the Divine Action

01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not my purpose here to enter into details as to the exact meaning of the descent, how it happens and what are its lines of activity and the results brought about. For it is indeed an actual descent that happens: the Divine Light leans down first into the mind and begins its purificatory work therealthough it is always the inner heart which first recognises the Divine Presence and gives its assent to the Divine Action for the mind, the higher mind that is to say, is the summit of the ordinary human consciousness and receives more easily and readily the Radiances that descend. From the Mind the Light filters into the denser regions of the emotions and desires, of life activity and vital dynamism; finally, it gets into brute Matter itself, the hard and obscure rock of the physical body, for that too has to be illumined and made the very form and figure of the Light supernal. The Divine in his descending Grace is the Master-Architect who is building slowly and surely the many-chambered and many-storeyed edifice that is human nature and human life into the mould of the Divine Truth in its perfect play and supreme expression. But this is a matter which can be closely considered when one is already well within the mystery of the path and has acquired the elementary essentials of an initiate.
Another question that troubles and perplexes the ordinary human mind is as to the time when the thing will be done. Is it now or a millennium hence or at some astronomical distance in future, like the cooling of the sun, as someone has suggested for an analogy. In view of the magnitude of the work one might with reason say that the whole eternity is there before us, and a century or even a millennium should not be grudged to such a labour for it is nothing less than an undoing of untold millenniums in the past and the building of a far-flung futurity. However, as we have said, since it is the Divine's own work and since Yoga means a concentrated and involved process of action, effectuating in a minute what would perhaps take years to accomplish in the natural course, one can expect the work to be done sooner rather than later. Indeed, the ideal is one of here and nowhere upon this earth of material existence and now in this life, in this very bodynot hereafter or elsewhere. How long exactly that will mean, depends on many factors, but a few decades on this side or the other do not matter very much.

0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
slow down the Divine Action, not out of ill-will but in order to
be sure that nothing is forgotten or neglected in the haste to

0 1962-06-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have been given certain promisesgreat promises. Not promises, but what comes is: This is how it will be. Great thingsconcrete manifestations of the divine Power, the divine Consciousness, the Divine Action. And spontaneous, natural, inevitable.
This is obviously being prepared (Mother touches her body) so that it wont put the usual obstacles in the way of expression.

0 1963-07-27, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It isnt final, mind you, only a first contact: the experience recurs on another occasion and for another reason (they arent mental reasons, they are occasions), it recurs, but there is already a beginning of collaboration: the cells have LEARNED that with That, the state changed (very interestingly, they remember), so they begin to collaborate, and the Action is even more rapid. Then a third time, a few hours away, it recurs once again; but then THE CELLS THEMSELVES call and ask for the Divine Action, because they remember. And then That comes in, gloriously, like something established.
Now Ive got it Ive got the knack! Its for training the cells, you understand! Its not just like a sick person who has to be cured once and for all: no, its a training of the cells, to teach them to live.

0 1966-07-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The resistance of inertia in consciousnesses and in Matter are the reason why that Action, instead of being direct and perfectly harmonious, becomes confused, full of contradictions, shocks and conflicts. Instead of everything working out normally, I might say, smoothly (as it should), all that resisting, opposing inertia causes things to start clashing together in a tangled movement, with disorder and destruction, which are made necessary only by the resistance but were NOT indispensable: they might not have beenthey should not have been, to tell the truth. Because that Will, that Power, is a Power of perfect harmony in which each thing is in its place, and It organizes everything wonderfully: It comes as an absolutely luminous and perfect organization, which you can see when you have the vision. But when It descends and presses down on Matter, everything starts seething and resisting. So to want to ascribe to the Divine Action and the divine Power the disorder and confusion and destruction is yet more human nonsense. Its inertia (not to speak of ill will), its inertia that CAUSES the catastrophe. It isnt that the catastrophe is willed, or even that its foreseen: it is CAUSED by the resistance.
Then, added to this is the vision of the action of the Grace that comes and mitigates the results wherever possible, that is to say, wherever its accepted. And thats what explains that the aspiration, the faith, the complete trust of the human, terrestrial element, have a power of harmonization, because they allow the Grace to come and mend the consequences of blind resistance.

0 1968-11-30, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But it constantly has the sensation not only of the Presence but of the Divine Action, like this (gesture like a flow passing through Mother and onto people), and it doesnt even think, Its through me, not even that. It feels (to translate) that it could be through anything. Some very precise actions take place, and the body is conscious, but never conscious that its doing the action, or that the action is taking place through it. The sense of it doesnt exist except, now and then, for the impression of something somewhat inert; it still has the sensation of its inertiaits not the full Consciousness. But it doesnt even bother about that, its not its business.
Theres a keen and constant observation of EVERYTHING, each and every thing going oninexpressible. By the time youve said it, a whole lot of other things have taken place.

0 1969-10-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The state now is such that when the body FEELS ITSELF (feels itself, that is to say, is aware of being a body), INSTANTLY theres a discomfort, whatever the condition. Even when it feels in a state of adoration or aspiration or its accompanied by discomfort. And only when theres no more awareness at all of its separate existence does it feel comfortable. So then, the normal state is silence, stillness, but (the image isnt correcthow can I explain?), you see, the Presence, its not that it flows through, but when it radiates like this (gesture), radiates through an activity, then everything is fine and theres no more at all the sensation of this [the body] through which: this through which the Divine flowsthere isnt. Its like this (immutable gesture), still and nonexistent, without any self-awareness, aware only of the Divine Action, like that. Then everything is fine. And the minute theres even a slight impression of the Thing flowing through, discomfort comes. You understand, it has become a very acute state.
See, I might say (it sounds like literature) that in a certain state, in that state in which it no longer feels itself and only the awareness of the Divine remains, theres the sense of an Immortality, of Eternity; and if theres the least sensation of something in which the Divine manifests, it absolutely becomes the sense of deathyou instantly become mortal again. And acute, you know, acute like that. But then, its very subtle, because the sensation (sensation or perception or feeling) of I has completely disappeared, all the time, all the timereally so, completely; its the something, the something which is still a little different, and that becomes terribly painful the body is perfectly at case only when it no longer feels itself.

0 1970-07-25, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The mental functioning explainsit explains. Things are consequences (even my word consequence in the notebook, Im not sure its the right one), it explains, whereas this is spontaneous. Its not the result of a decision, its spontaneous. One might almost say its automatic. We always feel (we, I mean human beings), we think of the Divine Action as a supra-human action, that is, which first sees THEN decides but its not that! Its yes, an automatism, I dont know how to put it.
I must say that two days ago, I had an experience (it was with R. again, she was here), an experience of the whole universe, like a general vision of an Immensity, and then, suddenly the consciousness seemed to become a point taking up no room, and that point was the Eternal Consciousness. But then, it was so strong! So strong how all this, this whole unfolded universe was the result of this Consciousness (Mother shows a point). You understand, the consciousness here became this Eternal Consciousness (for a few seconds perhaps, I dont think it lasted even a minute, but time had nothing to do with it), it was the Eternal, it was the Consciousness. And that experience already prepared something [in Mother], because the two were simultaneous; one didnt abolish the other, the two were simultaneous: this Point that was taking up no room but was eternal, was everything, and at the same time, the unfolding [of the universe]. That was a very intense experience. Then there only remained this vagueness that is the whole, but it didnt lose its impression of vagueness, that is to say, of something imprecise. Since that time, there has been something changed [in Mother]. And today, in this consciousness, when the answer came, it wasnt the knowledge of thatit wasnt the knowledge, it was the working. All of a sudden, I had BECOME the working. So then, I expressed it as best I could in this notebook. It had such simplicity, you know, a marvelous, all-powerful simplicity!

0 1971-07-21, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The body is more and more conscious, but not at all mentallylike like things actually lived. I dont know how to say it. Its hard to explain. Its sensing or having the (I dont know how to explain exactly what it is) how, in the manifestation, the human consciousness distorts the Divine Action (gesture of direct flow). Its our constitution which is so pitiable. We reduce, distort, diminish EVERYTHINGeverything. We know things (Knowledge is there all around us, in us), but we are so complicated that we distort it. Everyone is that way. So then, this is a kind of very accurate sensation of everything that is organized by the inner Divine from within, and at the same time how it gets distorted as it surfaces (words are silly, and yet thats the closest I can come). Its our silly way of saying something that is so simple and so marvelous! But we are so perverted that we always choose what is distorted.
I dont know, even my words distort the thing, but its its something I feel is so simple, so luminous, so pureso absolute. And then, we make of it what we can see around us: a complicated and almost incomprehensible life.

0 1972-08-30, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I can clearly see that instead of thought governing life, its consciousness. And when the consciousness remains quietly open to the Divine, all goes well. A lot of things constantly come into the consciousness, from the whole world, it would seem (gesture of being assailed from all sides): all the things that negate or oppose the Divine Action. They keep coming all the time like this (same gesture). But if I can remain quiet (gesture of offering, hands open), in an attitude of (smiling) nonexistence, a sort of I dont know if its transparency I dont know if one should say transparency or immobility but its something in the consciousness thats like this (same gesture of offering, hands open). When it stays that way, all is well; but as soon as it starts stirring, that is, as soon as the individuality comes to the forefront in any way, everything becomes detestable. Its really too much.
You see, the physical body has a millennium of past experiences that says, Why, that blissful state is impossible!this stupidity is what delays everything. Its as if the cells themselves, the cells of the body which are used to struggling and suffering, couldnt accept that things can be like this (same gesture of surrender, hands open). But when it is then its wonderful.

1.2.07 - Surrender, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It was not my intention to say that this way is the only way and sadhana cannot be done otherwise - there are so many others by which one can approach the Divine. But this is the only one I know by which the taking up of the sadhana by the Divine becomes a sensible fact before the preparation of the nature is done. In other methods the Divine Action and help may be felt from time to time, but it remains mostly behind the veil till all is ready. In some sadhanas the Divine Action is not recognised; all must be done by tapasya. In most there is a mixing of the two, the tapasya finally calling the direct help and intervention. The idea and experience of the Divine doing all belongs to the Yogas based on surrender.
But whatever way is followed, the one thing to be done is to be faithful and go to the end. You have so often taken that decision - stand by it, do not let the storms of the vital quench the aspiration of your soul.

1914 11 15p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The one important thing is the goal to be reached; the road matters little, and often it is preferable not to know it beforehand. But what we need to know is whether the time for the Divine Action upon earth has really come, and whether the work conceived in the depths can be realised.
Of this, O Lord, Thou hast given us the assurance, an assurance which has been accompanied by the most powerful promise that Nature, the universal Consciousness can possibly make. Thus we have the certitude that what must be done will be done and that our present individual beings are in reality called upon to collaborate in this glorious victory, this new manifestation. What more do we need to know? Nothing. So it is with the greatest confidence that we can witness the formidable fight, the onslaught of the adverse forces, which, unknowingly, finally serve in the realisation of Thy plan. We would be wrong to feel anxious because it is not given to us to know how it serves Thy plan and by what means Thou wilt triumph over all resistances; for Thy triumph is so perfect that every obstacle, every ill-will, every hatred raised up against Thee is a promise of a still vaster and more complete victory.

1953-05-20, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But that moment should be absolutely sincere and as integral as possible; and all this must occur not only in the head, not only here, but must take place everywhere, in all the cells of the body. The consciousness integrally must have this irresistible need. The thing lasts for some time, then diminishes, gets extinguished. You cannot keep these things for very long. But then it so happens that a moment later or the next day or some time later, suddenly you have the opposite experience. Instead of feeling this ascent, and all that, this is no longer there and you have the feeling of the Descent, the Answer. And nothing but the Answer exists. Nothing but the divine thought, the divine will, the divine energy, the Divine Action exists any longer. And you too, you are no longer there.
That is to say, it is the answer to our aspiration. It may happen immediately afterwards that is very rare but may happen. If you have both simultaneously, then the state is perfect; usually they alternate; they alternate more and more closely until the moment there is a total fusion. Then there is no more distinction. I heard a Sufi mystic, who was besides a great musician, an Indian, saying that for the Sufis there was a state higher than that of adoration and surrender to the Divine, than that of devotion, that this was not the last stage; the last stage of the progress is when there is no longer any distinction; you have no longer this kind of adoration or surrender or consecration; it is a very simple state in which one makes no distinction between the Divine and oneself. They know this. It is even written in their books. It is a commonly known condition in which everything becomes quite simple. There is no longer any difference. There is no longer that kind of ecstatic surrender to Something which is beyond you in every way, which you do not understand, which is merely the result of your aspiration, your devotion. There is no difference any longer. When the union is perfect, there is no longer any difference.

1954-07-21 - Mistakes - Success - Asuras - Mental arrogance - Difficulty turned into opportunity - Mothers use of flowers - Conversion of men governed by adverse forces, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A still greater vital being! (Laughter) You see, they have in them an emanation of adverse vital forces, and the being or power which has emanated this force has done so in order to make use of the body, to make it do in the material life exactly the things it wanted to do. But now, when there is no longer a body left, it is no longer interesting. You see, it was this body which was meant to do a certain number of things to act against the Divine Action. Once the body has disappeared, the emanation is withdrawn and all the force that was with it, and it is swallowed up again for another opportunity.
They spend their time doing this. They emanate and then reabsorb when it pleases them, at times before death that is, this haste death a bit. It leaves the being like a kind of rag, powerless, lifeless, without anything. This happen; it makes them absolutely mad. Or else, when they die in some sort of catastrophe, as it happened during the war, suddenly hup! It acts like a cupping glass, it absorbs everything, swallows up everything again for another occasion. It looks for this, for what is ready to receive it, and it makes it There is always someone who is open to receive it, and who immediately believes himself a very superior being; because it gives this, it gives people the feeling that they are truly, exceptionally remarkable they are capable of seeing the faults of things which others dont see; their judgment is more sane than that of hundreds of other individuals. Besides, they have decided, they are among those who have decided what the creation ought to be like and who try to make it so, to put things in their place as they ought to be.

1956-08-08 - How to light the psychic fire, will for progress - Helping from a distance, mental formations - Prayer and the divine - Grace Grace at work everywhere, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And when one is in this state of perfect receptivity and perfect adherence, one diminishes to that extent the resistance of the world to the Divine Action; consequently, this is the best collaboration one can bring to the Action of the Divine. One understands what He wants and, with all ones consciousness, adheres to His Will.
***

1956-08-15 - Protection, purification, fear - Atmosphere at the Ashram on Darshan days - Darshan messages - Significance of 15-08 - State of surrender - Divine Grace always all-powerful - Assumption of Virgin Mary - SA message of 1947-08-15, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I would add this: that fear is an impurity, one of the greatest impurities, one of those which come most directly from the anti-divine forces which want to destroy the Divine Action on earth; and the first duty of those who really want to do yoga is to eliminate from their consciousness, with all the might, all the sincerity, all the endurance of which they are capable, even the shadow of a fear. To walk on the path, one must be dauntless, and never indulge in that petty, small, feeble, nasty shrinking back upon oneself, which is fear.
An indomitable courage, a perfect sincerity and a sincere self-giving, so that one does not calculate or bargain, does not give with the idea of receiving, does not trust with the idea of being protected, does not have a faith which asks for proofsit is this that is indispensable in order to walk on the path, and it is this alone which can truly shelter you from all danger.

1966 07 06, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The resistances of the inertia that is in every consciousness and in Matter mean that this Action, instead of being direct and perfectly harmonious, becomes confused, full of contradictions, clashes and conflicts; instead of everything resolving itself normally, so to say, smoothlyas it should beall this inertia that resists and opposes, gives it a tangled movement in which things collide and there is disorder and destruction, which become necessary only because of the resistance, but which were not indispensable, which might not have existedwhich truly speaking should not have beenbecause this Will, this Power is a Power of perfect harmony where each thing is in its place, and it organises things wonderfully. It comes as an absolutely luminous and perfect organisation, which one can see when one has the vision; but when it comes down and presses on Matter, everything begins to see the and resist. Therefore, to attempt to impute the disorders and confusions and destructions to the Divine Action, to the divine Power, is another human foolishness. It is the inertianot to mention the bad willwhich causes the catastrophe. It is not that the catastrophe was intended, nor even foreseen, it is caused by the resistance.
And then, there is added the vision of the action of Grace, which comes to moderate the results wherever possible, that is to say, wherever it is accepted. And this explains why aspiration, faith, complete trust on the part of the earthly human element have a harmonising power, because they allow the Grace to come and set right the consequences of this blind resistance.

2.04 - The Secret of Secrets, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Godhead in man and the world, whom nothing in man and the world limits or binds, because all proceeds from him, is a movement in his infinite being, continues and is supported by his will, is justified in his divine self-knowledge, has him always for its origin, substance and end. Arjuna is to become aware of himself as existing only in God and as acting only by the power within him, his workings only an instrumentality of the Divine Action, his egoistic consciousness only a veil and to his ignorance a misrepresentation of the real being within him which is an immortal spark and portion of the supreme Godhead.
This vision is to remove whatever doubt may still remain within his mind; it is to make him strong for the action from which he has shrunk, but to which he is irrevocably commanded and can no more recoil from it, - for to recoil would be the negation and denial of the divine will and sanction within him already expressed in his individual consciousness but soon to assume the appearance of the greater cosmic sanction. For now the world Being appears to him as the body of God ensouled by the eternal Time-spirit and with its majestic and dreadful voice missions him to the crash of the battle. He is called by it to

2.08 - God in Power of Becoming, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The whole means of the spiritual liberation has been given; the whole foundation of the Divine Action has been constructed.
Arjuna accepts the entire knowledge that has thus been given to him by the divine Teacher. His mind is already delivered from its doubts and seekings; his heart, turned now from the outward aspect of the world, from its baffling appearance to its supreme sense and origin and its inner realities, is already released from sorrow and affliction and touched with the ineffable gladness of a divine revelation. The language which he is made to use in voicing his acceptance is such as to emphasise and insist once again on the profound integrality of this knowledge and its all-embracing finality and fullness. He accepts first the Avatar, the Godhead in man who is speaking to him as the supreme

2.11 - The Vision of the World-Spirit - The Double Aspect, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Immortality. From the terror of the King of the Divine Action the
Rakshasas, the fierce giant powers of darkness, flee destroyed, defeated and overpowered. But the Siddhas, but the complete and perfect who know and sing the names of the Immortal and live in the truth of his being, bow down before every form of

2.15 - The Cosmic Consciousness, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But this is only when there is perfection in the cosmic consciousness, and that is difficult for the mental being. The mentality when it arrives at the idea or the realisation of the Spirit, the Divine, tends to break existence into two opposite halves, the lower and the higher existence. It sees on one side the Infinite, the Formless, the One, the Peace and Bliss, the Calm and Silence, the Absolute, the Vast and Pure; on the other it sees the finite, the world of forms, the jarring multiplicity, the strife and suffering and imperfect, unreal good, the tormented activity and futile success, the relative, the limited and vain and vile. To those who make this division, this opposition, complete liberation is only attainable in the peace of the One, the featurelessness of the Infinite, the non-becoming of the Absolute which is to them the only real being; to be free all values must be destroyed, all limitations not only transcended but abolished. They have the liberation of the divine rest, but not the liberty of the Divine Action; they enjoy the peace of the Transcendent, but not the cosmic bliss of the Transcendent. Their liberty depends upon abstention from the cosmic movement, it cannot dominate and possess cosmic existence itself. But it is also possible for them to realise and participate in the immanent as well as the transcendent peace. Still the division is not cured. The liberty they enjoy is that of the silent unacting Witness, not the liberty of the divine Masterconsciousness which possesses all things, delights in all, casts itself into all forms of existence without fear of fall or loss or bondage or stain. All the rights of the spirit are not yet possessed; there is still a denial, a limitation, a holding back from the entire oneness of all existence. The workings of Mind, Life, Body are viewed from the calm and peace of the spiritual planes of the mental being and are filled with that calm and peace; they are not possessed by and subjected to the law of the allmastering Spirit.
This is when the mental being takes its station in its own spiritual planes, in the mental planes of Sat, Chit, Ananda, and casts down their light and delight upon the lower existence. But it is possible to attempt to arrive at a kind of cosmic consciousness by dwelling on the lower planes themselves, breaking their limitation laterally, as we have said, and calling down into them the light and largeness of the higher existence. Not only Spirit is one, but Mind, Life, Matter are one. 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. And if we can by the mind and heart get at the touch of the Spirit, receive the powerful inrush of the Divine into this lower humanity and change our nature into a reflection of the divine nature by love, by universal joy, by oneness of mind with all Nature and all beings, we can break down the walls. Even our bodies are not really separate entities and therefore our very physical consciousness is capable of oneness with the physical consciousness of others and of the cosmos. The Yogin is able to feel his body one with all bodies, to be aware of and even to participate in their affections; he can feel constantly the unity of all Matter and be aware of his physical being as only a movement in its movement398. Still more is it possible for him to feel constantly and normally the whole sea of the infinite life as his true vital existence and his own life as only a wave of that boundless surge. And more easily yet is it possible for him to unite himself in mind and heart with all existences, be aware of their desires, struggles, joys, sorrows, thoughts, impulses, in a sense as if they were his own, at least as occurring in his larger self hardly less intimately or quite as intimately as the movements of his own heart and mind. This too is a realisation of cosmic consciousness.

2.22 - The Supreme Secret, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
must be broken and we must feel ourselves one with all and infinite. But the ego is not the real person; when it has been dissolved there still remains the spiritual individual, there is still the eternal Jiva. The ego limitation disappears and the soul lives in a profound unity with the One and feels its universal unity with all things. And yet it is still our own soul that enjoys this expanse and oneness. The universal action, even when it is felt as the action of one and the same energy in all, even when it is experienced as the initiation and movement of the Ishwara, still takes different forms in different souls of men, amsah. sanatanah., and a different turn in their nature. The light of spiritual knowledge, the manifold universal Shakti, the eternal delight of being stream into us and around us, concentrate in the soul and flow out on the surrounding world from each as from a centre of living spiritual consciousness whose circumference is lost in the infinite. More, the spiritual individual remains as a little universe of divine existence at once independent and inseparable from the whole infinite universe of the divine self-manifestation of which we see a petty portion around us. A portion of the Transcendent, creative, he creates his own world around him even while he retains this cosmic consciousness in which are all others. If it be objected that this is an illusion which must disappear when he retreats into the transcendent Absolute, there is after all no very certain certainty in that matter. For it is still the soul in man that is the enjoyer of this release, as it was the living spiritual centre of the Divine Action and manifestation; there is something more than the mere self-breaking of an illusory shell of individuality in the Infinite. This mystery of our existence signifies that what we are is not only a temporary name and form of the One, but as we may say, a soul and spirit of the Divine Oneness. Our spiritual individuality of which the ego is only a misleading shadow and projection in the ignorance has or is a truth that persists beyond the ignorance; there is something of us that dwells for ever in the supreme nature of the Purushottama, nivasis.yasi mayi. This is the profound comprehensiveness of the teaching of the Gita that while it recognises the truth of the universalised impersonality into which we enter by the extinction of ego, brahma-nirvan.a,
550
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The whole Yoga is revealed, the great word of the teaching is given, and Arjuna the chosen human soul is once more turned, no longer in his egoistic mind but in this greatest self-knowledge, to the Divine Action. The Vibhuti is ready for the divine life in the human, his conscious spirit for the works of the liberated soul, muktasya karma. Destroyed is the illusion of the mind; the soul's memory of its self and its truth concealed so long by the misleading shows and forms of our life has returned to it and become its normal consciousness: all doubt and perplexity gone, it can turn to the execution of the comm and and do faithfully whatever work for God and the world may be appointed and apportioned to it by the Master of our being, the Spirit and
Godhead self-fulfilled in Time and universe.

2.24 - The Message of the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Godhead of which it is a portion; then it is one with all beings in the self and spirit, one with them both in God and in Nature; then it is not only free but complete, plunged in the supreme felicity, ready for its ultimate perfection. He still sees the self as an eternal and changeless Spirit silently supporting all things; but he sees also Nature no longer as a mere mechanical force that works out things according to the mechanism of the gunas, but as a power of the Spirit and the force of God in manifestation. He sees that the lower Nature is not the inmost truth of the spirit's action; he becomes aware of a highest spiritual nature of the Divine in which is contained the source and the yet to be realised greater truth of all that is imperfectly figured now in mind, life and body. Arisen from the lower mental to this supreme spiritual nature, he is delivered there from all ego. He knows himself as a spiritual being, in his essence one with all existences and in his active nature a power of the one Godhead and an eternal soul of the transcendent Infinite. He sees all in God and God in all; he sees all things as Vasudeva. He is delivered from the dualities of joy and grief, from the pleasant and the unpleasant, from desire and disappointment, from sin and virtue. All henceforth is to his conscious sight and sense the will and working of the Divine. He lives and acts as a soul and portion of the universal consciousness and power; he is filled with the transcendent divine delight, a spiritual Ananda. His action becomes the Divine Action and his status the highest spiritual status.
* *
--
"The first step on this free, this equal, this divine way of action is to put from you attachment to fruit and recompense and to labour only for the sake of the work itself that has to be done. For you must deeply feel that the fruits belong not to you but to the Master of the world. Consecrate your labour and leave its returns to the Spirit who manifests and fulfils himself in the universal movement. The outcome of your action is determined by his will alone and whatever it be, good or evil fortune, success or failure, it is turned by him to the accomplishment of his world purpose. An entirely desireless and disinterested working of the personal will and the whole instrumental nature is the first rule of Karmayoga. Demand no fruit, accept whatever result is given to you; accept it with equality and a calm gladness: successful or foiled, prosperous or afflicted, continue unafraid, untroubled and unwavering on the steep path of the Divine Action.
"This is no more than the first step on the path. For you must be not only unattached to results, but unattached also to

2.3.01 - Concentration and Meditation, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This is what is called in this Yoga the psychic transformation. The power of concentration above the head is to bring peace, silence, liberation from the body sense, the identification with mind and life and open the way for the lower (mentalvital-physical) consciousness to rise up to meet the higher Consciousness above and for the powers of the higher (spiritual or divine) Consciousness to descend into mind, life and body. This is what is called in this Yoga the spiritual transformation. If one begins with this movement, then the Power from above has in its descent to open all the centres (including the lowest centre) and to bring out the psychic being; for until that is done there is likely to be much difficulty and struggle of the lower consciousness obstructing, mixing with or even refusing the Divine Action from above. If the psychic being is once active this struggle and these difficulties can be greatly minimised.
The power of concentration in the eyebrows is to open the centre there, liberate the inner mind and vision and the inner or Yogic consciousness and its experiences and powers. From here also one can open upwards and act also in the lower centres; but the danger of this process is that one may get shut up in one's mental spiritual formations and not come out of them into the free and integral spiritual experience and knowledge and integral change of the being and nature.

2.3.03 - The Mother's Presence, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is terribly difficult to write of these things, for you are all as ignorant as blazes about these things and misunderstand at every step. The Emanation is not a deputy, but the Mother herself. She is not bound to her body, but can put herself out (emanate) in any way she likes. What emanates, suits itself to the nature of the personal relation she has with the sadhak which is different with each, but that does not prevent it from being herself. Its presence with the sadhak is not dependent on his consciousness of it. If everything were dependent on the surface consciousness of the sadhak, there would be no possibility of the Divine Action anywhere; the human worm would remain the human worm
The Mother's Presence

4.08 - The Liberation of the Spirit, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But the moment the individual soul leans away from the universal and transcendent truth of its being, leans towards ego, tries to make this will a thing of its own, a separate personal energy, that will changes its character: it becomes an effort, a straining, a heat of force which may have its fiery joys of effectuation and of possession, but has also its afflicting recoils and pain of labour. It is this that turns in each instrument into an intellectual, emotional, dynamic, sensational or vital will of desire, wish, craving. Even when the instruments per se are purified of their own apparent initiative and particular kind of desire, this imperfect Tapas may still remain, and so long as it conceals the source or deforms the type of the inner action, the soul has not the bliss of liberty, or can only have it by refraining from all action; even, if allowed to persist, it will rekindle the pranic or other desires or at least throw a reminiscent shadow of them on the being. This spiritual seed or beginning of desire too must be expelled, renounced, cast away: the Sadhaka must either choose an active peace and complete inner silence or lose individual initiation, sankalparambha, in a unity with the universal will, the Tapas of the divine shakti. The passive way is to be inwardly immobile, without effort, wish, expectation or any turn to action, niscesta, aniha, nirapeksa, nivrtta; the active way is to be thus immobile and impersonal in the mind, but to allow the supreme Will in its spiritual purity to act through the purified instruments. Then, if the soul abides on the level of the spiritualised mentality, it becomes an instrument only, but is itself without initiative or action, niskriya, sarvarambha-parvatyagi. But if it rises to the gnosis, it is at once an instrument and a participant in the bliss of the Divine Action and the bliss of the divine Ananda; it unifies in itself the prakrti and the purusa.
The ego turn, the separative turn of the being, is the fulcrum of the whole embarrassed labour of the ignorance and the bondage. So long as one is not free from the ego sense, there can be no real freedom. The seat of the ego is said to be in the Buddhi; it is an ignorance of the discriminating mind and reason which discriminate wrongly and take the individuation of mind, life and body for a truth of separative existence and are turned away from the greater reconciling truth of the oneness of all existence. At any rate, in man it is the ego idea which chiefly supports the falsehood of a separative existence; to get rid of this idea, to dwell on the opposite idea of unity, of the one self, the one spirit, the one being of nature is therefore an effective remedy; but it is not by itself absolutely effective. For the ego, though it supports itself by this ego idea, aham-buddhi, finds its most powerful means for a certain obstinacy or passion of persistence in the normal action of the sense-mind, the Prana and the body. To cast out of us the ego idea is not entirely possible or not entirely effective until these instruments have undergone purification; for, their action being persistently egoistic and separative, the Buddhi is carried away -- by them, -- as a boat by winds on the sea, says the Gita, -- the knowledge in the intelligence is being constantly obscured or lost temporarily and has to be restored again, a very labour of Sisyphus. But if the lower instruments have been purified of egoistic desire, wish, will, egoistic passion, egoistic emotion and the Buddhi itself of egoistic idea and preference, then the knowledge of the spiritual truth of oneness can find a firm foundation. Till then, the ego takes all sorts of subtle forms and we imagine ourselves to be free from it, when we are really acting as its instruments and all we have attained is a certain intellectual poise which is not the true spiritual liberation. Moreover, to throw away the active sense of ego is not enough; that may merely bring an inactive state of the mentality, a certain passive inert quietude of separate being may take the place of the kinetic egoism, which is also not the true liberation. The ego sense must be replaced by a oneness with the transcendental Divine and with universal being.

4.10 - The Elements of Perfection, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When the self is purified of the wrong and confused action of the instrumental Nature and liberated into its self-existent being, consciousness, power and bliss and the Nature itself liberated from the tangle of this lower action of the struggling gunas and the dualities into the high truth of the divine calm and the Divine Action, then spiritual perfection becomes possible. Purification and freedom are the indispensable antecedents of perfection. A spiritual self-perfection can only mean a growing into oneness with the nature of divine being, and therefore according to our conception of divine being will be the aim, effort and method of our seeking after this perfection. To the Mayavadin the highest or rather the only real truth of being is the impassive, impersonal, self-aware Absolute and therefore to grow into an impassive calm, impersonality and pure self-awareness of spirit is his idea of perfection and a rejection of cosmic and individual being and a settling into silent self-knowledge is his way. To the Buddhist for whom the highest truth is a negation of being, a recognition of the impermanence and sorrow of being and the disastrous nullity of desire and a dissolution of egoism, of the upholding associations of the Idea and the successions of Karma are the perfect way. Other ideas of the Highest are less negative; each according to its own idea leads towards some likeness to the Divine, sadrsya, and each finds its own way, such as the love and worship of the Bhakta and the growing into the likeness of the Divine by love. But for the integral Yoga perfection will mean a divine spirit and a divine nature which will admit of a divine relation and action in the world; it will mean also in its entirety a divinising of the whole nature, a rejection of all its wrong knots of being and action, but no rejection of any part of our being or of any field of our action. The approach to perfection must be therefore a large and complex movement and its results and workings will have an infinite and varied scope. We must fix in order to find a clue and method on certain essential and fundamental elements and requisites of perfection, siddhi; for if these are secured, all the rest will be found to be only their natural development or particular working. We may cast these elements into six divisions, interdependent on each other to a great extent but still in a certain way naturally successive in their order of attainment. The movement will start from a basic equality of the soul and mount to an ideal action of the Divine through our perfected being in the largeness of the Brahmic unity.
The first necessity is some fundamental poise of the soul both in its essential and its natural being regarding and meeting the things, impacts and workings of Nature. This poise we shall arrive at by growing into a perfect equality, samata. The self, spirit or Brahman is one in all and therefore one to all; it is, as is said in the Gita which has developed fully this idea of equality and indicated its experience on at least one side of equality, the equal Brahman, samam brahma; the Gita even goes so far in one passage as to identify equality and yoga, samatvam yoga ucyate. That is to say, 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. Moreover, it is the condition of a securely and perfectly divine action; the security and largeness of the cosmic action of the Infinite is based upon and never breaks down or forfeits its eternal tranquillity. That too must be the character of the perfect spiritual action; to be equal and one to all things in spirit, understanding, mind, heart and natural consciousness, -- even in the most physical consciousness, -- and to make all their workings, whatever their outward adaptation to the thing to be done, always and imminuably full of the divine equality and calm must be its inmost principle. That may be said to be the passive or basic, the fundamental and receptive side of equality, but there is also an active and possessive side, an equal bliss which can only come when the peace of equality is founded and which is the beatific flower of its fullness.
--
There will remain, because it will then only be entirely possible, the perfect action and enjoyment of being on the gnostic basis. The Purusha enters into cosmic manifestation for the variations of his infinite existence, for knowledge, action and enjoyment; the gnosis brings the fullness of spiritual knowledge and it will found on that the Divine Action and cast the enjoyment of world and being into the law of the truth, the freedom and the perfection of the spirit. But neither action nor enjoyment will be the lower action of the gunas and consequent egoistic enjoyment mostly of the satisfaction of rajasic desire which is our present way of living. Whatever desire will remain, if that name be given, will be the divine desire, the will to delight of the Purusha enjoying in his freedom and perfection the action of the perfected prakriti and all her members. The prakriti will take up the whole nature into the law of her higher divine truth and act in that law offering up the universal enjoyment of her action and being to the Anandamaya Ishwara, the Lord of existence and works and Spirit of bliss, who presides over and governs her workings. The individual soul will be the channel of this action and offering, and it will enjoy at once its oneness with the Ishwara and its oneness with the prakriti and will enjoy all relations with Infinite and finite, with God and the universe and beings in the universe in the highest terms of the union of the universal Purusha and prakriti.
All the gnostic evolution opens up into the divine principle of Ananda, which is the foundation of the fullness of spiritual being, consciousness and bliss of Sachchidananda or eternal Brahman. Possessed at first by reflection in the mental experience, it will be possessed afterwards with a greater fullness and directness in the massed and luminous consciousness, cidghana, which comes by the gnosis. The Siddha or perfected soul will live in union with the Purushottama in this Brahmic consciousness, he will be conscious in the Brahman that is the All, sarvam brahma, in the Brahman infinite in being and infinite in quality, anantam jnanam brahma, in Brahman as self-existent consciousness and universal knowledge, jnanam brahma, in Brahman as the selfexistent bliss and its universal delight of being, anandam brahma. He will experience all the universe as the manifestation of the One, all quality and action as the play of his universal and infinite energy, all knowledge and conscious experience as the outflowing of that consciousness, and all in the terms of that one Ananda. His physical being will be one with all material Nature, his vital being with the life of the universe, his mind with the cosmic mind, his spiritual knowledge and will with the divine knowledge and will both in itself and as it pours itself through these channels, his spirit with the one spirit in all beings. All the variety of cosmic existence will be changed to him in that unity and revealed in the secret of its spiritual significance. For in this spiritual bliss and being he will be one with That which is the origin and continent and inhabitant and spirit and constituting power of all existence. This will be the highest reach of self-perfection.

4.11 - The Perfection of Equality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This equal poise in action is especially necessary for the Sadhaka of the integral Yoga. First, he must acquire that equal assent and understanding which will respond to the law of the Divine Action without trying to impose on it a partial will and the violent claim of a personal aspiration. A wise impersonality, a quiescent equality, a universality which sees all things as the manifestations of the Divine, the one Existence, is not angry, troubled, impatient with the way of things or on the other hand excited, over-eager and precipitate, but sees that the law must be obeyed and the pace of time respected, observes and understands with sympathy the actuality of things and beings, but looks also behind the present appearance to their inner significances and forward to the unrolling of their divine possibilities, is the first thing demanded of those who would do works as the perfect instruments of the Divine. But this impersonal acquiescence is only the basis. Man is the instrument of an evolution which wears at first the mask of a struggle, but grows more and more into its truer and deeper sense of a constant wise adjustment and must take on in a rising scale the deepest truth and significance -- now only underlying the adjustment and struggle -- of a universal harmony. The perfected human soul must always be an instrument for the hastening of the ways of this evolution. For that a divine power acting with the royalty of the divine will in it must be in whatever degree present in the nature. But to be accomplished and permanent, steadfast in action, truly divine, it has to proceed on the basis of a spiritual equality, a calm, impersonal and equal self-identification with all beings, an understanding of all energies. The Divine acts with a mighty power in the myriad workings of the universe, but with the supporting light and force of an imperturbable oneness, freedom and peace. That must be the type of the perfected soul's divine works. And equality is the condition of the being which makes possible this changed spirit in the action.
But even a human perfection cannot dispense with equality as one of its chief elements and even its essential atmosphere. The aim of a human perfection must include, if it is to deserve the name, two things, self-mastery and a mastery of the surroundings; it must seek for them in the greatest degree of these powers which is at all attainable by our human nature. Man's urge of self-perfection is to be, in the ancient language, svarat and samrat, self-ruler and king. But to be self-ruler is not possible for him if he is subject to the attack of the lower nature, to the turbulence of grief and joy, to the violent touches of pleasure and pain, to the tumult of his emotions and passions, to the bondage of his personal likings and dislikings, to the strong chains of desire and attachment, to the narrowness of a personal and emotionally preferential judgment and opinion, to all the hundred touches of his egoism and its pursuing stamp on his thought, feeling and action. All these things are the slavery to the lower self which the greater "I" in man must put under his feet if he is to be king of his own nature. To surmount them is the condition of self-rule; but of that surmounting again equality is the condition and the essence of the movement. To be quite free from all these things, -- if possible, or at least to be master of and superior to them, -- is equality. Farther, one who is not self-ruler, cannot be master of his surroundings. The knowledge, the will, the harmony which is necessary for this outward mastery, can come only as a crown of the inward conquest. It belongs to the self-possessing soul and mind which follows with a disinterested equality the Truth, the Right, the universal Largeness to which alone this mastery is possible, -- following always the great ideal they present to our imperfection, while it understands and makes a full allowance too for all that seems to conflict with them and stand in the way of their manifestation. This rule is true even on the levels of our actual human mentality, where we can only get a limited perfection. But the ideal of Yoga takes up this aim of Swarajya and Samrajya and puts it on the larger spiritual basis. There it gets its full power, opens to the diviner degrees of the spirit; for it is by oneness with the Infinite, by a spiritual power acting upon finite things, that some highest integral perfection of our being and nature finds its own native foundation.

4.13 - The Action of Equality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This calm once attained, vital and mental preference has lost its disturbing force; it only remains as a formal habit of the mind. Vital acceptance or rejection, the greater readiness to welcome this rather than that happening, the mental acceptance or rejection, the preference of this more congenial to that other less congenial idea or truth, the dwelling upon the will to this rather than to that other result, become a formal mechanism still necessary as an index of the direction in which the shakti is meant to turn or for the present is made to incline by the Master of our being. But it loses its disturbing aspect of strong egoistic will, intolerant desire, obstinate liking. These appearances may remain for a while in a diminished form, but as the calm of equality increases, deepens, becomes more essential and compact, ghana, they disappear, cease to colour the mental and vital substance or occur only as touches on the most external physical mind, are unable to penetrate within, and at last even that recurrence, that appearance at the outer gates of mind ceases. Then there can come the living reality of the perception that all in us is done and directed by the Master of our being, yatha prayukto'smi tatha karomi, which was before only a strong idea and faith with occasional and derivative glimpses of the Divine Action behind the becomings of our personal nature. Now every movement is seen to be the form given by the shakti, the divine power in us, to the indications of the Purusha, still no doubt personalised, still belittled in the inferior mental form, but not primarily egoistic, an imperfect form, not a positive deformation. We have then to get beyond this stage even. For the perfect action and experience is not to be determined by any kind of mental or vital preference, but by the revealing and inspiring spiritual will which is the shakti in her direct and real initiation. When I say that as I am appointed, I work, I still bring in a limiting personal element and mental reaction. But it is the Master who will do his own work through myself as his instrument, and there must be no mental or other preference in me to limit, to interfere, to be a source of imperfect working. The mind must become a silent luminous channel for the revelations of the supramental Truth and of the Will involved in its seeing. Then shall the action be the action of that highest Being and Truth and not a qualified translation or mistranslation in the mind. Whatever limitation, selection, relation is imposed, will be self-imposed by the Divine on himself in the individual at the moment for his own purpose, not binding, not final, not an ignorant determination of the mind. The thought and will become then an action from a luminous Infinite, a formulation not excluding other formulations, but rather putting them into their just place in relation to itself, englobing or transforming them even and proceeding to larger formations of the divine knowledge and action. The first calm that comes is of the nature of peace, the absence of all unquiet, grief and disturbance. As the equality becomes more intense, it takes on a fuller substance of positive happiness and spiritual ease. This is the joy of the spirit in itself, dependent on nothing external for its absolute existence, nirasraya, as the Gita describes it, antah-sukho'ntararamah, an exceeding inner happiness, brahmasamsparsam atyantam sukham asnute. Nothing can disturb it, and it extends itself to the soul's view of outward things, imposes on them too the law of this quiet spiritual joy. For the base of it is still calm, it is an even and tranquil neutral joy, ahaituka. And as the supramental light grows, a greater Ananda comes, the base of the abundant ecstasy of the spirit in all it is, becomes, sees, experiences and of the laughter of the shakti doing luminously the work of the Divine and taking his Ananda in all the worlds.
The perfected action of equality transforms all the values of things on the basis of the divine anandamaya power. The outward action may remain what it was or may change, that must be as the Spirit directs and according to the need of the work to be done for the world, -- but the whole inner action is of another kind. The shakti in its different powers of knowledge, action, enjoyment, creation, formulation, will direct itself to the different aims of existence, but in another spirit; they will be the aims, the fruits, the lines of working laid down by the Divine from his light above, not anything claimed by the ego for its own separate sake. The mind, the heart, the vital being, the body itself will be satisfied with whatever comes to them from the dispensation of the Master of the being and in that find a subtlest and yet fullest spiritualised satisfaction and delight; but the divine knowledge and will above will work forward towards its farther ends. Here both success and failure lose their present meanings. There can be no failure; for whatever happens is the intention of the Master of the worlds, not final, but a step on his way, and if it appears as an opposition, a defeat, a denial, even for the moment a total denial of the aim set before the instrumental being, it is so only in appearance and afterwards it will appear in its right place in the economy of his action, -- a fuller supramental vision may even see at once or beforeh and its necessity and its true relation to the eventual result to which it seems so contrary and even perhaps its definite prohibition. Or, if -- while the light is deficient, -- there has been a misinterpretation whether with regard to the aim or the course of the action and the steps of the result, the failure comes as a rectification and is calmly accepted without bringing discouragement or a fluctuation of the will. In the end it is found that there is no such thing as failure and the soul takes an equal passive or active delight in all happenings as the steps and formulations of the divine Will. The same evolution takes place with regard to good fortune and ill fortune, the pleasant and the unpleasant in every form, mangala amangala, priya apriya.

4.18 - Faith and shakti, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This faith is essentially the secret sraddha of the soul, and it is brought more and more to the surface and there satisfied, sustained and increased by an increasing assurance and certainty of spiritual experience. Here too the faith in us must be unattached, a faith that waits upon Truths and is prepared to change and enlarge its understanding of spiritual experiences, to correct mistaken or half true ideas about them and receive more enlightening interpretations, to replace insufficient by more sufficient intuitions, and to merge experiences that seemed at the time to be filial and satisfying in more satisfying combinations with new experience and greater largenesses and transcendences. And especially in the psychical and other middle domains there is a very large room for the possibility of misleading and often captivating error, and here even a certain amount of positive scepticism has its use and at all events a great caution and scrupulous intellectual rectitude, but not the scepticism of the ordinary mind which amounts to a disabling denial. In the integral Yoga psychical experience, especially of the kind associated with what is often called occultism and savours of the miraculous, should be altogether subordinated to spiritual truth and wait upon that for its own interpretation, illumination and sanction. But even in the purely spiritual domain, there are experiences which are partial and, however attractive, only receive their full validity, significance or right application when we can advance to a fuller experience. And there are others which are in themselves quite valid and full and absolute, but if we confine ourselves to them, will prevent other sides of the spiritual truth from manifestation and mutilate the integrality of the Yoga. Thus the profound and absorbing quietude of impersonal peace which comes by the stilling of the mind is a thing in itself complete and absolute, but if we rest in that alone, it will exclude the companion absolute, not less great and needed and true, of the bliss of the Divine Action. Here too our faith must be an assent that receives all spiritual experience, but with a wide openness and readiness for always more light and truth, an absence of limiting attachment and no such clinging to forms as would interfere with the forward movement of the shakti towards the integrality of the spiritual being, consciousness, knowledge, power, action and the wholeness of the one and the multiple Ananda.
The faith demanded of us both in its general principle and its constant particular application amounts to a large and ever increasing and a constantly purer, fuller and stronger assent of the whole being and all its parts to the presence and guidance of God and the shakti. The faith in the shakti, as long as we are not aware of and filled with her presence, must necessarily be preceded or at least accompanied by a firm and virile faith in our own spiritual will and energy and our power to move successfully towards unity and freedom and perfection. Man is given faith in himself, his ideas and his powers that he may work and create and rise to greater things and in the end bring his strength as a worthy offering to the altar of the Spirit. This spirit, says the Scripture, is not to be won by the weak, nayam atma balahinena labhyah. All paralysing self-distrust has to be discouraged, all doubt of our strength to accomplish, for that is a false assent to impotence, an imagination of weakness and a denial of the omnipotence of the spirit. A present incapacity, however heavy may seem its pressure, is only a trial of faith and a temporary difficulty and to yield to the sense of inability is for the seeker of the integral Yoga a non-sense, for his object is a development of a perfection that is there already, latent in the being, because man carries the seed of the divine life in himself, in his own spirit, the possibility of success is involved and implied in the effort and victory is assured because behind is the call and guidance of an omnipotent power. At the same time this faith in oneself must be purified from all touch of rajasic egoism and spiritual pride. The Sadhaka should keep as much as possible in his mind the idea that his strength is not his own in the egoistic sense but that of the divine universal shakti and whatever is egoistic in his use of it must be a cause of limitation and in the end an obstacle. The power of the divine universal shakti which is behind our aspiration is illimitable, and when it is rightly called upon it cannot fail to pour itself into us and to remove whatever incapacity and obstacle, now or later; for the times and durations of our struggle while they depend at first, instrumentally and in part, on the strength of our faith and our endeavour, are yet eventually in the hands of the wisely determining secret Spirit, alone the Master of the Yoga, the Ishwara.

4.21 - The Gradations of the supermind, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This double action on the two planes of our being at first streng thens the intuitive mentality as a secondary operation and assists it to expel or transform more completely the survivals or invasions or accretions of the ignorance. And more and more it intensifies the intuitive mentality itself in its light of knowledge and eventually transforms it into the image of the supermind itself, but at first, ordinarily, in the more limited action of the gnosis when it takes the form of what we might call a luminous supramental or divine reason. It is as this divine reason that the supermind itself at the beginning may manifest its action and then, when it has changed the mind into its own image, it descends and takes the place of the ordinary intelligence and reason. Meanwhile a higher supramental power of a much greater character has been revealing itself above which takes the supreme lead of the Divine Action in the being. The divine reason is of a more limited character because, although not of the mental stamp and although an operation of the direct truth and knowledge, it is a delegated power for a range of purposes greater in light, but still to a certain extent analogous to those of the ordinary human will and reason; it is in the yet greater supermind that there comes the direct, altogether revealed and immediate action of the Ishwara in the human being. These distinctions between the intuitive mind, the divine reason and the greater supermind, and others within these gradations themselves, have to be made because eventually they become of great importance. At first the mind takes all that comes from beyond it without distinction as the sufficient spiritual illumination and accepts even initial states and first enlightenments as a finality, but afterwards it finds that to rest here would be to rest in a partial realisation and that one has to go on heightening and enlarging till at least there is reached a certain completeness of divine breadth and stature.
It is difficult for the intellect to grasp at all what is meant by these supramental distinctions: the mental terms in which they can be rendered are lacking or inadequate and they can only be understood after a certain sight or certain approximations in experience. A number of indications are all that at present it can be useful to give. And first it will be enough to take certain clues from the thinking mind; for it is there that some of the nearest keys to the supramental action are discoverable. The thought of the intuitive mind proceeds wholly by four powers that shape the form of the truth, an intuition that suggests its idea, an intuition that discriminates, an inspiration that brings in its word and something of its greater substance and a revelation that shapes to the sight its very face and body of reality. These things are not the same as certain movements of the ordinary mental intelligence that look analogous and are easily mistaken for the true intuition in our first inexperience. The suggestive intuition is not the same thing as the intellectual insight of a quick intelligence or the intuitive discrimination as the rapid judgment of the reasoning intellect; the intuitive inspiration is not the same as the inspired action of the imaginative intelligence, nor the intuitive revelation as the strong light of a purely mental close seizing and experience.

ENNEAD 01.02 - Concerning Virtue., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
We may therefore unhesitatingly state that the resemblance to the divinity lies in such regulation, in remaining261 impassible while thinking intelligible things; for what is pure is divine and the nature of the Divine Action is such that whatever imitates it thereby possesses wisdom. But it is not the divinity that possesses such a disposition, for dispositions are the property of souls only. Besides, the soul does not think intelligible objects in the same manner as the divinity; what is contained in the divinity is contained within us in a manner entirely different, or even perhaps is not at all contained. For instance, the divinity's thought is not at all identical with ours; the divinity's thought is a primary principle from which our thought is derived and differs. As the vocal word is only the image of the interior reason341 of the soul, so also is the word of the soul only the image of the Word of a superior principle; and as the exterior word, when compared to the interior reason of the soul, seems discrete, or divided, so the reason of the soul, which is no more than the interpreter of the intelligible word, is discrete, in comparison with the latter. Thus does virtue belong to the soul without belonging either to absolute Intelligence, nor to the Principle superior to Intelligence.
PURIFICATION PRODUCES CONVERSION; AND VIRTUE MAKES USE OF THIS.

r1912 12 25, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The siddhi is in a depressed condition and unable to advance with rapidity, owing to the necessity of a farther transition of considerable magnitude consisting (1) in satyam, the cessation of all intellectual (manomaya) activity & its replacement by the karana, (2) the cessation of the relics of self-action & replacement by the Divine Action (dasya), (3) the cessation of the use of means in the yogasiddhi and its replacement by the self-fulfilment of the Para shakti working upon the lower. The public news (eg the attack on the Viceroy, the ill-success of the Turkish naval sortie) show that the Power is still ineffective to prevent adverse occurrences.([Written] Dec 26.) During the rest of the day there was a struggle between the new system and the dregs of the old. The lipi became permanently active, but the old difficulty of manifestation or emergence in the sthula akasha is not yet overcome. At the same time interpreting power attending the lipi became swift and decisive and has so remained. Trikaldrishti in all its parts resumed its activity. The most important result is the final completion of the dasya & the disappearance of all questioning, revolts or self-action; for, whenever these try to manifest, they find no support in the Jiva. Even with regard to error, there is no revolt nor now any return to a tamasic udasinata. The siddhi now fulfils itself entirely by the Divine Action arranging the conflicting forces & the Jiva does not try to interfere or insist on a consistent method. By this the invading intellectual activity has become wholly discouraged and no longer insists on its own action. There is, however, a survival of manomaya suggestions representing themselves as vani & seeking to lay down the action, but as these are always falsified & the Jiva does not insist on them, they have no force of persistence.Health is undergoing a very serious assault. The sore-throat was flung off, but after a long struggle cough materialised for a very short time at night, & strenuous efforts are made to bring back cold. Tejasic disturbance in the stomach has returned & recurs, though it does not persist against the Will, & there was in the morning a copious visrishti quite of the old type. This is the result of copious eating & drinking without regard to satiety, which has been insisted on in order that [ ]1 the arogya may be established under more arduous conditions. Assimilation is powerful, but not enough to prevent a struggle & irregular workings of the asiddhi. There was no primary utthapana in the afternoon, so todays period amounted only to 10 hours but there was 5 hours continuously from 4.30 to 9.35 without fatigue or subsequent reaction. Sleep 7 hours.
MS that

r1914 07 19, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The seven affirmations completed will be the sign of the perfect siddhi of the foundation, after which the Divine Action can manifest.
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