. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd, #NFDB
79:Hennes Bengt var så snäll. Han skulle aldrig svika någon eller ljuga. Älskad av alla. Hon vänder sig om igen och stirrar på kistan där hennes son ligger. Tänker, med en sorg som plötsligt överväldigar henne helt, att hon inte kände honom alls. ~ Jonas Gardell, #NFDB
80:Ibland är frånvaron nästan fysiskt närvarande [...]. Frånvaro likt nedtrampat, vissnat gräs där något har funnits men inte finns kvar. Frånvaro där en tråd blivit bortsliten ur en bonad och lämnat efter sig ett hål som aldrig kan lagas (s. 475). ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
81:Han har en känslig själ också? Det verkar så. Som att han tar in världen genom för tunn hud. Har svårt att ta lätt på saker och ting. Gräver sig djupt in i tingen och människorna, fast tingen och människorna inte alltid kräver det. Ungefär så. ~ Johanna Nilsson, #NFDB
82:När jag blev trött på det ena eller det andra gick jag till vedbacken ett tag. Vedbackens idé är alldeles klar; att såga och hugga med gott samvete, att få vara ifred, att det luktar gott och att det för en gångs skull blir vad man har tänkt sig. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
83:Trött på alla som kommer med ord, ord men inget språk
for jag till den snötäckta ön.
Det vilda har inga ord.
De oskrivna sidorna breder ut sig åt alla håll!
Jag stöter på spåren av rådjursklövar i snön.
Språk men inga ord. ~ Tomas Transtr mer,#NFDB
84:Hoibro kunde ikke forstå at denne torre fremskridtskvinde med kort hår blandet sig i slike sporsmål som ægteskapet, hun stod i hans forestilling som en art hanmenneske i skjorter, et væsen av det tredje kjon; stak man hul på hende vilde hun blo sand. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
85:Kjære mand, jeg tar hende i armene og lofter hende. Det er bare et tiltak. Men det forstår sig, jeg må fare åt som folk med en sån damesperson og sætte hende pent ned igjen. Heller ikke må jeg snakke fysisk eller te mig svinagtig i hendes nærværelse. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
86:Föreställningen att människor i dag "har alla möjligheter" (vilket man framför allt har inbillat ungdomarna) är förstås en illusion, som många tyvärr tror på, med den naturliga följden att man förebrår sig själv när man upplever att man inte räcker till. ~ Svend Brinkmann, #NFDB
87:Ester tänkte att den nya uppriktigheten kom från en känsla av större närhet. I närhet vill man inte ljuga. Lögnen kräver ett visst mått av avhumanisering, åtminstone i stunden. Lögnen är ett pansar. Att inte ljuga när frestelsen finns är att göra sig naken ~ Lena Andersson, #NFDB
88:Mumintrollets pappa hade aldrig känt sig så lugn och så absolut nöjd med allting. Det var egentligen skönt att ingenting behöva säga och ingenting förklara, varken för sig själv eller andra. Man bara satt och såg mot horisonten och hörde vågorna klucka under båten. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
89:I samma sekund Benjamin blir varse den nytillkomne hejdar han sig i steget, är för ett ögonblick alldeles stilla, och han vet att det är hit, till detta ögonblick, till detta möte, till denne man, som hela hans rörelse har syftat. Det är hit han hela tiden har gått. ~ Jonas Gardell, #NFDB
90:It’s a prissy, overdecorated P238 SIG Sauer, red and black, with gold-inlaid flowers scrolling down the barrel. Morris drops the clip and sees it’s full. There’s even one in the pipe. He puts the clip back in and lays the gun on the desk—something else to take along. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
91:Mitt problem är att jag vill röka cigarren själv och att någon annan ska tända den åt mig. Jag vill blåsa ut röken. Som en vulkan. Som ett monster. Jag vill att det ska ryka om mig. Jag vill inte vara flickan vars jobb det är att jämra sig me gäll röst på begravningar. ~ Deborah Levy, #NFDB
92:... den brystsyke herremand foretrak denne gamle sæterhytte. Her satte han sig på træstolen og fik melk av en bolle eller rommekolle av et trækjorel, det smakte av barndom og oprindelighet, det smakte endog damen som var fra byen og skrev på skrivemaskine og kunde fransk. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
93:Arvid reste sig för att gå. —Nej, sitt! –sitt!, sitt!—. Om någon hund varit närvarande, skulle han genast suttit.” // “Arvid se levantó para irse. —¡No, siéntate! –¡siéntate!, ¡siéntate!—. Si hubiera habido algún perro presente, éste se hubiera sentado de inmediato”. ~ August Strindberg, #NFDB
94:I am unarmed. But Butler here, my ...ah...butler, has a Sig Saucer in his shoulder holster, two shrike-throwing knives in his boots, aderringer two-shot up his sleeve, garrotte wire in his watch, and three stun greanades concealed in variouse pockets. Anything else, Butler? ~ Eoin Colfer, #NFDB
95:en egendomlig insikt grep mig, en insikt om existensen som en hemlig smärta, en plåga inombords som omöjligt kunde blottas för andra, som ville att du skulle ägna dig åt dem, omedvetna om vad som rör sig inom dig, likt sjöjungfrun i sagan som går på knivar ingen annan kan se. ~ Rachel Cusk, #NFDB
96:Hvis jeg skulle tegne noget, og jeg vidste, at det, jeg tegnede, ville blive levende, når tegningen var færdig, så ville jeg ikke have turdet tegne noget som helst. Jeg ville aldrig have vovet at give liv til noget, som ikke kunne forsvare sig mod alle de ivrige farveblyanter. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
97:tiden är ett hav, inte en flod [...]. Den flyter inte iväg och rinner ut. Den bara är ‒ evig och hel. Dödliga kanske rör sig i en riktning, men det säger inget om dess sanna natur, bara om våra begränsningar. Det förflutna och framtiden är något vi själva har konstruerat (s. 559). ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
98:Hon hade fått Gamecuben av Elvy på sin femtonde födelsedag. Det hade varit hetsiga diskussioner med Margareta, som hävdade att tevespelen gjorde att ungdomarna avskärmade sig från omvärlden, stängde av. Elvy trodde att hon hade rätt, och det var just därför hon köpt spelet. ~ John Ajvide Lindqvist, #NFDB
99:Det stærkere træ tager livsbetingelserne fra det svagere og forer sig dem til nytte. Ligesaa mellem dyrene, de daarlige individer maa vige for de bedre. Og derfor gaar ogsaa naturen fremad. Det er bare os mennesker som holder fremgangen tilbage ved at tage sig af de daarlige individer. ~ Henrik Ibsen, #NFDB
100:Men den, som skall bli diktare, är ingenting alls annat än ett åtlöje för Gud och människor, förrän han redan blivit erkänd och berömd. Därför måste han under alla de långa läroåren hänga en falsk skylt över sin dörr och låtsas sysselsätta sig med något som människorna anser aktningsvärt. ~ Hjalmar S derberg, #NFDB
101:Slig jubel og henrykkelse har Kristiania vel aldrig for været i, som da Gronlandsfarerne kom tilbage. Sexti Tusing Mennesker modtog dem på Bryggen, femti Tusind fulgte dem til hotellet, ti Tusind raabte niti Tusind hurra, en gammel pensjoneret Oberst fra Kampen skreg sig simpelthen ihjel på Stedet. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
102:Men jag, jag såg henne egentligen först nu. Nu först såg jag, att det stod en kvinna i mitt rum, en kvinna med hjärtat överfullt av lust och elände, en ung kvinnoblomma med doft av kärlek omkring sig och med blygselrodnad över att doften var så mäktig och stark.
Jag kände att jag bleknade. ~ Hjalmar S derberg,#NFDB
103:Den vilseledde vandraren kan ju trösta sig med att omgivningen ständigt förändras, och med varje förändring föds det ett hopp om att finna en utväg. Den som går vilse i sig själv har inte ett så stort territorium att röra sig på. Han märker snart att han befinner sig i ett kretslopp som han inte kan komma ur. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
104:Hon var inte vaken då hon gifte sig med den människan, hon gjorde det i sömnen. I drömmen ske ju ofta de besynnerligaste saker, och de förefalla fullkomligt naturliga och vanliga - i drömmen. Men då man vaknar och erinrar sig vad man har drömt, häpnar man och gapskrattar eller ryser. Nu har hon vaknat! ~ Hjalmar S derberg, #NFDB
105:She strips and cleans the SIG Sauer by the light of the oil lamp. She taps the magazine in and racks the slide and puts the gun to her temple, just to remind herself that she is never so trapped that she cannot escape. You have lost your guts. Lost your courage. You are disgraced. But, you are still here. ~ Gabriel Tallent, #NFDB
106:Hvorfor skal vi bli noget? Det blir alle de andre og er allikevel ikke lykkeligere. de har hat strævet med å komme op, men de må se si om efter lonnen. Deres ro er borte, deres nerver tyndslitte, nogen drikker for å greie sig og blir bare værre, de skal til hver tid på gå hoie hæler, jeg som bor i en sjå ynker dem. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
107:Får den ikke munken til å luse indover stængte haver og lægge oiet ind til de sovendes vinduer om natten? Og besætter den ikke nonnen med dårskap og formorker prinsessens forstand? Den slår kongens hode i veien så hans hår feier alt veiens stov, og derunder hvisker han ublu ord for sig selv og ler og stikker tungen ut. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
108:Jag slog näven i vattnet. Fan ta honom.
Det här är en sak mellan mig och Belly.
Den självbelåtne jäveln.
Han skulle gifta sig med min tjej och jag kunde inte göra någonting åt det.
Jag kunde bara stå och titta på, eftersom han var min bror, eftersom jag lovat.
Ta hand om honom, Connie. Jag litar på dig. ~ Jenny Han,#NFDB
109:Pjäsen handlade, sa Konungen till mig, om att ondskan funnes i så hög grad hos dessa människor vid hovet att de liknade apor eller djävlar; de gladde sig åt andras olyckor och sörjde över deras framgångar, detta vore det som druidernas tid kallades Kannibalism, Anthropophagie. Därför befunno vi oss bland Kannibaler. ~ Per Olov Enquist, #NFDB
110:Så lenge menneskeheten lever, har den et ideal stående foran sig. Naturligvis ikke det ideal som kaniner eller svin har, at det gjelder å formere sig mest mulig. Heller ikke det som apene eller pariserne har, at det gjelder å nyte kjonnsdriften så raffinert som mulig, men et godt ideal som nåes ved avholdenhet og renhet. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
111:Så mycket vi måste lita på för att kunna leva vår dagliga dag utan att sjunka genom jorden!
Lita på snömassorna som klamrar sig fast vid bergssluttningen ovanför byn. Lita på tysthetslöftena och samförståndsleendet, lita på att olyckstelegrammen inte gäller oss och att det plötsliga yxhugget inifrån inte kommer. ~ Tomas Transtr mer,#NFDB
112:Og nú heldur hann þeir svensku séu ekki jafngáfaðir og hann. Ég skal segja þér: þeir eru gáfaðri en hann, þeir eru svo gáfaðir að einginn kraftur fær þá til að trúa því að það samsafn af lúsugum betlurum norðrí raskati, sem kallar sig íslendinga og nú eru bráðum allir dauðir guðisélof, hafi skrifað fornsögurnar. ~ Halld r Kiljan Laxness, #NFDB
113:Det var inte för att jag var olydig och självrådig och oförnöjd. Det kommer far och mor ihåg? Jag for inte därför. Men jag ville inte göra flera likkistor. Jag ville inte stå och plocka ut bräder till kistor åt mina ungar som ätit ihjäl sig av hunger - kommer I ihåg? Inte någon likkista mer! Därför utflyttade jag! ~ Vilhelm Moberg, #NFDB
114:Vad hon hade börjat lära sig var hur tungt det kan kännas att bli fri. Friheten är en mäktig börda som ens själ måste bära på. Det är inte så lätt. Det är ingen gåva man får, det är ett val man gör, och det kan vara ett svårt val. Vägen går uppåt mot ljuset men den tungt lastade resenären kanske aldrig når fram till vägens slut. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
115:Dånet och sorlet från havsstranden fyller mina örons snäckor. Men de förmår inte driva undan mina förföljare: Mina tankars frågor ställes och upprepas. Men det finns inga svar åt dem --- de slår sönder sig bara, emot en granithård mur. De kastas tillbaka, sköljs bort. Men de kommer igen, alltid igen, som vågorna utifrån vattenvidden. ~ Vilhelm Moberg, #NFDB
116:Öll séní hafa verið utan við sig. Séní eru alltaf niðursokkin í merkilegar hugsanir. En þið hugsið ekki neitt. Þið eruð kannski skjót til svars, en það er bara af því að þið hafið ekkert við að vera inni í ykkur. Heimskingjar eru alltaf fljótir til andsvara. Ég gæti kaffært ykkur öll í kappræðum um spakleg efni, bölvuð hænsin ykkar. ~ rbergur r arson, #NFDB
117:När Fredrikson avlöste mig vid rodret i gryningen nämnde jag i förbigående Joxarens förvånande och fullkomliga brist på intresse för omgivningen.
Hm, sade Fredrikson. Kanske han tvärtom bryr sig om allting? Lite lugnt och lagom. Vi bryr oss om en enda sak. Du vill bli. Jag vill göra. Mitt brorsbarn vill ha. Men Joxaren bara lever. ~ Tove Jansson,#NFDB
118:Många människor är födda i brist och få i överflod. De förra avundas de senare och de senare vill inte byta.
Men det finns också människor som är födda till brist, som alltid kommer att ha en känsla av att någonting väsentligt fattas och ett begär att göra sig av med allt det oväsentliga för att lättare kunna ta reda på dette något. ~ Gunnar Ekel f,#NFDB
119:Voksne venter på i morgen, bevæger sig i en nutid bag hvilken der er i går eller i forgårs eller hojst sidste uge: Resten vil de ikke tænke på. Born kender ikke betydningen af i går, af i forgårs eller sågar af i morgen, alt er lige nu; gaden er den, doråbningen er den, trapperne er dem, det er mor, det er far, det er dagen, det er natten. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
120:uncompressed file, meaning that you needed to uncompress the tar(1) file before verifying it. Beginning with V8.11, there is a signature file for each of the compressed files, so there is no need to uncompress either first. The signature file has the same name as the distribution file but with a literal . sig suffix added.sendmail.8.14.1. tar.gz ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
121:Hans husholderske, fru Irgens fodt Geelmuyden, grep da leiligheten til å koke og steke til gjæstebud, kalvekjot og fugl i himmelske saucer blev sat frem, kaker og sote syltetoier til doktoren, herligheter i bakkelser, i geléer. Var froken Mariane kommet hjem fra en av sine turer til Kristiania eller utlandet kunde hun slutte sig til og ta sit glas med. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
122:Hon tvättade varje fönster och ordnade bokhyllan, inte efter författare denhär gången utan alfabetiskt. När det var färdigt kom hon att tänka på ett bättre och personligare system och började ordna böckerna efter sig själv, de hon tyckte mest om på översta hyllan och de värsta längst ner. Hon upptäckte förvånad att det inte fanns en enda hon tyckte om. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
123:Sig Sauer. Nine millimetres. Thirteen in the magazine. Big bullets. One of these hits you and it could blow your head off; something even the magic can't fix. Other than that you should be all right, presuming you remembered to wear the regulation above-ground micro-fibre jumpsuit recently patented by me. Then again, being a Recon jock, you probably didn't. ~ Eoin Colfer, #NFDB
124:I den accelererende kultur skal man have fodder og ikke rodder. Har man fodder, kan man bevæge sig rundt. Man er mobil, flydende, foranderlig. Man kan lobe, danse og bevæge sig i alle retninger, alt efter hvad der er påkrævet. Har man derimod rodder, er man gået i stå og groet fast. Man kan måske nok bojes som en plante, men man kan ikke umiddelbart flyttes. ~ Svend Brinkmann, #NFDB
125:Og når så denne fare for et godt ord, ja endog i fulstændig taushet, har utladet sig i et normalt avviklet fald av frontaltypen, vil posen, som misforstår situationen og i de blinde kausalprocesser mener å gjenkjende bærerens lyst på renmose, hjælpe ansiktet dypere ned i sneen end hensikten var, og holde det stille der mens eieren venter på vårlosningen. ~ Peter Wessel Zapffe, #NFDB
126:It seems that the young woman made some indelicate suggestion of a threesome...When I got there, Miss Nash was standing by the hot tub in a small bikini, pointing the business end of a SIG-Sauer P-226 at her fella and concerned members of the hotel staff, while dunking the scantily clad female's head under the water and asking, "Who's diving for clams now, bitch? ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
127:He spoke in hushed Arabic as he kicked off his shoes and began unbuttoning his shirt. He had dropped it to the floor and was just unbuttoning his pants when he stepped into the bedroom and saw Anne Levy standing there. In her hands was a suppressed, Elite Dark SIG Sauer P226, the same weapon carried by a lot of Texas Rangers and Navy SEALs. It was pointed right at him. ~ Brad Thor, #NFDB
128:I can't tell you that. But not because I'm not willing to tell you." He looked down at the guns. A Desert Eagle and a Sig Sauer nine millimeter, and he'd killed with both of them. "When you take a man's life that's between you, God and that man's soul. It's a personal conversation you work out your entire life. I can't talk about it because there are no words for it. ~ Joey W Hill, #NFDB
129:Om man säger till henne att hon är vacker tycker hon att man är snäll, men hon tror en inte. Hon vet att skönhet finns i betraktarens ögon...Men det finns ett bättre sätt. Man visar henne att hon är vacker... plötsligt förändras den historia hon berättar för sig själv, inne i huvudet. Hon förvandlas. Hon är inte sedd som vacker. Hon är vacker och sedd". (s. 384) ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
130:När man alltid såg samma människor ... blev de där människorna till slut en del av ens liv. Och eftersom de var en del av ens liv skulle de efter ett tag också vilja ändra på ens liv. Om man inte gjorde som de förväntade sig blev de sura. För alla människor hade en bestämd uppfattning om hur andra borde leva. Men de visste aldrig hur de själva skulle leva (s. 21–22). ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
131:Så selvet er hverken vores psyke eller vores biologiske krop, ej heller summen af dem, men derimod det, at et menneske kan forholde sig til syntesen (eller forholdet) mellem dem. Selvet er altså det forhold ved os, at vi ikke blot har et forhold til vores psyke, krop eller verden i almindelighed, men kan forholde os til, hvordan vi forholder os til disse storrelser. ~ Svend Brinkmann, #NFDB
132:- og nu er det jeg som står og blir liten på den siste krumning i hyldens blygt hendoende motiv.-Drommer jeg? Er dette et skridt på en jordisk menneskevei? Kan det være en fjeldvægg, en stivnet form, denne foss av gulgrått sva, dette Niagara i sten, som med lydlos torden styrter sig ned over kanten og smelder i skogen efter et eneste sopende sveip på nærmere tusen meter? ~ Peter Wessel Zapffe, #NFDB
133:Det med, at universet ser ud til at have en afslutning, lægger naturligvis en dæmper på et eller andet. Alle tanker om evigt liv sætter sig fast i halsen. Men det er ikke noget, der plager mig. Ikke nu. Tværtimod. Jeg foler mig mere levende, end jeg har gjort længe. Pludselig foles det helt fint at have en frist at forholde sig til. Jeg har egentlig altid arbejdet bedst under pres. ~ Erlend Loe, #NFDB
134:Allt detta gjorde kyrkan i mina ögon till någonting helt annorlunda än staden i övrigt: en byggnad som, om man kan uttrycka sig så, var rest i fyra dimensioner - av vilka den fjärde var tiden - genom seklerna sträckande sitt skepp, som från travé till travé, från sidokapell till sidokapell tycktes erövra och överskrida icke endast några meter, utan den ena epoken efter den andra. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
135:Og hví skyldu vér amast við bókinni? Hún neyðir þig ekki til að lesa sig. Hún lætur persónu þína afskiftalausa. Hún liggur þarna einmana í horninu í bóksölubúðinni eins og þrítug piparjómfrú. En sá voði vogir yfir þér alla ævi þína, að rithöfundur setjist inn til þín og þylji yfir þér heila syrpu af óprentuðum ljóðum. Bækur eru saklausir hlutir, en rithöfundur eru ægilegar verur. ~ rbergur r arson, #NFDB
136:För henne var julen ett träleri, ett festligt ok som hon bar emedan hon inte vågade annat, visste annat eller hade tänkt sig något annat. Hade hon bara vågat skulle hon ha avskytt barnens tiggande och giriga blickar under julens (i mat och pölsor drunknade) stjärna. Hade hon bara vågat tänka efter, ja, då hade hon spottat på julen, kvinnornas speciella trältid. Men hon vågade inte. ~ Harry Martinson, #NFDB
137:Ändå jämrade sig minnet och sade: Riv inte, det är mina hus. Ni får inte slakta Klara! Varför inte, frågade då förnuftet, och minnet svarade: Därför att det är i denna del av världen som du har upplevt de klarvaknaste och mest spännande timmarna i ditt liv. Därför att alla dessa Klaras hus varit kulisser åt dina drömmar, bakgrunder till dina vandringar, vittnen till dina konspirationer. ~ Stig Dagerman, #NFDB
138:Varför måste man skriva? För att ställa sig vid sidan om, som i en kokong, försjunken i ensamhet, på trots mot andras behov. Virginia Woolf hade sitt rum. Proust sina stängda fönsterluckor. Marguerite Duras sitt tysta hus. Dylan Thomas sin enkla bod. Alla var de ute efter en tomhet att fylla med ord. Orden som ska tränga in i orörda marker, uppdaga oinmutade associationer, ge uttryck åt oändligheten. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
139:för dem, men de ville inte riskera att Snape skulle få höra vad de hade för sig. Harry väntade utanför i korridoren för att se om de båda andra hade hittat någonting, men han hade inget större hopp. De hade faktiskt letat i hela fjorton dagar, men eftersom de bara hade enstaka korta tillfällen mellan lektionerna var det inte förvånande att de inte hade hittat någonting. Vad de verkligen behövde var en ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
140:predicted, the lid opened. As predicted, a monster sat up in the coffin. It wasn’t a vampire or mummy. It was some bizarre, bloody mannequin with a gas mask on. There were many gashes on its bare chest, glistening with stage blood. “Hee hee,” went the prop. Tom kept his Sig on it, then slowly walked past. It was creepier than the zombie in the breakfront, and the body bag on a conveyor track, but Tom was ~ Jack Kilborn, #NFDB
141:Med människor i en liten båt sker något sällsamt. Vad de upplever är att de känner sig ensamma. Vad de känner är att de är ensamma tillsammans, tillsammans med de andra i båten. Därför uppstår mellan människor i små båtar en tillfällig tillgivenhet. Man har ju bara varandra och djupa vatten är skrämmande och små båtar är mycket bräckliga. Var och en blir den andres livboj. Är inte du rädd så inte är jag det. ~ Stig Dagerman, #NFDB
142:Det tog tre månader genom Europa och på vägen fick han möta fler negrer än han någonsin kunnat drömma om. Men redan efter den första hade han tappat intresset. Det visade sig ju inte vara någon annan skillnad än just färgen på huden, förutom att de pratade konstigt språk allihop, men det gjorde ju vitingarna också, från Småland och söderut. Den där Lundborg måste ha blivit skrämd av en neger som barn, trodde Allan. ~ Jonas Jonasson, #NFDB
143:Det kan regne og storme, det er ikke derpaa det kommer an, ofte kan en liten Glæde bemægtige sig en paa en Regnveirsdag og faa en til at gaa avsides med sin Lykke. Man stiller sig da op og gir sig til at se ret frem, nu og da ler man tyst og ser sig omkring. Hvad tenker man paa? En klar Rute i et Vindu, en Solstraale i Ruten, en Utsigt til en liten Bæk og kanske til en blaa Rift på Himlen. Det behover ikke at være mere. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
144:Hvad er det?” spurgte Ron og pegede på et stort fad med noget, der lignede sammenkogte muslinger, som stod placeret ved siden af en ordentlig omgang god gammeldags bof stroganoff. “Det er bouillabaisse,” sagde Hermione. “Prosit!” sagde Ron “Det er fransk,” sagde Hermione “Jeg fik det, da vi var på ferie forrige sommer. Det smager vældig godt” “Det gor det sikkert,” sagde Ron og kastede sig over det sikre valg – bof stroganoff. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
145:Mér hefði fundist allt mitt starf gersneytt merkingu og fundið leiðan hellast yfir mig og byrjað að drekka brennivín til að hafa ofan af fyrir sjálfum mér. Svoleiðis verða þeir í Reykjavík. Ég hef séð það af kvikmyndunum sem þeir búa til um fólkið á landsbyggðinni. Samfélagsmyndin sem skín í gegn samanstendur af illa innrættum þursum sem hafa það eitt fyrir stafni að berja á sínum nánustu og tjá sig í einsatkvæðisorðum. ~ Bergsveinn Birgisson, #NFDB
146:Hur nå gemenskap?
Fly den övre och yttre vägen :
Det som är boskap i andra är boskap också i dig.
Gå den undre och inre vägen :
Det som är botten i dig är botten också i andra.
Svårt att vänja sig vid sig själv.
Svårt att vänja sig av med sig själv.
Den som gör det skall ändå aldrig bli övergiven.
Den som gör det skall ändå alltid förbli solidarisk.
Det opraktiska är det enda praktiska
i längden. ~ Gunnar Ekel f,#NFDB
147:Alting gentog sig. Selvom rublen var skiftet ud med kronen, og militærflyene oven over hendes hoved var blevet færre, og officerernes koner mindre hojrostede, og selvom den estiske nationalsang dagligt lod fra hojttalerne i Lange-Hermann-tårnet, ville der altid dukke en ny kernelæderstovle op, altid en ny stovle, en, der var magen til, eller også så den anderledes ud, men måden den trådte én over halsen på, ville altid være den samme. ~ Sofi Oksanen, #NFDB
148:Markboen tapte ikke hodet. Han fandt ikke luften usund for sig, han hadde publikum nok til sine nye klær, han savnet ikke diamanter, vin kjendte han fra bryllupet i Kana. Markboen gjorde sig ikke ondt av de herligheter han ikke fik: kunst, aviser, luksus, politik var værd noiagtig det som menneskene vilde betale for det, ikke mere; markens grode derimot den måtte skaffes til hvilkensomhelst pris, den var altings ophav, den eneste kilde. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
149:Det var nästan som att upptäcka en författare man inte läst, fast man stöter i och för sig hela tiden på författare som man inte har läst medan det är mycket sällsynt, åtminstone i vuxen ålder, att man plötsligt hittar en stor popartist som har gett ut massor av bra skivor. Oftast är det fördomar snarare än okunnighet som gör att man missar stora artister, och fördomar är svåra att göra sig av med (det är ju så roligt att få dem bekräftade). ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
150:Kulan var alltid sval. Den blåa färgen var djupare och klarare än havet och målade om hela världen så att den blev kylig och avlägsen och främmande. I världens centrum såg han sig själv, sin egen stora nos, och runt omkring den speglade ett förvandlat och drömlikt landskap. Den blåa marken var långt nere och djupt in och därinne i det onåbara började pappan leta efter sin familj De kom alltid, bara han väntade. Glaskulan speglade dem alltid. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
151:– Vad kunna vi lära av en sådan händelse, fortfar Stav och letar i västen efter tuggtobak. Han får upp en bit som han skickligt smyger in i munnen.
– Jo, att det mesta av vårt dagliga liv går efter vanelagar.
Stav rättar sin pincené och ser vänligt på barnen.
– Av vikt är därför att man tillför nya, goda vanor till vanans värld. Då kommer det goda att gå liksom av sig själv. Det blir helt simpelt en ny natur. Vanan är halva naturen. ~ Harry Martinson,#NFDB
152:Vi har gått mot allt strängare övervakning - och den har inte gjort oss säkrare, som vi hoppades, utan ängsligare. Med vår skräck växer också impulsen att så omkring oss. Är det inte så: då ett vilt djur känner sig hotat och inte ser någon utväg att fly, går den till anfall. Då skräcken smyger sig över oss, finns det inget annat att göra än att hugga först. Det är svårt, när vi inte ens vet vartåt vi ska hugga... Men bättre förekomma en förekommas ( s. 105) ~ Karin Boye, #NFDB
153:Faktisk burde journalister holde sig langt væk fra journalistuddannelserne og studere noget ordentligt. Ja, faktisk burde vi nok helt lukke de journalistiske uddannelser, så de, der sidenhen bliver journalister, forst har taget en rigtig uddannelse om noget. Jeg siger ikke, at enhver kan lære at skrive godt, sådan er det overhovedet ikke, men det er en vigtigere sandhed, at enhver ikke kan lære at tænke uden at have siddet på sin rov og læst boger i nogle år. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
154:Rev·er·end n. the title of an Anglican archbishop or an Irish Roman Catholic bishop. most sig·nif·i·cant bit (abbr.: MSB) n. [COMPUTING] the bit in a binary number that is of the greatest numerical value. Mo·sul a city in northern Iraq, on the Tigris River, opposite the ruins of Nineveh; pop. 571,000. mot n. (pl. mots ) short for BON MOT. Linked entries: BON MOT ■ mote n. a tiny piece of a substance: the tiniest mote of dust. a mote in someone's eye a fault in a ~ Erin McKean, #NFDB
155:For også hun hadde hat sin historie, sin lille uregelmæssighet i sit liv (...)Siden sit ulykkelige forhold til en ung fremmed, en ren æventyrer ved navn Johan Nagel, en uanselig dværg, som hadde dukket op på hendes vei ifjor og gjort hende ganske forvirret, hadde fru Dagny hat sine dulgte sorger å trækkes med. Forholdet var ikke endt med at en hat sænkedes dypt og en pyntelig farvel hadde lydt, nei den vilde man var gåt på hodet i havet og hadde gjort ende på sig uten å si et ord. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
156:En Mil nedenunder mig saa jeg Havet; Fjældsiderne var vaate og sorte av Vand som rislet nedover dem, dryppet og rislet under samme bittelille Melodi. Disse smaa Melodier langt inde i Fjældene kortet mig mangen Stund naar jeg sat og saa mig om. Nu risler den lille endelose Tone her i sin Ensomhet, tænkte jeg, og ingen horer den og ingen tænker paa den, men allikevel risler den her for sig selv hele Tiden, hele Tiden! Og jeg syntes ikke længer at Fjældet var aldeles ode naar jeg horte denne Rislen. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
157:Jag har faktiskt känt mig sorgsen för min egen skull, då jag föreställt mig min slanka, nakna, bleka kropp där den flöt fram strax under strömvirvlarna på ytan, hur en klunga sniglar sugit sig fast vid ett av de nakna benen och hur mitt hår flöt som sjögräs ända tills jag nådde fram till havet och sjönk ner, ner, ner till havsbottnen, hur mina så gott som upplösta muskler skalades av i mjuka strimmor och hur jag likt en akvarell långsamt löstes upp i strömmarna ända tills bara skelettet fanns kvar. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
158:Vid sidan av varje individs anspråk på att hävda sig som subjekt, vilket är ett etiskt anspråk, finns det i själva verket också inom individen en frestelse att undfly friheten och bli till ett ting. Det är en ödesdiger väg eftersom den innebär att individen är passiv, alienerad, förlorad och därmed offer för främmande viljor, avskuren från sin transcendens, berövad alla värden. Men det är också en lätt väg, eftersom man därigenom undviker den autentiskt levda existensens ångest och anspänning. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
159:Frihet var något som förändrades när man såg på den, liksom en skog är tät av träd på nära håll, men utifrån, från den tomma ängen, ser man dess sanna gränser. Att vara fri hade inget att göra med bojor eller hur mycket utrymme man hade. På plantagen var hon inte fri, men hon rörde sig obehindrat på dess marker, smakade på luften och följde sommarens stjärnor. Plantagen var stor i sin litenhet. Här var hon fri från sin ägare men smög omkring i ett fängelse som var så litet att hon inte kunde stå upp. ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
160:Det danske samfund har en massiv mainstream. Hvis man folger den, får man medvind, man får fremdrift og et skub i ryggen af at gore som alle andre. Det eneste man skal, er at få sin uddannelse inden man er tredive, sikre sig en mand og nogle born og en villa fra man er tredive til man er fyrre, frasere alkoholforbruget, overleve midtvejskriserne, kridte skoene og være klar til, når bornene flytter hjemmefra, at tage den sidste lange spurt i det danske kaplob der hedder ‘den der har mest når hun dor, har vundet’. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
161:The first thing Harvath removed was a sand-colored, modified Palafox 9mm SIG Sauer P226 pistol. It had bright green TRUGLO Tritium/Fiber-Optic Day/Night sights that allowed for fast target acquisition regardless of light conditions. Portions of the slide had been milled away to lessen the weapon’s weight. It also helped to reduce muzzle flip and better assist recoil management. Accompanying the pistol was a Sticky-brand inside-the-waistband holster, spare magazines, and several boxes of TNQ frangible 9mm ammunition ~ Brad Thor, #NFDB
162:Det förflutna, som är mitt och Johannes Lupigis och andras, börjar lagra upp sig framför mig såsom en framtid, vilken jag skall genomtränga. Det förflutna lagrar på det sättet upp sig framför oss alla. Vi står och trampar i detta och måste genomtränga det för att få kunskap. Vi har genomlevt - eller uppslukat - en del av det och nu måste vi genomtränga och svälja det igen för att bli fria genom kunskapen om hur det var. Så är antagligen kunskapslagen, vägen till erfarenhetens förvärv, har diakonen Anselmus sagt. ~ Eyvind Johnson, #NFDB
163:Travis staggered backward, the hurt plainly displayed in his eyes. "A toast!" he yelled.
I flinched, turning just in time to see him climbing onto a chair, stealing a beer from the shocked Sig Tau brother closest to him. I glanced to America, who watched Travis with a pained expression.
"To douchebags!" he said, gesturing to Brad. "And to girls that break your heart, he bowed his head to me. His eyes lost focus. "And to the absolute horror of losing your best friend because you were stupid enough to fall in love with her. ~ Jamie McGuire,#NFDB
164:Jag är den starke, som har makten över människors barn, svarade körkarlen, och hans röst blev fulltonig och allvarlig. Jag betvingar dem, vare sig de bor i höga salar eller i eländiga källarhålor. Jag ger friheten åt slavarna, och jag rycker ner kungarna från deras troner. Det finns ingen borg så mäktig, att jag inte bestiger dess mur. Det finns ingen kunskap så djup, att den kan sätta en damm för min framfärd. Jag slår de trygga, bäst de solar sig i lycka, och jag skänker arv och egendom åt de elända, som har försmäktat i fattigdom. ~ Selma Lagerl f, #NFDB
165:Men, altså – Harry,” vedblev kæmpen og vendte sig bort fra den skræmte Dursley-familie.
Jeg onsker dig en rigtig go’ fodselsdag. Jeg har en gave til dig.
Måske er jeg kommet til at sidde på den, men den smager sikkert lige så godt for det.”
Han fremdrog en lettere mast æske fra inderlommen af sin sorte overfrakke.
Harry åbnede den med rystende fingre og fandt en stor, klistret chokoladekage, hvorpå der stod med gron glasur: Tillykke med fodselsdagen Harry.”
(Harry Potter og De Vises sten, J.K. Rowling) ~ J K Rowling,#NFDB
166:...fjældene slutter sig tættere og tættere omkring os, det synes som om alt håp er ute, bare litt himmel er synlig ret over vore hodet. Det virker beklemmende på os, vi overvældes og tier. Pludselig ved en skarp dreining av veien åpner sig et svært gap tilhoire og vi ser aldeles nær os istinden Kasbek med sine bræer som hvitgnistrer i solen. Den står os kloss ind på livet, stille og hoi, stum. Det rykker en sælsom folelse gjennom os, berget står der opsvoren av de andre berge, det er som et væsen fra en anden verden som står der og ser på os. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
167:Framtiden är här', hör Cayce sig själv säga 'och tittar bakåt mot oss. Försöker bli klok på den fiktion vi kommer att ha blivit. Och ur deras synvinkel kommer vårt förflutna inte alls att se ut som det förflutna vi själva föreställer oss nu.
Jag vet bara att den enda konstanten i historien är förändring: det förflutna förändras. Vår version av dåtiden kommer att intressera framtiden i ungefär samma utsträckning som vi är intresserade av den dåtid som viktorianerna trodde på. Den kommer helt enkelt inte att te sig särskilt betydelsefull. ~ William Gibson,#NFDB
168:Och med en annan sak blir jag aldrig färdig: Att draga mig tillbaka och sitta i ensamheten i skogen och ha det gott och mörkt omkring mig. Det är den sista glädjen. Det är det höga, det religiösa i ensamheten och mörkret, som gör att man har behov av dem, det är däremot icke därför man söker sig bort från de andra, att det bara är sig själv man härdar ut med, nej, nej. Men det är det mystiska, att allt brusar fjärran och dock så nära en, man sitter i mitten av en allestädes närvarande. Det är väl Gud. Det är väl en själv som är en del av allt. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
169:Människan var inte en maskin, men befann sig inne i maskinen. Det var det som var konsten. Att bemästra maskinen. Då skulle ansikten han tecknade le tacksamt och välvilligt mot honom. Men det svåra, det riktigt svåra var att de inte tycktes tacksamma. Att människornas små elaka huvuden mellan punkterna, de som avbockats! blivit klara! lösta!!!, att dessa ansikten som tittade fram var ondskefulla och illvilliga och otacksamma. Framför allt var de inte hans vänner. Samhället var en maskin, och ansiktena illvilliga. Nej, ingen klarhet längre. ~ Per Olov Enquist, #NFDB
170:Jag återvänder till mitt yttrande att vi sakna nationalitet. Kan någon säga mig något svenskt i Sverige annat än våra tallar, granar och järngruvor, vilka snart icke behövas mer i marknaden! Vad äro våra folkvisor? Franska, engelska och tyska romanser, i dålig översättning! [...] Säg mig något svenskt skaldestycke, konstverk, musikstycke, som är specifikt svenskt, varigenom det skiljer sig från alla icke-svenska! Visa mig en svensk byggnad! Det finns icke, och finns det så är det antingen dåligt eller är det bildat efter utländskt mönster. ~ August Strindberg, #NFDB
171:Þannig virðist mér reglan heldur vera sú að fólk lifi að jafnaði í berhöggi við það sem það boðar, hvaða mynd svo sem kann að vera á því sem boðað er, sé það pólítísk stefna eða tilvistarspeki. Það er engu líkara en þeir sem tala um að grenna sig, sykri alltaf pönnsuna mest og verstu ruddarnir tali um "aðgát í næveru sálar"; þeir sem fordæma glæpinn harðast séu að jafnaði stærstu glæpamennirnir, kapítalisminn sem á að gera alla ríka-geri alla fátæka, og eins víst að frelsið sem mönnum er svo tíðrætt um núna eigi eftir að fera alla að þrælum. ~ Bergsveinn Birgisson, #NFDB
172:Men hatifnattar slåss aldrig, lika lite som de säger emot en eller tycker illa om en eller tycker nånting alls, överhuvudtaget.
De kom fram för att buga en efter en, i hundratal, och pappan tog hatten av sig och bugade tills han fick ont i huvudet och undratals tassar viftade tills pappan också började vifta med tassarna av ren trötthet.
När den sista hatifnatten gått förbi hade mumintrollets pappa helt och hållet glömt att han haft lust att slåss. Han var bara artig och utslätad och följde efter genom det viskande gräset med hatten i tassen. ~ Tove Jansson,#NFDB
173:Faktum var att han inte kunde vara den sortens pappa längre. Den tiden var förbi. Det var som om Gud plötsligt skulle bestämma sig för att vara Gud igen flera kvadriljoner år efter att han skapat världen. Han kunde inte bara dimpa ner från himlen och säga: Å nej, ni borde inte ha placerat Empire State Building där, och ni borde inte ha ordnat det så att de afrikanska folken får mindre pengar, och ni borde inte ha låtit dem tillverka kärnvapen. För då kunde man säga till Honom: Det är väl lite sent att påpeka det nu? Var höll du hus medan vi funderade på de sakerna? ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
174:Höstens lugna gång mot vinter är ingen dålig tid. Det är en tid för att bevara och säkra och lägga upp så stora förråd man kan. Det är skönt att samla det man har så tätt intill sig som möjligt, samla sin värme och sina tankar och gräva sig en säker håla längst in, en kärna av trygghet där man försvarar det som är viktigt och dyrbart och ens eget. Sen kan kölden och stormarna och mörkret komma bäst de vill. De trevar över väggarna och letar efter en ingång men det går inte, alltihop är stängt och därinne sitter den som har varit förtänksam och skrattar in sin värme och sin ensamhet. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
175:The 40mm high explosive shells he had fired into the truck were enough to hobble a military APC. He had not seriously considered that any members of the British support team would be resilient enough to live this long.
He kept his careful aim with the Sig Sauer. The gunman did not like extraneous details. They irritated him.
‘I will ask you again,’ he told the agent. ‘Who is with you?’ If there were others, it would be necessary to deal with them as well.
The reply came after a long moment. ‘I’m alone,’ said the other man. ‘You did your job,’ he added bitterly. ‘You killed them all. ~ James Swallow,#NFDB
176:Jorden tilhorer ikke mennesket.
Det er menneskene, der tilhorer Jorden. De duftende blomster er vore sostre, og hesten, den mægtige orn, for ikke at tale om elgen, er vore brodre. Og hvordan kan man kobe eller sælge noget som helst? For hvem ejer varmen i luften eller lyden af vinden i træerne? Og saften i grenene bærer erindringen om dem, der har levet for os. Og lyden af bækkens mumlen er er vores forfaders stemme. Og vi må lære vores born, at jorden under deres fodder er forfædrenes akse, og at alt, hvad der overgår Jorden også overgår os, og hvis mennesket spytter på jorden, spytter det på sig selv. ~ Erlend Loe,#NFDB
177:När jag i Montreal eller på andra platser möter flickor som frivilligt och avsiktligt skadar sig själva och vill få ärr inristade i huden för all framtid, kan jag inte låta bli att i hemlighet önska att de fick möta de där andra flickorna, som också de bär på outplånliga ärr, men så djupa att de är osynliga för blotta ögat. Jag skulle vilja att de träffades så att jag fick höra dem jämföra ett självförvållat ärr med ett som man tillfogats, det ena betalar man för, det andra gör man mot betalning, det ena är synligt och det andra hemligt, det ena är ytligt och det andra går på djupet, det ena är skarpt, det andra suddigt. ~ Kim Th y, #NFDB
178:Helena: Är du ledsen för at du har blivit gammal, Isak?
Isak: Nej. Det verkar som om allting blir värre. Värre väder, värre mänskor, värre maskiner, värre krig. Gränserna sprängs och allt det outsägliga breder ut sig och kan aldrig mere hejdas. Då är det gott att vara död.
Helena: Du er en ruskig gammal värdsfötaktare, Isak, det har du alltid varit. Jag tror inte alls som du.
Isak: Nej, nej, gudskelov för det.
Helena: Det hindrar inte att jag vill gråta. Tycker du det är otrevligt om jag gråter en liten stund. (Jon försökar gråta.) Nej, min själ det går inte. Det blir ingenting. Jag får lov att drikka litet mer konjak. ~ Ingmar Bergman,#NFDB
179:Þjóðlíf á Íslandi var enn ekki komið svo lángt í rómantík að fólk úr sveitum tæki sig til á helgum dögum á sumrin og færi í útreið í líkíngu við skógarfarir í Danmörku einsog síðar varð. Á þeim dögum var enn talið ljótt í sveitum að sinna nokkrum hlut vegna þess eins að hann væri skemtilegur. Danakonúngur hafði með fororðníngu afnumið skemtanir á Íslandi fyrir rúmum hundrað árum. Dans var sagður af djöflinum og hafði þá ekki verið stiginn í sveitum í marga mannsaldra. Það þótti ekki sæmilegt að ógift æskufólk træði hvert öðru um tær nema í hæsta lagi til að eignast launbörn. Alt líf átti að vera nytsamlegt og guði til dýrðar. ~ Halld r Kiljan Laxness, #NFDB
180:Ett dovt illamående rörde sig på botten av min mage. Jag kände igen det: det hade med närheten att göra. Jag mår illa när jag alltför snabbt kommer nära nya människor. Jag behöver tid. Drinkar på avstånd på stela mingeltillställningar, situationer som tillåter mig att betrakta i hemlighet, skapa mig mina uppfattningar ifred, som en spindel i en källares lugn sakta väver sin trygghet runt sig. Människor som öppnar sig alltför snabbt är som rutschkanor in i mörkret: all trygghet är inbillad och till slut faller man fritt. Jag kan mot dessa människor känna ett slags oförklarligt raseri, som om någon olovligen hårt och plötsligt pressat sin kropp mot min. ~ Lina Wolff, #NFDB
181:Problemet var att han faktiskt ville ligga med Rachel, oerhört gärna, och han viste inte om han stod ut med att sitta på hennes soffa medan pupillerna vidgade sig under de kommande tio eller tjugo åren (…). Den verkliga frågan var förstås om hans pupiller stod ut med det. Skulle han inte få ont i dem efter ett tag? Han var nästan säker på att det inte kunde vara bra för dem att hålla på att vigda sig och dra sig samman, men han skulle bara nämna pupillsmärtan för Rachel som en sista utväg -det fanns en avlägsen möjlighet att hon skulle vilja ligga mer honom för att rädda hans syn- men det vore bättre om han hittade en annan och mer konventionellt romantisk väg. ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
182:Jeg peker på mit navn at der står det og at jeg er den og den. De forstår intet, men de klapper mig og finder at jeg er i orden. Så er det en som går bort til disken og forlanger musik. Og straks begynder et orkestrion å gå. Dette er til ære for dig! tænker jeg, og jeg reiser mig og hilser i alle retninger. Som ved et trylleri begynder jeg å bli meget glad, jeg forlanger vin og vi blir rigtig mange til å drikke. Hehe, det rygtes i salen at jeg er kommet til Moskva, en mand blir hentet som kan fransk; men jeg syntes det gik bra på russisk også og jeg kan desuten ikke stort fransk, så manden er mig uvelkommen. Men vi skjæner ham også og later ham sætte sig ved siden av os. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
183:Nu sitter de tre der og koser sig med hverandre og har denne lille hemmelighet med slikkerier sig imellem. Det er som de sitter og deler og spiser op tyvekoster, de skræmmer hverandre for spok at mama kommer, bedstemor kommer, de stikker litt tilside til brodrene, til studenten og smeddrengen. Å det var ingen som denne far til å lage kalas for born.
...så pludselig tror de å hore nogen komme, farn skynder sig å rydde bordet, han kaster i siste oieblik to hele hveteboller i munden og sitter derpå urorlig med kjæverne. Å han er så utstoppet og ustyrtelig komisk med sit alvorlige ansigt og sin mund fuld av hveteboller... Farn må stige op på en stol for å tygge ut. Tre born. ~ Knut Hamsun,#NFDB
184:Det, det gælder om, er at finde en sandhed, som er sandhed for mig, at finde den del for hvilken jeg vil leve og do. Det nytter ham ikke noget at finde en såkaldt objektiv sandhed eller at arbejde sig igennem filosoffernes systemer eller at kunne udvikle kristendommens betydning og forklare mange enkelte fænomener, hvis den for ham selv og hans liv ikke har nogen dybere betydning. Hvad skal han med en sandhed, der står kold overfor ham, og som han ikke har tilegnet sig? Han har brug for en erkendelse og at virke på mennesker gennem den, men det forudsætter, at den bliver levende optaget i ham, og det er det, der er hovedsagen. Den torster han efter som Afrikas orkener efter vand. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
185:Och när man sedan håller på att köpa tärnad cantaloupemelon på Sjunde Avenyn råkar man få syn på Nick Dunne, och pang, där är någon som känner en, någon som känner igen en. Och det gäller er båda två. Ni tycker båda att precis samma saker är värda att minnas. (Fast bara en oliv.) Ni har samma rytm. Klick. Ni känner helt enkelt varandra. Och plötsligt ser du hur ni läser i sängen och våfflor på söndagar och hur ni skrattar åt ingenting och hans mun mot din. Och det är så bortom okej att man förstår att man aldrig mer kan nöja sig med det som bara är okej. Så fort gick det. Man tänker: Jaha, här är resten av mitt liv. Äntligen är det här. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
186:Medan han arbetade med rummet och medan det sakta tog form, insåg han att han inom sig omedvetet hade haft en bild som fanns inlåst där som en skamfylld hemlighet, en bild som skenbart utgjordes av en plats men som i själva verket rymde honom själv. Det var alltså sig själv han försökte definiera när han arbetade med sitt rum. När han slipade de gamla brädorna till bokhyllorna och såg smutsen försvinna och det medfarna grå ytskiktet ge vika för gediget trä och slutligen visa upp en mättad renhet i ådring och textur - när han reparerade möblerna och ordnade dem i rummet, var det sig själv han långsamt formade, det var sig själv som han ställde i ordning, sig själv som han möjliggjorde. ~ John Williams, #NFDB
187:In the dead of night, his keen senses suddenly focused on the entry door. An infinitesimal sound of metal pierced the silence in the hallway. Immediately, Sharko turned off the light and grabbed up his Sig. Here they were. Beneath his door, he saw, very briefly, the beam of a flashlight, before everything went black again. His jaw set, he slowly got up from his chair and crept toward the living room. On the other side, the linoleum floor creaked slightly. Sharko felt the edge of his sofa and crouched down, his gun aimed blindly in front of him. He could have attacked from the front, by surprise, but he didn’t know how many there were. One thing was for sure: they rarely went out alone. ~ Franck Thilliez, #NFDB
188:Every agent has a Sig Weiss—as a rosy dream. You sit there day after day paddling through oceans of slush, hoping one day to run across a manuscript that means something—sincerity, integrity, high word rates—things like that. You try to understand what editors want in spite of what they say they want, and then you try to tell it to writers who never listen unless they’re talking. You lend them money and psychoanalyze them and agree with them when they lie to themselves. When they write stories that don’t make it, it’s your fault. When they write stories that do make it, they did it by themselves. And when they hit the big time, they get themselves another agent. In the meantime, nobody likes you. ~ Theodore Sturgeon, #NFDB
189:And you never even reported it. You should have reported it. I could have took fingerprints. I'd love to lock up them skinheads."
"What I'm reporting is the gun, my Sig Sauer." Dave said. "Hetzel will have it. I want it back."
"What did it cost you?" Rose said.
"That's not the point," Dave said. "It's the only gun I ever owned. I'm against guns. They give too many people power who have no right to it. Guns cancel out intelligence, reason, decency, civility, and put terror in their place. I got along without a gun most of my working life. But a man can't buck the odds forever. About five years back I bought the Sig Sauer. I'm used to it. And I don't know that I'm morally prepared to buy another one. ~ Joseph Hansen,#NFDB
190:En eina grundvallaraðgerð hafði honum ekki tekist að framkvæma, að uppfæra sjálfan sig, útgáfu 2.0. Þótt hann væri fæddur fréttaskýrandi, með virðingu fyrir málfrelsinu í merg og beinum, fífldirfsku í hjartanu, tæknisnilli í heilanum og liminn sem áttavita, hafði það ekki dugað til, dagarnir höfðu verið of stuttir, runnið of hratt úr greipum hans, og nú var allt um seinan. Tíminn var takmarkalaus þar til hann var allt í einu liðinn. Hin óhlutdræga, rannsakandi, upplýsandi blaðamennska, eins og hún var í augum þeirra allra, allra nútíma-þátttakendanna, hún yrði ekkert annað en stutt málsgrein í sögu mannsins, og það var hann, hann sjálfur í eigin persónu, sem hafði haldið um stýrið þegar þau hröpuðu beint niður til helvítis. ~ Liza Marklund, #NFDB
191:Suddenly the Kadoshim had a knife in his fist and he was stabbing frenziedly at Hammer’s paw, sinking deep, blood spurting. The bear roared and jerked away, the Kadoshim—abruptly free—was up and stumbling at Sig, knife lunging for her belly. Then Hammer’s jaws clamped around Rimmon’s torso, lifting him bodily from the ground, jaws snapping tighter as it shook the Kadoshim furiously, blood spraying, bones snapping. The bear hurled the Kadoshim to the ground, slammed one paw upon the winged demon’s torso and grabbed its head, ripping it from its shoulders with a wet, tearing sound. Sig stood and stared. It was all over in a handful of heartbeats. “I think you are more bad-tempered than I am,” she muttered, patting the bear’s neck. ~ John Gwynne, #NFDB
192:Förresten hade pappan börjat tänka på ett alldeles nytt sätt. Mer och mer sällan funderade han över allt han hade varit med om under sitt vänliga och brokiga liv, och lika sällan drömde han om vad alla de kommande dagarna skulle ge honom.
Hans tankar gled som båten, utan minnen och drömmar, de var som gråa vandrande vågor som inte ens hade lust att komma fram till horisonten.
Pappan försökte inte prata med hatifnattarna längre. Han stirrade ut över havet som de, hans ögon hade blivit bleka som deras och lånade himlens växlande färg. Och när nya öar kom emot dem rörde han sig inte, bara svansen slog några slag mot durken.
Jag undrar, tänkte pappan en gång när de glöd framåt i en lång trött dyning, jag undrar om jag inte håller på att börja likna en hatifnatt. ~ Tove Jansson,#NFDB
193:- Tacksam för att de med lagen på sin sida introducerat en i detta elände, fött en med dålig mat, slagit en, förtryckt en, förödmjukat en, motsatt sig ens önskningar. Vill ni tro att det fattas en revolution till? Nej, två! Varför dricker absint? Ni är rädd för den? Å! Se, den bär ju Genèvekorset! Den läker de sårade på slagfältet, vänner och fiender; den dövar smärtan, förslöar tanken, borttager minnet, förkväver alla ädla känslor, som narra människan att begå dårskaper, och slutar med att släcka förnuftets ljus. Vet ni vad förnuftets ljus är? Det är för det första en fras, för det andra ett irrbloss, en lyktgubbe, ni vet sådana där sken som irra över platser, där fisk legat och ruttnat och alstrat fosforväten; förnuftets ljus är fosforväte, alstrad av den grå hjärnsubstansen. ~ August Strindberg, #NFDB
194:Vilket korkat jävla idiotland det här var. Alla unga kvinnor drack vatten i sådana mängder att det sprutade ur öronen på dem, de trodde det var 'nyttigt' och 'fräscht', men det enda som hände var att antalet unga inkontinenta i landet sköt rätt upp i höjden. Barn åt fullkornspasta och fullkornsbröd och allsköns märkvärdiga grova rissorter som deras magar inte kunde tillgodogöra sig riktigt, men det spelade ingen roll för det var 'nyttigt', det var 'fräscht', det var 'hälsosamt'. Å, de förväxlade mat med själ, de trodde att de kunde äta sig till att bli bättre människor utan att fatta att mat är en sak, de föreställningar mat väcker något annat. Och sa man det, sa man något i den vägen var man antingen reaktionär eller bara norrman, det vill säga en människa som är tio år efter. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd, #NFDB
195:- Människor är inte så små som man tror. Och inte så stora. Felet med att ha makten som bedömningsgrund och inte handlingarna är att nästan alla friskriver sig då, var och en hittar sin maktlöshet när de behöver den. För alla är maktlösa inför någon, och något. Alla har ett skikt av maktlöshet i sig, i sin upplevelse av sig själva i tillvaron, som de då använder. Och därför ser världen ut som den gör. Alla har en glipa i sin makt, även när de vet att de har makt och ansvar, som de kan utnyttja för att förstå varför de måste handla som de gör. Moralen börjar hos individen. Man måste kräva den av alla. De som har makt föddes maktlösa och denna känsla är den som består i dem hela livet, särskilt i de stunder då de handlar fel. Då minns de att de blev mobbade på skolgården och slagen av pappa och inser att allt är någon annans fel även nu. ~ Lena Andersson, #NFDB
196:Jag är trött på nyheterna. Jag är trött på hur de blåser upp saker som är oviktiga, och spelar ned allting som är verkligt vedervärdigt. Jag är trött på hätskheten. Jag är trött på ilskan. Jag är trött på elakheten. Jag är trött på själviskheten. Jag är trött på att vi inte gör någonting för att stoppa det. Jag är trött på hur vi uppmuntrar det. Jag är trött på allt våld som finns och jag är trött på det våld som är på väg, som kommer att komma, som inte har hänt än. Jag är trött på lögnare. Jag är trött på hur de lögnarna tillåtit det här att hända. Jag är trött på att behöva undra om de gjorde det av dumhet eller gjorde det med vilje. Jag är trött på lögnaktiga regeringar. Jag är trött på att människor inte bryr sig om att regeringen ljuger för dem längre. Jag är trött på att de får mig att känna mig så här rädd. Jag är trött på modlösheten. Jag är trött på modiglösheten. ~ Ali Smith, #NFDB
197:Den manliga galenskapen [...] kan nästan alltid härledas till antingen demens, eller geni. Därtill följer den vissa mönster av upphöjdhet som ofta bottnar i fåfänga och ofta blir monotona i ländgen. Den kvinnliga galenskapen däremot, är helt annorlunda. Den besitter något vidsträckt, och den verkar kunna anta ett oändligt antal olika skepnader. Det finns elasticitet i den, en elasticitet som påminner om kvinnokroppen i sig. Den typ av mörker som kan ta kvinnor i besittning är oändligt mycket mer krävande än det mörker som gör anspråk på männen. Och många kvinnor verkar på något sätt vara villiga att föda fram detta mörker! Jag tror det har den de extatiska aspekterna av en förlossning att göra. Kvinnor vet i sitt kött vilken glädje lidandet kan frambringa, och därför blir de mer öppna än män inför alla typer av gränstillstånd. Det är som de litar på lidandets positiva kraft. ~ Lina Wolff, #NFDB
198:... det är bra för en människa att meditera över de drömmar hon haft. Då framstår den passiva tron på vetenskapen som en verklighetsflykt lika mycket som mysticismen. Därför är arbete och handling nödvändiga. Men de måste vara grundade på tro. Frågan är hur vi kan skaffa oss en tro värdig livet.
...
'Jag tror på livet och människorna', hade Ahmed sagt. 'Jag anser det vara min plikt att stödja deras ideal, så länge de är riktiga, för passivitet i det fallet innebär feghet och flykt. Jag anser det också vara min plikt att motarbeta deras ideal, om jag tror att de är felaktiga, för passivitet då innebär förräderi.' Man kunde fråga sig: vad är riktigt och vad är felaktigt? Men kanske tvivlet var ett slags verklighetsflykt liksom mysticismen och den passiva tron på vetenskapen. Likväl: kunde man på samma gång vara en idealisk lärare, en idealisk äkta man och en ständig revoltör? ~ Naguib Mahfouz,#NFDB
199:Jeg henvender mig til disken og spor efter kognak. Manden ved disken forstår mig og sætter ned en flaske. Den har et mig ubekjent mærke, og det står Odessa på den. Tvi! sier jeg; har han ikke andet? Det forstår han ikke. Jeg langer selv op i hylden og finder mig en anden kognakflaske. Den viser sig å være av samme Odessamærke, men har fem stjærner. Jeg ser på den og anskuer den og finder den simpel. Om han ikke har bedre? Det forstår han ikke. Jeg tæller stjærner for ham, at det er fem, og foier til et par selv med blyant. Det forstår han. Han kommer virkelig med en seksstjærnet Odessaflaske. Hvad koster den? Fire og en halv rubel. Og den foregående? Tre og en halv. Det er en rubel pr.stjærne. Men jeg tok allikevel den med fem stjærner, og det viste sig å være en lynende stærk kognak som jeg fik sove av. Og idag er jeg trods alle kloke koners og alle turisters visdom bedre av feberen skjont jeg drak kognak inat. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
200:Vet ni, det fanns en person i min omgivning som brukade indela människorna i tre kategorier: de som finner det bättre att inte ha någonting att dölja än att behöva ljuga, de som föredrar att ljuga framför att ingenting ha att dölja, och slutligen de som tycker om både lögner och smussel. Jag överlåter åt er att välja vilket fack jag passar bäst i. Vad spelar det för resten för roll? Leder inte lögnen i sinom tid fram till sanningens väg? Och har kanske inte mina historier, vare sig de nu är sanna eller lögnaktiga, överlag samma syftemål, samma innebörd? Nå, vad spelar det då för roll om de är sanna eller lögnaktiga, när de i båda fallen är signifikativa för vad jag har varit och för vad jag är. Det händer ibland att man tydligare genomskådar den som ljuger än den som talar sanning. Sanningen bländar, precis som ljuset. Lögnen däremot är en vacker skymning som kommer varje föremål att framträda i sin rätta dager. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
201:Naar Jeg I Eenrum Færdes
Naar jeg i Eenrum færdes
med stille Grublen vanker,
da er min Sjæl lysvaagen,
da sværme mine Tanker.
Fordobblet min Bevidsthed
det smukke Virvar maaler,
som det Uendelige
omkring min Pande straaler.
I Skjonheds underfulde
Mysterier bevandret,
jeg har Dit Væsen hos mig,
frigjordt, men ei forandret.
Let flagrer Psychevingen
paa dine Skulderblade,
og Dine Lokker slynges
udodelige, glade.
Du tager mig ved Haanden
som Dantes Beatrice,
og vil mig Himlens Engle
og Saligheden vise.
Kun naar en Ven mig moder
og, som han tror, opliver og naar jeg Selskabskredsen,
som man har sagt, henriver Saa er det som om Livet
fordulgt tilbagestrommer det saakaldt Virkelige,
det troer jeg, at jeg drommer.
Det vexler og forsvinder,
det hylder sig i Taager da er det, Sjælen blunder
og legemet kun vaager.
205
~ Emil Aarestrup,#NFDB
202:Jag går omkring i de sömnlösa nätternas trädgård och vill något med mitt liv som inte går att formulera. Mina fötter gör avtryck i snön. Kanske är det jag vill. Lämna spår. Men snöspåren försvinner ju. Dunstar. Blir intet. Eller snarare partiklar som rumlar runt i universum och fäster sig vid än det ena, än det andra, som de skapar eventuellt nytt liv med. Ursprunget har splittrats. Dött. Dödats. Det är så jävla värdelöst!
Universum borde förbjudas. Jag borde förbjudas. För jag orkar inte vara människa. Orkar inte delta i det här meningslösa livspelet. Vad jag än vill med mitt liv så vill Universum/Naturen/Tiden/Gud/Och Andra Idioter ändå att jag ska dö till slut och vad är det då för vits med vad jag vill med mitt liv? [...]
Jag vill något med mitt liv. Fast jag kommer att dö och fast det kanske är meningslöst att vilja något så vill jag ändå. Jag sitter kvar en lång stund i snön och gråter och darrar och samlar nästan ihop till en urinvägsinfektion. ~ Johanna Nilsson,#NFDB
203:Det är meningslöst att säga att en människa bör vara nöjd med att ha lugn och ro. Hon behöver liv och rörelse, och om det inte bjuds henne skapar hon det. Tusenden är dömda till en ännu händelselösare tillvaro än mig, och tusende lever i tyst protest mot sitt öde. Ingen vet hur många uppror vid sidan av de politiska som jäser bland alla de människor som befolkar jorden. Kvinnor förväntas alltid vara stillsamma, men kvinnor har samma känslor som män, de har samma behov av att öva sina förmågor och spänna sina krafter som deras bröder. De plågas av den trånga instängdheten och fullständiga händelselösheten på precis samma sätt som män plågas, och det är trångsynt av deras mer privilegierade medmänniskor att hävda att de borde vara nöjda med att sticka strumpor och laga puddingar, spela piano och brodera väskor. Det är tanklöst att fördöma dem eller skratta åt dem om de vill uträtta mer eller lära sig mer än vad traditionen föreskriver som passande för deras kön (s. 125-126). ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
204:I flera hundra år hade hans förfäder sått säd. Det var en handling av andakt en tyst och mild, vindlös kväll, helst i ett litet beskedligt duggregn, helst så snart som möjligt efter det grågässen sträckt. Potatisen, det var en ny rotfrukt, det var inget mystiskt med den, inget religiöst, kvinnfolk och barn kunde vara med och sätta dessa jordpäron som kom från främmande land liksom kaffet, det var stor och präktig mat, men släkt med rovan. Säden, det var brödet. Säd eller icke säd, det var liv eller död. Isak gick barhuvad och sådde i Jesu namn. Han var som en vedkubb med händer på, men inom sig var han som ett barn. Han tänkte sig för vid varje kast, han var vänlig och undergiven. Se, nu gror nog dessa korn och blir ax och mera säd, och likadant är det över hela jorden när säd sås. I Palestina, i Amerika, i Gudbrandsdalen - å, vad världen var vid, och den lilla, lilla jordlapp som Isak gick och sådde låg i mitten av allt. Solfjädrar av säd strålade ut från hans hand. Himlen var mulen och blid, det såg ut att dra ihop sig till ett litet, litet duggregn. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
205:meaning that you needed to uncompress the tar(1) file before verifying it. Beginning with V8.11, there is a signature file for each of the compressed files, so there is no need to uncompress either first. The signature file has the same name as the distribution file but with a literal . sig suffix added.sendmail.8.14.1. tar.gz ← the distribution file sendmail.8.14.1. tar.gz.sig ← the signature file for this distribution file sendmail.8.14.1. tar.Z ← the distribution file sendmail.8.14.1. tar.Z.sig ← the signature file for this distribution file If you have not already done so for an earlier sendmail distribution, you must now download and install the PGPKEYS file from sendmail.org: ftp://ftp.sendmail.org/pub/sendmail/P... After downloading this file, add the keys in it to your PGP key ring with a command like this: pgp -ka PGPKEYS ← for pgp version 2. x pgpk -a PGPKEYS ← for pgp version 5. x gpg --import PGPKEYS ← for gpg If you use gpg(1), your output may look something like this: % gpg --import PGPKEYS gpg: key 16F4CCE9: "Sendmail Security " 22 new signatures gpg: key 7093B841: public key "Sendmail Signing Key/2007 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
206:Hvad kalder de dig? spurgte Francine stille. "Er det William? "will," Sagde Andrews. "jeg vil kalde dig William," Sagde hun. " det er mere dig, tror jeg." Hun smilede langsomt til ham. " Du er meget ung, tror jeg." Han flyttede sin hånd væk fra hendes fingres kærtegn. " jeg er treogtyve." Hun flyttede sig nærmere på ham, skubbede sig hen over sofaen; den knitrende lyd fra hendes glatte kjole lod som blodt stof der blev flænget. Hendes skulder pressede let mod hans, og hun trak vejret roligt og rytmisk. " du må ikke være vred," sagde hun. "jeg er glad for at du er så ung. Jeg foretrækker at du er ung. Alle mændene her er gamle og hårde. Jeg vil gerne have at du er blod så længe du kan være det... Hvornår rejser du med Miller og de andre?" Om tre eller fire dage" sagde Andrews. " men vi kommer tilbage inden for en måned. Og så-" Francine rystede på hovedet, men smilede stadig. " ja, du kommer tilbage; men du vil ikke være den samme længere; du vi være blevet ligesom de andre." Andrews så forvirret på hende, og i sin forvirring udbrod han: " jeg vil ikke blive andet end mig selv!" Hun fortsatte som om han ikke havde afbrudt hende. " Vinden og solen vil hærde dit ansigt, dine hænder vil ikke længere være blode. ~ John Williams, #NFDB
207:Nogle, især piger, havde måttet leve deres mors barndom, mens deres egen lå gemt hen i en hemmelig skuffe. For sådanne piger var det vanskeligst. Deres stemmer brod ud af dem som materien af et sår, og lyden af den forskrækkede dem, som når de opdagede, at nogen havde læst i deres dagbog, skont den var låst inde mellem skrammel og gammelt legetoj fra den tid, hvor de bar en firårigs udsatte ansigt. Det stirrede op på dem mellem snurretoppene og de invalide dukker med det uskyldige, forbavsede glasblik. Deres sovn var let og lugtede af angst. Hver aften når de ryddede op på deres værelse, måtte de samle deres tanker sammen for natten som fugle, der skal lokkes ind i deres bur. Det hændte, at en af dem ikke var deres egen, og så vidste de ikke, hvor de skulle gore af den. I farten, for de var altid trætte, proppede de den om bag et skab eller ind mellem to boger i reolen. Men når de vågnede, disse piger, passede tankerne ikke mere til deres ansigt, som havde oplost sig under sovnen ligesom en fastelavnsmaske, hvis stive pap er revnet og gennemvædet af den varme ånde. Med besvær tog de det nye ansigt på sig som en skæbne, og de blev svimle af at se ned på deres fodder, så stor var afstanden blevet i nattens lob. ~ Tove Ditlevsen, #NFDB
208:Stening finder sted over hele den muslimske verden. I mit hjemland Somalia rapporterede en 13-årig pige for eksempel, at hun var blevet gruppevoldtaget af tre mænd. Al-Shabaab-militsen, der kontrollerede hendes hjemby Kismayo, reagerede ved at anklage hende for utroskab, fandt hende skyldig og domte hende til doden. Hendes henrettelse blev proklameret om morgenen fra en hojttaler på en Toyota-pickup. Nogle al-Shabaab-folk havde gravet et hul i jorden på det lokale fodboldstadion og kort en vognfuld sten derind. Omkring 1.000 mennesker forsamlede sig frem mod klokken fire om eftermiddagen. Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow – opkaldt efter Profetens niårige hustru – blev trukket skrigende ind på stadion.128 Fire mænd begravede hende op til halsen i hullet. Derpå kastede 50 mænd sten på hende i ti minutter. Efter at de ti minutter var gået, var der en pause. Hun blev gravet op af hullet, og to sygeplejersker undersogte hende for at se, om hun stadig var i live. Det var hun. Derpå blev hun anbragt i hullet igen, og steningen fortsatte. En mand, der forsogte at sætte sig imellem, blev skudt, og et otteårigt barn blev også dræbt af militsen. Bagefter fortalte en lokal sheik, at Aisha selv var kommet med beviserne, havde bekræftet sin skyld, og var ”glad for straffen i overensstemmelse med islamisk lov”. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
209:to transfer. In addition to the two forms of distribution, each release has a PGP signature file associated withit.* Prior to V8.11, this was a single signature file used to verify the uncompressed file, meaning that you needed to uncompress the tar(1) file before verifying it. Beginning with V8.11, there is a signature file for each of the compressed files, so there is no need to uncompress either first. The signature file has the same name as the distribution file but with a literal . sig suffix added.sendmail.8.14.1. tar.gz ← the distribution file sendmail.8.14.1. tar.gz.sig ← the signature file for this distribution file sendmail.8.14.1. tar.Z ← the distribution file sendmail.8.14.1. tar.Z.sig ← the signature file for this distribution file If you have not already done so for an earlier sendmail distribution, you must now download and install the PGPKEYS file from sendmail.org: ftp://ftp.sendmail.org/pub/sendmail/P... After downloading this file, add the keys in it to your PGP key ring with a command like this: pgp -ka PGPKEYS ← for pgp version 2. x pgpk -a PGPKEYS ← for pgp version 5. x gpg --import PGPKEYS ← for gpg If you use gpg(1), your output may look something like this: % gpg --import PGPKEYS ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
210:Tror du inte jag förstår? Den hopplösa drömmen om att vara. Inte verka utan vara. I varje ögonblick medveten, vaksam. Och samtidigt avgrunden mellan vad du är inför andra och vad du är inför dig själv. Svindelkänslan och den ständiga hungern att äntligen få bli avslöjad. Att få bli genomskådad, reducerad, kanske till och med utplånad. Varje tonfall en lögn, varje gest en förfalskning, varje leende en grimas. Ta livet av sig? Nej då, det är för otäckt. Det gör man inte. Men man kan bli orörlig, man kan bli tyst. Då ljuger man åtminstone inte. Man kan stänga in sig, skärma av. Då behöver man inte spela några roller, visa några ansikten, göra några falska gester – tror man. Men ser du, verkligheten jävlas. Ditt gömställe, det är inte tillräckligt tätt. Överallt sipprar det in livsyttringar. Du tvingas reagera. Det är ingen som frågar efter om det är äkta eller oäkta, om du är sann eller förljugen. Det är bara på teatern som sådant är en fråga av vikt. Knappt där heller för den delen. Jag förstår dig, Elisabet. Jag förstår att du tiger, jag förstår att du är orörlig, att du har satt viljelösheten i ett fantastiskt system. Jag förstår och jag beundrar. Jag tycker att du ska hålla på med den rollen tills den är färdigspelad, tills den inte längre är intressant. Då kan du ju lämna den, precis som du undan för undan lämnar alla dina andra roller. ~ Ingmar Bergman, #NFDB
211:Det var en Foraarsaften, Solen skinnede saa rod ind i Stuen, den var lige ved at gaa ned. Vingerne af Mollen deroppe paa Volden drev deres Skygger over Ruderne og Værelsets Vægge, kommende, svindende, i ensformig Veklsen af Skumring og Lys: - een stund Skumring, to Stunder Lys.
Ved Vinduet sad Niels Lyhne og stirred gjennem Voldens bronzemorke Ælme mod Skyernes Brand. Han havde været udenfor Byen, under nyudsprungne Boge, mellem gronne Rugmarker, over blomsterbrogede Enge; Alting havde været saa lyst og let, Himlen saa blaa, Sundet saa blankt og de spadserende Damer saa sælsomt smukke. Syngende var han gaaet henad Skovstien, saa blev Ordene borte i hans Sang, saa lagde Rhytmen sig, saa dode Tonerne bort og Stilheden kom som en Svimmelhed over ham. Han lukkede Øjnene, men endda mærkede han, hvordan Lyset ligesom drak sig ind i ham og flimred gjennem alle Nerver, medens den koligt berusende Luft ved hvert Aandedrag sendte det sært betagne Blod med vildere og vildere Kraft gjennem de i Magtesloshed dirrende Aarer, og der kom ham en Folelse paa, som om alt det Myldrende, Bristende, Spirende, Ynglende i Vaarnaturen om ham, mystisk sogte at samle sig i ham i eet stort, stort Raab; og han torsted efter dette Raab, lytted til hans Lytten tog form af en uklar, svulmende Længsel.
Nu, han sad der ved Vinduet, vaagnede Længslen igjen. ~ Jens Peter Jacobsen,#NFDB
212:Han säger: "Låt mig få visa dig."
Och sedan kysser vi varandra. Eller jag tror åtminstone att vi kysser varandra - jag har bara sett det göras ett par gånger, snabba pickanden med stängda munnar, på bröllop eller vid högtidliga tilldragelser. Men det här liknar ingenting jag någonsin har sett eller föreställt mig eller ens drömt. Det här är som musik eller dans, fast bättre än båda. Hans mun är aningen öppen så jag öppnar min också. Hans läppar är mjuka, samma mjuka tryck som den tyst envisa rösten i mitt huvud som upprepar ordet ja.
Värmen bara växer inom mig, vågor av ljus välver sig och bryts och får mig att känna mig som om jag sväver. Han trär fingrarna genom mitt hår, kupar handen om nacke och bakhuvud, rör den fjäderlätt över axlarna, och utan att tänka eller vilja det hittar mina händer till hans bröst, rör sig över hudens hetta, skulderbladens ben som liknar vingspetsar, käkens krökning, nätt och jämnt täckt av skäggstubb - allt så underligt och obekant, och överdådigt ljuvligt nytt. Mitt hjärta trummar så hårt att det värker i bröstet, men det är den goda sortens smärta, som känslan man får den första riktiga höstdagen när luften är frisk och klar och löven krullar sig i kanterna och vinden doftar svagt av rök - som slutet och början av något på en och samma gång. Jag kan svära på att jag känner hans hjärta dunka ett svar under min hand, ett omedelbart eko av mitt eget hjärta, som om våra kroppar talade med varandra. ~ Lauren Oliver,#NFDB
213:Alla dessa människor har två själar, tvenne väsen inom sig, i dem blir djävulskt och gudomligt, modersblod och fadersblod, förmåga till lycka och förmåga till lidande en lika hätsk och förvirrad blandning som varg och människa hos Harry. Och dessa människor, som lever ett oroligt liv, upplever ibland i sina få lyckliga ögonblick så starka och outsägligt sköna ting, ögonblickets lyckoskum sprutar ibland så högt och bländande ut över lidandets hav, att denna snabbt framlysande lycka förmår beröra och förtrolla även andra. Så uppstår, som ett flyktigt lyckoskum över lidandets hav, alla dessa konstverk, i vilka en enda lidande människa för en stund höjer sig så skyhögt över sitt eget öde, att hans lycka glänser som en stjärna och de som ser den tycker sig se något evigt och liksom sin egen lyckodröm. Alla dessa människor, deras gärningar och verk - de må kallas vad som helst - har ingen gestalt, de är inte hjältar eller konstnärer eller tänkare, på samma sätt som andra är domare, läkare, skomakare eller lärare, utan deras liv är evig, kvalfull bränning och brottsjö, olyckligt och olidligt sönderslitet, fasansfullt och meningslöst, om man nämligen inte vill se dess mening just i dessa sällsynta upplevelser, handlingar och tankar, som strålar ut över livets kaos. Bland människor av denna sort har den förskräckliga tanken uppstått, att hela människolivet kanske bara är ett svårt misstag, ett urmoderns brådstörtande missfall, ett vilt och grymt felslaget försök av naturen. Bland dem har emellertid också den andra tanken uppstått, att människan kanske inte bara är ett halvförnuftigt djur utan en gudaättling, bestämd till odödlighet. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
214:Jeg kommer med fred,” sagde den og tilfojede efter et langt ojeblik med mere skurren, ”for mig til jeres ogle” (…)
”Den kommer fra et meget gammelt demokrati, ser du”.
”Vil det sige, at den kommer fra en ogleverden?”
”Nej”, sagde Ford (…), ”så enkelt er det ikke. Ikke tilnærmelsesvis så ligetil. I den verden er folket mennesker. Lederne er ogler. Folket hader oglerne, og det er oglerne, der regerer over folket”.
”Besynderligt”, sagde Arthur. ”Jeg syntes, du sagde, at det var et demokrati”.
”Det gjorde jeg også,” sagde Ford, ”og det er det også”.
”Hvorfor skiller folket sig så ikke bare af med oglerne?” spurgte Arthur og håbede ikke, at han lod latterligt kværulantisk.
”Det falder dem ærlig talt ikke ind”, sagde Ford. ”De har alle sammen stemmeret, så de går ligesom ud fra, at den regering, de har stemt ind, mere eller mindre svarer til den regering, de onsker”.
”Vil de siger, at de rent faktisk stemmer på oglerne?”
”Ja, ja,” sagde Ford og trak på skuldrene, ”selvfolgelig”.
”Jamen hvorfor?” sagde Arthur og gik atter efter præmiesporgsmålet.
”For hvis de ikke stemte på en ogle, var det måske den forkerte ogle, der ville komme ind (…) Nogle siger, at oglerne er det bedste, der nogensinde er hændt dem. De tager selvfolgelig fejl, tager fuldstændig og aldeles fejl, men nogen er jo nodt til at sige det”.
”Jamen, det er jo frygteligt,” sagde Arthur.
”Ved du hvad, kammerat? Hvis jeg havde fået en altariansk dollar for hver gang, jeg har hort nogen i en del af universet kaste et blik på nogen i en anden del af universet og sige, 'jamen, det er jo frygteligt', sad jeg ikke her og opforte mig som en citron, der leder efter noget gin. Men det har jeg ikke, og det gor jeg”. ~ Douglas Adams,#NFDB
215:Worldwide Long Range Solutions Special Interest Group [ ¤ SIG AeR.WLRS 253787890.546]. Space Colonization Subgroup. Open discussion board.
Okay, so imagine we get past the next few rough decades and finally do what we should have back in TwenCen. Say we mine asteroids for platinum, discover the secrets of true nanotechnology, and set Von Neumann "sheep" grazing on the moon to produce boundless wealth. To listen to some of the rest of you, all our problems would then be over. The next step, star travel, and colonization of the galaxy, would be trivial.
But hold on! Even assuming we solve how to maintain long-lasting ecologies in space and get so wealthy the costs of star-flight aren't crippling, you've still got the problem of time.
I mean, most hypothetical designs show likely starships creeping along at no more than ten percent of the speed of light, a whole lot slower than those sci-fi cruisers we see zipping on three-vee. At such speeds it may take five, ten generations to reach a good colony site. Meanwhile, passengers will have to maintain villages and farms and cranky, claustrophobic grandkids, all inside their hollowed-out, spinning worldlets.
What kind of social engineering will that take? Do you know how to design a closed society that'd last so long without flying apart? Oh, I think it can be done. But don't pretend it'll be simple!
Nor will be solving the dilemma of gene pool isolation. In the arks and zoos right now, a lot of rescued species are dying off even though the microecologies are right, simply because too few individuals were included in the original mix. For a healthy gene pool you need diversity, variety, heterozygosity.
One thing's clear, no starship will make it carrying only one racial group. What'll be needed, frankly, are mongrels… people who've bred back and forth with just about everybody and seem to enjoy it. ~ David Brin,#NFDB
216:two forms of distribution, each release has a PGP signature file associated withit.* Prior to V8.11, this was a single signature file used to verify the uncompressed file, meaning that you needed to uncompress the tar(1) file before verifying it. Beginning with V8.11, there is a signature file for each of the compressed files, so there is no need to uncompress either first. The signature file has the same name as the distribution file but with a literal . sig suffix added.sendmail.8.14.1. tar.gz ← the distribution file sendmail.8.14.1. tar.gz.sig ← the signature file for this distribution file sendmail.8.14.1. tar.Z ← the distribution file sendmail.8.14.1. tar.Z.sig ← the signature file for this distribution file If you have not already done so for an earlier sendmail distribution, you must now download and install the PGPKEYS file from sendmail.org: ftp://ftp.sendmail.org/pub/sendmail/P... After downloading this file, add the keys in it to your PGP key ring with a command like this: pgp -ka PGPKEYS ← for pgp version 2. x pgpk -a PGPKEYS ← for pgp version 5. x gpg --import PGPKEYS ← for gpg If you use gpg(1), your output may look something like this: % gpg --import PGPKEYS gpg: key 16F4CCE9: "Sendmail Security " 22 new signatures gpg: key 7093B841: public key "Sendmail Signing Key/2007 " imported gpg: key AF959625: "Sendmail Signing Key/2006 " 7 new signatures gpg: key 1EF99251: "Sendmail Signing Key/2005 " 9 new signatures gpg: key 95F61771: "Sendmail Signing Key/2004 " 7 new signatures gpg: key 396F0789: "Sendmail Signing Key/2003 " 27 new signatures gpg: key 678C0A03: "Sendmail Signing Key/2002 " 13 new signatures * How public key cryptography is used to sign a file is described in §5.2 on page 1992.2 Download the Source | 43 This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition Copyright © 2007 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
217:– I have a letter for you, mister Nelson.
Mister Abbot drog ut en låda under disken, plockade i en bunt brev tills han fick tag uti ett litet fyrkantigt, gråblått kuvert:
– Here it is! Yes, mister Nelson.
Karl Oskar strålade upp när han kände igen brevet: Det var den sorts kuvert som de nyttjade därhemma.
Han sträckte ut handen efter det.
– Fifteen cents!
Den långe skotten höll brevet i tumgreppet, men räckte det inte åt svensken på andra sidan disken:
– Fifteen cents, sir!
– What menar you, mister Abbot…?
Karl Oskar nyttjade sin engelska. Varför lämnade inte postmaster Abbot ifrån sig hans brev? Ville han ha betalt för att han hade haft hand om det – vad menade han med de där femton cents?
– You have to pay fifteen cents in postage due, mister Nelson!
Postmästaren i Taylors Falls höll fortfarande det lilla gråblå kuvertet kvar i sin högra hand, emellan tummen och pekfingret, medan han med vänstra handens pekfinger visade på frimärkena i högra hörnet. Och Karl Oskar Nilsson hade fortfarande sin hand utsträckt efter brevet från Sverige.
Så trodde han sig förstå: Brevet var inte betalt. Han måste lösa det med femton cents.
Men han hade inte en enda cent.
– Yes, sir?
Mister Abbot väntade med orörliga anletsdrag och med brevet i handen, han höll det i ett fast, säkert grepp, som om han varit rädd att tappa det eller bli fråntagen det med våld. Men Abbot var inte en man som tappade något eller som blev fråntagen något med våld.
– No… No… Invandraren prövade landets språk. Jag can’t i dag… Not today… No… Har not… Not an cent.
Och för att postmastern säkert skulle förstå, att han inte hade några pengar satte han händerna i byxlommarna och drog upp fodret: Tomt!
Postmästaren blev beklagande i rösten:
– No cash, mister Nelson? Sorry! I have to keep your letter.
Han lade åter ner brevet i lådan under sin disk.
Karl Oskar hade sträckt ut handen efter brevet från Sverige men fick dra den tom tillbaka – han stack ner den i sin tomma byxficka. ~ Vilhelm Moberg,#NFDB
218:46. Entre los componentes sociales del cambio global se incluyen los efectos laborales de algunas innovaciones tecnológicas, la exclusión social, la inequidad en la disponibilidad y el consumo de energía y de otros servicios, la fragmentación so- 35 cial, el crecimiento de la violencia y el surgimien-to de nuevas formas de agresividad social, el nar-cotráfico y el consumo creciente de drogas entrelos más jóvenes, la pérdida de identidad. Son sig-nos, entre otros, que muestran que el crecimien-to de los últimos dos siglos no ha significado entodos sus aspectos un verdadero progreso inte-gral y una mejora de la calidad de vida. Algunos de estos signos son al mismo tiempo síntomas de una verdadera degradación social, de una si-lenciosa ruptura de los lazos de integración y de comunión social. 47. A esto se agregan las dinámicas de los me-dios del mundo digital que, cuando se convierten en omnipresentes, no favorecen el desarrollo de una capacidad de vivir sabiamente, de pensar en profundidad, de amar con generosidad. Los gran-des sabios del pasado, en este contexto, correrían el riesgo de apagar su sabiduría en medio del rui-do dispersivo de la información. Esto nos exige un esfuerzo para que esos medios se traduzcan en un nuevo desarrollo cultural de la humanidad y no en un deterioro de su riqueza más profunda. Laverdadera sabiduría, producto de la reflexión, deldiálogo y del encuentro generoso entre las perso-nas, no se consigue con una mera acumulación de datos que termina saturando y obnubilando, en una especie de contaminación mental. Al mismo tiempo, tienden a reemplazarse las relaciones rea-les con los demás, con todos los desafíos que im-plican, por un tipo de comunicación mediada por 36 internet. Esto permite seleccionar o eliminar las relaciones según nuestro arbitrio, y así suele gene-rarse un nuevo tipo de emociones artificiales, quetienen que ver más con dispositivos y pantallas que con las personas y la naturaleza. Los medios actua-les permiten que nos comuniquemos y que com-partamos conocimientos y afectos. Sin embargo, a veces también nos impiden tomar contacto direc-to con la angustia, con el temblor, con la alegría del otro y con la complejidad de su experiencia personal. Por eso no debería llamar la atención que, junto con la abrumadora oferta de estos pro-ductos, se desarrolle una profunda y melancólica insatisfacción en las relaciones interpersonales, o un dañino aislamiento. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
219:Geissler har vel ingen interesse for svaret og har kanske ikke hort det, han vedblir: Kjope stenene tilbake altså. Siste gang lot jeg min son sælge, det er en ung mand på din alder og ellers intet. Han er lynet i familjen, jeg er tåken. Jeg er av dem som vet det rette, men gjor det ikke. Men han er lynet, for tiden har han stillet sig i industriens tjeneste. Han var den som solgte for mig sist. Jeg er noget, det er ikke han, han er bare lynet, det snare nutidsmenneske. Men lynet som lyn er goldt. Ta dere Sellanråfolk: dere ser hver dag på nogen blå fjæld, det er ikke opfundne tingester, det er gamle fjæld, de står dypt nedsunkne i fortid; men dere har dem til kamerater. Dere går der sammen med himlen og jorden og er ett med dem, er ett med dette vide og rotfæstede. Dere behover ikke sværd i hånden, dere går livet barhændt og barhodet midt i en stor venlighet. Se, der ligger naturen, den er din og dines! Mennesket og naturen bombarderer ikke hverandre, de gir hverandre ret, de konkurrerer ikke, kaploper ikke efter noget, de folges ad. Midt i dette går dere Sellanråfolk og er til. Fjældene, skogen, myrene, engene, himlen og stjærnerne – å det er ikke fattig og tilmålt, det er uten måte. Hor på mig, Sivert: Vær tilfreds! Dere har alt å leve av, alt å leve for, alt å tro på, dere fodes og frembringer, dere er de nodvendige på jorden. Det er ikke alle som er det, men dere er det: nodvendige på jorden. Dere opholder livet. Fra slægt til slægt er det til i lutter avl, og når dere dor tar den nye avl fat. Det er dette som menes med det evige liv. Hvad har dere igjen for det? En tilværelse i ret og magt, en tilværelse i troskyldig og rigtig stilling til alt. Hvad dere har igjen for det? Intet horser og regjerer dere Sellanråfolk, dere har ro og autoritet, dere er omsluttet av den store venlighet. Det har dere igjen for det. Dere ligger ved en barm og leker med en varm morshånd og patter. Jeg tænker på din far, han er en av de 32 tusen. Hvad er mangen anden? Jeg er noget, jeg er tåken, jeg er her og der, jeg svommer, stundom er jeg regn på et tort sted. Men de andre? Min son er lynet som intet er, han er det golde blink, han kan handle. Min son han er vor tids type, han tror oprigtig på det tiden har lært ham, på det joden og yankee'en har lært ham; jeg ryster på hodet til det. Men jeg er ikke noget mystisk, det er bare i min familje jeg er tåken. Der sitter jeg og ryster på hodet. Saken er: jeg mangler ævnen til den angerlose adfærd. Hadde jeg den ævne så kunde jeg være lyn selv. Nu er jeg tåken. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
220:Til Læseren
Medens Christian Winthers milde Haand
Lyren slaaer om Lammet og om Oxen,
— (Barnlig selv, han kim til Barnets Aand
Taler her og forbigaaer hver Voxen) —
Medens Hertz og Andersen mod Syd
Foer med deres Snekker til Neapel,
Gaaer fra denne Streng en dæmpet Lyd,
Lober denne lille Baad af Stabel.
Skynd Dig, — nys opmuntred mig en Ven,
Hurtigt skriv, at snart Du Bogen ender,
Inden Danmark seer sin Hertz igjen,
Inden Christian fra de Smaa sig vender! —
Skynd Dig: end man ændser Digt'rens Pen,
Men ret snart der komme Rigets Stænder;
Da seer man til Talerstolen hen,
Uhort Harpen blier i Skjaldens Hænder! — —
Hvis Du holder af at læse Qvad,
Digtede til Fyrsters Fodselsdage,
Vend Dit Øie da fra dette Blad,
Aldrig denne Bog vil Dig behage.
Mennesket jeg kun betragte vil,
— Koften blænder ei som Purpurkaaben —
Jeg vil tolke Lidenskabers Spil,
Tolke Hjertets Frygt og Sorg og Haaben.
Dybt i Dalen er mit simple Hjem,
Aldrig vil paa Bjerget op jeg klavre;
Lad for Andre Slottets Port paaklem,
Jeg vil see paa Bondens Rug og Havre.
Dog ifald til Kongeborg engang
Jeg gaaer vild, fra Marken og fra Haven,
Ei som Smigrer skriver jeg min Sang:
Thi den gjelder Konger da — i Graven! —
Kjob mig ei, hvis i hver Linie Du
Vil en Skjonhed see, en nyfodt Tanke —
Der er Dag og Nat i Mandens Hu,
31
Snylteplanter om den skjonne Ranke!
Mærk hint Springvand! hver en fremmed Gjæst
Seer det dagligt sprudle Vand i Skaalen,
Men ikkun til enkelt Hoitidsfest
Seer de gyldne Æbler han i Straalen! —
Kjob ei Bogen, hvis hvert Øieblik
Du vil hore nævnet »Danmarks« Rige,
Retsom Danmark kun hvert Gode fik —
Jeg er ei blandt dem, der evigt sige:
Danmark er en Slette, flad vor Strand —
Vel, saa er det stygt, at have Bjerge!
Lidet er vort elskte Fodeland —
Hvor politiskt dog, at være Dværge!«
Veiet haver jeg den hele Sag,
Veiet koldt den paa Forstandens Bismer;
Da kom tydeligen for en Dag
To forskjellige Patriotismer:
Mangen hænger ved sit Fodeland
Kun fordi det fodte Patrioten;
Usselt, kun instinctviis elsker han,
Kysser Moderdyret slovt paa Poten!
Hvor der smukt er, did jeg kaldes hen,
Hvor der handles stort, did flyver Tanken,
Ligekjært om mellem Indiens Mænd
Eller og hos Tyrken eller Franken.
Skjaldens rette, egentlige Hjem,
Tykkes mig, er Universets Hele:
Borger, hvor han flytter Foden frem,
Har han Part i alle Klodens Dele.
Selsomt, hvor han Hjem dog vælge kan!
Hvor der Sorg er, hvor der lyder Klage,
Tykkes tidt ham, er hans Fodeland,
Did ham Smertens Toner mægtigt drage.
Rundtom har han Slægt, som, stædt i Nod,
Veeraab til hans Sjæl og Øre sender:
Polen gisper hist i grufuld Dod —
Hine Doende, det er hans Frænder! — —
32
End et enkelt Vink jeg foier til,
Een Ting end, saa har Prologen Ende:
Kjob mig ei, hvis paa min Bog Du vil
See et Digternavn, som Alle kjende.
Danmark eier mangt et Navn med Klang,
Eier Ædelstene nok, der funkle;
Jeg har intet Navn og ingen Rang,
Jeg er Flintestenen kun, den dunkle;
Mindes dog, at skjondt i hoie Træ'r
Mangen Sangfugl bygger sig sin Rede,
Kan man undertiden hist og her
Efter den med Held i Busken lede:
Naar henover Tjornens lave Krat
Hvide Maane kaster Solverskinnet,
Udfra Busken gaae i stille Nat
Stundom Toner dog, som rore Sindet
~ Carl Bagger,#NFDB
221:Mabalel
Vinnig langs die paadjie trippel Mabalêl;
vrolik klink die liedjie
wat die klingelinge van haar enkelringe vergesel.
Op die voetpad sy alleen,
met die skadu's om haar heen;
op haar kop die kruik gelig
in gedienstig' ewewig.
Golwend kleur die hemelboog,
stadig sterf die laaste lig,
en van verre deur die skermmure
winkend blink die eerste vure.
Wydgestrek in eensaam' vrede
lê Rakwen', die stille, brede;
glansend in die westerpraal,
met ‘n ceintuur in sy diepte van koraal.
En die witgepluimde riet
sing ‘n treurig' wiegelied,
en buigend vleg ‘n wilwersoom al om
die diepgespieëlde hemelkom.
Wag, wag, Mabelêl!
Is daar niks wat jou vertelis daar niks wat deur die duister
bang en dringend in jou ore fluister
van die vreeslike gesel
wat jou vrolik' lied beluister,
wat jou spoor hou, Mabalêl?
Word jy niks gewaar
van 'n dreigende gevaar?
Voel jy nog nie, kil en snood,
Om jou hart die skadu van die dood?
Ver benee die palmietstele
in die bloue duister wag Lalele,
kwintessens van alles boos,
die Wreedheid self, meedoënloos;
met lydsaamheid wat alles kan ontbeer,
wat tyd en toeval kan trotseer;
wat seker as die Noodlot van sy dag
stil-wakker in die diepte op sy ure wag.
Deur winterkou en somergloed,
deur blankend' droogte en swelgend' vloed,
deur al die kerende taf'rele,
in sy diepte wag Lalele.
As die straaltjie in die sand
deur 'n vlam-geskroeide land
tussen walle dor en vaal
skaars die rotse van Rakwena haal,
en die hulsels van die riet
'n rouband bind van swart verdriet
om die groenbedekte kuil
waar die laaste water skuil
en die sugtend' wind versmag
deur 'n woedend' son verkrag, roerloos by die skepplek hou Lalele wag!
En wanneer in donker nagte
rasend losbreek al die magte
van geweld en storm en vloed,
en Rakwen' omring van angsgeskreeu,
smagtend sig nog eens te wreek,
soos 'n swaar gekweste leeu
swart en brullend deur die bome breek; blinkend uit die donker kolk, vlieg 'n vlammend' dolk, wat deur stormbanke dig
'n wêreld van verwoeste loof verlig ongeroer deur al die groot krakele
in sy diepte wag Lalele!
Droom sy op die kantjie, Mabalêl,
tot haar hart verlangend swel;
in haar peinse ongedeer,
staar sy in die diepte neer,
staar sy in die spieëlgewelf
met die donker reeds omsoom tot sy, dromend, self
deel word van ‘n salig' droom;
uit die wêreld omgekeer
lokkend lag haar beeldjie weer.
Stadig deur die rietpensele
opwaarts uit die diepte rys Lalele.
Skud jou wakker, Mabalêl!
Sien jy nie die skadu opwaarts wel?
Naar die hoogwal, Mabalêl!
Hou jou mymering vir later nooit had vyg of wilg in water
so 'n gespieëlde metgesel!
Nooit 'n skrikbeeld uit die holte van die nag,
wat die dromer sug doen na die dag;
nooit onheilige gedaante uit die diepte van die hel
half so dreigend, half so fel
as dié skadu, Mabalêl,
as dié skadu, wat benee jou
uit die diepte opwaarts wel.
Voor jou voete, Mabalêl,
deur die westergloor verhel,
waar jy onbedagsaam staar,
sonder ooit gedagte van gevaar,
uit die stroomweg stadig
dryf 'n halfverdrinkte blaar.
Had jy spiere van 'n tier,
of die vlerke van 'n gier,
meidjie, niks sou dit jou baar,
want te lank het jy gewag - te laat!
Uit die spieëlvlak omhoog
bars 'n skuimend' waterboog;
Oor Rakwena, kalm en breed,
Galm 'n enkel angsvol' kreet;
en dan saggies weer
oor alles sak die stilte neer.
Winkend deur die skermmure
helder blink die voornagvure.
Uit die donker stilte, skel,
klink geroep na Mabalêl
en die rotse antwoord weer;
maar terugkom sal sy ... nimmermeer.
Stadig deur die rietpensele
naar die diepte sak Lalele.
~ Eugene Marais,#NFDB
222:A Last Confession
Our Lombard country-girls along the coast
Wear daggers in their garters: for they know
That they might hate another girl to death
Or meet a German lover. Such a knife
I bought her, with a hilt of horn and pearl.
Father, you cannot know of all my thoughts
That day in going to meet her,—that last day
For the last time, she said;—of all the love
And all the hopeless hope that she might change
And go back with me. Ah! and everywhere,
At places we both knew along the road,
Some fresh shape of herself as once she was
Grew present at my side; until it seemed—
So close they gathered round me—they would all
Be with me when I reached the spot at last,
To plead my cause with her against herself
So changed. O Father, if you knew all this
You cannot know, then you would know too, Father,
And only then, if God can pardon me.
What can be told I'll tell, if you will hear.
I passed a village-fair upon my road,
And thought, being empty-handed, I would take
Some little present: such might prove, I said,
Either a pledge between us, or (God help me!)
A parting gift. And there it was I bought
The knife I spoke of, such as women wear.
That day, some three hours afterwards, I found
For certain, it must be a parting gift.
And, standing silent now at last, I looked
Into her scornful face; and heard the sea
Still trying hard to din into my ears
Some speech it knew which still might change her heart,
If only it could make me understand.
One moment thus. Another, and her face
Seemed further off than the last line of sea,
So that I thought, if now she were to speak
I could not hear her. Then again I knew
All, as we stood together on the sand
At Iglio, in the first thin shade o' the hills.
“Take it,” I said, and held it out to her,
While the hilt glanced within my trembling hold;
“Take it and keep it for my sake,” I said.
Her neck unbent not, neither did her eyes
Move, nor her foot left beating of the sand;
Only she put it by from her and laughed.
Father, you hear my speech and not her laugh;
But God heard that. Will God remember all?
It was another laugh than the sweet sound
Which rose from her sweet childish heart, that day
Eleven years before, when first I found her
Alone upon the hill-side; and her curls
Shook down in the warm grass as she looked up
Out of her curls in my eyes bent to hers.
She might have served a painter to pourtray
That heavenly child which in the latter days
Shall walk between the lion and the lamb.
I had been for nights in hiding, worn and sick
And hardly fed; and so her words at first
Seemed fiftul like the talking of the trees
And voices in the air that knew my name.
And I remember that I sat me down
Upon the slope with her, and thought the world
Must be all over or had never been,
We seemed there so alone. And soon she told me
Her parents both were gone away from her.
I thought perhaps she meant that they had died;
But when I asked her this, she looked again
Into my face and said that yestereve
They kissed her long, and wept and made her weep,
And gave her all the bread they had with them,
And then had gone together up the hill
Where we were sitting now, and had walked on
Into the great red light; “and so,” she said,
“I have come up here too; and when this evening
They step out of the light as they stepped in,
I shall be here to kiss them.” And she laughed.
Then I bethought me suddenly of the famine;
And how the church-steps throughout all the town,
When last I had been there a month ago,
Swarmed with starved folk; and how the bread was weighed
By Austrians armed; and women that I knew
10
For wives and mothers walked the public street,
Saying aloud that if their husbands feared
To snatch the children's food, themselves would stay
Till they had earned it there. So then this child
Was piteous to me; for all told me then
Her parents must have left her to God's chance,
To man's or to the Church's charity,
Because of the great famine, rather than
To watch her growing thin between their knees.
With that, God took my mother's voice and spoke,
And sights and sounds came back and things long since,
And all my childhood found me on the hills;
And so I took her with me.
I was young.
Scarce man then, Father: but the cause which gave
The wounds I die of now had brought me then
Some wounds already; and I lived alone,
As any hiding hunted man must live.
It was no easy thing to keep a child
In safety; for herself it was not safe,
And doubled my own danger: but I knew
That God would help me.
Yet a little while
Pardon me, Father, if I pause. I think
I have been speaking to you of some matters
There was no need to speak of, have I not?
You do not know how clearly those things stood
Within my mind, which I have spoken of,
Nor how they strove for utterance. Life all past
Is like the sky when the sun sets in it,
Clearest where furthest off.
I told you how
She scorned my parting gift and laughed. And yet
A woman's laugh's another thing sometimes:
I think they laugh in Heaven. I know last night
I dreamed I saw into the garden of God,
Where women walked whose painted images
I have seen with candles round them in the church.
They bent this way and that, one to another,
Playing: and over the long golden hair
Of each there floated like a ring of fire
Which when she stooped stooped with her, and when she rose
11
Rose with her. Then a breeze flew in among them,
As if a window had been opened in heaven
For God to give His blessing from, before
This world of ours should set; (for in my dream
I thought our world was setting, and the sun
Flared, a spent taper; ) and beneath that gust
The rings of light quivered like forest-leaves.
Then all the blessed maidens who were there
Stood up together, as it were a voice
That called them; and they threw their tresses back,
And smote their palms, and all laughed up at once,
For the strong heavenly joy they had in them
To hear God bless the world. Wherewith I woke:
And looking round, I saw as usual
That she was standing there with her long locks
Pressed to her side; and her laugh ended theirs.
For always when I see her now, she laughs.
And yet her childish laughter haunts me too,
The life of this dead terror; as in days
When she, a child, dwelt with me. I must tell
Something of those days yet before the end.
I brought her from the city—one such day
When she was still a merry loving child,—
The earliest gift I mind my giving her;
A little image of a flying Love
Made of our coloured glass-ware, in his hands
A dart of gilded metal and a torch.
And him she kissed and me, and fain would know
Why were his poor eyes blindfold, why the wings
And why the arrow. What I knew I told
Of Venus and of Cupid,—strange old tales.
And when she heard that he could rule the loves
Of men and women, still she shook her head
And wondered; and, “Nay, nay,” she murmured still,
“So strong, and he a younger child than I!”
And then she'd have me fix him on the wall
Fronting her little bed; and then again
She needs must fix him there herself, because
I gave him to her and she loved him so,
And he should make her love me better yet,
If women loved the more, the more they grew.
But the fit place upon the wall was high
12
For her, and so I held her in my arms:
And each time that the heavy pruning-hook
I gave her for a hammer slipped away
As it would often, still she laughed and laughed
And kissed and kissed me. But amid her mirth,
Just as she hung the image on the nail,
It slipped and all its fragments strewed the ground:
And as it fell she screamed, for in her hand
The dart had entered deeply and drawn blood.
And so her laughter turned to tears: and “Oh!”
I said, the while I bandaged the small hand,—
“That I should be the first to make you bleed,
Who love and love and love you!”—kissing still
The fingers till I got her safe to bed.
And still she sobbed,—“not for the pain at all,”
She said, “but for the Love, the poor good Love
You gave me.” So she cried herself to sleep.
Another later thing comes back to me.
'Twas in those hardest foulest days of all,
When still from his shut palace, sitting clean
Above the splash of blood, old Metternich
(May his soul die, and never-dying worms
Feast on its pain for ever! ) used to thin
His year's doomed hundreds daintily, each month
Thirties and fifties. This time, as I think,
Was when his thrift forbad the poor to take
That evil brackish salt which the dry rocks
Keep all through winter when the sea draws in.
The first I heard of it was a chance shot
In the street here and there, and on the stones
A stumbling clatter as of horse hemmed round.
Then, when she saw me hurry out of doors,
My gun slung at my shoulder and my knife
Stuck in my girdle, she smoothed down my hair
And laughed to see me look so brave, and leaped
Up to my neck and kissed me. She was still
A child; and yet that kiss was on my lips
So hot all day where the smoke shut us in.
For now, being always with her, the first love
I had—the father's, brother's love—was changed,
I think, in somewise; like a holy thought
Which is a prayer before one knows of it.
13
The first time I perceived this, I remember,
Was once when after hunting I came home
Weary, and she brought food and fruit for me,
And sat down at my feet upon the floor
Leaning against my side. But when I felt
Her sweet head reach from that low seat of hers
So high as to be laid upon my heart,
I turned and looked upon my darling there
And marked for the first time how tall she was;
And my heart beat with so much violence
Under her cheek, I thought she could not choose
But wonder at it soon and ask me why;
And so I bade her rise and eat with me.
And when, remembering all and counting back
The time, I made out fourteen years for her
And told her so, she gazed at me with eyes
As of the sky and sea on a grey day,
And drew her long hands through her hair, and asked me
If she was not a woman; and then laughed:
And as she stooped in laughing, I could see
Beneath the growing throat the breasts half-globed
Like folded lilies deepset in the stream.
Yes, let me think of her as then; for so
Her image, Father, is not like the sights
Which come when you are gone. She had a mouth
Made to bring death to life,—the underlip
Sucked in, as if it strove to kiss itself.
Her face was pearly pale, as when one stoops
Over wan water; and the dark crisped hair
And the hair's shadow made it paler still:—
Deep-serried locks, the dimness of the cloud
Where the moon's gaze is set in eddying gloom.
Her body bore her neck as the tree's stem
Bears the top branch; and as the branch sustains
The flower of the year's pride, her high neck bore
That face made wonderful with night and day.
Her voice was swift, yet ever the last words
Fell lingeringly; and rounded finger-tips
She had, that clung a little where they touched
And then were gone o' the instant. Her great eyes,
That sometimes turned half dizzily beneath
The passionate lids, as faint, when she would speak,
14
Had also in them hidden springs of mirth,
Which under the dark lashes evermore
Shook to her laugh, as when a bird flies low
Between the water and the willow-leaves,
And the shade quivers till he wins the light.
I was a moody comrade to her then,
For all the love I bore her. Italy,
The weeping desolate mother, long has claimed
Her sons' strong arms to lean on, and their hands
To lop the poisonous thicket from her path,
Cleaving her way to light. And from her need
Had grown the fashion of my whole poor life
Which I was proud to yield her, as my father
Had yielded his. And this had come to be
A game to play, a love to clasp, a hate
To wreak, all things together that a man
Needs for his blood to ripen; till at times
All else seemed shadows, and I wondered still
To see such life pass muster and be deemed
Time's bodily substance. In those hours, no doubt,
To the young girl my eyes were like my soul,—
Dark wells of death-in-life that yearned for day.
Sig.
And though she ruled me always, I remember
That once when I was thus and she still kept
Leaping about the place and laughing, I
Did almost chide her; whereupon she knelt
And putting her two hands into my breast
Sang me a song. Are these tears in my eyes?
'Tis long since I have wept for anything.
I thought that song forgotten out of mind;
And now, just as I spoke of it, it came
All back. It is but a rude thing, ill rhymed,
Such as a blind man chaunts and his dog hears
Holding the platter, when the children run
To merrier sport and leave him. Thus it goes:—
La bella donna*
Piangendo disse:
“Come son fisse
Le stelle in cielo!
Quel fiato anelo
Dello stanco sole,
15
Quanto m' assonna!
E la luna, macchiata
Come uno specchio
Logoro e vecchio,—
Faccia affannata,
Che cosa vuole?
“Chè stelle, luna, e sole,
Ciascun m' annoja
E m' annojano insieme;
Non me ne preme
Nè ci prendo gioja.
E veramente,
Che le spalle sien franche
E la braccia bianche
She wept, sweet lady,
And said in weeping:
“What spell is keeping
The stars so steady?
Why does the power
Of the sun's noon-hour
To sleep so move me?
And the moon in heaven,
Stained where she passes
As a worn-out glass is,—
Wearily driven,
Why walks she above me?
“Stars, moon, and sun too,
I'm tired of either
And all together!
Whom speak they unto
That I should listen?
For very surely,
Though my arms and shoulders
Dazzle beholders,
And my eyes glisten,
All's nothing purely!
What are words said for
At all about them,
If he they are made for
Can do without them?”
She laughed, sweet lady,
And said in laughing:
16
“His hand clings half in
My own already!
Oh! do you love me?
Oh! speak of passion
In no new fashion,
No loud inveighings,
But the old sayings
You once said of me.
“You said: ‘As summer,
Through boughs grown brittle,
Comes back a little
Ere frosts benumb her,—
So bring'st thou to me
All leaves and flowers,
Though autumn's gloomy
To-day in the bowers.’
“Oh! does he love me,
When my voice teaches
The very speeches
He then spoke of me?
Alas! what flavour
Still with me lingers?”
(But she laughed as my kisses
Glowed in her fingers
With love's old blisses.)
“Oh! what one favour
Remains to woo him,
Whose whole poor savour
Belongs not to him?”
E il seno caldo e tondo,
Non mi fa niente.
Che cosa al mondo
Posso più far di questi
Se non piacciono a te, come dicesti?”
La donna rise
E riprese ridendo:—
“Questa mano che prendo
È dunque mia?
Tu m' ami dunque?
Dimmelo ancora,
Non in modo qualunque,
Ma le parole
17
Belle e precise
Che dicesti pria.
‘Siccome suole
La state talora
(Dicesti) un qualche istante
Tornare innanzi inverno,
Così tu fai ch' io scerno
Le foglie tutte quante,
Ben ch' io certo tenessi
Per passato l' autunno.’
“Eccolo il mio alunno!
Io debbo insegnargli
Quei cari detti istessi
Ch' ei mi disse una volta!
Oimè! Che cosa dargli,”
(Ma ridea piano piano
Dei baci in sulla mano,)
“Ch' ei non m'abbia da lungo tempo tolta?”
That I should sing upon this bed!—with you
To listen, and such words still left to say!
Yet was it I that sang? The voice seemed hers,
As on the very day she sang to me;
When, having done, she took out of my hand
Something that I had played with all the while
And laid it down beyond my reach; and so
Turning my face round till it fronted hers,—
“Weeping or laughing, which was best?” she said.
But these are foolish tales. How should I show
The heart that glowed then with love's heat, each day
More and more brightly?—when for long years now
The very flame that flew about the heart,
And gave it fiery wings, has come to be
The lapping blaze of hell's environment
Whose tongues all bid the molten heart despair.
Yet one more thing comes back on me to-night
Which I may tell you: for it bore my soul
Dread firstlings of the brood that rend it now.
It chanced that in our last year's wanderings
We dwelt at Monza, far away from home,
If home we had: and in the Duomo there
I sometimes entered with her when she prayed.
An image of Our Lady stands there, wrought
18
In marble by some great Italian hand
In the great days when she and Italy
Sat on one throne together: and to her
And to none else my loved one told her heart.
She was a woman then; and as she knelt,—
Her sweet brow in the sweet brow's shadow there,—
They seemed two kindred forms whereby our land
(Whose work still serves the world for miracle)
Made manifest herself in womanhood.
Father, the day I speak of was the first
For weeks that I had borne her company
Into the Duomo; and those weeks had been
Much troubled, for then first the glimpses came
Of some impenetrable restlessness
Growing in her to make her changed and cold.
And as we entered there that day, I bent
My eyes on the fair Image, and I said
Within my heart, “Oh turn her heart to me!”
And so I left her to her prayers, and went
To gaze upon the pride of Monza's shrine,
Where in the sacristy the light still falls
Upon the Iron Crown of Italy,
On whose crowned heads the day has closed, nor yet
The daybreak gilds another head to crown.
But coming back, I wondered when I saw
That the sweet Lady of her prayers now stood
Alone without her; until further off,
Before some new Madonna gaily decked,
Tinselled and gewgawed, a slight German toy,
I saw her kneel, still praying. At my step
She rose, and side by side we left the church.
I was much moved, and sharply questioned her
Of her transferred devotion; but she seemed
Stubborn and heedless; till she lightly laughed
And said: “The old Madonna? Aye indeed,
She had my old thoughts,—this one has my new.”
Then silent to the soul I held my way:
And from the fountains of the public place
Unto the pigeon-haunted pinnacles,
Bright wings and water winnowed the bright air;
And stately with her laugh's subsiding smile
She went, with clear-swayed waist and towering neck
19
And hands held light before her; and the face
Which long had made a day in my life's night
Was night in day to me; as all men's eyes
Turned on her beauty, and she seemed to tread
Beyond my heart to the world made for her.
Ah there! my wounds will snatch my sense again:
The pain comes billowing on like a full cloud
Of thunder, and the flash that breaks from it
Leaves my brain burning. That's the wound he gave,
The Austrian whose white coat I still made match
With his white face, only the two grew red
As suits his trade. The devil makes them wear
White for a livery, that the blood may show
Braver that brings them to him. So he looks
Sheer o'er the field and knows his own at once.
Give me a draught of water in that cup;
My voice feels thick; perhaps you do not hear;
But you must hear. If you mistake my words
And so absolve me, I am sure the blessing
Will burn my soul. If you mistake my words
And so absolve me, Father, the great sin
Is yours, not mine: mark this: your soul shall burn
With mine for it. I have seen pictures where
Souls burned with Latin shriekings in their mouths:
Shall my end be as theirs? Nay, but I know
'Tis you shall shriek in Latin. Some bell rings,
Rings through my brain: it strikes the hour in hell.
You see I cannot, Father; I have tried,
But cannot, as you see. These twenty times
Beginning, I have come to the same point
And stopped. Beyond, there are but broken words
Which will not let you understand my tale.
It is that then we have her with us here,
As when she wrung her hair out in my dream
To-night, till all the darkness reeked of it.
Her hair is always wet, for she has kept
Its tresses wrapped about her side for years;
And when she wrung them round over the floor,
I heard the blood between her fingers hiss;
So that I sat up in my bed and screamed
Once and again; and once to once, she laughed.
Look that you turn not now,—she's at your back:
20
Gather your robe up, Father, and keep close,
Or she'll sit down on it and send you mad.
At Iglio in the first thin shade o' the hills
The sand is black and red. The black was black
When what was spilt that day sank into it,
And the red scarcely darkened. There I stood
This night with her, and saw the sand the same.
What would you have me tell you? Father, father,
How shall I make you know? You have not known
The dreadful soul of woman, who one day
Forgets the old and takes the new to heart,
Forgets what man remembers, and therewith
Forgets the man. Nor can I clearly tell
How the change happened between her and me.
Her eyes looked on me from an emptied heart
When most my heart was full of her; and still
In every corner of myself I sought
To find what service failed her; and no less
Than in the good time past, there all was hers.
What do you love? Your Heaven? Conceive it spread
For one first year of all eternity
All round you with all joys and gifts of God;
And then when most your soul is blent with it
And all yields song together,—then it stands
O' the sudden like a pool that once gave back
Your image, but now drowns it and is clear
Again,—or like a sun bewitched, that burns
Your shadow from you, and still shines in sight.
How could you bear it? Would you not cry out,
Among those eyes grown blind to you, those ears
That hear no more your voice you hear the same,—
“God! what is left but hell for company,
But hell, hell, hell?”—until the name so breathed
Whirled with hot wind and sucked you down in fire?
Even so I stood the day her empty heart
Left her place empty in our home, while yet
I knew not why she went nor where she went
Nor how to reach her: so I stood the day
When to my prayers at last one sight of her
Was granted, and I looked on heaven made pale
With scorn, and heard heaven mock me in that laugh.
O sweet, long sweet! Was that some ghost of you,
21
Even as your ghost that haunts me now,—twin shapes
Of fear and hatred? May I find you yet
Mine when death wakes? Ah! be it even in flame,
We may have sweetness yet, if you but say
As once in childish sorrow: “Not my pain,
My pain was nothing: oh your poor poor love,
Your broken love!”
My Father, have I not
Yet told you the last things of that last day
On which I went to meet her by the sea?
O God, O God! but I must tell you all.
Midway upon my journey, when I stopped
To buy the dagger at the village fair,
I saw two cursed rats about the place
I knew for spies—blood-sellers both. That day
Was not yet over; for three hours to come
I prized my life: and so I looked around
For safety. A poor painted mountebank
Was playing tricks and shouting in a crowd.
I knew he must have heard my name, so I
Pushed past and whispered to him who I was,
And of my danger. Straight he hustled me
Into his booth, as it were in the trick,
And brought me out next minute with my face
All smeared in patches and a zany's gown;
And there I handed him his cups and balls
And swung the sand-bags round to clear the ring
For half an hour. The spies came once and looked;
And while they stopped, and made all sights and sounds
Sharp to my startled senses, I remember
A woman laughed above me. I looked up
And saw where a brown-shouldered harlot leaned
Half through a tavern window thick with vine.
Some man had come behind her in the room
And caught her by her arms, and she had turned
With that coarse empty laugh on him, as now
He munched her neck with kisses, while the vine
Crawled in her back.
And three hours afterwards,
When she that I had run all risks to meet
Laughed as I told you, my life burned to death
Within me, for I thought it like the laugh
22
Heard at the fair. She had not left me long;
But all she might have changed to, or might change to,
(I know nought since—she never speaks a word—)
Seemed in that laugh. Have I not told you yet,
Not told you all this time what happened, Father,
When I had offered her the little knife,
And bade her keep it for my sake that loved her,
And she had laughed? Have I not told you yet?
“Take it,” I said to her the second time,
“Take it and keep it.” And then came a fire
That burnt my hand; and then the fire was blood,
And sea and sky were blood and fire, and all
The day was one red blindness; till it seemed,
Within the whirling brain's eclipse, that she
Or I or all things bled or burned to death.
And then I found her laid against my feet
And knew that I had stabbed her, and saw still
Her look in falling. For she took the knife
Deep in her heart, even as I bade her then,
And fell; and her stiff bodice scooped the sand
Into her bosom.
And she keeps it, see,
Do you not see she keeps it?—there, beneath
Wet fingers and wet tresses, in her heart.
For look you, when she stirs her hand, it shows
The little hilt of horn and pearl,—even such
A dagger as our women of the coast
Twist in their garters.
Father, I have done:
And from her side now she unwinds the thick
Dark hair; all round her side it is wet through,
But, like the sand at Iglio, does not change.
Now you may see the dagger clearly. Father,
I have told all: tell me at once what hope
Can reach me still. For now she draws it out
Slowly, and only smiles as yet: look, Father,
She scarcely smiles: but I shall hear her laugh
Soon, when she shows the crimson steel to God.
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,#NFDB
1052 Integral Yoga
819 Poetry
211 Occultism
177 Philosophy
167 Fiction
143 Christianity
93 Mysticism
84 Psychology
79 Yoga
34 Science
21 Mythology
18 Philsophy
17 Hinduism
16 Theosophy
13 Sufism
13 Integral Theory
10 Education
8 Cybernetics
6 Kabbalah
6 Baha i Faith
5 Buddhism
4 Zen
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
626 Sri Aurobindo
518 The Mother
355 Satprem
204 Nolini Kanta Gupta
150 William Wordsworth
112 H P Lovecraft
83 Carl Jung
82 Aleister Crowley
77 Percy Bysshe Shelley
70 Walt Whitman
54 William Butler Yeats
54 Sri Ramakrishna
52 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
47 John Keats
47 James George Frazer
45 Robert Browning
44 Friedrich Nietzsche
40 Friedrich Schiller
35 Rabindranath Tagore
34 Plotinus
33 Saint Augustine of Hippo
27 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
23 A B Purani
22 Rudolf Steiner
22 Aldous Huxley
21 Saint John of Climacus
21 Lucretius
19 Jorge Luis Borges
18 Ralph Waldo Emerson
18 Anonymous
17 Saint Teresa of Avila
16 Edgar Allan Poe
15 Li Bai
14 Ovid
13 Swami Krishnananda
13 Nirodbaran
12 Vyasa
12 Swami Vivekananda
11 Plato
10 Peter J Carroll
10 Franz Bardon
9 Sri Ramana Maharshi
9 Rainer Maria Rilke
9 George Van Vrekhem
8 Norbert Wiener
7 Paul Richard
7 Joseph Campbell
7 Jalaluddin Rumi
7 Henry David Thoreau
7 Hafiz
7 Farid ud-Din Attar
7 Baha u llah
6 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
6 Lewis Carroll
6 Kabir
6 Jordan Peterson
6 Aristotle
6 Al-Ghazali
5 Alice Bailey
4 Bokar Rinpoche
3 Taigu Ryokan
3 R Buckminster Fuller
3 Patanjali
3 Lalla
3 Ken Wilber
3 Ibn Arabi
2 Thomas Merton
2 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
2 Saint Therese of Lisieux
2 Saint John of the Cross
2 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jean Gebser
2 Italo Calvino
2 Ibn Ata Illah
2 H. P. Lovecraft
150 Wordsworth - Poems
135 Record of Yoga
112 Lovecraft - Poems
88 The Synthesis Of Yoga
78 Agenda Vol 01
77 Shelley - Poems
69 Whitman - Poems
54 Yeats - Poems
53 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
47 The Golden Bough
47 Magick Without Tears
47 Keats - Poems
46 Savitri
45 Browning - Poems
40 Schiller - Poems
39 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
37 The Life Divine
36 Mysterium Coniunctionis
36 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
35 Letters On Yoga IV
35 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
34 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
34 Tagore - Poems
33 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
32 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
30 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
28 Liber ABA
26 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
26 Agenda Vol 06
26 Agenda Vol 03
25 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
25 Letters On Yoga II
25 Essays On The Gita
25 Collected Poems
25 Agenda Vol 11
25 Agenda Vol 04
24 The Divine Comedy
24 Agenda Vol 02
23 The Bible
23 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
22 The Perennial Philosophy
22 Questions And Answers 1953
22 City of God
22 Agenda Vol 08
22 Agenda Vol 05
21 The Practice of Psycho therapy
21 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
21 The Future of Man
21 Of The Nature Of Things
19 The Human Cycle
19 Agenda Vol 13
19 Agenda Vol 12
18 Letters On Yoga I
18 Emerson - Poems
18 Agenda Vol 10
17 Words Of Long Ago
16 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
16 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
16 Prayers And Meditations
16 Agenda Vol 07
15 Questions And Answers 1956
15 Questions And Answers 1955
15 Poe - Poems
15 Li Bai - Poems
15 Goethe - Poems
14 The Secret Of The Veda
14 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
14 Metamorphoses
14 Labyrinths
14 Essays Divine And Human
14 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
13 Vedic and Philological Studies
13 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
13 The Study and Practice of Yoga
13 Questions And Answers 1954
13 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
13 Let Me Explain
13 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
12 Vishnu Purana
12 The Phenomenon of Man
12 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
12 Talks
12 Letters On Yoga III
12 Faust
12 Aion
11 Theosophy
11 Some Answers From The Mother
11 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
11 Agenda Vol 09
10 Twilight of the Idols
10 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
10 On Education
10 Liber Null
10 Letters On Poetry And Art
10 Crowley - Poems
10 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
9 The Way of Perfection
9 Rilke - Poems
9 Preparing for the Miraculous
9 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
9 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
8 On the Way to Supermanhood
8 Isha Upanishad
8 Cybernetics
7 Walden
7 The Problems of Philosophy
7 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
7 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
7 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
7 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
7 Kena and Other Upanishads
7 5.1.01 - Ilion
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Alchemy of Happiness
6 Poetics
6 Maps of Meaning
6 Hymn of the Universe
6 Hafiz - Poems
6 General Principles of Kabbalah
6 Alice in Wonderland
5 Words Of The Mother III
5 The Practice of Magical Evocation
5 Songs of Kabir
5 Raja-Yoga
5 Initiation Into Hermetics
5 Dark Night of the Soul
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
5 Borges - Poems
5 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Tara - The Feminine Divine
4 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
3 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
3 Words Of The Mother II
3 The Lotus Sutra
3 The Integral Yoga
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Ryokan - Poems
3 Rumi - Poems
3 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
3 Bhakti-Yoga
3 Anonymous - Poems
2 The Red Book Liber Novus
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Essentials of Education
2 The Castle of Crossed Destinies
2 Symposium
2 Selected Fictions
2 Sefer Yetzirah The Book of Creation In Theory and Practice
2 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
2 Arabi - Poems
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A scientist once thought that he had clinched the issue and cut the Gordian knot when he declared triumphantly with reference to spirit sances: "Very significant is the fact that spirits appear only in closed chambers, in half obscurity, to somnolent minds; they are nowhere in the open air, in broad daylight to the wide awake and vigilant intellect!" Well, if the fact is as it is stated, what does it prove? Night alone reveals the stars, during the day they vanish, but that is no proof that stars are not existent. Rather the true scientific spirit should seek to know why (or how) it is so, if it is so, and such a fact would exactly serve as a pointer, a significant starting ground. The attitude of the jesting Pilate is not helpful even to scientific inquiry. This matter of the Spirits we have taken only as an illustration and it must not be understood that this is a domain of high mysticism; rather the contrary. The spiritualists' approach to Mysticism is not the right one and is fraught with not only errors but dangers. For the spiritualists approach their subject with the entire scientific apparatus the only difference being that the scientist does not believe while the spiritualist believes.
Mystic realities cannot be reached by the scientific consciousness, because they are far more subtle than the subtlest object that science can contemplate. The neutrons and positrons are for science today the finest and profoundest object-forces; they belong, it is said, almost to a borderl and where physics ends. Nor for that reason is a mystic reality something like a mathematical abstraction, -n for example. The mystic reality is subtler than the subtlest of physical things and yet, paradoxical to say, more concrete than the most concrete thing that the senses apprehend.
00.02 - Mystic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But those who do speak, how do they choose their figures and symbols? What is their methodology? For it might be said, since the unseen and the seen differ out and out, it does not matter what forms or signs are taken from the latter; for any meaning and significance could be put into anything. But in reality, it does not so happen. For, although there is a great divergence between figures and symbols on the one hand and the things figured and symbolised on the other, still there is also some link, some common measure. And that is why we see not unoften the same or similar figures and symbols representing an identical experience in ages and countries far apart from each other.
We can make a distinction here between two types of expression which we have put together indiscriminately, figures and symbols. Figures, we may say, are those that are constructed by the rational mind, the intellect; they are mere metaphors and similes and are not organically related to the thing experienced, but put round it as a robe that can be dropped or changed without affecting the experience itself. Thus, for example, when the Upanishad says, tmnam rathinam viddhi (Know that the soul is the master of the chariot who sits within it) or indriyi haynhu (The senses, they say, are the horses), we have here only a comparison or analogy that is common and natural to the poetic manner. The particular figure or simile used is not inevitable to the idea or experience that it seeks to express, its part and parcel. On the other hand, take this Upanishadic perception: hirayamayena patrea satyasyphitam mukham (The face of the Truth lies hidden under the golden orb). Here the symbol is not mere analogy or comparison, a figure; it is one with the very substance of the experience the two cannot be separated. Or when the Vedas speak of the kindling of the Fire, the rushing of the waters or the rise of the Dawn, the images though taken from the material world, are not used for the sake of mere comparison, but they are the embodiments, the living forms of truths experienced in another world.
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Thus there is a great diversity of symbols. At the one end is the mere metaphor or simile or allegory ('figure', as we have called it) and at the other end is the symbol identical with the thing symbolized. And upon this inner character of the symbol depends also to a large extent its range and scope. There are symbols which are universal and intimately ingrained in the human consciousness itself. Mankind has used them in all ages and climes almost in the same sense and significance. There are others that are limited to peoples and ages. They are made out of forms that are of local and temporal interest and importance. Their significances vary according to time and place. Finally, there are symbols which are true of the individual consciousness only; they depend on personal peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, on one's environment and upbringing and education.
Man being an embodied soul, his external consciousness (what the Upanishad calls jgrat) is the milieu in which his soul-experiences naturally manifest and find their play. It is the forms and movements of that consciousness which clo the and give a concrete habitation and name to perceptions on the subtler ranges of the inner existence. If the experiences on these planes are to be presented to the conscious memory and to the brain-mind and made communicable to others through speech, this is the inevitable and natural process. Symbols are a translation in mental and sensual (and vocal) terms of experiences that are beyond the mind and the sense and the speech and yet throw a kind of echoing vibrations upon these lesser levels.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, before any explanation is attempted it is important to bear in mind that the Upanishads speak of things experiencednot merely thought, reasoned or argued and that these experiences belong to a world and consciousness other than that of the mind and the senses. One should naturally expect here a different language and mode of expression than that which is appropriate to mental and physical things. For example, the world of dreams was once supposed to be a sheer chaos, a mass of meaningless confusion; but now it is held to be quite otherwise. Psychological scientists have discovered a methodeven a very well-defined and strict methodin the madness of that domain. It is an ordered, organised, significant world; but its terminology has to be understood, its code deciphered. It is not a jargon, but a foreign language that must be learnt and mastered.
In the same way, the world of spiritual experiences is also something methodical, well-organized, significant. It may not be and is not the rational world of the mind and the sense; but it need not, for that reason, be devoid of meaning, mere fancifulness or a child's imagination running riot. Here also the right key has to be found, the grammar and vocabulary of that language mastered. And as the best way to have complete mastery of a language is to live among the people who speak it, so, in the matter of spiritual language, the best and the only way to learn it is to go and live in its native country.
Now, as regards the interpretation of the story cited, should not a suspicion arise naturally at the very outset that the dog of the story is not a dog but represents something else? First, a significant epithet is given to itwhite; secondly, although it asks for food, it says that Om is its food and Om is its drink. In the Vedas we have some references to dogs. Yama has twin dogs that "guard the path and have powerful vision." They are his messengers, "they move widely and delight in power and possess the vast strength." The Vedic Rishis pray to them for Power and Bliss and for the vision of the Sun1. There is also the Hound of Heaven, Sarama, who comes down and discovers the luminous cows stolen and hidden by the Panis in their dark caves; she is the path-finder for Indra, the deliverer.
My suggestion is that the dog is a symbol of the keen sight of Intuition, the unfailing perception of direct knowledge. With this clue the Upanishadic story becomes quite sensible and clear and not mere abracadabra. To the aspirant for Knowledge came first a purified power of direct understanding, an Intuition of fundamental value, and this brought others of the same species in its train. They were all linked together organically that is the significance of the circle, and formed a rhythmic utterance and expression of the supreme truth (Om). It is also to be noted that they came and met at dawn to chant, the Truth. Dawn is the opening and awakening of the consciousness to truths that come from above and beyond.
It may be asked why the dog has been chosen as the symbol of Intuition. In the Vedas, the cow and the horse also play a large part; even the donkey and the frog have their own as signed roles. These objects are taken from the environment of ordinary life, and are those that are most familiar to the external consciousness, through which the inner experiences have to express themselves, if they are to be expressed at all. These material objects represent various kinds of forces and movements and subtle and occult and spiritual dynamisms. Strictly speaking, however, symbols are not chosen in a subtle or spiritual experience, that is to say, they are not arbitrarily selected and constructed by the conscious intelligence. They form part of a dramatization (to use a term of the Freudian psychology of dreams), a psychological alchemy, whose method and process and rationale are very obscure, which can be penetrated only by the vision of a third eye.
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In Yajnavalkya's enumeration, however, it is to be noted, first of all, that he stresses on the number three. The principle of triplicity is of very wide application: it permeates all fields of consciousness and is evidently based upon a fundamental fact of reality. It seems to embody a truth of synthesis and comprehension, points to the order and harmony that reigns in the cosmos, the spheric music. The metaphysical, that is to say, the original principles that constitute existence are the well-known triplets: (i) the superior: Sat, Chit, Ananda; and (ii) the inferior: Body, Life and Mindthis being a reflection or translation or concretisation of the former. We can see also here how the dual principle comes in, the twin godhead or the two gods to which Yajnavalkya refers. The same principle is found in the conception of Ardhanarishwara, Male and Female, Purusha-Prakriti. The Upanishad says 14 yet again that the One original Purusha was not pleased at being alone, so for a companion he created out of himself the original Female. The dual principle signifies creation, the manifesting activity of the Reality. But what is this one and a half to which Yajnavalkya refers? It simply means that the other created out of the one is not a wholly separate, independent entity: it is not an integer by itself, as in the Manichean system, but that it is a portion, a fraction of the One. And in the end, in the ultimate analysis, or rather synthesis, there is but one single undivided and indivisible unity. The thousands and hundreds, very often mentioned also in the Rig Veda, are not simply multiplications of the One, a graphic description of its many-sidedness; it indicates also the absolute fullness, the complete completeness (prasya pram) of the Reality. It includes and comprehends all and is a rounded totality, a full circle. The hundred-gated and the thousand-pillared cities of which the ancient Rishis chanted are formations and embodiments of consciousness human and divine, are realities whole and entire englobing all the layers and grades of consciousness.
Besides this metaphysics there is also an occult aspect in numerology of which Pythagoras was a well-known adept and in which the Vedic Rishis too seem to take special delight. The multiplication of numbers represents in a general way the principle of emanation. The One has divided and subdivided itself, but not in a haphazard way: it is not like the chaotic pulverisation of a piece of stone by hammer-blows. The process of division and subdivision follows a pattern almost as neat and methodical as a genealogical tree. That is to say, the emanations form a hierarchy. At the top, the apex of the pyramid, stands the one supreme Godhead. That Godhead is biune in respect of manifestation the Divine and his creative Power. This two-in-one reality may be considered, according to one view of creation, as dividing into three forms or aspects the well-known Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra of Hindu mythology. These may be termed the first or primary emanations.
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And what else is the true character, the soul of beauty than light and delight? "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." And a thing of joy is a thing of light. Joy is the radiance rippling over a thing of beauty. Beauty is always radiant: the charm, the loveliness of an object is but the glow of light that it emanates. And it would not be a very incorrect mensuration to measure the degree of beauty by the degree of light radiated. The diamond is not only a thing of value, but a thing of beauty also, because of the concentrated and undimmed light that it enshrines within itself. A dark, dull and dismal thing, devoid of interest and attraction becomes aesthetically precious and significant as soon as the artist presents it in terms of the values of light. The entire art of painting is nothing but the expression of beauty, in and through the modalities of light.
And where there is light, there is cheer and joy. Rasamaya and jyotirmayaare thus the two conjoint characteristics fundamental to the nature of the ultimate reality. Sometimes these two are named as the 'solar and the lunar aspect. The solar aspect refers obviously to the Light, that is to say, to the Truth; the lunar aspect refers to the rasa (Soma), to Immortality, to Beauty proper,
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
For example, Keser is called "The Admirable or the Hidden Intelligence; it is the Primal Glory, for no created being can attain to its essence." This seems perfectly all right; the meaning at first sight seems to fit the significance of Keser as the first emanation from Ain Soph. But there are half a dozen other similar attri butions that would have served equally well. For instance, it could have been called the "Occult Intelligence" usually attri buted to the seventh Path or Sephirah, for surely Keser is secret in a way to be said of no other Sephirah. And what about the "Absolute or Perfect Intelligence." That would have been even more explicit and appropriate, being applicable to Keser far more than to any other of the Paths. Similarly, there is one attri buted to the 16th Path and called "The Eternal or Triumphant Intelligence," so-called because it is the pleasure of the Glory, beyond which is no Glory like to it, and it is called also the Paradise prepared for the Righteous." Any of these several would have done equally well. Much is true of so many of the other attri butions in this particular area-that is the so-called Intelligences of the Sepher Yetzirah. I do not think that their use or current arbitrary usage stands up to serious examination or criticism.
A good many attri butions in other symbolic areas, I feel are subject to the same criticism. The Egyptian Gods have been used with a good deal of carelessness, and without sufficient explanation of motives in as signing them as I did. In a recent edition of Crowley's masterpiece Liber 777 (which au fond is less a reflection of Crowley's mind as a recent critic claimed than a tabulation of some of the material given piecemeal in the Golden Dawn knowledge lectures), he gives for the first time brief explanations of the motives for his attri butions. I too should have been far more explicit in the explanations I used in the case of some of the Gods whose names were used many times, most inadequately, where several paths were concerned. While it is true that the religious coloring of the Egyptian Gods differed from time to time during Egypt's turbulent history, nonetheless a word or two about just that one single point could have served a useful purpose.
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The last chapter of A Garden deals with the Way of Return. It used almost entirely Crowley's concept of the Path as described in his superb essay "One Star in sight." In addition to this, I borrowed extensively from Lawrence's Apropos. Somehow, they all fitted together very nicely. In time, all these variegated notes were incorporated into the text without acknowledgment, an over sight which I now feel sure would be forgiven, since I was only twenty-four at the time.
Some modern Nature-worshippers and members of the newly-washed and redeemed witch-cult have complimented me on this closing chapter which I entitled 'The Ladder." I am pleased about this. For a very long time I was not at all familiar with the topic of witchcraft. I had avoided it entirely, not being attracted to its literature in any way. In fact, I only became slightly conversant with its theme and literature just a few years ago, after reading "The Anatomy of Eve" written by Dr. Leopold Stein, a Jungian analyst. In the middle of his study of four cases, he included a most informative chapter on the subject. This served to stimulate me to wider reading in that area.
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
denied there was any economic significance in his theory of evolution, the
economists insisted that superior physical fitness obviously governed economic
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Hindu priests are thoroughly acquainted with the rites of worship, but few of them are aware of their underlying significance. They move their hands and limbs mechanically, in obedience to the letter of the scriptures, and repeat the holy mantras like parrots. But from the very beginning the inner meaning of these rites was revealed to Sri Ramakrishna. As he sat facing the image, a strange transformation came over his mind. While going through the prescribed ceremonies, he would actually find himself encircled by a wall of fire protecting him and the place of worship from unspiritual vibrations, or he would feel the rising of the mystic Kundalini through the different centres of the body. The glow on his face, his deep absorption, and the intense atmosphere of the temple impressed everyone who saw him worship the Deity.
Ramkumar wanted Sri Ramakrishna to learn the intricate rituals of the worship of Kali. To become a priest of Kali one must undergo a special form of initiation from a qualified guru, and for Sri Ramakrishna a suitable brahmin was found. But no sooner did the brahmin speak the holy word in his ear than Sri Ramakrishna, overwhelmed with emotion, uttered a loud cry and plunged into deep concentration.
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But he did not have to wait very long. He has thus described his first vision of the Mother: "I felt as if my heart were being squeezed like a wet towel. I was overpowered with a great restlessness and a fear that it might not be my lot to realize Her in this life. I could not bear the separation from Her any longer. Life seemed to be not worth living. Suddenly my glance fell on the sword that was kept in the Mother's temple. I determined to put an end to my life. When I jumped up like a madman and seized it, suddenly the blessed Mother revealed Herself. The buildings with their different parts, the temple, and everything else vanished from my sight, leaving no trace whatsoever, and in their stead I saw a limitless, infinite, effulgent Ocean of Consciousness. As far as the eye could see, the shining billows were madly rushing at me from all sides with a terrific noise, to swallow me up! I was panting for breath. I was caught in the rush
and collapsed, unconscious. What was happening in the outside world I did not know; but within me there was a steady flow of undiluted bliss, altogether new, and I felt the presence of the Divine Mother." On his lips when he regained consciousness of the world was the word "Mother".
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Two famous pundits of the time were invited: Vaishnavcharan, the leader of the Vaishnava society, and Gauri. The first to arrive was Vaishnavcharan, with a distinguished company of scholars and devotees. The Brahmani, like a proud mother, proclaimed her view before him and supported it with quotations from the scriptures. As the pundits discussed the deep theological question, Sri Ramakrishna, perfectly indifferent to everything happening around him, sat in their midst like a child, immersed in his own thoughts, sometimes smiling, sometimes chewing a pinch of spices from a pouch, or again saying to Vaishnavcharan with a nudge: "Look here. Sometimes I feel like this, too." Presently Vaishnavcharan arose to declare himself in total agreement with the view of the Brahmani. He declared that Sri Ramakrishna had undoubtedly experienced mahabhava and that this was the certain sign of the rare manifestation of God in a man. The people assembled
there, especially the officers of the temple garden, were struck dumb. Sri Rama- krishna said to Mathur, like a boy: "Just fancy, he too says so! Well, I am glad to learn that after all it is not a disease."
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While practising the discipline of the madhur bhava, the male devotee often regards himself as a woman, in order to develop the most intense form of love for Sri Krishna, the only purusha, or man, in the universe. This assumption of the attitude of the opposite sex has a deep psychological significance. It is a matter of common experience that an idea may be cultivated to such an intense degree that every idea alien to it is driven from the mind. This peculiarity of the mind may be utilized for the subjugation of the lower desires and the development of the spiritual nature. Now, the idea which is the basis of all desires and passions in a man is the conviction of his indissoluble association with a male body. If he can inoculate himself thoroughly with the idea that he is a woman, he can get rid of the desires peculiar to his male body. Again, the idea that he is a woman may in turn be made to give way to another higher idea, namely, that he is neither man nor woman, but the Impersonal Spirit. The Impersonal Spirit alone can enjoy real communion with the Impersonal God. Hence the highest est realization of the Vaishnava draws close to the transcendental experience of the Vedantist.
A beautiful expression of the Vaishnava worship of God through love is to be found in the Vrindavan episode of the Bhagavata. The gopis, or milk-maids, of Vrindavan regarded the six-year-old Krishna as their Beloved. They sought no personal gain or happiness from this love. They surrendered to Krishna their bodies, minds, and souls. Of all the gopis, Radhika, or Radha, because of her intense love for Him, was the closest to Krishna. She manifested mahabhava and was united with her Beloved. This union represents, through sensuous language, a supersensuous experience.
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From Sri Ramakrishna Totapuri had to learn the significance of Kali, the Great Fact of the relative world, and of maya, Her indescribable Power.
One day, when guru and disciple were engaged in an animated discussion about Vedanta, a servant of the temple garden came there and took a coal from the sacred fire that had been lighted by the great ascetic. He wanted it to light his tobacco. Totapuri flew into a rage and was about to beat the man. Sri Ramakrishna rocked with laughter. "What a shame!" he cried. "You are explaining to me the reality of Brahman and the illusoriness of the world; yet now you have so far forgotten yourself as to be about to beat a man in a fit of passion. The power of maya is indeed inscrutable!" Totapuri was embarrassed.
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Sri Ramakrishna later described the significance of Totapuri's lessons:
"When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive — neither creating nor preserving nor destroying —, I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active — creating, preserving, and destroying —, I call Him Sakti or Maya or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and the Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its lustre, the snake and its wriggling motion. It is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one."
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The party entered holy Benares by boat along the Ganges. When Sri Ramakrishna's eyes fell on this city of Siva, where had accumulated for ages the devotion and piety of countless worshippers, he saw it to be made of gold, as the scriptures declare. He was visibly moved. During his stay in the city he treated every particle of its earth with utmost respect. At the Manikarnika Ghat, the great cremation ground of the city, he actually saw Siva, with ash-covered body and tawny matted hair, serenely approaching each funeral pyre and breathing into the ears of the corpses the mantra of liberation; and then the Divine Mother removing from the dead their bonds. Thus he realized the significance of the scriptural statement that anyone dying in Benares attains salvation through the grace of Siva. He paid a visit to Trailanga Swami, the celebrated monk, whom he later declared to be a real paramahamsa, a veritable image of Siva.
Sri Ramakrishna visited Allahabad, at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jamuna, and then proceeded to Vrindavan and Mathura, hallowed by the legends, songs, and dramas about Krishna and the gopis. Here he had numerous visions and his heart overflowed with divine emotion. He wept and said: "O Krishna! Everything here is as it was in the olden days. You alone are absent." He visited the great woman saint, Gangamayi, regarded by Vaishnava devotees as the reincarnation of an intimate attendant of Radha. She was sixty years old and had frequent trances. She spoke of Sri Ramakrishna as an incarnation of Radha. With great difficulty he was persuaded to leave her.
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Totapuri, coming to know of the Master's marriage, had once remarked: "What does it matter? He alone is firmly established in the Knowledge of Brahman who can adhere to his spirit of discrimination and renunciation even while living with his wife. He alone has attained the supreme illumination who can look on man and woman alike as Brahman. A man with the idea of sex may be a good aspirant, but he is still far from the goal." Sri Ramakrishna and his wife lived together at Dakshineswar, but their minds always soared above the worldly plane. A few months after Sarada Devi's arrival Sri Ramakrishna arranged, on an auspicious day, a special worship of Kali, the Divine Mother. Instead of an image of the Deity, he placed on the seat the living image, Sarada Devi herself. The worshipper and the worshipped went into deep samadhi and in the transcendental plane their souls were united. After several hours Sri Ramakrishna came down again to the relative plane, sang a hymn to the Great Goddess, and surrendered, at the feet of the living image, himself, his rosary, and the fruit of his life-long sadhana. This is known in Tantra as the Shorasi Puja, the "Adoration of Woman". Sri Ramakrishna realized the significance of the great statement of the Upanishad: "O Lord, Thou art the woman. Thou art the man; Thou art the boy. Thou art the girl; Thou art the old, tottering on their crutches. Thou pervadest the universe in its multiple forms."
By his marriage Sri Ramakrishna admitted the great value of marriage in man's spiritual evolution, and by adhering to his monastic vows he demonstrated the imperative necessity of self-control, purity, and continence, in the realization of God. By this unique spiritual relationship with his wife he proved that husband and wife can live together as spiritual companions. Thus his life is a synthesis of the ways of life of the householder and the monk.
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Contact with the Brahmos increased Sri Ramakrishna's longing to encounter aspirants who would be able to follow his teachings in their purest form. "There was no limit", he once declared, "to the longing I felt at that time. During the day-time I somehow managed to control it. The secular talk of the worldly-minded was galling to me, and I would look wistfully to the day when my own beloved companions would come. I hoped to find solace in conversing with them and relating to them my own realizations. Every little incident would remind me of them, and thoughts of them wholly engrossed me. I was already arranging in my mind what I should say to one and give to another, and so on. But when the day would come to a close I would not be able to curb my feelings. The thought that another day had gone by, and they had not come, oppressed me. When, during the evening service, the temples rang with the sound of bells and conch-shells, I would climb to the roof of the kuthi in the garden and, writhing in anguish of heart, cry at the top of my voice: 'Come, my children! Oh, where are you? I cannot bear to live without you.' A mother never longed so intensely for the sight of her child, nor a friend for his companions, nor a lover for his sweetheart, as I longed for them. Oh, it was indescribable! Shortly after this period of yearning the devotees1 began to come."
In the year 1879 occasional writings about Sri Ramakrishna by the Brahmos, in the Brahmo magazines, began to attract his future disciples from the educated middle-class Bengalis, and they continued to come till 1884. But others, too, came, feeling the subtle power of his attraction. They were an ever shifting crowd of people of all castes and creeds: Hindus and Brahmos, Vaishnavas and Saktas, the educated with university degrees and the illiterate, old and young, maharajas and beggars, journalists and artists, pundits and devotees, philosophers and the worldly-minded, jnanis and yogis, men of action and men of faith, virtuous women and prostitutes, office-holders and vagabonds, philanthropists and self-seekers, dramatists and drunkards, builders-up and pullers-down. He gave to them all, without stint, from his illimitable store of realization. No one went away empty-handed. He taught them the lofty .knowledge of the Vedanta and the soul
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But he remained as ever the willing instrument in the hand of God, the child of the Divine Mother, totally untouched by the idea of being a teacher. He used to say that three ideas — that he was a guru, a father, and a master — pricked his flesh like thorns. Yet he was an extraordinary teacher. He stirred his disciples' hearts more by a subtle influence than by actions or words. He never claimed to be the founder of a religion or the organizer of a sect. Yet he was a religious dynamo. He was the verifier of all religions and creeds. He was like an expert gardener, who prepares the soil and removes the weeds, knowing that the plants will grow because of the inherent power of the seeds, producing each its appropriate flowers and fruits. He never thrust his ideas on anybody. He understood people's limitations and worked on the principle that what is good for one may be bad for another. He had the unusual power of knowing the devotees' minds, even their inmost souls, at the first sight. He accepted disciples with the full knowledge of their past tendencies and future possibilities. The life of evil did not frighten him, nor did religious squeamishness raise anybody in his estimation. He saw in everything the unerring finger of the Divine Mother. Even the light that leads astray was to him the light from God.
To those who became his intimate disciples the Master was a friend, companion, and playmate. Even the chores of religious discipline would be lightened in his presence. The devotees would be so inebriated with pure joy in his company that they would have no time to ask themselves whether he was an Incarnation, a perfect soul, or a yogi. His very presence was a great teaching; words were superfluous. In later years his disciples remarked that while they were with him they would regard him as a comrade, but afterwards would tremble to think of their frivolities in the presence of such a great person. They had convincing proof that the Master could, by his mere wish, kindle in their hearts the love of God and give them His vision.
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Bhavanath Chatterji visited the Master while he was still in his teens. His parents and relatives regarded Sri Ramakrishna as an insane person and tried their utmost to prevent him from becoming intimate with the Master. But the young boy was very stubborn and often spent nights at Dakshineswar. He was greatly attached to Narendra, and the Master encouraged their friendship. The very sight of him often awakened Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual emotion.
--- BALARAM BOSE
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Mahendranath Gupta, better known as "M.", arrived at Dakshineswar in March 1882. He belonged to the Brahmo Samaj and was headmaster of the Vidyasagar High School at Syambazar, Calcutta. At the very first sight the Master recognized him as one of his "marked" disciples. Mahendra recorded in his diary Sri Ramakrishna's conversations with his devotees. These are the first directly recorded words, in the spiritual history of the world, of a man recognized as belonging in the class of Buddha and Christ. The present volume is a translation of this diary. Mahendra was instrumental, through his personal contacts, in spreading the Master's message among many young and aspiring souls.
--- NAG MAHASHAY
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One day Girish felt depressed because he was unable to submit to any routine of spiritual discipline. In an exalted mood the Master said to him: "All right, give me your power of attorney. Henceforth I assume responsibility for you. You need not do anything." Girish heaved a sigh of relief. He felt happy to think that Sri Ramakrishna had assumed his spiritual responsibilities. But poor Girish could not then realize that He also, on his part, had to give up his freedom and make of himself a puppet in Sri Ramakrishna's hands. The Master began to discipline him according to this new attitude. One day Girish said about a trifling matter, "Yes, I shall do this." "No, no!" the Master corrected him. "You must not speak in that egotistic manner. You should say, 'God willing, I shall do it.'" Girish understood. Thenceforth he tried to give up all idea of personal responsibility and surrender himself to the Divine Will. His mind began to dwell constantly on Sri Ramakrishna. This unconscious meditation in time chastened his turbulent spirit.
The householder devotees generally visited Sri Ramakrishna on Sunday afternoons and other holidays. Thus a brotherhood was gradually formed, and the Master encouraged their fraternal feeling. Now and then he would accept an invitation to a devotee's home, where other devotees would also be invited. Kirtan would be arranged and they would spend hours in dance and devotional music. The Master would go into trances or open his heart in religious discourses and in the narration of his own spiritual experiences. Many people who could not go to Dakshineswar participated in these meetings and felt blessed. Such an occasion would be concluded with a sumptuous feast.
--
The Europeanized Kristodas Pal did not approve of the Master's emphasis on renunciation and said; "Sir, this cant of renunciation has almost ruined the country. It is for this reason that the Indians are a subject nation today. Doing good to others, bringing education to the door of the ignorant, and above all, improving the material conditions of the country — these should be our duty now. The cry of religion and renunciation would, on the contrary, only weaken us. You should advise the young men of Bengal to resort only to such acts as will uplift the country." Sri Ramakrishna gave him a searching look and found no divine light within, "You man of poor understanding!" Sri Ramakrishna said sharply. "You dare to slight in these terms renunciation and piety, which our scriptures describe as the greatest of all virtues! After reading two pages of English you think you have come to know the world! You appear to think you are omniscient. Well, have you seen those tiny crabs that are born in the Ganges just when the rains set in? In this big universe you are even less significant than one of those small creatures. How dare you talk of helping the world? The Lord will look to that. You haven't the power in you to do it." After a pause the Master continued: "Can you explain to me how you can work for others? I know what you mean by helping them. To feed a number of persons, to treat them when they are sick, to construct a road or dig a well — isn't that all? These, are good deeds, no doubt, but how trifling in comparison with the vastness of the universe! How far can a man advance in this line? How many people can you save from famine? Malaria has ruined a whole province; what could you do to stop its onslaught? God alone looks after the world. Let a man first realize Him. Let a man get the authority from God and be endowed with His power; then, and then alone, may he think of doing good to others. A man should first be purged of all egotism. Then alone will the Blissful Mother ask him to work for the world." Sri Ramakrishna mistrusted philanthropy that presumed to pose as charity. He warned people against it. He saw in most acts of philanthropy nothing but egotism, vanity, a desire for glory, a barren excitement to kill the boredom of life, or an attempt to soothe a guilty conscience. True charity, he taught, is the result of love of God — service to man in a spirit of worship.
--- MONASTIC DISCIPLES
--
Sri Ramakrishna was grateful to the Divine Mother for sending him one who doubted his own realizations. Often he asked Narendra to test him as the money-changers test their coins. He laughed at Narendra's biting criticism of his spiritual experiences and samadhi. When at times Narendra's sharp words distressed him, the Divine Mother Herself would console him, saying: "Why do you listen to him? In a few days he will believe your every word." He could hardly bear Narendra's absences. Often he would weep bitterly for the sight of him. Sometimes Narendra would find the Master's love embarrassing; and one day he sharply scolded him, warning him that such infatuation would soon draw him down to the level of its object. The Master was distressed and prayed to the Divine Mother. Then he said to Narendra: "You rogue, I won't listen to you any more. Mother says that I love you because I see God in you, and the day I no longer see God in you I shall not be able to bear even the sight of you."
The Master wanted to train Narendra in the teachings of the non-dualistic Vedanta philosophy. But Narendra, because of his Brahmo upbringing, considered it wholly blasphemous to look on man as one with his Creator. One day at the temple garden he laughingly said to a friend: "How silly! This jug is God! This cup is God! Whatever we see is God! And we too are God! Nothing could be more absurd." Sri Ramakrishna came out of his room and gently touched him. Spellbound, he immediately perceived that everything in the world was indeed God. A new universe opened around him. Returning home in a dazed state, he found there too that the food, the plate, the eater himself, the people around him, were all God. When he walked in the street, he saw that the cabs, the horses, the streams of people, the buildings, were all Brahman. He could hardly go about his day's business. His parents became anxious about him and thought him ill. And when the intensity of the experience abated a little, he saw the world as a dream. Walking in the public square, he would strike his head against the iron railings to know whether they were real. It took him a number of days to recover his normal self. He had a foretaste of the great experiences yet to come and realized that the words of the Vedanta were true.
--
This was a very rich and significant experience for Narendra. It taught him that Sakti, the Divine Power, cannot be ignored in the world and that in the relative plane the need of worshipping a Personal God is imperative. Sri Ramakrishna was overjoyed with the conversion. The next day, sitting almost on Narendra's lap, he said to a devotee, pointing first to himself, then to Narendra: "I see I am this, and again that. Really I feel no difference. A stick floating in the Ganges seems to divide the water; But in reality the water is one. Do you see my point? Well, whatever is, is the Mother — isn't that so?" In later years Narendra would say: "Sri Ramakrishna was the only person who, from the time he met me, believed in me uniformly throughout. Even my mother and brothers did not. It was his unwavering trust and love for me that bound me to him for ever. He alone knew how to love. Worldly people, only make a show of love for selfish ends.
--- TARAK
--
Baburam Ghosh came to Dakshineswar accompanied by Rakhal, his classmate. The Master, as was often his custom, examined the boy's physiognomy and was satisfied about his latent spirituality. At the age of eight Baburam had thought of leading a life of renunciation, in the company of a monk, in a hut shut out from the public view by a thick wall of trees. The very sight of the Panchavati awakened in his heart that dream of boyhood. Baburam was tender in body and soul. The Master used to say that he was pure to his very bones. One day Hazra in his usual mischievous fashion advised Baburam and some of the other young boys to ask Sri Ramakrishna for some spiritual powers and not waste their life in mere gaiety and merriment. The Master, scenting mischief, called Baburam to his side and said: "What can you ask of me? Isn't everything that I have already yours? Yes, everything I have earned in the shape of realizations is for the sake of you all. So get rid of the idea of begging, which alienates by creating a distance. Rather realize your kinship with me and gain the key to all the treasures.
--- NIRANJAN
--
Two more young men, Sarada Prasanna and Tulasi, complete the small band of the Master's disciples later to embrace the life of the wandering monk. With the exception of the elder Gopal, all of them were in their teens or slightly over. They came from middle-class Bengali families, and most of them were students in school or college. Their parents and relatives had envisaged for them bright worldly careers. They came to Sri Ramakrishna with pure bodies, vigorous minds, and uncontaminated souls. All were born with unusual spiritual attributes. Sri Ramakrishna accepted them, even at first sight, as his children, relatives, friends, and companions. His magic touch unfolded them. And later each according to his measure reflected the life of the Master, becoming a torch-bearer of his message across land and sea.
--- WOMAN DEVOTEES
--
One day, in January 1884, the Master was going toward the pine-grove when he went into a trance. He was alone. There was no one to support him or guide his footsteps. He fell to the ground and dislocated a bone in his left arm. This accident had a significant influence on his mind, the natural inclination of which was to soar above the consciousness of the body. The acute pain in the arm forced his mind to dwell on the body and on the world outside. But he saw even in this a divine purpose; for, with his mind compelled to dwell on the physical plane, he realized more than ever that he was an instrument in the hand of the Divine Mother, who had a mission to fulfil through his human body and mind. He also distinctly found that in the phenomenal world God manifests Himself, in an inscrutable way, through diverse human beings, both good and evil. Thus he would speak of God in the guise of the wicked, God in the guise of the pious. God in the guise of the hypocrite, God in the guise of the lewd. He began to take a special delight in watching the divine play in the relative world. Sometimes the sweet human relationship with God would appear to him more appealing than the all-effacing Knowledge of Brahman. Many a time he would pray: "Mother, don't make me unconscious through the Knowledge of Brahman. Don't give me Brahmajnana, Mother. Am I not Your child, and naturally timid? I must have my Mother. A million salutations to the Knowledge of Brahman! Give it to those who want it." Again he prayed: "O Mother let me remain in contact with men! Don't make me a dried-up ascetic. I want to enjoy Your sport in the world." He was able to taste this very rich divine experience and enjoy the love of God and the company of His devotees because his mind, on account of the injury to his arm, was forced to come down to the consciousness of the body. Again, he would make fun of people who proclaimed him as a Divine Incarnation, by pointing to his broken arm. He would say, "Have you ever heard of God breaking His arm?" It took the arm about five months to heal.
--- BEGINNING OF HIS ILLNESS
--
When Sri Ramakrishna's illness showed signs of aggravation, the devotees, following the advice of Dr. Sarkar, rented a spacious garden house at Cossipore, in the northern suburbs of Calcutta. The Master was removed to this place on December 11, 1885.
It was at Cossipore that the curtain fell on the varied activities of the Master's life on the physical plane. His soul lingered in the body eight months more. It was the period of his great Passion, a constant crucifixion of the body and the triumphant revelation of the Soul. Here one sees the humanity and divinity of the Master passing and repassing across a thin border line. Every minute of those eight months was suffused with touching tenderness of heart and breath-taking elevation of spirit. Every word he uttered was full of pathos and sublimity.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
subtly ironical or cynical. At first sight the book is a
jumble of nonsense intended to insult the reader. It
--
or Cross is the sign of the Phallus. For a fuller com-
mentary on Nox, see Liber VII, Chapter I.
--
He is the letter of Aries, a Martial sign; while the
title suggests war. The ants are chosen as small busy
--
is the weakness of our sight.
O fool! criest thou?
--
(13) T, manhood, the sign of the cross or phallus.
UT, the Holy Guardian Angel; UT, the first syllable
--
The Hawk is the symbol of sight; the Blindworm, of
blindness. Those who are under the dominion of reason
--
eyes, fling it forth, making the sign of Horus, and
roar {Chi-Alpha-Omicron-C?}. Retire thine hand in the sign of Hoor
pa kraat.
--
words {Iota-Omicron Pi-Alpha-Nu} with the signs of N.O.X.
Extend the arms in the form of a Tau, and say low
--
In the centre, let him give the L.V.X. signs; or if
he know them, if he will and dare do them, and
can keep silent about them, the signs of N.O.X.
being the signs of Puer, Vir, Puella, Mulier. Omit
the sign I.R.
Then let him advance to the East, and make the
--
In this the signs shall be those of Set Triumphant
and of Baphomet. Also shall Set appear in the
--
Let him then repeat the signs of L.V.X. but not the
signs of N.O.X.; for it is not he that shall arise in
the sign of Isis Rejoicing.
COMMENTARY ({Lambda- sigma})
--
There may be some significance in the chapter
number, which is that of Jechidah the highest unity of
--
of the Cakes of Light. In the sign of the Enterer he
reaches West across the Altar, and cries:
--
He gives the sign of Silence, and takes the Bell, and
Fire, in his hands.
--
makes upon his breast the proper sign.
[98]
--
Gashed with the sacramental sign!
He puts the second Cake to the wound.
--
77 77 sigil of BABALON.)
N L
--
"lion-serpent" to the sigil of his ascending decan. (Teth=
Snake=spermatozoon and Leo in the Zodiac, which like
--
It will be noticed that the figure, or sigil, of BABALON
is a seal upon a ring, and this ring is upon the forefinger
--
which is highly significant; the word "lives" excluding the
mineral kingdom, the word "moves" the vegetable kingdom,
--
The numbers in paragraphs 1 to 3 are significant;
each Master-Mason is attended by 5 Fellow-Crafts,
--
manual signs in each of these degrees.
The moral of the chapter is apparently that the
--
The Phoenix hat a Bell for Sound; Fire for sight; a
Knife for Touch; two cakes, one for taste, the other
--
The word "see-saw" is significant, almost a comment
upon this chapter. To the Master of the Temple
--
the sign of the GREAT WORK, for the GREAT
WORK is accomplished in Silence. And behold is
--
whose sigil is {Cancer}?
This Work also eats up itself, accomplishes its own
--
that of Horus, a sign specially revealed by him per-
sonally, at the Equinox of the Gods. (It is the flame
--
sigil of Cancer links up this symbolism with the number
of the chapter.
--
vanity pleases the mind; the idee fixe is a sign of
insanity. See paragraphs 4 and 5.
--
At first sight the prose of this chapter, though there is only one dissyllabl
e in
--
The sigil is taken from a Gnostic talisman, and
refers to the Sacrament.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
It looks as if M. was brought to the world by the Great Master to record his words and transmit them to posterity. Swami Sivananda, a direct disciple of the Master and the second President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, says on this topic: "Whenever there was an interesting talk, the Master would call Master Mahashay if he was not in the room, and then draw his attention to the holy words spoken. We did not know then why the Master did so. Now we can realise that this action of the Master had an important significance, for it was reserved for Master Mahashay to give to the world at large the sayings of the Master." ( Vednta Kesari Vol. XIX P 141.) Thanks to M., we get, unlike in the case of the great teachers of the past, a faithful record with date, time, exact report of conversations, description of concerned men and places, references to contemporary events and personalities and a hundred other details for the last four years of the Master's life (1882-'86), so that no one can doubt the historicity of the Master and his teachings at any time in the future.
M. was, in every respect, a true missionary of Sri Ramakrishna right from his first acquaintance with him in 1882. As a school teacher, it was a practice with him to direct to the Master such of his students as had a true spiritual disposition. Though himself prohibited by the Master to take to monastic life, he encouraged all spiritually inclined young men he came across in his later life to join the monastic Order. Swami Vijnanananda, a direct Sannysin disciple of the Master and a President of the Ramakrishna Order, once remarked to M.: "By enquiry, I have come to the conclusion that eighty percent and more of the Sannysins have embraced the monastic life after reading the Kathmrita (Bengali name of the book) and coming in contact with you." ( M
0.00 - The Wellspring of Reality, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
There is an inherently minimum set of essential concepts and current information, cognizance of which could lead to our operating our planet Earth to the lasting satisfaction and health of all humanity. With this objective, we set out on our review of the spectrum of significant experiences and seek therein for the greatest meanings as well as for the family of generalized principles governing the realization of their optimum significance to humanity aboard our Sun circling planet Earth.
We must start with scientific fundamentals, and that means with the data of experiments and not with assumed axioms predicated only upon the misleading nature of that which only superficially seems to be obvious. It is the consensus of great scientists that science is the attempt to set in order the facts of experience.
--
Mind is the weightless and uniquely human faculty that surveys the ever larger inventory of special-case experiences stored in the brain bank and, seeking to identify their intercomplementary significance, from time to time discovers one of the rare scientifically generalizable principles running consistently through all the relevant experience set. The thoughts that discover these principles are weightless and tentative and may also be eternal. They suggest eternity but do not prove it, even though there have been no experiences thus far that imply exceptions to their persistence. It seems also to follow that the more experiences we have, the more chances there are that the mind may discover, on the one hand, additional generalized principles or, on the other hand, exceptions that disqualify one or another of the already catalogued principles that, having heretofore held "true" without contradiction for a long time, had been tentatively conceded to be demonstrating eternal persistence of behavior. Mind's relentless reviewing of the comprehensive brain bank's storage of all our special-case experiences tends both to progressive enlargement and definitive refinement of the catalogue of generalized principles that interaccommodatively govern all transactions of Universe.
It follows that the more specialized society becomes, the less attention does it pay to the discoveries of the mind, which are intuitively beamed toward the brain, there to be received only if the switches are "on." Specialization tends to shut off the wide-band tuning searches and thus to preclude further discovery of the all-powerful generalized principles. Again we see how society's perverse fixation on specialization leads to its extinction. We are so specialized that one man discovers empirically how to release the energy of the atom, while another, unbeknownst to him, is ordered by his political factotum to make an atomic bomb by use of the secretly and anonymously published data. That gives much expedient employment, which solves the politician's momentary problem, but requires that the politicians keep on preparing for further warring with other political states to keep their respective peoples employed. It is also mistakenly assumed that employment is the only means by which humans can earn the right to live, for politicians have yet to discover how much wealth is available for distribution. All this is rationalized on the now scientifically discredited premise that there can never be enough life support for all. Thus humanity's specialization leads only toward warring and such devastating tools, both, visible and invisible, as ultimately to destroy all Earthians.
--
While it takes but meager search to discover that many well-known concepts are false, it takes considerable search and even more careful examination of one's own personal experiences and inadvertently spontaneous reflexing to discover that there are many popularly and even professionally unknown, yet nonetheless fundamental, concepts to hold true in all cases and that already have been discovered by other as yet obscure individuals. That is to say that many scientific generalizations have been discovered but have not come to the attention of what we call the educated world at large, thereafter to be incorporated tardily within the formal education processes, and even more tardily, in the ongoing political-economic affairs of everyday life. Knowledge of the existence and comprehensive significance of these as yet popularly unrecognized natural laws often is requisite to the solution of many of the as yet unsolved problems now confronting society. Lack of knowledge of the solution's existence often leaves humanity confounded when it need not be.
Intellectually advantaged with no more than the child's facile, lucid eagerness to understand constructively and usefully the major transformational events of our own times, it probably is synergetically advantageous to review swiftly the most comprehensive inventory of the most powerful human environment transforming events of our totally known and reasonably extended history. This is especially useful in winnowing out and understanding the most significant of the metaphysical revolutions now recognized as swiftly tending to reconstitute history. By such a comprehensively schematic review, we might identify also the unprecedented and possibly heretofore overlooked pivotal revolutionary events not only of today but also of those trending to be central to tomorrow's most cataclysmic changes.
It is synergetically reasonable to assume that relativistic evaluation of any of the separate drives of art, science, education, economics, and ideology, and their complexedly interacting trends within our own times, may be had only through the most comprehensive historical sweep of which we are capable.
--
Furthermore, today's hyperspecialization in socioeconomic functioning has come to preclude important popular philosophic considerations of the synergetic significance of, for instance, such historically important events as the discovery within the general region of experimental inquiry known as virology that the as-yet popularly assumed validity of the concepts of animate and inanimate phenomena have been experimentally invalidated. Atoms and crystal complexes of atoms were held to be obviously inanimate; the protoplasmic cells of biological phenomena were held to be obviously animate. It was deemed to be common sense that warm- blooded, moist, and soft-skinned humans were clearly not to be confused with hard, cold granite or steel objects. A clear-cut threshold between animate and inanimate was therefore assumed to exist as a fundamental dichotomy of all physical phenomena. This seemingly placed life exclusively within the bounds of the physical.
The supposed location of the threshold between animate and inanimate was methodically narrowed down by experimental science until it was confined specifically within the domain of virology. Virologists have been too busy, for instance, with their DNA-RNA genetic code isolatings, to find time to see the synergetic significance to society of the fact that they have found that no physical threshold does in fact exist between animate and inanimate. The possibility of its existence vanished because the supposedly unique physical qualities of both animate and inanimate have persisted right across yesterday's supposed threshold in both directions to permeate one another's-previously perceived to be exclusive- domains. Subsequently, what was animate has become foggier and foggier, and what is inanimate clearer and clearer. All organisms consist physically and in entirety of inherently inanimate atoms. The inanimate alone is not only omnipresent but is alone experimentally demonstrable. Belated news of the elimination of this threshold must be interpreted to mean that whatever life may be, it has not been isolated and thereby identified as residual in the biological cell, as had been supposed by the false assumption that there was a separate physical phenomenoncalled animate within which life existed. No life per se has been isolated. The threshold between animate and inanimate has vanished. Those chemists who are preoccupied in synthesizing the particular atomically structured molecules identified as the prime constituents of humanly employed organisms will, even if they are chemically successful, be as remote from creating life as are automobile manufacturers from creating the human drivers of their automobiles. Only the physical connections and development complexes of distinctly "nonlife" atoms into molecules, into cells, into animals, has been and will be discovered. The genetic coding of the de sign controls of organic systems offers no more explanation of life than did the specifications of the de signs of the telephone system's apparatus and operation explain the nature of the life that communicates weightlessly to life over the only physically ponderable telephone system. Whatever else life may be, we know it is weightless. At the moment of death, no weight is lost. All the chemicals, including the chemist's life ingredients, are present, but life has vanished. The physical is inherently entropic, giving off energy in ever more disorderly ways. The metaphysical is antientropic, methodically marshalling energy. Life is antientropic.
It is spontaneously inquisitive. It sorts out and endeavors to understand.
The overconcentration on details of hyperspecialization has also been responsible for the lack of recognition by science of its inherently mandatory responsibility to reorient all our educational curricula because of the synergetically disclosed, but popularly uncomprehended, significance of the 1956 Nobel Prize-winning discovery in physics of the experimental invalidation of the concept of "parity" by which science previously had misassumed that positive-negative complementations consisted exclusively of mirror-imaged behaviors of physical phenomena.
Science's self-assumed responsibility has been self-limited to disclosure to society only of the separate, supposedly physical (because separately weighable) atomic component isolations data. Synergetic integrity would require the scientists to announce that in reality what had been identified heretofore as physical is entirely metaphysical-because synergetically weightless. Metaphysical has been science's de signation for all weightless phenomena such as thought. But science has made no experimental finding of any phenomena that can be described as a solid, or as continuous, or as a straight surface plane, or as a straight line, or as infinite anything. We are now synergetically forced to conclude that all phenomena are metaphysical; wherefore, as many have long suspected-like it or not-life is but a dream.Science has found no up or down directions of Universe, yet scientists are personally so ill-coordinated that they all still personally and sensorially see "solids" going up or down-as, for instance, they see the Sun "going down." Sensorially disconnected from their theoretically evolved information, scientists discern no need on their part to suggest any educational reforms to correct the misconceiving that science has tolerated for half a millennium.
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
view of his own significance in the physical world. There is no
need to be surprised at this slow awakening. It often happens
0.01 - I - Sri Aurobindos personality, his outer retirement - outside contacts after 1910 - spiritual personalities- Vibhutis and Avatars - transformtion of human personality, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The question which Arjuna asks Sri Krishna in the Gita (second chapter) occurs pertinently to many about all spiritual personalities: "What is the language of one whose understanding is poised? How does he speak, how sit, how walk?" Men want to know the outer signs of the inner attainment, the way in which a spiritual person differs outwardly from other men. But all the tests which the Gita enumerates are inner and therefore invisible to the outer view. It is true also that the inner or the spiritual is the essential and the outer derives its value and form from the inner. But the transformation about which Sri Aurobindo writes in his books has to take place in nature, because according to him the divine Reality has to manifest itself in nature. So, all the parts of nature including the physical and the external are to be transformed. In his own case the very physical became the transparent mould of the Spirit as a result of his intense Sadhana. This is borne out by the impression created on the minds of sensitive outsiders like Sj. K. M. Munshi who was deeply impressed by his radiating presence when he met him after nearly forty years.
The Evening Talks collected here may afford to the outside world a glimpse of his external personality and give the seeker some idea of its richness, its many-sidedness, its uniqueness. One can also form some notion of Sri Aurobindo's personality from the books in which the height, the universal sweep and clear vision of his integral ideal and thought can be seen. His writings are, in a sense, the best representative of his mental personality. The versatile nature of his genius, the penetrating power of his intellect, his extraordinary power of expression, his intense sincerity, his utter singleness of purpose all these can be easily felt by any earnest student of his works. He may discover even in the realm of mind that Sri Aurobindo brings the unlimited into the limited. Another side of his dynamic personality is represented by the Ashram as an institution. But the outer, if one may use the phrase, the human side of his personality, is unknown to the outside world because from 1910 to 1950 a span of forty years he led a life of outer retirement. No doubt, many knew about his staying at Pondicherry and practising some kind of very special Yoga to the mystery of which they had no access. To some, perhaps, he was living a life of enviable solitude enjoying the luxury of a spiritual endeavour. Many regretted his retirement as a great loss to the world because they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as 'public', 'altruistic' or 'beneficial'. Even some of his admirers thought that he was after some kind of personal salvation which would have very little significance for mankind in general. His outward non-participation in public life was construed by many as lack of love for humanity.
But those who knew him during the days of the national awakening from 1900 to 1910 could not have these doubts. And even these initial misunderstandings and false notions of others began to evaporate with the growth of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram from 1927 onwards. The large number of books published by the Ashram also tended to remove the idea of the other-worldliness of his Yoga and the absence of any good by it to mankind.
--
The Gita in its chapters on the Vibhuti and the Avatar takes in general the same position. It shows that the present formula of our nature, and therefore the mental personality of man, is not final. A Vibhuti embodies in a human manifestation a certain divine quality and thus demonstrates the possibility of overcoming the limits of ordinary human personality. The Vibhuti the embodiment of a divine quality or power, and the Avatar the divine incarnation, are not to be looked upon as supraphysical miracles thrown at humanity without regard to the process of evolution; they are, in fact, indications of human possibility, a sign that points to the goal of evolution.
In his Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo says about the Avatar: "He may, on the other hand, descend as an incarnation of divine life, the divine personality and power in its characteristic action, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical and political, as is represented in the story of Rama or Krishna; but always then this descent becomes in the soul of the race a permanent power for the inner living and the spiritual rebirth."[5]
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
the inconscience which is the sign of ordinary sleep. But I do
give my body the rest it needs, that is, two or three hours of
--
of convenience for the papers and signatures, since it is I who
"manage" everything, but not because I really own them. You
--
The sign of the times seems to be a complete lack of common
sense. But perhaps we see it this way simply because nearness
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
unless a chit signed by me could be produced.
"To turn towards Thee, unite with Thee, live in Thee and
--
Why do you want an outward sign of my love? Are you not
satisfied with knowing it is there?
--
at the clock with my inner sight and told Z, "To make it go
slower, you have to shorten the pendulum." He looked at me
--
as a sure sign of victory - but how can this be done
without getting a headache, Sweet Mother?
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Certainly, the mental life is not a finished evolution of Nature; it is not yet firmly founded in the human animal. The sign is that the fine and full equilibrium of vitality and matter, the sane, robust, long-lived human body is ordinarily found only in races or classes of men who reject the effort of thought, its disturbances, its tensions, or think only with the material mind.
Civilised man has yet to establish an equilibrium between the fully active mind and the body; he does not normally possess it.
--
towards ideal social and economic conditions, by the labour of Science towards an improved health, longevity and sound physique in civilised humanity, the sense and drift of this vast movement translates itself in easily intelligible signs. The right or at least the ultimate means may not always be employed, but their aim is the right preliminary aim, - a sound individual and social body and the satisfaction of the legitimate needs and demands of the material mind, sufficient ease, leisure, equal opportunity, so that the whole of mankind and no longer only the favoured race, class or individual may be free to develop the emotional and intellectual being to its full capacity. At present the material and economic aim may predominate, but always, behind, there works or there waits in reserve the higher and major impulse.
And when the preliminary conditions are satisfied, when the great endeavour has found its base, what will be the nature of that farther possibility which the activities of the intellectual life must serve? If Mind is indeed Nature's highest term, then the entire development of the rational and imaginative intellect and the harmonious satisfaction of the emotions and sensibilities must be to themselves sufficient. But if, on the contrary, man is more than a reasoning and emotional animal, if beyond that which is being evolved, there is something that has to be evolved, then it may well be that the fullness of the mental life, the suppleness, flexibility and wide capacity of the intellect, the ordered richness of emotion and sensibility may be only a passage towards the development of a higher life and of more powerful faculties which are yet to manifest and to take possession of the lower instrument, just as mind itself has so taken possession of the body that the physical being no longer lives only for its own satisfaction but provides the foundation and the materials for a superior activity.
--
The immanence itself would have no credible reason for being if it did not end in such a transfiguration. But if human mind can become capable of the glories of the divine Light, human emotion and sensibility can be transformed into the mould and assume the measure and movement of the supreme Bliss, human action not only represent but feel itself to be the motion of a divine and non-egoistic Force and the physical substance of our being sufficiently partake of the purity of the supernal essence, sufficiently unify plasticity and durable constancy to support and prolong these highest experiences and agencies, then all the long labour of Nature will end in a crowning justification and her evolutions reveal their profound significance.
So dazzling is even a glimpse of this supreme existence and so absorbing its attraction that, once seen, we feel readily justified in neglecting all else for its pursuit. Even, by an opposite exaggeration to that which sees all things in Mind and the mental life as an exclusive ideal, Mind comes to be regarded as an unworthy deformation and a supreme obstacle, the source of an illusory universe, a negation of the Truth and itself to be denied and all its works and results annulled if we desire the final liberation. But this is a half-truth which errs by regarding only the actual limitations of Mind and ignores its divine intention.
0.03 - III - The Evening Sittings, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
When Sri Aurobindo and the Mother moved to No. 9 Rue de la Marine in 1922 the same routine of informal evening sittings after meditation continued. I came to Pondicherry for Sadhana in the beginning of 1923. I kept notes of the important talks I had with the four or five disciples who were already there. Besides, I used to take detailed notes of the Evening Talks which we all had with the Master. They were not intended by him to be noted down. I took them down because of the importance I felt about everything connected with him, no matter how in significant to the outer view. I also felt that everything he did would acquire for those who would come to know his mission a very great significance.
As years passed the evening sittings went on changing their time and often those disciples who came from outside for a temporary stay for Sadhana were allowed to join them. And, as the number of sadhaks practising the Yoga increased, the evening sittings also became more full, and the small verandah upstairs in the main building was found insufficient. Members of the household would gather every day at the fixed time with some sense of expectancy and start chatting in low tones. Sri Aurobindo used to come last and it was after his coming that the session would really commence.
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This morning You gave me a flower which signifies "Consciousness turned towards the supramental
Light".4 What does this mean? I don't understand.
--
do they signify?
"Aristocracy of beauty". It is a noble flower which stands upright on its stalk. Its form has been stylised in the fleur-de-lis,
--
I took your laughter for a sign of conversion!
Beware of false pride - it leads only to ruin. And do not
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
By its numerous asanas or fixed postures it first cures the body of that restlessness which is a sign of its inability to contain without working them off in action and movement the vital forces poured into it from the universal Life-Ocean, gives to it an extraordinary health, force and suppleness and seeks to liberate it from the habits by which it is subjected to ordinary physical
Nature and kept within the narrow bounds of her normal operations. In the ancient tradition of Hathayoga it has always been supposed that this conquest could be pushed so far even as to conquer to a great extent the force of gravitation. By various subsidiary but elaborate processes the Hathayogin next contrives to keep the body free from all impurities and the nervous system unclogged for those exercises of respiration which are his most important instruments. These are called pran.ayama, the control of the breath or vital power; for breathing is the chief physical functioning of the vital forces. Pranayama, for the Hathayogin, serves a double purpose. First, it completes the perfection of the body. The vitality is liberated from many of the ordinary necessities of physical Nature; robust health, prolonged youth, often an extraordinary longevity are attained.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
contrary, I see in you the signs of a vocation. And since you have
resolved to be patient, the difficulties will surely be overcome.
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
receive Your Grace from afar; and that it is a sign of
weakness on the part of those who see You from time to
--
and me and hide me from your sight. It is in the pure light of
certitude that you can become conscious of my presence.
--
else except that red rose which signifies "Human passions changed into love for the Divine". I want to know
precisely what the human passions are.
--
think much. The most obvious sign of the action of an
adverse force - it is this that I want to learn to see in
--
1st sign: One feels far away from Sri Aurobindo and me.
2nd: One loses confidence, begins to criticise, is not satisfied.
--
never lose sight of the fact that this is not a source of knowledge and that it is not in this way that one can draw close
to knowledge. Naturally, this does not hold good for The Life
0.07 - DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
2. And this going forth it says here that it was able to accomplish in the strength and ardour which love for its Spouse gave to it for that purpose in the dark contemplation aforementioned. Herein it extols the great happiness which it found in journeying to God through this night with such signal success that none of the three enemies, which are world, devil and flesh (who are they that ever impede this road), could hinder it; inasmuch as the aforementioned night of purgative20 contemplation lulled to sleep and mortified, in the house of its sensuality, all the passions and desires with respect to their mischievous desires and motions. The line, then, says:
On a dark night
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
any real significance, Mother?
Many things have been said on the subject but, as far as my own
--
will come and go. But may I never lose sight of your
luminous smiling face through all these passing clouds!
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
is a sure sign that one should take up Yoga. The spiritual call is
heard only when the time has come, and then the soul responds
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When Sri Aurobindo said, Our Yoga is not for ourselves but for humanity, many heaved a sigh of relief and thought that the great soul was after all not entirely lost to the world, his was not one more name added to the long list of Sannyasins that India has been producing age after age without much profit either to herself or to the human society (or even perhaps to their own selves). People understood his Yoga to be a modern one, dedicated to the service of humanity. If service to humanity was not the very sum and substance of his spirituality, it was, at least, the fruitful end and consummation. His Yoga was a sort of art to explore and harness certain unseen powers that can better and ameliorate human life in a more successful way than mere rational scientific methods can hope to do.
Sri Aurobindo saw that the very core of his teaching was being missed by this common interpretation of his saying. So he changed his words and said, Our Yoga is not for humanity but for the Divine. But I am afraid this change of front, this volte-face, as it seemed, was not welcomed in many quarters; for thereby all hope of having him back for the work of the country or the world appeared to be totally lost and he came to be looked upon again as an irrevocable metaphysical dreamer, aloof from physical things and barren, even like the Immutable Brahman.
01.01 - The Symbol Dawn, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Forced the world's blind immensity to sight.
1.23
--
The brief perpetual sign recurred above.
1.26
--
It wrote the lines of a significant myth
Telling of a greatness of spiritual dawns,
--
Of which our thoughts and hopes are signal flares;
A lonely splendour from the invisible goal
--
Spiritual beauty illumining human sight
Lines with its passion and mystery Matter's mask
--
Her own calamity its private sign,
Of her pangs she made a mystic poignant sword.
--
And sighing she laid her hand upon her bosom
And recognised the close and lingering ache,
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We do not say that poets have never sung of God and Soul and things transcendent. Poets have always done that. But what I say is this that presentation of spiritual truths, as they are in their own home, in other words, treated philosophically and yet in a supreme poetic manner, has always been a rarity. We have, indeed, in India the Gita and the Upanishads, great philosophical poems, if there were any. But for one thing they are on dizzy heights out of the reach of common man and for another they are idolised more as philosophy than as poetry. Doubtless, our Vaishnava poets sang of God and Love Divine; and Rabindranath, in one sense, a typical modern Vaishnava, did the same. And their songs are masterpieces. But are they not all human, too human, as the mad prophet would say? In them it is the human significance, the human manner that touches and moves us the spiritual significance remains esoteric, is suggested, is a matter of deduction. Sri Aurobindo has dealt with spiritual experiences in a different way. He has not clothed them in human symbols and allegories, in images and figures of the mere earthly and secular life: he presents them in their nakedness, just as they are seen and realised. He has not sought to tone down the rigour of truth with contrivances that easily charm and captivate the common human mind and heart. Nor has he indulged like so many poet philosophers in vague generalisations and colourless or too colourful truisms that do not embody a clear thought or rounded idea, a radiant judgment. Sri Aurobindo has given us in his poetry thoughts that are clear-cut, ideas beautifully chiselledhe is always luminously forceful.
Take these Vedantic lines that in their limpidity and harmonious flow beat anything found in the fine French poet Lamartine:
01.02 - The Issue, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Since her orbed sight in its breath-fastened house,
Opening in sympathy with happier stars
--
Or set a signature of weak assent
To the brute balance of the world's exchange.
--
Or the figure of the world reveals the signs
Of a tied Chance repeating her old steps
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,
My body is God's happy living tool,
--
It is not merely by addressing the beloved as your goddess that you can attain this mysticism; the Elizabethan did that in merry abundance,ad nauseam.A finer temper, a more delicate touch, a more subtle sensitiveness and a kind of artistic wizardry are necessary to tune the body into a rhythm of the spirit. The other line of mysticism is common enough, viz., to express the spirit in terms and rhythms of the flesh. Tagore did that liberally, the Vaishnava poets did nothing but that, the Song of Solomon is an exquisite example of that procedure. There is here, however, a difference in degrees which is an interesting feature worth noting. Thus in Tagore the reference to the spirit is evident, that is the major or central chord; the earthly and the sensuous are meant as the name and form, as the body to render concrete, living and vibrant, near and intimate what otherwise would perhaps be vague and abstract, afar, aloof. But this mundane or human appearance has a value in so far as it is a support, a pointer or symbol of the spiritual import. And the mysticism lies precisely in the play of the two, a hide-and-seek between them. On the other hand, as I said, the greater portion of Vaishnava poetry, like a precious and beautiful casket, no doubt, hides the spiritual import: not the pure significance but the sign and symbol are luxuriously elaborated, they are placed in the foreground in all magnificence: as if it was their very purpose to conceal the real meaning. When the Vaishnava poet says,
O love, what more shall I, shall Radha speak,
--
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.9
--
The growth of a philosophical thought-content in poetry has been inevitable. For man's consciousness in its evolutionary march is driving towards a consummation which includes and presupposes a development along that line. The mot d'ordre in old-world poetry was "fancy", imaginationremember the famous lines of Shakespeare characterising a poet; in modern times it is Thought, even or perhaps particularly abstract metaphysical thought. Perceptions, experiences, realisationsof whatever order or world they may beexpressed in sensitive and aesthetic terms and figures, that is poetry known and appreciated familiarly. But a new turn has been coming on with an increasing insistencea definite time has been given to that, since the Renaissance, it is said: it is the growing importance of Thought or brain-power as a medium or atmosphere in which poetic experiences find a sober and clear articulation, a definite and strong formulation. Rationalisation of all experiences and realisations is the keynote of the modern mentality. Even when it is said that reason and rationality are not ultimate or final or significant realities, that the irrational or the submental plays a greater role in our consciousness and that art and poetry likewise should be the expression of such a mentality, even then, all this is said and done in and through a strong rational and intellectual stress and frame the like of which cannot be found in the old-world frankly non-intellectual creations.
The religious, the mystic or the spiritual man was, in the past, more or Jess methodically and absolutely non-intellectual and anti-intellectual: but the modern age, the age of scientific culture, is tending to make him as strongly intellectual: he has to explain, not only present the object but show up its mechanism alsoexplain to himself so that he may have a total understanding and a firmer grasp of the thing which he presents and explains to others as well who demand a similar approach. He feels the necessity of explaining, giving the rationality the rationale the science, of his art; for without that, it appears to him, a solid ground is not given to the structure of his experience: analytic power, preoccupation with methodology seems inherent in the modern creative consciousness.
The philosophical trend in poetry has an interesting history with a significant role: it has acted as a force of purification, of sublimation, of katharsis. As man has risen from his exclusively or predominantly vital nature into an increasing mental poise, in the same way his creative activities too have taken this new turn and status. In the earlier stages of evolution the mental life is secondary, subordinate to the physico-vital life; it is only subsequently that the mental finds an independent and self-sufficient reality. A similar movement is reflected in poetic and artistic creation too: the thinker, the philosopher remains in the background at the outset, he looks out; peers through chinks and holes from time to time; later he comes to the forefront, assumes a major role in man's creative activity.
Man's consciousness is further to rise from the mental to over-mental regions. Accordingly, his life and activities and along with that his artistic creations too will take on a new tone and rhythm, a new mould and constitution even. For this transition, the higher mentalwhich is normally the field of philosophical and idealistic activitiesserves as the Paraclete, the Intercessor; it takes up the lower functionings of the consciousness, which are intense in their own way, but narrow and turbid, and gives, by purifying and enlarging, a wider frame, a more luminous pattern, a more subtly articulated , form for the higher, vaster and deeper realities, truths and harmonies to express and manifest. In the old-world spiritual and mystic poets, this intervening medium was overlooked for evident reasons, for human reason or even intelligence is a double-edged instrument, it can make as well as mar, it has a light that most often and naturally shuts off other higher lights beyond it. So it was bypassed, some kind of direct and immediate contact was sought to be established between the normal and the transcendental. The result was, as I have pointed out, a pure spiritual poetry, on the one hand, as in the Upanishads, or, on the other, religious poetry of various grades and denominations that spoke of the spiritual but in the terms and in the manner of the mundane, at least very much coloured and dominated by the latter. Vyasa was the great legendary figure in India who, as is shown in his Mahabharata, seems to have been one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer, to forge and build the missing link of Thought Power. The exemplar of the manner is the Gita. Valmiki's represented a more ancient and primary inspiration, of a vast vital sensibility, something of the kind that was at the basis of Homer's genius. In Greece it was Socrates who initiated the movement of speculative philosophy and the emphasis of intellectual power slowly began to find expression in the later poets, Sophocles and Euripides. But all these were very simple beginnings. The moderns go in for something more radical and totalitarian. The rationalising element instead of being an additional or subordinate or contri buting factor, must itself give its norm and form, its own substance and manner to the creative activity. Such is the present-day demand.
--
This, I say, is something different from the religious and even from the mystic. It is away from the merely religious, because it is naked of the vesture of humanity (in spite of a human face that masks it at times) ; it is something more than the merely mystic, for it does not stop being a signpost or an indication to the Beyond, but is itself the presence and embodiment of the Beyond. The mystic gives us, we can say, the magic of the Infinite; what I term the spiritual, the spiritual proper, gives in addition the logic of the Infinite. At least this is what distinguishes modern spiritual consciousness from the ancient, that is, Upanishadic spiritual consciousness. The Upanishad gives expression to the spiritual consciousness in its original and pristine purity and perfection, in its essential simplicity. It did not buttress itself with any logic. It is the record of fundamental experiences and there was no question of any logical exposition. But, as I have said, the modern mind requires and demands a logical element in its perceptions and presentations. Also it must needs be a different kind of logic that can satisfy and satisfy wholly the deeper and subtler movements of a modern consciousness. For the philosophical poet of an earlier age, when he had recourse to logic, it was the logic of the finite that always gave him the frame, unless he threw the whole thing overboard and leaped straight into the occult, the illogical and the a logical, like Blake, for instance. Let me illustrate and compare a little. When the older poet explains indriyani hayan ahuh, it is an allegory he resorts to, it is the logic of the finite he marshals to point to the infinite and the beyond. The stress of reason is apparent and effective too, but the pattern is what we are normally familiar with the movement, we can say, is almost Aristotelian in its rigour. Now let us turn to the following:
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme. ||26.15||
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Into our province of ephemeral sight,
A colonist from immortality.
--
His birth held up a symbol and a sign;
His human self like a translucent cloak
--
The motives which from their own sight men hide.
He felt the beating life in other men
--
Opened the windows of the inner sight.
He owned the house of undivided Time.
--
Out of this world of signs suddenly he came
Into a silent self where world was not
--
Into a signless region he could soar
Packed with the deep contents of formlessness
--
And forms appeared, dumbly significant,
A seeing thought, a self-revealing voice.
--
Inspired by silence and the closed eyes' sight
His force could work with a new luminous art
--
Covered by the forged signatures of the gods,
Detect the magic bride in her disguise
--
A joy of light, a joy of sudden sight,
A rapture of the thrilled undying Word
--
And life's incessant signals of event,
Transmuted chance recurrences into laws,
A chaos of signs into a universe.
Out of the rich wonders and the intricate whorls
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That is to say, the change has been in the soul of man himself, the being has veered round and taken a new orientation. It is this which one must envisage, recognise and consciously possess, in order that one may best fulfil the call of the age. But what we are doing instead is to observe the mere external signs and symbols and symptoms, to fix upon the distant quiverings, the echoes on the outermost rim, which are not always faithful representations, but very often distorted images of the truth and life at the centre and source and matrix. We must know that if there has been going on a redistribution and new-marshalling of forces, it is because the fiat has come from the Etat Major.
Now, in order to understand the new orientation of the spirit of the present age, we may profitably ask what was the inspiration of the past age, the characteristic note which has failed to satisfy us and which we are endeavouring to transform. We know that that age was the Scientific age or the age of Reason. Its great prophets were Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists or if you mount further up in time, we may begin from Bacon and the humanists. Its motto was first, "The proper study of mankind is man" and secondly, Reason is the supreme organon of knowledge, the highest deity in manla Desse Raison. And it is precisely against these two basic principles that the new age has entered its protest. In face of Humanism, Nietzsche has posited the Superman and in face of Reason Bergson has posited Intuition.
--
So instead of the rational principle, the new age wants the principle of Nature or Life. Even as regards knowledge Reason is not the only, nor the best instrument. For animals have properly no reason; the nature-principle of knowledge in the animal is Instinct the faculty that acts so faultlessly, so marvellously where Reason can only pause and be perplexed. This is not to say that man is to or can go back to this primitive and animal function; but certainly he can replace it by something akin which is as natural and yet purified and self-consciousillumined instinct, we may say or Intuition, as Bergson terms it. And Nietzsche's definition of the Superman has also a similar orientation and significance; for, according to him, the Superman is man who has outgrown his Reason, who is not bound by the standards and the conventions determined by Reason for a special purpose. The Superman is one who has gone beyond "good and evil," who has shaken off from his nature and character elements that are "human, all too human"who is the embodiment of life-force in its absolute purity and strength and freedom.
This then is the mantra of the new ageLife with Intuition as its guide and not Reason and mechanical efficiency, not Man but Superman. The right mantra has been found, the principle itself is irreproachable. But the interpretation, the application, does not seem to have been always happy. For, Nietzsche's conception of the Superman is full of obvious lacunae. If we have so long been adoring the intellectual man, Nietzsche asks us, on the other hand, to deify the vital man. According to him the superman is he who has (1) the supreme sense of the ego, (2) the sovereign will to power and (3) who lives dangerously. All this means an Asura, that is to say, one who has, it may be, dominion over his animal and vital impulsions in order, of course, that he may best gratify them but who has not purified them. Purification does not necessarily mean, annihilation but it does mean sublimation and transformation. So if you have to transcend man, you have to transcend egoism also. For a conscious egoism is the very characteristic of man and by increasing your sense of egoism you do not supersede man but simply aggrandise your humanity, fashion it on a larger, a titanic scale. And then the will to power is not the only will that requires fulfilment, there is also the will to knowledge and the will to love. In man these three fundamental constitutive elements coexist, although they do it, more often than not, at the expense of each other and in a state of continual disharmony. The superman, if he is to be the man "who has surmounted himself", must embody a poise of being in which all the three find a fusion and harmonya perfect synthesis. Again, to live dangerously may be heroic, but it is not divine. To live dangerously means to have eternal opponents, that is to say, to live ever on the same level with the forces you want to dominate. To have the sense that one has to fight and control means that one is not as yet the sovereign lord, for one has to strive and strain and attain. The supreme lord is he who is perfectly equanimous with himself and with the world. He has not to batter things into a shape in order to create. He creates means, he manifests. He wills and he achieves"God said 'let there be light' and there was light."
--
And the faculty of Intuition said to be the characteristic of the New Man does not mean all that it should, if we confine ourselves to Bergson's definition of it. Bergson says that Intuition is a sort of sympathy, a community of feeling or sensibility with the urge of the life-reality. The difference between the sympathy of Instinct and the sympathy of Intuition being that while the former is an unconscious or semi-conscious power, the latter is illumined and self-conscious. Now this view emphasises only the feeling-tone of Intuition, the vital sensibility that attends the direct communion with the life movement. But Intuition is not only purified feeling and sensibility, it is also purified vision and knowledge. It unites us not only with the movement of life, but also opens out to our sight the Truths, the fundamental realities behind that movement. Bergson does not, of course, point to any existence behind the continuous flux of life-power the elan vital. He seems to deny any static truth or truths to be seen and seized in any scheme of knowledge. To him the dynamic flow the Heraclitian panta reei is the ultimate reality. It is precisely to this view of things that Bergson owes his conception of Intuition. Since existence is a continuum of Mind-Energy, the only way to know it is to be in harmony or unison with it, to move along its current. The conception of knowledge as a fixing and delimiting of things is necessarily an anomaly in this scheme. But the question is, is matter the only static and separative reality? Is the flux of vital Mind-Energy the ultimate truth?
Matter forms the lowest level of reality. Above it is the elan vital. Above the elan vital there is yet the domain of the Spirit. And the Spirit is a static substance and at the same a dynamic creative power. It is Being (Sat) that realises or expresses itself through certain typal nuclei or nodi of consciousness (chit) in a continuous becoming, in a flow of creative activity (ananda). The dynamism of the vital energy is only a refraction or precipitation of the dynamism of the spirit; and so also static matter is only the substance of the spirit concretised and solidified. It is in an uplift both of matter and vital force to their prototypesswarupa and swabhavain the Spirit that lies the real transformation and transfiguration of the humanity of man.
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Whether the original and true source of the poet's inspiration lies deep within or high above, all depends upon the mediating instrument the mind (in its most general sense) and speech for a successful transcription. Man's ever-growing consciousness demanded also a conscious development and remoulding of these two factors. A growth, a heightening and deepening of the consciousness meant inevitably a movement towards the spiritual element in things. And that means, we have said, a twofold change in the future poet's make-up. First as regards the substance. The revolutionary shift that we notice in modern poets towards a completely new domain of subject-matter is a signpost that more is meant than what is expressed. The superficialities and futilities that are dealt with do not in their outward form give the real trend of things. In and through all these major and constant preoccupation of our poets is "the pain of the present and the passion for the future": they are, as already stated, more prophets than poets, but prophets for the moment crying in the wildernessalthough some have chosen the path of denial and revolt. They are all looking ahead or beyond or deep down, always yearning for another truth and reality which will explain, justify and transmute the present calvary of human living. Such an acute tension of consciousness has necessitated an overhauling of the vehicle of expression too, the creation of a mode of expressing the inexpressible. For that is indeed what human consciousness and craft are aiming at in the present stage of man's evolution. For everything, almost everything that can be normally expressed has been expressed and in a variety of ways as much as is possible: that is the history of man's aesthetic creativity. Now the eye probes into the unexpressed world; for the artist too the Upanishadic problem has cropped up:
By whom impelled does the mind fall to its target, what is the agent that is behind the eye and sees through the eyes, what is the hearing and what the speech that their respective sense organs do not and cannot convey and record adequately or at all?
Like the modern scientist the artist or craftsman too of today has become a philosopher, even a mystic philosopher. The subtler and higher ranges of consciousness are now the object of inquiry and investigation and expression and revelation for the scientist as well as for the artist. The external sense-objects, the phenomenal movements are symbols and signposts, graphs and pointer-readings of facts and realities that lie hidden, behind or beyond. The artist and the scientist are occult alchemists. What to make of this, for example:
Beyond the shapes of empire, the capes of Carbonek, over
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And sometimes, when our sight is turned within,
Earth's ignorant veil is lifted from our eyes;
--
The signals of eternity appear.
The truth mind could not know unveils its face,
--
These signs are native to a larger self
That lives within us by ourselves unseen;
--
Whose farther end is hidden from our sight,
A chance happening or a fortuitous fate.
--
The dark Inconscient's signless mysteries
Stand up unsolved behind Fate's starting-line.
--
Herself and all of which she is the sign.
An inarticulate whisper drives her steps
--
The impossible God's sign of things to be.
But few can look beyond the present state
--
Communicates its image to our sight,
Identifying the world's mind with ours.
--
Voices of an unplumbed significance,
Mutterings that brood in the core of Matter's sleep.
--
While without sanction turns the middle sign
Carrying an enigmatic universe,
--
Its signs stare at us like an unknown script,
As if appeared screened by a foreign tongue
Or code of splendour signs without a key
A portion of a parable sublime.
--
In the wide signless ether of the Self,
In the unchanging Silence white and nude,
--
For his abode below the Thinker's sight,
In this compromise of a stark absolute Truth
--
A phenomenon stands out significant
Against dim backgrounds of eternity;
--
Her mighty plan she holds back from our sight:
She has concealed her glory and her bliss
--
His silence is his signature to her deeds;
In the execution of her drama's scheme,
--
She through his witness sight and motion of might
Unrolls the material of her cosmic Act,
--
All she can do is marvellous in his sight:
He revels in her, a swimmer in her sea,
--
And in her living and inanimate signs
And in her complex tracery of events
--
And passes over the edge of mortal sight
To a new vision of himself and things.
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Tagore is a great poet: he will be remembered as one of the I greatest world-poets. But humanity owes him anotherperhaps a greaterdebt of gratitude: his name has a higher value, a more significant potency for the future.
In an age when Reason was considered as the highest light given to man, Tagore pointed to the Vision of the mystics as always the still greater light; when man was elated with undreamt-of worldly success, puffed up with incomparable material possessions and powers, Tagore's voice rang clear and emphatic in tune with the cry of the ancients: "What shall I do with all this mass of things, if I am not made immortal by that?" When men, in their individual as well as collective egoism, were scrambling for earthly gains and hoards, he held before them vaster and cleaner horizons, higher and deeper ways of being and living, maintained the sacred sense of human solidarity, the living consciousness of the Divine, one and indivisible. When the Gospel of Power had all but hypnotised men's minds, and Superman or God-man came to be equated with the Titan, Tagore saw through the falsehood and placed in front and above all the old-world eternal verities of love and self-giving, harmony and mutuality, sweetness and light. When pessimism, cynicism, agnosticism struck the major chord of human temperament, and grief and frustration and death and decay were taken as a matter of course to be the inevitable order of earthlylifebhasmantam idam shariramhe continued to sing the song of the Rishis that Ananda and Immortality are the breath of things, the birth right of human beings. When Modernism declared with a certitude never tobe contested that Matter is Brahman, Tagore said with the voice of one who knows that Spirit is Brahman.
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That hangs between our thoughts and absolute sight,
He found the occult cave, the mystic door
--
And the poverty of Nature's earthly sight.
All that the Gods have learned is there self-known.
--
Its strange symbol letters, scattered abstruse signs,
Resolve its oracle and its paradox,
--
And saw the signature and fiery seal
Of Wisdom on the dim Power's hooded work
--
Interpreting the universe by soul signs
He read from within the text of the without:
--
His boundless thought was neighbour to cosmic sight:
A universal light was in his eyes,
--
An Omniscient knowing without sight or thought,
An indecipherable Omnipotence,
--
A cosmic feeling and transcendent sight.
Increased and heightened were the instruments.
--
And the sure power-pattern of her cryptic signs,
Her diagrams of geometric force,
--
It can illumine with a prophet sight,
Invoke the bacchic rapture, the Fury's goad,
--
And cut through vistas of intuitive sight
A long road of shimmering discoveries.
--
Its bodies signalling the Bodiless,
Its foreheads glowing with the Oversoul,
--
A map of subtle signs surpassing thought
Was hung upon a wall of inmost mind.
--
Into significant symbols by its gloss,
It offered to the intuitive exegete
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
However, individualism has given us a truth and a formula which collectivism ignored. Self-determination is a thing which has come to stay. Each and every individual is free, absolutely free and shall freely follow his own line of growth and development and fulfilment. No extraneous power shall choose and fix what is good or evil for him, nor coerce and exploit him for its own benefit. But that does not necessarily mean that collectivism has no truth in it; collectivism also, as much as individualism, has a lesson for us and we should see whether we can harmonise the two. Collectivism signifies that the individual should not look to himself alone, should not be shut up in his freedom but expand himself and envelop others in a wider freedom, see other creatures in himself and himself in other creatures, as the Gita says. Collectivism demands that the individual need not and should not exhaust himself entirely in securing and enjoying his personal freedom, but that he can and should work for the salvation of others; the truth it upholds is this that the individual is from a certain point of view only a part of the group and by ignoring the latter it ignores itself in the end.
Now, a spiritual communism embraces individualism and collectivism, fuses them in a higher truth, establishes them in an intimate and absolute harmony. The individual is the centre, the group is the circumference and the two form one whore circle. The individual by fulfilling the truth of his real individuality fulfils also the truth of a commonality. There are no different laws for the two. The individuals do not stand apart from and against one another, the dharma of one does not clash with the dharma of the other. The ripples in the bosom of the sea, however distinct and discrete in appearance, form but a single mass, all follow the same law of hydrodynamics that the mother sea incarnates. Stars and planets and nebulae, each separate heavenly body has its characteristic form and nature and function and yet all fulfil the same law of gravitation and beat the measure of the silent symphony of spaces. Individualities are the freedoms of the collective being and collectivity the concentration of individual beings. The same soul looking inward appears as the individual being and looking outward appears as the collective being.
--
So first the individual and then the commune is not the natural nor the ideal principle. On the other hand, first the commune and then the individual would appear to be an equally defective principle. For first a commune means an organisation, its laws and rules and regulations, its injunctions and prohibitions; all which signifies or comes to signify that every individual is not free to enter its fold and that whoever enters must know how to dovetail himself therein and thus crush down the very life-power whose enhancement and efflorescence is sought. First a commune means necessarily a creed, a dogma, a set form of being and living indelibly marked out from beforehand. The individual has there no choice of finding and developing the particular creed or dogma or mode of being and living, from out of his own self, along his particular line of natural growth; all that is imposed upon him and he has to accept and make it his own by trial and effort and self-torture. Even if the commune be a contractual association, the members having joined together in a common cause to a common end, by voluntarily sacrificing a portion of their personal choice and freedom, even then it is not the ideal thing; the collective soul will be diminished in exact proportion as each individual soul has had to be diminished, be that voluntary or otherwise. That commune is plenary and entire which ensures plenitude and entirety to each of its individuals.
Now how to escape the dilemma? Only if we take the commune and the individual togetheren bloc, as has already been suggested. This means that the commune should be at the beginning a subtle and supple thing, without form and even without name, it should be no more than the circumambient aura the sukshma deha that plays around a group of individuals who meet and unite and move together by a secret affinity, along a common path towards a common goal. As each individual develops and defines himself, the commune also takes a more and more concrete shape; and when at the last stage the individual rises to the full height of his godhead, takes possession of his integral divinity, the commune also establishes its solid empire, vivid and vibrant in form and name.
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Pascal's place in the evolution of European culture and consciousness is of considerable significance and importance. He came at a critical time, on the mounting tide of rationalism and scepticism, in an age when the tone and temper of human mentality were influenced and fashioned by Montaigne and Rochefoucauld, by Bacon and Hobbes. Pascal himself, born in such an atmosphere of doubt and disbelief and disillusionment, had sucked in a full dose of that poison; yet he survived and found the Rock of Ages, became the clarion of Faith against Denial. What a spectacle it was! This is what one wrote just a quarter of a century after the death of Pascal:
"They can no longer tell us that it is only small minds that have piety. They are shown how it has grown best in one of the the greatest geometricians, one of the subtlest metaphysicians, one of the most penetrating minds that ever existed on earth. The piety of such a philosopher should make the unbeliever and the libertine declare what a certain Diocles said one day on seeing Epicurus in a temple: 'What a feast, what a spectacle for me to see Epicurus in a temple! All my doubts vainsh, piety takes its place again. I never saw Jupiter's greatness so well as now when I behold Epicurus kneeling down!"1
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus then we may distinguish three types of control on three levels. First, the natural control, secondly the conscious, i.e. to say the mental the ethical and religious control, and thirdly the spiritual or divine control. Now the spirit is the ultimate truth and reality, behind the forces that act in the mind and in the body, so that the natural control and the ethical control are mere attempts to establish and realise the spiritual control. The animal impulses feel the hidden stress of the divine urges that are their real essence and thus there rises first an unconscious conflict in the natural life and then a conscious conflict in the higher ethical life. But when both of these are transcended and the conflict is carried on to a still higher level, then do we find their real significance and arrive at the consummation to which they move. Yoga is the ultimate transvaluation of physical (and of moral) values, it is the trans-substantiation of life-power into its spiritual substance.
***
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The conception of original sin is a cardinal factor in Christian discipline. The conception, of sinfulness is the very motive-power that drives the aspirant. "Seek tensely," it is said, "sorrow and sigh deep, mourn still, and stoop low till thine eye water for anguish and for pain." Remorse and grief are necessary attendants; the way of the cross is naturally the calvary strewn with pain and sorrow. It is the very opposite of what is termed the "sunlit path" in spiritual ascension. Christian mystics have made a glorious spectacle of the process of "dying to the world." Evidently, all do not go the whole length. There are less gloomy and happier temperaments, like the present one, for example, who show an unusual balance, a sturdy common sense even in the midst of their darkest nights, who have chalked out as much of the sunlit path as is possible in this line. Thus this old-world mystic says: it is true one must see and admit one's sinfulness, the grosser and apparent and more violent ones as well as all the subtle varieties of it that are in you or rise up in you or come from the Enemy. They pursue you till the very end of your journey. Still you need not feel overwhelmed or completely desperate. Once you recognise the sin in you, even the bare fact of recognition means for you half the victory. The mystic says, "It is no sin as thou feelest them." The day Jesus gave himself away on the Cross, since that very day you are free, potentially free from the bondage of sin. Once you give your adherence to Him, the Enemies are rendered powerless. "They tease the soul, but they harm not the soul". Or again, as the mystic graphically phrases it: "This soul is not borne in this image of sin as a sick man, though he feel it; but he beareth it." The best way of dealing with one's enemies is not to struggle and "strive with them." The aspirant, the lover of Jesus, must remember: "He is through grace reformed to the likeness of God ('in the privy substance of his soul within') though he neither feel it nor see it."
If you are told you are still full of sins and you are not worthy to follow the path, that you must go and work out your sins first, here is your answer: "Go shrive thee better: trow not this saying, for it is false, for thou art shriven. Trust securely that thou art on the way, and thee needeth no ransacking of shrift for that that is passed, hold forth thy way and think on Jerusalem." That is to say, do not be too busy with the difficulties of the moment, but look ahead, as far as possible, fix your attention upon the goal, the intermediate steps will become easy. Jerusalem is another name of the Love of Jesus or the Bliss in Heaven. Grow in this love, your sins will fade away of themselves. "Though thou be thrust in an house with thy body, nevertheless in thine heart, where the stead of love is, thou shouldst be able to have part of that love... " What exquisite utterance, what a deep truth!
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To be divine or to remain humanthis is the one choice that is now before Nature in her upward march of evolution. What is the exact significance of this choice?
To remain human means to continue the fundamental nature of man. In what consists the humanity of man? We can ascertain it by distinguishing what forms the animality of the animal, since that will give us the differentia that nature has evolved to raise man over the animal. The animal, again, has a characteristic differentiating it from the vegetable world, which latter, in its turn, has something to mark it off from the inorganic world. The inorganic, the vegetable, the animal and finally manthese are the four great steps of Nature's evolutionary course.
--
As a matter of fact it is not so. The glimpses of a higher form of consciousness we can see even now present in self-consciousness. We have spoken of the different stages of evolution as if they were separate and distinct and incommensurate entities. They may be described as such for the purpose of a logical understanding, but in reality they form a single progressive continuum in which one level gradually fuses into another. And as the higher level takes up the law of the lower and evolves out of it a characteristic function, even so the law of the higher level with its characteristic function is already involved and envisaged in the law of the lower level and its characteristic function. It cannot be asserted positively that because man's special virtue is self-consciousness, animals cannot have that quality on any account. We do see, if we care to observe closely and dispassionately, that animals of the higher order, as they approach the level of humanity, show more and more evident signs of something which is very much akin to, if not identical with the human characteristic of self-consciousness.
So, in man also, especially of that order which forms the crown of humanityin poets and artists and seers and great men of actioncan be observed a certain characteristic form of consciousness, which is something other than, greater than the consciousness of the mere self. It is difficult as yet to characterise definitely what that thing is. It is the awakening of the self to something which is beyond itselfit is the cosmic self, the oversoul, the universal being; it is God, it is Turiya, it is sachchidanandain so many ways the thing has been sought to be envisaged and expressed. The consciousness of that level has also a great variety of names given to it Intuition, Revelation, cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness. It is to be noted here, however, that the thing we are referring to, is not the Absolute, the Infinite, the One without a second. It is not, that is to say, the supreme Reality the Brahmanin its static being, in its undivided and indivisible unity; it is the dynamic Brahman, that status of the supreme Reality where creation, the diversity of Becoming takes rise, it is the Truth-worldRitam the domain of typal realities. The distinction is necessary, as there does seem to be such a level of consciousness intermediary, again, between man and the Absolute, between self-consciousness and the supreme consciousness. The simplest thing would be to give that intermediate level of consciousness a negative namesince being as yet human we cannot foresee exactly its composition and function the super-consciousness.
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Viewed in this light, Blake's memorable mantra attains a deeper and more momentous significance. For it is not merely Earth the senses and life and Matter that are to be uplifted and affianced to Heaven, but all that remains hidden within the bowels of the Earth, the subterranean regions of man's consciousness, the slimy viscous undergrowths, the darkest horrors and monstrosities that man and nature hide in their subconscient and inconscient dungeons of material existence, all these have to be laid bare to the solar gaze of Heaven, burnt or transmuted as demanded by the law of that Supreme Will. That is the Hell that has to be recognised, not rejected and thrown away, but taken up purified and transubstantiated into the body of Heaven itself. The hand of the Highest Heaven must extend and touch the Lowest of the lowest elements, transmute it and set it in its rightful place of honour. A mortal body reconstituted into an immemorial fossil, a lump of coal revivified into a flashing carat of diamond-that shows something of the process underlying the nuptials of which we are speaking.
The Life Divine
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The dream is indeed very interesting. Snakes usually signify bad
thoughts or bad will from people around you - or an adverse
--
What is the true significance of marriage?
It has hardly any true significance - it is a social custom for the
perpetuation of the species.
--
were astonished, and they marvelled at the sight of the
beautiful figure which had emerged from the stone. So
--
Our teacher Y gave us a talk in a grave and significant tone: "Be prepared to go through hard tests, we are
on the eve of something very difficult and dangerous."
--
this sensitivity is the sign of a strong ego, how can one
eliminate the ego?
Why do you say that sensitivity is the sign of a strong ego? It
does not seem to be evident at all. Moreover, there are many
--
Sri Aurobindo's yoga? What is the sure sign of it?
It is impossible to say, because for each person it is different.
--
a revolution, is it the sign of a descent of the Truth?
Not necessarily. Human folly takes advantage of the slightest
--
the mind responds to the influence of the vital and also reacts violently. Any expression of anger is the sign of a lack of
self-control.
--
That you saw and heard me is a sign of progress, and with this I
am pleased. But it is true that I find you mentally a bit lazy and
--
Why this chaotic condition in our present government? Is it the sign of a change for the better, for the
reign of Truth?
--
of all this, I have not quite understood its significance.
Is it necessary that it should have a significance?
Sri Aurobindo announced that from that date onwards
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus, as sanctioned by God, there is a competition, a wager between man and Satan. The pact between the parties is this that, on the one hand, Satan will serve man here in life upon earth, and on the other hand, in return, man will have to serve Satan there, on the other side of life. That is to say, Satan will give the whole world to man to enjoy, man will have to give Satan only his soul. Man in his ignorance says he does not care for his soul, does not know of a there or elsewhere: he will be satisfied if he gets what he wants upon earth. That, evidently, is the demand of what is familiarly known as life-force (lan vital): the utmost fulfilment of the life-force is what man stands for, although the full significance of the movement may not be clear to him or even to Satan at the moment. For life-force does not necessarily drag man down, as its grand finale as it were, into hellhowever much Satan might wish it to be so. In what way, we shall see presently. Now Satan promises man all that he would desire and even more: he would give him his fill so' that he will ask for no more. Man takes up the challenge and declares that his hunger is insatiable, whatever Satan can bring to it, it will take in and press on: satisfaction and satiety will never come in his way. Satan thinks he knows better, for he is armed with a master weapon to lay man low and make him cry halt!
Love Human and Love Divine
01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We may perhaps view the three terms Right, Duty and Dharma as degrees of an ascending consciousness. Consciousness at Its origin and in its primitive formulation is dominated by the principle of inertia (tamas); in that state things have mostly an undifferentiated collective existence, they helplessly move about acted upon by forces outside them. A rise in growth and evolution brings about differentiation, specialisation, organisation. And this means consciousness of oneself of the distinct and separate existence of each and everyone, in other words, self-assertion, the claim, the right of each individual unit to be itself, to become itself first and foremost. It is a necessary development; for it signifies the growth of self consciousness in the units out of a mass unconsciousness or semi-consciousness. It is the expression of rajas, the mode of dynamism, of strife and struggle, it is the corrective of tamas.
In the earliest and primitive society men lived totally in a mass consciousness. Their life was a blind obedienceobedience to the chief the patriarch or pater familiasobedience to the laws and customs of the collectivity to which one belonged. It was called duty; it was called even dharma, but evidently on a lower level, in an inferior formulation. In reality it was more of the nature of the mechanical functioning of an automaton than the exercise of conscious will and deliberate choice, which is the very soul of the conception of duty.
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, a modern poet is modern, because he is doubly attracted and attached to things of this world and this mundane life, in spite of all his need and urge to go beyond for the larger truth and the higher reality. Apart from the natural link with which we are born, there is this other fascination which the poor miserable things, all the little superficialities, trivialities especially have for the modern mind in view of their possible sense and significance and right of existence. These too have a magic of their own, not merely a black magic:
..... our losses, the torn seine,
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The stress of the inner urge to the heights and depths of spiritual values and realities found special and significant expression in his paintings. It is a difficult problem, a problem which artists and poets are tackling today with all their skill and talent. Man's consciousness is no longer satisfied with the customary and the ordinary actions and reactions of life (or thought), with the old-world and time-worn modes and manners. It is no more turned to the apparent and the obvious, to the surface forms and movements of things. It yearns to look behind and beyond, for the secret mechanism, the hidden agency that really drives things. Poets and artists are the vanguards of the age to come, prophets and pioneers preparing the way for the Lord.
Roerich discovered and elaborated his own technique to reveal that which is secret, express that which is not expressed or expressible. First of all, he is symbolical and allegorical: secondly, the choice of his symbols and allegories is hieratic, that is to say, the subject-matter refers to objects and events connected with saints and legends, shrines and enchanted places, hidden treasures, spirits and angels, etc. etc.; thirdly, the manner or style of execution is what we may term pantomimic, in other words, concrete, graphic, dramatic, even melodramatic. He has a special predilection for geometrical patterns the artistic effect of whichbalance, regularity, fixity, soliditywas greatly utilised by the French painter Czanne and poet Mallarm who seem to have influenced Roerich to a considerable degree. But this Northerner had not the reticence, the suavity, the tonic unity of the classicist, nor the normality and clarity of the Latin temperament. The prophet, the priest in him was the stronger element and made use of the artist as the rites andceremoniesmudras and chakrasof his vocation demanded. Indeed, he stands as the hierophant of a new cultural religion and his paintings and utterances are, as it were, gestures that accompany a holy ceremonial.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Speed is not necessarily a sign of superiority.
These "instantaneous" conversions are most often the result
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Love of Nature is usually the sign of a pure and healthy being uncorrupted by modern civilisation. It is in the silence of a
peaceful mind that one can best commune with Nature.
--
At times I talk in my sleep. It is a sign that the mind
lacks control, isn't it? So what should I do to keep it
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Feeling alone in the midst of human beings is the sign that you
are beginning to feel the need to find in your own being contact
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Well, I am only telling you all this because I thought someone might ask me about it, but otherwise I dont have that kind of relationship with Her. You see, if you consider this body, this poor body, it is very innocent: it in no way tries to draw attention to itself nor to attract forces nor to do anything at all except its workas best it can. And thats how it stands: its importance is proportionate to its usefulness and to the significance the world attri butes to itsince its action is for the world.
But in and of itself, it is only one body among countless others. Thats all.
0 1955-03-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Bernard2
Mahakali: the eternal Mother in her warrior aspect, She who severs the heads of the demons.
0 1955-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother, for more than a year now I have been near you and nothing, no really significant inner experience, no sign has come that allows me to feel I have progressed or merely to show me that I am on the right path. I cannot even say I am happy.
I am not so absurdly pretentious as to blame the divine, nor yourself and I remain quite convinced that all this is my own fault. Undoubtedly I have not known how to surrender totally in some part of myself, or I do not aspire enough or know how to open myself as needed. Also, I should rely entirely upon the divine to take care of my progress and not be concerned about the absence of experiences. I have therefore asked myself why I am so far away from the true attitude, the genuine opening, and I see two main reasons: on the one hand, the difficulties inherent in my own nature, and on the other, the outer conditions of this sadhana. These conditions do not seem to be conducive to helping me overcome the difficulties in my own nature.
--
signed: Bernard
***
--
signed: Mother
For a long time, Satprem took care of the correspondence with the outside, along with Pavitra, not to mention editing the Ashram Bulletin as well as Mother's writings and talks, translating Sri Aurobindo's works into French, and conducting classes at the Ashram's 'International Centre of Education.'
0 1955-06-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Bernard
Mother, this letter is a prayer.
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1955-09-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Bernard
***
0 1955-09-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Bernard
***
0 1956-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I understand now that as long as my whole being has not ACCEPTED that it must finish its life here, there is no way out nor any recovery possible. Through my mental force alone, this acceptance is impossible; I have been turning infernally in circles these past two months, and the mind is in league with the vital. Therefore, a force greater than mine must help me accept that my way is here. I need you, Mother, for without you I am lost. I need you to tell me that the Truth of my being is indeed here and that I am truly ready to follow this path. Mother, I beseech you, help me to see the truth of my being, give me some sign that my way is here and not elsewhere. I beg of you, Mother, help me to know.
I also had a very clear sensation that you were abandoning me, that you had no further interest in me and I could just as well do as I pleased. Perhaps you cannot forgive some of my inner rebellions which have been so very violent? Am I totally guilty? Is it true that you are abandoning me?
--
signed: Bernard
***
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1956-04-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Bernard
***
--
signed: Mother
A friend of Satprem's who died insane in a Japanese hospital in India
0 1956-09-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This text was noted down by a disciple from memory. On the original manuscript submitted for her approval, Mother wrote, 'This account is quite correct,' and She signed the text. Words added or corrected by Mother are in italics.
(During the Wednesday class)
0 1956-09-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
These questions of money do not interest me. In fact, nothing interests me except this something I feel within me. The only question for me is to know whether I am truly ready for the Yoga, or if my failings are not the sign of some immaturity. Mother, you alone can tell me what is right.
I feel a bit lost, cut off from you. The idea of going to the Himalayas is absurd and I am abandoning it. My friends tell me that I may remain with them as long as I wish, but this is hardly a solution; I dont even feel like writing a book any longernothing seems to appeal to me except the trees in this garden and the music that fills a large part of my days. There is no solution other than the Ashram or Brazil. You alone can tell me what to do.
--
signed: Bernard
***
--
signed: Mother
A former disciple who left the Ashram, and subsequently committed suicide.
0 1956-10-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Bernard
P.S. If you see that I should remain here, put in me the necessary strength and aspiration. I shall obey you. I want to obey you.
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1956-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Bernard
***
0 1956-12-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I dont see a thing, nothing. Oh Mother, I turn towards you in this void that is stifling me. Hear my prayer. Tell me what I must do. Give me a sign. Mother, you are my sole recourse, for who else would show me the path to be taken, who else but you would love me? Or is my fate to go off into the night?
Forgive me, Mother, for loving you so poorly, for giving myself so badly. Mother, you are my only hope, all the rest in me is utter despair.
--
signed: Bernard
***
0 1956-12-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Bernard
***
0 1957-01-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Bernard
***
0 1957-03-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Mother
***
0 1957-04-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Bernard
P.S. And yet, even if I leave, I know that I shall have to come back here Everything is a paradox, and I CANNOT get out of this paradox.
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1957-04-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
L'Orpailleur.
0 1957-07-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
She clearly remembered where her room was, but each time she set out to go there, either the staircase disappeared or things were so changed that she could no longer find her way! So she went here and there, up and down, searched, went in and out but it was impossible to find the way to her room! Since all of this assumed a physical appearanceas I said, a very familiar and very common appearance, as is always the case in these symbolic visions there was somewhere (how shall I put it?) the hotels administrative office and a woman who seemed to be the manager, who had all the keys and who knew where everyone was staying. So the daughter went to this person and asked her, Could you show me the way to my room?But of course! Easily! Everyone around the manager looked at her as if to say, How can you say that? However, she got up, and with authority asked for a key the key to the daughters roomsaying, I shall take you there. And off she went along all kinds of paths, but all so complicated, so bizarre! The daughter was following along behind her very attentively, you see, so as not to lose sight of her. But just as they should have come to the place where the daughters room was supposed to be, suddenly the manageress (let us call her the manageress), both the manageress and her key vanished! And the sense of this vanishing was so acute that at the same time, everything vanished!
So to help you understand this enigma, let me tell you that the mother is physical Nature as she is, and the daughter is the new creation. The manageress is the worlds organizing mental consciousness as Nature has developed it thus far, that is, the most advanced organizing sense to have manifested in the present state of material Nature. This is the key to the vision.
Naturally, when I awoke, I immediately knew what could resolve this problem which appeared so absolutely insoluble. The vanishing of the manageress and her key was an obvious sign that she was altogether incapable of leading what could be called the creative consciousness of the new world to its true place.
I knew this, but I did not have a vision of the solution, which means it has yet to manifest; this thing had not yet manifested in the building, this fantastic construction, although it is the very mode of consciousness which could transform this incoherent creation into something real, truly conceived, willed and materialized, with a center in its proper place, a recognized place, and with a REAL effective power.
0 1957-07-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
0 1957-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
Of Mother's French translation of these two books by Sri Aurobindo.
0 1957-10-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
This unique method was to be the mantra, as Mother herself would discover.
0 1957-12-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed. Satprem
***
0 1958-02-03a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
A Sannyasi, or wandering monk, whom Satprem would join a few weeks later in Ceylon, on February 27, and who would initiate him as a Sannyasi. Unfortunately, almost all the correspondence from this period has been lost.
0 1958-03-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
Puja: Hindu temple ceremony.
0 1958-04-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
P.S. My system is not in perfect condition due to this absurdly spiced food, and the river water that is used for everything.
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1958-08-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Mother
***
0 1958-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Later, after I returned (to the Ashram), I wondered, What was that? What does it signify? Then I understood.
Thats all.
0 1958-11-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
Due to the orange robes of the sannyasi.
0 1958-11-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Mother
***
0 1958-12-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1958-12-15 - tantric mantra - 125,000, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
Mother, may I not be swept away by one of these waves. Protect me. Love me! But EVERYTHING has to be faced NOW. I want to fight. I do not ask you to spare me, therefore, but to help me withstand the blow.
--
signed: Mother
Do not be troubled about my body it is well on the way to recovery.
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1958-12-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
Have you recovered?
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1958-12-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
It seems to me that everything has changed since I have understood that it is not a personal battle, and that I can serve. Your grace is everywhere, everywhere.
--
signed: Mother
P.S. I shall propose to Swami to enter into contact with them at 8:45 p.m., if this time suits them.
0 1959-01-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
The Bulletin of Physical Education, which appeared quarterly.
0 1959-01-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
Original English.
0 1959-01-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
Sweet Mother, do not waste time writing to me; you have so many things to do and I feel a little awkward disturbing you so often.
--
signed: Mother
X's deceased guru.
0 1959-01-27, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
The tantric work.
0 1959-01-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
P.S. All the old Questions and Answers will also have to be revised with you, perhaps not in their entirety, but certain problems need clarification. What a grace to be able to work with you!
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1959-04-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
P.S. Perhaps it would be good to tell you of the two supports that this force found in me during the most recent attack:
--
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
Sri Aurobindo's tomb in the Ashram courtyard.
0 1959-04-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
A French publishing house that had asked for a book on Sri Aurobindo to be included in their collection, 'Spiritual Masters.'
0 1959-04-23, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Mother
***
0 1959-05-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Mother
(Satprems reply)
--
signed: Satprem
The aphorisms will be ready tomorrow.
--
signed: Mother
The disciple's tantric guru.
0 1959-05-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
I will see you tomorrow morning at ten oclock and I hope that a few small misunderstandings may be clarified.
0 1959-06-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
As for the emptiness you feel (which perhaps is already better): to those who complained of this sensation of inner emptiness, Sri Aurobindo always said that it is a very good thing; it is the sign that they are going to be filled with something better and truer.
I have carefully noted Xs predictions.
--
signed: Mother
Yama: the god of Death in the Hindu pantheon.
0 1959-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1959-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
0 1959-06-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
P.S. X asked me questions about my family. I was prompted to speak to him of my mother (seeing her photo, you had said that you knew her very well, if you recall). He immediately said, You MUST go and see your mother. You will go in August and quickly come back by plane beginning September! Of course, I told him that all this seems like the highest fantasy to me, and that to begin with I had no money and would surely not ask you anything for that. He said, I shall ask my Mother. She will arrange everything.
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1959-06-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1959-06-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
P.S. X is also to give me certain details for you about the forthcoming war.
0 1959-06-13a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
Lele: the tantric guru whom Sri Aurobindo met in 1908 and who gave him mental silence and Nirvana.
0 1959-06-13b, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Mother
***
0 1959-06-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
P.S. Yes, I too am sure that the great secret is to give oneself, but perhaps this can be too easily misunderstood, and I do not believe that to give oneself means to mutilate oneself. As for the rest, well, my life obviously belongs to That and is meaningless except for That.
0 1959-06-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
0 1959-07-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
0 1959-07-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
Shortly afterwards, Satprem left on a journey and returned only two months later.
0 1959-08-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Mother
The color worn by sannyasis.
0 1959-10-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
0 1960-03-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: M.C.
***
0 1960-04-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
Things are better physically. But its always a terrible physical shock for me to take the train.
--
signed: Mother
As regards LOrpailleur, its good. I keep feeling that everything is going to turn out well.
0 1960-04-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1960-04-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Pavitra
***
0 1960-04-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
0 1960-04-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
0 1960-05-24 - supramental flood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
These experiences are always absolute, as long as they last; then, through certain signs that I know (I am accustomed to it), I notice that the body consciousness begins closing up again. Or rather, somethingevidently a Supreme Wisdomdecides its sufficient for this time and that the body has had enough. It ought not to break, which is why certain precautions are taken. So this comes in several little stages that I know quite well. The final one is always a bit unpleasant because my body gets into rather peculiar positions as a result of the work. As its only a sort of machine, towards the end I have some difficulty straightening my knees, for example, or opening my fingers I think they even make a noise, like something forced into one position whose life has become purely spontaneous and mechanical. There are plenty of people like that, plenty, who enter into trance and then can no longer get out by themselves; they get themselves into a certain position and someone has to free them. This has never happened to me; I have always managed to extricate myself. But yesterday evening, the experience lasted a very long time. There was even a little cracking at the end, as when people have rheumatism.
And during all this time, approximately three hours, the consciousness was completely, completely different. It was here, however; it was not outside the earth, it was on earth, but it was completely differenteven the body consciousness was different. And what remained was very mechanical; it was a body, but it could just as well have been anything. All this power of consciousness that for more than seventy years Ive gradually pushed into each of the bodys cells so that each cell could become conscious (and it goes on constantly, constantly), all this seemed to have withdrawn there only remained one almost lifeless thing. However, I could raise myself up from my bed and even drink a glass of water, but it was all so bizarre. And when I went back to bed, it took nearly forty-five minutes for the body to regain its normal state. Only after I had entered into another type of samadhi2 and again come out of it did my consciousness fully return. It is the first time I have had an experience of this kind.
0 1960-05-28 - death of K - the death process- the subtle physical, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So you see, the outer signs Its not the first time Ive noticed this the doctors observe all the outer signs, then they declare you dead, but youre still in your body!
In other words, he was still in his body.
0 1960-06-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1960-06-Undated, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
0 1960-07-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Mother
***
0 1960-07-23 - The Flood and the race - turning back to guide and save amongst the torrents - sadhana vs tamas and destruction - power of giving and offering - Japa, 7 lakhs, 140000 per day, 1 crore takes 20 years, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I remember wandering about one night some time ago. Its no longer very clear, but one thing has remained I had gone out of India, and then when I returned to India, I found huge elephants installed EVERYWHEREenormous elephants. At that time I was not at all aware that the Communists in India had adopted the elephant as their symbol; I only learned that later. What does this mean, I said to myself. Does it signify the Indian army? But they did not resemble war elephants. These elephants were like immense mammoths, and they looked like they were settling down with all the power of a tremendous inertia. That was the impression something heavy in an inert and very tamasic way, forever immovable. I did not like this occupation. When I came back, I had a rather painful feeling, and for several days I wondered if it did not mean war. Then by chance, in a conversation, I learned that the Communists had selected the elephant as their symbol whereas the Congress had chosen the bullock In my vision, I was moving (as I always do), I was moving among them, and nothing moved. And if I needed room, some of them even tried to stir a little.
But when human beings are involved, I believe that visions take on a special formits a special image. Not an inundation like this. That was very, very impersonal. They were forces. A feeling of floodgates bursting open, of something being held back, retained or prevented, then suddenly
0 1960-08-16, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Mother
***
0 1960-09-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
0 1960-10-02a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Mother
***
--
From a documentary standpoint, my nights are getting quite interesting. In the Yoga of Self-Perfection, Sri Aurobindo describes precisely this state you reach in which all things assume meaning and a quality of inner significance, clarification of various points, and help. From this point of view, my nights have become extraordinary. I see infinitely more things than I saw before. Before, it was very limited to a personal contact with people. Now In my nights, each thing and each person has the appearance, the gesture, the word or the action that describes EXACTLY his condition. Its becoming quite interesting.
Of course, I much prefer being in my great currents of forcefrom a personal standpoint, such immensity of action is much more interesting. But these documentary things are also valuable. It is so tremendously different from the dreams and even the vi. signs you have when you enter certain representative realms of the mind (which is what I used to do). It is so different, it has another content, another life altogether: it carries its light, its understanding, its explanation within itselfyou look, and everything is explained.
It always gives me the feeling that I am shrinking a little, but its interesting. And its useful, for I am constantly moving about and doing things with people; it indicates to me what I have to say and do with each one. Its useful. But all the same, I miss the fullness and joy of the more impersonal Movement of forces.
0 1960-10-02b, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
'This wonderful world of delight, at our gates, waiting for our call to come down upon earth.'
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
He woke up in a railway station somewhere between Bombay and Poona, and he began telling them that he was hungry (he was with those same two persons). They punched him in the stomach and put a handkerchief over his nosehe again passed out! At Poona, he woke up again (hed lost his appetite by then!), and again they put the handkerchief over his nose. And it went on like thatthey kept on punching him a lot. When he woke up in the country on the outskirts of Poona, four men were around him arguing in a language he didnt know (his language is Gujarati). They were probably speaking in some other language, I dont know which oneit seems they were very dark. He didnt understand, but from various signs they made he could see that they were arguing about whether to kill him or not. Finally, they told him (probably in a language he could understand), Either you join our gang, or well kill you. He grunted in reply so as not to commit himself. The others decided to wait for their chief (thus the chief wasnt there): Well decide after he comes. Then just to make sure, they punched him a few more times in the belly and put the handkerchief over his noseout!
Sometime later (he doesnt know how long, for until he returned he had no sense of time), he woke up in a rather dark, low-roofed house way out in the country; there were five persons now, not four. They were busy eating, so he was careful not to budge. Mainly they were drinking (they have prohibition there). Four of them were already dead drunk. So he got up to have a look. The fifth one, whom he hadnt seen before (he must have been the chief), was not yet totally drunk; when he saw the boy stirring, he let out a fearful growlso the poor boy threw himself flat in the corner and lay stillhe waited. After awhile, the fifth one (after downing another bottle) was also dead drunk. So now that he saw them all fast asleep, he got up very cautiously and he said he ran for an hour and a half! A boy pummelled as he had been, who hadnt eaten for four days! I think thats a miracle.
0 1960-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
How strange it is! You have the feeling of ascending, of a progress in consciousness, and everything, all the events and circumstances of life follow one another with an unquestioning logic. You see the Divine Will unfolding with a wonderful logic. Then, from time to time, there appears a little set of circumstances (either isolated or repeated), which are like snags on the way; you cant explain them, so you put them aside for later on. Some such accidents have been quite significant, but they dont seem to follow this ascending line of the present individuality. Theyre scattered along the way, sometimes repeated, sometimes only once, and then they vanish. And when you go through such an experience, you sense that they are things put aside for later on. And then, all of a sudden (especially during these last two years when I have again descended to take all that up), all of a sudden, one after another, all these snags return. And they dont follow the same curve; rather, its as if suddenly you reach a certain state and a certain impersonal breadth that far surpasses the individual, and this new state enters into contact with one of those old accidents that had remained in the deepest part of the subconscientand that makes it rise up again, the two meet in an explosion of light. Everything is explained, everything is understood, everything is clear! No explanation is needed: it has become OBVIOUS.
This is entirely another way of understandingits not an ascent, not even a descent nor an inspiration it must be what Sri Aurobindo calls a revelation. Its the meeting of this subconscious notationthis something which has remained buried within, held down so as not to manifest, but which suddenly surges forth to meet the light streaming down from above, this very vast state of consciousness that excludes nothing and from it springs forth a lightoh, a resplendence of light!like a new explanation of the world, or of that part of the world not yet explained.
0 1960-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And then things dont happen at all as they do in ordinary life for three or four minutes, sometimes five or ten minutes, Im a-bo-minably sick, with every sign that its all over.
(silence)
0 1960-12-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
signed: Satprem
***
0 1961-01-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Anger, moreover, like all forms of violence, is always a sign of weakness, impotence and incapacity. Here the deception comes from the approval one gives it or the flattering adjective one covers it with; for rage can be no more than blind, ignorant and asuricopposed to the light.
But this is still the best of cases.
0 1961-01-31, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At the moment of my coming out of the trance, I had a very concrete, positive perception (not a mental understanding, it didnt come from the beings intellectual part, the part that understands and explains everything and Is symbolized, I think, by Indra; it wasnt in any way conveyed through that higher intelligence, it wasnt mental). A kind of perception (not really a sensation, it was more than a sensation) of the almost total unimportance of the external, material expression of the bodys condition: the consciousness OF THE BODY was absolutely indifferent to external, physical signs, whether they were like this or like that (the BODYS consciousness was what had experienced the identity). And this body-consciousness had the perception of the EXTREME RELATIVITY of the most material expression.
I am translating it to make myself understoodit wasnt like that at the time of the experience. Suppose, for example, that there was a disorder here or there in the body, not actually an illness (because illness implies some important inner factor such as an attack or the necessity for some transformation, many different things), but the outer expression of a disorder, such as swollen legs or a malfunctioning liver not an illness, a disorder, a functional disorder. Well, it was all utterly unimportant: IT IN NO WAY CHANGES THE BODYS TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS. Although we are in the habit of thinking that the body is very disturbed when its ill, when something is going wrong, its not so. It isnt disturbed in the way we understand it.
--
In the equations of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, quantities as 'immutable' as the mass of a body, the frequency of a vibration, or the time separating two events, are linked to the speed of the system where the physical event takes place. Recent experiments in outer space have allowed the validity of Einstein's equations to be verified. Thus a clock on a satellite in constant rotation around the Earth will measure sixty seconds between two audio signals, while an identical clock on Earth measures sixty-one seconds between the same two signals: time 'slows down' as speed increases. It is like the story of the space traveler returning to Earth less aged than his twin: you pass into another 'frame of reference.'
It is striking that Mother's body-experiences very often parallel recent theories of modern physics, as if mathematical equations were the means of formulating in human language certain complex phenomena, remote from our day to day reality, which Mother was living spontaneously in her bodyperhaps 'at the speed of light.'
0 1961-02-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its largely the fragrances that have made me give flowers their significance. I find these studies quite interesting; it corresponds to something really TRUE in Nature.
Once, without telling me anything, someone brought me a sprig of tulsi.3 I smelled it and said, Oh, Devotion! It was absolutely a a vibration of devotion. Afterwards, I was told its the plant of devotion to Krishna, consecrated to Krishna.
--
And do you know how he received me when I arrived there? It was the first time in my life I had traveled alone and the first time I had crossed the Mediterranean. Then there was a fairly long train ride between Oran and Tlemcenanyway, I managed rather well: I got there. He met me at the station and we set off for his place by car (it was rather far away). Finally we reached his estatea wonder! It spread across the hillside overlooking the whole valley of Tlemcen. We arrived from below and had to climb up some wide pathways. I said nothingit was truly an experience from a material standpoint. When we came in sight of the house, he stopped: Thats my house. It was red! Painted red! And he added, When Barley came here, he asked me, Why did you paint your house red? (Barley was a French occultist who put Theon in touch with France and was his first disciple.) There was a mischievous gleam in Theons eyes and he smiled sardonically: I told Barley, Because red goes well with green! With that, I began to understand the gentleman. We continued on our way uphill when suddenly, without warning, he spun around, planted himself in front of me, and said, Now you are at my mercy. Arent you afraid? Just like that. So I looked at him, smiled and replied, Im never afraid. I have the Divine here. (Mother touches her heart.)
Well, he really went pale.
0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But truly speaking, the minute one completely emerges from the ordinary mind, NO EXTERIOR sigN IS A PROOF, absolutely none. There is absolutely no standard to go byneither splendid good health nor good equilibrium, nor an almost general disorganizationnone of these. All depends exclusivelyexclusivelyon what the Lord has decided. Exclusively. Consequently, if one remains very quiet, one is sure to know what He has decided.
When I am perfectly tranquil, I immediately live in a beatific joy where questions dont arisethere are no questions! One asks for nothingone LIVES! One lives happily, and thats all. Theres no, Will it be like this? Will it be like that?how childish! There are no questions, questions dont arise. One is a beatitude manifesting, that is all.
0 1961-02-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres an American living in Madras, a rather important man, it seems, and an intimate friend of Kennedy, the new President. He has read and reread all of Sri Aurobindos books and is extremely interested. He wrote to Kennedy that he would like him to come here so he can bring him to the Ashram. This man has posed a very interesting question, drawing an analogy. Deep in a forest, a deer goes to quench its thirst; no one is aware of it, yet someone who has made a special study of deer hunting would know by the tracks that the deer had passed bynot only what particular type of deer, but its age, size, sex, etc. Similarly, there must be people with a spiritual knowledge analogous to that of hunters, who can detect, perceive, that a person is in touch with the Supermind, while ordinary people know nothing about it and wouldnt notice. So he asks, I would like to know by what signs such a person can be recognized?
It is a very intelligent question.
I replied very briefly in English. I havent brought my answer with me, but I can tell you right away that there are two signstwo certain, infallible signs. I know them through personal experience, for they are two things that can ONLY come with the supramental consciousness; without it, one cannot possess themno yogic effort, no discipline, no tapasya can give them to you, while they come almost automatically with the supramental consciousness.
The first sign is perfect equality as Sri Aurobindo has described it (you must know it, theres a whole chapter on equality, samat, in The Synthesis of Yoga)exactly as he described it with such wonderful precision! But this equality (which is not equanimity) is a particular STATE where one relates to all things, outer and inner, and to each individual thing, in the same way. That is truly perfect equality: vibrations from things, from people, from contacts have no power to alter that state.
In my reply I mentioned this first, though I didnt give him all these explanations. I put it in a few words as a kind of test of his intelligence, and in a somewhat cryptic form to see if he would understand.
The second sign is a sense of ABSOLUTENESS in knowledge. As I have already told you, I had this with my experience of January 24. This state CANNOT be obtained through any region of the mind, even the most illumined and exalted. Its not a certainty, its (Mother lowers both hands like an irresistible block descending), a kind of absoluteness, without even any possibility of hesitation (theres no question of doubt), or anything like that. Without (how to say it ?). All mental knowledge, even the highest, is a conclusive knowledge, as it were: it comes as a conclusion of something elsean intuition, for instance (an intuition gives you a particular knowledge, and this knowledge is like the conclusion of the intuition). Even revelations are conclusions. Theyre all conclusions the word conclusion comes to me, but I dont know how to express it. This isnt the case, however, with the supramental experiencea kind of absolute. The feeling it gives is altogether uniquefar beyond certainty, it is (Mother again makes the same irresistible gesture) it is a FACT, things are FACTS. It is very, very difficult to explain. But with that one naturally has a complete power the two things always go together. (In my reply to this man I didnt speak of power because the power is almost a consequence and I didnt want to speak of consequences.) But the fact remains: a kind of absoluteness in knowledge springing from identityone is the thing one knows and experiences: one is it. One knows it because one is it.
When these two signs are present (both are necessary, one is incomplete without the other), when a person possesses both, then you can be sure he has been in contact with the Supermind. So people who speak about receiving the Light well, (laughing) its a lot of hot air! But when both signs are present, you can be sure of your perception.12
(silence)
--
Two irrefutable signs prove that one is in relation with the Supermind:
1) A perfect and constant equality
0 1961-03-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The opposition is clearly becoming stronger and stronger, a very good signit means we are advancing. But circumstances are growing more and more difficult: the least thing becomes an opportunity to demonstrate bad will and spiteon the part of the government, on the part of people here and so on. Seen from a superficial viewpoint, we are more than ever in the soup. But this makes my heart rejoice! I take it as a sign that we are getting nearer.
Dont let it trouble you, you must always smile. Smile, be absolutely above it allabsolutely.
0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its clearly the sign of a rudimentary intellectual stage.
But if you can witness a discussion as an impartial spectator (I mean even if you are involved in the discussion), you can always gain a lot from it by considering a question or a problem from several points of view; and by trying to reconcile opposing opinions, you can broaden your ideas and rise to a more comprehensive synthesis.
0 1961-03-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the occult sense, a 'formation' signifies a concentration of power or force directed towards a particular goal. it is like a bullet of force going inexorably to its target. In fact, all beings are constantly making 'formations' with their thoughts and desires, but these formations have scarcely any power other than that of clinging to the one who has made them or returning upon him like a boomerang.
The following undated note (which could date from this or any number of other times!) was found among Mother's scattered papers: Now the situation has become very critical, all the reserves have been swallowed up, there are debts, many important works remain unfinished and the daily life has become a problem. It is the subsistence of more than 1,200 people which is in question.
0 1961-04-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Once this cat was stung by a scorpion. A foolhardy youngster, he used to play with scorpions. I had to rescue him one day; I came onto the verandah just when he was playing with a big scorpion. I caught the cat, put him on my shoulder and killed the scorpion. But another time I wasnt there, and he was stung. He came inside, done for. I clearly saw the signs that he had been poisoned by a scorpion. I put him on a table and went to call Sri Aurobindo. Kiki has been stung by a scorpion, I said. (He was dying, almost in a coma.) Sri Aurobindo pulled up a chair, sat down facing the table and began to gaze at Kiki. This lasted about twenty or twenty-five minutes. Then suddenly the cat relaxed completely and fell asleep. When he woke up, he was entirely cured.
Sri Aurobindo didnt touch him, he didnt do anything; he simply gazed at him.
0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have seen other things but I have rarely seen anything favorable in churches. Here, I remember going to M I was taken inside and received there in quite an unusual waya highly respected person introduced me as a great saint! They led me up to the main altar where people are not usually allowed to go, and what did I see there! An asura (oh, not a very high-ranking one, more like a rakshasa4), but such a monster! Hideous. So I went wham! (gesture of giving a blow) I thought something was going to happen. But this being left the altar and came over to try to intimidate me; of course, he saw it was useless, so he offered to make an alliance: If you just keep quiet and dont do anything, I will share all I get with you. Well, I sent him packing! The head of this Math5. It was a Math with a monastery and temple, which means a substantial fortune; the head of the Math has it all at his disposal for as long as he holds the position and he is appointed for life. But he has to name his successor and as a rule, his own life is considerably shortened by the successorthis is how it works. Everyone knew that the present head had considerably shortened the life of his predecessor. And what a creature! As asuric as the god he worshipped! I saw some poor fellows throw themselves at his feet (he must have been squeezing them pitilessly), to beg forgiveness and mercyan absolutely ruthless man. But he received meyou should have seen it! I said nothing, not a word about their god; I gave no sign that I knew anything. But I thought to myself, So thats how it is!
Another thing happened to me in a fishing village near A., on the seashore, where there is a temple dedicated to Kalia terrible Kali. I dont know what happened to her, but she had been buried with only her head sticking out! A fantastic story I knew nothing about it at all. I was going by car from A. to this temple and halfway there a black form, in great agitation, came rushing towards me, asking for my help: Ill give you everything I haveall my power, all the peoples worshipif you help me to become omnipotent! Of course, I answered her as she deserved! I later asked who this was, and they told me that some sort of misfortune had befallen her and she had been buried with only her head above ground. And every year this fishing village has a festival and slaughters thousands of chickensshe likes chicken! Thousands of chickens. They pluck them on the spot (the whole place gets covered with feathers), and then, after offering the blood and making the sacrifice, the people, naturally, eat them all up. The day I came this had taken place that very morningfea thers littered everywhere! It was disgusting. And she was asking for my help!
0 1961-06-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Not long ago M.s sister died (psychologically, she was in a terrible stateshe had no faith). Well, on that day,5 just when I came to know that she was passing away, I remember being upstairs in the bathroom communicating with Sri Aurobindo, having a sort of conversation with him (it happens very often), and I asked him, What happens to such people when they die here at the Ashram? Look, he replied, and I saw her passing away; and on her forehead, I saw Sri Aurobindos symbol in a SOLID golden light (not very luminous, but very concrete). There it was. And with the presence of this sign the psychological state no longer matterednothing touched her. And she departed tranquilly, tranquilly. Then Sri Aurobindo told me, All who have lived at the Ashram and who die there have automatically the same protection, whatever their inner state.
I cant say I was surprised, but I admired the mighty power by which the simple fact of having been here and died here was sufficient to help you to the utmost in that transition.
0 1961-06-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have had an oft repeated experience of reliving the past1 (its a phenomenon of consciousness, possible because everything is preserved and continues to exist somewhere), with a kind of willwhich would be the sign of a powerto change it. I dont know, but at the moment of reliving it, instead of reliving the past just as it had been preserved, a power to make it different was introduced. I am not speaking of the power to change the consequences of the past (that is obvious and functions all the time)it wasnt that; it was the power to change the circumstances themselves (circumstances not quite material but of the subtle physical, with a predominantly psychological content). And since the will was there, from the standpoint of consciousness it actually happened that is, instead of circumstances developing in one direction, they developed in another. So it must correspond to something real, otherwise I would not have had the experience. It wasnt a product of the imagination; it wasnt something one thinks of and would really like to be differentit wasnt that; it was a phenomenon of consciousness: my consciousness was reliving certain circumstances (which are still quite living and obviously continue to exist within their own domain), but reliving them with the power and the knowledge acquired between that past moment and the present, and with a power to change the past moment. A new power entered the scene and turned the circumstance being relived in a new direction. I have had this experience many times and it has always surprised meits not a phenomenon of mental imagination, which is something else entirely.
It opens the door to everything.
--
Actually, as soon as one is not totally, totally tied down by the physical sense organs. For example, I am more and more frequently experiencing changes in the quality of vision. Quite recently, yesterday or the day before, I was sitting in the bathroom drying my face before going out and I raised my eyes (I was sitting before a mirror, although I dont usually look at myself); I raised my eyes and looked, and I saw many things (Mother laughs, greatly amused). At that moment, I had an experience which made me say to myself, Ah! Thats why, from the physical, purely material standpoint, my vision seems to be a bit blurred. Because what I was seeing was MUCH clearer and infinitely more expressive than normal physical sight. And I recalled that it is with these clearer eyes that I see and recognize all my people at balcony darshan. (From the balcony I recognize all my people.) And its that vision (but with open eyes!) which. It is of another order.
I am going to study what Sri Aurobindo says when I come to it in The Yoga of Self-Perfection. He says there comes a time when the senses changeits not that you employ the senses proper to another plane (we have always known we had senses on all the different planes); its quite different from that: the senses THEMSELVES change. He foretells this changehe says it will occur. And I believe it begins in the way I am experiencing it now.
0 1961-07-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ah! I have seen T., who told me she was finding it too difficult to ask questions [on Sri Aurobindos Aphorisms] because it always seemed to be the same thing! So now she has nothing to ask. We have decided she wont ask any more questions, unless, by chance, something suddenly arouses a question in her. Otherwise, no more questions (Mother breathes a sigh of relief).
63God is great, says the Mahomedan. Yes, He is so great that He can afford to be weak, whenever that too is necessary.
64God often fails in His workings; it is the sign of His illimitable godhead.
65Because God is invincibly great, He can afford to be weak; because He is immutably pure, He can indulge with impunity in sin; He knows eternally all delight, therefore He tastes also the delight of pain; He is inalienably wise, therefore He has not debarred Himself from folly.
0 1961-07-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To be in a condition in which all is the Supreme, all is wonderful, all is marvelous, all is marvelous love, all is all is profound Joyan unchanging, immutable, ever-present condition. To live in That, and then to have this bodily substance contradict it through every possible stupiditylosing sight, losing strength, pains here, pains there, disorders, weaknesses, incapacities of every type. And at the SAME TIME, the response within this body, no matter what happens to it, is, O Lord, Your Grace is infinite. The contradiction is VERY disconcerting.
From experience, I know perfectly well that when one is satisfied with being a saint or a sage and constantly maintains the right attitude, all goes well the body doesnt get sick, and even if there are attacks it recovers very easily; all goes very well AS LONG AS THERE IS NOT THIS WILL TO TRANSFORM. All the difficulties arise in protest against the will to transform; while if one says, Very well, its all right, let things be as they are, I dont care, I am perfectly happy, in a blissful state, then the body begins to feel content!
0 1961-07-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This eye [hemorrhage], for instance, resulted from such a disorder, a very dark force that someone allowed to enter, not deliberately, not knowingly, but through weakness and ignorance, always mingled, of course, with desire and ego and all the rest. (Without desire and ego, such things would find no access but desire and ego are very widespread.) At any rate, that was plainly the cause and I sensed it immediately. Sometimes when it comes, it creeps up like this (Mother brings her hand to her throat), a black shadow strangling you. Yet inwardly nothing is affected at all, to such an extent that if I didnt pay attention to the purely external reaction, I wouldnt know anything had happened (its the great Play); but externally the indication is immediate: half an hour later I had this eye hemorrhage. I was struggling against a wholly undesirable intrusion, and I knew italthough from an outer point of view, the cause was in significant. Its not always the events we consider serious or important that produce the most harmful effectsfar from it. Sometimes its an altogether IN sigNIFICANT intrusion of falsehood, for some quite in significant reasonwhat is commonly labeled a stupidity. This stems from the fact that the adverse forces are always lying in wait, ready to rush in at the least sign of weakness.
The incomprehension generated by doubt (the kind of doubt that always results from an egoistic movement) is very dangerous. Very dangerous. Its not even necessary to be in a psychic consciousness even for an enlightened vital consciousness, it produces no effect; but HERE, in this material swarm.
0 1961-08-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I knew how it was with her because I remember the days when Sri Aurobindo was here and I used to go downstairs to give meditations to the people assembled in the hall. Theres a ledge above the pillars there, where all the gods used to sitShiva, Krishna, Lakshmi, the Trimurti, all of them the little ones, the big ones, they all used to come regularly, every day, to attend these meditations. It was a lovely sight. But they didnt have this kind of adoration for the Supreme. They had no use for that concepteach one, in his own mode of being, was fully aware of his own eternal divinity; and each one knew as well that he could represent all the others (such was the basis of popular worship,7 and they knew it). They felt they were a kind of community, but they had none of those qualities that the psychic life gives: no deep love, no deep sympathy, no sense of union. They had only the sense of their OWN divinity. They had certain very particular movements, but not this adoration for the Supreme nor the feeling of being instruments: they felt they were representing the Supreme, and so each one was perfectly satisfied with his particular representation.
Except for Krishna. In 1926, I had begun a sort of overmental creation, that is, I had brought the Overmind down into matter, here on earth (miracles and all kinds of things were beginning to happen). I asked all these gods to incarnate, to identify themselves with a body (some of them absolutely refused). Well, with my very own eyes I saw Krishna, who had always been in rapport with Sri Aurobindo, consent to come down into his body. It was on November 24th, and it was the beginning of Mother.8
0 1961-08-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(A little later Mother begins to sign some 300 books. She remarks:)
I have a convenient signature.
Image 1
Your signature takes wing!
Oh, yesits a bird!
0 1961-09-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1961-09-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is the complete negation of bluff. I find it very beautiful. When I saw this flower, it struck me as something very profound, very calmabsolutely sure, immobile. I dont know why, but the longer I looked at it, the more it gave that impression and when I was asked its significance, I said, Unostentatious Certitude. Its what one might call a superlative good-taste in the realm of spiritual experience: something with greater content than it expresses.
***
0 1961-11-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Once there (this would also make a great novel), Richard continued writing and sending his manuscripts to Sri Aurobindo. Finally, when the Peace Treaty was signed and it was possible to travel, the English said that if we tried to return to India they would throw us in jail! But it all worked out miraculously, almost becoming a diplomatic incident: the Japanese government decided that if we were put in prison they would protest to the British government! (What a story I could write novels!) In short, Richard returned here with me. And thats when the tragi-comedy began.
I will tell you about it one dayfantastic!
--
But the ifs. There is a domain where no more ifs exist, and when I am there, I still dont find any signs of inevitability. The place X looks from is all mixed up. I have had a certain number of visions, but not THE vision of inevitable war.
Not that they arent trying!
0 1961-11-06, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Satprem
***
0 1961-11-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It depends upon the level of development, thats what Theon used to say: One goes into trance only when certain links are missing. He saw people as made up of innumerable small bridges, with intermediary zones. If you have an intermediary zone that is undeveloped, he said, a zone where you are not conscious because its not individualized, then you will be in trance when you cross it. Trance is the sign of non-individualization the consciousness is not awake and so your body goes into trance. But if your consciousness is wide awake you can sit, keeping full contact with things, and have the total experience. I could go out of my body with no need of trance, except when Theon wanted me to do a particular work. That was a different business the vital force (not the consciousness, the vital force) had to go out for that work, so the body had to go into trance. But even then. For instance, very often when I am called and go to do something in response, my body does become still, but its not in trance; I can be sitting and, even in the middle of a gesture, suddenly become immobile for a few seconds.7 But I was doing another type of work with Theondangerous work, at thatand it would last for an hour. Then all the bodys vital energy would go out, all of it, as it does when you die (in fact, thats how I came to experience death).
But it isnt necessary to have all those experiences, not at allSri Aurobindo never did. (Theon didnt have experiences, either; he had only the knowledgehe made use of Madame Theons experiences.) Sri Aurobindo told me he had never really entered the unconsciousness of samadhi for him, these domains were conscious; he would sit on his bed or in his armchair and have all the experiences.
0 1961-11-16b, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
***
0 1961-12-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Satprem
***
0 1962-01-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But following that, and because of the overwork, an old thing I thought I had cured has come back. It was originally brought on by overwork when I was going to the Playground and resting only two hours out of twenty-four, which wasnt enougha sort of ulcer formed between my nose and throat. Its an old complaint, dating from the removal of adenoids in my childhood; the operation left a kind of small cavity, which was nothing in itself, except that occasionally it would give me a cold. But as a result of overwork it came back in the form of an ulcer, and gave me artificial colds; it was so sour and corrosive, a terrible irritation in the throat and nose. It got much worse when I was giving classes at the Playground, and once I showed it to the doctor. Why, you have an ulcer! he said. A big fuss. He offered to treat me. No thanks! I said. Dont worry, it will pass. And I began my own yogic treatment. It was over in a week and for three years there was no further sign of it. Recently (the last two or three months) I had felt it trying to come back, for exactly the same reason of overwork. And with that little adventure the other day, it did come backit gave me one of those stupid colds: sneezing, coughing. Its not quite over yet. But its nothing, it just gives me an excuse (laughing) to tell people I am still not quite well!
I am resting.
--
And the feeling was so strong that even during his illness (which lasted for months, you know), I had a sense of perfect security; so much so that the idea of his life being really affected in the least by this illness couldnt even occur to me! I didnt want to believe it when the doctor said, Its over. I didnt want to believe it. And as long as I stayed in the room with me in the room he couldnt leave his body. And so there was a terrible tension in himon the one hand the inner will to depart, and then this thing holding him there in his body: the fact that I knew he was alive and could only be alive. He had to signal me to go to my room, supposedly to rest (I didnt rest); and no sooner had I left his room than he was gone.
They immediately called me back. Thats how it was. Then when he came to me, when I really saw what had happened, when he went out of his body and entered into mine (the most material part of him, the part involved with external things) and I understood that I had the entire responsibility for all the work AND for the sadhana7well, then I locked a part of me away, a deep psychic8 part that was living, beyond all responsibility, in the ECSTASY of the realization: the Supreme. I took it and locked it away, I sealed it off and said, Youre not moving until until all the rest is ready.
0 1962-01-12 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"How can the Supermind be detected, in the way a huntsman would detect a deer in the forest? By which signs can it be recognized?"
See Agenda II, February 25, 1961, p. 96 ff
0 1962-01-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And EXACTLY five years later, it happened. Later I met people coming from China who told me it had all been the work of a secret society. They told me about it because that society used a certain sign, and instinctively, unknowingly, I had made that sign while one of them was talking to me (Mother puts one fist on top of the other). And the person said, Ah, so youre one of us! I didnt reply. Then he told me everything.
But its really interesting because the exact date was given. The revolution will take place in exactly five years, he told me. He knew it before he left. And that, he continued, will be the beginning, the first terrestrial movement heralding the transformation of. (Theon didnt use the word supramental; he used to talk about the new world on earth.)2
0 1962-01-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights,yet perhaps one ought to, for half-knowledge is a powerful thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front of the true Truth. This new psychology looks to me very much like children learning some summary and not very adequate alphabet, exulting in putting their a-b-c-d of the subconscient and the mysterious underground super-ego together and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings (c-a-t cat, t-r-e-e tree) is the very heart of the real knowledge. They look from down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation of these things is above and not below, upari budhna esam. The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above. The self-chosen field of these psychologists is besides poor, dark and limited; you must know the whole before you can know the part and the highest before you can truly understand the lowest. That is the promise of the greater psychology awaiting its hour before which these poor gropings will disappear and come to nothing.4
Questioned about the meaning of these words, Mother said, "The state I was in was like a memory."
0 1962-02-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I always have the most acute experiences when I am getting ready to go down for the balcony [darshan]. Thats when they come, during the most prosaic part of daily life. When I am meditating or walking or even seeing someone, its different: physical things fade away, they lose their significance. But in this case, its when I am in the very midst of physical life.
It was odd this morning because on one side I felt (one sideits not even a side; I dont know how to explain, they are both together) the body was unwell, most unharmonious (someone in an ordinary consciousness would have said the body was ill, or at any rate very weak, very not at all in good condition), and simultaneously, in the SAME PHYSICAL SENSATION: a glory! A marvelous glory of blissfulness, joy, splendor! But how could the two be together?
0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
72The sign of dawning Knowledge is to feel that as yet I know little or nothing; and yet, if I could only know my knowledge, I already possess everything.
So, whats your question?
--
But each of these things must be practiced for months, patiently, almost stubbornly. You take the senses one after another: hearing, sight, and eventually even the subtle aspects of taste, smell and touch.
Its easier with the mind because we are more used to concentrating there. When you want to reflect and find a solution to something, instead of using mental deduction, you stop everything, focus on the idea or problem, and then concentrate, concentrate, intensifying the crux of the problem. You stop everything and wait until, through sheer intensity of concentration, a response comes. Learning that also demands a little time; but if you were ever a good student you have something of the aptitudeits not so very difficult.
0 1962-04-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Satprem
***
0 1962-04-28, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
Later on, there will be many things to tell for the Agenda.
0 1962-05-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
***
0 1962-05-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The first sign of the return to individuality was a prick of pain, a tiny point (Mother holds between her fingers a minuscule point in the space of her being). Yes, because I have a sore, a sore in a rather awkward place, and it hurts2 (Mother laughs). So I felt the pain: it was the sign of individuality coming back. Other than that, there was nothing any moreno body, no individual, no limits. But its strange, I have made a strange discovery3: I used to think it was the individual (Mother touches her body) who experienced pain and disabilities and all the misfortunes of human life; well, I perceived that what experiences misfortunes is not the individual not my body, but that each misfortune, each pain, each disability has its own individuality as it were, and each one represents a battle.
And my body is a world of battles.
0 1962-05-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is certainly at least one Tantric among them and a highly skilled Tantric, someone who knows his business. That, yesall the signs are there!
But how powerful are they outwardly? The people around that fellow [the fake Sri Aurobindo], who leveled all those reproaches at me, used to be in the Ashram they have since left. They were quite real. But the ones in the last group [in the most recent vision], I dont know I dont know them physically, so I cant say.
0 1962-05-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its quite odd, you know; pain is like the symbolic (and rather too concrete!) sign of life in the Ignorance.
And even there I have had an instant (but it was like a flash the flash of a new experience), an instant when pain disappeared into something else. It has happened three or four times. The pain suddenly became something completely different (not a pleasant sensation, not that at all): another state of consciousness.
--
I have even been forbidden to utilize my knowledge, power and force to annul the pain in the way I used to (and I used to do it very well). That has been totally forbidden. But I have seen that something else is in sight. Something else is in the making. It cant be called a miracle because its not a miracle, but its something wonderful the unknown. When will it come? How will it come? I dont know.
But its interesting.
0 1962-06-30, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In those movements of consciousness, in this state of consciousness, I am comfortable (Mother heaves a sigh). But it has taken me a lot of discipline to concentrate here [in the body]: there was always something, from my very childhood, that felt hemmed in, squeezed, really oh! And with a sense of something so powerful that if it ever went into action (gesture of unleashing), it would smash everything.
Now it has been tamed.
0 1962-07-04, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I try to make people understand this through a practical demonstration. You know, I very rarely appear to people in a form even vaguely similar to the one I physically I was about to say had! It always depends on what they are akin to, what theyre most intimate withall sorts of forms. And I try to make them comprehend that THAT form is just as much mine as this one (Mother touches her body). To tell the truth, it is much more truly mine. As for the true form the TRUE Formto bear the sight of it, one must be able to relate directly to the Supreme. So when people say, I want to see you, or I see you, they mean the aspect of mine they know. But these torrents of forms are ALL true, and most of them truer than this body has ever been. To my consciousness it was always, oh, so pitiably approximatea caricature! Not even a caricature: no resemblance at all.
It had its good qualities (I seem bent on speaking in the past tenseits spontaneous), qualities it was built and chosen for. For practical purposes, this body was very necessary, but when it comes to manifesting!
--
People say, He has lost consciousness. They made this assumption in N.S.s case because there were no vital signs and the consciousness in the body was reduced to a minimum; there was still some left (because it did react!), but it was a bare minimum, without much reacting powerhe wasnt an accomplished yogi, after all, only an apprentice yogi. It would have been entirely different, for instance, and far more serious, for someone who had practiced hatha yoga. But I mean to say that N.S. was here beside me, fully conscious, and could have moved on to another mode of manifestation without having to go through the throes of death thats not at all indispensable! Such is my experience, and I find it very important, tremendously important.
Besides, this is the first time it has happened. All those (like I.B., for example) who were hurled violently out of their bodies through an accident have, after a time, become conscious again the consciousness gathers itself back together. But N.S.s consciousness never scattered, he never lost consciousness.
0 1962-07-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was sheer splendor, a dazzling sight! And when the revelation was gone and only the memory of this brilliance remained (which I still have), I wondered, What was there in those words: to die unto death? It was glorious, mon petit: to die unto death. But what I said is nothing.
When you said it, I felt it held a secret.
0 1962-07-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Good. It will come; its a good sign. I was very pleased: Ah, something is happening!
It will come.
0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I know very well that Bengal is not really ready. The spiritual flood which has come is for the most part a new form of the old. It is not the real transformation. However this too was needed. Bengal has been awakening in itself the old yogas and exhausting their samskaras [old habitual tendencies], extracting their essence and with it fertilizing the soil. At first it was the time of VedantaAdwaita, Sannyasa, Shankaras Maya and the rest. It is now the turn of Vaishnava DharmaLila, love, the intoxication of emotional experience. All this is very old, unfitted for the new age and will not endure for such excitement has no capacity to last. But the merit of the Vaishnava Bhava [emotional enthusiasm] is that it keeps a connexion between God and the world and gives a meaning to life; but since it is a partial bhava the whole connexion, the full meaning is not there. The tendency to create sects which you have noticed was inevitable. The nature of the mind is to take a part and call it the whole and exclude all other parts. The Siddha [illuminated being] who brings the bhava, although he leans on its partial aspect, yet keeps some knowledge of the integral whole, even though he may not be able to give it form. But his disciples do not get that knowledge precisely because it is not in a form. They are tying up their little bundles, let them. The bundles will open of themselves when God manifests himself fully. These things are the signs of incompleteness and immaturity. I am not disturbed by them. Let the force of spirituality play in the country in whatever way and in as many sects as may be. Afterwards we shall see. This is the infancy or the embryonic condition of the new age. It is a first hint, not even the beginning.
The peculiarity of this yoga is that until there is siddhi above the foundation does not become perfect. Those who have been following my course had kept many of the old samskaras; some of them have dropped away, but others still remain. There was the samskara of Sannyasa, even the wish to create an Aravinda Math [Sri Aurobindo monastery]. Now the intellect has recognized that Sannyasa is not what is wanted, but the stamp of the old idea has not yet been effaced from the prana [breath, life energy]. And so there was next this talk of remaining in the midst of the world, as a man of worldly activities and yet a man of renunciation. The necessity of renouncing desire has been understood, but the harmony of renunciation of desire with enjoyment of Ananda has not been rightly seized by the mind. And they took up my Yoga because it was very natural to the Bengali temperament, not so much from the side of Knowledge as from the side of Bhakti and Karma [Works]. A little knowledge has come in, but the greater part has escaped; the mist of sentimentalism has not been dissipated, the groove of the sattwic bhava [religious fervor] has not been broken. There is still the ego. I am not in haste, I allow each to develop according to his nature. I do not want to fashion all in the same mould. That which is fundamental will indeed be one in all, but it will express itself in many forms. Everybody grows, forms from within. I do not want to build from outside. The basis is there, the rest will come.
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Now let me discuss some particular points of your letter. I do not want to say much in this letter about what you have written as regards your yoga. We shall have better occasion when we meet. To look upon the body as a corpse is a sign of Sannyasa, of the path of Nirvana. You cannot be of the world with this idea. You must have delight in all thingsin the Spirit as well as in the body. The body has consciousness, it is Gods form. When you see God in everything that is in the world, when you have this vision that all this is Brahman, Sarvamidam Brahma, that Vasudeva is all thisVasudevah sarvamiti then you have the universal delight. The flow of that delight precipitates and courses even through the body. When you are in such a state, full of the spiritual consciousness, you can lead a married life, a life in the world. In all your works you find the expression of Gods delight. So far I have been transforming all the objects and perceptions of the mind and the senses into delight on the mental level. Now they are taking the form of the supramental delight. In this condition is the perfect vision and perception of Sachchidananda.
You write about the Deva Samgha and say, I am not a god, I am only a piece of much hammered and tempered iron. No one is a God but in each man there is a God and to make Him manifest is the aim of divine life. That we can all do. I recognize that there are great and small adharas [vessels]. I do not accept, however, your description of yourself as accurate. Still whatever the nature of the vessel, once the touch of God is upon it, once the spirit is awake, great and small and all that does not make much difference. There may be more difficulties, more time may be taken, there may be a difference in the manifestation, but even about that there is no certainty. The God within takes no account of these hindrances and deficiencies. He breaks his way out. Was the amount of my failings a small one? Were there less obstacles in my mind and heart and vital being and body? Did it not take time? Has God hammered me less? Day after day, minute after minute, I have been fashioned into I know not whether a god or what. But I have become or am becoming something. That is sufficient, since God wanted to build it. It is the same as regards everyone. Not our strength but the Shakti of God is the sadhaka [worker] of this yoga.
Let me tell you in brief one or two things about what I have long seen. My idea is that the chief cause of the weakness of India is not subjection nor poverty, nor the lack of spirituality or dharma [ethics] but the decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the motherl and of Knowledge. Everywhere I see inability or unwillingness to thinkthought-incapacity or thought-phobia. Whatever may have been in the middle ages, this state of things is now the sign of a terrible degeneration. The middle age was the night, the time of the victory of ignorance. The modern world is the age of the victory of Knowledge. Whoever thinks most, seeks most, labors most, can fathom and learn the truth of the world, and gets so much more Shakti. If you look at Europe, you will see two things: a vast sea of thought and the play of a huge and fast-moving and yet disciplined force. The whole Shakti of Europe is in that. And in the strength of that Shakti it has been swallowing up the world, like the tapaswins [ascetics] of our ancient times, by whose power even the gods of the world were terrified, held in suspense and subjection. People say Europe is running into the jaws of destruction. I do not think so. All these revolutions and upsettings are the preconditions of a new creation.
Then look at India. Except for some solitary giants, everywhere there is your simple man, that is, the average man who does not want to think and cannot think, who has not the least Shakti but only a temporary excitement. In India, you want the simple thought, the easy word. In Europe they want the deep thought, the deep word; there even an ordinary laborer or artisan thinks, wants to know, is not satisfied with surface things but wants to go behind. But there is still this difference: there is a fatal limitation in the strength and thought of Europe. When it comes into the spiritual field, its thought-power can no longer move ahead. There Europe sees everything as riddlenebulous metaphysics, yogic hallucination. They rub their eyes as in smoke and can see nothing clear. Still, some effort is being made in Europe to surmount even this limitation. We already have the spiritual sensewe owe it to our forefa thersand whoever has that sense has at his disposal such Knowledge and Shakti as with one breath might blow away all the huge power of Europe like a blade of grass. But to get that Shakti one must be a worshiper of Shakti. We are not worshipers of Shakti. We are worshipers of the easy way. But Shakti is not to be had by the easy way. Our forefa thers dived into a sea of vast thought and gained a vast Knowledge and established a mighty civilization. As they went on in their way, fatigue and weariness came upon them. The force of thought diminished and with it also the strong current of Shakti. Our civilization has become an achalayatana [prison], our religion a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light or a momentary wave of religious intoxication. And so long as this sort of thing continues, any permanent resurgence of India is improbable
0 1962-08-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive had this great formative power ever since my earliest childhood, but I had channeled it and stopped it because I considered it useless. But it came back recently, along with the sure sign that it was coming from the very highest origin: This is it, this is how things will be. But thats for later, of course. To our external reason, those things seem totally unrealizable, but they will be realizable in perhaps a few hundred years, I dont knowits the future being prepared. And indeed, that vision has a tremendous power of creation and realization, and it is always felt physically (the rest is very still), its always physical. But it triggered a kind of very rapid movement of the physical consciousness (within the most material substance), and caused a dislocation. And so2 the day before yesterday, that old formation suddenly returned and made me understand one aspect of the bodys nature, the way the body is CONSTRUCTED and the usefulness of that construction. So now things are all right. It has been one more step.
But when you receive those bad vibrations affecting your body,3 are they exhausted by your accepting them?
0 1962-09-05, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But that results from yoga. It may be developed over lifetimes, or it may be accomplished in one lifetime, if one is ready for it. To tell the truth, it is the important part: to get through that lid at the top of the skull which keeps you shut in; theres a kind of cover there you have to get rid of. If you can do it, its the sure sign that the time is ripe and you are ready for yogayoga, I mean Sri Aurobindos yoga.
The other things, exteriorization and so forth, are innate, just as some people are born artists or painters or aviators. Its one of Natures special combinations. Ive known some downright stupid girls who could exteriorize remarkably well and be fully conscious of their experiences in the subtle physical or the mind or the material vital (when one is undeveloped its more often in the material vital than the subtle physical). And they would tell you all about what they saw. But incapable of yoga.
0 1962-09-26, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is no longer a play BETWEEN oneself and things, its. Truly, the sign of the Supermind is Oneness. Not a sum of a lot of different things, but, on the contrary, a Oneness at play with Itself. Theres nothing of the way gods relate to each other and the world, for they are still part of the realm of diversity, though FREE from Ignorance. They dont have Ignorance, they dont have what we human beings have here. They have no Ignorance, they have no Unconsciousness, but they have the sense of diversity and of separation.
What about Sri Aurobindos experience at Alipore, then? You know, that well-known experience when he saw Narayana in the prisoners, Narayana in the guards, Narayana everywhere?
--
Sri Aurobindo didnt put too much emphasis on the Overmind. The one significant point is that the Overmind has ruled the world through the different religions. And it is the dwelling place of all the gods, all the beings humans have made into gods in their religions. Those beings exist in their own world, and some humans, coming in touch with them, have been overwhelmed by their powers and their superiority, and have made gods and religions out of them.
But its better not to emphasize this [in your book]. As I have said, we can bypass that plane, or even pass through without knowing it. It interested me to read in the Vedas that if you dont ascend the way youre supposed to, if you try to bypass the gods, then unpleasant things happen to you and your way is blockeddo you remember that?1 That gives you an idea of what it is. Its like an intermediary zone, far superior to the earth, but still intermediary. Some have tried to cross it without stopping; and there, they say, you run into trouble. Personally, I am not sure, I can only speak of my own experience: there was always a sense of fraternityas you can imagine! I knew them, I was on friendly terms with them, so there was no question of bypassing them or not!
0 1962-10-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the same when I look at people: I dont see them as they see themselves, I see them with the vibration of all the forces that are in them and pass through them, and quite frequently with the supreme Vibration of the Presence. And thats why my physical sight is not exactly failing, but changing in character, for the physical precision that normal physical sight gives is its false for me. Instinctively (not because I think of it that way), thats how it Is. So I no longer have the precision of a vision de signed to see just the superficial crust of things.
But this doesnt keep me from seeing physicallyalthough, yes, it does at times make me unsure of whos in front of me, because I see a vibration that is sometimes very similar, almost identical, in three or four people (who arent all necessarily present, but anyway). So theres a slight external difference theres a very great external difference in the way the form looks, of course, but in the combination of vibrations theres only a slight external difference. And so sometimes I am not sure, I dont know whether its this person or that one; thats why I often ask, Whos there? Its not that I dont see anything, but I dont see in the same way.
0 1962-10-16, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Had you asked me this question a week ago, I would unhesitatingly have said buried and advised people not to do it too quickly, to wait for external signs of decomposition.
Now, because of this, I cant say any more. I just cant say.
0 1962-11-10, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother listens to Satprem read a chapter from his manuscript entitled "Under the sign of the Gods," in which he speaks of the overmind's inadequacy for attaining the plenitude of evolution, Afterwards, Mother tells what she saw while he was reading.)
Theres a kind of cadence.
0 1962-11-17, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That was the impression: a very localized disease (anyone can catch it, but its still very localized). While here, this conflict seems to have FUNDAMENTALLY disrupted somethingprofoundly. Is it because people THINK it may have a global consequence? I dont know. Or is it truly the first sign of something very very momentous?
(silence)
--
August 15th is my own birthday and it is naturally gratifying to me that it should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition. Indeed, on this day I can watch almost all the world-movements which I hoped to see fulfilled in my lifetime, though then they looked like impracticable dreams, arriving at fruition or on their way to achievement. In all these movements free India may well play a large part and take a leading position.
The first of these dreams was a revolutionary movement which would create a free and united India. India today is free but she has not achieved unity. () The old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. Indias internal development and prosperity may be impeded, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny impaired or even frustrated. This must not be; the partition must go.8 ()
0 1962-12-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This B. seems to have had the idea that the perfect man, the immortal man, would be spherical! And then Thon always used to say (he told me the whole story himself): I told him it wasnt possible, it would be too impracticalpeople couldnt kiss! His idea of a joke. Thon also told me that when B. came to Tlemcen (they first met in Egypt, then again in Tlemcen), he saw the house Thon was building and asked, Why is your house painted red? Does it have some mystical significance? And Thon replied, No, its because red goes well with green! So you get the picture. But I dont remember his name any more; in his time he was very well known, he was a contemporary of the fellow who wrote The Great Initiates.
Schur?
0 1962-12-19, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And interestingly enough, as I told you last time, it follows my bodys experience quite closely and regularly. There are so many sides to the problem, you see, so many ways of approaching the problem and attempting the transformation, and it [the book] seems to follow very, very well. Its interesting. Your book, and also my translation and yet they are so different! But of course, the experience itself is very, very diverse, multifaceted, with all sorts of side roads or forks, tiny little signs on the way, simply as cluesa whole world!
And I see clearly that trying to formulate it would spoil everything. You really cant formulate a curve until you come to the end of itotherwise, you spoil its course.
0 1963-01-12, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what made him lose his eye sight, you know; his eyes were overstrained. I know its due to that, because I heard him say so. Once, they had brought him a stack of books to sign and other things and, unaware that he could be heard, he exclaimed, Oh, they want to make me blind!1 Thats how I knew his eyes were tired. He was indeed losing his sight. At the end, he couldnt see a thing, he had to look at very close range.
So I am not giving in.
--
Ive had a very interesting experience (not personal). Did you know Benjamin3? His psychic being had left him quite some time ago and, as a result, to the surface consciousness he seemed a bit derangedhe wasnt deranged but diminished. And he lived, as I said, out of habit. The physical consciousness still held a minimum of vital and mind and he lived out of habit. But the remarkable thing is that sometimes, for a few seconds, he would live admirably, in full light, while at other times he couldnt even control his gestures. Then he left altogether: all the accumulated energy dwindled little by little, little by little, and whatever remained left his body. It was just on his birthday, on December 30 (the night of December 30). He left. So they did as is always done: they cleaned his room, took out the furniture. Since then, there had been no sign of him. Yesterday evening, after dinner (which is about the same time he left twelve days ago), I was in concentration, resting, when suddenly here comes a very agitated Benjamin who tells me, Mother, theyve taken all the furniture out of my room! What am I to do now!? I told him gently, Do not fret, you dont need anything any more. Then I put him to rest and sent him to join the rest of his being.
Which means it took twelve days for all his elements to form again. You see, they burned his body. (He was Christian, but his familyhis wife is alive and his brother toofound it less costly to let us handle it than to bury him as a Christian! So they had him cremated.) We cremated him, but I demanded a certain interval of time,4 although in his case it was really a gradual exhaustion and nothing much remained in his body; nonetheless, even then the consciousness is flung out of the cells violentlyit took twelve days to form again. It wasnt his soul (it had already left) but the spirit of his body that came to me, the body consciousness gathered in a well-dressed, neat Benjamin with his hair neatly brushed. He was quite trim when he came to me, just as he would have been in life: he always wanted to be well-groomed and impeccable to see me, that was his way. It took twelve days to gather together because I didnt see to it (I can do it in a few hours but only if I see to it), but in his case, his soul having been at rest for a long time, it didnt matter much. So over twelve days it took form again and when he was ready (laughing), he came to reoccupy his room! And there was no furniture left, nothing!
0 1963-02-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Anyhow, its good, I am very glad for her [Sujata], its a very good sign.
***
0 1963-03-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
84The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained or do not yet know, or the means of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracles is the sign that mans ascent is not yet finished.
85It is rationality and prudence to distrust the supernatural; but to believe in it is also a sort of wisdom.
0 1963-03-30, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what I meant, his physical presence was the sign of Security taking root, but the world wasnt ready. So, as the effect of his presence kept increasing, it brought about an increasing contradictionan increasing OPPOSITION.
***
0 1963-04-22, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
***
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signed: Satprem
A gift from the Ashram's businessmen.
0 1963-04-25, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Satprem
***
0 1963-04-29, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Satprem
***
0 1963-05-11, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But where does the significance of figures come from?
The deeper significance of figures There are countless traditions, countless scriptures which I took great care not to follow. But the deeper significance of figures came to me in Tlemcen, when I was in the Overmind. I dont remember the names Thon used to give to those various worlds, but it was a world that corresponded to the highest and most luminous regions of Sri Aurobindos Overmind. It was above, just above the gods region. And it was something in accord with the Overmind creation the earth under the gods influence. That was where figures took on a living meaning for menot a mental speculation: a living meaning. That was where Madame Thon recognized me, because of the formation of twelve pearls she saw above my head; and she told me, You are that because you have this. Only that can have this! (Mother laughs) It hadnt even remotely occurred to me, thank God!
But figures are alive for me. They have a concrete reality.
0 1963-06-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He came to earth in America (thats already a sign), but his parents are Indians. Entirely conceived and formed, all nine months, in America. And born in America. He spent the first four or five months of his life in America.
His mother, before marrying, told me, I will have a child only when I want it and, I hope, in the way I want it. It was no accident.
0 1963-06-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is no sign of powers in the photo, but if he has any over people, it must be a vital power.
He is not a great mind; he doesnt go beyond the idealistic intellect. But thats more than enough for people, because true spiritual power is completely above their headsof course, they are very sensitive to a little bit of vital power, mental-vital.
0 1963-06-26b, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Sujata
***
0 1963-06-29, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was her sincerity that made her see the spots. And it was because she disclosed what she had seen that the guard was unable to stop her, because it was the sign of a power of inner sincerity.
It left me a bit pensive in the sense that I dont find it quite admissible that some persons [the false Mother] play that kind of gamethough I know it does happen, I know there are such persons.
0 1963-07-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I can still see Sri Aurobindo, a little taller than me, and myself bent forward and smiling, pointing to the left, and he said, Yes. And I could see I saw lots of people. Because its a strange thing, the eye sight is absolutely different (its in the subtle physical), the sight is absolutely different from physical sight: you see thousands of miles away and very near at the same time, and distance is implied only by a given place in the atmosphere (I dont know how to explain this), but whats far away is as near from the standpoint of action as whats very close by. You see, the action is just as concrete and close, but it is as though differently placed (Mother shows different levels in the atmosphere). I never gave it a thought, but probably in that activity of the subtle physical we are physically much taller, I think; yet the proportions remain the same; but things are smaller [than Mother or Sri Aurobindo]. Its the same for going up or down, it doesnt have the meaning it has here. And that country I was pointing to was to the left, a little not backward, a little forward and lower down, like this (gesture).
Sri Aurobindo was very tall there. But I, too, was tall.
0 1963-07-17, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A few days afterwards, as Satprem was referring to these "constructions," Mother interrupted him with this observation: "Last night, it wasn't that way! I spent more than an hour in all the possible theosophical groups, and they had magnificent buildings! They were rather old (!), but magnificent anyway, with gardens, halls, auditoriumsmagnificent places. But there was no sign of any new construction. It was solid with hundreds and hundreds of very busy people. I was there for more than two hours. Which means there are places where no construction is going onpeople live in what has already been built."
Mother is referring to her own answer in the form of help or action.
0 1963-07-27, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And lovely! A lovely thing. The sight of it filled me with joyso happy, so happy, he seemed to be saying, At last I am with you! I wont budge now, no one can take me away. This small.
I told you the story of the other one who came to be operated on and died2 (that makes two in a row, among our best workers). The other one had an important government position and did us some incredible services (he was a very intelligent man and had been chief justice for a very long time), he was very helpful and full of faith and devotion. This one [M.] had even promised to lend some money, but he died just beforea few days before he was due to give it!3 But the first one was a conscious, highly mentalized being, with a very well-formed mental being; he knew a lot and he told me, I am very conscious and now I know that I am fully alive and fully conscious, so I dont want an impotent body that constantly requires someone to nurse it or move it around. I prefer to change. He asked me to find him a good one (!) This one didnt ask to take a new body, but the last thing he said (afterwards, he was paralyzed) was: I must live, because I want to give ten lakhs of rupees to the Mother. And he left with thatso an appropriate body has to be found.
0 1963-08-10, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The last experience (which Ive had these last few days), in which apparently there was a hitch (it wasnt really one) was a sort of demonstration. I told you what it was, you remember: its like a purge of all the vibrations that are false vibrations, that arent the pure and simple response to the supreme Influence (all that in the cells still responds to the vibrations of falsehood, either from habit or from the people around or the food takenfifty thousand things). Then, with an aspiration or a decision, almost a prayer for purification coming from the body, something happens which, naturally, upsets the balance; the imbalance in turn brings about a general discomfort. The form discomfort takes is habitually the same: first, pains and all kinds of sensations I need not describe; if that state goes on developing, if it is allowed to assume its full proportions, it results in the past it resulted in a faint. But this time, I followed the process for about two hours from the moment I got up: the struggle between the new balance, the new Influence that was getting established, and the resistance of all the existing elements forced to go away. That created a sort of conflict. The consciousness remained very clear the consciousness of the BODY remained very clear, very quiet, perfectly trusting. So for two hours I was able to follow the process (while going on with all my usual activities, without changing anything), until I felt, or rather was told sufficiently clearly that the Lord wanted my body to be completely immobile for a while so that He might complete His work. But I am not all alone: there are other people here to help me and watch over everything (but I dont say or explain anything to them, those are things I dont talk about I dont say what goes on, I dont say anything), so I sat there wondering, Is it really and truly indispensable? (Mother laughs) Then I felt the Lord exert a little more pressure, which heightened the intensity of the conflict, so that I had all the signs of fainting I understood (!) I stood up, let my body moan a little to make it plain it didnt feel too well (!) and I stretched out. Then I was immobile, and in that immobility, I saw the work that was being donea work that cannot be done if you go on moving about. I saw the work. It took nearly half an hour; in half an hour it was over. Which means there is really there is a fact I cannot doubt, even if all the surrounding thoughts and forces contradict it: I cannot doubt that the consciousness is increasing more and more the consciousness in the body. It is growing more and more precise, luminous, exactQUIETvery peaceful. Yet very conscious of a TREMENDOUS battle against millennial habits. Do you follow?
When it was over, I saw that even physically, bodily, there is a strength: the result is an increased strength. A very clearly increased strength.
--
And I saw for Sri Aurobindo (although he hadnt yet started this systematic transformation; but still, he was constantly pulling the supramental force down into his body), even in his case, it took five days to show the first slight sign of decomposition. I would have kept his body longer, but the government always meddles in other peoples business, naturally, and they pestered me awfully, saying it was forbidden to keep a body so long and that we should So when the body began to (whats the word?) shrinkit was shrinking and contracting, that is, dehydrating then we had to do it. He had had enough time to come out, since almost everything came into my bodyalmost everything that was material came into my body.
But the question arose for this body [Mothers], just to see, you know. And I saw all kinds of things, and finally the answer was always the same (you see, the problem was presented to me to enable me to understand the situation in all its aspects and see the necessities), that naturally everything would be for the best! (Laughing) Without a doubt. But I mean it was presented very concretely and, I could say, very personally to make me understand the problem. And there was that old thing I was told the other day (old, that is, a few days old! i: I was told that THE CELLS THEMSELVES would be given a free choice. So the conclusion of all that meditation was that there must be a new element in the consciousness of the cellular aggregatesa new element a new experience that must be in progress. The result: last night, I had a series of fantastic cellular experiences, which I cannot even explain and which must be the beginning of a new revelation.
0 1963-08-13b, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
***
0 1963-08-24, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, we can only conceive of things changing from one to another: you grow young again, all the signs of aging disappear and so on thats old hat, thats not how it works. Thats not it!
Once, I remember, my body was feeling sorry for itself like a child, it was bemoaning its condition, when it heard a voicean awesome voice that said to it, Why dont you feel yourself AS YOU ARE? And that experience followed but it lasted a second. A second, a flash.
0 1963-10-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here is what happened: I do my usual bath of the Lord and it is arranged that, after a time, Champaklal opens the doorwhich signals to me the end of the visit. So I looked at X, just to see (I had looked at him several times before, but there was nothing particular), I looked at him and saw in front of him a sort of mass of substance, not material but responsive to a mental formation, which means that mental thought and will can make this substance take different shapes I know it (Mother makes a gesture of fingering the substance), its very like the sort of substance mediums use for their apparitions (less material, more mental, but anyway the same kind). There was a sort of mass in front of him, which was hiding him; it wasnt luminous, not black either, but dark enough. So I looked at it, STARED at it to see what it was, and as I was staring, I saw that there was a will or an effort to give that mass of substance a shape. It was exactly in front of Xs head and shoulders. And there was a will to give it a shape (gesture of molding). As I stared very carefully, it took the shape of Sri Aurobindos head as it appears in newspapers and magazines (what I call the popular Sri Aurobindo, as he is shown in books), the substance took that form. Immediately I thought (ironic tone), Oh, its the popular form, that doesnt resemble him! And instantly, the substance rearranged itself and took the form of Cartier-Bressons Sri Aurobindo1 (the three-quarter face photo, where he is seated in his armchair). That was better! (Mother holds back a chuckle) It wasnt yet quite good, but anyway it was better (although, mind you, it had neither light nor life: it was mattera subtle matter, of courseput into shape by a mental will). So I began to wonder: Whatever is this?! Does he want me to believe that Sri Aurobindo is in him, or what? Because Xs head and shoulders had completely disappeared, there was nothing left but that. And I thought (not a strong thought, just a reflection): No, its not very good, really not very lifelike! (Mother laughs) Then there was a last attempt and it became very like the photo that was taken when he left his body (that photo which we stood on end and called Meditation), it was very like the photo, (in an ironic tone) a very good likeness. And it stayed. So I thought, Oh yes! This is the photo.
Then I concentrated just a little and thought, Lets see, now. Whom is he trying to delude? And instantly, everything vanished. And I saw X, his head.
0 1963-10-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are some signs. Some signs before which ordinary people would marvel and rejoice but which to me are far from sufficient.
No, concerning government, the issue is still undecided, and yet Only, there are so many things that tend, that draw near, and then they go off at a tangent thats the trouble, for when they go off at a tangent, then they go very far away (gesture showing the possibility coming very close to crossing History, then moving away along an immense circle backward, to return again) and they take a very long time to return.3
--
So how many HOW MANY consciousnesses must there be, what quantity, if we may say (intensity, there is: off and on it shines like stars), what is the mass of consciousnesses necessary to enable this new world to come down on earth? Otherwise, what would happen to it? It would be swallowed up. Like in 60, when I saw the supramental forces descend (mon petit, what a sight it was! They were descending, it was stupendous, marvelous; they were like torrents, you felt as though they were going to inundate everything), and then, from below, there rose up great, dark blue masses like this, and they went vroof! (gesture of engulfing) And everything was swallowed up.
So it would be the same thing PHYSICALLY, you understand.
0 1963-10-26, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So that must be a good sign, mustnt it?
Yes, but It shakes people a little.
--
So much so that, for example, one KNOWS one has a violent fever (the thing comes with a violent fever, a violent reaction), yet there is no sign of fever! I had the experience three or four times; I had those things that bring on bouts of violent fever, and when the doctor came, I asked him, Doctor, do I have a fever? (I knew very well I had a fever, I didnt need to ask him! One of those fevers that make you run a very high temperature; but then there was that immobility I had summoned.) The doctor feels my pulse: No, youre fine!
Of course, one can imitate this mentally, but its only an imitation. What I mean is something else, which has nothing to do with mental will(laughing) maybe its a gift from the Lord, I dont know!
0 1963-11-27, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are landmarks of that kind. I had told you, you remember, how that great Asura (who in fact was the first born; its for him that I had built a subtle body) had said he was going to China and that Chinas revolution (a long time ago!) would signal the beginning of the work of transformation of the earth.1 Those things are like milestones on a road, and the Chinese revolution was like the first milestone, opening up the road. Well, Kennedys assassination is one of those signs, one of the landmarks Ive been told this.
(silence)
0 1963-12-14, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The way the world is now physically organized, with the difference and specialization in the forms, in sexes, encourages a kind of opposition between the two poles, the union of which results in creation. So, naturally, each pole has enormous difficulty understanding the other (although it thinks and believes it does), especially understanding the pole I place underneath (gesture signifying the basis of the world), which is the effectively creative pole, that is to say, what is expressed by woman. She feels very well that without this (gesture above) the full understanding isnt there; but this, which is above, doesnt AT ALL understand the creative power of that which is belowit knows it in principle, but doesnt understand it. And there is a lack of adaptation, a sort of conflict, which shouldnt exist. It never existedneverbetween Sri Aurobindo and me, but I could see it didnt exist because he had adopted the attitude of complete surrender to the eternal Mother (the stage, in the creation, of complete surrender). I would see it, and it embarrassed me! It embarrassed me, I thought, But why does he think he has to do that (laughing), as if I couldnt understand! On the contrary, I thirst for the other attitude for identifying myself this way instead of that way (Mother presses her fist upward against her hand above): for identifying myself from below upward instead of from above downward. It was an aspiration, which has been there almost for eternities for the universal creative Force to identify itself with the Creator. And to identify itself not through the descent of the Creator, but through the ascent of the Force the conscious ascent. But Sri Aurobindo willed it that way, so it was that way and then I was very busy with my work. For the thirty years we lived together, it went on that way, perfectly smoothly; and I kept my aspiration quiet because I knew that it was his will. But since he left and I was obliged to do his work, so to speak, things have changed. But I didnt in the least want the Creator, because of my taking up the work, to be obliged to adapt himself to the creative Force (that wont do at all!), and my whole aspiration has been for the creative Force to consciously BECOME the Creator. Its becoming increasingly that way. And at the last meeting [with Sri Aurobindo], for a time (not the whole time, but some time), it was that way. Then I understood; it made me understand the play of all the forces in the two elements the two polesand how they could be joined, through what process that opposition could disappear so that the total Being might exist.
Were on the way. And its growing clearer and clearer. It will be tremendously interesting. But thats for later on.
0 1963-12-25, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Only, these nights are a little tiring. Nights of work, of struggle. And then during the day, there is that avalanche of people and things. If you dont go mad, its a sure sign you had no predisposition to madness! (Mother laughs)
Well.
0 1963-12-29, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
***
0 1964-01-29, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Doubt, discouragement, diminution or loss of faith, waning of the vital enthusiasm for the ideal, perplexity and a baffling of the hope for the future are the common features of the difficulty. In the world outside there are much worse symptoms such as the general increase of cynicism, a refusal to believe in anything at all, a decrease of honesty, an immense corruption, a preoccupation with food, money, comfort, pleasure, to the exclusion of higher things, and a general expectation of worse and worse things awaiting the world. All that, however acute, is a temporary phenomenon for which those who know anything about the workings of the world-energy and the workings of the Spirit were prepared. I myself foresaw that this worst would come, the darkness of night before the dawn; therefore I am not discouraged. I know what is preparing behind the darkness and can see and feel the first signs of its coming. Those who seek for the Divine have to stand firm and persist in their seeking; after a time, the darkness will fade and begin to disappear and the Light will come.
(XXVI.169-170, April 9, 1947)
0 1964-02-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That photograph was clearer than the others, less confusedit was clearer. And I looked at all the details, thinking, A pity the boxes werent open, the books could have been seen, it would have looked better. In other words, I looked at the photo attentively and saw all the details, the different intensities of shade and light: it wasnt just a passing glance. Then I went on looking up to the end of the book and gave it to someone to look at. Naturally, the first thing that someone said to me was, You dont quite get an impression of Paris. I said, True, but there was one photo that gave a very good impression of Paris: that of the bouquinistes on the banks of the Seine. He looked surprised; so I said, Of course! I took the book and started turning the pages. I turned all the pagesmy photo wasnt there! So I thought, Ive missed it (I was looking without my magnifying glass), I must have missed it. I took my magnifying glass, turned all the pages starting from the other end, very carefullynothing! No bouquinistes. I turned the pages a third time (Mother laughs), still no bouquinistes! I said to myself, Theres an aberration somewhere something that makes me turn two pages at a time or that veils my sight. So I said, All right, Ill look tomorrow morning, and I put the book aside.
The next morning I was alone, concentrating I concentrated a lot, saying to myself, I do not want to be under an illusion, I do not want to be fooled by something. I had seen the photo as clearly as I saw it, I looked at it for several MINUTES. Which is to say that I am absolutely sure of what I saw.
--
Ill have to find the way to organize this new type of experience and make use of it but I need to know how it comes about! Because when I was looking at those pictures, I wasnt at all in a special state, I was looking at them somewhat superficially I was finding them hm! I saw their effort to be artistic and I found the perspectives from which the photos were taken interesting, but thats all. The subjects except for the angler (there were more than four anglers in the book, mon petit!) and people sleeping in the street, things of that sort. And then people kissing everywhere: on chairs, on the banks of the Seine, on benches, in swings in amusement parks. And rather vulgar. But the photos, the patches of light and shadewell taken. I didnt want to tire my eyes reading those peoples literature, but it must be very modern probably there were some authors signatures! The signature alone was the portrait of the individual: pretentious, affected.
The atmosphere of Paris is unbreathable. When I returned to France, first I fell sick, and then that atmosphere
--
98Revelation is the direct sight, the direct hearing or inspired memory of Truth, drishti, shruti, smriti; it is the highest experience and always accessible to renewed experience. Not because God spoke it, but because the soul saw it, is the word of the Scriptures our supreme authority.
I presume this is in reply to the biblical belief in Gods Commandments received by Moses, which the Lord is supposed to have uttered Himself and Moses is supposed to have heardits a roundabout way (Mother laughs) to say its not possible!
0 1964-02-26, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This morning, it hurt a little, but I said, Its nothing, it MUST NOT be that it has come bothers me. Its a sign that the descent is too strong. So if we have to wait another four years1968
And whats going to come? Itll be like a perfectly innocuous little rain! Which probably will not even be perceptible for the ordinary consciousness.
Maybe the work would go faster if instead of burdening me with such superficial choressending blessings, signing photographs
Yes! Oh yes, indeed!
0 1964-03-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a story told by the Muslims, I think (but I am not sure). Jesus is said to have raised people from the dead, made the dumb speak, restored sight to the blind until he was brought an idiot to be made intelligentand Jesus ran away!
Afterwards, people asked him, Why did you run away? He answered, I can do anythingexcept give intelligence to an idiot. (laughter)
0 1964-03-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
101In Gods sight there is no near or distant, no present, past or future. These things are only a convenient perspective for His world-picture.
102To the senses it is always true that the sun moves round the earth; this is false to the reason. To the reason it is always true that the earth moves round the sun; this is false to the supreme vision. Neither earth moves nor sun; there is only a change in the relation of sun-consciousness and earth-consciousness.
0 1964-03-29, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
(Two lines from Savitri sent along with this note, on the occasion of March 29, the date when Mother and Sri Aurobindo first met fifty years earlier:)
0 1964-04-08, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And this poor body says to the Lord, Tell me! Tell me. If I am to last, if I am to live, thats fine, but tell me so I may endure. I dont care about suffering and I am ready to suffer, as long as this suffering isnt a sign given me that I should prepare to go. Thats how it is, thats how the body is. Of course, it could be expressed with other words, but thats it. When you suffer, for instance, when the body suffers, it wonders why, it asks, Is there something I have to endure and overcome in order to be ready to continue my work, or is it a more or less roundabout way to tell me that I am coming undone and I am going to disappear? Because it rightly says, My attitude would be differentif I am to go, well, Ill completely stop bothering about myself, or about whats going on or anything; if I am to stay, I will have courage and endurance, I wont budge.
But it isnt even told that I havent yet been able to obtain a clear answer.
0 1964-04-23, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont know whats going on, but all your letters arrive opencensored in India?? Its the third letter from you that has arrived like that, open, with the envelope half torn. Apart from that, the contract with Corra has been signed and they will publish the book in September, without cuts, 4,000 copies. They wanted to put me on television for an interview about this book, imagine! But I refusedthose advertising organizations are as full of falsehood as all the rest. They also wanted my photo; I told them it would be in bad taste to stick my photo in a book on Sri Aurobindo. Anyway, its done, the book will be published. I am writing to Mother to tell her (its my second letter).
My own little mother looks so much younger and radianttruly a natural, living soul, a living force.
0 1964-04-25, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here is your second letter. I didnt answer the first one because of my eye, which needed complete rest. Now its better. But I immediately asked Sujata to write you that Id rather not have my photo published in the book, and that regarding Sri Aurobindos, the first one seemed to me the best.1 Now, if the contract is signed, there is nothing to add.
Yesterday, the 24th, there was a meditation.2 It was intense and formulated itself thus:
--
signed: Mother
Sri Aurobindo standing, looking towards the future (from the portrait by the Dutch painter).
0 1964-05-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
Not Satprem's, but the expression of a general skepticism.
0 1964-06-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
A charming Buddhist and a disciple of Mother, a specialist in Pali and member of the French School of the Far East: Suzanne Karpels.
0 1964-06-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
***
0 1964-07-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The one safety for man lies in learning to live from within outward, not depending on institutions and machinery to perfect him, but out of his growing inner perfection availing to shape a more perfect form and frame of life; for by this inwardness we shall best be able both to see the truth of the high things which we now only speak with our lips and form into outward intellectual constructions, and to apply their truth sincerely to all our outward living. If we are to found the kingdom of God in humanity, we must first know God and see and live the diviner truth of our being in ourselves; otherwise how shall a new manipulation of the constructions of the reason and scientific systems of efficiency which have failed us in the past, avail to establish it? It is because there are plenty of signs that the old error continues and only a minority, leaders perhaps in light, but not yet in action, are striving to see more clearly, inwardly and truly, that we must expect as yet rather the last twilight which divides the dying from the unborn age than the real dawning. For a time, since the mind of man is not yet ready, the old spirit and method may yet be strong and seem for a short while to prosper; but the future lies with the men and nations who first see beyond both the glare and the dusk the gods of the morning and prepare themselves to be fit instruments of the Power that is pressing towards the light of a greater ideal.
Sri Aurobindo
0 1964-07-31, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, queer things are happening here. There are certain things that literally disappear, and then, after a few days, they reappear! (Mother looks for her note again) I prefer to exhaust all material explanations before making other suppositions. But even someone like Madame David-Neel (and God knows she was positivist in the extreme) herself told me an experience of that sort. I was explaining something to her and she replied, I am not surprised, because the same thing happened to me. She had a jewel (it was the time when she used to wear jewels) which she used to keep at the top of a box (inside the box, but at its top). It was a Chinese dragon, and she wanted to wear it one evening. She opened the box, the jewel wasnt there anymore (yet the box was locked inside a cupboard, and there wasnt any sign of theft). She tried, she searched for it, she couldnt find it. Then, four or five days afterwards, she opened the box again, and there was the jewel, just where it was supposed to be!
But the same thing happened to me. At the time, I used to go up on the terrace and I would take a parasol (I had one of those tubes in which umbrellas are put away, and my parasol was there). I looked for it, couldnt find it. I took another one and went upstairs (I looked carefully, examining all the umbrellas one after the other, not just casually; my parasol wasnt there). Then I came back downstairs, didnt bother about it anymoretwo days later, it was there!
0 1964-08-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You see, I am sure that D. (she doesnt say so, but I am sure of it) imagines that my goal is immortality! At any rate, its the goal of many people here (!) Actually, its something secondary. Its ONE of the consequences, its the sign (it can be regarded as a sign) that you are living the Truth, thats all. Though thats not even certain!
Immortality in this bag of bones, thats no fun!
0 1964-08-19, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But what makes it worse is that there were too many people, and too many people asking to see mehundreds and hundreds of people who asked to see me. I said, Its not possible, its materially impossible. And a minuscule work consisting in signing and signing and giving blessings. So last night was difficult. This morning, it wasnt brilliant.
We just have to stay still and let the storm blow over.
0 1964-08-26, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But when you want to be absolutely sincere and not to kid yourself, in other words, not to be satisfied with explanations of appearances, you realize that you know nothing. All the experiences I have with people leaving their bodies, the more I have, the more puzzling it is. For instance, not very long ago, I had an experience with L. The night before she officially died, she came to me in an absolutely concrete manner: she had settled down and didnt want to leave mewherever I went she followed me. She seemed to be clinging to me, talking to me, asking me questionsofficially she was still alive. And there was a sort of tall being (those beings are connected to Death; I dont know their exact name, in the traditions they have been given all kinds of namesthose are things I dont know at all theoretically). This time, a being of that sort was there, and it was as if he had given her permission to be there for a certain time, as if he were in charge of her and of taking her away once the time was up (all this without words, but understood). Then she told me (after literally sticking to me: I couldnt do anything anymore, she was taking up all my time), she told me, I wanted to leave my body on (I dont remember exactly, it was a Darshan day, November 24 or August 15, but if it was August 15, then she came to see me on the 14th). So I answered her, Listen, today isnt the 15th yet; if you want to leave on the 15th, you should go back now. (That was to get rid of her! It was so concrete, you know, like when you have someone in your room and cant get rid of him.) Finally, I looked at that tall individual who was standing there perfectly peacefully and as if indifferent (he was there as an active permission), and I I didnt tell him, but communicated to him that perhaps it was time to take her away. And prrt! she left instantlyhe was awaiting my order. None of this corresponds to any active knowledge on my part: thats just how it happened. And when she came back into her body in the morning, she told those waiting around her, I spent the night with Mother, I was with her, I didnt leave her. She sent me back, but now I am going back to her. I was told this in the morning. A few hours later, she died. So the agreement is excellent, everything tallies. But her intention was not to leave me after her death (she came in the night with the idea that she was dead and that she was leaving me). Well, after she really died, I didnt get a SINGLE sign of her!
So I sat there wondering, Is there really a difference of consciousness between the time when there is life in the body and the time when one leaves? It was a problem for me for days.
--
There are ups and downs, moments when its more present and moments where its less so; to be exact: moments when its active and moments when it isnt. And whenever there is a period during which it isnt active, when it starts again it does so on a higher rung, that is, more intensely and clearly. The whole thing is obviously following a process of development. Its a sort of the word awareness might be the nearest; it isnt a perception, which still belongs to the mind, its a sort of phenomenon of vision. And it has an absolute character. For instance, from time to time, when I hear people speak of something or other and say, It will be like this and like that, instantly there comes a sort of tactile vision how can I explain this? It resembles touch and sight (yet its neither touch nor sight, but both together): its the thing as it is, thats IT; and they may say what they like, thats IT and it is irrefutable. And so far, there has never been any contradiction.
Its a consciousness in which the mental element is absent. It comes just on its own, and its so clear! Its like an immediate contact with the thing as it is.
0 1964-09-16, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But it cannot even be said it was a mistake in recruitingit would be tempting to believe this, but its not true, because the recruiting was done on the basis of a rather precise and clear inner sign. Its probably the difficulty of keeping the inner attitude unalloyed. Thats exactly what Sri Aurobindo wanted and attempted; he used to say, If I can find a hundred people, it will be enough for my purpose.
But it wasnt a hundred for long, and I must say that when it was a hundred, it was already mixed.
0 1964-11-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He told me, I felt it was the sign of a catastrophe or a war.
It may be the sign of a victory.
Yes, he said, Afterwards, there was peace.
0 1964-11-21, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its good, its a very good sign, it means you are becoming free from your ego.
But if at least, in this nullity, there were experiences
--
(Looking at Satprem out of the corner of her eyes) Its very goodits very good, its a sure sign that one has emerged from ones ego.
Yes, but in that nonexistence, only things without any interest remain: the body, the mechanisms.
--
I remember having written somewhere, some ten years ago, that I would take it as a sign if my back became straight again.1 At the time, it wasnt much, but it disgusted me deeply, and I did it as a challenge. Naturally, now its very far away from my consciousness and my thought, I find it childish, but I remembered it a few days ago also, and I said to myself that now I didnt care a bit about that, because to me its nothing! All the rest rail the rest is equally inadequate, incomplete and miserable, you knowmiserable. If you think about a divine life, its miserable.
And curiously, everything comes and presents itself as images and possibilities; so I say to myself, But if after a time all this suddenly stops functioning, what will have been the use of doing all this work? And there is always something something that comes from a very absolute regionwhich makes me feel or understand or grasp the uselessness of death.
--
There is, at any rate, a sort of sensation or perception that you are, for the moment, the only one here who really understands whats happening to me. Thats something. I am very grateful, as they say, that at least, from the external standpoint, whats going on will not be entirely useless. Because as I said, the signs of the Power being at work are increasing day by day, day by day; only, if this is crystallized around an experience made perceptible to others, I think it becomes clearer, doesnt it, instead of being something quite diffuse. Therefore, even from this external standpoint of the external realization, you can be satisfied. In the great universal work, your existence has its place and its usefulness.
From the personal standpoint my own feeling is that you are BOUND to have experiences after some time; they have to come, because that field is the one open. Changing this body is something new; but having experiences already exists, so it has to happen to you, its bound to happen to you. But I believe your experiences will be of a very particular character, in the sense that they will be very positive.
0 1964-12-10, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Sujata
***
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1964-12-23, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am sending it to you with all my love so that it may be the sign of the arrival of perfect balance and total health.
Blessings
signed: Mother
***
0 1965-01-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
P.S. I heard your request, and I have sent you a mantra that begins with OM. I would like you to hear it within. Try.
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1965-01-31, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
Learn, Satprem and you, to feel CONCRETELY my presence in your hearts. This is a wonderful opportunity to make this progress.
0 1965-02-04, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
***
0 1965-03-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Let me give you an example to make it a little clearer: I constantly have whats conventionally called a toothache (it doesnt correspond to anything in reality, but anyway people call it having a toothache). I had difficulty eating, a congestion, and so on. The attitude: you endureyou endure to the point when you dont even notice that things are going wrong. You endure, but you are aware (and besides, the external signs are there: a swelling of the gums, etc.). There was a period (its been in that state for a long time, but anyway), a period that began with a first swelling, in Decembercontrol, work, etc., all the necessary inner precautions. Then one observes the movement; one wants to know where it leads, what it is (its a long story, quite uninterestinginteresting only because it is instructive). And two nights ago, the situation was apparently the same as usual, the same thing, when suddenly there was a will to stay awake, not to sleep, and then I had the clear perception of a congestion and that it was becoming necessary to take out those things (bits of tooth that were moving they were moving now more, now less, but it began in December), to take them out in order to let the congestion out. Previously, too, bits of tooth had moved, and one day they had come out by themselves, without difficultywhen the time had come for them to go, they had gone; so I remembered that: why not wait for that moment? That was the attitude for a long time. And then the cells were curiously shrinking back from a very close contact with something [a dentist] that wasnt in complete harmony with the directing force of the body. This is how, in common language, it was translated: T. (who is very nice, no question of that) doesnt know either the habits or the reactions or the type of vibration or whats necessaryshe doesnt know anything. So how to make contact? Two nights ago, this came to me clearly: this is what you must tell her (and the exact words of the letter to be written), and you MUST send for her tomorrow morning. Then everything fell quiet, it was over, I went on with my night as usual, as every night. The next morning, I wrote what had been decided and she came; and, well, when she came she knew what she had to know and she did exactly what had to be done. She even said, I will do only what you tell me to do.
And I will add a detail (not a very pleasant one, but it gives the measure of the truth): there were two bits of tooth she had to extract; first she extracted one, and it was just about normal, then she pulled the second one out, and there was a sort of hemorrhage: a huge quantity of blood had accumulated, thick and black the blood of a dangerous congestion. But I had felt it (there was a pain in the brain, a pain in the ear, a pain), and I thought, Thats not good, I should take care. The body was conscious that something was amiss. And quite an unusual hemorrhage. I even remarked to T., Its good it came out. She said, Oh, yes!
0 1965-04-17, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The conditions for the almost indefinite prolongation of the life of the body are known, or almost known (they are more than sensed they are known), and they are learned through the work that must be done to counteract the EXTREME FRAGILITY of the physical balance of the body undergoing the transformation. Its a study every minute, as it were, almost every second. This is the extremely difficult part. It is difficult because of all the reasons I have already explained, because of the intrusion of forces that are in a state of imbalance and have to be, as they come along, brought back to the new state of balance.1 Thats where you find the sign of the unknown.
Voil. Its there.
0 1965-05-19, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Sujata:) I dont think theres any deformation, nothing, its inside rather, as if the canals werent very clean, so the sight cannot get through.
(Mother laughs) What youre saying isnt very scientific!
0 1965-06-02, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have the same thing with hearing, the same thing with sight.
It begins with taste, but that doesnt interest me much, so I dont take notice, I dont pay attention. But a few days ago I had the experience that the quality of tastes had changed: certain things had an artificial taste (the usual taste is an artificial taste) while others carried in themselves a TRUE taste; so this is very clearvery clear and very precise. But its not so interesting a subject, so I am not occupied with it so much.
What struck me the most is sight. Hearing for a very, very long timeyears Ive had the feeling that when people dont think very clearly, I cant hear. But thats not quite the point: its when their consciousness isnt ALIVE in what theyre sayingits not so much a question of thought, its their consciousness that isnt ALIVE in what theyre saying; its a mental machine; then I dont understand anything at allnothing. When their consciousness is alive, it reaches me. And I have noticed, for instance, that people whom I dont hear think its because I am deaf in the ordinary way, so they start shoutingwhich is even worse! Then its as if they were throwing stones in my face.1
There must be an action on the organs.
0 1965-06-14, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I cant hear anything just now, I am in Well, the feeling is absolutely of being inside a blanket of fog (Mother looks) a very pale pearl-gray fog. And a fog for both sound and sight.
As if things were far, far away, far away from me: things, people, noises, images, everything, far, far away (Mother takes up Savitri again):
--
We are putting together (what can I call it?) a set of rules (oh, thats an ugly word) for admission to the Ashram. Yes! Not that if you accept the rules youre admitted, its not that, but when someone is admitted, we tell him, But, you know, here is (when he is potentially admitted), here is what you are committing yourself to by becoming a member of the Ashram. Because requests for admission are pouring in like locusts, and at least ninety-nine times out of a hundred, its from people who want to come here to be comfortable and rest and do nothingone in a hundred comes because he has a spiritual aspiration (oh, and even then its mixed). So they shouldnt tell us afterwards (because weve had such experiences), Oh, but I didnt know it was that way, with the excuse that they hadnt been told. For instance, I didnt know we werent allowed to (Mother questions herself for a moment) What isnt allowed? (Then, laughing, she points to Satprem:) Smoking isnt allowed. And drinking alcohol isnt allowed, being married isnt allowed, except nominally, and so on. And then you have to work, and all your desires arent automatically satisfied. So they send me letters, But you told me that (oh, things I never said, naturally), at such-and-such a date (you understand, sufficiently far back for me not to remember!), you told me that And from what they write I see very clearly what I said and how they turned it upside down. So now well prepare a paper that well give them to read, and well ask them, Have you clearly understood? And when they have said theyve clearly understood and have signed, at least well keep the paper, and when they start being a nuisance, we can show it to them and tell them, Beg your pardon, we told you this wasnt a (whats the word?) an Eden where you can stay without doing anything and where your bread is buttered on both sides!
So I put as first condition (I wrote it in English): the sole aim of life is to dedicate oneself to the divine realization (I didnt put it in these terms, but thats the idea). You must first (you may deceive yourself, but that doesnt make any difference), first be convinced that this is what you want and you want this aloneprimo. Then Nolini told me that the second condition should be that my absolute authority had to be recognized. I said, Not like that!, we should put that Sri Aurobindos absolute authority is recognized (we can add [laughing], represented by me, because he cannot speak, of course, except to meto me he speaks very clearly, but others dont hear!). Then there are many other things, I dont remember, and finally a last paragraph that goes like this (Mother looks for a note). Previously, I remember, Sri Aurobindo had also put together a little paper to give people, but its outdated (it was about not quarreling with the police! And what else, I dont rememberits outdated). But I didnt want to put prohibitions in, because prohibitions first of all, its an encouragement to revolt, always, and then there is a good proportion of characters who, when they are forbidden to do something, immediately feel an urge to do itthey might not even have thought of it otherwise, but they just have to be told about it to Ah, but I do as I like. All right.
0 1965-06-23, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then the industrial section Already many people, including the Madras government (the Madras government is lending money) want to set up industries, which will be on a special basis. This industrial section is in the east, and its very large: there is plenty of space; and it must slope down to the sea. North of Pondicherry, there is indeed a rather large expanse which is totally uninhabited and uncultivated; its by the sea, going northward along the coast. So this industrial section would slope down to the sea, and, if possible, there would be a sort of wharf (not exactly a harbor, but a place where boats can berth), and all those industries with the necessary internal means of transport would have a direct possibility of export. And here, there would be a big hotel, the plan of which R. has already done (we wanted to build the hotel here, in the place of the Shipping Company, but the owner, after saying yes, said no thats very good, it will be better there), a big hotel to receive visitors from outside. Quite a few industries have already signed up for this section; I dont know if there will be enough space, but well manage.
Then in the north (thats where there is the most space, naturally), in the direction of Madras: the cultural zone. There, an auditorium (the auditorium I have dreamed of doing for a long time: plans had already been made), an auditorium with a concert hall and grand organ, the best you find now (it seems they make wonderful things). I want a grand organ. There will also be a theater stage with wings (a revolving stage and so on, the very best you can find). So, here, a magnificent auditorium. There will be a library, there will be a museum, exhibition rooms (not in the auditorium: in addition to it), there will be a cinema studio, a cinema school; there will be a gliding club: already we almost have the governments authorization and promiseanyway its already at a very advanced stage. Then, towards Madras, where there is plenty of space, a stadium. And a stadium that we want to be the most modern and the most perfect possible, with the idea (an idea Ive had for a long time) that twelve years (the Olympic games take place every four years), twelve years after 1968 (in 1968, the Olympiad will be held in Mexico), twelve years after, we would have the Olympic games in India, here. So we need space.
--
H. hopes so! (Mother laughs) I didnt say either yes or no to her, I told her, The Lord will decide. It depends on my health. Moving from hereno: I am here because of the Samadhi, I remain here, thats quite certain; but I can go there on a visit (its not so far away, it takes five minutes by car). Only, H. wants to be in peace, silence, far from the world, and its quite possible in her park with a road around it and someone to stop people from enteringone can be really in peace but if I am there, thats an end to it! There will be collective meditations and so on. So if I have signs (physical signs, first), then the inner comm and to go out, I will go there in a car and spend an hour in the afternoon I can do it from time to time. We still have time, because it will take years before everything is ready.
You mean the disciples will remain here.
--
The Americans are ruining themselves. There is a queer phenomenon: money seems to have been swallowed up somewhere, to have vanished from circulationin America the dollars value is dropping, they are moaning. Here, people are ruined. Theres an industrialist who had a magnificent industry (it seems it was marvelous), and with that income tax the government has succeeded in ruining himhe closed down. Then he partially reopened and filled in new papers for his new company and new industries; now, he had a dog, he had given a name to his dog, and he signed the papers with the dogs name! And he put the dogs photograph. (Laughing) So, naturally, he got letters asking him if he thought people were idiots. He answered, No, only a dog would accept your conditions. Not bad, eh?
Yes, they think people are idiots.
0 1965-07-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But when there are obvious external signs, bleeding, for instance [hemoptysis]?
Well, yes, its a disorder. But disorder is everywhere! If its any consolation to you, my body too is in disorder. It isnt clearly a disorder but an almost total lack of harmonyits the constant condition of life; its the result of effort, of resistance, of enduring, and also of that tension of being in search of something you hope to reach, but which always eludes you the something that eludes you is That, its that Harmony (a Harmony which, in its perfection, is Ananda, thats obvious). And the constant state is like that. In fact, thats what causes fatigue, tension and so on. Last night, I spent the whole night looking at that, and I was wondering, Why is that so? We are constantly in that state, straining after something that eludes us. And then the senses, the whole realm of the senses seems to be in a constantly false state, and they use that state of tension to give you the feeling that this is going wrong, that is going wrong, and this and that. And if by ill luck there is a vague hint of mental collaboration (from that famous physical mind), then things go awry, they become something really unpleasant.
0 1965-07-17, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The patient had been in convulsion, the whole right side of the body twitching horribly, speech impossible. There came an easing of it all, and I remember thinking, Why is that brain signaling that body to twitch sowhy? And I took hold of Montys right hand, seated there, on the edge of his bed. And the two right arms became like a big telephone switchboard hook-upyou know, the long cords. So, through the hook-up I called. I called to the Divine Mother, to You specifically, if I may say so, as is my wont. And this time, the You appeared, not above my head, as is usual, but above the patients head. And to that You I called three times, Mother, as you once taught me to do. That was all. Nothing more complicated than that. You were there, strategically positioned and I pronounced your Name three times. But there was a great current of Force that went through that telephone hook-up, so to speak, a great Power that came down the great long distance from the You through the little mans ailing brain and on down through his then quieting right arm and up through my long right arm to my think machine. And in that there was a deep peace and knowing. Miss Carter was seated on the other side of the bed, it so happened, at that moment, but she did not know that anything took place, even though I quietly closed my eyes for a bit. Odd, isnt it? It seems even odder as I write it. It was so normal as it took place. And it was so normal when, next morning, all trace of the tremor had vanished and all power of speech had returned to the delighted patient. And greater delight of all observers.
(11 July 1965)
0 1965-07-21, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is still a bit of friction, but anyway its better. Just before you came You know, there are two, three of them hurling at me everyones demands, the work to be done, the answers to be given, the checks to be signed; its quite a task you are harassed, mauled as though by claws. And there is this fatigue I feel every day, always, and because of which I need to be left absolutely undisturbed (you seem to be clawed); and I saw it was because all the work this body is made to do doesnt come from That to which it aspiresit doesnt come from up above: it comes from here, from all around, and thats why it grates, as if something were being ground. Then, very consciously, this mind called on that aspiration and on equanimity, on cellular equality: Well, this is the time to be in equality, and instantly a sort of quiet immobility was established, and things were better, I was able to go to the end.
I feel as if the tail of the solution had been caught.1 Now, naturally, we must work it out.
0 1965-08-18, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday I signed over 200 photos.
Thats not reasonable!
0 1965-09-15a, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It seems, according to astrologers, that the combination of stars for the month of September is very bad for the earth. Naturally, this is always something to be cautious about, because it depends on peoples intuition, on their capacity to interpret, whether their vision is broad enough and so on, but it seems that all the signs are undeniable and indicate that things are bad (thats vague, of course), catastrophic. I was told this before, they said it in July. Only, I never attach too much importance to their conclusions, because they are always And also, they say some very vague things that contradict each other. Personally, I dont know the first thing about all that, I am not trying to seein fact I NEVER try to see (what came last night came very spontaneously, without my trying to see). The work, of course, is devoid of thought, of verbal expression, and constant; but it has been constant for a long time: the first time was at the beginning of the year, I think, at least six months ago. The second time, I told you I had one night an experience [the pressure of the Supreme] before anything really serious had taken place. Well, the first experience I had, of the consciousness hurling a fantastic power on the earth, which was necessarily going to shake things up, was at least six months before that second experience. And for those six months, it was constant: as soon as I came into contact with the earth consciousness, it was there, and constant, constant. Then came that indication: the pressure of the supreme Lord. And the third step was yesterday evening.
Well see.
0 1965-09-15b, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Sujata
***
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1965-09-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, they dont understand anything. Its a disgusting sight.
And as false as can be: they keep on fighting, only they are pretending not to.
0 1965-09-29, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother is probably alluding (in addition to the cease-fire violations by Pakistan) to a declaration from Delhi that India considered as obsolete the treaty signed in 1954 by Nehru recognizing China's sovereignty over Tibet. (That "declaration" did not hold for long.)
***
0 1965-11-03, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the world in a rush. Its not just from a small number of individuals, its from everywhere: from the United Nations, the Government of India, from people here, there and everywhere who ask for a directive, an indication. They ought to be able to receive mentally; that way I could do all the work, because it doesnt take any time, its immediate, but they arent there yet, they cant. You know, requests for messages, for something to start an action there are dozens of them every day. And its a good sign, I cant complain. Its a good sign, it means the world is growing receptive. But
The secretaries.
0 1965-11-06, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Soon afterwards, Dr. Sanyal enters, signaling lunch time.
Ah, heres the doctor, that means were late!
0 1965-11-20, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ah, thats why he died. You know he was truly in favor of freedom, and not only freedom but union. And he was receptive. You know how he worked for the Blacks there (moreover, thats the external cause of his death). But he was the one I counted on, not without reason, as he had shown signs of assent to a union with Russia to establish peace on earth. Talks had already started and they had seized the opportunity of Chinas aggression against India. Naturally, that wasnt quite to the extremists liking, and in the atmosphere, the force which for centuries has acted behind the Catholic religion wasnt at all in favor of that plan; so things worked out well and they killed him. The other one in Russia who had responded, Khrushchev, didnt die because he left in time!
But I didnt know, I thought Kennedy was Protestant.
0 1965-11-23, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have noticed something very interesting. Suppose there is a pain, some sign or other that something in the body is out of order. In the consciousness in the consciousness you are absolutely indifferent, which means that whether its life or death, disease or health, there is equality; but if the body reacts according to its old habit, What should be done to get over it? and all that it involves (I am not speaking of a reaction in the mind, but here, in the body), the thing takes root. Why? Because it has to stay there (laughing) to enable you to study it! If, on the other hand, the cells have learned their lesson and say right away, Lord, Your presence (without words the attitude), pfft! the thing goes.
Its no use if the thought does it, if the psychic consciousness, EVEN THE PHYSICAL CONSCIOUSNESS, does it: it must be the cells that do it. So the one who does it in the thought says, Here, I give myself to the Divine, I am ready for anything, I am in a state of perfect equality, and still I am ill! So what am I to believe? Thats not the point. In order to have an instantaneous action HERE (instantaneous, meaning what looks like a miracle, which isnt a miracle at all), there should instantaneously be, wherever a disorder has occurred for some reason or other, this: LordLord, this is You; Lord, we are You; Lord, You are hereeverything flies away. A sensation, an attitudeinstantaneously, hup! its over.
0 1965-12-01, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
Mother is referring to the conversation of November 27 which Satprem wished to publish at least in part in the Ashram's Bulletin.
0 1965-12-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother looks at the letter) He doesnt sign his name, he writes, Your brother, the gold washer.
Yes.
0 1965-12-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
113Hatred is the sign of a secret attraction that is eager to flee from itself and furious to deny its own existence. That too is Gods play in His creature.
It corresponds to a sort of vibration the vibration received from people who hate. Its a vibration which is, so to say, fundamentally the same as the vibration of love. At its very bottom, there is the same sensation. Although on the surface its the opposite, it is supported by the same vibration. And we could say that we are just as much the slaves of what we hate as of what we lovemaybe even more. Its something that keeps hold of you, that obsesses you and which you cherish; a sensation you cherish, because beneath its violence there is a warmth of attraction as great as that which you feel for what you love. And it seems its only in the activity of the manifestation, that is to say, quite on the surface, that there is this distorted appearance.
0 1965-12-30, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(In answer to a letter from Satprem in which he said he was half dissolved and asked on which road he was or whether he was on any road at all, for he had no sign that he was moving forward or going anywhere.)
Thursday morning
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1965-12-31, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I understand very well, Im not asking to know where I am going, but what I am asking, what Id like to know, is that I AM going, that I am making headway. Theres no sign, you understand, not a single sign. Its like going somewhere in a train in which all the curtains had been pulled down the train might be going along or might not, theres no telling, but theres no sign to show that you ARE going towards this somewhere, which I am not defining. Thats why I havent the faintest idea of where I stand, of what I am doing.
You know (shall I be frank?), its purely a vital dissatisfaction. And I know that, because it has been (how can I put it?) my great difficulty with you. It was a hundred, a thousand times more violent formerly; now its beginning to calm down. Its a vital thats very intense in its desires (which may not be ordinary desires at all), but with a sort of almost aggressive intensity, and essentially dissatisfied. It was very, very strong before, years ago; now it has quieted down. But every time the vital comes into play (and one is obliged to let the vital play because of the physical health; one cant calm it down totally because that would make the physical body suffer), its like that. It gives me, if you like, the impression of a cats vital! Cats have a wonderful vital (laughing), far, far more clever and intense than human beings have, but the cat claws, you know, and the feeling is: Im not happy, thats that. Im not happy! (Mother laughs)
No, but for instance, the first years when I was here, almost every night I had a sort of sign that I was moving along,1 making headwaytrifling signs, nothing to speak of: a car taking me along, a walk in a mountain, mere nothings, but they were telling me, Oh, good, Im getting on. Its all right, Im moving along. But for years now, not only have I had no sign, but all I see is negative things: I see pits, I see accidents, I see infernos, I see But I never see a sign telling me, Oh, yes, Im making headway. Its all right, Im getting alongnot that, never. So am I making headway? I dont know. What I am asking for is an encouragement, just a little gesture telling me, Yes, youre getting along, its all right. Youre getting along, dont fret.
But what do you call a gesture?
A sign.
And what do you call a sign? Well, I think you have some trust in me, and if I tell you that youre not only progressing but progressing very fast, does it have no effect on you? Youll tell me, Prove it.I cant prove it to you, its something I see, its what I know.
But Id like to have some GLIMPSE of my progress. I am not asking for much, just something once in a while telling me, Well, dont fret, youre moving along, whereas I always see the darker side, I always see pits, infernos, sewers. So why shouldnt there be from time to time a little light, a pretty landscape?
--
Yes, Im talking about night activities. Im not going so far as to ask for activities with open eyes, I am asking for at least a sign at night. In daytime, theres nothing, thats been understood for a long time. And its not dissatisfaction, its yes, a need to know that one is making headway, thats all!
But I am telling you youre making headway and its not enough for you! You are talking of a need to know, but what youre asking me for is proof.
--
Havent you any sign of a psychic presence in you?
[After a silence] For years Ive had a feeling (its a feeling, not a vision), the feeling of a great expanse of light, there, and that when I remain silent long enough, I am peaceful, tranquil, there, and its for eternity. Well, all right, thats there, always.
--
No, I assure you, you can believe me (Mother laughs), I have a little experience: its done. To put it poetically, Your head is in the Light. But your vital doesnt want this manifestation; your vital wanted a vital manifestation, as for instance when it was in the virgin forest, chopping trees down: it wanted to have the sense of the power of life. And that has been denied to it (for yogic AND material reasons, both extremes, because the body wasnt made for that, and because [laughing] the yoga has no time to waste with that), so Mister Vital is furious! It has been told, Calm down, be at peace, quite at peace, its all right, you too will have your joy, but once you are transformed. And it may be less pugnacious or rebellious or aggressive than before, but its dissatisfied, so its what gives you the feeling, But I have no sign that Im making headway! I have no sign that I am progressing. Quite the contrary! Quite the contrary, its more and more dull, more and more morose, more and more ordinary, that is to say, less and less consonant with my ideal, and my ideal
Thats not exactly the point. Yes, when its in one of its fits, its like that, but
--
I dont know. It always revolves around this problem of vision. If I had a beautiful vision from time to time Oncelook, once, in Ceylon (it was the only time in my life), I heard Music, it was marvelous, it was truly divine. Well, to me, thats a sign (it happened once in my life), I say to myself, Oh, good, Im not far, theres something. To me thats a sign. Or if I see a beautiful light or Then I am encouraged, I think, All right, its going well. I can descend into hell after that. After that I may do all sorts of absurd things, but I tell myself, At least I know I am moving towards that. Well, no! You see, it happens once in ten years. Of course, the vital seizes on it and turns it into dissatisfaction, but otherwise, in my normal reason, I simply say, Whats going on? I dont know. I am nowhere, I am waiting.
But so am I, mon petit, I am waiting I am millions of years old and I am waiting.
--
Thats where, of course, I say that this realization isnt meant for weak beingsits meant for the stronger. And then, you are ashamed of whats weak in yourself, and you offer it, saying, Free me from my weakness. One has to be terribly strong to do that the strength of endurance untroubled by anything. Its like a perfection of malice which is there, forever saying (same gesture), You are mistaken, its not possible, you are mistaken, its not possible. And then, Look, here is proof of the truth of what I am telling you: Sri Aurobindo, he who knew, left. And if you listen and believe in it, youre absolutely done for. Youre quite simply done for. And thats what they want. Only they must not succeed, we must hold on. For how many years now (hammering gesture)? Fifteen years, mon petit for fifteen years (same gesture). Not a single day passes without attacks of that sort, not a single night passes without You say you see horrorsmon petit, your horrors must be something quite charming in comparison with the horrors I have seen! I dont think one human being can bear the sight of what I have seen. And its shown to me as if to tell me that all my ambitions, all of them, are mad. So then, I have only one answer, Lord, You are everywhere, You are in everything, and its for us to see You through everything.
Then it calms down.
0 1966-01-14, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, small details, all the shops were closed. But dont you think its really the sign of a change of direction?
How can I put it? One hopes so.9
0 1966-03-02, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding an incident of little importance, but significant nevertheless. Mother shows Satprem an envelope containing money and asks him whether she already gave him one.1 Mother did in fact give Satprem a blue envelope eight days ago.)
I am in such a hurry when I do things. For instance, when I have finished my morning work, everyday before lunch I see to the money the doctor comes, P. comes, its past lunch time, everybody stands waiting, the cashier too stands waiting there for his money. Everyone clinging. So then, instead of being able to do the work with my consciousness, the consciousness is taken up by all those people who Its time, its time its late, its late So I do things automatically, and I dont remember what I do I never remember anything I do automatically. And with you, I didnt remember whether I had given you the envelope or not, because I did it in that condition. But suddenly, just when I was preparing this new envelope (this time I did it consciously), I saw my gesture of giving you a small blue envelope, this big, and I remembered the smile with which you took it. Those two things were very clear in my consciousness. So I thought, I must have given it!
0 1966-03-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then, with vision, for instance, the objective precision is missing (Mother makes a gesture of not seeing through her eyes). I see through and with the consciousness. With hearing, I hear in a totally different way; there is a sort of discrimination (it isnt discernment), something that chooses in the perception, something that decides (that decides, but not arbitrarilyautomatically) what is heard and what isnt heard, what is perceived and what isnt perceived. Its already there in vision, but its still stronger with hearing: with certain things, all thats heard is a continuous drone; others are heard very clearly, as clear as crystal; still others are blurred, half heard. With sight, its the same thing: everything is behind a sort of luminous fog (very luminous, but its a fog, which means there is no precision), then all at once, a particular thing will be absolutely precise and clear, seen with a most precise vision of detail. The vision is generally the expression of the consciousness in things. That is, everything seems to become more and more subjective, less and less objective. And they arent visions that impose themselves on the sight, or noises that impose themselves on the hearing: its a sort of movement of consciousness that makes certain things perceptible and keeps others as if in a very imprecise background.
The consciousness chooses what it wants to see.
--
Oh, perfectly! At times the sight is more precise than it ever was. But its fleeting: it comes and goes; probably because its only as an assurance of what will be. But, for instance, the perception of peoples inner reality (not what they think they are or what they pretend to be or what they appear to beall that disappears), the perception of their inner reality is infinitely more precise than formerly. If I see a photograph, for example, theres no question anymore of seeing through something: I almost exclusively see what the person IS. The through decreases to such a point that at times it no longer exists at all.
Naturally, if a human will wanted to exert itself on this body, if a human will said, Mother must do this or Mother must do that, or she must be able to do this, she must be able to do that , it would be totally disappointed, it would say, She has become useless, because this body wouldnt obey it anymore. And human beings constantly exert their will on each other, or they themselves receive suggestions and manifest them as their own will, without realizing that its all the external Falsehood.
--
There is a sort of certitude in the body that if, for the space of just a few seconds, I lost contact (I, meaning the body), if the body lost contact with the Supreme, it would die that very moment. Its only the Supreme that keeps it alive. Thats how it is. So naturally, to the ignorant and stupid consciousness of human beings, thats a pitiable condition and to me, its the true condition! Because for them, instinctively, spontaneously and in a so to say absolute way, the sign of perfection is the power of life, of ordinary life. Well, that no longer exists at allits completely gone.
Yes, quite a few times, several times, the body did ask the question, Why dont I feel Your Power and Your Force in me? And the answer was always a smiling answer (I am putting it into words, but its wordless), the answer is always: Patience, patience, you must be READY for that to be.
0 1966-04-16, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The body constantly used to ask (not a sign or an assurance or a proof: its all of that together), it used to ask for a sort of sensation (sensation, if it can be called that) that it is the Lord that rules (I am putting it in childlike words because they are the truest), that it is the Lord that rules. It asked for that all the time, the way a child could ask: that in all the innumerable nothings one does all the time, which are the very fabric of the bodys existence. It became so intense. Anything perceived as separate from that becomes inert: ashes. Inert without even the power of inertia: the inertia of dust. I mean that a rock has a power in its existence, a power of cohesion, of durationits not even that: its dust. So then, there was constantly, constantly that prayer in the body. And thats what led me to the experience.
When that is there, everything seems to swell with a golden, luminous, radiating Power: its so intense as to have volume! If that isnt there, everything is dust.
0 1966-06-02, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Fatigue is a great sign of weakness; when something tires you or bores you, its really a sign of weakness. It doesnt happen to me very often anymore; I dont even think it happens at all: theres just, somewhere in the mental consciousness (and it doesnt come from me, it comes from others, rather), a suggestion that its really a bit too much. Otherwise
What about your book? How is it going?
0 1966-06-29, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It would be far easier if those things were written in large characters. Its a pity about my eyes. I waste a lot of time, quite a lot. I am forced to ask, or else to take a magnifying glass. What I used to do in three minutes takes me half an hour. Thats how it is. But to recover my sight (that would be possible, nothing is damaged, its only worn), I would have to spend a lot of time on it; it would take me a lot of time in exercises, concentrations. I dont have the time.
But the promptness of the consciousness when I used to see! I dont find it with other eyes. That was so convenient.
--
We must have patience. Its no use groaning, I must either do something about it or not bother about it! And I dont have the time to do anything I am waiting for my sight to be given back to me.
Pranam: salutation, prostration.
0 1966-07-06, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
118The love of solitude is a sign of the disposition towards knowledge; but knowledge itself is only achieved when we have a settled perception of solitude in the crowd, in the battle and in the mart.
119If when thou art doing great actions and moving giant results, thou canst perceive that thou art doing nothing, then know that God has removed His seal from thy eyelids.
0 1966-08-10, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They asked me, What message can we send? It will take two hundred years to reach its destination: the message sent from here reaches the star two hundred years later. But, of course, theres nothing to say that theyll understand French or English on the star! Its actually clear that they wont understand it. They want to send signals such as = 1, and they say they will understand theyll understand that we are intelligent beings! (Mother laughs ironically)
I dont remember the message I gave them.
--
Last time2 I realized that I hadnt had such a silent contemplation for months, maybe, I am so overwhelmed with workwork which consists in writing birthday cards, signing, seeing people. On Monday, in the afternoon, I saw thirteen birthdays; yesterday there were twelve of them; tomorrow, there will be another twelve. You understand, the number of people is increasing, and they come from everywhere; some even come from Africa for their birthdays. That makes about two thousand a year, which is how many a day?
A Polytechnician3 came here with R. [the architect of the future Auroville]. There were nine who came with R.; among them is a Polytechnician who sent me a note asking, Are you God?
0 1966-08-24, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother laughs heartily, then goes on) While I take my food, they bring me birthday cards to sign along with the food. At breakfast, I eat a little, then sign cards, then eat a little more, then they ask me for appointments Thats how it is.
You should have someone to do some policing.
0 1966-09-21, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its fairly recent, it dates from two or three days ago. I had never been told this. It was said very clearlysaid, I mean seen, shown like this (gesture of a scene offered to the sight). So my interest in Auroville has considerably increased since then. Because I have understood that it isnt just a creation of idealism, but quite a practical phenomenon, in the hope in the will, rather, to thwart and counterbalance the effects the frightful effectsof the psychological error of believing that fear can save you from a danger! Fear attracts the danger much more than it saves you from it. And all these countries, all these governments commit blunder upon blunder because of that fear of the catastrophe.
All this is simply to tell you that if nations collaborate in the work of Auroville, even to a very modest extent [such as this offer of money from the French government], it will do them goodit can do them a lot of good, a good that can be out of proportion to the appearance of their actions.
0 1966-09-24, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, a lot, quite a lot. There are signs, there are even from time to time strange signs of something awakening.
I even feel an awakening among animals.
0 1966-10-08, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The conversation is about Satprem's forthcoming birthday. We publish it despite its personal character, for the "rhythmic" significance of birthdays is of general interest and there is always, as Mother says, a curve from the past that doesn't readily connect with the curve of the future.)
It will soon be your birthday.
0 1966-10-22, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, if you knew to what point There arent any reactions, you understand. I look at it all with a very clear vision, a very clear knowledge of the consequences, but there arent any reactions: I simply become a kind of machine that signs this, does this and that. And then, when I need to write something, I turn into an automaton: I remain absolutely blank, silent, like this (gesture of immobility, turned upward), and then I leave it (it depends on the case), either Sri Aurobindo or else something from up above comes and dictates. I am like this (same gesture), and more and more so I am increasingly like this: nonexistent, a machine.
I have told them several times that they might as well replace this with a nicely de signed robot, because this (laughing) doesnt need to be here! A well-de signed robot, with a sophisticated mechanism: you press one button for one thing, another button for another thing, and it works!
0 1966-11-15, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, absolutely gone (gesture above). I realize its absolutely useless to want anything and that nothing gets done. Nonexistent. See the time, its 10:45. I have given up. I am just a robot good for signing papers, thats all. Whether I want or dont want Of course, I stopped wanting long ago, but anyway, for me to express a necessity is absolutely useless. Absolutely.
I am truly gone.
0 1966-11-30, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In my case, strangely, I seem to see through a thick veil, that is to say, everything is blurred. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, I see an object, some thing or other, clearly, so clearly, precisely, with a detailed accuracy, as if it were shown to me. Or else when reading a letter, for instance, if I read it without paying attention to anything else, I see perfectly well, but if I start thinking of an answer or concentrate, if the consciousness starts working, everything disappears and I cant see anything anymore the next minute, the words become clear again. Which means it doesnt depend on a defect of the sight or the material organ: its something else something else that one wants me to learn. Because it constantly comes back as if to show me something. But theres so much work and so many people that I dont always have the time to stop and concentrate to see what it is. I would have to catch the exact point when the sight comes and when it goes, and follow the conditions of the consciousness at that moment. I dont have the time.
Its really like an attempt to demonstrate to me that sight doesnt depend on the eyes.
The organ is in good condition, it doesnt have any lesion. But the sight isnt the same with this eye as with that one. With this one (the right), its only an overall, slightly blurred vision. With that one (the left), its a precise, clear vision, but theres a tiny spot in the corner, like a black spot, because of which I see everything clearly but with a patch in the corner. Then if I concentrate, I see that patch grow bright and luminous, like a dark blue star, and that star moves in front of me (it doesnt depend on the eye), it moves about, and if I fix my eyes on someone, for instance, I see that dark blue star go and rest here or there (gesture at different levels of the person), at the exact spot where some work has to be done. So it means it doesnt depend on the eye, its independent of the eye. And also if I look at a photo, with a certain position between the right eye and the left, I suddenly see the photo come alive, in three dimensions, with the persons head sticking out. Thats how I can see the character. Its really strange, like an attempt to teach me to see in a different way.
We are learning our lesson.
0 1966-12-20, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Satprem
***
--
signed: Mother
***
0 1967-01-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the afternoon, the lists [of appointments] have leng thened to such a point that I have no time left. Earlier, I would start my daily work (the mail to be signed and so on) at three-thirty, then it became four oclock, and now its a quarter to five. There was a time when I would have finished by four, so I worked on the translation of Savitri (that was long, long ago); later on, I finished at four-thirty, then I would still have time to take something, to eat a little; now I finish after five, so (laughing) that settles it!
It MUST be like that since it is like that.
0 1967-01-28, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a whole category of a way of thinking. Those who think they have superior intelligence and scorn what they dont understand are countlesscountless. And thats the very sign of stupidity! On the other hand, there are many (they are generally regarded as simple-minded, but for my part, I appreciate those simple-minded people, they have a warmth of soul), they admire everything they cannot understand. They have a sort of dumb admiration, which is looked upon as silly, for anything they dont understand. But they at least have goodwill. While the others on the lofty heights of their so-called intelligence, anything they dont understand is worthless. This man came here and said, One cant work with these people, they are Indians! (Mother laughs) And he says it quite naturally.
You met someone the other day, I heard?
0 1967-02-08, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The attitude taken by the cells, the action of the will, the habit of Nature, the Interventionall that was seen minutely, phase after phase. Because these cells (in the throat) were complaining; they were the ones that said things werent changing, that they remained as they were. They clearly saw that things were kept under control, but there was no sign of transformation. And that cold came as a magnifying glass, you understand. It came and magnified everything so it would become more visible and more easily observed. And the detail of all thats going on is, oh, really marvellous: its a whole world, and they are tiny little things that generally go unobserved because we observe mentally. But like that For instance, at a certain point during those successive phases, all the signs are there that the bodys will is going to flag and that you are going either to faint or to fall sick for a while. Then comes the choice made within by the cells, which weigh up the possibilities from the standpoint of the progress of transformation: What can act? What can be the most useful in order to produce the greatest result? Is it to yield and have an apparent fall (its only apparent), and in that fall, to allow the Force to do its work without interference; or is it to follow the course of conscious transformation? And thats where this marvellous discovery of the cells came in: they really felt Nature knew better (laughing) because it was used to it. That was exquisite! Admirable.
All this must be going on in everyone, only people are unconscious. Its the consciousness of the cells which has awakened, you understand. Its so interesting! And how illnesses can be avoided, how things All this based on the experience of the UNREALITY OF APPEARANCES: a play is going on behind, which is altogether different from what we see or know.
0 1967-02-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
See in addendum a letter of Mother's on the subject.
0 1967-02-18, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Whats specific to each language (apart from a few differences in words) is the order in which ideas are presented: the construction of sentences. The Japanese (and especially the Chinese) have solved the problem by using only the sign of the idea. Now, under the influence from outside, they have added phonetic signs to build a sentence; but even now the order in the construction of the ideas is different. Its different in Japan and different in China. And unless you FEEL this, you can never know a foreign language really well. So we speak according to our very old habit (and basically its more convenient for us simply because it comes automatically). But when I receive, for instance, its not even a thought: its Sri Aurobindos formulated consciousness; then, there is a sort of progressive approximation of the expression, and sometimes it comes very clearly; but very often its a spontaneous mixture of French and English forms and I feel it is something else trying to be expressed. At times (it follows the notation), it makes me correct something; at other times it comes perfectly wellit depends. Oh, it depends on the limpidity. If you are very tranquil, it comes very well. And there, too, I see its not really French and not really English. Its not so much the words (words are nothing) as the ORDER in which things come up. And when afterwards I look at it objectively, I see its in part the order in which they come in French, and in part the order in which they come in English. And the result is a mixture, which is neither one language nor the other, and endeavours to express what might be called a new way of consciousness.
It leads me to think that something will be worked out that way, and that any too strict, too narrow attachment to the old rules is a hindrance to the evolution of expression. From that point of view, French is a long way behind EnglishEnglish is much more supple. But the languages in countries like China and Japan that use ideograms seem to be infinitely more supple than our own.
--
They can express new ideas and new things far more easily through the juxtaposition of signs.
But now, with this new logic and new mathematics, a whole set of new signs is beginning to be universal, that is to say, the same signs express the same ideas or things in all countries, whatever language is used in the country, quite independently.
These new thoughts and new experiences, this new logic and new mathematics, are now taught in higher studies, but all the primary and secondary studies have remained in the old formula, so I have been very seriously thinking of opening primary and secondary schools in Auroville, based on the new systemas a trial.
0 1967-04-13, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
***
0 1967-04-29, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In a letter of February 2, 1934, Sri Aurobindo declared: "4.5.67 is the year of the complete realisation." It seems he also said that from 1967, governments would obey the supramental influence. The sequence of figures (4.5.67) is what appears to have a special occult significance.
***
0 1967-05-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And everywhere, everywhere in the world, the signs of a CONSCIOUS goodwill awakening.
Thats what Sri Aurobindo once said to me. What he saw was that the supramental Force would have sufficient influence on the various governments of the earth, of the nations, to allow hope for a harmony.
0 1967-05-13, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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.
Now he is very tall, he is of mature years, he has teeth teeth like a leopards, a leopards canine teeth. But he is as gentle as a lamb. But an orang-outan
0 1967-05-27, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw a series of roses, this big (about 25 cm), coming one after the othermagnificent! All kinds of colours, which certainly had a significance: they would come and present themselves, as if giving a little bow, and then go away, and then another arrivedroses this big. Because I had complained just before!2 It was just in front of you (gesture on the heart level), magnificent roses of a perfect shape, and all kinds of colours.
Basically, it (meditation) is my lazy moment. When I stay like that, it immediately becomes very pleasant, and theres always something pretty to be seen. Its my lazy moment.
0 1967-06-07, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The sign of true strengthtrue strengthis to become ab-so-lute-ly calm, imperturbably calm in the face of dangerdanger or the need to make decisions and do things. An unshakeable calm, like that (inflexible gesture, like a sword), which is established immediately, automatically. Thats the sign.
It was very interesting You werent here when the Ashram was attacked, were you, very interesting 6 It was very interesting.
0 1967-07-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I took it as one of the signs that the Force is really at work. Because I dont think that man had done any yoga, he knew nothing about those things; he is just a gentleman-whos-had-an-injection-of-penicillin which he cant tolerate (those accidents happen fairly often), nothing more. There was just this idea that the brain is the conscious part of the being, and if he concentrated there His idea was, I want to know whats happening, I want to be conscious of whats happening, I want to see whats happening. So thats what pulled the Force. A simple thing.
It seems to me there is a progress in human consciousness thats my impression.
0 1967-07-29, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The experience lasted for half an hour, but everything, everything was differentdifferent not in its appearance, different in its deeper significance. Was the difference in my active consciousness? I dont know. I mean, did I make contact with a region of consciousness that was new to me? Possibly. But it seemed to me a wholly different vision of the earth and mans history.
During the experience I remembered what Sri Aurobindo had written: Men love suffering, therefore Christ still hangs on the cross in Jerusalem.1 And that was like (smiling) a sort of froth of thought quite on the surface, all the way up, bathed in the light from above, and like the intellectual way of expressing what I was seeing (gesture from above downward), which came from above. From the point of view of light, it was a very interesting experience.
0 1967-08-02, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw him yesterday and spoke to him for half an hour, but he was like you know, like iron bars; he had decided in advance that he wouldnt understand anything of what I would tell him. I tried to enter deep down, but He told me (its an old formation on him) that whatever he wants to do he does for a while, then he meets with disaster and the thing is stopped. And he says that now he is making his spiritual effort, and he has met with disaster (I dont know which one). Naturally, I told him it wasnt like that at all! That it was on the contrary the sign he had reached the point when the door could open and he could transform himself. But he refused to understand. You know, when people are obdurate like that, theres no way you can get through.
So I thought you could perhaps talk to him.
--
Till now, in the majority of cases, this has signalled a conversion, a transformation, an illumination (depending on the case), but this case we were just talking about (the Tantric apprentice) came precisely as a result of that return of the Power (I knew it; he told me yesterday, but I knew it when he had his revolt). And all that came was just all the old revolts, all the old movements, which were previously so strong, so widespread, so ESTABLISHED, and had been as though halted in their expression by the withdrawal of the Power. So everyone was slumbering in his condition. Then, as soon as the Force started coming back and working again, it all woke up.
But its not the full Presence yet, not the complete Presence of the being, which, through an incontrovertible omnipotence, changes things. And then, the body, with something so very moving in the simplicity of its prayer and its childlike astonishment, asks, Since You are there, how can that be? And all that is ready to be transformed is transformed. But it isnt yet (how can I explain?) the compelling thing (gesture of irresistible descent), the absolute authority that nothing can resistits not that, not yet, far from it.
0 1967-08-12, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And so Sri Aurobindos sentence assumes its full value. Christianity came because men were rebelling against pain and trying to escape from the world in order to escape from pain. Then, as the years went by and with the unfolding, men took a liking to suffering! And because they love it (see how Sri Aurobindos sentence becomes clear), Christ still hangs on the cross in Jerusalem. It assumes its full significance.
***
0 1967-10-04, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Brother A.
P.S. I am enclosing a letter to the Prior of Bellefontaine which I sent him in case it could be of use, and which I thought should be communicated to you.
--
signed: Brother A.
Jai-jai means Victory-victory!
--
Its rather significant that for some time youve been seeing Catholics come to you from every side!
Well, yes!
--
The same thing with N.S. In his case also He had fallen on his head and fractured it (he fainted in the street, thats how he died). He was taken to the hospital. But he went out6 and came to me right away (and so I knew: when I was told the accident had happened, I already knew something had happened because he had come to me). I kept him there, put him to rest, and he was quite peacefulquite peaceful. They didnt even consult me to know when he should be burned or anything (of course, a family of doctors!). Then, suddenly, brrt! (gesture of bursting) he went out of my atmosphere abruptly, like that. And no more sign of him. It took me DAYS to recontact himand that was the shock he had when they burned his body. It took me days to find him again, put him back to rest, gather him together. And one part had disappeared; his whole consciousness didnt return, because a part of his most material consciousness, of the material vital, must have been thrown out by the shock. I know it, because Alberts7 father was operated on (it was more than a year later, maybe two), and when he was chloroformed, he suddenly saw N.S. in front of him (of course, even a part can take on the appearance of the whole being, Sri Aurobindo has explained that, its like a photograph). He saw N.S., and N.S. asked him for news of his family, news of his wife, news of his children, and he told him, I worry about them. It must have been the part tied to his family, which must have been separated from the rest of his being: when he came to me, he was complete, but afterwards, I dont know what happened (gesture of bursting under the shock). And it was so concrete that when Alberts father was woken up again, he said aloud, But why are you cutting short my conversation with N.S.? Thats how they found out. He told them, But I was talking with N.S., why have you interrupted my conversation? So they found out what had happened.
There.
0 1967-10-05, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Satprem
***
0 1967-10-19, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its like with Auroville: a whole part of the government is absolutely enthusiastic, but there are three or four individuals here, in Madras State, who are dead against, and they have a terrible action: they stop everything. Some ministers (as usual) come, are received, they give you a promise, saying, I am with you, youll have everything you want; they leave the room and send a telegram to their assistant: Dont sign the papers. That kind of lie, you understand, everywhere.
But the amusing point: here they are Hindus, over there they are Christians, and they both came together with the stars to say that its this year, right now.
0 1967-11-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Two tall ones and three small ones. I dont know what it signifies.
They were burning slowly, like this (still gesture), without any air current, very quietly.
0 1967-12-02, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This morning I was shown photos again, photos I had never seen, which I am asked to sign for people whove bought them. In one I look like Annie Besant! (Mother laughs) There are all sorts!
But in one of them I seem to be shut in a world of darkness and unconsciousness, and if you look at the face it really looks desperatenot desperate, but not happy. Things of that sort, which I had never noticed. Theyre sold by the thousands, mon petit!
0 1967-12-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its an acute state of consciousness, that is, wholly awakened. In the cells of the body, it dispels all darkness. Naturally, its a long and slow work, but it dispels, its a state that dispels all darkness everywhere. And darkness is always the sign ( sign or cause) of a disorder. We know there is still plenty of it. Its a slow work, a whole world! When you (how should I put it?) when you descend into (one can say descend or concentrate on) this cellular constitution of the body, on the bodys scale, its an innumerable world! An innumerable world. Everything is as though made up of innumerable tiny points, and each point has to be awakened and flooded with consciousness and lighta long work.
(silence)
0 1967-12-08, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The only somewhat new thing is that the body is beginning to be a bit restless at its decay. Before, it was completely indifferent, it didnt give it a thought; it knew it was going on, but Now, its beginning to be troublesome. So perhaps its a sign, I dont know? Its beginning to be troublesomenot psychologically, but like this: when it receives the Command to do something and there is, not exactly an incapacity, but a limitation to the possibility, that starts it is unhappy. So I wondered
Then at night its the same thing, it says, Why such a so long period of diminishing consciousness?
0 1968-01-10, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For an hour in the morning, I arrange flowers in my bathroom over there; all the flowers are kept there so I select them (I make a distribution every morning). And its so beautiful! Its wonderful. All the flowers speak, like that, they have a lifethey FEEL. And as I am very fond of them, they vibrate and vibrate. Then, as some have closed up in the night, I take them, look at them, tell them they are pretty and they open up. Really a pleasant sight. Just look at this! (Mother holds out a rose)
***
0 1968-01-12, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats it, its always a sign in people who have a purely mental constructive power: they want to bend words to express what they want. I told her, It doesnt matter, whatever you may say, everyone will take the phrase to have its usual meaning.
(In an aggressive tone) But THIS IS what it means.
--
signed: Satprem
***
0 1968-02-17, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Y.
(Then Mother holds out a leaflet showing1)
0 1968-04-10, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He asked me what he should do with his money, so I advised him to go and see A. He said, for instance, that he had shares in lots of businesses, and he asked me, Should I divest myself of all this? I told him, A. will be able to advise you, but at first sight theres no reason to divest yourself; if you get interest, you may give it to the Ashram if you feel devoted to the Ashram, but theres no reason to throw everything overboard.
He didnt speak of divesting himself when he saw A., he said he manages OTHER peoples money.
--
As soon as you come down from that supreme Height, you find the whole play of diverse influences (gesture of mixture and conflict), and thats in fact a sure sign: if you come down ever so slightly (even into a region of higher mentality, higher intelligence), the WHOLE conflict of influences starts. Only whats truly all the way up, with perfect purity, has this power of spontaneous conviction. All substitutes you may try are therefore an approximation, and not a much better one than democracyby democracy, I mean the system that wants to rule through the greatest number and lowest masses (I am referring to social democracy, the latest trend).
If there is no representative of the supreme Consciousness (which can happen, of course), if there isnt any, we could perhaps (this would be worth trying) replace him with the government by a small numberwe would have to choose between four and eight, something like that: four, seven or eighta small number having an INTUITIVE intelligence. Intuitive is more important than intelligence: they should have an intuition that manifests intellectually. (From a practical standpoint it would have some drawbacks, but it might be nearer the truth than the lowest rung: socialism or communism.) All the intermediaries have proved incompetent: theocracy, aristocracy, democracy, plutocracyall that is a complete failure. The other one too is now giving proof of its failure, the government of what can we call it? Democracy?4 (But democracy always implies the idea of educated, rich people.) That has given proof of its complete incompetence.
--
Yes, thats right! But I am referring to the system all the way down, socialistic or communistic, which represents material needs. Basically, it corresponds to a sort of absence of government, because they dont have the power to govern others: they are forced to transfer their power to someone who exercises it, like a Lenin, for instance, because he was a brain. But all that all that has been tried out and has given proof of its incompetence. The only thing that could be competent is the Truth-Consciousness choosing instruments and expressing itself through a certain number of instruments, if one cant be found (just one isnt enough, either, that one would necessarily need to choose a whole collectivity). Those possessing this consciousness may belong to any class of society: its not a privilege arising from birth, but the result of personal effort and development. In fact, that would be an external sign, an evident sign of change on the political level: no question anymore of classes or categories or birth (all that is outdated), but those individualities that have reached a higher consciousness would have the right to govern, whatever class they belong toand no others.
That would be the true vision.
0 1968-05-18, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The occasion for all that (to place the thing) was that I said, The U.S. president will go to Russia to sign a peace treaty with Vietnam.3 There are two similar circumstances at the same time, so that three peace treaties are going to be signed at the same time.
When events start following such a trend, it shows we are going to see things.
0 1968-05-22, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In any case, it is certain that we shall see the signs, or rather that we are now seeing the precursory signs. I said that to Rijuta while announcing to her (she didnt know it) that the U.S. president would go to Moscow to sign a peace treaty with Vietnam. There were three wars, one of which had stopped but wasnt resolved: that was the war between Egypt and Israel, over which they have reached an agreement. I forget the third. And all three wars at the same time. But the most serious of the three was the war between America and Vietnam. So I said that to her; I told her, This is a sign.
And it isnt a mental conception, its not ideas: at the time of saying it I SAW it, I saw.
--
Those are still the precursory signs, the forerunner movements, so its scattered, not combined, but for one who can see, its obvious.
(silence)
0 1968-08-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For millennia, we have been developing outer means, outer instruments, outer techniques of living and finally those means and techniques are crushing us. The sign of the new humanity is a reversal in the standpoint, and the understanding that inner knowledge and inner technique can change the world and master it without crushing it.
Auroville is the place where this new way of living is being worked out, it is a center of accelerated evolution where man must begin to change his world through the power of the inner spirit.
0 1968-08-22, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
signed: Mother
***
0 1968-10-09, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, all that I have seen lately is very beautiful, and with open eyes. Its to compensate the fact that I can no longer (Mother looks around her). No, its something in the sight that I dont understand and how many things I dont understand, oh!
There is, at the same time, the fact of an all-powerfulness without limits, and of a powerlessness without limits. And all that here, at the same place (Mother closes her two hands together, one on top of the other) And by temperament I am sensible enough not to talk, because if I were to say all that I see, all that goes on and all thats there they would say, Thats it, shes gone, shes lost her balance; with her mind shes lost her head! (Mother laughs) So I take a very serious look and say to myself, Lets see, lets take one of their so very important problemsproblems of life and death to themlets see, lets look at it straight in the face, lets be a little serious. (Mother laughs) And its all right, the balance is still there!
0 1968-11-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, yes! There are big signs everywhere in the rooms: He died for our sins, and verses from the Bible all over the place.
Oh!
--
Yes, I saw that in the hospital, there was a big sign: He died for our sins.
How horrible!
A sign big as this [gesture].
Oh, how horrible.
--
No, I didnt see the Bible, but there was also a sign (I forget what).
They propagandize.
--
signed: Mother
Suzanne Karpels, or Bharatidi, was born on March 17, 1890, in Paris.
0 1968-11-13, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For instance, its habit of building possibilities, or foreseeing (we can hardly call it building or foreseeing its a sort of very dark thing deep down) possibilities and imagining events, with the whole pessimistic and dramatic side shown in all its ridiculousness. So then, I dont know, its obviously to learn to control and direct that, but At first sight, it just has to be swept away, its absolutely useless: you waste your time with it and make a bad job. You fill the atmosphere with a quantity of thoroughly disgusting formations with pulp-fiction imaginations.
There is an attempt at control, but all that is still very, very dark.
0 1969-01-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a problem I should put to you, an important problem: I would very much like you to ask Sri Aurobindo what we should do. Its about The Human Cycle. The latest news is that the publisher in Paris is quite ready to publish a first text by Sri Aurobindo. But Ive started having second thoughts. This Human Cycle was rejected a first time, and by mistake they sent its manuscript back here. I wondered if, after all, that wasnt a sign that the first volume of Sri Aurobindo to be brought out, rather than The Human Cycle, should not rather be The Synthesis of Yoga? The thought has come to me. Its very important: what should we begin with? The Human Cycle had seemed to me more exterior and generally accessible.
Do you have the translation of The Synthesis?
0 1969-02-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No need to sign?
I never write.
--- Grep of noun sig
sigeh
sigh
sight
sight bill
sight draft
sight gag
sight setting
sightedness
sighting
sightlessness
sightreader
sights
sightseeing
sightseer
sigint
sigma
sigmodon
sigmodon hispidus
sigmoid colon
sigmoid flexure
sigmoid sinus
sigmoid vein
sigmoidectomy
sigmoidoscope
sigmoidoscopy
sigmund freud
sigmund romberg
sign
sign industry
sign language
sign manual
sign of the cross
sign of the zodiac
sign painter
signage
signal
signal-to-noise
signal-to-noise ratio
signal/noise
signal/noise ratio
signal box
signal caller
signal detection
signal fire
signal flag
signal level
signal light
signal tower
signaler
signaling
signaling device
signalisation
signalization
signaller
signalman
signals intelligence
signatory
signature
signature recognition
signature tune
signboard
signer
signet
signet ring
significance
significant digit
significant figure
significant other
signification
signified
signifier
signing
signior
signor
signora
signore
signorina
signory
signpost
sigrid undset
sigurd
sigyn
