TERMS STARTING WITH
uni- ::: --> A prefix signifying one, once; as in uniaxial, unicellular.
uniate ::: n. --> A member of the Greek Church, who nevertheless acknowledges the supremacy of the Pope of Rome; one of the United Greeks. Also used adjectively.
uniat ::: n. --> Alt. of Uniate
uniaxal ::: a. --> Uniaxial.
uniaxial ::: a. --> Having but one optic axis, or line of no double refraction.
Having only one axis; developing along a single line or plane; -- opposed to multiaxial.
uniaxially ::: adv. --> In a uniaxial manner.
unibranchiate ::: a. --> Having but one gill, as certain molluscs.
unicameral ::: a. --> Having, or consisting of, a single chamber; -- said of a legislative assembly.
unicapsular ::: --> Having but one capsule to each flower.
unicarinated ::: a. --> Having one ridge or keel.
unicast "networking" Sending {packets} to a single destination, used in contrast to {broadcast} or {multicast}. The term is generally only used when talking about low level communications, typically at the {network layer}, e.g. {Internet Protocol}. (2008-06-23)
unicelled ::: a. --> Unicellular.
unicellular ::: a. --> Having, or consisting of, but a single cell; as, a unicellular organism.
unicentral ::: a. --> Having a single center of growth.
unicity ::: n. --> The condition of being united; quality of the unique; unification.
uniclinal ::: a. --> See Nonoclinal.
unicolorous ::: a. --> Having the surface of a uniform color.
unicorn ::: n. --> A fabulous animal with one horn; the monoceros; -- often represented in heraldry as a supporter.
A two-horned animal of some unknown kind, so called in the Authorized Version of the Scriptures.
Any large beetle having a hornlike prominence on the head or prothorax.
The larva of a unicorn moth.
The kamichi; -- called also unicorn bird.
unicornous ::: a. --> Having but a single horn; -- said of certain insects.
unicos ::: A Unix variant for Cray computers.[More details?] (1994-12-06)
unicos A {Unix} variant for {Cray} computers. [More details?] (1994-12-06)
unicostate ::: a. --> Having a single rib or strong nerve running upward from the base; -- said of a leaf.
unicursal ::: a. --> That can be passed over in a single course; -- said of a curve when the coordinates of the point on the curve can be expressed as rational algebraic functions of a single parameter /.
unideaed ::: a. --> Having no ideas; senseless; frivolous.
unideal ::: a. --> Not ideal; real; unimaginative.
Unideaed.
unidimensional ::: a. --> Having but one dimension. See Dimension.
unifacial ::: a. --> Having but one front surface; as, some foliaceous corals are unifacial, the polyp mouths being confined to one surface.
unific ::: a. --> Making one or unity; unifying.
unification ::: n. --> The act of unifying, or the state of being unified.
unification "programming" The generalisation of {pattern matching} that is the {logic programming} equivalent of {instantiation} in {logic}. When two {terms} are to be unified, they are compared. If they are both constants then the result of unification is success if they are equal else failure. If one is a variable then it is bound to the other, which may be any term (which satisfies an "{occurs check}"), and the unification succeeds. If both terms are structures then each pair of sub-terms is unified {recursive}ly and the unification succeeds if all the sub-terms unify. The result of unification is either failure or success with a set of variable bindings, known as a "{unifier}". There may be many such unifiers for any pair of terms but there will be at most one "{most general unifier}", other unifiers simply add extra bindings for sub-terms which are variables in the original terms. (1995-12-14)
unification ::: (programming) The generalisation of pattern matching that is the logic programming equivalent of instantiation in logic. When two terms are to be pair of sub-terms is unified recursively and the unification succeeds if all the sub-terms unify.The result of unification is either failure or success with a set of variable bindings, known as a unifier. There may be many such unifiers for any pair of simply add extra bindings for sub-terms which are variables in the original terms. (1995-12-14)
unified ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Unify
unifier ::: n. --> One who, or that which, unifies; as, a natural law is a unifier of phenomena.
unifier ::: The unifier of a set of expressions is a set of substitutions of terms for variables such that the expressions are all equal.See also most general unifier, unification. (1994-12-06)
unifier The unifier of a set of expressions is a set of substitutions of terms for variables such that the expressions are all equal. See also {most general unifier}, {unification}. (1994-12-06)
unifilar ::: a. --> Having only one thread; involving the use of only one thread, wire, fiber, or the like; as, unifilar suspension.
uniflagellate ::: a. --> Having but one flagellum; as, uniflagellate organisms.
uniflorous ::: a. --> Bearing one flower only; as, a uniflorous peduncle.
unifolliate ::: a. --> Having only one leaf.
unifollilate ::: a. --> Having only one leaflet, as the leaves of the orange tree.
uniform ::: a. --> Having always the same form, manner, or degree; not varying or variable; unchanging; consistent; equable; homogenous; as, the dress of the Asiatics has been uniform from early ages; the temperature is uniform; a stratum of uniform clay.
Of the same form with others; agreeing with each other; conforming to one rule or mode; consonant.
A dress of a particular style or fashion worn by persons in the same service or order by means of which they have a distinctive
uniformal ::: a. --> Uniform.
uniformed :::
uniformism ::: n. --> The doctrine of uniformity in the geological history of the earth; -- in part equivalent to uniformitarianism, but also used, more broadly, as opposed to catastrophism.
uniformitarian ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or designating, the view or doctrine that existing causes, acting in the same manner and with essentially the same intensity as at the present time, are sufficient to account for all geological changes. ::: n. --> One who accepts uniformitarianism, or the
uniformitarianism ::: n. --> The uniformitarian doctrine.
uniformity ::: n. --> The quality or state of being uniform; freedom from variation or difference; resemblance to itself at all times; sameness of action, effect, etc., under like conditions; even tenor; as, the uniformity of design in a poem; the uniformity of nature.
Consistency; sameness; as, the uniformity of a man&
uniformly ::: adv. --> In a uniform manner; without variation or diversity; by a regular, constant, or common ratio of change; with even tenor; as, a temper uniformly mild.
uniform :::
unifromness ::: n. --> The quality or state of being uniform; uniformity.
unify "algorithm" To perform {unification}. (1995-03-15)
unifying ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Unify
unify :::
unify ::: v. t. --> To cause to be one; to make into a unit; to unite; to view as one.
unigeniture ::: n. --> The state of being the only begotten.
unigenous ::: a. --> Being of one kind; being of the same genus.
unijugate ::: a. --> Having but one pair of leaflets; -- said of a pinnate leaf.
unilabiate ::: a. --> Having one lip only; as, a unilabiate corolla.
unilateral ::: a. --> Being on one side only; affecting but one side; one-sided.
Pertaining to one side; one-sided; as, a unilateral raceme, in which the flowers grow only on one side of a common axis, or are all turned to one side.
uniliteral ::: a. --> Consisting of one letter only; as, a uniliteral word or sign.
unilobar ::: a. --> Consisting of a single lobe.
unilocular ::: a. --> Having one cell or cavity only; as, a unilocular capsule or shell.
unimaginable :::
unimagined; not devised in thought.
unimagined :::
unimitable ::: a. --> Inimitable.
unimpairable ::: a. --> That can not be impaired.
unimpeachable ::: a. --> Not impeachable; not to be called in question; exempt from liability to accusation; free from stain, guilt, or fault; irreproachable; blameless; as, an unimpeachable reputation; unimpeachable testimony.
unimplicate ::: a. --> Not implicated.
unimportance ::: n. --> Want of importance; triviality.
unimproved ::: a. --> Not improved; not made better or wiser; not advanced in knowledge, manners, or excellence.
Not used; not employed; especially, not used or employed for a valuable purpose; as, unimproved opportunities; unimproved blessings.
Not tilled, cultivated, or built upon; yielding no revenue; as, unimproved land or soil.
unimuscular ::: a. --> Having only one adductor muscle, and one muscular impression on each valve, as the oyster; monomyarian.
unincumbered ::: a. --> Not incumbered; not burdened.
Free from any temporary estate or interest, or from mortgage, or other charge or debt; as, an estate unincumbered with dower.
uninfringible ::: a. --> That may not be infringed; as, an uninfringible monopoly.
uninspired intuition ::: intuition not uplifted by inspiration (or revelation), the lowest form of intuitional ideality. untelepathic trik trikaladrsti
uninstaller ::: (operating system) A utility program to remove another application program from a computer's disks.Most commonly found on IBM PCs, as applications tend to leave files in various places on the hard disc, so special software is required to tidy up after them.Ken Spreitzer claims to have written the original PC program called UnInstaller, first licensed to MicroHelp and now (Feb 1998) sold by CyberMedia.Compare with installer. (1998-02-09)
uninstaller "operating system" A {utility} program to remove another {application program} from a computer's disks. Most commonly found on {IBM PCs}, as applications tend to leave files in various places on the {hard disc}, so special software is required to tidy up after them. Ken Spreitzer "ken@maximized.com" claims to have written the original PC program called "UnInstaller", first licensed to {MicroHelp} and now (Feb 1998) sold by {CyberMedia}. Compare with {installer}. (1998-02-09)
unintelligence ::: n. --> Absence or lack of intelligence; unwisdom; ignorance.
unintelligible :::
uninteressed ::: a. --> Uninterested; unaffected.
uninterested ::: a. --> Not interested; not having any interest or property in; having nothing at stake; as, to be uninterested in any business.
Not having the mind or the passions engaged; as, uninterested in a discourse or narration.
uninteresting "jargon" 1. Said of a problem that, although {nontrivial}, can be solved simply by throwing sufficient resources at it. 2. Also said of problems for which a solution would neither advance the state of the art nor be fun to design and code. Hackers regard uninteresting problems as intolerable wastes of time, to be solved (if at all) by lesser mortals. *Real* hackers (see {toolsmith}) generalise uninteresting problems enough to make them interesting and solve them - thus solving the original problem as a special case (and, it must be admitted, occasionally turning a molehill into a mountain, or a mountain into a tectonic plate). See {WOMBAT}, {SMOP}. Compare {toy problem}. Oppose {interesting}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-03-10)
uninteresting ::: (jargon) 1. Said of a problem that, although nontrivial, can be solved simply by throwing sufficient resources at it.2. Also said of problems for which a solution would neither advance the state of the art nor be fun to design and code.Hackers regard uninteresting problems as intolerable wastes of time, to be solved (if at all) by lesser mortals. *Real* hackers (see toolsmith) generalise occasionally turning a molehill into a mountain, or a mountain into a tectonic plate).See WOMBAT, SMOP. Compare toy problem. Oppose interesting.[Jargon File] (1995-03-10)
unintermission ::: n. --> Want or failure of intermission.
uninucleated ::: a. --> Possessed of but a single nucleus; as, a uninucleated cell.
uniocular ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or seated in, one eye; monocular.
union ::: 1. (set theory) An operation on two sets which returns the set of all elements that are a member of either or both of the argument sets; normally more sets by taking the union of the current partial result (initially the empty set) with the next argument set, in any order.For example, (a, b, c) U (c, d, e) = (a, b, c, d, e)2. (programming) A type whose values may be of one of a number of other types, thet current type depending on conditions that are only known at which type of value the union currently has (a tagged union), others rely on the program to keep track of this independently.A union contrasts with a structure or record which stores values of all component types at once.3. (database) An SQL operator that concatenates two result sets, that must have the same number and types of columns. The operator may be followed by the word ALL to indicate that results that appear in both sets should appear twice in the output.(2002-02-26)
union 1. "theory" An operation on two {sets} which returns the set of all elements that are a member of either or both of the sets; normally written as an infix upper-case U symbol. The operator generalises to zero or more sets by taking the union of the current partial result (initially the empty set) with the next argument set, in any order. For example, (a, b, c) U (c, d, e) = (a, b, c, d, e) 2. "programming" A {type} whose values may be of one of a number of other types, the current type depending on conditions that are only known at {run-time}. A {variable} of union type must be allocated sufficient storage space to hold the largest component type. Some unions include extra information to say which type of value the union currently has (a "tagged union"), others rely on the program to keep track of this independently. A union contrasts with a {structure} or {record} which stores values of all component types at once. 3. "database" An {SQL} {operator} that concatenates two result sets, that must have the same number and types of {columns}. The operator may be followed by the word "ALL" to indicate that results that appear in both sets should appear twice in the output. (2002-02-26)
unio ::: n. --> Any one of numerous species of fresh-water mussels belonging to Unio and many allied genera.
unionism ::: n. --> The sentiment of attachment to a federal union, especially to the federal union of the United States.
The principles, or the system, of combination among workmen engaged in the same occupation or trade.
unionistic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to union or unionists; tending to promote or preserve union.
unionist ::: n. --> One who advocates or promotes union; especially a loyal supporter of a federal union, as that of the United States.
A member or supporter of a trades union.
union ::: n. --> The act of uniting or joining two or more things into one, or the state of being united or joined; junction; coalition; combination.
Agreement and conjunction of mind, spirit, will, affections, or the like; harmony; concord.
That which is united, or made one; something formed by a combination or coalition of parts or members; a confederation; a consolidated body; a league; as, the weavers have formed a union;
union :::
uniovulate ::: a. --> Containing but one ovule.
unipara ::: n. --> A woman who has borne one child.
uniparous ::: a. --> Producing but one egg or young at a time.
Producing but one axis of inflorescence; -- said of the scorpioid cyme.
uniped ::: a. --> Having only one foot.
unipersonal ::: a. --> Existing as one, and only one, person; as, a unipersonal God.
Used in only one person, especially only in the third person, as some verbs; impersonal.
unipersonalist ::: n. --> One who believes that the Deity is unipersonal.
uniphonous ::: a. --> Having but one sound, as the drum.
uniplicate ::: a. --> Having, or consisting of, but one fold.
unipolar ::: a. --> Having, or acting by means of, one pole only.
Having but one pole or process; -- applied to those ganglionic nerve cells which have but one radiating process; -- opposed to multipolar.
uniprocessor "processor" (From "uni" - one) A computer with a single {central processing unit}, in contrast to a {parallel processor}. Most {personal computers} are currently (March 1997) uniprocessors. Some more expensive computers, typically {servers}, have multiple processors to provide increased {throughput}. See also {symmetric multiprocessor} and {massively parallel processor}. (1997-03-23)
uniprocessor ::: (processor) (From uni - one) A computer with a single central processing unit, in contrast to a parallel processor. Most personal computers are currently (March 1997) uniprocessors. Some more expensive computers, typically servers, have multiple processors to provide increased throughput.See also symmetric multiprocessor and massively parallel processor. (1997-03-23)
unique ::: a. --> Being without a like or equal; unmatched; unequaled; unparalleled; single in kind or excellence; sole. ::: n. --> A thing without a like; something unequaled or unparalleled.
unique key "database" A {key} which identifies only one body of information out of several. (1997-04-26)
unique key ::: (database) A key which identifies only one body of information out of several. (1997-04-26)
unique sales point "product" (USP) A feature that the salesman hopes will convince you to buy his product instead of another. (1999-10-21)
unique sales point ::: (product) (USP) A feature that the salesman hopes will convince you to buy his product instead of another. (1999-10-21)
unique :::
uniquity ::: n. --> The quality or state of being unique; uniqueness.
uniradiated ::: a. --> Having but one ray.
uniramous ::: a. --> Having but one branch.
uniseptate ::: a. --> Having but one septum, or partition; -- said of two-celled fruits, such as the silicles of cruciferous plants.
uniserial ::: a. --> Having only one row or series.
uniseriate ::: a. --> Having one line or series; uniserial.
unisexual ::: a. --> Having one sex only, as plants which have the male and female flowers on separate individuals, or animals in which the sexes are in separate individuals; di/cious; -- distinguished from bisexual, or hermaphrodite. See Di/cious.
unisilicate ::: n. --> A salt of orthosilicic acid, H4SiO4; -- so called because the ratio of the oxygen atoms united to the basic metals and silicon respectively is 1:1; for example, Mg2SiO4 or 2MgO.SiO2.
unisonal ::: a. --> Being in unison; unisonant.
unisonance ::: n. --> Accordance of sounds; unison.
unisonant ::: a. --> Being in unison; having the same degree of gravity or acuteness; sounded alike in pitch.
unison ::: n. --> Harmony; agreement; concord; union.
Identity in pitch; coincidence of sounds proceeding from an equality in the number of vibrations made in a given time by two or more sonorous bodies. Parts played or sung in octaves are also said to be in unison, or in octaves.
A single, unvaried.
Sounding alone.
Sounded alike in pitch; unisonant; unisonous; as, unison
unisonous ::: a. --> Being in unison; unisonant.
unison :::
unitable ::: a. --> Capable of union by growth or otherwise.
unitarianism ::: n. --> The doctrines of Unitarians.
unitarianized ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Unitarianize
unitarianize ::: v. t. & i. --> To change or turn to Unitarian views.
unitarianizing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Unitarianize
unitarian ::: n. --> One who denies the doctrine of the Trinity, believing that God exists only in one person; a unipersonalist; also, one of a denomination of Christians holding this belief.
One who rejects the principle of dualism.
A monotheist. ::: a.
unitary ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a unit or units; relating to unity; as, the unitary method in arithmetic.
Of the nature of a unit; not divided; united.
unitary :::
united ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Unite ::: a. --> Combined; joined; made one.
unitedly ::: adv. --> In an united manner.
united :::
unite her with Him is the true purpose of the Tor¬
uniterable ::: a. --> Not iterable; incapable of being repeated.
uniter ::: n. --> One who, or that which, unites.
unite :::
unite ::: v. t. --> To put together so as to make one; to join, as two or more constituents, to form a whole; to combine; to connect; to join; to cause to adhere; as, to unite bricks by mortar; to unite iron bars by welding; to unite two armies.
Hence, to join by a legal or moral bond, as families by marriage, nations by treaty, men by opinions; to join in interest, affection, fellowship, or the like; to cause to agree; to harmonize; to associate; to attach.
unities ::: pl. --> of Unity
uniting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Unite
uniting :::
unition ::: v. t. --> The act of uniting, or the state of being united; junction.
unitive ::: a. --> Having the power of uniting; causing, or tending to produce, union.
unitively ::: adv. --> In a unitive manner.
unitized ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Unitize
unitize ::: v. t. --> To reduce to a unit, or one whole; to form into a unit; to unify.
unitizing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Unitize
unit ::: n. --> A single thing or person.
The least whole number; one.
A gold coin of the reign of James I., of the value of twenty shillings.
Any determinate amount or quantity (as of length, time, heat, value) adopted as a standard of measurement for other amounts or quantities of the same kind.
A single thing, as a magnitude or number, regarded as an
units :::
unit testing "testing" The type of {testing} where a developer (usually the one who wrote the code) proves that a code module (the "unit") meets its requirements. (2003-09-24)
unitude ::: n. --> Unity.
unity ::: n. --> The state of being one; oneness.
Concord; harmony; conjunction; agreement; uniformity; as, a unity of proofs; unity of doctrine.
Any definite quantity, or aggregate of quantities or magnitudes taken as one, or for which 1 is made to stand in calculation; thus, in a table of natural sines, the radius of the circle is regarded as unity.
In dramatic composition, one of the principles by which a
unity :::
unity ::: “Unity is the eternal and fundamental fact, without which all multiplicity would be an unreal and an impossible illusion. The consciousness of Unity is therefore called Vidya, the Knowledge.” The Upanishads
univalence ::: n. --> The quality or state of being univalent.
univalent ::: a. --> Having a valence of one; capable of combining with, or of being substituted for, one atom of hydrogen; monovalent; -- said of certain atoms and radicals.
univalved ::: a. --> Having one valve; as, a univalve shell or pericarp.
univalve ::: n. --> A shell consisting of one valve only; a mollusk whose shell is composed of a single piece, as the snails and conchs. ::: a. --> Alt. of Univalved
univalvia ::: n. pl. --> Same as Gastropoda.
univalvular ::: a. --> Same as Univalve, a.
universal ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the universe; extending to, including, or affecting, the whole number, quantity, or space; unlimited; general; all-reaching; all-pervading; as, universal ruin; universal good; universal benevolence or benefice.
Constituting or considered as a whole; total; entire; whole; as, the universal world.
Adapted or adaptable to all or to various uses, shapes, sizes, etc.; as, a universal milling machine.
universal Force :::
universali ad particulare valet, a particulari ad universale non valet consequentia: Adage stating the validity of arguments making the transition from the general to the particular and denying the permissibility of the converse process. -- J.J.R.
universalian ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Universalism; Universalist.
universalism ::: n. --> The doctrine or belief that all men will be saved, or made happy, in the future state.
universalistic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the whole; universal.
universalist ::: n. --> One who believes in Universalism; one of a denomination of Christians holding this faith.
One who affects to understand all the particulars in statements or propositions. ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Unversalists of their doctrines.
universality ::: n. --> The quality or state of being universal; unlimited extension or application; generality; -- distinguished from particularity; as, the unversality of a proposition; the unversality of sin; the unversality of the Deluge.
universality :::
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
universalized ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Universalize
universalize ::: v. t. --> To make universal; to generalize.
universalizing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Universalize
universally ::: adv. --> In a universal manner; without exception; as, God&
universal Mother :::
universalness ::: n. --> The quality or state of being universal; universality.
universal Power :::
universal quantifier {quantifier}
universal :::
universal ::: “There is no difference between the terms ‘universal’ and ‘cosmic’ except that ‘universal’ can be used in a freer way than ‘cosmic’. Universal may mean ‘of the universe’, cosmic in that general sense. But it may also mean ‘common to all’, e.g., ‘This is a universal weakness’—but you cannot say ‘This is a cosmic weakness’.” Letters on Yoga
universal thunk "programming, operating system" A software mechanism allowing a {Windows 3.1} {application} to call a {32-bit} {dynamically linked library} (DLL) under {Win32s}. The {Windows 3.1} {application} which wants to call an entry in a 32-bit DLL instead calls a corresponding entry in a {16-bit} DLL. The programmer must also include {code} to detect whether the {32-bit} DLL is loaded. A {32-bit} {EXE} loads the {32-bit} DLL. See also {Generic Thunk}, {Flat Thunk}. ["Calling a Win32 DLL from a Windows 3.1 Application", Win32 SDK Knowledge Base, Article ID Q97785]. [Better explanation?] (1997-10-11)
universalties ::: pl. --> of Universality
universe. In Ophitic gnosticism, Iadalbaoth is said
universe. In Ophitic (gnostic) lore, he is one of 7
universe) in Phoenician mythology. Adonai is
universe, material
universe ::: n. --> All created things viewed as constituting one system or whole; the whole body of things, or of phenomena; the / / of the Greeks, the mundus of the Latins; the world; creation.
universe of discourse "artificial intelligence" In {ontology}, the set of all {entities} that can be represented in some {declarative language} or other {formal system}. Each entity is represented by a name and may have some human-readable description of its meaning. Formal {axioms} constrain the interpretation and well-formed use of these names. (2005-07-29)
universe. [Rf. Aude, Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster.]
universe :::
universe ::: “[The Divine’s] totality of finite and changeable circumstances dependent on an equal, immutable and eternal Infinity is what we call the Universe.” The Upanishads
universities ::: pl. --> of University
university ::: n. --> The universe; the whole.
An association, society, guild, or corporation, esp. one capable of having and acquiring property.
An institution organized and incorporated for the purpose of imparting instruction, examining students, and otherwise promoting education in the higher branches of literature, science, art, etc., empowered to confer degrees in the several arts and faculties, as in theology, law, medicine, music, etc. A university may exist without
university professors, orators, and authors. His
universological ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to universology.
universologist ::: n. --> One who is versed in universology.
universology ::: n. --> The science of the universe, and the relations which it involves.
univocacy ::: n. --> The quality or state of being univocal.
univocal ::: a. --> Having one meaning only; -- contrasted with equivocal.
Having unison of sound, as the octave in music. See Unison, n., 2. ::: n. --> Having always the same drift or tenor; uniform; certain; regular.
univocally ::: adv. --> In a univocal manner; in one term; in one sense; not equivocally.
univocation ::: n. --> Agreement of name and meaning.
UNI ::: 1. (standard, body) Ente Nazionale Italiano di Unificazione.2. (networking) User Network Interface. (1999-02-01)
UNI 1. "standard, body" {Ente Nazionale Italiano di Unificazione}. 2. "networking" {User Network Interface}. (1999-02-01)
Unicode 1. "character" A 16-bit {character set} standard, designed and maintained by the non-profit consortium Unicode Inc. Originally Unicode was designed to be universal, unique, and uniform, i.e., the code was to cover all major modern written languages (universal), each character was to have exactly one encoding (unique), and each character was to be represented by a fixed width in bits (uniform). Parallel to the development of Unicode an {ISO}/{IEC} standard was being worked on that put a large emphasis on being compatible with existing character codes such as {ASCII} or {ISO Latin 1}. To avoid having two competing 16-bit standards, in 1992 the two teams compromised to define a common character code standard, known both as Unicode and {BMP}. Since the merger the character codes are the same but the two standards are not identical. The ISO/IEC standard covers only coding while Unicode includes additional specifications that help implementation. Unicode is not a {glyph encoding}. The same character can be displayed as a variety of {glyphs}, depending not only on the {font} and style, but also on the adjacent characters. A sequence of characters can be displayed as a single glyph or a character can be displayed as a sequence of glyphs. Which will be the case, is often font dependent. See also Jörgen Bettels and F. Avery Bishop's paper {Unicode: A universal character code (http://research.compaq.com/wrl/DECarchives/DTJ/DTJB02/DTJB02SC.TXT)}. (2002-08-06) 2. "language" A pre-{Fortran} on the {IBM 1130}, similar to {MATH-MATIC}. [Sammet 1969, p.137]. (2004-09-14)
Unicode ::: 1. (character) A 16-bit character set standard, designed and maintained by the non-profit consortium Unicode Inc.Originally Unicode was designed to be universal, unique, and uniform, i.e., the code was to cover all major modern written languages (universal), each character was to have exactly one encoding (unique), and each character was to be represented by a fixed width in bits (uniform).Parallel to the development of Unicode an ISO/IEC standard was being worked on that put a large emphasis on being compatible with existing character codes such the two teams compromised to define a common character code standard, known both as Unicode and BMP.Since the merger the character codes are the same but the two standards are not identical. The ISO/IEC standard covers only coding while Unicode includes additional specifications that help implementation.Unicode is not a glyph encoding. The same character can be displayed as a variety of glyphs, depending not only on the font and style, but also on the or a character can be displayed as a sequence of glyphs. Which will be the case, is often font dependent.See also J�rgen Bettels and F. Avery Bishop's paper .(2002-08-06)2. (language) A pre-Fortran on the IBM 1130, similar to MATH-MATIC.[Sammet 1969, p.137].(2004-09-14)
UniCOMAL {COMmon Algorithmic Language}
Unicorny "humour, programming" A {feature} that's so early in the planning stages that it might as well be imaginary. [{Dodgy Coder(http://www.dodgycoder.net/2011/11/yoda-conditions-pokemon-exception.html)}].1 (2013-06-17)
Uniface ::: 1. (database, programming, product) A 4GL development environment and system integration tool marketed by Compuware. Uniface is database independent, Uniface can integrate with SAP, COM, Java, BEA Tuxedo, CICS, and various CORBA implementations. . . .2. (text) Synonym of bitmap font. (1999-01-05)
Uniface 1. "database, programming, product" A {4GL} development environment and system integration tool marketed by {Compuware}. Uniface is database independent, with interfaces to more than 14 {database management systems} and file retrieval systems including {DB2}, {IMS}, {SQL Server}, {Oracle}, {RDB}, {Sybase}. It is currently supported on {MS Windows} (98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003), various {Unix} flavours, {Linux}, {OpenVMS}, {IBM iSeries} ({AS/400}), {IBM zSeries} ({MVS}) and various {web servers}. Uniface can integrate with {SAP}, {COM}, {Java}, {BEA Tuxedo}, {CICS}, and various {CORBA} implementations. {Uniface user group Germany (http://c-b-g.org/)}. {Profesional Uniface Users Universe (http://puuu.org/)}. {Free tutorials (http://march-hare.com.au/)}. 2. "text" Synonym of {bitmap font}. (1999-01-05)
Unified Han {Han character}
Unified Modeling Language "language" (UML) A non-proprietary, third generation {modelling language}. The Unified Modeling Language is an open method used to specify, visualise, construct and document the artifacts of an {object-oriented} software-intensive system under development. The UML represents a compilation of "best engineering practices" which have proven successful in modelling large, complex systems. UML succeeds the concepts of {Booch}, {OMT} and {OOSE} by fusing them into a single, common and widely usable modelling language. UML aims to be a standard modelling language which can model {concurrent} and distributed systems. UML is not an {industry standard}, but is taking shape under the auspices of the {Object Management Group} (OMG). OMG has called for information on object-oriented methodologies, that might create a rigorous software modelling language. Many industry leaders have responded in earnest to help create the standard. See also: {STP}, {IDE}. {OMG UML Home (http://uml.org/)}. {Rational UML Resource Center (http://rational.com/uml/index.jsp)}. (2002-01-03)
Unified Modeling Language ::: (language) (UML) A non-proprietary, third generation modelling language. The Unified Modeling Language is an open method used to specify, visualise, system under development. The UML represents a compilation of best engineering practices which have proven successful in modelling large, complex systems.UML succeeds the concepts of Booch, OMT and OOSE by fusing them into a single, common and widely usable modelling language. UML aims to be a standard modelling language which can model concurrent and distributed systems.UML is not an industry standard, but is taking shape under the auspices of the Object Management Group (OMG). OMG has called for information on object-oriented methodologies, that might create a rigorous software modelling language. Many industry leaders have responded in earnest to help create the standard.See also: STP, IDE. . .(2002-01-03)
UNIFORM ::: An intermediate language developed for reverse engineering both COBOL and Fortran.[The REDO Compendium, H. van Zuylen ed, Wiley 1993]. (1994-12-06)
UNIFORM An intermediate language developed for reverse engineering both {COBOL} and {Fortran}. ["The REDO Compendium", H. van Zuylen ed, Wiley 1993]. (1994-12-06)
Uniform Naming Convention ::: (networking) (UNC) Used in IBM PC networking to completely specify a directory on a file server.The basic format is: \\servername\sharename conventional MS-DOS C:\windows directory name. E.g. \\server1\dave might be set up to point to C:\users\homedirs\dave on a server called server1.It is possible to execute a program using this convention without having to specifically link a drive, by running:\\server\share\directory\program.exeThe undocumented DOS command, TRUENAME can be used to find out the UNC name of a file or directory on a network drive. (1995-11-14)
Uniform Naming Convention {Universal Naming Convention}
Uniform Resource Citation "web" (URC) A set of attribute/value pairs describing an object. Some of the values may be {URIs} of various kinds. Others may include, for example, athorship, publisher, datatype, date, copyright status and shoe size. A URC is not normally considered as a string, but a set of fields and values with some defined free formatting. (1995-03-24)
Uniform Resource Citation ::: (World-Wide Web) (URC) A set of attribute/value pairs describing an object. Some of the values may be URIs of various kinds. Others may include, for URC is not normally considered as a string, but a set of fields and values with some defined free formatting. (1995-03-24)
Uniform Resource Locater {Uniform Resource Locator}
Uniform Resource Locator "web" (URL, previously "Universal") A {standard} way of specifying the location of an object, typically a {web page}, on the {Internet}. Other types of object are described below. URLs are the form of address used on the {World-Wide Web}. They are used in {HTML} documents to specify the target of a {hypertext link} which is often another HTML document (possibly stored on another computer). Here are some example URLs: http://w3.org/default.html http://acme.co.uk:8080/images/map.gif http://foldoc.org/?Uniform+Resource+Locator http://w3.org/default.html
Uniform Resource Locator ::: (World-Wide Web) (URL, previously Universal) A standard way of specifying the location of an object, typically a web page, on the Internet. hyperlink which is often another HTML document (possibly stored on another computer).Here are some example URLs: http://www.w3.org/default.htmlhttp://www.acme.co.uk:8080/images/map.gif host. Other less commonly used schemes include news, telnet or mailto (e-mail).The part after the colon is interpreted according to the access scheme. In general, two slashes after the colon introduce a hostname (host:port is also valid, or for FTP user: or ). The port number is usually omitted and defaults to the standard port for the scheme, e.g. port 80 for HTTP.For an HTTP or FTP URL the next part is a pathname which is usually related to the pathname of a file on the server. The file can contain any type of data but recognised directly by the browser may be passed to an external viewer application, e.g. a sound player.The last (optional) part of the URL may be a query string preceded by ? or a fragment identifier preceded by
Uniform Resource Name "web" (URN, previously Uniform/Universal Resource Number) 1. Any {URI} which is not a {URL}. 2. A particular scheme which is currently (1991-4) under development by the {IETF}, which should provide for the resolution using {Internet} {protocols} of names which have a greater persistence than that currently associated with Internet {host} names or organisations (as used in {URLs}). Uniform Resource Names will be URI schemes that improve on URLs in reliability over time, including authenticity, replication, and high availability. When defined, a URN in sense 1 will be an example of a URN in sense 2. {(http://w3.org/pub/WWW/Addressing/Addressing.html)}. (2006-04-18)
Uniform Resource Name ::: (World-Wide Web) (URN, previously Uniform/Universal Resource Number) 1. Any URI which is not a URL.2. A particular scheme which is currently (1991-4) under development by the IETF, which should provide for the resolution using Internet protocols of names URI schemes that improve on URLs in reliability over time, including authenticity, replication, and high availability.When defined, a URN in sense 1 will be an example of a URN in sense 2. .(2006-04-18)
Uniform Resource Number ::: Former name for Uniform Resource Name.
Uniform Resource Number Former name for {Uniform Resource Name}.
Unify Corporation ::: (company) Developers of the Unify relational database. At one time, before Sybase, they were a competitor of Oracle, et al. . . (1995-03-15)
Unify Corporation "company" Developers of the {Unify} {relational database}. At one time, before {Sybase}, they were a competitor of {Oracle}, et al. {(http://unify.com/)}. {(ftp://ftp.unify.com/)}. (1995-03-15)
Unify "database, product" A {relational database} produced by {Unify Corporation}. (1995-03-15)
Unify ::: (database, product) A relational database produced by Unify Corporation. (1995-03-15)
Unihan {Han character}
Uninterruptible Power Supply "hardware" (UPS) A battery powered {power supply unit} that is guaranteed to provide power to a computer in the event of interruptions in the incoming mains electrical power. Different rating UPSs will provide power for different lengths of time. Modern UPSs connect to the computer's {serial port} and provide information such as battery time remaining, allowing the computer to shut down {gracefully} before complete loss of power. (1996-12-11)
Uninterruptible Power Supply ::: (hardware) (UPS) A battery powered power supply that is guaranteed to provide power to a computer in the event of interruptions in the incoming electrical power. Different rating UPSs will provide power for different lengths of time.Modern UPSs connect to the computer's serial port and provide information such as battery time remaining, allowing the computer to shut down gracefully before complete loss of power. (1996-12-11)
Unio mystica: Latin for mystic union. (See: Union.)
Unio mystica: (Lat.) Mystical union; the merging of the individual consciousness, cognitively or affectively, with a superior, or supreme consciousness. See Mysticism. -- V.J.B.
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Union: (in Scholasticism) Is often designated from the effect which united pnrts manifest, as in essential union by which parts constituting the essence of a thing are united, -- or accidental union by which an accident is united to a substance. -- H.G.
Union of different kinds
Union of different kinds ::: The union has a threefold charac- ter. There is a union in spiritual essence, by identity ; there is a union by the indwelling of our soul m this highest Being and
UNION. ::: The abiding union is within and that can be there at all times ; the outer milan or contact is not usually abiding.
Union: The mystic union is the state in which the Self merges into the Absolute Life, and becomes one with it.
Union with the Divine — a union either transcendental (above the imiverse) or cosmic (universal) or individual or, as in our yoga, all three together.
Unipalm Group plc ::: (company) A company floated in March 1994. . (1996-12-11)
Unipalm Group plc "company" A company floated in March 1994. {(http://unipalm.co.uk/index.html)}. (1996-12-11)
Unipathy: (Ger. Einsfühlung) Is a form of emotional identification, seems close to the teim "participation" of Levy-Bruhl. There are two types of unipathy: idiopathic and heteropathic. In the one the alter is absorbed by the ego, and in the other the ego is absorbed by the alter. See Sympathy. -- H.H.
Unipress Software, Inc. ::: (company) A developer and distributor of Unix software. They produce PC-UNIX connectivity software, development tools and applications and provide technical support and maintenance, porting services, training and consulting. . (1996-12-11)
Unipress Software, Inc. "company" A developer and distributor of {Unix} software. They produce PC-UNIX connectivity software, development tools and applications and provide technical support and maintenance, porting services, training and consulting. {(http://unipress.com/)}. (1996-12-11)
Unique ID Listing ::: (messaging) (UIDL) A system used by POP3 electronic mail servers to uniquely identify a mail message. Normally, a message is identified by its message. The UIDL of a message never changes and will never be reused, even when the message has been deleted from the user's mailbox. . (1997-04-16)
Unique ID Listing "messaging" (UIDL) A system used by {POP3} {electronic mail} {servers} to uniquely identify a mail message. Normally, a message is identified by its position in the list of messages but this will change when an earlier message is deleted. The UIDL is a fixed string of characters which is unique to the message. The UIDL of a message never changes and will never be reused, even when the message has been deleted from the user's {mailbox}. {RFC 1725 (http://ds0.internic.net/rfc/rfc1725.txt)}. (1997-04-16)
UNIQUE "language" A {portable} {job control language}. ["The UNIQUE Command Language - Portable Job Control", I.A. Newman, Proc DATAFAIR 73, 1973, pp. 353-357]. (1994-11-22)
UNIQUE ::: (language) A portable job control language.[The UNIQUE Command Language - Portable Job Control, I.A. Newman, Proc DATAFAIR 73, 1973, pp. 353-357]. (1994-11-22)
Unir Tech "company" The company with the exclusive license from {Bell Labs} to distribute {C+@}. Unir is owned and operated by well-known anti-{IETF} ranter, Jim Fleming. Telephone: +1 (800) 222-8647. (2002-05-19)
UNISAP An early system on {UNIVAC} I or II. [Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959)]. (1994-11-22)
Unisys Corporation "company" The company formed in 1984-5 when {Burroughs Corporation} merged with {Sperry Corporation}. This was when the phrase "{dinosaurs mating}" was coined. Unisys is one of the largest providers of information services, technology, and software in the world. They employ about 49,000 people and do business in some 100 countries. In 1994 about 80 percent of revenue was derived from commercial information systems and services, with the remainder coming from electronic systems and services for the defense market. The defense business was sold to {Loral} in early 1995. Slightly more than half of Unisys's revenue is from business in the United States. They specialise in providing business-critical solutions, based on open information networks, for organisations that operate in transaction-intensive environments. These organisations include financial services companies, airlines, telecommunications companies, government agencies, and other commercial enterprises. In August 1994, quarterly sales were $1799M and profits $50M. {(http://unisys.com/)}. (1995-03-21)
Unitarianism: The mme for the theological view which emphasises the oneness of God in opposition to the Triitarian formula (q.v.). Although the term is modern, the idea underlying Unitarianism is old. In Christian theology any expression of the status of Jesus as being less than a metaphysical part of Deity is of the spirit of Unitarianism (e.g., Dynamistic Monarchianists, Adoptionists, Socinians, and many others). Unitarians hold only the highest regard for Jesus but refuse to bind that regard to a Trinitarian metaphysics. In general, their views of the religious life have been prophetic of liberal thought. Today there are numbers of liberal Christian ministers who are Unitarian in thought but not in name. The British and Foreign Unitarian Association dates formally to 1825. Manchester College, Oxford, was claimed Unitarian. Leading theologians were Joseph Priestly (1733-1804), James Martineau (1805-1900), James Drummond and J. E. Carpenter. American Unitarianism wis given expression in King's Chapel, Boston (1785), in a number of associations, in Meaddville Theological School (1844) and Harvard Divinity School (the chief seat of the movement prior to 1878). Channing (1780-1842) and Theodore Parker (1810-1860) directed the movement into wider liberal channels. -- V.F.
Unit class: A class having one and only one member. Or, to give a definition which does not employ the word one, a class a is a unit class if there is an x such that x∈a and, for all y, y∈a implies y = x. -- A.C.
United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association "company" (UKERNA or JANET (UK)) The trading name for {JNT Association}. (2016-04-12)
United Kingdom Unix Users Group {UKUUG Ltd.}
United Nations, is interpreted in a painting by the
United Technologies Research Cente (UTRC) {http://utrcwww.utc.com/}. (1994-11-29)
Unit Separator "character" (US) {ASCII} character 31. (1996-06-29)
UNITY A high-level parallel language. A translator into {MPL} is available by {(ftp://sanfrancisco.ira.uka.de/pub/maspar/maspar_unity.tar.Z)}. See also {MasPar Unity}. ["Parallel Program Design", K.M. Chandry and Misra, A-W 1988]. (1994-11-29)
Unity and Multiplicity ::: Unity is the eternal and fundamental fact, without which all multiplicity would be unreal and an impossible illusion. The consciousness of Unity is th
refore called Vidya, the Knowledge.
Unity in Trituty above the Abyss, where all opposites are reconciled. Crossing the Abyss is the most critical stage upon the Spiritual Path. If the crossing is not achieved cleanly, insanity-temporary or permanent-results. A person can spend the best part of an incarnation being torn to pieces by the unresolved and ir rational elements of his nature.
Unity Kosmic unity, incomprehensible to humans, implies wholeness, homogeneity, uniformity, indivisibility — individuality. Its primary expression is kosmic space. Unity can be applied to any individual, such as the First Logos or any subordinate logos; again, any individual monadic unit is de facto a unity. Unity, in contrast with duality or multiplicity, is relative, as when we speak of a whole in relation to its parts, the unitary essence of a compound body, or the hyparxis of a hierarchy. The tendency of evolution on an upward arc is towards unity; on a downward arc, towards diversity; and both tendencies are active in the human being.
Unity of Science, Unified Science: See Scientific Empiricism IIB. Universal: (Lat. universalia, a universal) That term which can be applied throughout the universe. A possibility of discrete being. According to Plato, an idea (which see). According to Aristotle, that which by its nature is fit to be predicated of many. For medieval realists, an entity whose being is independent of its mental apprehension or actual exemplification. (See: Realism). For medieval nominalists, a general notion or concept having no reality of its own in the realm of being (see Nominalism). In psychology: a concept. See Concept, General, Possibility. Opposite of: particular. -- J.K.F.
Unity ::: Unity is the eternal and fundamental fact, without which all multiplicity would be unreal and an impossible illusion. The consciousness of Unity is th
refore called Vidya, the Knowledge
Ref: CWSA Vol. 17, Page: 51
UNITY. ::: When there is the development of the Self-realisa- lion or of the cosmic consciousness or if there is il)e emptiness which is the preiiminary condition for these things, (here comes an automatic tendency for a unity with all — their alTcctions, mentai, vital, physical may easily touch. One has to keep oneself free.
Univac "processor, company" A brand of computer. There is a historical placard in the United States Census Bureau that has the following, "The Bureau of the Census dedicated the world's first electronic general purpose {data processing} computer, UNIVAC I, on June 14, 1951. Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation". The {Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation} designed and built Univac. Over the years, rights to the Univac name changed hands several times. Circa 1987, {Sperry Univac} merged with the {Burroughs Corporation} to form {Unisys Corporation}. (1994-11-22)
UNIVEf^ALISAT/ON. ::: To see all things in the seif and the self in all things — to be aware of one being everywhere, aware directly of the different planes, their forces, their beings.
Universal algebra "logic" The {model theory} of {first-order} {equational logic}. (1997-02-25)
Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter "communications, hardware" (UART) An {integrated circuit} used for serial communications, containing a transmitter (parallel-to-serial converter) and a receiver (serial-to-parallel converter), each clocked separately. The parallel side of a UART is usually connected to the {bus} of a computer. When the computer writes a byte to the UART's transmit data register (TDR), the UART will start to transmit it on the serial line. The UART's status register contains a {flag} bit which the computer can read to see if the UART is ready to transmit another byte. Another status register bit says whether the UART has received a byte from the {serial line}, in which case the computer should read it from the receive data register (RDR). If another byte is received before the previous one is read, the UART will signal an "overrun" error via another status bit. The UART may be set up to {interrupt} the computer when data is received or when ready to transmit more data. The UART's serial connections usually go via separate {line driver} and {line receiver} {integrated circuits} which provide the power and voltages required to drive the serial line and give some protection against noise on the line. Data on the {serial line} is formatted by the {UART} according to the setting of the UART's control register. This may also determine the transmit and receive baud rates if the UART contains its own clock circuits or "{baud} rate generators". If incorrectly formated data is received the UART may signal a "{framing error}" or "{parity} error". Often the clock will run at 16 times the baud rate (bits per second) to allow the receiver to do {centre sampling} - i.e. to read each bit in the middle of its allotted time period. This makes the UART more tolerant to variations in the {clock rate} ("jitter") of the incoming data. An example of a late 1980s UART was the {Intel 8450}. In the 1990s, newer UARTs were developed with on-chip {buffers}. This allowed higher transmission speed without data loss and without requiring such frequent attention from the computer. For example, the {Intel} {16550} has a 16 byte {FIFO}. Variants include the {16C550}, {16C650}, {16C750}, and {16C850}. The term "Serial Communications Interface" (SCI) was first used at {Motorola} around 1975 to refer to their start-stop asyncronous serial interface device, which others were calling a UART. See also {bit bang}. [Is this the same as an {ACIA}?] (2003-07-13)
Universal balm: A synonym for the elixir of life (q.v.).
Universal Brotherhood. See BROTHERHOOD
Universal Brotherhood: See: Theosophical Society.
Universal Brotherhood ::: Universal brotherhood as understood in the esoteric philosophy, and which is a sublime natural fact ofuniversal nature, does not signify merely sentimental unity, or a simple political or social cooperation. Itsmeaning is incomparably wider and profounder than this. The sense inherent in the words in their widesttenor or purport is the spiritual brotherhood of all beings; particularly, the doctrine implies that allhuman beings are inseparably linked together, not merely by the bonds of emotional thought or feeling,but by the very fabric of the universe itself, all men -- as well as all beings, both high and low andintermediate -- springing forth from the inner and spiritual sun of the universe as its hosts of spiritualrays. We all come from this one source, that spiritual sun, and are all builded of the same life-atoms onall the various planes.It is this interior unity of being and of consciousness, as well as the exterior union of us all, whichenables us to grasp intellectually and spiritually the mysteries of the universe; because not merelyourselves and our own fellow human beings, but also all other beings and things that are, are children ofthe same kosmic parent, great Mother Nature, in all her seven (and ten) planes or worlds of being. We areall rooted in the same kosmic essence, whence we all proceeded in the beginning of the primordialperiods of world evolution, and towards which we are all journeying back. This interlocking andinterblending of the numberless hierarchies of beings forming the universe itself extends everywhere, inthe invisible worlds as well as in the worlds which are visible.Finally, it is upon this fact of the spiritual unity of all beings and things that reposes the basis andfoundation of human ethics when these last are properly understood. In the esoteric philosophy ethics areno mere human convention or rules of action convenient and suitable for the amelioration of theasperities of human intercourse, but are fundamental in the very structure and inextricably coordinatedoperations of the universe itself.
Universal Character Set "character, standard" (UCS, ISO/IEC 10646) A 1993 {ISO} and {IEC} standard {character set}, also known as "Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set". UCS comes in a 16-bit variant called UCS-2 and a 32-bit variant called UCS-4, which is composed of 16-bit UCS-2 "planes". So far only one 16-bit plane has been defined, which is known as the {Basic Multilingual Plane}. The implementation of UCS is still in its infancy, though some moves, such as the {Java} language defining a character to be 16 bits, are suggestive. [Relationship with {Unicode}?] (1997-07-04)
Universal class: See logic, formal, § 7. Universal proposition: See particular proposition. Universal quantifier: See quantifier. Universalism: The doctrine that each individual should seek as an end the welfare of all. Usually advanced on the basis of the principle that the intrinsic value of an entity, e.g., pleasure, does not vary with the individual possessing it. -- C.A.B.
Universal Communications X "communications" (UCX) A software implementation of the ubiquitous {TCP/IP} suite of {communications} {protocols} for {Digital Equipment Corporation}'s {OpenVMS} {operating system}. Users of the {UCX} product can connect to heterogeneous {networks} to access and {download} files, send {electronic mail}, run and develop {applications}, and monitor activity. {"Software Product Description, DIGITAL TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS, Version 4.2", (http://digital.com/info/QAW009/QAW009HM.HTM)}. (2000-12-15)
Universal Computer Protocol "communications, protocol" An earlier form of {External Machine Interface} (EMI). (2007-09-10)
Universal Debugger "tool, parallel" (udb) {KSR}'s interactive {source level debugger} for serial and parallel programs written in {KSR}, {Fortran}, {KSR C} and {KSR1} {assembly language}. Udb is a source level debugger for testing and debugging serial and parallel programs; it is compatible with {GDB} and {dbx}. The user can direct udb either by typing commands or graphically through an {X}-based window interface; the latter provides simultaneous display of source code, I/O and instructions. For parallel programs, operations can be carried out per-{thread}. {Home (http://tc.cornell.edu/Parallel.Tools/tools/udb.html)}. (1995-05-07)
Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration "standard, protocol" (UDDI) The service discovery {protocol} for {Web Services} through which companies can find one another to conduct business. This standard was unveiled by {Ariba}, {IBM}, {Microsoft}, and 33 other companies in September 2000. (2002-06-28)
Universal Disk Format "storage, standard" (UDF) A {CD-ROM} {file system} {standard} that is required for {DVD ROMs}. UDF is the {OSTA}'s replacement for the {ISO 9660} file system used on CD-ROMs, but will be mostly used on DVD. {DVD multimedia} disks use UDF to contain {MPEG} {audio} and {video} {streams}. To read DVDs you need a DVD drive, the {kernel} driver for the drive, MPEG video support, and a UDF driver. DVDs containing both UDF filesystems and ISO 9660 filesystems can be read without UDF support. UDF can also be used by {CD-R} and {CD-RW} recorders in {packet writing} mode. (1999-09-01)
Universal fewish Encyclopedia.]
UniversalJewish Encyclopedia.
Universal Judgment.” [Rf Mathers, The Greater
Universal love is always universal ; psychic love can indivi- dualise itself.
Universal love is not personal ; it has to be held within as a condition of the consciousness which will have its elTccts accord- ing to the Divine Will or be used by that Will if necessary.
Universal love is the spiritual founded on tJ;e sense of the
Universal mind: The consciousness of the Supreme Being, which pervades and permeates the entire universe. (See also: World Soul.)
UNIVERSAL MIND—The life principle of every atom in existence.
Universal Mind The sum of the states of kosmic consciousness grouped under the human expressions thought, will, understanding, and feeling, collectively expressed in the Sanskrit as mahat. During deep sleep, the human mind is in abeyance on the physical plane, because our consciousness is not affecting the physical brain which in waking hours expresses it, although during the svapna (sleeping-dreaming) state the brain dreams; and similarly in the cosmos at the manvantaric dawn universal mind “was not” because there was as yet no vehicle for its expression through the cosmic hierarchies, this vehicle being the collective Ah-hi or hosts of dhyani-chohans. Universal mind remained during pralaya in a state of intense spiritual-intellectual activity, as the permanent root of subsequent cosmic mental action arising during manvantara. Universal mind is the manifested One, from the still more abstruse One or kosmic unity, and simultaneously with the evolution of universal mind the cosmic supreme One or hierarch also manifests itself in manvantara as avalokitesvara (Logos or atman) through its veil, universal substance or mulaprakriti — a unity with triple aspects. It is the mother of the manasaputras or sons of mind, and is kosmic buddhi or mahabuddhi.
Universal Naming Convention "networking" (UNC) The type of {file system} {path} used in {Microsoft Windows} networking to completely specify a directory on a {file server}. The basic format is: \\servername\sharename where "servername" is the {hostname} or {IP address} of a network file server, and "sharename" is the name of a shared directory on the server. This is related to the conventional {MS-DOS} "C:\windows" style of directory name. E.g. \\server1\dave might be set up to point to C:\users\homedirs\dave on a server called "server1". It is possible to execute a program using this convention without having to specifically link a drive, by running: \\server\share\directory\program.exe The {undocumented} DOS command, TRUENAME can be used to find out the UNC name of a file or directory on a network drive. Even Microsoft don't know whether UNC stands for "Universal Naming Convention" or "Uniform Naming Convention", both appear on their website, sometimes withing the same document, but with a preference for "Universal". (2008-12-09)
UNIVERSAL NATURE. ::: There is the universal mental, the universal vital, the universal physical Nature and it is out of a selection of their forces and mo\*cmcnts that the individual mind, vital and physical are made.
Universal Pralaya. See MAHAPRALAYA
UNIVERSAL—Relating to the entire universe; all-embracing; unlimited; regarded or existing as a whole; entire.
Universal Resource Identifier "web" (URI, originally "UDI" in some {WWW} documents) The generic set of all names and addresses which are short strings which refer to objects (typically on the {Internet}). The most common kinds of URI are {URLs} and {relative URLs}. URIs are defined in {RFC 1630}. {W3 specification (http://w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Addressing/URL/URI_Overview.html)}. (1997-07-16)
Universal Resource Locator {Uniform Resource Locator}
Universals A philosophical and logical term, used in opposition to particulars. For example, matter may be called a universal, and material bodies may be called particulars; or life may be a universal, and living beings particulars. The universal is sometimes defined as that which is left when all particularities or differences have ceased to be. The question arises as to which shall be considered real. If the particulars are realities, then the universals become mere abstract ideas: thus mankind would be merely an indefinite number of human beings. But if the universal is real, then we regard particular humans as being each a manifestation on respective lower planes of man, the Heavenly Man or Qabbalistic ’Adam Qadmon. Again, if living beings are real, then life becomes an abstraction. But if life is a real entity in itself, then living beings are its particular manifestations. The philosophy which starts with universals and proceeds to particulars is called deductive: it is that of theosophy and of Pythagoras and Plato. The inductive philosophy of Aristotle and Francis Bacon proceeds from particulars to universals. Space, motion, duration, intelligence, etc., in themselves abstract realities, are regarded by theosophy as universals, whereas from the opposite viewpoint they appear as only abstractions from experience. The deductive method has its uses in applied science, but in fact it tacitly assumes certain universals and reasons back to them from particulars.
Universal Self ::: The universal self is the heart of the universe, for these two phrases are but two manners of expressingthe same thing. It is the source of our being; it is also the goal whither we are all marching, we and thehierarchies above us as well as the hierarchies and the entities which compose them inferior to us. Allcome from the same ineffable source, the heart of being, the universal self. All pass at one period of theirevolutionary journey through the stage of humanity, gaining thereby self-consciousness or the ego-self,the "I am I," and they find this ego-self or consciousness, as they advance along this evolutionary path,expanding gradually into universal consciousness -- an expansion, however, which never has an end,because the universal consciousness is endless, limitless, boundless, and without any frontierswhatsoever. (See also Paramatman; Self)
Universal Serial Bus "hardware, standard" (USB) An external {peripheral} interface {standard} for communication between a computer and external {peripherals} over an inexpensive cable using {biserial} transmission. USB is intended to replace existing {serial ports}, {parallel ports}, {keyboard}, and {monitor} connectors and be used with {keyboards}, {mice}, {monitors}, {printers}, and possibly some low-speed {scanners} and removable {hard drives}. For faster devices existing {IDE}, {SCSI}, or emerging {FC-AL} or {FireWire} interfaces can be used. USB works at 12 Mbps with specific consideration for low cost peripherals. It supports up to 127 devices and both {isochronous} and {asynchronous} data transfers. Cables can be up to five metres long and it includes built-in power distribution for low power devices. It supports {daisy chaining} through a tiered star multidrop topology. A USB cable has a rectangular "Type A" plug at the computer end and a square "Type B" plug at the peripheral end. Before March 1996 Intel started to integrate the necessary logic into {PC} {chip sets} and encourage other manufacturers to do likewise. It was widely available by 1997. Later versions of {Windows 95} included support for it. It was standard on {Macintosh} computers in 1999. The USB 2.0 specification was released in 2000 to allow USB to compete with {Firewire} etc. USB 2.0 is backward compatible with USB 1.1 but works at 480 Mbps. {usb.org (http://usb.org/)}. (2004-01-31)
Universal Solar System The sum-total on all planes of all the bodies, visible or invisible, which pertain to the inclusive Brahmanda (egg of Brahma) of which our sun with its family of planetary chains forms a part. The Logos of the universal solar system, called the universal sun, has its foci of spiritual, psychological, ethereal, and material fields of action in and through emanated rays or minor logoi or suns, of which our sun is one, and each of these last has its corresponding subdivisional activities and functions. Our solar system, septenary or denary in itself, pertains to a single one of the primary seven rays of the universal solar system.
Universal solvent: In the terminology of alchemy, the substance which will resolve every composite body into the homogeneous substance from which they evolved; it also rejuvenates man’s body, makes it immune to disease and prolongs life.
Universal Soul At one time identified as mahat or mahabhuddhi, the vehicle of kosmic spirit or paramatman, but more frequently called anima mundi, the world-soul, alaya, the astral light of the Qabbalists, the spiritually and ethereally material reflection of the immaterial cosmic paramatmic ideal; hence the universal soul is the source of life of all beings. It is regarded as sevenfold, tenfold, or twelvefold in its nature and structure. Taking the triad of spirit, soul, and body, it stands for the middle region, being at once the vehicle of spirit and the prototypical model of the material worlds. Thus it stands for the higher ranges of the astral light as the storehouse of ideas impressed upon it by the creative spiritual forces, and the transmitter of them to the world of material and physical objectivity. In this view it would be the source of the intermediate human principles. See also UNIVERSAL MIND
Universal Spirit In the hierarchy of cosmic principles, the unmanifest or First Logos; in the human constitution, atman or atma-buddhi.
Universal Spirit: See: Universal Mind.
Universal Time Coordinated "time, standard" An incorrect term for {Coordinated Universal Time}. (2001-08-01)
Universal Time "time, standard" (UT) The mean solar time along the prime meridian (0 longitude) that runs through the Greenwich Observatory outside of London, UK, where the current system originated. UT is tied to the rotation of the Earth in respect to the fictitious "mean Sun". {Greenwich Mean Time} (GMT) was measured from Greenwich mean midday until 1925 when the reference point was changed from noon to midnight and the name changed to "Universal Time". There are three separate definitions, UT0, UT1, and UT2, depending on which corrections have been applied to the Earth's motion. {Coordinated Universal Time} is kept within 0.9 seconds of UT1, by addition of leap seconds to {International Atomic Time}. (2001-08-02)
Universe: (a) Metaphysics (1) The complete natural world, (2) That whole composed of all particulars and of all universals. (3) The Absolute. (b) Logic: The universe of discourse in any given treatment is that class such that all other classes treated are subclasses of it and consequently such that all members of any class treated are members of it. See logic, formal, §§7, 8. -- C.A.B.
Universe [from Latin universum combined into one from unus one + versus turned] The sum total of all that is. Theosophy distinguishes the spirit side and the matter side of the universe, each of these being composed of an aggregate of conscious living monads, the former being self-conscious in infinitely varying degrees and animating the latter, who are not self-conscious or not fully so, and serve as vehicles to the former, thus constituting matter in its various grades. The word may be used in limited senses, as for instance in speaking of the physical universe, when it comprises the totality of physical matter in the solar systems, nebulae, or galaxies. And this again may be subdivided as when we speak of our own home-universe. See also KOSMOS
Universe of discourse: See individual; and logic, formal, §§ 7, 8 Upadhi: (Skr. substitute, disguise) One of many conditions of body and mind obscuring the true state of man or his self which Indian philosophies try to remove for the attainment of moksa (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
Universe Solar System Man
Universe ::: The universe is a self-creative process of a supreme Reality whose presence makes spirit the substance of things,—all things are there as the spirit’s powers and means and forms of manifestation.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 784
Universe: The complete natural world.
Universe ::: The theosophical philosophy divides the universe into two general functional portions -- one theconsciousness side, the abode or dwelling place, and at the same time the aggregate, of all theself-conscious, thinking entities that the boundless universe contains; and the other, the material side ofnature, which is their schoolhouse, their home, and their playground too. This so-called material side is apractically infinite aggregate of monads or consciousness-centers passing through that particular phase oftheir evolutionary journey.This universe, therefore, is a vast aggregate of consciousnesscenters in both the two functional portionsof it; and these consciousness-centers theosophists call monads. They are entities conscious in differingdegrees, stretching along the boundless scale of the universal life; but in that particular phase whichpasses through what we humans call matter, those monads belonging to and forming that side of theuniverse, in the course of their long, long, evolutionary journey have not yet attained self-consciouspowers or faculties. And furthermore, what we call matter, in its last analysis is actually an aggregate ofthese monads manifesting in their physical expressions as life-atoms.The consciousness side of universal nature, which also consists of countless hosts of self-consciousentities, works in and through this other or material side; for these hosts of consciousnesses self-expressthemselves through this other or material function or side, through these other countless hosts of youngerand inferior and embryo entities, which are the life-atoms -- embryo gods. The universe is thereforeactually and literally imbodied consciousnesses.
University Books [1956]. Edition in French, 1933.
University Books, 1958; and as Picture Museum of
University Books [1959]. Edition in French, 1935.
University Books (1960).
University Books, 1964.
University Books [1966].
University of Arizona "body, education" The University was founded in 1885 as a Land Grant institution with a three-fold mission of teaching, research and public service. Today, the University is one of the top 20 research universities in the nation, with a student enrollment of more than 35,000, a faculty and staff of 12,500, and a 345-acre campus. {(http://arizona.edu/)}. Address: Tucson, Arizona, USA.
University of California at Berkeley "body, education" (UCB) See also {Berzerkley}, {BSD}. {(http://berkeley.edu/)}. Note to British and Commonwealth readers: that's /berk'lee/, not /bark'lee/ as in British Received Pronunciation. (1994-11-29)
University of Durham "body, education" A busy research and teaching community in the historic cathedral city of Durham, UK (population 61000). Its work covers key branches of science and technology and traditional areas of scholarship. Durham graduates are in great demand among employers and the University helps to attract investment into the region. It provides training, short courses, and expertise for industry. Through its cultural events, conferences, tourist business and as a major employer, the University contributes in a wide social and economic sense to the community. Founded in 1832, the University developed in Durham and Newcastle until 1963 when the independent University of Newcastle upon Tyne came into being. Durham is a collegiate body, with 14 Colleges or Societies which are a social and domestic focus for students. In 1992, the Universities of Durham and Teesside launched University College, Stockton-on-Tees, which has 190 students in the first year. {(http://dur.ac.uk/)}. (1995-03-17)
University of East London "body, education" (UEL) A UK University with six academic Faculties: Design and The Built Environment, East London Business School, Institute Of Health and Rehabilitation, Faculty Of Science, Social Sciences and Technology. {(http://uel.ac.uk/)}. (1994-11-29)
University of Edinburgh "body, education" A university in the centre of Scotland's capital. The University of Edinburgh has been promoting and setting standards in education for over 400 years. Granted its Royal Charter in 1582 by James VI, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, the University was founded the following year by the Town Council of Edinburgh, making it the first post-Reformation university in Scotland, and the first civic university to be established in the British Isles. Known in its early years as King James College, or the Tounis (Town's) College, the University soon established itself internationally, and by the 18th century Edinburgh was a leading centre of the European Enlightenment and one of the continent's principal universities. The University's close relationship with the city in which it is based, coupled with a forward-looking, international perspective, has kept Edinburgh at the forefront of new research and teaching developments whilst enabling it to retain a uniquely Scottish character. Edinburgh's academics are at the forefront of developments in the study and application of languages, medicine, micro-electronics, biotechnology, computer-based disciplines and many other subjects. Edinburgh's standing as a world centre for research is further enhanced by the presence on and around University precincts of many independently-funded, but closely linked, national research institutes {(http://ed.ac.uk/)}. Address: Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh, Scotland EH8 9YL, UK. Telephone: +44 (131) 650 1000. See also {ABSET}, {ABSYS}, {Alice}, {ASL+}, {Baroque}, {C++Linda}, {Cogent Prolog}, {COWSEL}, {Echidna}, {Edinburgh Prolog}, {Edinburgh SML}, {EdML}, {ELLIS}, {ELSIE}, {ESLPDPRO}, {Extended ML}, {Hope}, {IMP}, {LCF}, {Lisp-Linda}, {Marseille Prolog}, {metalanguage}, {MIKE}, {ML}, {ML Kit}, {ML-Linda}, {Multipop-68}, {Nuprl}, {Oblog}, {paraML}, {Pascal-Linda}, {POP-1}, {POP-2}, {POPLER}, {Prolog}, {Prolog-2}, {Prolog-Linda}, {Scheme-Linda}, {Skel-ML}, {Standard ML}, {Sticks&Stones}, {supercombinators}, {SWI-Prolog}, {tail recursion modulo cons}, {WPOP}. (1995-12-29)
University of Edinburgh.
University of Hawaii "body, education" A University spread over 10 campuses on 4 islands throughout the state. {(http://hawaii.edu/uhinfo.html)}. See also {Aloha}, {Aloha Net}. (1995-12-10)
University of Iceland "body, education" The Home of {Fjolnir}. {(http://rhi.hi.is/)}. (1995-03-17)
University of London Computing Centre "body, education" (ULCC) One of the UK's national high performance computing centres. It provides networking services and large-scale computing facilities which are used by researchers from all over the UK. ULCC was founded in 1968 to provide a service for education and research. It has been at the forefront of advanced research computing since its foundation, initially providing large-scale {CDC}-based facilities, then from 1982 to 1991 a national {Cray} {vector} supercomputing service. Its high performance computing facilities are now centred on a 6 processor, 4 Gbyte {Convex C3860} {supercomputer} (Neptune) with a Convex C3200 front-end (Pluto). ULCC is the main site for national and international network connections in the UK. They run the {Network Operations and Service Centre} for the {JANET Internet Protocol Service} (JIPS), the largest of the {JANET} {NOCs} and various international links and relays on behalf of {UKERNA}. ULCC's pilot {National Data Repository} service provides a network-accessible digital archive and filestore, based on a robotic tape system with 6 terabytes of storage. Although the data is stored on tape, you can access it very quickly, as if it were on-line. It is made available to you via high-speed links to the {JANET} and {SuperJANET} networks. {(http://ulcc.ac.uk/)}. (1994-11-29)
University of Michigan "body, education" A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. 70% of the University's students graduated in the top 10% of their high school class. 90% rank in the top 20% of their high school class. 60% of the students receive financial aid. The main Ann Arbor Campus lies in the Huron River valley, 40 miles west of Detroit. The campus boasts 2700 acres with 200 buildings, six million volumes in 23 libraries, nine museums, seven hospitals, hundreds of laboratories and institutes, and over 18000 {microcomputers}. {(http://umich.edu/)}. (1995-02-23)
University of Michigan Digital Library Project "project" (UMDL) The {University of Michigan}'s part of the {Digital Library Initiative}.
University of Minnesota "body, education" The home of {Gopher}. {(http://umn.edu/)}. Address: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. (1995-01-30)
University of Nijmegen "body, education" Katholieke University of Nijmegen (KUN), Nijmegen, the Netherlands. KUN's {Computing Science Institute (http://cs.kun.nl/csi)}. is known for the {Clean}, {Comma}, {Communicating Functional Processes}, and {GLASS} projects. {(http://kun.nl/)}. (1995-11-07)
University of Pennsylvania "body, education" The home of {ENIAC} and {Machiavelli}. {(http://upenn.edu/)}. Address: Philadelphia, PA, USA. [More info?] (1995-02-21)
University of Tasmania "body, education" {(ftp://ftp.utas.edu.au/)}. (1995-01-25)
University of Twente "body, education" A university in the east of The Netherlands for technical and social sciences. It was founded in 1961, making it one of the youngest universities in The Netherlands. It has 7000 students studying Applied Educational Science; Applied Mathematics; Applied Physics; Chemical Technology; Computer Science; Electrical Engineering; Mechanical Engineering; Philosophy of science, Technology and Society; Educational Technology. {(http://nic.utwente.nl/uthomuk.htm)}. (1995-04-16)
University.
Universo, held that, of the 9 orders of angels that
Unix box {box}
Unix brain damage Something that has to be done to break a network program (typically a mailer) on a non-{Unix} system so that it will interoperate with Unix systems. The hack may qualify as "Unix brain damage" if the program conforms to published {standards} and the {Unix} program in question does not. Unix brain damage happens because it is much easier for other (minority) systems to change their ways to match non-conforming behaviour than it is to change all the hundreds of thousands of Unix systems out there. An example of Unix brain damage is a {kluge} in a mail server to recognise bare line feed (the Unix newline) as an equivalent form to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return followed by a line feed. Such things can make even a hardened {jock} weep. [{Jargon File}]
Unix conspiracy [ITS] According to a conspiracy theory long popular among {ITS} and {TOPS-20} fans, Unix's growth is the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them dependent upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T's control. This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating system that is apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also relatively unreliable and insecure (so as to require continuing upgrades from AT&T). This theory was lent a substantial impetus in 1984 by the paper referenced in the {back door} entry. In this view, Unix was designed to be one of the first computer viruses (see {virus}) - but a virus spread to computers indirectly by people and market forces, rather than directly through disks and networks. Adherents of this "Unix virus" theory like to cite the fact that the well-known quotation "Unix is snake oil" was uttered by DEC president Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC began actively promoting its own family of Unix workstations. (Olsen now claims to have been misquoted.)
Unix International "body" (UI) A consortium including {Sun}, {AT&T} and others formed to promote an open environment based on {Unix} {System V}, including the {Open Look} windowing system.
Unixism "operating system, jargon" A piece of code or a coding technique that depends on the protected {multitasking} environment with relatively low process-spawn overhead that exists on {virtual-memory} {Unix} systems. Common {Unixisms} include: gratuitous use of "{fork}"; the assumption that certain undocumented but well-known features of Unix libraries such as "{stdio}" are supported elsewhere; reliance on obscure side-effects of {system calls} (use of "sleep" with a 0 argument to tell the scheduler that you're willing to give up your time-slice, for example); the assumption that freshly allocated memory is zeroed; and the assumption that {fragmentation} problems won't arise from never freeing memory. Compare {vaxocentrism}. See also {New Jersey}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-27)
Unix man page {Unix manual page}
Unix manual page "operating system" (Or "man page") A part of {Unix}'s extensive on-line documentation. To read a manual page from the Unix command line, type: man [-s"section"] "page" e.g. "man ftp" (the section number can usually be omitted). Pages are traditionally referred to using the notation "page(section)", e.g. ftp(1). Under {SunOS} (which is fairly typical), Section 1 covers commands, 2 {system calls}, 3 C library routines, 4 devices and networks, 5 file formats, 6 games and {demos}, 7 miscellaneous, 8 system administration. Each section has an introduction which can be obtained with, e.g., "man 2 intro". Manual pages are stored as {nroff} source files. Formatted versions are also usually cached. Man pages for most versions of Unix are available on-line in {HTML}. {Unix manual page}: man(1). {Linux man pages (http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/)}. {Solaris man pages (http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/40.10)}. (2010-01-19)
Unix "operating system" /yoo'niks/ (Or "UNIX", in the authors' words, "A weak pun on Multics") Plural "Unices". An interactive {time-sharing} {operating system} invented in 1969 by {Ken Thompson} after {Bell Labs} left the {Multics} project, originally so he could play games on his scavenged {PDP-7}. {Dennis Ritchie}, the inventor of {C}, is considered a co-author of the system. The turning point in Unix's history came when it was reimplemented almost entirely in C during 1972 - 1974, making it the first {source-portable} OS. Unix subsequently underwent mutations and expansions at the hands of many different people, resulting in a uniquely flexible and {developer}-friendly environment. By 1991, Unix had become the most widely used {multi-user} general-purpose operating system in the world. Many people consider this the most important victory yet of hackerdom over industry opposition (but see {Unix weenie} and {Unix conspiracy} for an opposing point of view). Unix is now offered by many manufacturers and is the subject of an international standardisation effort [called?]. Unix-like operating systems include {AIX}, {A/UX}, {BSD}, {Debian}, {FreeBSD}, {GNU}, {HP-UX}, {Linux}, {NetBSD}, {NEXTSTEP}, {OpenBSD}, {OPENSTEP}, {OSF}, {POSIX}, {RISCiX}, {Solaris}, {SunOS}, {System V}, {Ultrix}, {USG Unix}, {Version 7}, {Xenix}. "Unix" or "UNIX"? Both seem roughly equally popular, perhaps with a historical bias toward the latter. "UNIX" is a registered trademark of {The Open Group}, however, since it is a name and not an acronym, "Unix" has been adopted in this dictionary except where a larger name includes it in upper case. Since the OS is {case-sensitive} and exists in many different versions, it is fitting that its name should reflect this. {The UNIX Reference Desk (http://geek-girl.com/unix.html)}. {Spanish fire extinguisher (ftp://linux.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de/pub/linux/people/okir/unix_flame.gif)}. [{Jargon File}] (2001-05-14)
Unix System V {System V}
Unix to Unix Copy "networking, messaging" (uucp) A {Unix} utility program and {protocol} that allows one Unix system to send files to another via a {serial line} which may be a cable going directly from one machine's {serial port} to another's or may involve a {modem} at each end of a telephone line. Software is also available to allow uucp to work over {Ethernet} though there are better alternatives in this case, e.g. {FTP} or {rcp} for file transfer, {SMTP} for {electronic mail} or {NNTP} for {news}. The term is now also used to describe the large international network which uses UUCP to pass {Usenet} {news} and {electronic mail}, also known as "UUCPNET". {Unix manual page}: uucp(1). See also {cu}, {uuencode}. (1997-01-12)
UnixWare "operating system" {Novell}'s implementation of {Unix} {System 5} heavily based on Release 4.2 but with enhancements and new bundled products. In 1993 Novell acquired {Unix Systems Laboratories} from {AT&T} along with the Unix trademark. UnixWare was the result of Novell's efforts to make Unix interoperable with {Novell NetWare}. In 1995 Novell sold UnixWare and the rights to the Unix operating system to {SCO} at a time when UnixWare was gainnig popularity. It was later the first 64-bit operating system on the {Intel} {platform}, and, in 1999, is the world's fastest-growing commercial operating system. [Any connection with {X/Open}? URL?] (1999-11-10)
Unix weenie "jargon" ({ITS}) 1. A derogatory play on "{Unix wizard}", common among hackers who use {Unix} by necessity but would prefer alternatives. The implication is that although the person in question may consider mastery of Unix arcana to be a wizardly skill, the only real skill involved is the ability to tolerate (and the bad taste to wallow in) the incoherence and needless complexity that is alleged to infest many Unix programs. "This shell script tries to parse its arguments in 69 bletcherous ways. It must have been written by a real Unix weenie." 2. A derogatory term for anyone who engages in uncritical praise of {Unix}. Often appearing in the context "stupid Unix weenie". See {Weenix}, {Unix conspiracy}, {weenie}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-27)
Unix wizard "job" Someone with a deep understanding of {Unix}. See {wizard}. (1995-05-11)
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. Irregular; varying; not uniform. 2. Not smooth or level; rough, irregular, broken, rugged.
1. Of or pertaining to the universe in general or all things in it; existing or occurring everywhere or in all things; occasionally of or belonging to all nature. Chiefly poet. **2. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of all or the whole. 3. Applicable everywhere or in all cases; general. Universal.
1. Reduced to fragments. 2. Existing or functioning as though broken into separate parts; disorganized; disunified.
1. The action of joining or uniting one thing to another or others, or two or more things together, so as to form one whole or complete body; the state or condition of being so joined or united. 2. The joining of one person to another in matrimony; an instance or occasion of this, a marriage. union"s.
1. The state of being one; oneness. 2. A whole or totality, as combining all its parts into one. 3. The state or fact of being united or combined into one, as of the parts of a whole; unification. Unity, unity"s, unities.
1. To bring into musical accord or harmony; to tune. 2. To bring into accord, harmony, or sympathetic relationship; adjust. attuned, attuning.
1. To combine or join (one or more things) to or with another or others, to bring or put together (separate or divided things), so as to form one connected or contiguous whole; to form or incorporate into one body or mass; to make or cause to be one. 2. To make one in feeling or thought; to cause to agree; to combine or join (persons) together in action or interest, or for some special purpose. unites, united.
1. To put or bring together so as to make continuous or form a unit. 2. To bring together in a particular relation or for a specific purpose, action, etc.; unite. 3. To become united, associated, or combined; associate or ally oneself (with). 4. Be or become joined or united or linked. 5. To take part with others. 6. To enlist in one of the armed forces. joins, joined, joining.
1. To support or defend, as against opposition or criticism. 2. To support, sustain, maintain, by aid or assistance; to preserve unimpaired or intact. upholds, upheld.
acolyte ::: an attendant or junior assistant in any ceremony or operation; a novice; follower. acolytes.
"A cosmos or universe is always a harmony, otherwise it could not exist, it would fly to pieces. But as there are musical harmonies which are built out of discords partly or even predominantly, so this universe (the material) is disharmonious in its separate elements — the individual elements are at discord with each other to a large extent; it is only owing to the sustaining Divine Will behind that the whole is still a harmony to those who look at it with the cosmic vision. But it is a harmony in evolution in progress — that is, all is combined to strive towards a goal which is not yet reached, and the object of our yoga is to hasten the arrival to this goal. When it is reached, there will be a harmony of harmonies substituted for the present harmony built up on discords. This is the explanation of the present appearance of things.” Letters on Yoga
“A cosmos or universe is always a harmony, otherwise it could not exist, it would fly to pieces. But as there are musical harmonies which are built out of discords partly or even predominantly, so this universe (the material) is disharmonious in its separate elements—the individual elements are at discord with each other to a large extent; it is only owing to the sustaining Divine Will behind that the whole is still a harmony to those who look at it with the cosmic vision. But it is a harmony in evolution in progress—that is, all is combined to strive towards a goal which is not yet reached, and the object of our yoga is to hasten the arrival to this goal. When it is reached, there will be a harmony of harmonies substituted for the present harmony built up on discords. This is the explanation of the present appearance of things.” Letters on Yoga
active ::: originating or communicating action, exerting action upon others; acting of its own accord, spontaneous.
adj. 1. Not imprisoned or enslaved; being at liberty. 2. Unconstrained; unconfined. 3. Unobstructed; clear. 4. Ready or generous in using or giving; liberal; lavish. 5. Exempt from external authority, interference, restriction, etc., as a person or one"s will, thought, choice, action, etc.; independent; unrestricted. 6. Exempt or released from something specified that controls, restrains, burdens, etc. (usually followed by from or of). 7. Given readily or in profusion. freer, thought-free, world-free. *adv. *8. In a free manner; without constraints; unimpeded. v. 9. To make free; set at liberty; release from bondage, imprisonment, or restraint. 10. To disengage or clear something from an entanglement. 11. To relieve or rid of a burden, an inconvenience or an obligation. freed. set free. Released; liberated; freed.
adj. 1. Too great, numerous, etc., to be conceived or apprehended by thought; unimaginable. 2. Incapable of being framed or grasped by thought; incogitable. n. 3. Something that cannot be conceived or imagined. Unthinkable, unthinkably.
aeons ::: ages of the universe, immeasurable periods of time; the whole duration of the world, or of the universe; eternity. aeons", aeoned, million-aeoned, (employed as an adj. by Sri Aurobindo), aeon-rings.
"Aesthesis therefore is of the very essence of poetry, as it is of all art. But it is not the sole element and aesthesis too is not confined to a reception of poetry and art; it extends to everything in the world: there is nothing we can sense, think or in any way experience to which there cannot be an aesthetic reaction of our conscious being. Ordinarily, we suppose that aesthesis is concerned with beauty, and that indeed is its most prominent concern: but it is concerned with many other things also. It is the universal Ananda that is the parent of aesthesis and the universal Ananda takes three major and original forms, beauty, love and delight, the delight of all existence, the delight in things, in all things.” Letters on Savitri
“Aesthesis therefore is of the very essence of poetry, as it is of all art. But it is not the sole element and aesthesis too is not confined to a reception of poetry and art; it extends to everything in the world: there is nothing we can sense, think or in any way experience to which there cannot be an aesthetic reaction of our conscious being. Ordinarily, we suppose that aesthesis is concerned with beauty, and that indeed is its most prominent concern: but it is concerned with many other things also. It is the universal Ananda that is the parent of aesthesis and the universal Ananda takes three major and original forms, beauty, love and delight, the delight of all existence, the delight in things, in all things.” Letters on Savitri
afflatus ::: the miraculous communication of supernatural knowledge; hence also, the imparting of an over-mastering impulse, poetic or otherwise; inspiration. A creative inspiration, as that of a poet; a divine imparting of knowledge, thus it is often called divine afflatus.
"A Godhead is seated in the heart of every man and is the Lord of this mysterious action of Nature. And though this Spirit of the universe, this One who is all, seems to be turning us on the wheel of the world as if mounted on a machine by the force of Maya, shaping us in our ignorance as the potter shapes a pot, as the weaver a fabric, by some skilful mechanical principle, yet is this spirit our own greatest self and it is according to the real idea, the truth of ourselves, that which is growing in us and finding always new and more adequate forms in birth after birth, in our animal and human and divine life, in that which we were, that which we are, that which we shall be, — it is in accordance with this inner soul-truth that, as our opened eyes will discover, we are progressively shaped by this spirit within us in its all-wise omnipotence.” *Essays on the Gita
agree ::: 1. To be in harmony or unison in opinions, feelings, conduct, etc.; to be in sympathy; to live or act together harmoniously; to have no causes of variance. 2. To give consent; assent (often followed by to). agreed.
"All disease is a means towards some new joy of health, all evil & pain a tuning of Nature for some more intense bliss & good, all death an opening on widest immortality. Why and how this should be so, is God"s secret which only the soul purified of egoism can penetrate.” Essays Divine and Human
". . . all division is intended to enrich by an experience of various sweetness of unification the joy of realised unity.” The Life Divine
"All is the Divine, even that which is undivine. There is no not self; all this is the eternal Self; all this universe and every other universe is the Time existence of the timeless Spirit.” Essays Divine and Human
"All life is only a lavish and manifold opportunity given us to discover, realise , express the Divine.” Social and Political Thought
::: ". . . all our spiritual and psychic experience bears affirmative witness, brings us always a constant and, in its main principles, an invariable evidence of the existence of higher worlds, freer planes of existence. Not having bound ourselves down, like so much of modern thought, to the dogma that only physical experience or experience based upon the physical sense is true, the analysis of physical experience by the reason alone verifiable, and all else only result of physical experience and physical existence and anything beyond this an error, self-delusion and hallucination, we are free to accept this evidence and to admit the reality of these planes. We see that they are, practically, different harmonies from the harmony of the physical universe; they occupy, as the word ‘plane" suggests, a different level in the scale of being and adopt a different system and ordering of its principles.” The Life Divine
::: "A Mind, a Will seems to have imagined and organised the universe, but it has veiled itself behind its creation; its first erection has been this screen of an inconscient Energy and a material form of substance, at once a disguise of its presence and a plastic creative basis on which it could work as an artisan uses for his production of forms and patterns a dumb and obedient material.” The Life Divine
Ananke ::: “This truth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in another; but to the Buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the clearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In the West too the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary glimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as an ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength of man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of law, vague ideas of some superior caprice or of some divine jealousy,—that was a notion of the Greeks,—a blind Fate or inscrutable Necessity, Ananke, or, later, the mysterious ways of an arbitrary, though no doubt an all-wise Providence.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"And if there is, as there must be in the nature of things, an ascending series in the scale of substance from Matter to Spirit, it must be marked by a progressive diminution of these capacities most characteristic of the physical principle and a progressive increase of the opposite characteristics which will lead us to the formula of pure spiritual self-extension. This is to say that they must be marked by less and less bondage to the form, more and more subtlety and flexibility of substance and force, more and more interfusion, interpenetration, power of assimilation, power of interchange, power of variation, transmutation, unification. Drawing away from durability of form, we draw towards eternity of essence; drawing away from our poise in the persistent separation and resistance of physical Matter, we draw near to the highest divine poise in the infinity, unity and indivisibility of Spirit.” The Life Divine
"An exclusive inner concentration on the Real, the Eternal is possible, even a self-immersion by which we can lose or put away the dissonances of the universe.” The Life Divine
**Angel of the Way *Sri Aurobindo: "Love fulfilled does not exclude knowledge, but itself brings knowledge; and the completer the knowledge, the richer the possibility of love. ‘By Bhakti" says the Lord in the Gita ‘shall a man know Me in all my extent and greatness and as I am in the principles of my being, and when he has known Me in the principles of my being, then he enters into Me." Love without knowledge is a passionate and intense, but blind, crude, often dangerous thing, a great power, but also a stumbling-block; love, limited in knowledge, condemns itself in its fervour and often by its very fervour to narrowness; but love leading to perfect knowledge brings the infinite and absolute union. Such love is not inconsistent with, but rather throws itself with joy into divine works; for it loves God and is one with him in all his being, and therefore in all beings, and to work for the world is then to feel and fulfil multitudinously one"s love for God. This is the trinity of our powers, [work, knowledge, love] the union of all three in God to which we arrive when we start on our journey by the path of devotion with Love for the Angel of the Way to find in the ecstasy of the divine delight of the All-Lover"s being the fulfilment of ours, its secure home and blissful abiding-place and the centre of its universal radiation.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
"An infinite existence, an infinite consciousness, an infinite force and will, an infinite delight of being is the Reality secret behind the appearances of the universe; . . . .” The Life Divine
"An OMNIPRESENT Reality is the truth of all life and existence whether absolute or relative, whether corporeal or incorporeal, whether animate or inanimate, whether intelligent or unintelligent; and in all its infinitely varying and even constantly opposed self-expressions, from the contradictions nearest to our ordinary experience to those remotest antinomies which lose themselves on the verges of the Ineffable, the Reality is one and not a sum or concourse. From that all variations begin, in that all variations consist, to that all variations return. All affirmations are denied only to lead to a wider affirmation of the same Reality.” The Life Divine ::: *reality, absolute See **absolute reality**
::: "As for immortality, it cannot come if there is attachment to the body, — for it is only by living in the immortal part of oneself which is unidentified with the body and bringing down its consciousness and force into the cells that it can come. I speak of course of yogic means. The scientists now hold that it is (theoretically at least) possible to discover physical means by which death can be overcome, but that would mean only a prolongation of the present consciousness in the present body. Unless there is a change of consciousness and change of functionings it would be a very small gain.” Letters on Yoga
"As for the spectator and the coils of the dragon, it is the Chino-Japanese image for the world-force extending itself in the course of the universe and this expresses the attitude of the witness seeing it all and observing in its unfolding the unrolling of the play of the Divine Lila.” Letters on Yoga
"As for Vishnu being the creator, all the three gods are often spoken of as creating the universe — even Shiva who is by tradition the Destroyer.” Letters on Yoga
"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
"As soon as we become aware of the Self, we are conscious of it as eternal, unborn, unembodied, uninvolved in its workings: it can be felt within the form of being, but also as enveloping it, as above it, surveying its embodiment from above, adhyaksa; it is omnipresent, the same in everything, infinite and pure and intangible for ever. This Self can be experienced as the Self of the individual, the Self of the thinker, doer, enjoyer, but even so it always has this greater character; its individuality is at the same time a vast universality or very readily passes into that, and the next step to that is a sheer transcendence or a complete and ineffable passing into the Absolute. The Self is that aspect of the Brahman in which it is intimately felt as at once individual, cosmic, transcendent of the universe. The realisation of the Self is the straight and swift way towards individual liberation, a static universality, a Nature-transcendence. At the same time there is a realisation of Self in which it is felt not only sustaining and pervading and enveloping all things, but constituting everything and identified in a free identity with all its becomings in Nature. Even so, freedom and impersonality are always the character of the Self. There is no appearance of subjection to the workings of its own Power in the universe, such as the apparent subjection of the Purusha to Prakriti. To realise the Self is to realise the eternal freedom of the Spirit.” The Life Divine
". . . as there is a constant dynamic energy in movement in the universe which takes various material forms more or less subtle or gross, so in each physical body or object, plant or animal or metal, there is stored and active the same constant dynamic force; a certain interchange of these two gives us the phenomena which we associate with the idea of life. It is this action that we recognise as the action of Life-Energy and that which so energises itself is the Life-Force. Mind-Energy, Life-Energy, material Energy are different dynamisms of one World-Force.” The Life Divine
"As there is a cosmic Self and Spirit pervading and upholding the universe and its beings, so too there is a cosmic Force that moves all things, and on this original cosmic Force depend and act many cosmic Forces that are its powers or arise as forms of its universal action.” The Life Divine
“As there is a cosmic Self and Spirit pervading and upholding the universe and its beings, so too there is a cosmic Force that moves all things, and on this original cosmic Force depend and act many cosmic Forces that are its powers or arise as forms of its universal action.” The Life Divine
atom ::: 1. A unit of matter, the smallest unit of an element, having all the characteristics of that element and consisting of a dense, central, positively charged nucleus surrounded by a system of electrons. 2. The smallest component of an element having the chemical properties of the element. 3. An extremely small part, quantity, or amount. The smallest conceivable unit of an element or of anything. atom"s, atoms, atomic.
::: "A transcendent Bliss, unimaginable and inexpressible by the mind and speech, is the nature of the Ineffable. That broods immanent and secret in the whole universe and in everything in the universe. Its presence is described as a secret ether of the bliss of being, of which the Scripture says that, if this were not, none could for a moment breathe or live. And this spiritual bliss is here also in our hearts.” The Synthesis of Yoga
aura ::: “Yet all the time the universal forces are pouring into him without his knowing it. He is aware only of thoughts, feelings, etc., that rise to the surface and these he takes for his own. Really they come from outside in mind waves, vital waves, waves of feeling and sensation, etc., which take particular form in him and rise to the surface after they have got inside. But they do not get into his body at once. He carries about with him an environmental consciousness (called by the Theosophists the Aura) into which they first enter. If you can become conscious of this environmental self of yours, then you can catch the thought, passion, suggestion or force of illness and prevent it from entering into you. If things in you are thrown out, they often do not go altogether but take refuge in this environmental atmosphere and from there they try to get in again. Or they go to a distance outside but linger on the outskirts or even perhaps far off, waiting till they get an opportunity to attempt entrance.” Letters on Yoga
avenge ::: to inflict a punishment or penalty in return for; take vengeance on behalf of. avenges.
banded ::: united, allied as a group.
battalion ::: 1. An army unit typically consisting of a headquarters and two or more companies, batteries, or similar subunits. 2. A large body of organized troops in battle gear. 3. A large indefinite number of persons or things.
"Behind this petty instrumental action of the human will there is something vast and powerful and eternal that oversees the trend of the inclination and presses on the turn of the will. There is a total Truth in Nature greater than our individual choice. And in this total Truth, or even beyond and behind it, there is something that determines all results; its presence and secret knowledge keep up steadily in the process of Nature a dynamic, almost automatic perception of the right relations, the varying or persistent necessities, the inevitable steps of the movement. 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*
being ::: 1. The state or quality of having existence. 2. The totality of all things that exist. 3. One"s basic or essential nature; self. 4. All the qualities constituting one that exists; the essence. 5. A person; human being. 6. The Divine, the Supreme; God. Being, being"s, Being"s, beings, Beings, beings", earth-being"s, earth-beings, fragment-being, non-being, non-being"s, Non-Being, Non-Being"s, world-being"s.
Sri Aurobindo: "Pure Being is the affirmation by the Unknowable of Itself as the free base of all cosmic existence.” *The Life Divine :::
"The Absolute manifests itself in two terms, a Being and a Becoming. The Being is the fundamental reality; the Becoming is an effectual reality: it is a dynamic power and result, a creative energy and working out of the Being, a constantly persistent yet mutable form, process, outcome of its immutable formless essence.” *The Life Divine
"What is original and eternal for ever in the Divine is the Being, what is developed in consciousness, conditions, forces, forms, etc., by the Divine Power is the Becoming. The eternal Divine is the Being; the universe in Time and all that is apparent in it is a Becoming.” Letters on Yoga
"Being and Becoming, One and Many are both true and are both the same thing: Being is one, Becomings are many; but this simply means that all Becomings are one Being who places Himself variously in the phenomenal movement of His consciousness.” The Upanishads :::
"Our whole apparent life has only a symbolic value & is good & necessary as a becoming; but all becoming has being for its goal & fulfilment & God is the only being.” *Essays Divine and Human
"Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
birth ::: “Birth is the first spiritual mystery of the physical universe, death is the second which gives its double point of perplexity to the mystery of birth; for life, which would otherwise be a self-evident fact of existence, becomes itself a mystery by virtue of these two which seem to be its beginning and its end and yet in a thousand ways betray themselves as neither of these things, but rather intermediate stages in an occult processus of life.” The Life Divine
"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
bond ::: 1. Something, such as a fetter, cord, or band, that binds, ties, or fastens things together. Also fig. 2. A duty, promise, or other obligation by which one is bound. 3. Something that binds one to a certain circumstance or line of behaviour. 4. A uniting force or tie; a link. 5. A binding agreement; a covenant. bonds.
“Brahman is not only the cause and supporting power and indwelling principle of the universe, he is also its material and its sole material. Matter also is Brahman and it is nothing other than or different from Brahman.” The Life Divine
brahma ("s) ::: "Brahma is the nominative; the uninflected form of the word is brahman; it differs from brahman ‘the Eternal" only in gender.” *Glossary of Terms in Sri Aurobindo"s Writings
break ::: v. 1. To destroy by or as if by shattering or crushing. 2. To force or make a way through (a barrier, etc.). 3. To vary or disrupt the uniformity or continuity of. 4. To overcome or put an end to. 5. To destroy or interrupt a regularity, uniformity, continuity, or arrangement of; interrupt. 6. To intrude upon; interrupt a conversation, etc. 7. To discontinue or sever an association, an agreement, or a relationship. **8. To overcome or wear down the spirit, strength, or resistance of. 9. (usually followed by in, into or out). 10. To filter or penetrate as sunlight into a room. 11. To come forth suddenly. 12. To utter suddenly; to express or start to express an emotion, mood, etc. 13. Said of waves, etc. when they dash against an obstacle, or topple over and become surf or broken water in the shallows. 14. To part the surface of water, as a ship or a jumping fish. breaks, broke, broken, breaking.* *n. 15.** An interruption or a disruption in continuity or regularity.
uniformed :::
uniform :::
unify :::
unimaginable :::
unimagined; not devised in thought.
unimagined :::
unintelligible :::
union :::
unique :::
unison :::
unitary :::
united :::
unite :::
uniting :::
units :::
". . . unity is the greater truth, the multiplicity is the lesser truth, though both are a truth and neither of them is an illusion.” Essays on the Gita
unity :::
“… universal force and universal consciousness are one,—cosmic force is the operation of cosmic consciousness.” The Life Divine
universal Force :::
universality :::
". . . universal love is not personal — it has to be held within as a condition of the consciousness which will have its effects according to the Divine Will or be used by that Will if necessary; . . . .” Letters on Yoga ::: *love"s, loves, loved, loving, love-chained, love-maddened, love-music, love-note, all-love, All-love, All-Love.
::: universal love
universal Mother :::
universal Power :::
universal :::
universe, material
universe :::
burn ::: 1. To be very eager; aflame with activity, as to be on fire. 2. To emit heat or light by as if by combustion; to flame.. 3. To give off light or to glow brightly. 4. To light; a candle; incense, etc.) as an offering. 5. To suffer punishment or death by or as if by fire; put to death by fire. 6. To injure, endanger, or damage with or as if with fire. 7. Fig. To be consumed with strong emotions; be aflame with desire; anger; etc. 8. To shine intensely; to seem to glow as if on fire. burns, burned, burnt, burning.
"But in a higher than our present mental consciousness we find that this duality is only a phenomenal appearance. The highest and real truth of existence is the one Spirit, the supreme Soul, Purushottama, and it is the power of being of this Spirit which manifests itself in all that we experience as universe. This universal Nature is not a lifeless, inert or unconscious mechanism, but informed in all its movements by the universal Spirit. The mechanism of its process is only an outward appearance and the reality is the Spirit creating or manifesting its own being by its own power of being in all that is in Nature. Soul and Nature in us too are only a dual appearance of the one existence.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
"But in the larger universal consciousness there must be a power of carrying this movement to its absolute point, to the greatest extreme possible for any relative movement to reach, and this point is reached, not in human unconsciousness which is not abiding and always refers back to the awakened conscious being that man normally and characteristically is, but in the inconscience of material Nature. This inconscience is no more real than the ignorance of exclusive concentration in our temporary being which limits the waking consciousness of man; for as in us, so in the atom, the metal, the plant, in every form of material Nature, in every energy of material Nature, there is, we know, a secret soul, a secret will, a secret intelligence at work, other than the mute self-oblivious form, the Conscient, — conscient even in unconscious things, — of the Upanishad, without whose presence and informing Conscious-Force or Tapas no work of Nature could be done.” The Life Divine
"But the Spirit, the Divine is not only above Nature; it is master of Nature and cosmos; the soul rising into its spiritual poise must at least be capable of the same mastery by its unity with the Divine. " The Synthesis of Yoga*
"But the Titan will have nothing of all this; it is too great and subtle for his comprehension. His instincts call for a visible, tangible mastery and a sensational domination. How shall he feel sure of his empire unless he can feel something writhing helpless under his heel, — if in agony, so much the better? What is exploitation to him, unless it diminishes the exploited? To be able to coerce, exact, slay, overtly, irresistibly, — it is this that fills him with the sense of glory and dominion. For he is the son of division and the strong flowering of the Ego. To feel the comparative limitation of others is necessary to him that he may imagine himself immeasurable; for he has not the real, self-existent sense of infinity which no outward circumstance can abrogate. Contrast, division, negation of the wills and lives of others are essential to his self-development and self-assertion. The Titan would unify by devouring, not by harmonising; he must conquer and trample what is not himself either out of existence or into subservience so that his own image may stand out stamped upon all things and dominating all his environment.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"By individual we mean normally something that separates itself from everything else and stands apart, though in reality there is no such thing anywhere in existence; it is a figment of our mental conceptions useful and necessary to express a partial and practical truth. But the difficulty is that the mind gets dominated by its words and forgets that the partial and practical truth becomes true truth only by its relation to others which seem to the reason to contradict it, and that taken by itself it contains a constant element of falsity. Thus when we speak of an individual we mean ordinarily an individualisation of mental, vital, physical being separate from all other beings, incapable of unity with them by its very individuality. If we go beyond these three terms of mind, life and body, and speak of the soul or individual self, we still think of an individualised being separate from all others, incapable of unity and inclusive mutuality, capable at most of a spiritual contact and soul-sympathy. It is therefore necessary to insist that by the true individual we mean nothing of the kind, but a conscious power of being of the Eternal, always existing by unity, always capable of mutuality. It is that being which by self-knowledge enjoys liberation and immortality.” The Life Divine
cell ::: biology: The smallest structural unit of an organism that is capable of independent functioning, consisting of one or more nuclei, cytoplasm, and various organelles, all surrounded by a semipermeable cell membrane. cells.
chance ::: “Chance is not in this universe; the idea of illusion is itself an illusion. There was never illusion yet in the human mind that was not the concealing [?shape] and disfigurement of a truth.” Essays Divine and Human
chance ::: n. 1. The absence of any cause of events that can be predicted, understood, or controlled: often personified or treated as a positive agency. 2. The happening of events; the way in which things happen; fortune. 3. An opportune or favourable time; opportunity. 4. Fortune; luck; fate. Chance, chances. *adj.* 5. Not planned or expected; accidental. v. 6. To happen by chance; be the case by chance.** chanced.
chaos ::: 1. The infinity of space or formless matter supposed to have preceded the existence of the ordered universe. 2. A condition, place, or state of great disorder or confusion. 3. A disorderly mass; a jumble. Chaos.
chastise ::: 1. To discipline or punish, esp. by beating. *v. *2. Purify; refine.
chastisement ::: verbal (often physical) punishment; discipline.
cipher ::: n. 1. Something having no influence or value; a zero; a nonentity. 2. A secret method of writing, as by transposition or substitution of letters, specially formed symbols, or the like. unintelligible to all but those possessing the key; a cryptograph. ciphers. *v. 3. To put in secret writing; encode. *ciphers. Note: Sri Aurobindo also spelled the word as Cypher, the old English spelling.
civic ::: of, relating to, or belonging to a city, a citizen, or citizenship; municipal or civil.
clasp ::: n. 1. A grip or grasp of the hand, also reciprocal. 2. Union. 3. An embrace or hug. Also fig. v. 4. To seize, grasp, or grip with the hand. **5. To hold in a tight embrace. clasps, clasped, clasping.**
coilas ::: (Most often spelled Kailas.) "One of the highest and most rugged mountains of the Himalayan range, located in the southwestern part of China. It is an important holy site both to the Hindus, who identify it with the paradise of Shiva and also regard it as the abode of Kubera, and to the Tibetan Buddhists, who identify it with Mount Sumeru, cosmic centre of the universe.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
communicant ::: a person who communicates, informs or imparts.
communicated ::: 1. Had an interchange, as of ideas. 2. Conveyed information about; imparted knowledge of; made known. communicates, communicating.
communion ::: 1. The act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings. 2. Religious or spiritual fellowship. communion"s, communions.
communiqué ::: an official communication or announcement, esp. to the press or public.
community ::: 1. An assemblage of interacting populations occupying a given area. 2. Identity.
commerce ::: 1. The buying and selling of goods, especially on a large scale, as between cities or nations. 2. Intellectual exchange or social interaction. 3. Intellectual or spiritual interchange; communion.
common ::: 1. Belonging equally to or shared alike by two or more. 2. Of or relating to the community or humanity as a whole. 3. Belonging equally to or shared equally by two or more; joint. 4. Not distinguished by superior or noteworthy characteristics; average; ordinary. 5. Occurring frequently or habitually; usual. commonest.
commune ::: 1. To communicate intimately with; be in a state of heightened, intimate receptivity. 2. To be in intimate communication or rapport. communes, communed, communing.
company ::: 1. A number of people gathered together; assembly. 2. A number of persons united or incorporated for joint action. companies.
*consciousforce. ::: Sri Aurobindo: "In actual fact Mind measures Time by event and Space by Matter; but it is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension, — no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
consciousness ::: “Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence—it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it—not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself.” Letters on Yoga
“Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence—it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it—not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself.” Letters on Yoga
continuous ::: uninterrupted in time, sequence, substance, or extent.
convey ::: 1. To take or carry from one place to another; transport. 2. To communicate or make known; impart. conveys, conveyed.
correspondence ::: communication.
cosmic force ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . universal force and universal consciousness are one, — cosmic force is the operation of cosmic consciousness.” *The Life Divine
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*
cosmic ::: of or pertaining to the cosmos and characteristic of its phenomena as forming a part of the material universe; infinite.
cosmic Self ::: Sri Aurobindo: "When one has the cosmic consciousness, one can feel the cosmic Self as one"s own self, one can feel one with other beings in the cosmos, one can feel all the forces of Nature as moving in oneself, all selves as one"s own self. There is no why except that it is so, since all is the One.” Letters on Yoga (See also Cosmic Spirit)
"Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; . . . .” *The Life Divine
"An eternal infinite self-existence is the supreme reality, but the supreme transcendent eternal Being, Self and Spirit, — an infinite Person, we may say, because his being is the essence and source of all personality, — is the reality and meaning of self-existence: so too the cosmic Self, Spirit, Being, Person is the reality and meaning of cosmic existence; the same Self, Spirit, Being or Person manifesting its multiplicity is the reality and meaning of individual existence.” The Life Divine
"But this cosmic self is spiritual in essence and in experience; it must not be confused with the collective existence, with any group soul or the life and body of a human society or even of all mankind.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"It is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in the universe — although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga*
cosmic Spirit ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Cosmic Spirit or Self contains everything in the cosmos — it upholds cosmic Mind, universal Life, universal Matter as well as the overmind. The Self is more than all these things which are its formulations in Nature.” *Letters on Yoga
"[The Divine in one of its three aspects] . . . is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in the universe - although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
". . . the cosmic spirit, the one self inhabiting the universe, . . . .” *The Life Divine
"For the cosmic Spirit inhabits each and all, but is more than all; . . . .”The Life Divine
cosmic ::: “There is no difference between the terms ‘universal’ and ‘cosmic’ except that ‘universal’ can be used in a freer way than ‘cosmic’. Universal may mean ‘of the universe’, cosmic in that general sense. But it may also mean ‘common to all’, e.g., ‘This is a universal weakness’—but you cannot say ‘This is a cosmic weakness’.” Letters on Yoga
“Cosmic vision is the seeing of the universal movements—it has nothing to do with the psychic necessarily. It can be in the universal mind, the universal vital, the universal physical or anywhere.” Letters on Yoga
cosmic vision ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Cosmic vision is the seeing of the universal movements — it has nothing to do with the psychic necessarily. It can be in the universal mind, the universal vital, the universal physical or anywhere.” Letters on Yoga*
cosmogonic ::: relating to a theory or story of the origin and development of the universe, the solar system, or the earth-moon system.
cosmologist ::: one who studies the physical universe considered as a totality of phenomena in time and space.
cosmos ::: the universe regarded as an orderly, harmonious whole. cosmos", cosmos-chaos.
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.
creation ::: 1. The act or process of creating, esp. the universe as thus brought into being by God. 2. Something that has been brought into existence or created, esp. a product of human intelligence or imagination, as a work of art, music, etc. creation"s, creations, half-creations, **self-creation.
creatrix ::: “O Wisdom-Splendour, Mother of the universe,
delight ::: “… the divine Ananda, the principle of Bliss [is that] from which, in the Vedic conception, the existence of Man, this mental being, is drawn. A secret Delight is the base of existence, its sustaining atmosphere and almost its substance. This Ananda is spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the ethereal atmosphere of bliss without which nothing could remain in being. In the Aitareya Upanishad Soma, as the lunar deity, is born from the sense-mind in the universal Purusha and, when man is produced, expresses himself again as sense-mentality in the human being. For delight is the raison d’être of sensation, or, we may say, sensation is an attempt to translate the secret delight of existence into the terms of physical consciousness.” The Secret of the Veda
demiurges ::: 1. A Platonic deity who orders or fashions the material world out of chaos. 2. (in Gnostic and some other philosophies) The creator of the universe, supernatural but subordinate to the Supreme Being. ::: Demiurges.
"Desire is the lever by which the divine Life-principle effects its end of self-affirmation in the universe. . . " The Life Divine
“Desire is the lever by which the divine Life-principle effects its end of self-affirmation in the universe…” The Life Divine
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.
"Destruction is always a simultaneous or alternate element which keeps pace with creation and it is by destroying and renewing that the Master of Life does his long work of preservation. More, destruction is the first condition of progress. Inwardly, the man who does not destroy his lower self-formations, cannot rise to a greater existence. Outwardly also, the nation or community or race which shrinks too long from destroying and replacing its past forms of life, is itself destroyed, rots and perishes and out of its debris other nations, communities and races are formed. By destruction of the old giant occupants man made himself a place upon earth. By destruction of the Titans the gods maintain the continuity of the divine Law in the cosmos. Whoever prematurely attempts to get rid of this law of battle and destruction, strives vainly against the greater will of the World-Spirit.” Essays on the Gita
“Destruction is always a simultaneous or alternate element which keeps pace with creation and it is by destroying and renewing that the Master of Life does his long work of preservation. More, destruction is the first condition of progress. Inwardly, the man who does not destroy his lower self-formations, cannot rise to a greater existence. Outwardly also, the nation or community or race which shrinks too long from destroying and replacing its past forms of life, is itself destroyed, rots and perishes and out of its debris other nations, communities and races are formed. By destruction of the old giant occupants man made himself a place upon earth. By destruction of the Titans the gods maintain the continuity of the divine Law in the cosmos. Whoever prematurely attempts to get rid of this law of battle and destruction, strives vainly against the greater will of the World-Spirit.” Essays on the Gita
dionysian ::: 1. Of or relating Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, fruitfulness, and vegetation, worshipped in orgiastic rites and festivals in his name. He was also known as the bestower of ecstasy and god of the drama, and identified with Bacchus. 2. Recklessly uninhibited; unrestrained.
disrupt ::: 1. To cause disorder or turmoil in. 2. To destroy, usually temporarily, the normal continuance or unity of; interrupt. 3. To break apart. disrupted.
divided ::: 1. Separated; separate. 2. Disunited. 3. Being in a state of disagreement or disunity.
divine life ::: Sri Aurobindo: "A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be characterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the beginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material Nature.” *The Life Divine ::: "The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man"s real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.” The Life Divine
divine love ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Divine Love, in my view of it, is again not something ethereal, cold and far, but a love absolutely intense, intimate and full of unity, closeness and rapture using all the nature for its expression.” *Letters on Yoga
drudge ::: one who labours without interest in dull or unimaginative ways; a labourer, slave.
dull ::: adj. **1. Causing boredom; tedious; uninteresting. 2. Not brisk or rapid; sluggish. 3. Lacking responsiveness or alertness; insensitive. 4. Not clear and resonant; sounding as if striking with or against something relatively soft. 5. (of color) Very low in saturation; highly diluted; 6. Slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity. duller, dull-eyed, dull-hued, dull-visioned. v. 7. To make numb or insensitive. 8. To make or become dull or sluggish. 9. To make less lively or vigorous. dulls, dulled.**
durga ::: "In Hindu religion, the goddess who is the Energy of Shiva and the conquering and protecting aspect of the Universal Mother. She is the slayer of many demons including Mahisasura. Durga is usually depicted in painting and sculpture riding a lion, having eight or ten arms, each holding the special weapon of one or another of the gods who gave them to her for her battles with demons. (A; Enc. Br.)” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works.
element ::: 1. A component or constituent of a whole. 2. One of the substances, usually earth, water, air, and fire, formerly regarded as constituting the material universe. 3. A natural habitat, sphere of activity, environment, etc. elements.
". . . 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 ::: the condition of being equal; sameness; uniformity. equality"s.
::: "Erinyes, in Greek mythology, the goddesses of vengeance, usually represented as three winged maidens, with snakes in their hair. They pursued criminals, drove them mad, and tormented them in Hades. They were spirits of punishment, avenging wrongs done especially to kindred. In Roman literature they were called Furies.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works*
exile ::: n. 1. Enforced removal from one"s native country. 2. The condition or a period of living away from one"s native country. 3. A person banished or living away from his home or country; expatriate. v. 4. To expel from home or country, esp. by official decree as a punishment; banish. exiles, exiled, self-exiled.
expanding universe
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.
featureless ::: without distinctive features; uninteresting, plain, or drab.
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.**
"For by an absolute self-giving all egoistic desire disappears from the heart and there is a perfect union between the Divine and the individual soul through an inner renunciation of its separate living.” Essays on the Gita
force, universal ::: Sri Aurobindo: "This force that we feel is the universal Force of the Divine, which, veiled or unveiled, acting directly or permitting the use of its powers by beings in the cosmos, is the one Energy that alone exists and alone makes universal or individual action possible. For this force is the Divine itself in the body of its power; all is that, power of act, power of thought and knowledge, power of mastery and enjoyment, power of love. Conscious always and in everything, in ourselves and in others, of the Master of Works possessing, inhabiting, enjoying through this Force that is himself, becoming through it all existences and all happenings, we shall have arrived at the divine union through works and achieved by that fulfilment in works all that others have gained through absolute devotion or through pure knowledge.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"For the complete individual is the cosmic individual, since only when we have taken the universe into ourselves, — and transcended it, — can our individuality be complete.” The Life Divine*
"For the main business of the heart, its true function is love. It is our destined instrument of complete union and oneness; for to see oneness in the world by the understanding is not enough unless we also feel it with the heart and in the psychic being, and this means a delight in the One and in all existences in the world in him, a love of God and all beings. The heart"s faith and will in good are founded on a perception of the one Divine immanent in all things and leading the world.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"For we have seen that universal force and universal consciousness are one, — cosmic force is the operation of cosmic consciousness.” The Life Divine*
"Freedom is the law of being in its illimitable unity, secret master of all Nature: . . . .” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
fury ::: one of the avenging deities, dread goddesses with snakes twined in their hair, sent from Tartarus to avenge wrong and punish crime: in later accounts, three in number (Tisiphone, Megaera, Alecto). Hence, an avenging or tormenting infernal spirit. Fury"s.
fuse ::: to become mixed or united by or as if by melting together. fusing.
futile ::: having no effective result; unsuccessful; pointless; unimportant. futility.
gene ::: the basic physical unit of heredity which leads to the expression of hereditary character.
"Genius is Nature"s first attempt to liberate the imprisoned god out of her human mould; the mould has to suffer in the process. It is astonishing that the cracks are so few and unimportant.” Essays Divine and Human
god ::: a being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions. gods, gods", God"s, Gods, God-bliss, God-born, god-chant, God-child, god-children, God-ecstasy, God-face, God-frame, God-Force, God-given, god-haunts, God-instinct"s, God-joy, God-Light, god-kind, God-knowledge, God-language, God-light, god-mind, god-phase, God-spark, god-speech, God-state, god-touch, God-vision"s, god-wings, child-god, dream-god"s, half-god, Sun-god"s.
godhead ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe. The Gita lays stress first on his supracosmic existence. For otherwise the mind would miss its highest goal and remain turned towards the cosmic only or else attached to some partial experience of the Divine in the cosmos. It lays stress next on his universal existence in which all moves and acts. For that is the justification of the cosmic effort and that is the vast spiritual self-awareness in which the Godhead self-seen as the Time-Spirit does his universal works. Next it insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic. Finally, it insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one Godhead.” *Essays on the Gita
"God is one but he is not bounded by his unity.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
government ::: the exercise of political authority over the actions, affairs, etc., of a political unit, people, etc.
graft ::: to join or unite closely.
gravitation ::: the force of attraction between all masses in the universe; especially the attraction of the earth"s mass for bodies near its surface.
heaven ::: 1. Any of the places in or beyond the sky conceived of as domains of divine beings in various religions. 2. The sky or universe as seen from the earth; the firmament. 3.* Fig. A condition or place of great happiness, delight, or pleasure. *Heaven, heaven"s, Heaven"s, heavens, heaven-air, heaven-bare, heaven-bliss, heaven-born, heaven-bound, heaven-fire, heaven-hints, heaven-leap, Heaven-light, heaven-lights, Heaven-nature"s, heaven-nymphs, heaven-pillaring, heaven-pleased, heaven-rapture"s, heaven-sent, heaven-sentience, heaven-surrounded, heaven-truth, heaven-use, heaven-worlds.
hell ::: the abode of condemned souls and devils in some religions; the place of eternal punishment for the wicked after death. hell"s, hells.
"Ideals are truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a higher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation. To the pragmatical intellect which takes its stand upon the ever-changing present, ideals are not truths, not realities, they are at most potentialities of future truth and only become real when they are visible in the external fact as work of force accomplished. But to the mind which is able to draw back from the flux of force in the material universe, to the consciousness which is not imprisoned in its own workings or carried along in their flood but is able to envelop, hold and comprehend them, to the soul that is not merely the subject and instrument of the world-force but can reflect something of that Master-Consciousness which controls and uses it, the ideal present to its inner vision is a greater reality than the changing fact obvious to its outer senses. The Supramental Manifestation*
::: "Identity is the first truth of existence; division is the second truth; all division is a division in oneness. There is one Existence which looks at itself from many self-divided unities observing other similar and dissimilar self-divided unities by the device of division. Being is one; division is a device or a secondary condition of consciousness; but the primary truth of consciousness also is a truth of oneness and identity.” Essays Divine and Human
"If there is a self in us capable of largeness and universality, able to enter into a cosmic consciousness, that too must be within our inner being; the outer consciousness is a physical consciousness bound to its individual limits by the triple cord of mind, life and body: any external attempt at universality can only result either in an aggrandisement of the ego or an effacement of the personality by its extinction in the mass or subjugation to the mass.” 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*
I mean by work action done for the Divine and more and more in union with the Divine — for the Divine alone and nothing else.” *Letters on Yoga
immune ::: totally protected against, or naturally resistant to, a disease; injury etc. Immune, immunity.
impunity ::: immunity from detrimental effects, as of an action.
impersonal ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Impersonal is not He, it is It. . . . The Impersonal Brahman is inactive, aloof, indifferent, not concerned with what happens in the universe.” *Letters on Yoga
“In actual fact Mind measures Time by event and Space by Matter; but it is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension,—no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
incapable of being imagined; inconceivable; incomprehensible. (Also used as a n.) Unimaginable.
incommunicable ::: impossible to be transmitted or communicated. Incommunicable.
inconscience ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Inconscience is an inverse reproduction of the supreme superconscience: it has the same absoluteness of being and automatic action, but in a vast involved trance; it is being lost in itself, plunged in its own abyss of infinity.” *The Life Divine
"All aspects of the omnipresent Reality have their fundamental truth in the Supreme Existence. Thus even the aspect or power of Inconscience, which seems to be an opposite, a negation of the eternal Reality, yet corresponds to a Truth held in itself by the self-aware and all-conscious Infinite. It is, when we look closely at it, the Infinite"s power of plunging the consciousness into a trance of self-involution, a self-oblivion of the Spirit veiled in its own abysses where nothing is manifest but all inconceivably is and can emerge from that ineffable latency. In the heights of Spirit this state of cosmic or infinite trance-sleep appears to our cognition as a luminous uttermost Superconscience: at the other end of being it offers itself to cognition as the Spirit"s potency of presenting to itself the opposites of its own truths of being, — an abyss of non-existence, a profound Night of inconscience, a fathomless swoon of insensibility from which yet all forms of being, consciousness and delight of existence can manifest themselves, — but they appear in limited terms, in slowly emerging and increasing self-formulations, even in contrary terms of themselves; it is the play of a secret all-being, all-delight, all-knowledge, but it observes the rules of its own self-oblivion, self-opposition, self-limitation until it is ready to surpass it. This is the Inconscience and Ignorance that we see at work in the material universe. It is not a denial, it is one term, one formula of the infinite and eternal Existence.” *The Life Divine
"Once consciousnesses separated from the one consciousness, they fell inevitably into Ignorance and the last result of Ignorance was Inconscience.” Letters on Yoga
*inconscience.
inconscient ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Inconscient and the Ignorance may be mere empty abstractions and can be dismissed as irrelevant jargon if one has not come in collision with them or plunged into their dark and bottomless reality. But to me they are realities, concrete powers whose resistance is present everywhere and at all times in its tremendous and boundless mass.” *Letters on Savitri
". . . in its actual cosmic manifestation the Supreme, being the Infinite and not bound by any limitation, can manifest in Itself, in its consciousness of innumerable possibilities, something that seems to be the opposite of itself, something in which there can be Darkness, Inconscience, Inertia, Insensibility, Disharmony and Disintegration. It is this that we see at the basis of the material world and speak of nowadays as the Inconscient — the Inconscient Ocean of the Rigveda in which the One was hidden and arose in the form of this universe — or, as it is sometimes called, the non-being, Asat.” Letters on Yoga
"The Inconscient itself is only an involved state of consciousness which like the Tao or Shunya, though in a different way, contains all things suppressed within it so that under a pressure from above or within all can evolve out of it — ‘an inert Soul with a somnambulist Force".” Letters on Yoga
"The Inconscient is the last resort of the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
"The body, we have said, is a creation of the Inconscient and itself inconscient or at least subconscient in parts of itself and much of its hidden action; but what we call the Inconscient is an appearance, a dwelling place, an instrument of a secret Consciousness or a Superconscient which has created the miracle we call the universe.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga :::
"The Inconscient is a sleep or a prison, the conscient a round of strivings without ultimate issue or the wanderings of a dream: we must wake into the superconscious where all darkness of night and half-lights cease in the self-luminous bliss of the Eternal.” The Life Divine
"Men have not learnt yet to recognise the Inconscient on which the whole material world they see is built, or the Ignorance of which their whole nature including their knowledge is built; they think that these words are only abstract metaphysical jargon flung about by the philosophers in their clouds or laboured out in long and wearisome books like The Life Divine. Letters on Savitri :::
"Is it really a fact that even the ordinary reader would not be able to see any difference between the Inconscient and Ignorance unless the difference is expressly explained to him? This is not a matter of philosophical terminology but of common sense and the understood meaning of English words. One would say ‘even the inconscient stone" but one would not say, as one might of a child, ‘the ignorant stone". One must first be conscious before one can be ignorant. What is true is that the ordinary reader might not be familiar with the philosophical content of the word Inconscient and might not be familiar with the Vedantic idea of the Ignorance as the power behind the manifested world. But I don"t see how I can acquaint him with these things in a single line, even with the most. illuminating image or symbol. He might wonder, if he were Johnsonianly minded, how an Inconscient could be teased or how it could wake Ignorance. I am afraid, in the absence of a miracle of inspired poetical exegesis flashing through my mind, he will have to be left wondering.” Letters on Savitri
**inconscient, Inconscient"s.**
inflict ::: 1. To lay on or set as something to be borne, endured, obeyed, fulfilled, paid, etc. 2. To deal or mete out (something punishing or burdensome); impose. inflicted, inflicting.
inquisition ::: an official investigation, esp. one of a political or religious nature, characterised by a lack of regard for individual rights, prejudice on the part of the examiners, and recklessly cruel punishments.
insignificant ::: 1. Too small to be important. 2. Unimportant, trifling, or petty; of no consequence, influence or distinction. 3. Without meaning. insignificance.
intact ::: not altered, broken, or impaired; remaining uninjured, sound, or whole; untouched; unblemished.
integer ::: an individual entity or whole unit. integers.
intercourse ::: dealings or communication between individuals, groups; traffic.
intertwined ::: united as if entwined together.
". . . in the Avatar there is the special manifestation, the divine birth from above, the eternal and universal Godhead descended into a form of individual humanity, âtmânam srjâmi, and conscious not only behind the veil but in the outward nature.” Essays on the Gita
“… in the Avatar there is the special manifestation, the divine birth from above, the eternal and universal Godhead descended into a form of individual humanity, âtmânam srjâmi, and conscious not only behind the veil but in the outward nature.” Essays on the Gita
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
intuitive knowledge ::: Sri Aurobindo: " For the highest intuitive Knowledge sees things in the whole, in the large and details only as sides of the indivisible whole; its tendency is towards immediate synthesis and the unity of knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"The intuitive knowledge on the contrary, however limited it may be in its field or application, is within that scope sure with an immediate, a durable and especially a self-existent certitude.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"All intuitive knowledge comes more or less directly from the light of the self-aware spirit entering into the mind, the spirit concealed behind mind and conscious of all in itself and in all its selves, omniscient and capable of illumining the ignorant or the self-forgetful mind whether by rare or constant flashes or by a steady instreaming light, out of its omniscience.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
investigate ::: to search out and examine the particulars of in an attempt to learn the facts about something hidden, unique, or complex.
"Ishwara is Brahman the Reality, Self, Spirit, revealed as possessor, enjoyer of his own self-existence, creator of the universe and one with it, Pantheos, and yet superior to it, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Ineffable, the Divine Transcendence.” The Life Divine
"It is not possible for the individual mind, so long as it remains shut up in its personality, to understand the workings of the Cosmic Will, for the standards made by the personal consciousness are not applicable to them. A cell in the body, if conscious, might also think that the human being and its actions are only the resultant of the relations and workings of a number of cells like itself and not the action of a unified self. It is only if one enters into the Cosmic Consciousness that one begins to see the forces at work and the lines on which they work and get a glimpse of the Cosmic Self and the Cosmic Mind and Will.” Letters on Yoga
“It is not possible for the individual mind, so long as it remains shut up in its personality, to understand the workings of the Cosmic Will, for the standards made by the personal consciousness are not applicable to them. A cell in the body, if conscious, might also think that the human being and its actions are only the resultant of the relations and workings of a number of cells like itself and not the action of a unified self. It is only if one enters into the Cosmic Consciousness that one begins to see the forces at work and the lines on which they work and get a glimpse of the Cosmic Self and the Cosmic Mind and Will.” Letters on Yoga
"It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported.
“It is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in the universe—although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
just ::: 1. Guided by truth, reason, justice, and fairness. 2. Done or made according to principle; equitable; proper. 3. Based on right; rightful; lawful. 4. In keeping with truth or fact; true; correct. 5. Given or awarded rightly; deserved, as a sentence, punishment, or reward. 6. In accordance with standards or requirements; proper or right. 7. Only or merely.
kingdom ::: 1. A territory, state, people, or community ruled or reigned over by a king or queen. 2. Fig. The eternal spiritual sovereignty of God; the realm of this sovereignty. 3. A realm or sphere in which one thing is dominant or supreme. 4. Anything conceived as constituting a realm or sphere of independent action or control. 5. A realm or province of nature, especially one of the three broad divisions of natural objects: the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. 6. Rarely, in reference to the realm and rule of evil forces. kingdom"s, kingdoms.
knead ::: 1. To mix and work into a uniform mass, as by folding, pressing, and stretching with the hands. 2. To make or shape by or as if by folding, pressing, and stretching; manipulate. kneaded.
knitted ::: to join closely; unite securely.
knot ::: 1. A fastening made by tying together lengths of material, such as rope, in a prescribed way. 2. A unifying bond, a tie, especially a marriage bond. 3. A compact intersection of interlaced material, such as cord, ribbon, or rope. 4. A unified mass or cluster. knots, Nature-knot.
"Knowledge is the consciousness of unity with the One. . . .” Essays on the Gita
"Krishna as a godhead is the Lord of Ananda, Love and Bhakti; as an incarnation, he manifests the union of wisdom (Jnana) and works and leads the earth-evolution through this towards union with the Divine by Ananda, Love and Bhakti.” Letters on Yoga
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.
::: "Law is nothing but a mode or rule of action; it is called in our philosophy not Law but Dharma, holding together, it is that by which the action of the universe, the action of its parts, the action of the individual is held together.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"Life is universal Force working so as to create, energise, maintain and modify, even to the extent of dissolving and reconstructing, substantial forms with mutual play and interchange of an overtly or secretly conscious energy as its fundamental character.” The Life Divine
"Life then is the dynamic play of a universal Force, a Force in which mental consciousness and nervous vitality are in some form or at least in their principle always inherent and therefore they appear and organise themselves in our world in the forms of Matter.” The Life Divine
ligaments ::: fig. A unifying or connecting tie or bond.
light, divine ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . there is a Divine Light that leans over the world and is not only a far-off incommunicable Lustre.” *Letters on Yoga
"The opening of the consciousness to the Divine Light and Truth and Presence is always the one important thing in the yoga.” *Letters on Yoga
"In the Veda the Cow is the Divine Light — . . . .” Letters on Yoga*
::: "Love is, in its essence, the joy of identity; it finds its ultimate expression in the bliss of union.” On Education, MCW Vol. 12.
". . . love is the crown of knowledge; for love is the delight of union, and unity must be conscious of joy of union to find all the riches of its own delight. Perfect knowledge indeed leads to perfect love, integral knowledge to a rounded and multitudinous richness of love.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Love is the power and passion of the divine self-delight and without love we may get the rapt peace of its infinity, the absorbed silence of the Ananda, but not its absolute depth of richness and fullness. Love leads us from the suffering of division into the bliss of perfect union, but without losing that joy of the act of union which is the soul"s greatest discovery and for which the life of the cosmos is a long preparation. Therefore to approach God by love is to prepare oneself for the greatest possible spiritual fulfilment. ” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Man is a transitional being, he is not final. He is too imperfect for that, too imperfect in capacity for knowledge, too imperfect in will and action, too imperfect in his turn towards joy and beauty, too imperfect in his will for freedom and his instinct for order. Even if he could perfect himself in his own type, his type is too low and small to satisfy the need of the universe. Something larger, higher, more capable of a rich all embracing universality is needed, a greater being, a greater consciousness summing up in itself all that the world set out to be. He has, as was pointed out by a half blind seer, to exceed himself; man must evolve out of himself the divine superman: he was born for transcendence. Humanity is not enough, it is only a strong stepping stone; the need of the world is a superhuman perfection of what the world can be, the goal of consciousness is divinity. The inmost need of man is not to perfect his humanity, but to be greater than himself, to be more than man, to be divine, even to be the Divine.” Essays Divine and Human
"Man is God hiding himself from Nature so that he may possess her by struggle, insistence, violence and surprise. God is universal and transcendent Man hiding himself from his own individuality in the human being.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
marry ::: to unite in a close, usually permanent way.
master of Existence ::: Sri Aurobindo: "I am here with thee in thy chariot of battle revealed as the Master of Existence within and without thee and I repeat the absolute assurance, the infallible promise that I will lead thee to myself through and beyond all sorrow and evil. Whatever difficulties and perplexities arise, be sure of this that I am leading thee to a complete divine life in the universal and an immortal existence in the transcendent Spirit.” Essays on the Gita
master of Nature ::: Sri Aurobindo: "There is a divine Master of Nature and her works, above her though inhabiting her, who is our highest being and our universal self; to be one with him is to make ourselves divine. By union with God we enter into a supreme freedom and a supreme mastery.” *Essays on the Gita
::: material universe
material world ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Our material world is the result of all the others, for the other principles have all descended into Matter to create the physical universe, and every particle of what we call Matter contains all of them implicit in itself; their secret action, as we have seen, is involved in every moment of its existence and every movement of its activity. And as Matter is the last word of the descent, so it is also the first word of the ascent; as the powers of all these planes, worlds, grades, degrees are involved in the material existence, so are they all capable of evolution out of it. It is for this reason that material being does not begin and end with gases and chemical compounds and physical forces and movements, with nebulae and suns and earths, but evolves life, evolves mind, must evolve eventually Supermind and the higher degrees of the spiritual existence.” The Life Divine
". . . matter is a formation of life that has no real existence apart from the informing universal spirit which gives it its energy and substance.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Matter is the form of substance of being which the existence of Sachchidananda [a trinity of Existence (sat), Consciousness (cit), and Delight (ananda),] assumes when it subjects itself to this phenomenal action of its own consciousness and force.” The "Matter is the body or field of a consciousness hidden within it, the material universe a form and movement of the Spirit.” The Renaissance in India
::: "Maya is the supreme and universal consciousness and force of the Eternal and Infinite and, being by its very nature unbound and illimitable, it can put forth many states of consciousness at a time, many dispositions of its Force, without ceasing to be the same consciousness-force for ever. It is at once transcendental, universal and individual; it is the supreme supracosmic Being that is aware of itself as All-Being, as the Cosmic Self, as the Consciousness-Force of cosmic Nature, and at the same time experiences itself as the individual being and consciousness in all existences.” The Life Divine
measure ::: n. 1. A unit of standard of measurement. 2. The extent, quantity, dimensions, etc. of (something), ascertained esp. by comparison with a standard. 3. Bounds or limits. 4. A definite or known quality or quantity measured out. 5. A short rhythmical movement or arrangement, as in poetry or music. measures. *v. 6. To determine the size, amount, etc. 7. To estimate the relative amount, value, etc., of, by comparison with some standard. 8. To travel or move over as if measuring. *measured, measuring.
merge ::: to become combined, united, swallowed up or absorbed; lose identity by uniting or blending. merges, merged, merging.
mingle ::: 1. To mix so that the components become united; merge. 2. To join or take part with others. mingles, mingled, mingling.
mixed ::: 1. Blended together into one unit or mass; intermingled. 2. Composed of a variety of differing, sometimes conflicting entities.
"Moreover we see that this cosmic action or any cosmic action is impossible without the play of an infinite Force of Existence which produces and regulates all these forms and movements; and that Force equally presupposes or is the action of an infinite Consciousness, because it is in its nature a cosmic Will determining all relations and apprehending them by its own mode of awareness, and it could not so determine and apprehend them if there were no comprehensive Consciousness behind that mode of cosmic awareness to originate as well as to hold, fix and reflect through it the relations of Being in the developing formation or becoming of itself which we call a universe.” The Life Divine
“Moreover we see that this cosmic action or any cosmic action is impossible without the play of an infinite Force of Existence which produces and regulates all these forms and movements; and that Force equally presupposes or is the action of an infinite Consciousness, because it is in its nature a cosmic Will determining all relations and apprehending them by its own mode of awareness, and it could not so determine and apprehend them if there were no comprehensive Consciousness behind that mode of cosmic awareness to originate as well as to hold, fix and reflect through it the relations of Being in the developing formation or becoming of itself which we call a universe.” The Life Divine
mother, universal ::: Sri Aurobindo: "What people mean by the formless svarûpa of the Mother, — they means usually her universal aspect. It is when she is experienced as a universal Existence and Power spread through the universe in which and by which all live. When one feels that Presence one begins to feel a universal peace, light, power, bliss without limits — that is her svarûpa.” *The Mother
"The Mahashakti, the universal Mother, works out whatever is transmitted by her transcendent consciousness from the Supreme and enters into the worlds that she has made; her presence fills and supports them with the divine spirit and the divine all-sustaining force and delight without which they could not exist.” The Mother
mother of the universe ::: see **Mother of the Worlds.**
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*
mystical ::: 1. Of or having a spiritual reality, import, or union with the Divine not apparent to the intelligence or senses. 2. Mystic; occult. mystically.
n. 1. A thing, fact, or circumstance which by reason of exceptional or special qualities stands alone and is without equal or parallel in its kind. Unique. *adj. 2. Of which there is only one; one and no other; single, sole, solitary. *3. That is or forms the only one of its kind; having no like or equal; standing alone in comparison with others, frequently by reason of superior excellence; unequalled, unparalleled, unrivalled.
natural ::: 1. Not acquired; inherent. 2. Having a particular character by nature. 3. Of, pertaining to, or proper to the nature or essential constitution. 4. Functioning or occurring in a normal way; lacking abnormalities or deficiencies. 5. Of or pertaining to nature or the universe.
nature ::: 1. The universe, with all its phenomena. 2. The forces and processes that produce and control all the phenomena of the material world. 3. The material world, esp. as surrounding human kind and existing independently of human activities. 4. The essential characteristics and qualities of a human being. 5. A particular combination of qualities belonging to a person, animal, thing, of class by birth, origin, or constitution; native or inherent character. 6. Characteristic disposition; temperament. nature"s, Nature"s, natures, earth-nature ("s), Earth-Nature"s, Heaven-nature"s, life-nature"s, soul-nature, World-Nature"s, twi-natured.
“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
non-Being ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Non-Being is only a word. When we examine the fact it represents, we can no longer be sure that absolute non-existence has any better chance than the infinite Self of being more than an ideative formation of the mind. We really mean by this Nothing something beyond the last term to which we can reduce our purest conception and our most abstract or subtle experience of actual being as we know or conceive it while in this universe. This Nothing then is merely a something beyond positive conception. And when we say that out of Non-Being Being appeared, we perceive that we are speaking in terms of Time about that which is beyond Time.” The Life Divine ::: Non-Being"s, Non-being"s, non-being, non-being"s,
not enlightened or trained by teaching; uninstructed, ignorant.
"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 happen without the presence and support of the Divine, for Nature or Prakriti is the Divine Force and it is this that works out things, but it works them out according to the nature and through or with the will of each man which is full of ignorance — that goes on until men turn to the Divine and become conscious of Him and united with Him. Then only can it be said that all begins to be done in him by the direct Will of the Divine.” Letters on Yoga
not intelligible; incapable of being understood; incomprehensible. unintelligibly.
not linked, connected, or united.
not searched; unexamined, uninvestigated.
not stayed or stopped; unhindered, unimpeded.
not wounded; unhurt; uninjured; unharmed. Also fig.
of or pertaining to, characterized by, based upon, or directed towards, unity.
omniscience ::: 1. The state of being omniscient; having infinite knowledge. 2. Universal or infinite knowledge. Omniscience. 3. God.
OM ::: Sri Aurobindo: "OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak and Shabda and of which the other sounds, out of whose stuff words of speech are woven, are supposed to be the developed evolutions.” *Essays on the Gita
oneness ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . for to be at one with God is to be at one with oneself, at one with the universe and at one with all beings. This oneness is the secret of a right and a divine existence.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
opportunities, favourable conditions, for the easier performance of any action.
"Ordinarily we mean by it [consciousness] our first obvious idea of a mental waking consciousness such as is possessed by the human being during the major part of his bodily existence, when he is not asleep, stunned or otherwise deprived of his physical and superficial methods of sensation. In this sense it is plain enough that consciousness is the exception and not the rule in the order of the material universe. We ourselves do not always possess it. But this vulgar and shallow idea of the nature of consciousness, though it still colours our ordinary thought and associations, must now definitely disappear out of philosophical thinking. For we know that there is something in us which is conscious when we sleep, when we are stunned or drugged or in a swoon, in all apparently unconscious states of our physical being. Not only so, but we may now be sure that the old thinkers were right when they declared that even in our waking state what we call then our consciousness is only a small selection from our entire conscious being. It is a superficies, it is not even the whole of our mentality. Behind it, much vaster than it, there is a subliminal or subconscient mind which is the greater part of ourselves and contains heights and profundities which no man has yet measured or fathomed.” Letters on Yoga
“Ordinarily we mean by it [consciousness] our first obvious idea of a mental waking consciousness such as is possessed by the human being during the major part of his bodily existence, when he is not asleep, stunned or otherwise deprived of his physical and superficial methods of sensation. In this sense it is plain enough that consciousness is the exception and not the rule in the order of the material universe. We ourselves do not always possess it. But this vulgar and shallow idea of the nature of consciousness, though it still colours our ordinary thought and associations, must now definitely disappear out of philosophical thinking. For we know that there is something in us which is conscious when we sleep, when we are stunned or drugged or in a swoon, in all apparently unconscious states of our physical being. Not only so, but we may now be sure that the old thinkers were right when they declared that even in our waking state what we call then our consciousness is only a small selection from our entire conscious being. It is a superficies, it is not even the whole of our mentality. Behind it, much vaster than it, there is a subliminal or subconscient mind which is the greater part of ourselves and contains heights and profundities which no man has yet measured or fathomed.” Letters on Yoga
"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 explanation of the evolution in Matter is that the universe is a self-creative process of a supreme Reality whose presence makes spirit the substance of things, — all things are there as the spirit"s powers and means and forms of manifestation.” The Life Divine
"Our highest Self which possesses and supports this universal Power [the Divine Will] is not our ego-self, not our personal nature; it is something transcendent and universal of which these smaller things are only foam and flowing surface.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
overmind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The overmind is a sort of delegation from the supermind (this is a metaphor only) which supports the present evolutionary universe in which we live here in Matter. If supermind were to start here from the beginning as the direct creative Power, a world of the kind we see now would be impossible; it would have been full of the divine Light from the beginning, there would be no involution in the inconscience of Matter, consequently no gradual striving evolution of consciousness in Matter. A line is therefore drawn between the higher half of the universe of consciousness, parardha , and the lower half, aparardha. The higher half is constituted of Sat, Chit, Ananda, Mahas (the supramental) — the lower half of mind, life, Matter. This line is the intermediary overmind which, though luminous itself, keeps from us the full indivisible supramental Light, depends on it indeed, but in receiving it, divides, distributes, breaks it up into separated aspects, powers, multiplicities of all kinds, each of which it is possible by a further diminution of consciousness, such as we reach in Mind, to regard as the sole or the chief Truth and all the rest as subordinate or contradictory to it.” *Letters on Yoga
"The overmind is the highest of the planes below the supramental.” *Letters on Yoga
"In its nature and law the Overmind is a delegate of the Supermind Consciousness, its delegate to the Ignorance. Or we might speak of it as a protective double, a screen of dissimilar similarity through which Supermind can act indirectly on an Ignorance whose darkness could not bear or receive the direct impact of a supreme Light.” The Life Divine
"The Overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit; its energy is an all-dynamism as well as a principle of separate dynamisms: it is a sort of inferior Supermind, — although it is concerned predominantly not with absolutes, but with what might be called the dynamic potentials or pragmatic truths of Reality, or with absolutes mainly for their power of generating pragmatic or creative values, although, too, its comprehension of things is more global than integral, since its totality is built up of global wholes or constituted by separate independent realities uniting or coalescing together, and although the essential unity is grasped by it and felt to be basic of things and pervasive in their manifestation, but no longer as in the Supermind their intimate and ever-present secret, their dominating continent, the overt constant builder of the harmonic whole of their activity and nature.” The Life Divine
"The overmind sees calmly, steadily, in great masses and large extensions of space and time and relation, globally; it creates and acts in the same way — it is the world of the great Gods, the divine Creators.” *Letters on Yoga
"The Overmind is essentially a spiritual power. Mind in it surpasses its ordinary self and rises and takes its stand on a spiritual foundation. It embraces beauty and sublimates it; it has an essential aesthesis which is not limited by rules and canons, it sees a universal and an eternal beauty while it takes up and transforms all that is limited and particular. It is besides concerned with things other than beauty or aesthetics. It is concerned especially with truth and knowledge or rather with a wisdom that exceeds what we call knowledge; its truth goes beyond truth of fact and truth of thought, even the higher thought which is the first spiritual range of the thinker. It has the truth of spiritual thought, spiritual feeling, spiritual sense and at its highest the truth that comes by the most intimate spiritual touch or by identity. Ultimately, truth and beauty come together and coincide, but in between there is a difference. Overmind in all its dealings puts truth first; it brings out the essential truth (and truths) in things and also its infinite possibilities; it brings out even the truth that lies behind falsehood and error; it brings out the truth of the Inconscient and the truth of the Superconscient and all that lies in between. When it speaks through poetry, this remains its first essential quality; a limited aesthetical artistic aim is not its purpose.” *Letters on Savitri
"In the overmind the Truth of supermind which is whole and harmonious enters into a separation into parts, many truths fronting each other and moved each to fulfil itself, to make a world of its own or else to prevail or take its share in worlds made of a combination of various separated Truths and Truth-forces.” Letters on Yoga
*Overmind"s.
passionless ::: not feeling or moved by passion; cold or unemotional; calm, detached or unimpassioned.
penal code ::: law. The aggregate of statutory enactments dealing with crimes and their punishment.
penalty ::: a punishment established by law or authority for a crime or offense.
people ::: n. 2. The entire body of persons who constitute a community, tribe, nation, or other group by virtue of a common culture, history, religion, or the like. 3. Living beings. poet. 4. Pl. nations, races . v. 5. To fill or occupy with or as if with people; inhabit. peoples, peopled, peopling.
perfection ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Perfection in the sense in which we use it in Yoga, means a growth out of a lower undivine into a higher divine nature. In terms of knowledge it is a putting on the being of the higher self and a casting away of the darker broken lower self or a transforming of our imperfect state into the rounded luminous fullness of our real and spiritual personality. In terms of devotion and adoration it is a growing into a likeness of the nature or the law of the being of the Divine, to be united with whom we aspire, . . . .” *The Synthesis of Yoga
permits ::: allows the doing of (something); consents to; affords opportunity or possibility for.
phalanx ::: an ancient military formation of serried ranks surrounded by shields; hence, any crowded mass of people or group united for a common purpose. phalanxes, phalanxed.
phrase ::: 1. A characteristic way or mode of expression. 2. An expression of two or more words in sequence that form a syntactic unit that is less than a complete sentence. phrases.
piece ::: n. 1. A drama, a play. v. 2. Fig. To join or unite the pieces of. pieced.
power, universal
power ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Power means strength and force, Shakti, which enables one to face all that can happen and to stand and overcome, also to carry out what the Divine Will proposes. It can include many things, power over men, events, circumstances, means etc. But all this not of the mental or vital kind, but by an action through unity of consciousness with the Divine and with all things and beings. It is not an individual strength depending on certain personal capacities, but the Divine Power using the individual as an instrument.” *Letters on Yoga
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.
::: "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
privilege ::: 1. A special advantage or immunity or benefit not enjoyed by all. 2. The advantages and immunities enjoyed by a small usually powerful group or class, esp. to the disadvantage of others.
"Progress admittedly does not march on securely in a straight line like a man sure of his familiar way or an army covering an unimpeded terrain or well-mapped unoccupied spaces. Human progress is very much an adventure through the unknown, an unknown full of surprises and baffling obstacles; it stumbles often, it misses its way at many points, it cedes here in order to gain there, it retraces its steps frequently in order to get more widely forward.” *The Renaissance in India
race ::: 1. The human race or family; humankind; mankind. 2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution.
reach ::: n. 1. Range of effective action, power, or capacity, area, sphere, scope. 2. The range of influence, power, jurisdiction, etc. reaches. v. 3. To stretch out or put forth (a body part); extend. 4. To arrive at or get to (a place, person, etc.) in the course of movement or action. 5. To arrive at; attain. 6. To make contact or communication with (someone). 7. To extend in influence or operation. reaches, reached, reaching.
"Reason divides, fixes details & contrasts them; Wisdom unifies, marries contrasts in a single harmony.” Essays Divine and Human
rejoin ::: to join together again; reunite.
retribution ::: punishment for wrong or evil done.
revenge ::: 1. The act of taking vengeance for injuries or wrongs; retaliation. 2. An opportunity to retaliate or gain satisfaction.
rod ::: 1. A walking sick, wand, etc. 2. A sceptre, staff, or wand symbolizing power or authority. 3. A measuring stick. 4. A stick or bundle of sticks or switches used to give punishment by whipping. rods, divining rod (see divining), measuring-rod (*see measuring)*.
"Science at its limits, even physical Science, is compelled to perceive in the end the infinite, the universal, the spirit, the divine intelligence and will in the material universe.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Science is of immense importance not because it discovers the secrets of Nature for the advancement of knowledge, but because it utilises them for the creation of machinery and develops and organises the economic resources of the community.” The Human Cycle etc.
scope ::: 1. A purpose or an aim. 2. Space for movement or activity; opportunity for operation. 3. Extent or range of view, outlook, application, operation, effectiveness, etc. 4. The range of one"s perceptions, thoughts, or actions.
scourge ::: n. 1. A whip used to inflict punishment. 2. A cause of affliction or calamity. v. 3. To punish severely; whip; flog. 4. To chastise severely.
sects ::: groups, parties, or factions united by a specific doctrine or under doctrinal leaders.
see Force, universal.
see **material universe.**
see **Mother, universal.**
see **Power, universal.**
self identification lost by uniting with something higher.
self-knowledge ::: knowing of oneself, without help from another.
Sri Aurobindo: The possibility of a cosmic consciousness in humanity is coming slowly to be admitted in modern Psychology, like the possibility of more elastic instruments of knowledge, although still classified, even when its value and power are admitted, as a hallucination. In the psychology of the East it has always been recognised as a reality and the aim of our subjective progress. The essence of the passage over to this goal is the exceeding of the limits imposed on us by the ego-sense and at least a partaking, at most an identification with the self-knowledge which broods secret in all life and in all that seems to us inanimate. *The Life Divine
"Therefore the only final goal possible is the emergence of the infinite consciousness in the individual; it is his recovery of the truth of himself by self-knowledge and by self-realisation, the truth of the Infinite in being, the Infinite in consciousness, the Infinite in delight repossessed as his own Self and Reality of which the finite is only a mask and an instrument for various expression.” The Life Divine
"The Truth-Consciousness is everywhere present in the universe as an ordering self-knowledge by which the One manifests the harmonies of its infinite potential multiplicity.” The Life Divine
sentence ::: n. 1. A sequence of words capable of standing alone to make an assertion, ask a question or give a command, usually consisting of a subject and a predicate containing a finite verb. 2. An authoritative decision; a judicial judgement or decree, esp. a judicial decision of the punishment to be inflicted on one adjudged guilty. Hence, the punishment to which a criminal is sentenced. sentences. 3. A number of words forming a complete statement. sentenced.
separate ::: v. 1. To set apart. 2. To put, bring or force apart, (two or more persons or things, or one from another); to disunite, disconnect, make a division between, part. 3. To sort, part or divide something previously combined or mixed. 4. To part or be parted from; depart or draw apart from; become divided; disunited. separates, separated. adj. 5. Detached, disconnected, or disjoined. 6. Withdrawn or divided from something else so as to have an independent existence by itself. 7. Being or standing apart; distant or dispersed. 8. Considered or reckoned by itself (although mentioned as one of several); single, individual. 9. Belonging or peculiar to one, not common to or shared with the other or the others. separateness.
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.
singularity ::: the state, fact or quality of being distinctive, unusual or unique.
slight ::: adj. 1. Small in size, degree, or amount.2. Unimportant, trifling, trivial. 3. Lacking strength, substance, or solidity; frail. 4. Frail, flimsy, delicate. slightest. v. 5. To treat as of little importance; to disregard, disdain, ignore.
society ::: 1. The body of human beings generally, associated or viewed as members of a community. 2. A highly structured system of human organization for large-scale community living that normally furnishes protection, continuity, security, and a national identity for its members. societies.
soil ::: 1. The top layer of the earth"s surface. 2. A particular kind of earth or ground such as sandy soil. 3. Any place or condition providing the opportunity for growth or development. 4. A country, land, or region, esp. one"s native land. temple-soil.
solders ::: joins, unites, cements, bonds, as by soldering (fusing alloys, usually tin and lead, to join metallic parts).
sole ::: 1. Unrivalled; unique. 2. Being the only one; only; solitary. 3. Functioning automatically or with independent power. 4. Belonging or pertaining to one individual to the exclusion of all others; exclusive. Sole.
solidarity ::: a union of interests, purposes, or sympathies among members of a group; fellowship of responsibilities and interests.
solitude ::: 1. The state or quality of being alone or remote from others. 2. A lonely, secluded or uninhabited place. Solitude, solitudes.
Space. Sri Aurobindo: "It is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension, — no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
"Spirit is the crown of universal existence; Matter is its basis; Mind is the link between the two. Spirit is that which is eternal; Mind and Matter are its workings. Spirit is that which is concealed and has to be revealed; mind and body are the means by which it seeks to reveal itself.” The Synthesis of Yoga
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
squadrons ::: armoured cavalry units.
Sri Aurobindo: "Akshara, the immobile, the immutable, is the silent and inactive self, it is the unity of the divine Being, Witness of Nature, but not involved in its movement; it is the inactive Purusha free from Prakriti and her works.” Essays on the Gita
Sri Aurobindo: "And though this Spirit of the universe, this One who is all, seems to be turning us on the wheel of the world as if mounted on a machine by the force of Maya, shaping us in our ignorance as the potter shapes a pot, as the weaver a fabric, by some skilful mechanical principle, yet is this spirit our own greatest self and it is according to the real idea, the truth of ourselves, that which is growing in us and finding always new and more adequate forms in birth after birth, in our animal and human and divine life, in that which we were, that which we are, that which we shall be, — it is in accordance with this inner soul-truth that, as our opened eyes will discover, we are progressively shaped by this spirit within us in its all-wise omnipotence.” *Essays on the Gita
Sri Aurobindo: A symbol, as I understand it, is the form on one plane that represents a truth of another. For instance, a flag is the symbol of a nation…. But generally all forms are symbols. This body of ours is a symbol of our real being and everything is a symbol of some higher reality. There are, however, different kinds of symbols: 1. Conventional symbols, such as the Vedic Rishis formed with objects taken from their surroundings. The cow stood for light because the same word `go ‘ meant both ray and cow, and because the cow was their most precious possession which maintained their life and was constantly in danger of being robbed and concealed. But once created, such a symbol becomes alive. The Rishis vitalised it and it became a part of their realisation. It appeared in their visions as an image of spiritual light. The horse also was one of their favourite symbols, and a more easily adaptable one, since its force and energy were quite evident. 2. What we might call Life-symbols, such as are not artificially chosen or mentally interpreted in a conscious deliberate way, but derive naturally from our day-to-day life and grow out of the surroundings which condition our normal path of living. To the ancients the mountain was a symbol of the path of yoga, level above level, peak upon peak. A journey, involving the crossing of rivers and the facing of lurking enemies, both animal and human, conveyed a similar idea. Nowadays I dare say we would liken yoga to a motor-ride or a railway-trip. 3. Symbols that have an inherent appositeness and power of their own. Akasha or etheric space is a symbol of the infinite all-pervading eternal Brahman. In any nationality it would convey the same meaning. Also, the Sun stands universally for the supramental Light, the divine Gnosis. 4.* Mental symbols, instances of which are numbers or alphabets. Once they are accepted, they too become active and may be useful. Thus geometrical figures have been variously interpreted. In my experience the square symbolises the supermind. I cannot say how it came to do so. Somebody or some force may have built it before it came to my mind. Of the triangle, too, there are different explanations. In one position it can symbolise the three lower planes, in another the symbol is of the three higher ones: so both can be combined together in a single sign. The ancients liked to indulge in similar speculations concerning numbers, but their systems were mostly mental. It is no doubt true that supramental realities exist which we translate into mental formulas such as Karma, Psychic evolution, etc. But they are, so to speak, infinite realities which cannot be limited by these symbolic forms, though they may be somewhat expressed by them; they might be expressed as well by other symbols, and the same symbol may also express many different ideas. Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Birth is the first spiritual mystery of the physical universe, death is the second which gives its double point of perplexity to the mystery of birth; for life, which would otherwise be a self-evident fact of existence, becomes itself a mystery by virtue of these two which seem to be its beginning and its end and yet in a thousand ways betray themselves as neither of these things, but rather intermediate stages in an occult processus of life.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Chance is not *in this universe; the idea of illusion is itself an illusion. There was never illusion yet in the human mind that was not the concealing [?shape] and disfigurement of a truth.” Essays Divine and Human
Sri Aurobindo: "Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence — it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it — not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself.” *Letters on Yoga
::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . Durga, the conquering and protecting aspect of the Universal Mother.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Every man is knowingly or unknowingly the instrument of a universal Power and, apart from the inner Presence, there is no such essential difference between one action and another, one kind of instrumentation and another as would warrant the folly of an egoistic pride. The difference between knowledge and ignorance is a grace of the Spirit; the breath of divine Power blows where it lists and fills today one and tomorrow another with the word or the puissance. If the potter shapes one pot more perfectly than another, the merit lies not in the vessel but the maker. The attitude of our mind must not be ‘This is my strength" or ‘Behold God"s power in me", but rather ‘A Divine Power works in this mind and body and it is the same that works in all men and in the animal, in the plant and in the metal, in conscious and living things and in things apparently inconscient and inanimate."” The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: " For the highest intuitive Knowledge sees things in the whole, in the large and details only as sides of the indivisible whole; its tendency is towards immediate synthesis and the unity of knowledge.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Freedom is the law of being in its illimitable unity, secret master of all Nature: . . . .” *Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Further, vision is of value because it is often a first key to inner planes of one"s own being and one"s own consciousness as distinguished from worlds or planes of the cosmic consciousness. Yoga-experience often begins with some opening of the third eye in the forehead (the centre of vision in the brows) or with some kind of beginning and extension of subtle seeing which may seem unimportant at first but is the vestibule to deeper experience.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Genius is one attempt of the universal Energy to so quicken and intensify our intellectual powers that they shall be prepared for those more puissant, direct and rapid faculties which constitute the play of the supra-intellectual or divine mind. It is not, then, a freak, an inexplicable phenomenon, but a perfectly natural next step in the right line of her [Nature"s] evolution.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "His [the Titan"s] instincts call for a visible, tangible mastery and a sensational domination. How shall he feel sure of his empire unless he can feel something writhing helpless under his heel, — if in agony, so much the better? What is exploitation to him, unless it diminishes the exploited? To be able to coerce, exact, slay, overtly, irresistibly, — it is this that fills him with the sense of glory and dominion. For he is the son of division and the strong flowering of the Ego. To feel the comparative limitation of others is necessary to him that he may imagine himself immeasurable; for he has not the real, self-existent sense of infinity which no outward circumstance can abrogate. Contrast, division, negation of the wills and lives of others are essential to his self-development and self-assertion. The Titan would unify by devouring, not by harmonising; he must conquer and trample what is not himself either out of existence or into subservience so that his own image may stand out stamped upon all things and dominating all his environment.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Human life is itself only a term in a graded series, through which the secret Spirit in the universe develops gradually his purpose and works it out finally through the enlarging and ascending individual soul-consciousness in the body. This ascent can only take place by rebirth within the ascending order; an individual visit coming across it and progressing on some other line elsewhere could not fit into the system of this evolutionary existence.” The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "In other words, ethics is a stage in evolution. That which is common to all stages is the urge of Sachchidananda towards self-expression. This urge is at first non-ethical, then infra-ethical in the animal, then in the intelligent animal even anti-ethical for it permits us to approve hurt done to others which we disapprove when done to ourselves. In this respect man even now is only half-ethical. And just as all below us is infra-ethical, so there may be that above us whither we shall eventually arrive, which is supra-ethical, has no need of ethics. The ethical impulse and attitude, so all-important to humanity, is a means by which it struggles out of the lower harmony and universality based upon inconscience and broken up by Life into individual discords towards a higher harmony and universality based upon conscient oneness with all existences. Arriving at that goal, this means will no longer be necessary or even possible, since the qualities and oppositions on which it depends will naturally dissolve and disappear in the final reconciliation.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "It could be affirmed as a consequence that there is one all-pervading Life or dynamic energy — the material aspect being only its outermost movement — that creates all these forms of the physical universe, Life imperishable and eternal which, even if the whole figure of the universe were quite abolished, would itself still go on existing and be capable of producing a new universe in its place, must indeed, unless it be held back in a state of rest by some higher Power or hold itself back, inevitably go on creating. In that case Life is nothing else than the Force that builds and maintains and destroys forms in the world; it is Life that manifests itself in the form of the earth as much as in the plant that grows upon the earth and the animals that support their existence by devouring the life-force of the plant or of each other. All existence here is a universal Life that takes form of Matter. It might for that purpose hide life-process in physical process before it emerges as submental sensitivity and mentalised vitality, but still it would be throughout the same creative Life-principle.” *The Life Divine
"Sri Aurobindo: "It has been held that ecstasy is a lower and transient passage, the peace of the Supreme is the supreme realisation, the consummate abiding experience. This may be true on the spiritual-mind plane: there the first ecstasy felt is indeed a spiritual rapture, but it can be and is very usually mingled with a supreme happiness of the vital parts taken up by the Spirit; there is an exaltation, exultation, excitement, a highest intensity of the joy of the heart and the pure inner soul-sensation that can be a splendid passage or an uplifting force but is not the ultimate permanent foundation. But in the highest ascents of the spiritual bliss there is not this vehement exaltation and excitement; there is instead an illimitable intensity of participation in an eternal ecstasy which is founded on the eternal Existence and therefore on a beatific tranquillity of eternal peace. Peace and ecstasy cease to be different and become one. The Supermind, reconciling and fusing all differences as well as all contradictions, brings out this unity; a wide calm and a deep delight of all-existence are among its first steps of self-realisation, but this calm and this delight rise together, as one state, into an increasing intensity and culminate in the eternal ecstasy, the bliss that is the Infinite.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: “Love fulfilled does not exclude knowledge, but itself brings knowledge; and the completer the knowledge, the richer the possibility of love. ‘By Bhakti’ says the Lord in the Gita ‘shall a man know Me in all my extent and greatness and as I am in the principles of my being, and when he has known Me in the principles of my being, then he enters into Me.’ Love without knowledge is a passionate and intense, but blind, crude, often dangerous thing, a great power, but also a stumbling-block; love, limited in knowledge, condemns itself in its fervour and often by its very fervour to narrowness; but love leading to perfect knowledge brings the infinite and absolute union. Such love is not inconsistent with, but rather throws itself with joy into divine works; for it loves God and is one with him in all his being, and therefore in all beings, and to work for the world is then to feel and fulfil multitudinously one’s love for God. This is the trinity of our powers, [work, knowledge, love] the union of all three in God to which we arrive when we start on our journey by the path of devotion with Love for the Angel of the Way to find in the ecstasy of the divine delight of the All-Lover’s being the fulfilment of ours, its secure home and blissful abiding-place and the centre of its universal radiation.” The Synthesis of Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "Mind has its own realms and life has its own realms just as matter has. In the mental realms life and substance are entirely subordinated to Mind and obey its dictates. Here on earth there is the evolution with matter as the starting-point, life as the medium, mind emerging from it. There are many grades, realms, combinations in the cosmos — there are even many universes. Ours is only one of many.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Mind is not sufficient to explain existence in the universe. Infinite Consciousness must first translate itself into infinite faculty of Knowledge or, as we call it from our point of view, omniscience.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: ::: "O Wisdom-Splendour, Mother of the universe,
*Sri Aurobindo: "Pleasure, joy and delight, as man uses the words, are limited and occasional movements which depend on certain habitual causes and emerge, like their opposites pain and grief which are equally limited and occasional movements, from a background other than themselves. Delight of being is universal, illimitable and self-existent, not dependent on particular causes, the background of all backgrounds, from which pleasure, pain and other more neutral experiences emerge. When delight of being seeks to realise itself as delight of becoming, it moves in the movement of force and itself takes different forms of movement of which pleasure and pain are positive and negative currents.” The Life Divine*
Sri Aurobindo: "The Being is one, but this oneness is infinite and contains in itself an infinite plurality or multiplicity of itself: the One is the All; it is not only an essential Existence, but an All-Existence. The infinite multiplicity of the One and the eternal unity of the Many are the two realities or aspects of one reality on which the manifestation is founded.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "the black dragon of the Inconscience sustains with its vast wings and its back of darkness the whole structure of the material universe; its energies unroll the flux of things, its obscure intimations seem to be the starting-point of consciousness itself and the source of all life-impulse.” The Life Divine ::: **Unused, guarded beneath Night"s dragon paws,**
Sri Aurobindo: "The universe is a manifestation of the Reality, and there is a truth of the universal existence, a Power of cosmic being, an all-self or world-spirit. Humanity is a formation or manifestation of the Reality in the universe, and there is a truth and self of humanity, a human spirit, a destiny of human life.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The cosmic consciousness is that of the universe, of the cosmic spirit and cosmic Nature with all the beings and forces within it. All that is as much conscious as a whole as the individual separately is, though in a different way. The consciousness of the individual is part of this, but a part feeling itself as a separate being. Yet all the time most of what he is comes into him from the cosmic consciousness. But there is a wall of separative ignorance between. Once it breaks down he becomes aware of the cosmic Self, of the consciousness of the cosmic Nature, of the forces playing in it, etc. He feels all that as he now feels physical things and impacts. He finds it all to be one with his larger or universal self.” *Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the divine Ananda, the principle of Bliss [is that] from which, in the Vedic conception, the existence of Man, this mental being, is drawn. A secret Delight is the base of existence, its sustaining atmosphere and almost its substance. This Ananda is spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the ethereal atmosphere of bliss without which nothing could remain in being. In the Aitareya Upanishad Soma, as the lunar deity, is born from the sense-mind in the universal Purusha and, when man is produced, expresses himself again as sense-mentality in the human being. For delight is the raison d"être of sensation, or, we may say, sensation is an attempt to translate the secret delight of existence into the terms of physical consciousness.” The Secret of the Veda
Sri Aurobindo: "[The Divine"s] totality of finite and changeable circumstances dependent on an equal, immutable and eternal Infinity is what we call the Universe.” *The Upanishads
Sri Aurobindo: "The faith in the divine Shakti must be always at the back of our strength and when she becomes manifest, it must be or grow implicit and complete. There is nothing that is impossible to her who is the conscious Power and universal Goddess all-creative from eternity and armed with the Spirit"s omnipotence.” The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "The Indian explanation of fate is Karma. We ourselves are our own fate through our actions, but the fate created by us binds us; for what we have sown, we must reap in this life or another. Still we are creating our fate for the future even while undergoing old fate from the past in the present. That gives a meaning to our will and action and does not, as European critics wrongly believe, constitute a rigid and sterilising fatalism. But again, our will and action can often annul or modify even the past Karma, it is only certain strong effects, called utkata karma, that are non-modifiable. Here too the achievement of the spiritual consciousness and life is supposed to annul or give the power to annul Karma. For we enter into union with the Will Divine, cosmic or transcendent, which can annul what it had sanctioned for certain conditions, new-create what it had created, the narrow fixed lines disappear, there is a more plastic freedom and wideness. Neither Karma nor Astrology therefore points to a rigid and for ever immutable fate.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The Master and Mover of our works is the One, the Universal and Supreme, the Eternal and Infinite. He is the transcendent unknown or unknowable Absolute, the unexpressed and unmanifested Ineffable above us; but he is also the Self of all beings, the Master of all worlds, transcending all worlds, the Light and the Guide, the All-Beautiful and All-Blissful, the Beloved and the Lover. He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around us; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the More than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force, conscious with a consciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. No matter whether by knowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this truth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or elsewhere is the object of all Yoga.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nature-body and Nature-force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass though the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.” The Mother
Sri Aurobindo: "The nature of Bhakti is adoration, worship, self-offering to what is greater than oneself; the nature of love is a feeling or a seeking for closeness and union. Self-giving is the character of both; both are necessary in the yoga and each gets its full force when supported by the other.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "There is no difference between the terms ‘universal" and ‘cosmic" except that ‘universal" can be used in a freer way than ‘cosmic". Universal may mean ‘of the universe", cosmic in that general sense. But it may also mean ‘common to all", e.g., ‘This is a universal weakness" — but you cannot say ‘This is a cosmic weakness".” Letters on Yoga*
Sri Aurobindo: "There is no difference between the terms ‘universal" and ‘cosmic" except that ‘universal" can be used in a freer way than ‘cosmic". Universal may mean ‘of the universe", cosmic in that general sense. But it may also mean ‘common to all", e.g., ‘This is a universal weakness" — but you cannot say ‘This is a cosmic weakness".” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "There is no necessity in the essential nature of mind, sense, life that they should be so limited: for the physical sense-organs are not the creators of sense-perceptions, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic sense; the nervous system and vital organs are not the creators of life"s action and reaction, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Life-force; the brain is not the creator of thought, but itself the creation, the instrument and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Mind. The necessity then is not absolute, but teleological; it is the result of a divine cosmic Will in the material universe which intends to posit here a physical relation between sense and its object, establishes here a material formula and law of Conscious-Force and creates by it physical images of Conscious-Being to serve as the initial, dominating and determining fact of the world in which we live. It is not a fundamental law of being, but a constructive principle necessitated by the intention of the Spirit to evolve in a world of Matter.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: “There is no necessity in the essential nature of mind, sense, life that they should be so limited: for the physical sense-organs are not the creators of sense-perceptions, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic sense; the nervous system and vital organs are not the creators of life’s action and reaction, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Life-force; the brain is not the creator of thought, but itself the creation, the instrument and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Mind. The necessity then is not absolute, but teleological; it is the result of a divine cosmic Will in the material universe which intends to posit here a physical relation between sense and its object, establishes here a material formula and law of Conscious-Force and creates by it physical images of Conscious-Being to serve as the initial, dominating and determining fact of the world in which we live. It is not a fundamental law of being, but a constructive principle necessitated by the intention of the Spirit to evolve in a world of Matter.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The Self that becomes all these forms of things is the Virat or universal Soul; the Self that creates all these forms is Hiranyagarbha, the luminous or creatively perceptive Soul.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The supramental Knowledge-Will is Consciousness-Force rendered operative for the creation of forms of united being in an ordered harmony to which we give the name of world or universe; . . .” *The Life Divine
*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 Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The wideness comes when one exceeds or begins to exceed the individual consciousness and spread out towards the universal. But the psychic can be active even in the individual consciousness.” *Letters on Yoga
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
Sri Aurobindo: "This material universe is itself only existence as we see it when the soul dwells on the plane of material movement and experience in which the spirit involves itself in form, and therefore all the framework of things in which it moves by the life and which it embraces by the consciousness is determined by the principle of infinite division and aggregation proper to Matter, to substance of form.” The Upanishads
Sri Aurobindo: "This truth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in another; but to the Buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the clearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In the West too the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary glimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as an ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength of man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of law, vague ideas of some superior caprice or of some divine jealousy, — that was a notion of the Greeks, — a blind Fate or inscrutable Necessity, Ananke, or, later, the mysterious ways of an arbitrary, though no doubt an all-wise Providence.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga *Ananke"s.
Sri Aurobindo: "True reconciliation proceeds always by a mutual comprehension leading to some sort of intimate oneness. It is therefore through the utmost possible unification of Spirit and Matter that we shall best arrive at their reconciling truth and so at some strongest foundation for a reconciling practice in the inner life of the individual and his outer existence.” The Life Divine*
Sri Aurobindo: "Unity is the eternal and fundamental fact, without which all multiplicity would be an unreal and an impossible illusion. The consciousness of Unity is therefore called Vidya, the Knowledge.” *The Upanishads
Sri Aurobindo: "Universal love is the spiritual founded on the sense of the One and the Divine everywhere and the change of the personal into a wide universal consciousness, free from attachment and ignorance.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "We have distinguished a fourfold principle of divine Being creative of the universe, — Existence, Conscious-Force, Bliss and Supermind.” *The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: ". . . we live in a false relation with our environment, because we know neither the universe nor ourselves for what they really are . . .” The Synthesis of Yoga*
Sri Aurobindo: "Whoever the recipient, whatever the gift, it is the Supreme, the Eternal in things, who receives and accepts it, even if it be rejected or ignored by the immediate recipient. For the Supreme who transcends the universe, is yet here too, however veiled, in us and in the world and in its happenings; he is there as the omniscient Witness and Receiver of all our works and their secret Master.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Who is the superman? He who can rise above this matter-regarding broken mental human unit and possess himself universalised and deified in a divine force, a divine love and joy and a divine knowledge.” *The Hour of God
Sri Aurobindo: "Yet all the time the universal forces are pouring into him without his knowing it. He is aware only of thoughts, feelings, etc., that rise to the surface and these he takes for his own. Really they come from outside in mind waves, vital waves, waves of feeling and sensation, etc., which take particular form in him and rise to the surface after they have got inside. But they do not get into his body at once. He carries about with him an environmental consciousness (called by the Theosophists the Aura) into which they first enter. If you can become conscious of this environmental self of yours, then you can catch the thought, passion, suggestion or force of illness and prevent it from entering into you. If things in you are thrown out, they often do not go altogether but take refuge in this environmental atmosphere and from there they try to get in again. Or they go to a distance outside but linger on the outskirts or even perhaps far off, waiting till they get an opportunity to attempt entrance.” *Letters on Yoga
"Stability and movement, we must remember, are only our psychological representations of the Absolute, even as are oneness and multitude. The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and multitudinous.” The Life Divine
“Stability and movement, we must remember, are only our psychological representations of the Absolute, even as are oneness and multitude. The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and multitudinous.” The Life Divine
state ::: 1. The condition of a person or thing, as with respect to circumstances or attributes. 2. One of the more or less internally autonomous territorial and political units composing a federation under a sovereign government. 3. A costly display of ceremony and pomp. states, State, States, God-state, buffer state.
strip ::: a long narrow piece, usually of uniform width. strips, canvas-strips, sky-strips.
subtle Matter ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Much more than half our thoughts and feelings are not our own in the sense that they take form out of ourselves; of hardly anything can it be said that it is truly original to our nature. A large part comes to us from others or from the environment, whether as raw material or as manufactured imports; but still more largely they come from universal Nature here or from other worlds and planes and their beings and powers and influences; for we are overtopped and environed by other planes of consciousness, mind planes, life planes, subtle matter planes, from which our life and action here are fed, or fed on, pressed, dominated, made use of for the manifestation of their forms and forces.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"Mind therefore is held by the Hindus to be a species of subtle matter in which ideas are waves or ripples, and it is not limited by the physical body which it uses as an instrument.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"All that manifested from the Eternal has already been arranged in worlds or planes of its own nature, planes of subtle Matter, planes of Life, planes of Mind, planes of Supermind, planes of the triune luminous Infinite. But these worlds or planes are not evolutionary but typal. A typal world is one in which some ruling principle manifests itself in its free and full capacity and energy and form are plastic and subservient to its purpose. Its expressions are therefore automatic and satisfying and do not need to evolve; they stand so long as need be and do not need to be born, develop, decline and disintegrate.” Essays Divine and Human*
suburbs ::: a usually residential area or community outlying a city or township.
" Suffering is not inflicted as a punishment for sin or for hostility — that is a wrong idea. Suffering comes like pleasure and good fortune as an inevitable part of life in the ignorance. The dualities of pleasure and pain, joy and grief, good fortune and ill-fortune are the inevitable results of the ignorance which separates us from our true consciousness and from the Divine. Only by coming back to it can we get rid of suffering. Karma from the past lives exists, much of what happens is due to it, but not all. For we can mend our karma by our own consciousness and efforts. But the suffering is simply a natural consequence of past errors, not a punishment, just as a burn is the natural consequence of playing with fire. It is part of the experience by which the soul through its instruments learns and grows until it is ready to turn to the Divine.” Letters on Yoga
sweep ::: 1. *n. A broad reach, extent or range. lit. and fig. 2. A curving, esp. widely or gently curving, line, form, part, or mass. storm-sweeps. v. 3. To drive or carry by some steady force, as of a wind or wave. 4. To pass over (a surface, region, etc.) with a steady, driving movement or unimpeded course, as winds, floods, etc. 5. To move with a strong or swift even motion; to move over or through a surface or region, usually rapidly. 6. To pass the gaze, eyes, etc., over (a region, area, etc.). *sweeps, swept, rain-swept.
syllable ::: a unit of spoken language consisting of a single uninterrupted sound formed by a vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant alone, or by any of these sounds preceded, followed, or surrounded by one or more consonants. syllables.
syntax ::: an orderly arrangement or system; a union of things or elements.
systemed ::: arranged or composed into an ordered manner, a unified system.
that unites or joins.
"The Absolute is beyond personality and beyond impersonality, and yet it is both the Impersonal and the supreme Person and all persons. The Absolute is beyond the distinction of unity and multiplicity, and yet it is the One and the innumerable Many in all the universes.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The Absolute is beyond personality and beyond impersonality, and yet it is both the Impersonal and the supreme Person and all persons. The Absolute is beyond the distinction of unity and multiplicity, and yet it is the One and the innumerable Many in all the universes.” The Synthesis of Yoga
::: "The ancient Vedanta presents us with . . . the conception and experience of Brahman as the one universal and essential fact and of the nature of Brahman as Sachchidananda [Existence, Consciousness, Bliss]. In this view the essence of all life is the movement of a universal and immortal existence, the essence of all sensation and emotion is the play of a universal and self-existent delight in being, the essence of all thought and perception is the radiation of a universal and all-pervading truth, the essence of all activity is the progression of a universal and self-effecting good.” The Life Divine
The Apsaras then are the divine Hetairae of Paradise, beautiful singers and actresses whose beauty and art relieve the arduous and world-long struggle of the Gods against the forces that tend towards disruption by the Titans who would restore Matter to its original atomic condition or of dissolution by the sages and hermits who would make phenomena dissolve prematurely into the One who is above phenomena. They rose from the Ocean, says Valmiki, seeking who should choose them as brides, but neither the Gods nor the Titans accepted them, therefore are they said to be common or universal. The Harmony of Virtue
"The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man"s real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.” The Life Divine
(The authors also gave the example of Centaur). When such words are capitalised it refers to a divinity representing the species. Also with the word ‘Circean’ Nolini said: “Not merely a mythological story but a being representing universal forces.
"the basic syllable OM, which is the foundation of all the perfect creative sounds of the revealed word; OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases, all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak (speech, the goddess Speech) and Shabda (sound, vibration, word). The mantra of the divine consciousness brings its light of revelation, the Mantra of the divine Power, its will of effectuation, the Mantra of the divine Ananda is equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an outflowing of he great OM, - OM, the Word, the Eternal Manifest in the forms of sensible objects; manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name – it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self- existent above all manifestation in supernal being.” SABCL Volume 13 – Page 315*
"The universe is a manifestation of an infinite and eternal All-Existence: the Divine Being dwells in all that is. . . .” The Human Cycle
"The universe is certainly or has been up to now in appearance a rough and wasteful game with the dice of chance loaded in favour of the Powers of darkness, the Lords of obscurity, falsehood, death and suffering. But we have to take it as it is and find out — if we reject the way out of the old sages — the way to conquer. Spiritual experience shows that there is behind it all a wide terrain of equality, peace, calm, freedom, and it is only by getting into it that we can have the eye that sees and hope to gain the power that conquers.” Letters on Yoga
"The universe is not merely a mathematical formula for working out the relation of certain mental abstractions called numbers and principles to arrive in the end at a zero or a void unit, neither is it merely a physical operation embodying a certain equation of forces. It is the delight of a Self-lover, the play of a Child, the endless self-multiplication of a Poet intoxicated with the rapture of His own power of endless creation.” The Supramental Manifestation
"The colours of the lotuses and the numbers of petals are respectively, from bottom to top: — (1) the Muladhara or physical consciousness centre, four petals, red; (2) the abdominal centre, six petals, deep purple red; (3) the navel centre, ten petals, violet; (4) the heart centre, twelve petals, golden pink; (5) the throat centre, sixteen petals, grey; (6) the forehead centre between the eye-brows, two petals, white; (7) the thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around. The functions are, according to our yoga, — (1) commanding the physical consciousness and the subconscient; (2) commanding the small vital movements, the little greeds, lusts, desires, the small sense-movements; (3) commanding the larger life-forces and the passions and larger desire-movements; (4) commanding the higher emotional being with the psychic deep behind it; (5) commanding expression and all externalisation of the mind movements and mental forces; (6) commanding thought, will, vision; (7) commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The seventh is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error — the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, sunya , either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.” Letters on Yoga*
"The cosmic consciousness is that in which the limits of ego, personal mind and body disappear and one becomes aware of a cosmic vastness which is or filled by a cosmic spirit and aware also of the direct play of cosmic forces, universal mind forces, universal life forces, universal energies of Matter, universal overmind forces. But one does not become aware of all these together; the opening of the cosmic consciousness is usually progressive. It is not that the ego, the body, the personal mind disappear, but one feels them as only a small part of oneself. One begins to feel others too as part of oneself or varied repetitions of oneself, the same self modified by Nature in other bodies. Or, at the least, as living in the larger universal self which is henceforth one"s own greater reality. All things in fact begin to change their nature and appearance; one"s whole experience of the world is radically different from that of those who are shut up in their personal selves. One begins to know things by a different kind of experience, more direct, not depending on the external mind and the senses. It is not that the possibility of error disappears, for that cannot be so long as mind of any kind is one"s instrument for transcribing knowledge, but there is a new, vast and deep way of experiencing, seeing, knowing, contacting things; and the confines of knowledge can be rolled back to an almost unmeasurable degree. The thing one has to be on guard against in the cosmic consciousness is the play of a magnified ego, the vaster attacks of the hostile forces — for they too are part of the cosmic consciousness — and the attempt of the cosmic Illusion (Ignorance, Avidya) to prevent the growth of the soul into the cosmic Truth. These are things that one has to learn from experience; mental teaching or explanation is quite insufficient. To enter safely into the cosmic consciousness and to pass safely through it, it is necessary to have a strong central unegoistic sincerity and to have the psychic being, with its divination of truth and unfaltering orientation towards the Divine, already in front in ::: —the nature.” Letters on Yoga*
“The cosmic consciousness is that in which the limits of ego, personal mind and body disappear and one becomes aware of a cosmic vastness which is or filled by a cosmic spirit and aware also of the direct play of cosmic forces, universal mind forces, universal life forces, universal energies of Matter, universal overmind forces. But one does not become aware of all these together; the opening of the cosmic consciousness is usually progressive. It is not that the ego, the body, the personal mind disappear, but one feels them as only a small part of oneself. One begins to feel others too as part of oneself or varied repetitions of oneself, the same self modified by Nature in other bodies. Or, at the least, as living in the larger universal self which is henceforth one’s own greater reality. All things in fact begin to change their nature and appearance; one’s whole experience of the world is radically different from that of those who are shut up in their personal selves. One begins to know things by a different kind of experience, more direct, not depending on the external mind and the senses. It is not that the possibility of error disappears, for that cannot be so long as mind of any kind is one’s instrument for transcribing knowledge, but there is a new, vast and deep way of experiencing, seeing, knowing, contacting things; and the confines of knowledge can be rolled back to an almost unmeasurable degree. The thing one has to be on guard against in the cosmic consciousness is the play of a magnified ego, the vaster attacks of the hostile forces—for they too are part of the cosmic consciousness—and the attempt of the cosmic Illusion (Ignorance, Avidya) to prevent the growth of the soul into the cosmic Truth. These are things that one has to learn from experience; mental teaching or explanation is quite insufficient. To enter safely into the cosmic consciousness and to pass safely through it, it is necessary to have a strong central unegoistic sincerity and to have the psychic being, with its divination of truth and unfaltering orientation towards the Divine, already in front in—the nature.” Letters on Yoga
“The cosmic consciousness is that of the universe, of the cosmic spirit and cosmic Nature with all the beings and forces within it. All that is as much conscious as a whole as the individual separately is, though in a different way. The consciousness of the individual is part of this, but a part feeling itself as a separate being. Yet all the time most of what he is comes into him from the cosmic consciousness. But there is a wall of separative ignorance between. Once it breaks down he becomes aware of the cosmic Self, of the consciousness of the cosmic Nature, of the forces playing in it, etc. He feels all that as he now feels physical things and impacts. He finds it all to be one with his larger or universal self.” Letters on Yoga
". . . the cosmic Force, masked as a material Energy, hides from our view by its insistent materiality of process the occult fact that the working of the Inconscient is really the expression of a vast universal Life, a veiled universal Mind, a hooded Gnosis, and without these origins of itself it could have no power of action, no organising coherence.” The Life Divine
“… the cosmic Force, masked as a material Energy, hides from our view by its insistent materiality of process the occult fact that the working of the Inconscient is really the expression of a vast universal Life, a veiled universal Mind, a hooded Gnosis, and without these origins of itself it could have no power of action, no organising coherence.” The Life Divine
“The Cosmic Spirit or Self contains everything in the cosmos—it upholds cosmic Mind, universal Life, universal Matter as well as the overmind. The Self is more than all these things which are its formulations in Nature.” Letters on Yoga
“… the cosmic spirit, the one self inhabiting the universe, …” The Life Divine
"The cosmic Truth is the truth of things as they are at present expressed in the universe. The Divine Truth is independent of the universe, above it and originates it.” Letters on Yoga
“The cosmic Truth is the truth of things as they are at present expressed in the universe. The Divine Truth is independent of the universe, above it and originates it.” Letters on Yoga
the cosmological theory holding that the universe is expanding, based on the interpretation of the color shift in the spectra of all the galaxies as being the result of the Doppler effect and indicating that all galaxies are moving away from one another.
"The Cross is in Yoga the symbol of the soul & nature in their strong & perfect union, but because of our fall into the impurities of ignorance it has become the symbol of suffering and purification.” Essays Divine and Human*
“The Cross is in Yoga the symbol of the soul & nature in their strong & perfect union, but because of our fall into the impurities of ignorance it has become the symbol of suffering and purification.” Essays Divine and Human
"The Devi is the Divine Shakti — the Consciousness and Power of the Divine, the Mother and Energy of the worlds. All powers are hers. Sometimes Devi-power may mean the power of the universal World-Force; but this is only one side of the Shakti.” Letters on Yoga
“[The Divine in one of its three aspects] . . . is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in the universe—although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
::: "The ear is the passage of communion between the inner mind centre and the thought-forces or thought-waves of the universal Nature.” *Letters on Yoga
::: "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.
::: "The essential cause and condition of universal existence is the Lord, Ishwara or Purusha, manifesting and occupying individual and universal forms.” *The Life Divine
``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.” Essays on the Gita*
"The force at work in us must be the manifest divine Shakti, the supreme or the universal Force unveiled in the liberated individual being, . . . .” The Synthesis of Yoga
"The Godhead is one in his transcendence, one all-supporting Self of things, one in the unity of his cosmic nature. These three are one Godhead; all derives from him, all becomes from his being, all is eternal portion or temporal expression of the Eternal.” Essays on the Gita
::: "The Gods, as has already been said, are in origin and essence permanent Emanations of the Divine put forth from the Supreme by the Transcendent Mother, the Adya Shakti; in their cosmic action they are Powers and Personalities of the Divine each with his independent cosmic standing, function and work in the universe. They are not impersonal entities but cosmic Personalities, although they can and do ordinarily veil themselves behind the movement of impersonal forces.” Letters on Yoga
"The idea of purpose, of a goal is born of the progressive self-unfolding by the world of its own true nature to the individual Souls inhabiting its forms; for the Being is gradually self-revealed within its own becomings, real Unity emerges out of the Multiplicity and changes entirely the values of the latter to our consciousness.” The Upanishads
"The individual is a centre of the whole universal consciousness; . . . .” The Life Divine
". . . the individual is a self-expression of the universal and the transcendent. . . .” The Life Divine
"The individual is in nature one expression of the universal Being, in spirit an emanation of the Transcendence. For if he finds his self, he finds too that his own true self is not this natural personality, this created individuality, but is a universal being in its relations with others and with Nature and in its upward term a portion or the living front of a supreme transcendental Spirit.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"The Infinite creates and is Brahma.” The Renaissance in India ::: "Brahman is not only the cause and supporting power and indwelling principle of the universe, he is also its material and its sole material. Matter also is Brahman and it is nothing other than or different from Brahman.” The Life Divine*
::: "The inner mind is something very wide projecting itself into the infinite and finally identifying itself with the infinity of universal Mind.” Letters on Yoga*
"The inner mind is something very wide projecting itself into the infinite and finally identifying itself with the infinity of universal Mind.” Letters on Yoga*
"The intermediate link exists. We call it the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness, because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions.” The Life Divine
"The Jivatman is for me the Unborn who presides over the individual being and its developments, associated with it but above it and them and who by the very nature of his existence knows himself as universal and transcendent no less than individual and feels the Divine to be his origin, the truth of his being, the master of his nature, the very stuff of his existence.” Letters on Yoga
::: "The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force-Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; he is Space and all that is in Space; he is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe.” The Life Divine*
theme ::: 1. A topic of discourse or discussion. 2. A unifying or dominant idea, motif, etc. 3. A principal melodic subject in a musical composition. themes.
"The message of the Gita is the gospel of the Divinity in man who by force of an increasing union unfolds himself out of the veil of the lower Nature, reveals to the human soul his cosmic spirit, reveals his absolute transcendences, reveals himself in man and in all beings. The potential outcome here of this union, this divine Yoga, man growing towards the Godhead, the Godhead manifest in the human soul and to the inner human vision, is our liberation from limited ego and our elevation to the higher nature of a divine humanity.” Essays on the Gita ::: *Divinity"s.
The Mother: "Consciousness is indeed the creatrix of the universe, but love is its saviour. . . .” On Education, MCW Vol. 12.
::: The Mother: "Krishna represents both the universal Godhead and the immanent Godhead, he whom one can meet within one"s being and in all that constitutes the manifested world.
The Mother: "The universe is a finite whole, but its content is infinite; the changes which occur in this infinity result from the action of Essence on substance, from the penetration, the permeation of quantity by quality, which brings about a constant and progressive organisation and reorganisation of the content of the universe.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.*
The Mother: Unity does not come from any exterior disposition, but by becoming conscious of the eternal Oneness.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
The Mother: "Wisdom cannot be acquired except through union with the Divine Consciousness.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.*
". . . the nature of the Spirit is a spacious inner freedom and a large unity into which each man must be allowed to grow according to his own nature.” The Human Cycle
theol. (of the Deity) Indwelling or abiding in the universe, time, etc.
"The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine. Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the ineffable Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to be manifested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and gives them a form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and a body in the universe.” The Mother
"The personal and the impersonal are themselves posited and experienced by mind as separate realities and one or other is declared and seen as supreme, so that the personal can have laya in the Impersonal or, on the contrary, the impersonal disappears into the absolute reality of the supreme and divine Person — the impersonal in that view is only an attribute or power of the personal Divine. But at the summit of spiritual experience passing beyond mind one begins to feel the fusion of all these things into one. Consciousness, Existence, Ananda return to their indivisible unity, Sachchidananda. The personal and the impersonal become irrevocably one, so that to posit one as against the other appears as an act of ignorance.” *Letters on Yoga
"The progress of Life involves the development and interlocking of an immense number of things that are in conflict with each other and seem often to be absolute oppositions and contraries. To find amid these oppositions some principle or standing-ground of unity, some workable lever of reconciliation which will make possible a larger and better development on a basis of harmony and not of conflict and struggle, must be increasingly the common aim of humanity in its active life-evolution, if it at all means to rise out of life"s more confused, painful and obscure movement, out of the compromises made by Nature with the ignorance of the Life-mind and the nescience of Matter. This can only be truly and satisfactorily done when the soul discovers itself in its highest and completest spiritual reality and effects a progressive upward transformation of its life-values into those of the spirit; for there they will all find their spiritual truth and in that truth their standing-ground of mutual recognition and reconciliation. The spiritual is the one truth of which all others are the veiled aspects, the brilliant disguises or the dark disfigurements, and in which they can find their own right form and true relation to each other.” *The Human Cycle, etc.
::: "The psycho-analysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga. It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash, fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human mind — to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms — runs riot here. Moreover, the exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before.
". . . there are a series of subtler and subtler formulations of substance which escape from and go beyond the formula of the material universe. Without going deeply into matters which are too occult and difficult for our present inquiry, we may say, adhering to the system on which we have based ourselves, that these gradations of substance, in one important aspect of their formulation in series, can be seen to correspond to the ascending series of Matter, Life, Mind, Supermind and that other higher divine triplicity of Sachchidananda. In other words, we find that substance in its ascension bases itself upon each of these principles and makes itself successively a characteristic vehicle for the dominating cosmic self-expression of each in their ascending series.” The Life Divine
"There is no beginning or end of the Universe in space or time; for the universe is the manifestation of the Eternal and Infinite.” Essays Divine and Human
"There is no such thing as death, for it is the body that dies and the body is not the man. That which really is, cannot go out of existence, though it may change the forms through which it appears, just as that which is non-existent cannot come into being. The soul is and cannot cease to be. This opposition of is and is not, this balance of being and becoming which is the mind"s view of existence, finds its end in the realisation of the soul as the one imperishable self by whom all this universe has been extended. Finite bodies have an end, but that which possesses and uses the body, is infinite, illimitable, eternal, indestructible. It casts away old and takes up new bodies as a man changes worn-out raiment for new; and what is there in this to grieve at and recoil and shrink? This is not born, nor does it die, nor is it a thing that comes into being once and passing away will never come into being again. It is unborn, ancient, sempiternal; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. Who can slay the immortal spirit? Weapons cannot cleave it, nor the fire burn, nor do the waters drench it, nor the wind dry. Eternally stable, immobile, all-pervading, it is for ever and for ever. Not manifested like the body, but greater than all manifestation, not to be analysed by the thought, but greater than all mind, not capable of change and modification like the life and its organs and their objects, but beyond the changes of mind and life and body, it is yet the Reality which all these strive to figure.” Essays on the Gita
“There is no such thing as death, for it is the body that dies and the body is not the man. That which really is, cannot go out of existence, though it may change the forms through which it appears, just as that which is non-existent cannot come into being. The soul is and cannot cease to be. This opposition of is and is not, this balance of being and becoming which is the mind’s view of existence, finds its end in the realisation of the soul as the one imperishable self by whom all this universe has been extended. Finite bodies have an end, but that which possesses and uses the body, is infinite, illimitable, eternal, indestructible. It casts away old and takes up new bodies as a man changes worn-out raiment for new; and what is there in this to grieve at and recoil and shrink? This is not born, nor does it die, nor is it a thing that comes into being once and passing away will never come into being again. It is unborn, ancient, sempiternal; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. Who can slay the immortal spirit? Weapons cannot cleave it, nor the fire burn, nor do the waters drench it, nor the wind dry. Eternally stable, immobile, all-pervading, it is for ever and for ever. Not manifested like the body, but greater than all manifestation, not to be analysed by the thought, but greater than all mind, not capable of change and modification like the life and its organs and their objects, but beyond the changes of mind and life and body, it is yet the Reality which all these strive to figure.” Essays on the Gita
“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
"These two sets of three names each mean the same things. Visva or Virat=the Spirit of the external universe, Hiranyagarbha or Taijasa (the Luminous)=the Spirit in the inner planes, Prajna or Ishwara=the Superconscient Spirit, Master of all things and the highest Self on which all depends.” *Letters on 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 Supermind is in its very essence a truth-consciousness, a consciousness always free from the Ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or evolutionary existence and from which nature in us is trying to arrive at self-knowledge and world-knowledge and a right consciousness and the right use of our existence in the universe. The Supermind, because it is a truth-consciousness, has this knowledge inherent in it and this power of true existence; its course is straight and can go direct to its aim, its field is wide and can even be made illimitable. This is because its very nature is knowledge: it has not to acquire knowledge but possesses it in its own right; its steps are not from nescience or ignorance into some imperfect light, but from truth to greater truth, from right perception to deeper perception, from intuition to intuition, from illumination to utter and boundless luminousness, from growing widenesses to the utter vasts and to very infinitude. On its summits it possesses the divine omniscience and omnipotence, but even in an evolutionary movement of its own graded self-manifestation by which it would eventually reveal its own highest heights it must be in its very nature essentially free from ignorance and error: it starts from truth and light and moves always in truth and light. As its knowledge is always true, so too its will is always true; it does not fumble in its handling of things or stumble in its paces. In the Supermind feeling and emotion do not depart from their truth, make no slips or mistakes, do not swerve from the right and the real, cannot misuse beauty and delight or twist away from a divine rectitude. In the Supermind sense cannot mislead or deviate into the grossnesses which are here its natural imperfections and the cause of reproach, distrust and misuse by our ignorance. Even an incomplete statement made by the Supermind is a truth leading to a further truth, its incomplete action a step towards completeness.” The Supramental Manifestation
::: "The third step is to know the Divine Being who is at once our supreme transcendent Self, the Cosmic Being, foundation of our universality, and the Divinity within of which our psychic being, the true evolving individual in our nature, is a portion, a spark, a flame growing into the eternal Fire from which it was lit and of which it is the witness ever living within us and the conscious instrument of its light and power and joy and beauty.” *The Life Divine
". . . the true unity is spiritual. . . .” The Synthesis of Yoga
"The true Person is not an isolated entity, his individuality is universal; for he individualises the universe: . . . .” The Life Divine
"The view I am presenting goes farther in idealism; it sees the creative Idea as Real-Idea, that is to say, a power of Conscious Force expressive of real being, born out of real being and partaking of its nature and neither a child of the Void nor a weaver of fictions. It is conscious Reality throwing itself into mutable forms of its own imperishable and immutable substance. The world is therefore not a figment of conception in the universal Mind, but a conscious birth of that which is beyond Mind into forms of itself.” The Life Divine
"The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while the supreme energy is there, asleep; it is said to be coiled up and slumbering like a snake, — therefore it is called the kundalinî sakti, — in the lowest of the chakras, in the mûlâdhâra. When by Pranayama the division between the upper and lower prana currents in the body is dissolved, this Kundalini is struck and awakened, it uncoils itself and begins to rise upward like a fiery serpent breaking open each lotus as it ascends until the Shakti meets the Purusha in the brahmarandhra in a deep samadhi of union.” The Synthesis of Yoga
the whole of created or existing things regarded collectively; all things (including the earth, the heavens, and all the phenomena of space) considered as constituting a systematic whole, esp. as created or existing by Divine power; the whole world or creation; the cosmos. universe"s, universes.
"The Word has its seed-sounds — suggesting the eternal syllable of the Veda, A U M, and the seed-sounds of the Tantriks — which carry in them the principles of things; it has its forms which stand behind the revelatory and inspired speech that comes to man"s supreme faculties, and these compel the forms of things in the universe; it has its rhythms, — for it is no disordered vibration, but moves out into great cosmic measures, — and according to the rhythm is the law, arrangement, harmony, processes of the world it builds. Life itself is a rhythm of God.” The Upanishads
"The world we live in is not a meaningless accident that has unaccountably taken place in the void of Space; it is the scene of an evolution in which an eternal Truth has been embodied, hidden in a form of things, and is secretly in process of unfoldment through the ages. There is a meaning in our existence, a purpose in our birth and death and travail, a consummation of all our labour. All are parts of a single plan; nothing has been idly made in the universe; nothing is vain in our life.” Essays Divine and Human
"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
"This Godhead is one in all things that are, the self who lives in all and the self in whom all live and move; therefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures, to see all in the self and the self in all beings, even to see all things and creatures as himself, âtmaupamyena sarvatra, and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and living. This Godhead is the origin of all that is here or elsewhere and by his Nature he has become all these innumerable existences, abhût sarvâni bhûtâni; therefore man has to see and adore the One in all things animate and inanimate, to worship the manifestation in sun and star and flower, in man and every living creature, in the forms and forces, qualities and powers of Nature, vâsudevah sarvam iti.” Essays on the Gita ::: *godhead, godheads, godhead"s.
"This integral knowledge is the knowledge of the Divine present in the individual; it is the entire experience of the Lord secret in the heart of man, revealed now as the supreme Self of his existence, the Sun of all his illumined consciousness, the Master and Power of all his works, the divine Fountain of all his soul"s love and delight, the Lover and Beloved of his worship and adoration. It is the knowledge too of the Divine extended in the universe, of the Eternal from whom all proceeds and in whom all lives and has its being, of the Self and Spirit of the cosmos, of Vasudeva who has become all this that is, of the Lord of cosmic existence who reigns over the works of Nature. It is the knowledge of the divine Purusha luminous in his transcendent eternity, the form of whose being escapes from the thought of the mind but not from its silence; it is the entire living experience of him as absolute Self, supreme Brahman, supreme Soul, supreme Godhead: for that seemingly incommunicable Absolute is at the same time and even in that highest status the originating Spirit of the cosmic action and Lord of all these existences.” Essays on the Gita*
"This Self is fourfold, — the Self of Waking who has the outer intelligence and enjoys external things, is its first part; the Self of Dream who has the inner intelligence and enjoys things subtle, is its second part; the Self of Sleep, unified, a massed intelligence, blissful and enjoying bliss, is the third part… the lord of all, the omniscient, the inner Control. That which is unseen, indefinable, self-evident in its one selfhood, is the fourth part: this is the Self, this is that which has to be known.” Mandukya Upanishad. (5) The Life Divine*
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
thousand ::: 1. Something represented by, representing, or consisting of 1000 units. 2. Often used to denote a large amount. thousands, thousand-hooded, thousand-pillared, thousand-voiced.
to make, form into, or cause to become one; to combine (two or more) in one; to join (one or more) to or with another or others so as to form one whole or unit; to unite, consolidate.
torture ::: n. 1. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment, coercion or malevolent purpose. 2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony. self-torture. *v. *3. To bring great physical or mental pain upon another. tortures.
traffic ::: 1. The movement of vehicles, ships, persons, etc., in an area, along a street, through an air lane, over a water route, etc. 2. The business of moving passengers and cargo through a transportation system. 3. Social or verbal exchange; communication.
transaction ::: 1. The action of carrying on, or the completion of, an action or course of action. 2. The action of carrying on a communication, business agreement or exchange.
transcendence ::: 1. Lying beyond the ordinary range of perception; preeminent or supreme. 2. Being above and independent of the material universe. Used of the Deity. Transcendence, Transcendence", transcendences.
transcendent ::: Sri Aurobindo: "A Transcendent who is beyond all world and all Nature and yet possesses the world and its nature, who has descended with something of himself into it and is shaping it into that which as yet it is not, is the Source of our being, the Source of our works and their Master. But the seat of the Transcendent Consciousness is above in an absoluteness of divine Existence — and there too is the absolute Power, Truth, Bliss of the Eternal — of which our mentality can form no conception and of which even our greatest spiritual experience is only a diminished reflection in the spiritualised mind and heart, a faint shadow, a thin derivate. Yet proceeding from it there is a sort of golden corona of Light, Power, Bliss and Truth — a divine Truth-Consciousness as the ancient mystics called it, a Supermind, a Gnosis, with which this world of a lesser consciousness proceeding by Ignorance is in secret relation and which alone maintains it and prevents it from falling into a disintegrated chaos.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"The Transcendent, the Universal, the Individual are three powers overarching, underlying and penetrating the whole manifestation; this is the first of the Trinities. In the unfolding of consciousness also, these are the three fundamental terms and none of them can be neglected if we would have the experience of the whole Truth of existence. Out of the individual we wake into a vaster freer cosmic consciousness; but out of the universal too with its complex of forms and powers we must emerge by a still greater self-exceeding into a consciousness without limits that is founded on the Absolute.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"We see then that there are three terms of the one existence, transcendent, universal and individual, and that each of these always contains secretly or overtly the two others. The Transcendent possesses itself always and controls the other two as the basis of its own temporal possibilities; that is the Divine, the eternal all-possessing God-consciousness, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, which informs, embraces, governs all existences. The human being is here on earth the highest power of the third term, the individual, for he alone can work out at its critical turning-point that movement of self-manifestation which appears to us as the involution and evolution of the divine consciousness between the two terms of the Ignorance and the Knowledge.” The Life Divine
The Transcendent
This is what is termed the Adya Shakti; she is the Supreme Consciousness and Power above the universe and it is by her that all the Gods are manifested, and even the supramental Ishwara comes into manifestation through her — the supramental Purushottama of whom the Gods are Powers and Personalities.” Letters on Yoga
**Transcendent"s.**
tribes ::: 1. Units of sociopolitical organizations consisting of a number of families, clans, or other groups who share a common ancestry and culture and among whom leadership is typically neither formalized nor permanent. 2. Social divisions of a people, esp. of a preliterate people, defined in terms of common descent, territory, culture, etc.
triple world ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Godhead has built this universe in a complex system of worlds which we find both within us and without, subjectively cognised and objectively sensed. It is a rising tier of earths and heavens; it is a stream of diverse waters; it is a Light of seven rays, or of eight or nine or ten; it is a Hill of many plateaus. The seers often image it in a series of trios; there are three earths and three heavens. More, there is a triple world below, — Heaven, Earth and the intervening mid-region; a triple world between, the shining heavens of the Sun; a triple world above, the supreme and rapturous abodes of the Godhead.” *The Secret of the Veda
triune Infinite ::: Sri Aurobindo: "We do not seek to excise from our being all consciousness of the universe, but to realise God, Truth and Self in the universe as well as transcendent of it. We shall seek therefore not only the Ineffable, but also His manifestation as infinite being, consciousness and bliss embracing the universe and at play in it. For that triune infinity is His supreme manifestation and that we shall aspire to know, to share in and to become; and since we seek to realise this Trinity not only in itself but in its cosmic play, we shall aspire also to knowledge of and participation in the universal divine Truth, Knowledge, Will, Love which are His secondary manifestation, His divine becoming. With this too we shall aspire to identify ourselves, towards this too we shall strive to rise and, when the period of effort is passed, allow it by our renunciation of all egoism to draw us up into itself in our being and to descend into us and embrace us in all our becoming.” The Synthesis of Yoga
triviality ::: the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous.
truth-Consciousness ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Truth-Consciousness is everywhere present in the universe as an ordering self-knowledge by which the One manifests the harmonies of its infinite potential multiplicity.” *The Life Divine
tune ::: to be or bring into harmony or accord; become responsive; adjust or adapt (oneself); attune. tunes, tuned, tuning.
twain ::: n. 1. An archaic word for two. adj. 2. Disunited separated.
twin ::: n. 1. One of two offspring born at the same birth. 2. Either of two persons or things that are identical or very similar; counterpart. 3. One of a pair; identical. twins. adj. 4. Being two identical. 5. Twofold or double. v. 6. To bring two objects, ideas, or people together; unite. lit. and fig. **twinned.**
unanimity ::: the state of being of one mind; agreement in opinion; harmony; unity.
unconceived ::: 1. Not conceived; unimagined; beyond thought. 2. Not brought into being; not properly formed or developed. Unconceived. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as a n.)
"Unity is an idea which is not at all arbitrary or unreal; for unity is the very basis of existence.” The Human Cycle
::: "Universal forces means all forces good or bad, favourable or hostile, of light and darkness that move in the cosmos.” *Letters on Yoga
"Universe is a diffusion of the divine All in infinite Space and Time, the individual its concentration within limits of Space and Time.” The Life Divine
::: "Universe is a diffusion of the divine All in infinite Space and Time, the individual its concentration within limits of Space and Time. Universe seeks in infinite extension the divine totality it feels itself to be but cannot entirely realise; for in extension existence drives at a pluralistic sum of itself which can neither be the primal nor the final unit, but only a recurring decimal without end or beginning.” *The Life Divine
virat ::: "(Purusha) The universal or cosmic Soul; ‘God practical"; Lord of Waking-Life, who governs, preserves and maintains the sensible creation which Hiranyagarbha has shaped.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
visionless ::: 1. Lacking the faculty of sight; blind. 2. Lacking intelligent foresight or imagination; uninspired.
"We arrive then necessarily at this conclusion that human birth is a term at which the soul must arrive in a long succession of rebirths and that it has had for its previous and preparatory terms in the succession the lower forms of life upon earth; it has passed through the whole chain that life has strung in the physical universe on the basis of the body, the physical principle.” The Life Divine
“We arrive then necessarily at this conclusion that human birth is a term at which the soul must arrive in a long succession of rebirths and that it has had for its previous and preparatory terms in the succession the lower forms of life upon earth; it has passed through the whole chain that life has strung in the physical universe on the basis of the body, the physical principle.” The Life Divine
"We. . . become conscious, in our physical movements, in our nervous and vital reactions, in our mental workings, of a Force greater than body, mind and life which takes hold of our limited instruments and drives all their motion. There is no longer the sense of ourselves moving, thinking or feeling but of that moving, feeling and thinking in us. This force that we feel is the universal Force of the Divine, which, veiled or unveiled, acting directly or permitting the use of its powers by beings in the cosmos, is the one Energy that alone exists and alone makes universal or individual action possible. For this force is the Divine itself in the body of its power; all is that, power of act, power of thought and knowledge, power of mastery and enjoyment, power of love.” The Synthesis of Yoga
wed ::: 1. To blend or join together; unite inseparably. 2. To become united, merge or blend (with). weds, wedded, wedding, re-wed.
weld ::: 1. To join (metals) by applying heat, sometimes with pressure and sometimes with an intermediate or filler metal having a high melting point. 2. Fig. To bring into close association or union.
"We see that the Absolute, the Self, the Divine, the Spirit, the Being is One; the Transcendental is one, the Cosmic is one: but we see also that beings are many and each has a self, a spirit, a like yet different nature. And since the spirit and essence of things is one, we are obliged to admit that all these many must be that One, and it follows that the One is or has become many; but how can the limited or relative be the Absolute and how can man or beast or bird be the Divine Being? But in erecting this apparent contradiction the mind makes a double error. It is thinking in the terms of the mathematical finite unit which is sole in limitation, the one which is less than two and can become two only by division and fragmentation or by addition and multiplication; but this is an infinite Oneness, it is the essential and infinite Oneness which can contain the hundred and the thousand and the million and billion and trillion. Whatever astronomic or more than astronomic figures you heap and multiply, they cannot overpass or exceed that Oneness; for, in the language of the Upanishad, it moves not, yet is always far in front when you would pursue and seize it. It can be said of it that it would not be the infinite Oneness if it were not capable of an infinite multiplicity; but that does not mean that the One is plural or can be limited or described as the sum of the Many: on the contrary, it can be the infinite Many because it exceeds all limitation or description by multiplicity and exceeds at the same time all limitation by finite conceptual oneness.” The Life Divine
“What is original and eternal for ever in the Divine is the Being, what is developed in consciousness, conditions, forces, forms, etc., by the Divine Power is the Becoming. The eternal Divine is the Being; the universe in Time and all that is apparent in it is a Becoming.” Letters on Yoga
"When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into the head and liberates the inner mind centres, then into the heart centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated, creating what has to be created. It integrates, harmonises, establishes a new rhythm in the nature. It can bring down too a higher and yet higher force and range of the higher nature until, if that be the aim of the sadhana, it becomes possible to bring down the supramental force and existence. All this is prepared, assisted, farthered by the work of the psychic being in the heart centre; the more it is open, in front, active, the quicker, safer, easier the working of the Force can be. The more love and bhakti and surrender grow in the heart, the more rapid and perfect becomes the evolution of the sadhana. For the descent and transformation imply at the same time an increasing contact and union with the Divine.” Letters on Yoga
"When we see with the inner vision and sense and not with the physical eye a tree or other object, what we become aware of is an infinite one Reality constituting the tree or object, pervading its every atom and molecule, forming them out of itself, building the whole nature, process of becoming, operation of indwelling energy; all of these are itself, are this infinite, this Reality: we see it extending indivisibly and uniting all objects so that none is really separate from it or quite separate from other objects. ‘It stands," says the Gita, ‘undivided in beings and yet as if divided." Thus each object is that Infinite and one in essential being with all other objects that are also forms and names, — powers, numens, — of the Infinite.” The Life Divine
"When we study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth with Matter as its basis, we observe that essentially it is a form of the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance. This would tend to show that the natural opposition we make between death and life is an error of our mentality, one of those false oppositions — false to inner truth though valid in surface practical experience — which, deceived by appearances, it is constantly bringing into the universal unity.” The Life Divine ::: *life"s, life-born, life-curve, life-delight"s, life-drift, life-foam, life-giving, life-impulse, life-impulse"s, life-motives, life-nature"s, life-pain, life-plan, life-power, life-room, life-scene, life-self, life-thought, life-wants, all-life, sense-life.
whip ::: 1. An instrument, either a flexible rod or a flexible thong or lash attached to a handle, used for driving animals or administering corporal punishment. 2. A whipping or lashing motion or stroke; a whiplash. whips.
wild ::: adj. 1. Occurring, growing, or living in a natural state; not domesticated, cultivated, or tamed. 2. Uninhabited; desolate; a wilderness. 3. Of great violence or intensity, as the sea, etc. 4. Unrestrained, untrammelled, or unbridled; behaving without restraint. 5. Unrestrained by reason or prudence. 6. Furiously disturbed or turbulent; stormy. wilder, wild-beast, wild-drakes.* *n. wilds. 7.* A desolate, uncultivated, or uninhabited region, esp. poetic.*
wilderness ::: 1. A wild, uninhabited, and uncultivated region. 2. A tract of wasteland. wildernesses.
will, free ::: Sri Aurobindo: Our notion of free will is apt to be tainted with the excessive individualism of the human ego and to assume the figure of an independent will acting on its own isolated account, in a complete liberty without any determination other than its own choice and single unrelated movement. This idea ignores the fact that our natural being is a part of cosmic Nature and our spiritual being exists only by the supreme Transcendence. Our total being can rise out of subjection to fact of present Nature only by an identification with a greater Truth and a greater Nature. The will of the individual, even when completely free, could not act in an isolated independence, because the individual being and nature are included in the universal Being and Nature and dependent on the all-overruling Transcendence. There could indeed be in the ascent a dual line. On one line the being could feel and behave as an independent self-existence uniting itself with its own impersonal Reality; it could, so self-conceived, act with a great force, but either this action would be still within an enlarged frame of its past and present self-formation of power of Nature or else it would be the cosmic or supreme Force that acted in it and there would be no personal initiation of action, no sense therefore of individual free will but only of an impersonal cosmic or supreme Will or Energy at its work. On the other line the being would feel itself a spiritual instrument and so act as a power of the Supreme Being, limited in its workings only by the potencies of the Supernature, which are without bounds or any restriction except its own Truth and self-law, and by the Will in her. But in either case there would be, as the condition of a freedom from the control of a mechanical action of Nature-forces, a submission to a greater conscious Power or an acquiescent unity of the individual being with its intention and movement in his own and in the world"s existence.” *The Life Divine
wine for use in a Eucharistic (referring to the Christian sacrament of the Lord"s Supper, the Communion) service.
world ::: 1. Everything that exists; the universe; the macrocosm. 2. The earth with its inhabitants. 3. Any sphere, realm, or domain, with all pertaining to it. 4. Any period, state, or sphere of existence. world"s, worlds, wonder-world, wonder-worlds, world-adventure, world-adventure"s, world-being"s, World-Bliss, world-cloak, world-conjecture"s, world-creating, world-creators, world-delight, World-Delight, world-destiny, world-destroying, world-disillusion"s, world-dream, world-drowse, world-egos, world-energies, world-energy, World-Energy, world-force, world-experience, world-fact, world-failure"s, world-fate, World-Force, world-forces, World-free, World-Geometer"s, world-heart, world-idea, world-ignorance, World-Ignorance, World-maker"s, world-indifference, world-interpreting, world-kindergarten, world-knowledge, world-law, world-laws, world-libido"s, world-making"s, World-Matter"s, World-naked, world-need, world-ocean"s, world-outline, world-pain, world-passion, World-personality, world-pile, world-plan, world-power, World-Power, World-Power"s, World-Puissance, world-rapture, world-redeemer"s, world-rhyme, world-rhythms, world-scene, world-scheme, world-sea, World-Self, world-shape, world-shapes, world-space, world-stuff, world-symbol, World-symbols, World-task, world-time, World-Time‘s, world-tree, world-ways, world-whim, dream-world, heaven-world, mid-world.
world-ignorance ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Our self-ignorance and our world-ignorance can only grow towards integral self-knowledge and integral world-knowledge in proportion as our limited ego and its half-blind consciousness open to a greater inner existence and consciousness and a true self-being and become aware too of the not-self outside it also as self, — on one side a Nature constituent of our own nature, on the other an Existence which is a boundless continuation of our own self-being. Our being has to break the walls of ego-consciousness which it has created, it has to extend itself beyond its body and inhabit the body of the universe.” The Life Divine
world-Mother ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Ishwari Shakti, divine Conscious-Force and World-Mother, becomes a mediatrix between the eternal One and the manifested Many. On one side, by the play of the energies which she brings from the One, she manifests the multiple Divine in the universe, involving and evolving its endless appearances out of her revealing substance; on the other, by the reascending current of the same energies she leads back all towards That from which they have issued so that the soul in its evolutionary manifestation may more and more return towards the Divinity there or here put on its divine character.” The Synthesis of Yoga
::: "Yet the highest power and manifestation is only a very partial revelation of the Infinite; even the whole universe is informed by only one degree of his greatness, illumined by one ray of his splendour, glorious with a faint hint of his delight and beauty.” *Essays on the Gita
"Yet there is still the unknown underlying Oneness which compels us to strive slowly towards some form of harmony, of interdependence, of concording of discords, of a difficult unity. But it is only by the evolution in us of the concealed superconscient powers of cosmic Truth and of the Reality in which they are one that the harmony and unity we strive for can be dynamically realised in the very fibre of our being and all its self-expression and not merely in imperfect attempts, incomplete constructions, ever-changing approximations.” The Life Divine*
“Yet there is still the unknown underlying Oneness which compels us to strive slowly towards some form of harmony, of interdependence, of concording of discords, of a difficult unity. But it is only by the evolution in us of the concealed superconscient powers of cosmic Truth and of the Reality in which they are one that the harmony and unity we strive for can be dynamically realised in the very fibre of our being and all its self-expression and not merely in imperfect attempts, incomplete constructions, ever-changing approximations.” The Life Divine
KEYS (10k)
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
6 Anonymous
5 Oxford University Press
3 John Green
3 Aesop
2 Stanley Kunitz
2 Pythagoras
2 Mila Kunis
2 J K Rowling
2 Carola Dunn
2 Augosto dos Anjos
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:At the Integral stages of development, the entire universe starts to make sense, to hang together, to actually appear as a uni-verse—a one world—a single, unified, integrated world that unites not only different philosophies and ideas about the world, but different practices for growth and development as well. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 2:This is not a bland experience of some monolithic ‘oneness’. It’s a profound experience of the ‘uni-variety’ of the universe. It’s seeing that on the surface of life everything is separate, like waves on an ocean, but at the depths all is one. When I experience the universe vision I find myself appreciating the multifarious variety of life as an expression of one mysterious essence. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Uni on varannut heidät itselleen
koko yöksi ~ Sappho,#NFDB
2:Tuhannen pikkulinnun
verinen uni
höyhentyynyllä. ~ Abbas Kiarostami,#NFDB
3:Love is the strange attractor, the allurement that holds the Uni-verse together. ~ Marc Gafni, #NFDB
4:Detto del Profeta
Riflessione
I Fedeli sono specchi, gli uni per gli altri. ~ Idries Shah,#NFDB
5:Fantasy is uni-age. You can start it in the creche, and it follows you to death. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
6:Or they aliens like that professor with the hair say.” I wasn’t sure who uni lisi was talking about, ~ Faith Hunter, #NFDB
7:Päästä pyörällä havahdun. Vieressä nukut, mahdoton. Hiivin varoen pois ja rukoilen. Tässä se vitun uni viimein on. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
8:Tribal”: that’s what they called humans from ethnic groups too remote and “uncivilized” to regularly send students to attend Oomza Uni. Over ~ Nnedi Okorafor, #NFDB
9:Al principio se creó el Universo.
Esto hizo que mucha gente se cabreara y fue reconocido de forma generalizada como una pésima idea. ~ Douglas Adams,#NFDB
10:The world is not uni-cultural. We must live together rather than seeking to dominate each other. The people in the world cannot accept domination anymore. ~ Mohammed Morsi, #NFDB
11:Constant practice devoted to one subject often outdoes both intelligence and skill. - Assiduus usus uni rei deditus et ingenium et artem saepe vincit ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
12:Were not one thing, as human beings, so any character that is written uni-dimensional, thats just a shallow character with shallow writing and shallow acting. ~ Kari Matchett, #NFDB
13:Poika katselee tietä, puhelinpylväitä ja metsää. Miten hän on joutunut tänne? Miksi hän on täällä? Onko hän nähnyt unta - tai oikeastaan - vieläkö uni jatkuu? ~ Veikko Huovinen, #NFDB
14:Think they have any bras in here that can get my babies to lie flat?"
"They're called sports bras and they have a nasty side effect called the uni-boob. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick,#NFDB
15:We are born into this precious human existence to achieve the uni cation of opposites and become enlightened, or liberated, from the illusion of separation. ~ Dashama Konah Gordon, #NFDB
16:It seems to me that one of the great luxuries of life at this point is to do one thing at a time. One thing to which you give yourself wholeheartedly, uni-tasking. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
17:Le predisposizioni profonde dei popoli determinano gli effetti dell'influenza esterna. Ciò che conduce gli uni a crepare di fame, educa invece gli altri al duro lavoro ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
18:Trust that The Uni-verse knows your bills, knows you need to eat and knows your heart much better than even you do, so keep facing your fears and limiting beliefs daily. ~ Mastin Kipp, #NFDB
19:I wouldn't have been able to go to drama school when I was 19. I don't think I was even conscious of life... I was like a zombie. But when I finished uni' I just realized... just go and do it, stop being a knob. ~ Claire Foy, #NFDB
20:I write with a Uni-Ball Onyx Micropoint on nine-by-seven bound notebooks made by a Canadian company called Blueline. After I do a few drafts, I type up the poem on a Macintosh G3 and then send it out the door. ~ Billy Collins, #NFDB
21:Contempla il corso degli astri52 immaginando di ruotare con loro e pensa come gli elementi si trasformano continuamente gli uni negli altri. Il pensiero di queste cose, infatti, purifica dalle brutture della vita terrena. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
22:Non è che i poveri fossero più impauriti dei ricchi o più attaccati alla vita, ma avevano, più di loro, la tendenza a vivere in gruppo, avevano bisogno gli uni degli altri e di sostenersi a vicenda, di piangere o di ridere insieme. ~ Ir ne N mirovsky, #NFDB
23:People are looking for how to put everything together. They need a unified field theory that combines glamour and holiness, fashion and spirituality. People need to reconcile being good and being good-looking. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
24:The way people on Oomza Uni were so diverse and everyone handled that as if it were normal continued to surprise me. It was so unlike Earth, where wars were fought over and because of differences and most couldn't relate to anyone unless they were similar. ~ Nnedi Okorafor, #NFDB
25:Signora, tutte le religioni sono vere, per quanto possano sembrare tra di loro opposte. Sono simboli differenti della stessa realtà, sono come la stessa frase detta in varie lingue; tanto che non si intendono gli uni con gli altri anche dicendo la stessa cosa. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
26:La gaiezza dei vecchi somiglia assai da vicino al riso dei bimbi: negli uni e negli altri l’allegria non nasce dallo spirito e dall’intelligenza, ma è appena un raggio di gioia che passa e illumina, come una carezza di sole, tanto il ramo verde e tenero quanto il tronco rugoso. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
27:Every second the Universe divides into possibilities and most of those possibilities never happen. It is not a uni-verse -- there is more than one reading. The story won't stop, can't stop, it goes on telling itself, waiting for an intervention that changes what will happen next. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
28:Non mi ero reso conto di quanto i giorni potessero essere al tempo stesso lunghi e brevi. Lunghi da vivere, senza dubbio, ma così dilatati da finire per riversarsi gli uni negli altri. Sino a perdervi il proprio nome. Ieri e domani erano le uniche parole che conservassero un senso per me. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
29:Il nostro cuore non è fatto di pietra. La pietra a un certo punto può andare in frantumi, sbriciolarsi, perdere ogni forma. Ma il cuore non può andare in frantumi. E questa cosa senza forma che ci portiamo dentro, buona o cattiva che sia, possiamo trasmetterla gli uni agli altri senza limiti. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
30:Guardate come si arrampicano, queste svelte scimmie! Si arrampicano gli uni sugli altri e si trascinano nel fango e nella bassezza. Vogliono tutti arrivare al trono: è la loro follia - come se la felicità sedesse in trono! Spesso sul trono siede il fango- e spesso anche il trono sul fango. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
31:The girls were riveted by Georgia’s lecture on the importance of sports bras and the dangers of the uni-boob, double busting, slippage, unsightly bulges, and my personal favorite, head lighting. I thought she made valid points and I would never have guessed that bouncing boobs were so problematic. ~ Ashlan Thomas, #NFDB
32:The Sun” abandonne les seins nus en page 3 Courrier international (Paris) | 355 mots ROYAUME-UNI Le tabloïd britannique ne publiera plus de photos de jeunes femmes seins nus sur sa fameuse page 3. Une décision qui met fin à une tradition vieille de plus de quarante ans, et depuis longtemps controversée. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
33:Many times, though, when people feel as if The Uni-verse has abandoned them, the truth is that they have abandoned their dreams, and as a result they have abandoned The Uni-verse. What we think is being done TO US, we are actually doing TO ourselves. It's a totally crazy reversal that is true most of the time. ~ Mastin Kipp, #NFDB
34:We Three had never Wed, not truly Lov’d, but once Night fell again, and if we found ourselves Resident here, might strike the ‘never’-
stanley ‘prefesser’ lippert
For uni we are ended, ‘never’ may not be truly said.
jack ‘malarky’ fuller
And love may yet be ours
gene ‘rascal’ kane ~ George Saunders,#NFDB
35:At the Integral stages of development, the entire universe starts to make sense, to hang together, to actually appear as a uni-verse—a “one world”—a single, unified, integrated world that unites not only different philosophies and ideas about the world, but different practices for growth and development as well. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
36:Every second the Universe divides into possibilities and most of those possibilities never happen. It is not a uni-verse — there is more than one reading. The story won’t stop, can’t stop, it goes on telling itself, waiting for an intervention that changes what will happen next.
Love is an intervention. ~ Jeanette Winterson,#NFDB
37:Ognuno all'inizio è una nave inaffondabile. Poi ci succedono alcune cose: persone che ci lasciano, che non ci amano, che non ci capiscono o che non capiamo, e ci perdiamo, sbagliamo, ci facciamo male gli uni con gli altri. E lo scafo comincia a creparsi. E quando si rompe non c'è niente da fare, la fine è inevitabile. ~ John Green, #NFDB
38:What is missing from your life? Know that whatever you are missing, you are - most likely - not giving. Bring to your life what you want from it. If you don't think The Uni-verse is helping you, try trusting yourself and taking a risk. Listen to your intuition. Do what scares you... and the see the miracle that awaits. ~ Mastin Kipp, #NFDB
39:antiquarks? Why are there not equal numbers of each? It is certainly fortunate for us that the numbers are unequal be early universe and left a universe filled with radiation but hardly any matter. There would then have been no galaxies, stars, or planets on which human life could have developed. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
40:You guys used to walk through graveyards?” Iona asked, horrified.
“It cut at least ten minutes off the walk to Tesco,” Harriet tried to reason.
“I am so glad I go to Uni in the city,” Iona said, shaking her head. “A Tesco Metro on every second corner.”
“And a Sainsbury’s Local on all the others,” Adam joked. ~ Erin Lawless,#NFDB
41:This first period includes the Rise of Venice, her noblest achievements, and the circumstances which determined her cha* Hist- def Rep. Ital., vol. i. ch. v. f Appendix 3.: "Serra r Del t "Ha Maputo trove mo do Che non uni, non pooch, non molt i, ma molt i bubonic, pooch migliori, e insiememente, ultimo solo."— Ah, well done, Venice! Wisdom ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
42:I never remember having a plan. All I could think about was how I was going to afford to get into college or where I was going to stay because I hated being at home. I didn't really have time to think about anything in the future. I didn't think about a career or anything. I went to uni, got a couple of jobs, so I sort of funded it myself. ~ Ellie Goulding, #NFDB
43:Poi, gettando un ultimo sguardo su quel bel giovane di venticinque anni appena, che egli lasciava a giacere lì, privo di sentimenti, e forse morto, sospirò sullo strano destino che induce gli uomini a distruggersi gli uni con gli altri nell'interesse di persone estranee, le quali spesso ignorano, di quei loro paladini, perfino l'esistenza. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
44:I'm a natural born show off. I love performing, and at school we had a really good music scene and an even better drama scene. When I got to university, I played in bands and did sketch stuff and it was always about coming up with material, which is why I never really practised and have no chops!! When I left uni, I carried on playing and trying out at stand-up. ~ Al Murray, #NFDB
45:My tribe is obsessed with innovation and technology, but it is small, private, and, as I said, we don’t like to leave Earth. We prefer to explore the universe by traveling inward, as opposed to outward. No Himba has ever gone to Oomza Uni. So me being the only one on the ship was not that surprising. However, just because something isn’t surprising doesn’t mean it’s easy to deal with. ~ Nnedi Okorafor, #NFDB
46:And if I get a little chemically imbalanced in the head, like we all know I tend to get sometimes, and I don't want my parents or brother knowing, Will's like, 'We'll deal with it.' He's never said, 'I'll fix it up.' He just says, 'You're not up to going back to uni to finish your Honours this year? Big deal. There's next year. We'll deal with it.'" She nods. "That's what he does well. ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
47:A lot of people write in to me and say that they feel like The Uni-verse has abandoned them. Now, that is a very interesting story. There are some times where we are meant to be lost or confused. I had a long period in my life that felt like a holding pattern - it felt like stasis. But what was happening during that time was I was getting stronger on the inside. And that is change you can't SEE right away. ~ Mastin Kipp, #NFDB
48:It is certainly fortunate for us that the numbers (of quarks and antiquarks) are unequal because, if they had been the same, nearly all the quarks and antiquarks would have annihilated each other in the early universe and left a universe filled with radiation but hardly any matter. There would then have been no galaxies, stars, or planets on which human life could have developed. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
49:It wouldn't be a unicorn without a horn. That's what the word means! Uni, for one. And then corn for, you know, horn. One-horned."
"Yeah, but they're supposed to be all peaceful and nice. Why would a unicorn need a horn? What's it do with it?"
Mini turned red. "I dunno. For shooting off magic and stuff."
"Or they use it to maul things."
"Thats horrible, Aru" They're unicorns. They're perfect. ~ Roshani Chokshi,#NFDB
50:You will encounter a fifth taste. Umami: uni, or sea urchin, anchovies, Parmesan, dry-aged beef with a casing of mold. It’s glutamate. Nothing is a mystery anymore. They make MSG to mimic it. It’s the taste of ripeness that’s about to ferment. Initially, it serves as a warning. But after a familiarity develops, after you learn its name, that precipice of rot becomes the only flavor worth pursuing, the only line worth testing. ~ Stephanie Danler, #NFDB
51:De fait, les Big Four ne sont souvent que deux ou trois sur le terrain, chacun dominant certains pays. Au Royaume-Uni, PwC est la grande force dominante. En Espagne, c’est Deloitte. En Allemagne, KPMG a près de la moitié du marché, tandis qu’il est très petit en France, où EY est le leader. A 50 millions d’euros l’audit pour les plus grosses multinationales, le marché est juteux. De quoi payer les associés une moyenne de un million d’euros par an. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
52:Cosa li spinge a questa vita, cosa li spinge a combattere, dimmi? [...] E' l'offesa della loro vita, il buio della loro strada, il suicidio della loro casa, le parole oscene imparate fin da bambini, la fatica di dover essere cativi. E basta un nulla, un passo falso, un impennamento dell'anima e ci si ritrova dall'altra parte, come Pelle, dalla brigata nera, a sparare con lo stesso furore, con lo stesso odio, contro gli uni o contro gli altri, fa lo stesso. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
53:Ascoltate, perchè non siamo tutti come fratelli gli uni per gli altri? Perchè anche la persona migliore nasconde sempre qualcosa all'altro e non gliene parla? Perchè non dire francamente, subito, quello che si ha nel cuore, se si che le nostre parole non saranno dette al vento? Invece ognuno appare per così dire più burbero di quanto non sia effettivamente, come se tutti avessero paura di fare torto ai propri sentimenti se li esternassero troppo in fretta... ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
54:And if I get a little chemically imbalanced in the head, like we all know I tend to get sometimes, and I don’t want my parents or brother knowing, Will’s like, ‘We’ll deal with it.’ He’s never said, ‘Snap out of it,’ and he’s never said, ‘I don’t get it,’ and he’s never said, ‘I’ll fix it up.’ He just says, ‘You’re not up to going back to uni to finish your Honors this year? Big deal. There’s next year. We’ll deal with it.’” She nods. “That’s what he does well. ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
55:Ogni mediazione proietta un suo miraggio; i miraggi si susseguono come altrettante "verità" che subentrino alle verità anteriori come una vera e propria uccisione del ricordo vivente e si proteggano dalle verità future con una censura implacabile dell'esperienza quotidiana. Marcel Proust chiama "Io" i "mondi" proiettati dalle successive mediazioni. Gli Io sono perfettamente isolati gli uni dagli altri, incapaci di rammentarsi degli Io passati o di presagire gli Io futuri. ~ Ren Girard, #NFDB
56:Whatever you think The Uni-verse is withholding from you, YOU are withholding from The Uni-verse. If you think that The Uni-verse isn't answering your prayers, chances are you aren't listening to your intuition and following it. You are so scared that you ask for new intuition, but that's not how life works. The Uni-verse is constantly whispering to you, nudging you to trust It and take a leap. But if you don't take the leap of faith, then The Uni-verse can't open any more doors for you. ~ Mastin Kipp, #NFDB
57:There is, however, a strong empirical reason why we should cultivate thoughts that can never be proved. It is that they are known to be useful. Man positively needs general ideas & convictions that will give a meaning to his life & enable him to find a place for himself in the universe. He can stand the most incredible hardships when he is convinced that they make sense; he is crushed when on top of all his misfortunes, he has to admit that he is taking part in a ‘tale told by an idiot.’ ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
58:Mme Merkel s’inquiète sur l’orientation que prend l’UE, plus elle sera réticente à l’idée de perdre la Grande-Bretagne en tant qu’Etat membre. Le Royaume-Uni a été l’un des plus ardents défenseurs de la réduction du déficit et de la libéralisation du marché et, sans lui, le centre de gravité de l’UE se déplacerait davantage vers le sud, plus dirigiste. Mme Merkel a donc encore plus besoin de la Grande-Bretagne maintenant qu’à la fin 2014, et elle est aujourd’hui prête à payer le prix fort pour la garder au sein de l’UE. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
59:Nothing is wrong with me? I thought. Not unclean? It’s just . . . a new part of me I need to learn to control? I’d come all this way to go on my pilgrimage because I’d thought my body was trying to tell me something was wrong with it. I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself, but I’d thought I’d broken myself because of the choices I’d made, because of my actions, because I’d left my home to go to Oomza Uni. Because of guilt. The relief I felt was so all encompassing that I wanted to lie down on the rug and just sleep. Ariya ~ Nnedi Okorafor, #NFDB
60:It’s not hard to like these foods once you open your mouth to them: the anchovies, the trotters, the pig’s head terrines, the sardines, the mackerel, the uni, the liver mousses and confits. Once you admit that you want things to taste like more or better versions of themselves - once you commit to flavor as your god - the rest follows. I started adding salt to everything. My tongue grew calloused, overworked. You want the fish to taste like fish, but fish times a thousand. Times a million. Fish on crack. I was lucky I never tried crack. ~ Stephanie Danler, #NFDB
61:Ognuno all'inizio è una nave inaffondabile. Poi ci succedono alcune cose: persone che ci lasciano, che non ci amano, che non capiscono o che noi non capiamo, e ci perdiamo, sbagliamo, ci facciamo male, gli uni con gli altri. E lo scafo comincia a creparsi. E quando si rompe non c'è niente da fare, la fine è inevitabile. Però c'è un sacco di tempo tra quando le crepe cominciano a formarsi e quando andiamo a pezzi. Ed è solo in quel momento che possiamo vederci, perchè vediamo fuori di noi dalle nostre fessure e dentro gli altri attraverso le loro. ~ John Green, #NFDB
62:Dünya uzaklarda - derin bir mezara indirilmiş-, yeri, bir çöl gibi ve yapayalnız. Göğsünün tellerinden derin bir hüznün esintileri yükselmekte. Çiğ taneleriyle birlikte ta aşağılara damlamak ve küllere karışmak istiyorum. -Anıların uzaklığı, gençliğin arzuları, çocukluktaki düşler, bütün bir yaşamın kısacık sevinçleri ve nafile umutları, güneşin ardından etrafı saran akşam sisi gibi, sırtlarında kurşuni giysilerle gelmekteler. Başka yerlerde ışık, neşeli çadırlarını kurmuş. Ya onu masumiyetin inancıyla beklemekte olan çocuklarına bir daha hiç dönmezse? ~ Novalis, #NFDB
63:Je comprends. On a placé ta froide main dans la main du vassal insolent, décoré des pouvoirs du maître ; la royale procuration, sanctionnée par l’officieux chapelain de Son Excellence, a réuni aux yeux du monde deux êtres inconnus l’un à l’autre. Je suis au fait de ces cérémonies. Et toi, ton coeur, ta tête, ta vie, marchandés par entremetteurs, tout a été vendu au plus offrant ; une couronne de reine t’a faite esclave pour jamais ; et cependant ton fiancé, enseveli dans les délices d’une cour, attend nonchalamment que sa nouvelle épouse... ( RAZETTA ) ~ Alfred de Musset, #NFDB
64:Şimdi," diyor Kurşuni dudaklar, "az önce yaptığın gibi bana bütün hikayeni anlatacaksın. Bana hikayeni tekrar tekrar anlatacaksın. Bana bütün gece yürek paralayıcı boktan hikayeni anlat." Bu kraliçe Brandy kemikli uzun parmağını bana doğru uzatıyor.
"Anlattığın şeyin," diyor Brandy, "sadece bir hikaye olduğunu anlayacaksın. Ve aynı şeyleri bir daha yaşamayacağını. Anlattığın hikayenin sadece kelimelerden ibaret olduğunun farkına vardığında geçmişini bir kağıt gibi buruşturup çöpe atabildiğinde," diyor Brandy, "işte o zaman senin kim olacağına karar vereceğiz. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,#NFDB
65:Io, Faust, ho trovato la scienza suprema che l'uomo può possedere; in essa ho incontrato il [...] di desolazione, di ansia, di orrore, di paura, di delirio, di esitazione, di estraneità nella terra, di vacuità in me e in tutto il mondo, e in tutto il pensiero e in tutto l'Essere. * Il segreto del Cercare è che non si trova. Eterni mondi, infinitamente, gli uni negli altri, senza fine decorrono inutili. Noi, Dèi, Dèi di Dèi, in essi intercalati e perduti neppure noi stessi nell'infinito troviamo. Tutto è sempre diverso, e sempre avanti agli uomini e agli Dèi va l'incerta luce della verità suprema. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
66:Esse ciclo diferenciado é possível porque as pressões comerciais que existem em outros meios não existem nos blogs. A televisão e os jornais são entidades comerciais. Elas precisam trabalhar para manter a atenção. Se perdem leitores, perdem faturamento. Como tubarões, precisam nadar atrás da próxima "notícia quente".
Mas os bloggers não possuem amarras semelhantes. Eles podem molestar, eles podem se focar, eles podem ficar sérios. Se uni blogger específico escreve algo realmente interessante, mais e mais pessoas irão criar lirnks àquela história. E quando o número de links para uma certa história aumentar, ela sobre no ranking das histórias. ~ Lawrence Lessig,#NFDB
67:Par une conséquence nécessaire, il y a trois genres distincts pour les discours qu'étudie la rhétorique : le délibératif, le judiciaire et le démonstratif. Quand on délibère, il s'agit d'engager à faire quelque chose que l'on
conseille, ou de détourner de quelque chose que l'on dissuade. Soit, en effet, qu'on ait à délibérer sur un intérêt particulier, soit que le peuple réuni discute un intérêt public, on n'a jamais que l'une ou l'autre de ces alternatives.
Pour le genre judiciaire, il n'y a que l'accusation et la défense ; car il faut bien, en réalité, que les plaideurs fassent nécessairement l'un ou l'autre. Pour le démonstratif, c'est la louange ou le blâme. ~ Aristotle,#NFDB
68:In Obitum Honoratissimi Viri, Rogeri Manwood, Militis,
Quaestorii Reginalis Capitalis Bareonis
NOCTIVAGI terror, ganeonis triste flagellum,
Et Jovis Alcides, rigido vulturque latroni,
Urna subtegitur. Scelerum, gaudete, nepotes!
Insons, luctifica sparsis cervice capillis,
Plange! fori lumen, venerandae gloria legis,
Occidit: heu, secum effoetas Acherontis ad oras
Multa abiit virtus. Pro tot virtutibus uni,
Livor, parce viro; non audacissimus esto
Illius in cineres, cujus tot millia vultus
Mortalium attonuit: sic cum te nuntia Ditis
Vulneret exsanguis, feliciter ossa quiescant,
Famaque marmorei superet monumenta sepulcri.
~ Christopher Marlowe,#NFDB
69:A feu mon père, à mon grand-père, familiers des deuxièmes balcons, la hiérarchie sociale du théâtre avait donné le goût du cérémonial: quand beaucoup d'hommes sont ensemble, il faut les séparer par des rites ou bien ils se massacrent. Le cinéma prouvait le contraire : plutôt que par une fête, ce public si mêlé semblait réuni par une catastrophe; morte, l'étiquette démasquait enfin le véritable lien des hommes, l'adhérence. Je pris en dégoût les cérémonies, j'adorai les foules; j'en ai vu de toute sorte mais je n'ai pas retrouvé cette nudité, cette présence sans recul de chacun à tous, ce rêve éveillé, cette conscience obscure du danger d'être homme qu'en 1940, dans le Stalag XII D. ~ Jean Paul Sartre, #NFDB
70:De cîte ori privesc ţăranul român îmi place să văd înscrise în cutele feţei sale golurile dureroase ale trecutului nostru. Nu cunosc în Europa un alt ţăran mai amărît, mai pămîntiu, mai copleşit. Îmi închipui că acest ţăran n a avut o sete puternică de viaţă, de i s au înscris pe faţă toate umilinţele, de i s au adîncit în riduri toate înfrîngerile. Oricîte rezerve de viaţă ar dovedi el, impresia nu este totuşi a unei prospeţimi biologice. O existenţă subterană este fiinţa lui şi mersul lui lent şi gîrbovit este un simbol pentru umbrele destinului nostru. Sîntem un neam care am ieşit din văgăuni, din munţi şi din văi. Am privit cerul din umbră şi am stat drepţi în întuneric. Ne am răcorit o mie de ani. De aceea, numai febra ne mai poate scăpa… ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
71:Ce înseamnă a iubi pe cineva? A-l desprinde întotdeauna dintr-o masă, a-l extrage dintr-un grup, chiar și restrâns, din care face parte fie și doar prin intermediul familiei sau prin altceva; și apoi a căuta să afli care sunt propriile lui haite, mulțimile pe care le conține în el însuși și care sunt, poate, de o cu totul altă natură. A le uni cu ale tale, a le face să pătrundă în ale tale și a pătrunde tu însuți în ale lui. Celeste nunți, mulțimi de mulțimi. Nu există iubire care să nu fie un exercițiu de depersonalizare pe un corp fără organe ce se cere creat; și doar în punctul cel mai înalt al acestei depersonalizări poate cineva să fie numit, își primește numele sau prenumele, își dobândește discernabilitatea cea mai intensă prin surprinderea instantanee a multiplilor care îi aparțin și cărora le aparține. ... sfârșitul iubirii îl restituie indiscernabilului. (Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari) ~ Gilles Deleuze, #NFDB
72:In the emerging picture of mankind in the universe, the future (if it exists) will surely entail discoveries about space and time which will open up whole new perspectives in the relationship between mankind, mind, and the uni-verse.… But what is now? There is no such thing in physics;it is not even clear that ‘now’ could ever be described, let alone explained, in terms of physics.… Notions such as ‘the past,’ ‘the present’ and ‘the future’ seem to be more linguistic than physical.… There is no universal now, but only a personal one—a ‘here and now.’ This strongly suggests that we look to the mind, rather than to the physical world, as the origin of the division of time into past, present, and future.…There is none of this in physics.… No physical experiment has ever been performed to detect the passage of time. As soon as the objective world of reality is considered, the passage of time disappears like a ghost into the night. ~ Paul Davies, #NFDB
73:Vladimir conosceva la vita e aveva una visione chiara di come andava il mondo. Tutto quel che era buono, ordinato, bello, pulito per lui era «normal». La libertà di darsi da fare? «Normal.» Amare le donne? «Normal.» Quello che non era più «normal» era la Russia perché non c’era più ordine, perché fra mafiosi, gangster e poliziotti non c’è più differenza e con la mano faceva il gesto: «tutti uguali», gli uni come altri, tutti mischiati. Indicava le mostrine di un ufficiale e diceva: «Mafia; no normal». «Democracy?» si domandava retoricamente e si rispondeva: «No normal. Popolo russo ha bisogno di dittatore. Grande dittatore per Russia è normal. Stalin per Russia è normal». Non credo lo dicesse solo perché Stalin era, come lui, un georgiano. Lo diceva perché con il fallimento del comunismo e la caduta dell’Impero sovietico, la gente come lui non sa in che cosa sperare, non vede attorno a sé nessuno di grande cui affidare la propria sorte. ~ Tiziano Terzani, #NFDB
74:Next comes chawan mushi, a delicate egg custard studded with wild mountain vegetables and surrounded by flowers from the bamboo forest. A dish as old as Kyoto itself.
Toshio plucks two sacs of cod milt from the grill, slides them off the skewer into a squat clay box filled with bubbling miso. He comes back a second later with a scoop of konawata, pickled sea cucumber organs. A dish as new as the spring flowers blooming just outside the window.
One by one, the market stars reappear on the plate.
A black-and-gold lacquered bowl: Toshio pulls off the top to reveal thin slices of three-year-old virgin wild boar braised into sweet, savory submission with Kyoto white miso and chunks of root vegetables.
Uni- Hokkaido and Kansai- the first atop a wedge of taro root dusted with rice flour and lightly fried, the other resting gently on a fried shiso leaf. Two bites, two urchins, an echo of the lesson in the market this morning. ~ Matt Goulding,#NFDB
75:Come io che ho voluto sottomettere il mondo alla mia ragione ho dovuto in quest'umida spelonca affrontare te che hai provato a dominare il mondo con la tua fantasia, così per tutta l'eternità quelli che reputano il mondo un sistema ordinato dovranno confrontarsi con coloro che lo ritengono un mostruoso caos. Gli uni penseranno che il mondo è criticabile, gli altri lo prenderanno così com'è. Gli uni riterranno che il mondo è plasmabile come una pietra cui si può con uno scalpello far assumere una forma qualsivoglia, gli altri indurranno alla considerazione che, nella sua impenetrabilità, il mondo si modifica soltanto come un mostro che prende facce sempre nuove, e che esso può essere criticato non più di quanto il velo impalpabile dell'umano intelletto possa influenzare le forze tettoniche dell'istinto umano. Gli uni ingiurieranno gli altri chiamandoli pessimisti, e a loro volta saranno da quelli irrisi come utopisti. Gli uni sosterranno che il corso della storia obbedisce a leggi ben precise, gli altri diranno che queste leggi esistono solamente nella immaginazione degli uomini. ~ Friedrich D rrenmatt, #NFDB
76:I first came to Hokkaido for two reasons: miso ramen and uni, the island's most famous foods and two items on my short list for Last Supper constituents. The only thing they share in common, besides a home, is the intense fits of joy they deliver: the former made from an unholy mix of pork-bone broth, thick miso paste, and wok-crisped pork belly (with the optional addition of a slab of melting Hokkaido butter), the latter arguably the sexiest food on earth, yolk-orange tongues of raw sea urchin roe with a habit-forming blend of fat and umami, sweetness and brine. Fall for uni at your own peril; like heroin and high-stakes poker, it's an expensive addiction that's tough to kick.
But my dead-simple plan- to binge on both and catch the first flight back to Tokyo- has been upended by a steam locomotive and Whole Foods foliage, and suddenly Hokkaido seems much bigger than an urchin and a bowl of soup. No one told me about the rolling farmlands, the Fuji-like volcanoes, the stunning national parks, one stacked on top of the other. Nobody said there would be wine. And cheese. And bread. ~ Matt Goulding,#NFDB
77:Rububiyyah: Lordship, the quality of being a lord. A term derived from the Qur'anic
descriptions of Allah's lordship over creation. One might say the ecology of natural existence.
It is an essential element in Sufic cosmology and is a most sophisticated concept which
surpasses the crude specificity and mechanistic views of evolutionist biology. It is an energy
system of relationships in constant change and altering dynamics. It functions through the
different realms, the atomic, the mineral, the plant, and so on. It relates the levels of living
organisms from the uni-cellular up to man, and the interpenetrations of organism and
environment. It re-defines "event" from crude historicity to a picture of organism/event in a
unified field. It is the underlying concept which allows us to abandon the dead mind/body
split of the dying culture. It permits us to utilize and develop the energy concepts of
Islamic/Chinese medicine - which hold a common energy concept at base. Rububiyya permits
us to observe ONE PROCESS at work throughout every level of the creational realities. ~ Ibn Arabi,#NFDB
78:The real game, as I soon discover, is donburi. Donburi, often shortened to don, means "bowl," and the name encapsulates a vast array of rice bowls topped with delicious stuff: oyakodon (chicken and egg), unadon (grilled eel), tendon (tempura). As nice as meat and tempura and eel can be, the donburi of yours and mine and every sensible person's dreams is topped with a rainbow bounty of raw fish. Warm rice, cool fish, a dab of wasabi, a splash of soy- sushi, without the pageantry and without the price tag.
At Kikuyo Shokudo Honten you will find more than three dozen varieties of seafood dons, including a kaleidoscopic combination of uni, salmon, ikura (salmon roe), quail eggs, and avocado. I opt for what I've come to call the Hokkaido Superhero's Special: scallops, salmon roe, hairy crab, and uni. It's ridiculous hyperbole to call a simple plate of food life changing, but as the tiny briny eggs pop and the sweet scallops dissolve and the uni melts like ocean Velveeta, I feel some tectonic shift taking place just below my surface. ~ Matt Goulding,#NFDB
79:PENTRU CEI MAI SINGURI — Mă adresez vouă, tuturor celor care cunoaşteţi până unde poate merge singurătatea omului, până unde tristeţea de a fi poate să întunece viaţa şi tremurul fiinţei, să zguduie lumea aceasta. Şi mă adresez mai puţin pentru a afla ceea ce trăiesc şi eu, cât pentru a ne uni singurătăţile. Fraţi întru clipe de deznădejde, de tristeţe ascunsă şi de lacrimi nevărsate, ne uneşte pe toţi aceeaşi fugă nebună de viaţă, aceeaşi groază de a trăi, aceeaşi timiditate a nebuniei noastre. Ne-am pierdut curajul de prea multă singurătate şi am uitat să trăim, gândind prea mult viaţa. Oare toată singurătatea noastră să nu ne fi dus decât la moarte şi toate dezamăgirile, numai la renunţare? De ce nimicul să ne fie moartea? Am gândit prea mult pe noi înşine pentru ca viaţa să nu ne fi pedepsit şi am iubit prea mult moartea pentru a mai putea vorbi de iubire. Nu-i viaţă decât unde este un continuu început; iar noi n-am făcut decât să sfârşim viaţa în fiecare clipă, şi ce este toată fiinţa noastră decât un etern sfârşit? Nouă, celor mai singuri, celor cu viaţa alături de noi, cine ne va da speranţa de a uita să murim? ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
80:A venit o noapte ca o piatră albastră,
Despletită,
Şi mai era acolo şi un turn.
Un turn cu geamuri rotunde, nesparte şi cafenii.
Omul acela cu privire de colţ de cremene,
Când a dat cu ochii de noapte,
Acesta s-a împleticit,
Gata să intre în pământ.
Dar a mai venit un om care,
Când i-a călăuzit celuilalt o palmă albastră
Peste privire
i-a umplut ţeasta de gânduri.
Eu eram şi unul şi celălalt:
Am privit în fântâna sufletului
Şi m-am văzut rătăcind
Între obtuz şi isoscel.
Am avut totuşi curajul
Să trag o perdea între mine şi eu.
O perdea mare, împădurită.
Şi cerul s-a umplut deodată de cozi de păun.
Cine ştie, poate că erau stele?
Atunci mi-am adunat toate fulgerele
Mâniei
Şi am înţepat turnul
Drept în ferestre...
S-a făcut praf, l-am luat în palmă
Şi l-am suflat în patru vânturi.
Cerul era plin de cozi de păuni,
Multicolore cozi de păuni,
Poate că erau chiar gândurile mele
Care dădeau strălucire aerului
Apoi mi-am luat din cui
Paloşul versului şi am plecat
Pe străzile oraşului
Să râcâi
Umbra pomilor de pe trotuare.
Ca să fie mai multă lumină. ~ Marin Sorescu,#NFDB
81:Sopra la mia testa è sospeso un cerchio di luce. È il cielo serale. Guardandolo, penso al mondo in questo pomeriggio d’autunno. Il mondo dove si svolge presumibilmente la vita degli uomini. Devono camminare per le vie, nella debole luce autunnale, andare a far spese, preparare la cena, prendere il treno per tornare a casa. E pensano, se mai ci pensano, che siano tutte cose molto naturali, sulle quali non c’è bisogno di riflettere. Proprio come facevo io una volta. Sono esseri anonimi che vengono chiamati «la gente», e anch’io sono stato uno di loro. Si accettano gli uni con gli altri, in quella luce, e tra loro deve crearsi una sorta di intimità, che duri per sempre o per un breve istante. Ma io non faccio più parte di loro. Loro si trovano sulla superficie del suolo, io in fondo a un pozzo. Loro hanno la luce, io sto per perderla. A volte penso che non riuscirò mai a tornare in quel mondo; che non sarò mai più in grado di provare quel senso di pace che dà il fatto di essere immersi nella luce; che non potrò mai più tenere fra le braccia il corpo morbido del mio gatto. A questo pensiero provo un dolore pungente nel petto, come se qualcosa dentro di me venisse schiacciato. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
82:Nous avons coutume de considérer que nous formons un grand corps démocratique dont les membres sont liés entre eux par une communauté de sang et de langage, et dont l'unité indissoluble est assurée par tous les modes de communication qu'ait pu tramer l'ingéniosité de l'homme ; nos vêtements, notre alimentation sont identiques ; nous lisons les mêmes journaux (exactement, titre, poids et tirage mis à part) ; nous sommes le peuple le plus collectiviste du monde, hormis quelques peuplades primitives que nous tenons arriérés dans leur développement. Et pourtant...
Pourtant, malgré tant d'apparences qui sembleraient prouver que nous sommes étroitement liés et apparentés ; que nous vivons en bons voisins ; que nous avons bon caractère ; que nous sommes serviables, compatissants, fraternels presque, nous sommes un peuple solitaire, un troupeau morbide et dément, se démenant de tous côtés dans une rage frénétique et jalouse ; un peuple qui voudrait oublier qu'il n'est pas ce qu'il croit, un peuple qui n'est pas réellement uni ; dont les individus n'ont, les uns pour les autres, aucun dévouement réel, aucune attention réelle, ne sont, en vérité, que des unités brassées par Dieu sait quelle main invisible, selon une arithmétique qui n'est pas notre affaire. ~ Henry Miller,#NFDB
83:Mi ero sempre chiesta che cos’è l’amore, ma mai che cos’è la vita. Veniamo al mondo e siamo l’inno stesso della precarietà. Basta un virus appena un po’ arrogante, un colpo leggero sulla nuca per farci scivolare subito dall’altra parte.
Siamo un inno alla precarietà e un invito al male, a compierlo vicendevolmente gli uni sugli altri. Un invito che abbiamo accolto dal primo giorno in cui il mondo è stato creato. L’abbiamo accolto per obbedienza, per passione, per pigrizia, per distrazione. Ti uccido per vivere. Ti uccido per possedere. Ti uccido per liberarmi di te. Ti uccido perché amo il potere. Ti uccido perché non vali niente. Ti uccido perché voglio vendicarmi. Ti uccido perché uccidere mi dà piacere. Ti uccido perché mi dai fastidio. Ti uccido perché mi ricordi che anch’io posso essere ucciso.
Ogni cosa nel mondo ha il suo opposto. Il nord e il sud. L’alto e il basso. Il freddo e il caldo. Il maschio e la femmina. La luce e il buio. Il bene e il male. Ma allora, se davvero è così, perché è possibile dire: «Ti uccido» e non è possibile dire: «Ti restituisco la vita?». La vita è nata prima dell’uomo e nessun uomo è in grado, con la sua sola volontà, di creare la vita. «Muori!» possiamo gridare, ma non «Vivi!». Perché? Cosa si nasconde dietro questo mistero? ~ Susanna Tamaro,#NFDB
84:Mi ero sempre chiesta che cos’è l’amore, ma mai che cos’è la vita. Veniamo al mondo e siamo l’inno stesso della precarietà. Basta un virus appena un po’ arrogante, un colpo leggero sulla nuca per farci scivolare subito dall’altra parte.
Siamo un inno alla precarietà e un invito al male, a compierlo vicendevolmente gli uni sugli altri. Un invito che abbiamo accolto dal primo giorno in cui il mondo è stato creato. L’abbiamo accolto per obbedienza, per passione, per pigrizia, per distrazione. Ti uccido per vivere. Ti uccido per possedere. Ti uccido per liberarmi di te. Ti uccido perché amo il potere. Ti uccido perché non vali niente. Ti uccido perché voglio vendicarmi. Ti uccido perché uccidere mi dà piacere. Ti uccido perché mi dai fastidio. Ti uccido perché mi ricordi che anch’io posso essere ucciso.
Ogni cosa nel mondo ha il suo opposto. Il nord e il sud. L’alto e il basso. Il freddo e il caldo. Il maschio e la femmina. La luce e il buio. Il bene e il male. Ma allora, se davvero è così, perché è possibile dire: «Ti uccido» e non è possibile dire: «Ti restituisco la vita?». La vita è nata prima dell’uomo e nessun uomo è in grado, con la sua sola volontà, di creare la vita. «Muori!�� possiamo gridare, ma non «Vivi!». Perché? Cosa si nasconde dietro questo mistero? ~ Susanna Tamaro,#NFDB
85:Accanto a questi uomini di passione stavano i sognatori. L'utopia fioriva in tutte le sue forme, da quella bellicosa che giustificava il patibolo, a quella innocente che sosteneva l'abolizione della pena di morte. Spettri per i troni, angeli per il popolo. In faccia a uomini di lotta, spiriti che maturano sogni. Gli uni pensano alla guerra, gli altri invocano la pace; un cervello, Carnot, crea quattro armate; un altro, Jean Derby, medita una federazione democratica universale. […] altri si occupavano di questioni di minor conto e di maggior praticità. Gyuton-Morveau studiava misure per migliorare l'attrezzatura negli ospedali, Maire l'abolizione delle servitù reali, Jean-Bon-Saint-André la soppressione delle pene restrittive per debiti e la detenzione costrittiva. […] L'arte contava fanatici e anche monomaniaci; il 21 gennaio, mentre la testa di un re cadeva sulla piazza della Rivoluzione, Bézard correva ad ammirare una testa dipinta da Rubens, quadro scoperto in un solaio di rue Saint-Lazare. Artisti, orafi, profeti, colossi come Danton e fanciulli come Cloots, gladiatori e filosofi, tutti aspiravano a una sola conquista, quella del progresso. Nulla li intiepidiva. La vera grandezza della Convenzione fu di ricreare il reale nell'impossibile. Agli estremi, Robespierre, fanatico del Diritto e Condorcet, fanatico del dovere. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
86:With six thousand miles separating me from sleep, I stumbled down into the subway at dawn and emerged on the outskirts of the Tsukiji market just as the sun broke across Tokyo Bay. Inside the market, I saw the entire ocean on display: swollen-bellied salmon, dark disks of abalone, vast armies of exotic crustaceans, conger eels so shiny and new they looked to be napping in their Styrofoam boxes. I stumbled onward to a tuna auction, where a man in a trader's cap worked his way through a hundred silver carcasses scattered across the cement floor, using a system of rapid hand motions and guttural noises unintelligible to all but a select group of tuna savants. When the auction ended, I followed one of the bodies back to its buyer's stall, where a man and his son used band saw, katana blade, cleaver, and fillet knife to work the massive fish down into sellable components: sinewy tail meat for the cheap izakaya, ruby loins for hotel restaurants, blocks of marbled belly for the high-end sushi temples.
By 8:00 a.m. I was starving. First, a sushi feast, a twelve-piece procession of Tsukiji's finest- fat-frizzled bluefin, chewy surf clam, a custardy slab of Hokkaido uni- washed down with frosty glasses of Kirin. Then a bowl of warm soba from the outer market, crowned at the last second with a golden nest of vegetable tempura. ~ Matt Goulding,#NFDB
87:Provocações e problemas, habitualmente, são testes de resistência necessários à evolução e aprimoramento da própria vida. A paciência é a escora íntima que auxilia a criatura a atravessá-los com o proveito devido. O desespero, entretanto, é a sobretaxa de sofrimento que a pessoa impõe a si mesma, complicando todos os processos de apoio que a conduziriam à tranquilidade e ao refazimento. O desespero é comparável a certo tipo de alucinação, estabelecendo as maiores dificuldades para aqueles que o hospedam na própria alma. Em conflitos domésticos, inspira as vítimas dela a pronunciar frases inoportunas, muitas vezes separando os entes amados, ao invés de uni-los. Nos eventos sociais que demandam prudência e serenidade, suscita a requisição de medidas que prejudicariam a vida comunitária se fossem postas em prática no imediatismo com que são exigidas. Nas reivindicações justas, costuma antecipar declarações e provocar acontecimentos que lhes caberiam atingir. Nas moléstias do corpo físico, por vezes, encoraja o desrespeito pela dosagem dos medicamentos, no doente que precisa da disciplina, em favor da própria cura. Disse Jesus: “Bem-aventurados os aflitos porque serão consolados”, mas urge reconhecer que os aflitos inconformados, sempre acomodados com o desespero, acima de tudo, são enfermos que se candidatam a socorro e medicação. ~ Francisco C ndido Xavier, #NFDB
88:Ces dernières décennies, le référendum a souvent été mis en avant comme un moyen efficace de réformer la démocratie. À une époque où la société s’individualise et où la société civile pèse moins lourd qu’autrefois, il a paru utile à beaucoup d’observateurs de demander directement à la population son avis sur des dossiers controversés. Les référendums sur la Constitution européenne aux Pays-Bas, en France et en Irlande ont quelque peu refroidi le zèle en faveur de ce mode de décision. Pourtant, il bénéficie encore d’une grande popularité, comme en témoignent les référendums projetés sur l’autonomie de la Catalogne et de l’Écosse, et sur le retrait du Royaume-Uni de l’Union européenne. Les référendums et la démocratie délibérative sont apparentés dans la mesure où, dans un cas comme dans l’autre, le citoyen ordinaire est consulté, mais les mécanismes sont pour le reste totalement opposés : lors d’un référendum, on demande à tout le monde de voter sur un sujet à propos duquel, le plus souvent, peu de gens sont informés ; lors d’un projet délibératif, on demande à un échantillon représentatif de la population de délibérer sur un sujet à propos duquel il obtient le plus d’informations possible. Lors d’un référendum, les gens réagissent encore très souvent avec leurs tripes ; lors d’une délibération, c’est une opinion publique éclairée qui s’exprime. ~ David Van Reybrouck, #NFDB
89:The clearest signs of Hakodate's current greatness, though, can be found clustered around its central train station, in the morning market, where blocks and blocks of pristine seafood explode onto the sidewalks like an edible aquarium, showcasing the might of the Japanese fishing industry.
Hokkaido is ground zero for the world's high-end sushi culture. The cold waters off the island have long been home to Japan's A-list of seafood: hairy crab, salmon, scallops, squid, and, of course, uni. The word "Hokkaido" attached to any of these creatures commands a premium at market, one that the finest sushi chefs around the world are all too happy to pay.
Most of the Hokkaido haul is shipped off to the Tsukiji market in Tokyo, where it's auctioned and scattered piece by piece around Japan and the big cities of the world. But the island keeps a small portion of the good stuff for itself, most of which seems to be concentrated in a two-hundred-meter stretch in Hakodate.
Everything here glistens with that sparkly sea essence, and nearly everything is meant to be consumed in the moment. Live sea urchins, piled high in hillocks of purple spikes, are split with scissors and scraped out raw with chopsticks. Scallops are blowtorched in their shells until their edges char and their sweet liquor concentrates. Somewhere, surely, a young fishmonger will spoon salmon roe directly into your mouth for the right price. ~ Matt Goulding,#NFDB
90:E' sempre stranamente toccante vedere come la nebbia separi tutto ciò che è vicino o apparentemente affine, come avvolga e racchiuda ogni figura, rendendola ineluttabilmente sola. Incroci un uomo, sulla strada maestra; ha con sé una mucca p una capra o spinge un carro e porta una fascina, e dietro a lui trotta, scodinzolando, il suo cane. Lo vedi avvicinarsi e lo saluti, e lui risponde al saluto; non appena è passato e ti giri a guardarlo, lo vedi già farsi indistinto e scomparire nel grigio, senza lasciar tracce. Non diversamente accade per case, recinzioni, alberi e vigneti. Credevi di conoscere tutti i dintorni a memoria e ora sei particolarmente stupito da quanto quel muro dista dalla strada, da quanto è alto quest'alberto e bassa quella casa. Capanne che credevi vicinissime sono così distanti l'una dall'altra che, dalla soglia dell'una , lo sguardo non riesce a raggiungere l'altra. E, vicinissimi, senti bestie e animali che non riesci a vedere, che si muovono e lavorano ed emettono richiami. Tutto ciò ha qualcosa di fiabesco, ignoto, trasognato, e per qualche istante avverti con spaventosa chiarezza il suo contenuto simbolico. Come, in fondo, tutte le cose e tutti gli uomini siano sempre, gli uni rispetto agli altri, chiunque essi siano, degli sconosciuti, inesorabilmente, e come le nostre strade si incrocino sempre per pochi passi e istanti, conquistando la fugace parvenza della comunione, della vicinanza e dell'amicizia. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
91:Sono entrato nella vita sapendo che la legge è di uscirne. Come aveva detto Saint-Savin, si impersona la propria parte, chi più a lungo, chi più in fretta, e si esce di scena. Me ne sono visti molti passar davanti, altri mi vedranno passare, e daranno lo stesso spettacolo ai loro successori. D'altra parte, per quanto tempo non sono stato, e per quanto non sarò più! Occupo uno spazio ben piccolo nell'abisso degli anni. Questo piccolo intervallo non riesce a distinguermi dal niente in cui dovrò andare. Non sono venuto al mondo che per far numero. La mia parte è stata così piccola che, anche se fossi rimasto dietro alle quinte, tutti avrebbero detto lo stesso che la commedia era perfetta. E' come in una tempesta: gli uni annegano subito, altri si spezzano contro uno scoglio, altri rimangono su un legno abbandonato, ma non per molto anch'essi. La vita si spegne da sola, come una candela che ha consumato la sua materia. E ci si dovrebbe essere abituati, perché come una candela abbiamo cominciato a disperdere atomi sin dal primo momento che ci siamo accesi. Non è una gran sapienza sapere queste cose, d'accordo. Dovremmo saperle dal momento che siamo nati. Ma di solito riflettiamo sempre e soltanto sulla morte degli altri. EH sì, tutti abbiamo abbastanza forza per sopportare i mali altrui. Poi viene il momento che si pensa alla morte quando il male è nostro, e allora ci si accorge che né il sole né la morte si possono guardare fissi. A meno che non si abbiano avuti dei buoni maestri. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
92:L'indomani sarebbero stati chiamati alle armi. E due giorni dopo sarebbero andati in battaglia. Che vivessero o morissero, l'importante non era questo, quanto il fatto che non avrebbero più potuto disporre di loro stessi. Gli sforzi degli anni precedenti, il tentativo laborioso e onesto di imparare la loro arte, la lotta costante per superare i propri limiti - limiti della mano, dell'occhio, dell'immaginazione -, l'impegno delle loro volontà, le loro discussioni, tutto ciò sarebbe stato azzerato. Reso inutile.
Superfluo. La guerra avrebbe livellato tutto verso il basso. Erano solo carne ormai. Due piedi e due mani, quanto bastava alla nazione.
Carne. Carne da cannone. Buona a uccidere o a farsi uccidere.
Carne e ossa, nient'altro. Bipedi armati. Niente di più. Niente anima, al massimo quel tanto che basta per farsela sotto dalla paura.
Per il tempo di andare a combattere o a morire dovevano riporre nello spogliatoio di una caserma i singoli individui che tentavano di essere. Tutto ciò per cui si amavano e si stimavano, tutto ciò per cui tenevano gli uni agli altri ormai appariva ridicolo, civicamente odioso, patriotticamente inaccettabile, Il loro futuro non apparteneva più a loro, apparteneva alla nazione.
Più che una delusione, la guerra si trasformava per loro in un tradimento: tradire il loro ideale artistico per diventare fanti, tradire anni di studi per trasportare una mitragliatrice, tradire quel lungo lavoro di costruzione di sé per ridursi a un numero in un battaglione. E soprattutto tradire quell'apporto generoso di nuovi esseri al mondo in cui consiste l'attività creatrice, per arruolarsi in una mattanza generalizzata, in un'opera di distruzione, in una fuga in avanti verso il vuoto ~ ric Emmanuel Schmitt,#NFDB
93:«Che bel quadretto,» commentò. «I tre evangelisti aggrappati gli uni agli altri si apprestano all'ascensione impossibile.»
«Accidenti,» disse Mathias sollevando Lucien, «perché gli abbiamo dato il terzo piano?»
«Mica sapevamo che beveva come una spugna,» disse Marc. «E poi ti ricordo che non si poteva fare diversamente. L'ordine cronologico prima di tutto: al piano terra l'ignoto, il mistero originale, il disordine generale, il magma primordiale, insomma, le stanze comuni. Al primo piano, vago superamento del caos, qualche modesto tentativo, l'uomo nudo si raddrizza in silenzio, insomma, tu, Mathias. Risalendo la scala del tempo...»
«Cosa c'è da gridare?» domandò Vandoosler il Vecchio.
«Sta declamando,» disse Mathias. «È pur sempre un suo diritto. Non ci sono orari per gli oratori.»
«Risalendo la scala del tempo,» continuò Marc, «scavalcata l'antichità, l'agevole ingresso nel glorioso secondo millennio, i contrasti, gli ardimenti e gli stenti medievali, insomma, io, al secondo piano. Dopodiché, al piano superiore, il degrado, la decadenza, il contemporaneo. Insomma, lui,» pro- seguì Marc scuotendo Lucien per un braccio. «Lui, al terzo piano, che con la sua vergognosa Grande Guerra chiude la stratigrafia della Storia e della Scala. Ancora più su il padrino, che in un modo tutto suo porta avanti lo scardinamento del presente.»
Marc si fermò e tirò un sospiro.
«Capisci che, anche se sarebbe più pratico sistemare questo qui al primo piano, non possiamo mica permetterci di sconvolgere la cronologia rovesciando la stratigrafia della scala. La scala del tempo è tutto quel che ci resta, Mathias! Vuoi buttare all'aria la tromba delle scale, che è l'unica cosa che abbiamo messo in ordine? L'unica, caro mio! Non possiamo permettercelo.» ~ Fred Vargas,#NFDB
94:Văzând în fapta lui jignire, Boierii şi-au ieşit din fire: „Vecinu-i fire prost crescută, Un farmazon, un om năuc: Bea roşul vin ca un haiduc, La doamne mâna nu sărută, Doar da şi nu, nicicând poftim” - îl osândiră unanim.
În satul său, pe-aceeaşi vreme Un alt boier sosi-n vecini, Stârnind aidoma dileme La moşierii cei meschini. Vladimir Lenski se numeşte, Direct din Gottirsgen soseşte: Frumos şi tânăr şi poet, Lui Kant discipol, interpret, El din Germania ceţoasă Aduse roadele ştiinţei — S-aline greul suferinţei; Fiinţă-aprinsă, curioasă, Cu negrul păr adus pe spate Vorbea cu foc de libertate. Adică francmason, aici în sens de liber-cugetător. Ferit de tina infamiei, Cu sufletul cuprins de-ardoare, Credea-n căldura prieteniei Şi-n duioşie de fecioare. În inima-i ce ignoranţă! — Nutrea statornic o speranţă. Şi-a lumii larmă, strălucire îi răscoleau tânăra-i fire, împodobind ideea-n haină De reverii şi dulce vis; Scruta cu sufletul deschis în viaţă-un scop, în lume-o taină Ce-i frământa adânca minte, …Visând minuni, ţintind nainte! Credea el că un suflet mare Se va uni cu el, odată, Că chipul gingaşei fecioare L-aşteaptă undeva curată; Sau că amicii-s plini de zel Să poarte lanţuri pentru el, Să sfarme-n ţăndări braţul lor Ulciorul clevetirilor; Că-n viaţă sunt aleşi ai sorţii, Prieteni sfinţi ai omenirii, Ce hărăziţi sunt nemuririi, Cu veşnica văpaie-a torţii Şi cu raza ei de înnoire S-aducă-n lume fericire. Revolta şi compătimirea, iubirea binelui avea Şi-a slavei dulce pătimire De june-n sânge-i clocotea. El lira şi-o plimba cu sete Sub cerul lui Schiller şi Goethe Şi sufletu-i vibra patetic, Aprins de jarul lor poetic. Şi-a muzelor înaltă artă N-a ruşinat-o el nicicând. Şi nimeni de semeţu-i gând N-a fost în stare să-l despartă, De dorul sfânt al tinereţii Şi gingăşia simplităţii. ~ Alexander Pushkin,#NFDB
95:During the year before Shara and I got married, I managed to persuade the owners of a small island, situated in Poole Harbor, to let me winter house-sit the place in return for free lodging.
It was a brilliant deal.
Chopping logs, keeping an eye on the place, doing a bit of maintenance, and living like a king on a beautiful twenty-acre island off the south coast of England.
Some months earlier, I had been walking along a riverbank outside of London when I had spotted a little putt-putt fishing boat with an old 15 hp engine on the back. She was covered in mold and looked on her last legs, but I noticed her name, painted carefully on the side.
She was called Shara. What were the chances of that?
I bought her on the spot, with what was pretty well my last £800.
Shara became my pride and joy. And I was the only person who could get the temperamental engine to start! I used the boat, though, primarily, as my way of going backward and forward to the small island.
I had done some properly dicey crossings in Shara during the middle of that winter. Often done late at night, after an evening out, the three-mile crossing back to the island could be treacherous in bad weather. Freezing waves would crash over the bows, threatening to swamp the boat, and the old engine would often start cutting in and out.
I had no nav-lights, no waterproofs, no life jacket, and no radio. And that meant no backup plan--which is bad.
Totally irresponsible. But totally fun.
I held my stag weekend over there with my best buddies--Ed, Mick, Neil, Charlie, Nige (one of Shara’s uni friends who has become such a brilliant buddy), Trucker, Watty, Stan, and Hugo--and it was a wild one.
Charlie ended up naked on a post in the middle of the harbor, we got rescued twice having broken down trying to water-ski behind the underpowered Shara, and we had a huge bonfire while playing touch-rugby by firelight.
Perfect. ~ Bear Grylls,#NFDB
96:Le sage parfait, selon la doctrine taoïste, est celui qui est parvenu au point central et qui y demeure en union indissoluble avec le Principe, participant de son immutabilité et imitant son « activité non-agissante » : « Celui qui est arrivé au maximum du vide, dit Lao-tseu, celui-là sera fixé solidement dans le repos… Retourner à sa racine (c’est-à-dire au Principe, à la fois origine première et fin dernière de tous les êtres) (4), c’est entrer dans l’état de repos » (5). Le « vide » dont il s’agit ici, c’est le détachement complet à l’égard de toutes les choses manifestées, transitoires et contingentes, détachement par lequel l’être échappe aux vicissitudes du « courant des formes », à l’alternance des états de « vie » et de « mort », de « condensation » et de « dissipation » (Aristote, dans un sens semblable, dit « génération » et « corruption »), passant de la circonférence de la « roue cosmique » à son centre, qui est désigné lui-même comme « le vide (le non-manifesté) qui unit les rayons et en fait une roue » (6). « La paix dans le vide, dit Lie-tseu, est un état indéfinissable ; on ne la prend ni ne la donne; on arrive à s’y établir » (7). « À celui qui demeure dans le non-manifesté, tous les êtres se manifestent… Uni au Principe, il est en harmonie, par lui, avec tous les êtres. Uni au Principe, il connaît tout par les raisons générales supérieures, et n’use plus, par suite, de ses divers sens, pour connaître en particulier et en détail. La vraie raison des choses est invisible, insaisissable, indéfinissable, indéterminable. Seul l’esprit rétabli dans l’état de simplicité parfaite, peut l’atteindre dans la contemplation profonde » (8). On voit ici la différence qui sépare la connaissance transcendante du sage du savoir ordinaire ou « profane » ; et la dernière phrase doit tout naturellement rappeler cette parole de l’Évangile : « Quiconque ne recevra point le Royaume de Dieu comme un enfant, n’y entrera point » (9). Du reste, les allusions à cette « simplicité », regardée comme caractéristique de l’« état primordial », ne sont pas rares dans le Taoïsme ; et de même, dans les doctrines hindoues, l’état d’« enfance » (en sanscrit bâlya), entendu au sens spirituel, est considéré comme une condition préalable pour l’acquisition de la connaissance par excellence.
[Le Centre du Monde dans les doctrines extrême-orientales. - Regnabit, mai 1927] ~ Ren Gu non,#NFDB
97:Mais j’avais revu tantôt l’une, tantôt l’autre, des chambres que j’avais habitées dans ma vie, et je finissais par me les rappeler toutes dans les longues rêveries qui suivaient mon réveil ; chambres d’hiver où quand on est couché, on se blottit la tête dans un nid qu’on se tresse avec les choses les plus disparates : un coin de l’oreiller, le haut des couvertures, un bout de châle, le bord du lit, et un numéro des Débats roses, qu’on finit par cimenter ensemble selon la technique des oiseaux en s’y appuyant indéfiniment ; où, par un temps glacial, le plaisir qu’on goûte est de se sentir séparé du dehors (comme l’hirondelle de mer qui a son nid au fond d’un souterrain dans la chaleur de la terre), et où, le feu étant entretenu toute la nuit dans la cheminée, on dort dans un grand manteau d’air chaud et fumeux, traversé des lueurs des tisons qui se rallument, sorte d’impalpable alcôve, de chaude caverne creusée au sein de la chambre même, zone ardente et mobile en ses contours thermiques, aérée de souffles qui nous rafraîchissent la figure et viennent des angles, des parties voisines de la fenêtre ou éloignées du foyer et qui se sont refroidies ; – chambres d’été où l’on aime être uni à la nuit tiède, où le clair de lune appuyé aux volets entr’ouverts, jette jusqu’au pied du lit son échelle enchantée, où on dort presque en plein air, comme la mésange balancée par la brise à la pointe d’un rayon – ; parfois la chambre Louis XVI, si gaie que même le premier soir je n’y avais pas été trop malheureux, et où les colonnettes qui soutenaient légèrement le plafond s’écartaient avec tant de grâce pour montrer et réserver la place du lit ; parfois au contraire celle, petite et si élevée de plafond, creusée en forme de pyramide dans la hauteur de deux étages et partiellement revêtue d’acajou, où, dès la première seconde, j’avais été intoxiqué moralement par l’odeur inconnue du vétiver, convaincu de l’hostilité des rideaux violets et de l’insolente indifférence de la pendule qui jacassait tout haut comme si je n’eusse pas été là ; – où une étrange et impitoyable glace à pieds quadrangulaires barrant obliquement un des angles de la pièce se creusait à vif dans la douce plénitude de mon champ visuel accoutumé un emplacement qui n’y était pas prévu ; – où ma pensée, s’efforçant pendant des heures de se disloquer, de s’étirer en hauteur pour prendre exactement la forme de la chambre et arriver à remplir jusqu’en haut son gigantesque entonnoir, avait souffert bien de dures nuits, tandis que j’étais étendu dans mon lit, les yeux levés, l’oreille anxieuse, la narine rétive, le cœur battant ; jusqu’à ce que l’habitude eût changé la couleur des rideaux, fait taire la pendule, enseigné la pitié à la glace oblique et cruelle, dissimulé, sinon chassé complètement, l’odeur du vétiver et notablement diminué la hauteur apparente du plafond. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
98:Il primo paradosso del tempo è inerente alla consapevolezza che ognuno ha di vivere in un tempo che precedeva la sua nascita e che continuerà dopo la sua morte. Questa consapevolezza individuale del finito e dell’infinito vale simultaneamente per il singolo e per la società. Infatti l’individuo che si trasforma, cresce e poi invecchia, prima di scomparire un giorno o l’altro, assiste in quel mentre alla nascita e alla crescita degli uni e all’invecchiamento e alla morte degli altri. Invecchia in un mondo che cambia, se non altro perché gli individui che ne fanno parte invecchiano anche loro e vedono generazioni più giovani prendere progressivamente il loro posto.
Ci sono spiegazioni di tipo intellettuale per questo primo paradosso: sono tutte le teorie che, in un modo o nell’altro, inscenano il ritorno del medesimo. Nella maggioranza delle società studiate dall’etnologia tradizionale esistono rappresentazioni dell’eredità molto elaborate che tendono a ritenere la morte degli individui non una fine in sé quanto l’occasione per ridistribuire e riciclare gli elementi che li compongono. Le teorie della metempsicosi sono solo un tipo particolare di tali rappresentazioni. In Africa, per esempio, l’idea del ritorno degli elementi liberati dalla morte non è associata a quella del ritorno degli individui in quanto tali, anche se, nelle grandi chefferies o nei regni, la logica dinastica spinge in quella direzione.
Altre istituzioni, come le classi di età, o taluni fenomeni religiosi ritualizzati, come la possessione, rientrano in quella visione immanente del mondo che tende a relativizzare l’opposizione tra vita e morte in virtù di un’intuizione non lontana dal principio scientifico secondo il quale nulla si crea e nulla si distrugge, ma tutto si trasforma. Il secondo paradosso del tempo è quasi l’inverso del primo e riguarda la difficoltà per uomini mortali, e quindi tributari del tempo e delle idee di inizio e fine, di pensare il mondo senza immaginarsene una nascita e senza assegnargli un termine. Le cosmogonie e le apocalissi, in varie modalità, sono una soluzione immaginaria per rispondere a questa difficoltà.
Il terzo paradosso del tempo rimanda al suo contenuto o, se vogliamo, alla storia. È il paradosso dell’evento, del fatto sempre atteso e sempre temuto. Per un verso sono gli eventi che rendono sensibile il passaggio del tempo e che servono anche a datarlo, a ordinarlo secondo una prospettiva diversa dal semplice ripresentarsi delle stagioni. Ma per un altro verso l’evento comporta il rischio di una rottura, di una lacerazione irreversibile con il passato, di un’intrusione irrimediabile del nuovo nelle sue forme più pericolose. Per un lungo periodo della storia umana le catastrofi ecologiche, meteorologiche, epidemiologiche, politiche o militari avevano il potere di minacciare l’esistenza stessa del gruppo, e lo sviluppo delle società non ha fatto svanire la consapevolezza di rischi del genere: li ha solo collocati su una scala diversa. Il controllo intellettuale e simbolico dell’evento è sempre stato al centro delle attenzioni dei gruppi umani. Lo è ancora oggi; cambiano solo le parole e le soluzioni. È anzi possibile che il paradosso dell’evento sia al suo culmine: mentre la storia accelera sotto la spinta di eventi di ogni genere, noi pretendiamo di negarne l’esistenza, come nelle epoche più arcaiche, per esempio celebrandone la fine. ~ Marc Aug,#NFDB
99:Geopolitics is ultimately the study of the balance between options and limitations. A country's geography determines in large part what vulnerabilities it faces and what tools it holds.
"Countries with flat tracks of land -- think Poland or Russia -- find building infrastructure easier and so become rich faster, but also find themselves on the receiving end of invasions. This necessitates substantial standing armies, but the very act of attempting to gain a bit of security automatically triggers angst and paranoia in the neighbors.
"Countries with navigable rivers -- France and Argentina being premier examples -- start the game with some 'infrastructure' already baked in. Such ease of internal transport not only makes these countries socially unified, wealthy, and cosmopolitan, but also more than a touch self-important. They show a distressing habit of becoming overimpressed with themselves -- and so tend to overreach.
"Island nations enjoy security -- think the United Kingdom and Japan -- in part because of the physical separation from rivals, but also because they have no choice but to develop navies that help them keep others away from their shores. Armed with such tools, they find themselves actively meddling in the affairs of countries not just within arm's reach, but half a world away.
"In contrast, mountain countries -- Kyrgyzstan and Bolivia, to pick a pair -- are so capital-poor they find even securing the basics difficult, making them largely subject to the whims of their less-mountainous neighbors.
"It's the balance of these restrictions and empowerments that determine both possibilities and constraints, which from my point of view makes it straightforward to predict what most countries will do:
· The Philippines' archipelagic nature gives it the physical stand-off of islands without the navy, so in the face of a threat from a superior country it will prostrate itself before any naval power that might come to its aid.
· Chile's population center is in a single valley surrounded by mountains. Breaching those mountains is so difficult that the Chileans often find it easier to turn their back on the South American continent and interact economically with nations much further afield.
· The Netherlands benefits from a huge portion of European trade because it controls the mouth of the Rhine, so it will seek to unite the Continent economically to maximize its economic gain while bringing in an external security guarantor to minimize threats to its independence.
· Uzbekistan sits in the middle of a flat, arid pancake and so will try to expand like syrup until it reaches a barrier it cannot pass. The lack of local competition combined with regional water shortages adds a sharp, brutal aspect to its foreign policy.
· New Zealand is a temperate zone country with a huge maritime frontage beyond the edge of the world, making it both wealthy and secure -- how could the Kiwis not be in a good mood every day?
"But then there is the United States. It has the fiat lands of Australia with the climate and land quality of France, the riverine characteristics of Germany with the strategic exposure of New Zealand, and the island features of Japan but with oceanic moats -- and all on a scale that is quite literally continental. Such landscapes not only make it rich and secure beyond peer, but also enable its navy to be so powerful that America dominates the global oceans. ~ Peter Zeihan,#NFDB
100:II L'Association bretonne. Il est une institution qui distingue la Bretagne des autres provinces et où se réflète son génie, l'Association bretonne. Dans ce pays couvert encore de landes et de terres incultes, et où il reste tant de ruines des anciens âges, des hommes intelligents ont compris que ces deux intérêts ne devaient pas être séparés, les progrès de l'agriculture et l'étude des monuments de l'histoire locale. Les comices agricoles ne s'occupent que des travaux d'agriculture, les sociétés savantes que de l'esprit; l'Association bretonne les a réunis: elle est à la fois une association agricole et une association littéraire. Aux expériences de l'agriculture, aux recherches archéologiques, elle donne de la suite et de l'unité; les efforts ne sont plus isolés, ils se font avec ensemble; l'Association bretonne continue, au XIXe siècle, l'oeuvre des moines des premiers temps du christianisme dans la Gaule, qui défrichaient le sol et éclairaient les âmes. Un appel a été fait dans les cinq départements de la Bretagne à tous ceux qui avaient à coeur les intérêts de leur patrie, aux écrivains et aux propriétaires, aux gentilshommes et aux simples paysans, et les adhésions sont arrivées de toutes parts. L'Association a deux moyens d'action: un bulletin mensuel, et un congrès annuel. Le bulletin rend compte des travaux des associés, des expériences, des essais, des découvertes scientifiques; le congrès ouvre des concours, tient des séances publiques, distribue des prix et des récompenses. Afin de faciliter les réunions et d'en faire profiter tout le pays, le congrès se tient alternativement dans chaque département; une année à Rennes, une autre à Saint-Brieuc, une autre fois à Vitré ou à Redon; en 1858, il s'est réuni à Quimper. A chaque congrès, des questions nouvelles sont agitées, discutées, éclaircies[1]: ces savants modestes qui consacrent leurs veilles à des recherches longues et pénibles, sont assurés que leurs travaux ne seront pas ignorés; tant d'intelligences vives et distinguées, qui demeureraient oisives dans le calme des petites villes, voient devant elles un but à leurs efforts; la publicité en est assurée, ils seront connus et appréciés. D'un bout de la province à l'autre, de Rennes à Brest, de Nantes à Saint-Malo, on se communique ses oeuvres et ses plans; tel antiquaire, à Saint-Brieuc, s'occupe des mêmes recherches qu'un autre à Quimper: il est un jour dans l'année où ils se retrouvent, où se resserrent les liens d'études et d'amitié. [Note 1: Voir l'Appendice.] Le congrès est un centre moral et intellectuel, bien plus, un centre national: ces congrès sont de véritables assises bretonnes; ils remplacent les anciens États: on y voit réunis, comme aux États, les trois ordres, le clergé, la noblesse et le tiers-état, le tiers-état plus nombreux qu'avant la Révolution, et de plus, mêlés aux nobles et aux bourgeois, les paysans. La Bretagne est une des provinces de France où les propriétaires vivent le plus sur leurs terres; beaucoup y passent l'année tout entière. De là une communauté d'habitudes, un échange de services, des relations plus familières et plus intimes, qui n'ôtent rien au respect d'une part, à la dignité de l'autre. Propriétaires et fermiers, réunis au congrès, sont soumis aux mêmes conditions et jugés par les mêmes lois; souvent le propriétaire concourt avec son fermier. Dans ces mêlées animées, où l'on se communique ses procédés, où l'on s'aide de ses conseils, où l'on distribue des prix et des encouragements, les riches propriétaires et les nobles traitent les paysans sur le pied de l'égalité; ici, la supériorité est au plus habile: c'est un paysan, Guévenoux, qui, en 1857, eut les honneurs du congrès de Redon. Voici quatorze ans que l'Association bretonne existe; l'ardeur a toujours été en croissant; les congrès sont devenus des solennités: on y vient de tous les points ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
101:Quando Shiva e Shakti se unem no sahasrara, a pessoa experimenta o samadhi, a iluminação ocorre no cérebro e as áreas silenciosas começam a funcionar. Shiva e Shakti permanecem unidos por algum tempo, e durante este período há uma perda total da consciência, pertencente um a outro. Ao mesmo tempo um bindu desenvolve. Bindu significa um ponto, uma gota, e bindu é o substrato de todo o cosmos. Dentro do bindu está a sede da inteligência humana e a sede de toda a criação. Em seguida, bindu se divide em dois, e Shiva e Shakti manifestam-se novamente em dualidade. Quando a ascensão aconteceu, ela foi somente a subida de shakti, mas agora quando a descida acontece, Shiva e Shakti, ambos, descem para os planos grosseiros e há novamente o conhecimento da dualidade. Depois da união total há uma espécie de retorno pelo mesmo caminho da ascensão. A consciência bruta que se tornou refinada, novamente torna-se embrutecida. Este é o conceito da encarnação divina ou avatar.
Quando alguém atinge o mais elevado pináculo de samadhi, purusha e prakriti, ou Shiva e Shakti estão em total união e somente advaita existe, a experiência não dual. Ao mesmo temo, quando não há sujeito/objeto mais distinto, é muito difícil para alguém diferenciar. Se ele está falando com um homem ou com uma mulher, ele não sabe, ele não percebe a diferença. Ele pode até mesmo ser associado com pessoas espirituais ou divinas sem estar ciente disto, porque neste momento, sua consciência está reduzida ao nível da inocência de um bebê. Assim, no estado de samadhi, você é um bebê. Um bebê não pode falar da diferença entre um homem e uma mulher porque ele não tem distinção física ou sexual. Ele não pode distinguir um estudioso de um idiota, ele não pode nem mesmo ver qualquer a diferença entre uma serpente e uma corda. Ele pode segurar uma cobra como segura uma cobra. Isso só acontece quando a união está acontecendo.
Quando Shiva e Shakti descem para os planos grosseiros, que é o mooladhara chakra, eles se separam e vivem como duas entidades. Há dualidade no mooladhara chakra, há dualidade na mente e sentidos e no mundo de nomes e formas, mas não há dualidade no samadhi. Não há nenhuma vidência ou experiência no estado de samadhi. Não há ninguém para dizer como o samadhi porque ele é uma experiência não-dual.
É muito difícil entender por que Shiva e Shakti, ambos, descem para os planos brutos após terem atingindo a mais elevada união. Qual é o objetivo da destruição do mundo e a criação novamente? Qual é o objetivo de transcendência da consciência se você tem de voltar para ele novamente? Por que se preocupar em despertar Kundalini e uni-la com Shiva no sahasrara se você tem de voltar para o mooladhara novamente? Isto é algo muito misterioso e podemos perguntar, "Por despertar Kundalini absolutamente?" Por que construir uma mansão se você sabe que terá de pô-la abaixo quando ela estiver concluída? Na verdade, criamos um monte de coisas que serão destruídas. Então, porque fazê-lo absolutamente? Fazemos muita sadhana para transcender os chakras e ascender da terra para o céu. Então, quando chegamos ao paraíso e nos tornamos um com a grande realidade, de repente decidimos voltar para baixo. E não só, nós trazemos a grande unidade conosco. Seria mais fácil entender se Shakti voltasse sozinha e Shiva permanecesse no céu. Talvez, quando Shakti está prestes a sair, Shiva diga: "Espere, estou indo com você."
Quando Shiva e Shakti descem aos níveis mais grosseiros da consciência, há a dualidade novamente. Isso é porque o homem auto-realizado é capaz de compreender a dor e todos os assuntos da vida mundana. Ele compreende todo o drama da dualidade, multiplicidade e diversidade. Às vezes nós, simples mortais, estamos em um dilema para compreender como este homem, como a mais elevada realização, é capaz de lidar com as dualidades sem esperanças da vida. ~ Satyananda Saraswati,#NFDB
1767 Integral Yoga
463 Poetry
241 Occultism
171 Christianity
160 Philosophy
120 Yoga
110 Fiction
87 Psychology
40 Science
38 Mysticism
28 Hinduism
21 Sufism
19 Kabbalah
17 Mythology
16 Theosophy
16 Integral Theory
15 Education
12 Philsophy
7 Cybernetics
7 Buddhism
6 Baha i Faith
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
962 The Mother
896 Sri Aurobindo
485 Satprem
361 Nolini Kanta Gupta
108 Aleister Crowley
86 Carl Jung
71 H P Lovecraft
67 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
59 Plotinus
57 Sri Ramakrishna
54 William Wordsworth
53 Walt Whitman
45 James George Frazer
43 Percy Bysshe Shelley
33 Swami Krishnananda
32 Saint Augustine of Hippo
28 Swami Vivekananda
28 Friedrich Schiller
27 Jorge Luis Borges
25 Aldous Huxley
25 A B Purani
21 Rudolf Steiner
21 Franz Bardon
20 Lucretius
20 Kabir
19 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
18 Vyasa
18 Rabindranath Tagore
17 John Keats
15 Saint Teresa of Avila
14 Saint John of Climacus
14 Robert Browning
13 Jalaluddin Rumi
12 Ralph Waldo Emerson
12 Plato
12 Paul Richard
11 Nirodbaran
11 Friedrich Nietzsche
10 Sri Ramana Maharshi
10 Ovid
10 George Van Vrekhem
10 Anonymous
8 William Butler Yeats
8 Rainer Maria Rilke
7 Peter J Carroll
7 Norbert Wiener
7 Joseph Campbell
7 Jordan Peterson
7 Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia
7 Henry David Thoreau
7 Edgar Allan Poe
7 Baha u llah
7 Alice Bailey
6 Aristotle
5 Thubten Chodron
5 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
5 Ramprasad
5 Patanjali
5 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
5 Ibn Arabi
5 Farid ud-Din Attar
5 Bokar Rinpoche
5 Al-Ghazali
4 Lalla
4 Hakim Sanai
4 Hafiz
3 Thomas Merton
3 Saint Francis of Assisi
3 R Buckminster Fuller
3 Ken Wilber
3 Jacopone da Todi
3 Dadu Dayal
3 Bulleh Shah
2 Sun Buer
2 Sarmad
2 Omar Khayyam
2 Mansur al-Hallaj
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Khwaja Abdullah Ansari
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jean Gebser
2 Guru Nanak
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Boethius
2 Allama Muhammad Iqbal
2 Alexander Pope
2 Abu-Said Abil-Kheir
229 Record of Yoga
142 The Synthesis Of Yoga
117 Prayers And Meditations
94 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
72 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
71 Lovecraft - Poems
67 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
64 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
60 Magick Without Tears
59 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
56 The Life Divine
55 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
54 Wordsworth - Poems
54 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
52 Agenda Vol 01
50 Whitman - Poems
50 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
48 Savitri
48 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
48 Agenda Vol 03
46 Liber ABA
45 The Golden Bough
44 Questions And Answers 1956
44 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
43 Shelley - Poems
43 Agenda Vol 08
41 Agenda Vol 02
40 Letters On Yoga II
38 Letters On Yoga III
38 Agenda Vol 10
37 Agenda Vol 04
36 Mysterium Coniunctionis
36 Letters On Yoga IV
36 Agenda Vol 09
33 The Study and Practice of Yoga
33 Questions And Answers 1953
31 Agenda Vol 06
30 Agenda Vol 13
29 Essays On The Gita
29 Agenda Vol 12
28 Schiller - Poems
28 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
27 Agenda Vol 07
26 Questions And Answers 1955
26 Letters On Yoga I
26 Agenda Vol 11
25 The Perennial Philosophy
25 Questions And Answers 1954
25 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
24 The Human Cycle
22 The Practice of Psycho therapy
22 The Future of Man
22 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
22 Essays Divine And Human
22 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
22 City of God
20 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
20 Of The Nature Of Things
20 Labyrinths
19 General Principles of Kabbalah
18 Words Of Long Ago
18 Vishnu Purana
18 Tagore - Poems
18 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
18 Let Me Explain
18 Agenda Vol 05
17 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
17 Keats - Poems
15 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
15 On Education
15 Isha Upanishad
14 The Phenomenon of Man
14 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
14 Browning - Poems
13 Words Of The Mother II
13 The Bible
13 Hymn of the Universe
13 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
13 Bhakti-Yoga
13 Aion
12 The Secret Of The Veda
12 Talks
12 Songs of Kabir
12 On the Way to Supermanhood
12 Initiation Into Hermetics
12 Emerson - Poems
11 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
11 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
11 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
11 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
11 Collected Poems
10 Some Answers From The Mother
10 Raja-Yoga
10 Preparing for the Miraculous
10 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
10 Metamorphoses
10 Letters On Poetry And Art
10 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
9 Vedic and Philological Studies
9 The Problems of Philosophy
9 The Practice of Magical Evocation
9 Theosophy
9 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
9 Rumi - Poems
9 Kena and Other Upanishads
9 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
8 Yeats - Poems
8 The Integral Yoga
8 Rilke - Poems
7 Words Of The Mother III
7 Walden
7 Twilight of the Idols
7 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
7 The Divine Comedy
7 Maps of Meaning
7 Liber Null
7 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
7 Cybernetics
7 Borges - Poems
7 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Poetics
6 Poe - Poems
6 Crowley - Poems
5 The Way of Perfection
5 The Red Book Liber Novus
5 The Alchemy of Happiness
5 Tara - The Feminine Divine
5 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
5 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
5 Dark Night of the Soul
4 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
4 Words Of The Mother I
4 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Arabi - Poems
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
3 Song of Myself
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Faust
3 Anonymous - Poems
3 Amrita Gita
3 5.1.01 - Ilion
2 The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
2 The Lotus Sutra
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Essentials of Education
2 Symposium
2 Selected Fictions
2 Hafiz - Poems
2 Goethe - Poems
2 God Exists
2 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Day after day, for seventeen years, She sat with us to tell us of her impossible odyssey. Ah, how well we now understand why She needed such an 'outlaw' and an incorrigible heretic like us to comprehend a little bit of her impossible odyssey into 'nothing.' And how well we now understand her infinite patience with us, despite all our revolts, which ultimately were only the revolts of the old species against itself. The final revolt. 'It is not a revolt against the British government which any one can easily do. It is, in fact, a revolt against the whole universal Nature!' Sri Aurobindo had proclaimed fifty years earlier. She listened to our grievances, we went away and we returned. We wanted no more of it and we wanted still more. It was infernal and sublime, impossible and the sole possibility in this old, asphyxiating world. It was the only place one could go to in this barbedwired, mechanized world, where Cincinnati is just as crowded and polluted as Hong Kong. The new species is the last free place in the general Prison. It is the last hope for the earth. How we listened to her little faltering voice that seemed to return from afar, afar, after having crossed spaces and seas of the mind to let its little drops of pure, crystalline words fall upon us, words that make you see. We listened to the future, we touched the other thing. It was incomprehensible and yet filled with another comprehension. It eluded us on all sides, and yet it was dazzlingly obvious. The 'other species' was really radically other, and yet it was vibrating within, absolutely recognizable, as if it were THAT we had been seeking from age to age, THAT we had been invoking through all our illuminations, one after another, in Thebes as in Eleusis as everywhere we have toiled and grieved in the skin of a man. It was for THAT we were here, for that supreme Possible in the skin of a man at last. And then her voice grew more and more frail, her breath began gasping as though She had to traverse greater and greater distances to meet us. She was so alone to beat against the walls of the old prison. Many claws were out all around. Oh, we would so quickly have cut ourself free from all this fiasco to fly away with Her into the world's future. She was so tiny, stooped over, as if crushed beneath the 'spiritual' burden that all the old surrounding species kept heaping upon her. They didn't believe, no. For them, She was ninety-five years old + so many days. Can someone become a new species all alone? They even grumbled at Her: they had had enough of this unbearable Ray that was bringing their sordid affairs into the daylight. The Ashram was slowly closing over Her. The old world wanted to make a new, golden little Church, nice and quiet. No, no one wanted TO
BECOME. To worship was so much easier. And then they bury you, solemnly, and the matter is settled - the case is closed: now, no one need bother any more except to print some photographic haloes for the pilgrims to this brisk little business. But they are mistaken. The real business will take place without them, the new species will fly up in their faces - it is already flying in the face of the earth, despite all its isms in black and white; it is exploding through all the pores of this battered old earth, which has had enough of shams - whether illusory little heavens or barbarous little machines.
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The mystic's knowledge and experience is not only true and real: it is delightful and blissful. It has a supremely healing virtue. It brings a sovereign freedom and ease and peace to the mystic himself, but also to those around him, who come in contact with him. For truth and reality are made up of love and harmony, because truth is, in its essence, unity.
Sharp as a razor's edge, difficult of going, hard to traverse is that path!"
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
*He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.
You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, *I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to brea the the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
00.02 - Mystic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 comm unicable 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
The duty of life consists, it is said, in the repaying of three debts which every man contracts as soon as he takes birth upon earth the debt to the Gods, to Men and to the Ancestors. This threefold debt or duty has, in other terms, reference to the three fields or domains wherein an embodied being lives and moves and to which he must adjust and react rightly -if he is to secure for his life an integral fulfilment. These are the family, society and the world and beyond-world. The Gods are the Powers that rule the world and beyond, they are the forms and forces of the One Spirit underlying the universe, the varied expressions of divine Truth and Reality: To worship the Gods, to do one's duty by them, means to come into contact and to be unitedin being, consciousness and activitywith the universal and spiritual existence, which is the supreme end and purpose of human life. The seconda more circumscribed fieldis the society to which one belongs, the particular group of humanity in which he functions as a limb. The service to society or good citizenship entails the worship of humanity, of Man as a god. Lastly, man belongs to the family, which is the unit of society; and the backbone of the family is the continuous line of ancestors, who are its presiding deity and represent the norm of a living dharma, the ethic of an ideal life.
From the psychological standpoint, the four oblations are movements or reactions of consciousness in its urge towards the utterance and expression of Divine Truth. Like some other elements in the cosmic play, these also form a quartetcaturvyha and work together for a common purpose in view of a perfect and all-round result.
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With this sacrifice nourish the Gods, that the Gods may nourish you; thus mutually nourishing ye shall obtain the highest felicity3 is the very secret of the cosmic play, the basis of the spiritual evolution in the universal existence.
The Gods are the formations or particularisations of the Truth-consciousness, the multiple individualisations of the One spirit. The Pitris are the Divine Fathers, that is to say, souls that once laboured and realised here below, and now have passed beyond. They dwell in another world, not too far removed from the earth, and from there, with the force of their Realisation, lend a more concrete help and guidance to the destiny that is being worked out upon earth. They are forces and formations of consciousness in an intermediate region between Here and There (antarika), and serve to bring men and gods nearer to each other, inasmuch as they belong to both the categories, being a divinised humanity or a humanised divinity. Each fixation of the Truth-consciousness in an earthly mould is a thing of joy to the Pitris; it is the Svadh or food by which they live and grow, for it is the consolidation and also the resultant of their own realisation. The achievements of the sons are more easily and securely reared and grounded upon those of the forefa thers, whose formative powers we have to invoke, so that we may pass on to the realisation, the firm embodiment of higher and greater destinies.
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The Science of the Five Agnis (Fires), as propounded by Pravahan, explains and illustrates the process of the birth of the body, the passage of the soul into earth existence. It describes the advent of the child, the building of the physical form of the human being. The process is conceived of as a sacrifice, the usual symbol with the Vedic Rishis for the expression of their vision and perception of universal processes of Nature, physical and psychological. Here, the child IS said to be the final fruit of the sacrifice, the different stages in the process being: (i) Soma, (ii) Rain, (iii) Food, (iv) Semen, (v) Child. Soma means Rasaphysically the principle of water, psychologically the 'principle of delightand symbolises and constitutes the very soul and substance of life. Now it is said that these five principles the fundamental and constituent elementsare born out of the sacrifice, through the oblation or offering to the five Agnis. The first Agni is Heaven or the Sky-God, and by offering to it one's faith and one's ardent desire, one calls into manifestation Soma or Rasa or Water, the basic principle of life. This water is next offered to the second Agni, the Rain-God, who sends down Rain. Rain, again, is offered to the third Agni, the Earth, who brings forth Food. Food is, in its turn, offered to the fourth Agni, the Father or Male, who elaborates in himself the generating fluid.
Finally, this fluid is offered to the fifth Agni, the Mother or the Female, who delivers the Child.
The biological process, described in what may seem to be crude and mediaeval terms, really reflects or echoes a more subtle and psychological process. The images used form perhaps part of the current popular notion about the matter, but the esoteric sense goes beyond the outer symbols. The sky seems to be the far and tenuous region where the soul rests and awaits its next birthit is the region of Soma, the own Home of Bliss and Immortality. Now when the time or call comes, the soul stirs and journeys down that is the Rain. Next, it enters the earth atmosphere and clothes itself with the earth consciousness. Then it waits and calls for the formation of the material body, first by the contri bution of the father and then by that of the mother; when these two unite and the material body is formed, the soul incarnates.
Apart from the question whether the biological phenomenon described is really a symbol and a cloak for another order of reality, and even taking it at its face value, what is to be noted here is the idea of a cosmic cycle, and a cosmic cycle that proceeds through the principle of sacrifice. If it is asked what there is wonderful or particularly spiritual in this rather naf description of a very commonplace happening that gives it an honoured place in the Upanishads, the answer is that it is wonderful to see how the Upanishadic Rishi takes from an event its local, temporal and personal colour and incorporates it in a global movement, a cosmic cycle, as a limb of the universal Brahman. The Upanishads contain passages which a puritanical mentality may perhaps describe as 'pornographic'; these have in fact been put by some on the Index expurgatorius. But the ancients saw these matters with other eyes and through another consciousness.
We have, in modern times, a movement towards a more conscious and courageous, knowledge of things that were taboo to puritan ages. Not to shut one's eyes to the lower, darker and hidden strands of our nature, but to bring them out into the light of day and to face them is the best way of dealing with such elements, which otherwise, if they are repressed, exert an unhealthy influence on the mind and nature. The Upanishadic view runs on the same lines, but, with the unveiling and the natural and not merely naturalisticdelineation of these under-worlds (concerning sex and food), it endows them with a perspective sub specie aeternitatis. The sexual function, for example, is easily equated to the double movement of ascent and descent that is secreted in nature, or to the combined action of Purusha and Prakriti in the cosmic Play, or again to the hidden fount of Delight that holds and moves the universe. In this view there is nothing merely secular and profane, but all is woven into the cosmic spiritual whole; and man is taught to consider and to mould all his movementsof soul and mind and bodyin the light and rhythm of that integral Reality.11
The central secret of the transfigured consciousness lies, as we have already indicated, in the mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, fundamental, universal Law that upholds and explains the cosmic movement, conformity to which brings to the thrice-bound human being release and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or processes: (i) The offering or self giving of the lower reality to the higher, and, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the descent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the higher means the lower sublimated and integrated into the higher; and the descent of the higher into the lower means the incarnation of the former and the fulfilment of the latter. The Gita elaborates the same idea when it says that by Sacrifice men increase the gods and the gods increase men and by so increasing each other they attain the supreme Good. Nothing is, nothing is done, for its own sake, for an egocentric satisfaction; all, even movements relating to food and to sex should be dedicated to the Cosmic BeingVisva Purusha and that alone received which comes from Him.
VII. The Cosmic and the Transcendental
The Supreme Reality which is always called Brahman in the Upanishads, has to be known and experienced in two ways; for it has two fundamental aspects or modes of being. The Brahman is universal and it is transcendental. The Truth, satyam, the Upanishad says in its symbolic etymology, is 'This' (or, He) and 'That' (syat+tyat i.e. sat+tat). 'This' means the universal Brahman: it is what is referred to when the Upanishad says:
Ivsyamidam sarvam: All this is for habitation by the Lord;
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TheChhandyogya12 gives a whole typal scheme of this universal reality and explains how to realise it and what are the results of the experience. The universal Brahman means the cosmic movement, the cyclic march of things and events taken in its global aspect. The typical movement that symbolises and epitomises the phenomenon, embodies the truth, is that of the sun. The movement consists of five stages which are called the fivefold sma Sma means the equal Brahman that is ever present in all, the Upanishad itself says deriving the word from sama It is Sma also because it is a rhythmic movement, a cadencea music of the spheres. And a rhythmic movement, in virtue of its being a wave, consists of these five stages: (i) the start, (ii) the rise, (iii) the peak, (iv) the decline and (v) the fall. Now the sun follows this curve and marks out the familiar divisions of the day: dawn, forenoon, noon, afternoon and sunset. Sometimes two other stages are added, one at each end, one of preparation and another of final lapse the twilights with regard to the sun and then ,we have seven instead of five smas Like the Sun, the Fire that is to say, the sacrificial Firecan also be seen in its fivefold cyclic movement: (i) the lighting, (ii) the smoke, (iii) the flame, (iv) smouldering and finally (v) extinction the fuel as it is rubbed to produce the fire and the ashes may be added as the two supernumerary stages. Or again, we may take the cycle of five seasons or of the five worlds or of the deities that control these worlds. The living wealth of this earth is also symbolised in a quintetgoat and sheep and cattle and horse and finally man. Coming to the microcosm, we have in man the cycle of his five senses, basis of all knowledge and activity. For the macrocosm, to I bring out its vast extra-human complexity, the Upanishad refers to a quintet, each term of which is again a trinity: (i) the threefold Veda, the Divine Word that is the origin of creation, (ii) the three worlds or fieldsearth, air-belt or atmosphere and space, (iii) the three principles or deities ruling respectively these worldsFire, Air and Sun, (iv) their expressions, emanations or embodimentsstars and birds and light-rays, and finally, (v) the original inhabitants of these worldsto earth belong the reptiles, to the mid-region the Gandharvas and to heaven the ancient Fathers.
Now, this is the All, the universal. One has to realise it and possess in one's consciousness. And that can be done only in one way: one has to identify oneself with it, be one with it, become it. Thus by losing one's individuality one lives the life universal; the small lean separate life is enlarged and moulded in the rhythm of the Rich and the Vast. It is thus that man shares in the consciousness and energy that inspire and move and sustain the cosmos. The Upanishad most emphatically enjoins that one must not decry this cosmic godhead or deny any of its elements, not even such as are a taboo to the puritan mind. It is in and through an unimpaired global consciousness that one attains the All-Life and lives uninterruptedly and perennially: Sarvamanveti jyok jvati.
Still the Upanishad says this is not the final end. There is yet a higher status of reality and consciousness to which one has to rise. For beyond the Cosmos lies the Transcendent. The Upanishad expresses this truth and experience in various symbols. The cosmic reality, we have seen, is often conceived as a septenary, a unity of seven elements, principles and worlds. Further to give it its full complex value, it is considered not as a simple septet, but a threefold heptad the whole gamut, as it were, consisting of 21 notes or syllables. The Upanishad says, this number does not exhaust the entire range; I for there is yet a 22nd place. This is the world beyond the Sun, griefless and deathless, the supreme Selfhood. The Veda I also sometimes speaks of the integral reality as being represented by the number 100 which is 99 + I; in other words, 99 represents the cosmic or universal, the unity being the reality beyond, the Transcendent.
Elsewhere the Upanishad describes more graphically this truth and the experience of it. It is said there that the sun has fivewe note the familiar fivemovements of rising and setting: (i) from East to West, (ii) from South to North, (iii) from West to East, (iv) from North to South and (v) from abovefrom the Zenithdownward. These are the five normal and apparent movements. But there is a sixth one; rather it is not a movement, but a status, where the sun neither rises nor sets, but is always visible fixed in the same position.
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Now this is what is sought to be conveyed and expressed. The five movements of the sun here also are nothing but the five smas and they refer to the cycle of the Cosmic or universal Brahman. The sixth status where all movements cease, where there is no rising and setting, no ebb and flow, no waxing and waning, where there is the immutable, the ever-same unity, is very evidently the Transcendental Brahman. It is That to which the Vedic Rishi refers when he prays for a constant and fixed vision of the eternal Sunjyok ca sryam drie.
It would be interesting to know what the five ranges or levels or movements of consciousness exactly are that make up the universal Brahman described in this passage. It is the mystic knowledge, the Upanishad says, of the secret delight in thingsmadhuvidy. The five ranges are the five fundamental principles of delightimmortalities, the Veda would say that form the inner core of the pyramid of creation. They form a rising tier and are ruled respectively by the godsAgni, Indra, Varuna, Soma and Brahmawith their emanations and instrumental personalities the Vasus, the Rudras, the Adityas, the Maruts and the Sadhyas. We suggest that these refer to the five well-known levels of being, the modes or nodi of consciousness or something very much like them. The Upanishad speaks elsewhere of the five sheaths. The six Chakras of Tantric system lie in the same line. The first and the basic mode is the physical and the ascent from the physical: Agni and the Vasus are always intimately connected with the earth and -the earth-principles (it can be compared with the Muladhara of the Tantras). Next, second in the line of ascent is the Vital, the centre of power and dynamism of which the Rudras are the deities and Indra the presiding God (cf. Swadhishthana of the Tantras the navel centre). Indra, in the Vedas, has two aspects, one of knowledge and vision and the other of dynamic force and drive. In the first aspect he is more often considered as the Lord of the Mind, of the Luminous Mind. In the present passage, Indra is taken in his second aspect and instead of the Maruts with whom he is usually invoked has the Rudras as his agents and associates.
The third in the line of ascension is the region of Varuna and the Adityas, that is to say, of the large Mind and its lightsperhaps it can be connected with Tantric Ajnachakra. The fourth is the domain of Soma and the Marutsthis seems to be the inner heart, the fount of delight and keen and sweeping aspirations the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth is the region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and the Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the descending inflatus, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you go beyond, you pass into the ultimate status of the Sun, the reality absolute, the Transcendent which is indescribable, unseizable, indeterminate, indeterminable, incommensurable; and once there, one never returns, neverna ca punarvartate na ca punarvartate.
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"How many Gods are there?" Yajnavalkya was once asked.13 The Rishi answered, they say there are three thousand and three of them, or three hundred and three, or again, thirty-three; it may be said too there are six or three or two or one and a half or one finally. Indeed as the Upanishad says elsewhere, it is the One unique who wished to be many: and all the gods are the various glories (mahim) or emanations of the One Divine. The ancient of ancient Rishis had declared long long ago, in the earliest Veda, that there is one indivisible Reality, the seers name it in various ways.
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.
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Nachiketas is the young aspiring human being still in the Ignorancenaciketa, meaning one without consciousness or knowledge. The three boons he asks for are in reference to the three fundamental modes of being and consciousness that are at the very basis, forming, as it were, the ground-plan of the integral reality. They are (i) the individual, (ii) the universal or cosmic and (iii) the transcendental.
The first boon regards the individual, that is to say, the individual identity and integrity. It asks for the maintenance of that individuality so that it may be saved from the dissolution that Death brings about. Death, of course, means the dissolution of the body, but it represents also dissolution pure and simple. Indeed death is a process which does not stop with the physical phenomenon, but continues even after; for with the body gone, the other elements of the individual organism, the vital and the mental too gradually fall off, fade and dissolve. Nachiketas wishes to secure from Death the safety and preservation of the earthly personality, the particular organisation of mind and vital based upon a recognisable physical frame. That is the first necessity for the aspiring mortalfor, it is said, the body is the first instrument for the working out of one's life ideal. But man's true personality, the real individuality lies beyond, beyond the body, beyond the life, beyond the mind, beyond the triple region that Death lords it over. That is the divine world, the Heaven of the immortals, beyond death and beyond sorrow and grief. It is the hearth secreted in the inner heart where burns the Divine Fire, the God of Life Everlasting. And this is the nodus that binds together the threefold status of the manifested existence, the body, the life and the mind. This triplicity is the structure of name and form built out of the bricks of experience, the kiln, as it were, within which burns the Divine Agni, man's true soul. This soul can be reached only when one exceeds the bounds and limitations of the triple cord and experiences one's comm union and identity with all souls and all existence. Agni is the secret divinity within, within the individual and within the world; he is the Immanent Divine, the cosmic godhead that holds together and marshals all the elements and components, all the principles that make up the manifest universe. He it is that has entered into the world and created facets of his own reality in multiple forms: and it is he that lies secret in the human being as the immortal soul through all its adventure of life and death in the series of incarnations in terrestrial evolution. The adoration and realisation of this Immanent Divinity, the worship of Agni taught by Yama in the second boon, consists in the triple sacrifice, the triple work, the triple union in the triple status of the physical, the vital and the mental consciousness, the mastery of which leads one to the other shore, the abode of perennial existence where the human soul enjoys its eternity and unending continuity in cosmic life. Therefore, Agni, the master of the psychic being, is called jtaveds, he who knows the births, all the transmigrations from life to life.
The third boon is the secret of secrets, for it is the knowledge and realisation of Transcendence that is sought here. Beyond the individual lies the universal; is there anything beyond the universal? The release of the individual into the cosmic existence gives him the griefless life eternal: can the cosmos be rolled up and flung into something beyond? What would be the nature of that thing? What is there outside creation, outside manifestation, outside Maya, to use a latter day term? Is there existence or non-existence (utter dissolution or extinctionDeath in his supreme and absolute status)? King Yama did not choose to answer immediately and even endeavoured to dissuade Nachiketas from pursuing the question over which people were confounded, as he said. Evidently it was a much discussed problem in those days. Buddha was asked the same question and he evaded it, saying that the pragmatic man should attend to practical and immediate realities and not, waste time and energy in discussing things ultimate and beyond that have hardly any relation to the present and the actual.
But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord of creation and the Inner Mastersarvabhtntartm, antarymis called brahmajam, born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the human consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the Pleasurable (reya and preya). The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness in the heart of all that is unstable and fleetingone has to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Art at its highest tends to become also the simplest and the most unconventional; and it is then the highest art, precisely because it does not aim at being artistic. The aesthetic motive is totally absent in the Upanishads; the sense of beauty is there, but it is attendant upon and involved in a deeper strand of consciousness. That consciousness seeks consciousness itself, the fullness of consciousness, the awareness and possession of the Truth and Reality,the one thing which, if known, gives the knowledge of all else. And this consciousness of the Truth is also Delight, the perfect Bliss, the Immortality where the whole universe resolves itself into its original state of rasa, that is to say, of essential and inalienable harmony and beauty.
***
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Poet creates forms of beauty in Heaven; but these forms are not made out of the void. It is the Earth that is raised to Heaven and transmuted into divine truth forms. The union of Earth and Heaven is the source of the Joy, the Ananda, that the Poet unseals and distributes. Heaven and Earth join and meet in the world of Delight; between them they press out Soma, the drink of the gods.
The Mind and the Body are held together by means of the Life, the mid-world. The Divine Mind by raising the body-consciousness into itself gathers up too, by that act, the delight of life and releases the fountain of immortal Bliss. That is the work and achievement of the gods as poets.
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On this Earth they hold everywhere in themselves all the secrets. They make Earth and Heaven move together, so that they may realise their heroic strength. They measure them with their rhythmic measurings, they hold in their controlled grasp the vast and great twins, and unite them and establish between them the mid-world of Delight for the perfect poise.30
All the gods are poetstheir forms are perfect, surpa, suda, their Names full of beauty,cru devasya nma.31 This means also that the gods embody the different powers that constitute the poetic consciousness. Agni is the Seer-Will, the creative vision of the Poet the luminous energy born of an experience by identity with the Truth. Indra is the Idea-Form, the architectonic conception of the work or achievement. Mitra and Varuna are the large harmony, the vast cadence and sweep of movement. The Aswins, the Divine Riders, represent the intense zest of well-yoked Life-Energy. Soma is Rasa, Ananda, the Supreme Bliss and Delight.
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The Qabalah is a trustworthy guide, leading to a comprehension both of the universe and one's own Self. Sages have long taught that Man is a miniature of the universe, containing within himself the diverse elements of that macrocosm of which he is the microcosm. Within the Qabalah is a glyph called the Tree of Life which is at once a symbolic map of the universe in its major aspects, and also of its smaller counterpart, Man.
Manly P. Hall, in The Secret Teachings of All Ages, deplores the failure of modern science to "sense the profundity of these philosophical deductions of the ancients." Were they to do so, he says, they "would realize those who fabricated the structure of the Qabalah possessed a knowledge of the celestial plan comparable in every respect with that of the modern savant."
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When planning to visit a foreign country, the wise traveler will first familiarize himself with its language. In studying music, chemistry or calculus, a specific terminology is essential to the understanding of each subject. So a new set of symbols is necessary when undertaking a study of the universe, whether within or without. The Qabalah provides such a set in unexcelled fashion.
But the Qabalah is more. It also lays the foundation on which rests another archaic science- Magic. Not to be confused with the conjurer's sleight-of-hand, Magic has been defined by Aleister Crowley as "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will." Dion Fortune qualifies this nicely with an added clause, "changes in consciousness."
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Much knowledge obtained by the ancients through the use of the Qabalah has been supported by discoveries of modern scientists- anthropologists, astronomers, psychiatrists, et al. Learned Qabalists for hundreds of years have been aware of what the psychiatrist has only discovered in the last few decades-that man's concept of himself, his deities and the universe is a constantly evolving process, changing as man himself evolves on a higher spiral. But the roots of his concepts are buried in a race-consciousness that antedated Neanderthal man by uncounted aeons of time.
What Jung calls archetypal images constantly rise to the surface of man's awareness from the vast unconscious that is the common heritage of all mankind.
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In his profound investigation into the origins and basic nature of man, Robert Ardrey in African Genesis recently made a shocking statement. Although man has begun the conquest of outer space, the ignorance of his own nature, says Ardrey, "has become institutionalized, universalized and sanctified." He further states that were a brotherhood of man to be formed today, "its only possible common bond would be ignorance of what man is."
Such a condition is both deplorable and appalling when the means are readily available for man to acquire a thorough understanding of himself-and in so doing, an understanding of his neighbor and the world in which he lives as well as the greater universe of which each is a part.
May everyone who reads this new edition of A Garden of Pomegranates be encouraged and inspired to light his own candle of inner vision and begin his journey into the boundless space that lies within himself. Then, through realization of his true identity, each student can become a lamp unto his own path. And more. Awareness of the Truth of his being will rip asunder the veil of unknowing that has heretofore enshrouded the star he already is, permitting the brilliance of his light to illumine the darkness of that part of the universe in which he abides.
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
object:000 - Humans in universe
author class:R Buckminster Fuller
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interacting to produce stable patterns. A structural system divides universe into all
universe outside the structural system (macrocosm) and all universe inside the
structural system (microcosm). Newton's discovery of mass interattraction showed
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that science has ever found out is that the universe consists of the most reliable
technology. They think of technology as something new; they regard it as
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prime reason for humanity's failure to exercise its option to attain universally
sustainable physical success on this planet. The prime barrier to humanity's
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dimensions are the four planes of symmetry of the minimum structure of universe-
the omnitriangulated, equi-vector-edge tetrahedron. In respect to the conceptual pre-
time-size tetrahedron's volume taken as unity 1, with its six unit-vector-edge
structure, the always conceptual-independent-of-size family of primitive, pre-time-
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rhombic dodecahedron 6. When the size information is introduced, it occurs only asfrequency of modular subdivision of each unit vector structuring of the primitive
family's respective 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-tetravolumes. Frequency to the third
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since each system is inherently independent in universe and therefore has
spinnability, one more dimensional factor is required, making a total of eight
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favorably comprehend and to exercise its option to attain universal physical
success, thereby eliminating forevermore all world politics and competition for the
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separately. The eternally regenerative universe is synergetic. Humans have been
included in this cosmic design as local universe information-gatherers and local
problem-solvers in support of the integrity of the eternal, 100-percent-efficient, self-
regenerative system of universe. In support of their cosmic functioning humans
were given their minds with which to discover and employ the generalized laws
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intertransformings of universe.
000.130 At present 99 percent of humanity is misinformed in believing in the
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continuing the false premise of universal inadequacy of life support. If mind comes
into supreme power within a decade, humanity will exercise its option of a design
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necessary for universal comprehension and individual use of nature's synergetic
geometrical intertransformings.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Gadadhar was now permitted to worship Raghuvir. Thus began his first training in meditation. He so gave his heart and soul to the worship that the stone image very soon appeared to him as the living Lord of the universe. His tendency to lose himself in contemplation was first noticed at this time. Behind his boyish light-heartedness was seen a deepening of his spiritual nature.
About this time, on the Sivaratri night, consecrated to the worship of Siva, a dramatic performance was arranged. The principal actor, who was to play the part of Siva, suddenly fell ill, and Gadadhar was persuaded to act in his place. While friends were dressing him for the role of Siva — smearing his body with ashes, matting his locks, placing a trident in his hand and a string of rudraksha beads around his neck — the boy appeared to become absent-minded. He approached the stage with slow and measured step, supported by his friends. He looked the living image of Siva. The audience loudly applauded what it took to be his skill as an actor, but it was soon discovered that he was really lost in meditation. His countenance was radiant and tears flowed from his eyes. He was lost to the outer world. The effect of this scene on the audience was tremendous. The people felt blessed as by a vision of Siva Himself. The performance had to be stopped, and the boy's mood lasted till the following morning.
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Ramkumar could hardly understand the import of his young brother's reply. He described in bright colours the happy and easy life of scholars in Calcutta society. But Gadadhar intuitively felt that the scholars, to use one of his own vivid illustrations, were like so many vultures, soaring high on the wings of their uninspired intellect, with their eyes fixed on the charnel-pit of greed and lust. So he stood firm and Ramkumar had to give way.
--- KALI TEMPLE AT DAKSHINESWAR
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The temple of Radhakanta, also known as the temple of Vishnu, contains the images of Radha and Krishna, the symbol of union with God through ecstatic love. The two images stand on a pedestal facing the west. The floor is paved with marble. From the ceiling of the porch hang chandeliers protected from dust by coverings of red cloth. Canvas screens shield the images from the rays of the setting sun. Close to the threshold of the inner shrine is a small brass cup containing holy water. Devoted visitors reverently drink a few drops from the vessel.
--- KALI
The main temple is dedicated to Kali, the Divine Mother, here worshipped as Bhavatarini, the Saviour of the universe. The floor of this temple also is paved with marble. The basalt image of the Mother, dressed in gorgeous gold brocade, stands on a white marble image of the prostrate body of Her Divine Consort, Siva, the symbol of the Absolute. On the feet of the Goddess are, among other ornaments, anklets of gold. Her arms are decked with jewelled ornaments of gold. She wears necklaces of gold and pearls, a golden garland of human heads, and a girdle of human arms. She wears a golden crown, golden ear-rings, and a golden nose-ring with a pearl-drop. She has four arms. The lower left hand holds a severed human head and the upper grips a blood-stained sabre. One right hand offers boons to Her children; the other allays their fear. The majesty of Her posture can hardly be described. It combines the terror of destruction with the reassurance of motherly tenderness. For She is the Cosmic Power, the totality of the universe, a glorious harmony of the pairs of opposites. She deals out death, as She creates and preserves. She has three eyes, the third being the symbol of Divine Wisdom; they strike dismay into the wicked, yet pour out affection for Her devotees.
The whole symbolic world is represented in the temple garden — the Trinity of the Nature Mother (Kali), the Absolute (Siva), and Love (Radhakanta), the Arch spanning heaven and earth. The terrific Goddess of the Tantra, the soul-enthralling Flute-Player of the Bhagavata, and the Self-absorbed Absolute of the Vedas live together, creating the greatest synthesis of religions. All aspects of Reality are represented there. But of this divine household, Kali is the pivot, the sovereign Mistress. She is Prakriti, the Procreatrix, Nature, the Destroyer, the Creator. Nay, She is something greater and deeper still for those who have eyes to see. She is the universal Mother, "my Mother" as Ramakrishna would say, the All-powerful, who reveals Herself to Her children under different aspects and Divine Incarnations, the Visible God, who leads the elect to the Invisible Reality; and if it so pleases Her, She takes away the last trace of ego from created beings and merges it in the consciousness of the Absolute, the undifferentiated God. Through Her grace "the finite ego loses itself in the illimitable Ego — Atman — Brahman". (Romain Holland, Prophets of the New India, p. 11.)
Rani Rasmani spent a fortune for the construction of the temple garden and another fortune for its dedication ceremony, which took place on May 31, 1855.
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Born in an orthodox brahmin family, Sri Ramakrishna knew the formalities of worship, its rites and rituals. The innumerable gods and goddesses of the Hindu religion are the human aspects of the indescribable and incomprehensible Spirit, as conceived by the finite human mind. They understand and appreciate human love and emotion, help men to realize their secular and spiritual ideals, and ultimately enable men to attain liberation from the miseries of phenomenal life. The Source of light, intelligence, wisdom, and strength is the One alone from whom comes the fulfilment of desire. Yet, as long as a man is bound by his human limitations, he cannot but worship God through human forms. He must use human symbols. Therefore Hinduism asks the devotees to look on God as the ideal father, the ideal mother, the ideal husband, the ideal son, or the ideal friend. But the name ultimately leads to the Nameless, the form to the Formless, the word to the Silence, the emotion to the serene realization of Peace in Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. The gods gradually merge in the one God. But until that realization is achieved, the devotee cannot dissociate human factors from his worship. Therefore the Deity is bathed and clothed and decked with ornaments. He is fed and put to sleep. He is propitiated with hymns, songs, and prayers. And there are appropriate rites connected with all these functions. For instance, to secure for himself external purity, the priest bathes himself in holy water and puts on a holy cloth. He purifies the mind and the sense-organs by appropriate meditations. He fortifies the place of worship against evil forces by drawing around it circles of fire and water. He awakens the different spiritual centres of the body and invokes the Supreme Spirit in his heart. Then he transfers the Supreme Spirit to the image before him and worships the image, regarding it no longer as clay or stone, but as the embodiment of Spirit, throbbing with Life and Consciousness. After the worship the Supreme Spirit is recalled from the image to Its true sanctuary, the heart of the priest. The real devotee knows the absurdity of worshipping the Transcendental Reality with material articles — clothing That which pervades the whole universe and the beyond, putting on a pedestal That which cannot be limited by space, feeding That which is disembodied and incorporeal, singing before That whose glory the music of the spheres tries vainly to proclaim. But through these rites the devotee aspires to go ultimately beyond rites and rituals, forms and names, words and praise, and to realize God as the All-pervading Consciousness.
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.
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The worship in the temple intensified Sri Ramakrishna's yearning for a living vision of the Mother of the universe. He began to spend in meditation the time not actually employed in the temple service; and for this purpose he selected an extremely solitary place. A deep jungle, thick with underbrush and prickly plants, lay to the north of the temples. Used at one time as a burial ground, it was shunned by people even during the day-time for fear of ghosts. There Sri Ramakrishna began to spend the whole night in meditation, returning to his room only in the morning with eyes swollen as though from much weeping. While meditating, he would lay aside his cloth and his brahminical thread. Explaining this strange conduct, he once said to Hriday: "Don't you know that when one thinks of God one should be freed from all ties? From our very birth we have the eight fetters of hatred, shame, lineage, pride of good conduct, fear, secretiveness, caste, and grief. The sacred thread reminds me that I am a brahmin and therefore superior to all. When calling on the Mother one has to set aside all such ideas." Hriday thought his uncle was becoming insane.
As his love for God deepened, he began either to forget or to drop the formalities of worship. Sitting before the image, he would spend hours singing the devotional songs of great devotees of the Mother, such as Kamalakanta and Ramprasad. Those rhapsodical songs, describing the direct vision of God, only intensified Sri Ramakrishna's longing. He felt the pangs of a child separated from its mother. Sometimes, in agony, he would rub his face against the ground and weep so bitterly that people, thinking he had lost his earthly mother, would sympathize with him in his grief. Sometimes, in moments of scepticism, he would cry: "Art Thou true, Mother, or is it all fiction — mere poetry without any reality? If Thou dost exist, why do I not see Thee? Is religion a mere fantasy and art Thou only a figment of man's imagination?" Sometimes he would sit on the prayer carpet for two hours like an inert object. He began to behave in an abnormal manner
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Yet this was only a foretaste of the intense experiences to come. The first glimpse of the Divine Mother made him the more eager for Her uninterrupted vision. He wanted to see Her both in meditation and with eyes open. But the Mother began to play a teasing game of hide-and-seek with him, intensifying both his joy and his suffering. Weeping bitterly during the moments of separation from Her, he would pass into a trance and then find Her standing before him, smiling, talking, consoling, bidding him be of good cheer, and instructing him. During this period of spiritual practice he had many uncommon experiences. When he sat to meditate, he would hear strange clicking sounds in the joints of his legs, as if someone were locking them up, one after the other, to keep him motionless; and at the conclusion of his meditation he would again hear the same sounds, this time unlocking them and leaving him free to move about. He would see flashes like a swarm of fire-flies floating before his eyes, or a sea of deep mist around him, with luminous waves of molten silver. Again, from a sea of translucent mist he would behold the Mother rising, first Her feet, then Her waist, body, face, and head, finally Her whole person; he would feel Her breath and hear Her voice. Worshipping in the temple, sometimes he would become exalted, sometimes he would remain motionless as stone, sometimes he would almost collapse from excessive emotion. Many of his actions, contrary to all tradition, seemed sacrilegious to the people. He would take a flower and touch it to his own head, body, and feet, and then offer it to the Goddess. Or, like a drunkard, he would reel to the throne of the Mother, touch Her chin by way of showing his affection for Her, and sing, talk, joke, laugh, and dance. Or he would take a morsel of food from the plate and hold it to Her mouth, begging Her to eat it, and would not be satisfied till he was convinced that She had really eaten. After the Mother had been put to sleep at night, from his own room he would hear Her ascending to the upper storey of the temple with the light steps of a happy girl, Her anklets jingling. Then he would discover Her standing with flowing hair. Her black form silhouetted against the sky of the night, looking at the Ganges or at the distant lights of Calcutta.
Naturally the temple officials took him for an insane person. His worldly well-wishers brought him to skilled physicians; but no-medicine could cure his malady. Many a time he doubted his sanity himself. For he had been sailing across an uncharted sea, with no earthly guide to direct him. His only haven of security was the Divine Mother Herself. To Her he would pray: "I do not know what these things are. I am ignorant of mantras and the scriptures. Teach me, Mother, how to realize Thee. Who else can help me? Art Thou not my only refuge and guide?" And the sustaining presence of the Mother never failed him in his distress or doubt. Even those who criticized his conduct were greatly impressed with his purity, guilelessness, truthfulness, integrity, and holiness. They felt an uplifting influence in his presence.
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Mathur and Rani Rasmani began to ascribe the mental ailment of Sri Ramakrishna in part, at least, to his observance of rigid continence. Thinking that a natural life would relax the tension of his nerves, they engineered a plan with two women of ill fame. But as soon as the women entered his room, Sri Ramakrishna beheld in them the manifestation of the Divine Mother of the universe and went into samadhi uttering Her name.
--- HALADHARI
In 1858 there came to Dakshineswar a cousin of Sri Ramakrishna, Haladhari by name, who was to remain there about eight years. On account of Sri Ramakrishna's indifferent health, Mathur appointed this man to the office of priest in the Kali temple. He was a complex character, versed in the letter of the scriptures, but hardly aware of their spirit. He loved to participate in hair-splitting theological discussions and, by the measure of his own erudition, he proceeded to gauge Sri Ramakrishna. An orthodox brahmin, he thoroughly disapproved of his cousin's unorthodox actions, but he was not unimpressed by Sri Ramakrishna's purity of life, ecstatic love of God, and yearning for realization.
One day Haladhari upset Sri Ramakrishna with the statement that God is incomprehensible to the human mind. Sri Ramakrishna has described the great moment of doubt when he wondered whether his visions had really misled him: "With sobs I prayed to the Mother, 'Canst Thou have the heart to deceive me like this because I am a fool?' A stream of tears flowed from my eyes. Shortly afterwards I saw a volume of mist rising from the floor and filling the space before me. In the midst of it there appeared a face with flowing beard, calm, highly expressive, and fair. Fixing its gaze steadily upon me, it said solemnly, 'Remain in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness.' This it repeated three times and then it gently disappeared in the mist, which itself dissolved. This vision reassured me."
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The average man wishes to enjoy the material objects of the world. Tantra bids him enjoy these, but at the same time discover in them the presence of God. Mystical rites are prescribed by which, slowly, the sense-objects become spiritualized and sense attraction is transformed into a love of God. So the very "bonds" of man are turned into "releasers". The very poison that kills is transmuted into the elixir of life. Outward renunciation is not necessary. Thus the aim of Tantra is to sublimate bhoga, or enjoyment into yoga, or union with Consciousness. For, according to this philosophy, the world with all its manifestations is nothing but the sport of Siva and Sakti, the Absolute and Its inscrutable Power.
The disciplines of Tantra are graded to suit aspirants of all degrees. Exercises are prescribed for people with "animal", "heroic", and "divine" outlooks. Certain of the rites require the presence of members of the opposite sex. Here the aspirant learns to look on woman as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Mother of the universe. The very basis of Tantra is the Motherhood of God and the glorification of woman. Every part of a woman's body is to be regarded as incarnate Divinity. But the rites are extremely dangerous. The help of a qualified guru is absolutely necessary. An unwary devotee may lose his foothold and fall into a pit of depravity.
According to the Tantra, Sakti is the active creative force in the universe. Siva, the Absolute, is a more or less passive principle. Further, Sakti is as inseparable from Siva as fire's power to burn is from fire itself. Sakti, the Creative Power, contains in Its womb the universe, and therefore is the Divine Mother. All women are Her symbols. Kali is one of Her several forms. The meditation on Kali, the Creative Power, is the central discipline of the Tantra. While meditating, the aspirant at first regards himself as one with the Absolute and then thinks that out of that Impersonal Consciousness emerge two entities, namely, his own self and the living form of the Goddess. He then projects the Goddess into the tangible image before him and worships it as the Divine Mother.
Sri Ramakrishna set himself to the task of practising the disciplines of Tantra; and at the bidding of the Divine Mother Herself he accepted the Brahmani as his guru. He performed profound and delicate ceremonies in the Panchavati and under the bel-tree at the northern extremity of the temple compound. He practised all the disciplines of the sixty-four principal Tantra books, and it took him never more than three days to achieve the result promised in any one of them. After the observance of a few preliminary rites, he would be overwhelmed with a strange divine fervour and would go into samadhi, where his mind would dwell in exaltation. Evil ceased to exist for him. The word "carnal" lost its meaning. The whole world and everything in it appeared as the lila, the sport, of Siva and Sakti. He beheld held everywhere manifest the power and beauty of the Mother; the whole world, animate and inanimate, appeared to him as pervaded with Chit, Consciousness, and with Ananda, Bliss.
He saw in a vision the Ultimate Cause of the universe as a huge luminous triangle giving birth every moment to an infinite number of worlds. He heard the Anahata Sabda, the great sound Om, of which the innumerable sounds of the universe are only so many echoes. He acquired the eight supernatural powers of yoga, which make a man almost omnipotent, and these he spurned as of no value whatsoever to the Spirit. He had a vision of the divine Maya, the inscrutable Power of God, by which the universe is created and sustained, and into which it is finally absorbed. In this vision he saw a woman of exquisite beauty, about to become a mother, emerging from the Ganges and slowly approaching the Panchavati. Presently she gave birth to a child and began to nurse it tenderly. A moment later she assumed a terrible aspect, seized the child with her grim jaws, and crushed it. Swallowing it, she re-entered the waters of the Ganges.
But the most remarkable experience during this period was the awakening of the Kundalini Sakti, the "Serpent Power". He actually saw the Power, at first lying asleep at the bottom of the spinal column, then waking up and ascending along the mystic Sushumna canal and through its six centres, or lotuses, to the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus in the top of the head. He further saw that as the Kundalini went upward the different lotuses bloomed. And this phenomenon was accompanied by visions and trances. Later on he described to his disciples and devotees the various movements of the Kundalini: the fishlike, birdlike, monkeylike, and so on. The awaken- ing of the Kundalini is the beginning of spiritual consciousness, and its union with Siva in the Sahasrara, ending in samadhi, is the consummation of the Tantrik disciplines.
About this time it was revealed to him that in a short while many devotees would seek his guidance.
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There are three kinds of formal devotion: tamasic, rajasic, and sattvic. If a person, while showing devotion, to God, is actuated by malevolence, arrogance, jealousy, or anger, then his devotion is tamasic, since it is influenced by tamas, the quality of inertia. If he worships God from a desire for fame or wealth, or from any other worldly ambition, then his devotion is rajasic, since it is influenced by rajas, the quality of activity. But if a person loves God without any thought of material gain, if he performs his duties to please God alone and maintains toward all created beings the attitude of friendship, then his devotion is called sattvic, since it is influenced by sattva, the quality of harmony. But the highest devotion transcends the three gunas, or qualities, being a spontaneous, uninterrupted inclination of the mind toward God, the Inner Soul of all beings; and it wells up in the heart of a true devotee as soon as he hears the name of God or mention of God's attributes. A devotee possessed of this love would not accept the happiness of heaven if it were offered him. His one desire is to love God under all conditions — in pleasure and pain, life and death, honour and dishonour, prosperity and adversity.
There are two stages of bhakti. The first is known as vaidhi-bhakti, or love of God qualified by scriptural injunctions. For the devotees of this stage are prescribed regular and methodical worship, hymns, prayers, the repetition of God's name, and the chanting of His glories. This lower bhakti in course of time matures into para-bhakti, or supreme devotion, known also as prema, the most intense form of divine love. Divine love is an end in itself. It exists potentially in all human hearts, but in the case of bound creatures it is misdirected to earthly objects.
To develop the devotee's love for God, Vaishnavism humanizes God. God is to be regarded as the devotee's Parent, Master, Friend, Child, Husband, or Sweetheart, each succeeding relationship representing an intensification of love. These bhavas, or attitudes toward God, are known as santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, and madhur. The rishis of the Vedas, Hanuman, the cow-herd boys of Vrindavan, Rama's mother Kausalya, and Radhika, Krishna's sweetheart, exhibited, respectively, the most perfect examples of these forms. In the ascending scale the-glories of God are gradually forgotten and the devotee realizes more and more the intimacy of divine comm union. Finally he regards himself as the mistress of his Beloved, and no artificial barrier remains to separate him from his Ideal. No social or moral obligation can bind to the earth his soaring spirit. He experiences perfect union with the Godhead. Unlike the Vedantist, who strives to transcend all varieties of the subject-object relationship, a devotee of the Vaishnava path wishes to retain both his own individuality and the personality of God. To him God is not an intangible Absolute, but the Purushottama, the Supreme Person.
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 comm union 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.
Sri Chaitanya, also known as Gauranga, Gora, or Nimai, born in Bengal in 1485 and regarded as an Incarnation of God, is a great prophet of the Vaishnava religion. Chaitanya declared the chanting of God's name to be the most efficacious spiritual discipline for the Kaliyuga.
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One day Jatadhari requested Sri Ramakrishna to keep the image and bade him adieu with tearful eyes. He declared that Ramlala had fulfilled his innermost prayer and that he now had no more need of formal worship. A few days later Sri Ramakrishna was blessed through Ramlala with a vision of Ramachandra, whereby he realized that the Rama of the Ramayana, the son of Dasaratha, pervades the whole universe as Spirit and Consciousness; that He is its Creator, Sustainer, and Destroyer; that, in still another aspect, He is the transcendental Brahman, without form, attribute, or name.
While worshipping Ramlala as the Divine Child, Sri Ramakrishna's heart became filled with motherly tenderness, and he began to regard himself as a woman. His speech and gestures changed. He began to move freely with the ladies of Mathur's family, who now looked upon him as one of their own sex. During this time he worshipped the Divine Mother as Her companion or handmaid.
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Sri Ramakrishna now devoted himself to scaling the most inaccessible and dizzy heights of dualistic worship, namely, the complete union with Sri Krishna as the Beloved of the heart. He regarded himself as one of the gopis of Vrindavan, mad with longing for her divine Sweetheart. At his request Mathur provided him with woman's dress and jewelry. In this love-pursuit, food and drink were forgotten. Day and night he wept bitterly. The yearning turned into a mad frenzy; for the divine Krishna began to play with him the old tricks He had played with the gopis. He would tease and taunt, now and then revealing Himself, but always keeping at a distance. Sri Ramakrishna's anguish brought on a return of the old physical symptoms: the burning sensation, an oozing of blood through the pores, a loosening of the joints, and the stopping of physiological functions.
The Vaishnava scriptures advise one to propitiate Radha and obtain her grace in order to realize Sri Krishna. So the tortured devotee now turned his prayer to her. Within a short time he enjoyed her blessed vision. He saw and felt the figure of Radha disappearing into his own body.
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The love of Radha is the precursor of the resplendent vision of Sri Krishna, and Sri Ramakrishna soon experienced that vision. The enchanting ing form of Krishna appeared to him and merged in his person. He became Krishna; he totally forgot his own individuality and the world; he saw Krishna in himself and in the universe. Thus he attained to the fulfilment of the worship of the Personal God. He drank from the fountain of Immortal Bliss. The agony of his heart vanished forever. He realized Amrita, Immortality, beyond the shadow of death.
One day, listening to a recitation of the Bhagavata on the verandah of the Radhakanta temple, he fell into a divine mood and saw the enchanting form of Krishna. He perceived the luminous rays issuing from Krishna's Lotus Feet in the form of a stout rope, which touched first the Bhagavata and then his own chest, connecting all three — God, the scripture, and the devotee. "After this vision", he used to say, "I came to realize that Bhagavan, Bhakta, and Bhagavata — God, Devotee, and Scripture — are in reality one and the same."
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The Brahmani was the enthusiastic teacher and astonished beholder of Sri Ramakrishna in his spiritual progress. She became proud of the achievements of her unique pupil. But the pupil himself was not permitted to rest; his destiny beckoned him forward. His Divine Mother would allow him no respite till he had left behind the entire realm of duality with its visions, experiences, and ecstatic dreams. But for the new ascent the old tender guides would not suffice. The Brahmani, on whom he had depended for, three years, saw her son escape from her to follow the command of a teacher with masculine strength, a sterner mien, a gnarled physique, and a virile voice. The new guru was a wandering monk, the sturdy Totapuri, whom Sri Ramakrishna learnt to address affectionately as Nangta, the "Naked One", because of his total renunciation of all earthly objects and attachments, including even a piece of wearing cloth.
Totapuri was the bearer of a philosophy new to Sri Ramakrishna, the non-dualistic Vedanta philosophy, whose conclusions Totapuri had experienced in his own life. This ancient Hindu system designates the Ultimate Reality as Brahman, also described as Satchidananda, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Brahman is the only Real Existence. In It there is no time, no space, no causality, no multiplicity. But through maya, Its inscrutable Power, time, space, and causality are created and the One appears to break into the many. The eternal Spirit appears as a manifold of individuals endowed with form and subject to the conditions of time. The Immortal becomes a victim of birth and death. The Changeless undergoes change. The sinless Pure Soul, hypnotized by Its own maya, experiences the joys of heaven and the pains of hell. But these experiences based on the duality of the subject-object relationship are unreal. Even the vision of a Personal God
is, ultimately speaking, as illusory as the experience of any other object. Man attains his liberation, therefore, by piercing the veil of maya and rediscovering his total identity with Brahman. Knowing himself to be one with the universal Spirit, he realizes ineffable Peace. Only then does he go beyond the fiction of birth and death; only then does he become immortal. 'And this is the ultimate goal of all religions — to dehypnotize the soul now hypnotized by its own ignorance.
The path of the Vedantic discipline is the path of negation, "neti", in which, by stern determination, all that is unreal is both negated and renounced. It is the path of jnana, knowledge, the direct method of realizing the Absolute. After the negation of everything relative, including the discriminating ego itself, the aspirant merges in the One without a Second, in the bliss of nirvikalpa samadhi, where subject and object are alike dissolved. The soul goes beyond the realm of thought. The domain of duality is transcended. Maya is left behind with all its changes and modifications. The Real Man towers above the delusions of creation, preservation, and destruction. An avalanche of indescribable Bliss sweeps away all relative ideas of pain and pleasure, good and evil. There shines in the heart the glory of the Eternal Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Knower, knowledge, and known are dissolved in the Ocean of one eternal Consciousness; love, lover, and beloved merge in the unbounded Sea of supreme Felicity; birth, growth, and death vanish in infinite Existence. All doubts and misgivings are quelled for ever; the oscillations of the mind are stopped; the momentum of past actions is exhausted. Breaking down the ridge-pole of the tabernacle in which the soul has made its abode for untold ages, stilling the body, calming the mind, drowning the ego, the sweet joy of Brahman wells up in that superconscious state. Space disappears into nothingness, time is swallowed in eternity, and causation becomes a dream of the past. Only Existence is. Ah! Who can describe what the soul then feels in its comm union with the Self?
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Totapuri arrived at the Dakshineswar temple garden toward the end of 1864. Perhaps born in the Punjab, he was the head of a monastery in that province of India and claimed leadership of seven hundred sannyasis. Trained from early youth in the disciplines of the Advaita Vedanta, he looked upon the world as an illusion. The gods and goddesses of the dualistic worship were to him mere fantasies of the deluded mind. Prayers, ceremonies, rites, and rituals had nothing to do with true religion, and about these he was utterly indifferent. Exercising self-exertion and unshakable will-power, he had liberated himself from attachment to the sense-objects of the relative universe. For forty years he had practised austere discipline on the bank of the sacred Narmada and had finally realized his identity with the Absolute. Thenceforward he roamed in the world as an unfettered soul, a lion free from the cage. Clad in a loin-cloth, he spent his days under the canopy of the sky alike in storm and sunshine, feeding his body on the slender pittance of alms. He had been visiting the estuary of the Ganges. On his return journey along the bank of the sacred river, led by the inscrutable Divine Will, he stopped at Dakshineswar.
Totapuri, discovering at once that Sri Ramakrishna was prepared to be a student of Vedanta, asked to initiate him into its mysteries. With the permission of the Divine Mother, Sri Ramakrishna agreed to the proposal. But Totapuri explained that only a sannyasi could receive the teaching of Vedanta. Sri Ramakrishna agreed to renounce the world, but with the stipulation that the ceremony of his initiation into the monastic order be performed in secret, to spare the feelings of his old mother, who had been living with him at Dakshineswar.
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Totapuri asked the disciple to withdraw his mind from all objects of the relative world, including the gods and goddesses, and to concentrate on the Absolute. But the task was not easy even for Sri Ramakrishna. He found it impossible to take his mind beyond Kali, the Divine Mother of the universe. "After the initiation", Sri Ramakrishna once said, describing the event, "Nangta began to teach me the various conclusions of the Advaita Vedanta and asked me to withdraw the mind completely from all objects and dive deep into the Atman. But in spite of all my attempts I could not altogether cross the realm of name and form and bring my mind to the unconditioned state. I had no difficulty in taking the mind from all the objects of the world. But the radiant and too familiar figure of the Blissful Mother, the Embodiment of the essence of Pure Consciousness, appeared before me as a living reality. Her bewitching smile prevented me from passing into the Great Beyond. Again and again I tried, but She stood in my way every time. In despair I said to Nangta: 'It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the unconditioned state and come face to face with Atman.' He grew excited and sharply said: 'What? You can't do it? But you have to.' He cast his eyes around. Finding a piece of glass he took it up and stuck it between my eyebrows. 'Concentrate the mind on this point!' he thundered. Then with stern determination I again sat to meditate. As soon as the gracious form of the Divine Mother appeared before me, I used my discrimination as a sword and with it clove Her in two. The last barrier fell. My spirit at once soared beyond the relative plane and I lost myself in samadhi."
Sri Ramakrishna remained completely absorbed in samadhi for three days. "Is it really true?" Totapuri cried out in astonishment. "Is it possible that he has attained in a single day what it took me forty years of strenuous practice to achieve? Great God! It is nothing short of a miracle!" With the help of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna's mind finally came down to the relative plane.
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Sri Ramakrishna, on the other hand, though fully aware, like his guru, that the world is an illusory appearance, instead of slighting maya, like an orthodox monist, acknowledged its power in the relative life. He was all love and reverence for maya, perceiving in it a mysterious and majestic expression of Divinity. To him maya itself was God, for everything was God. It was one of the faces of Brahman. What he had realized on the heights of the transcendental plane, he also found here below, everywhere about him, under the mysterious garb of names and forms. And this garb was a perfectly transparent sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the Divine Immanence. Maya, the mighty weaver of the garb, is none other than Kali, the Divine Mother. She is the primordial Divine Energy, Sakti, and She can no more be distinguished from the Supreme Brahman than can the power of burning be distinguished from fire. She projects the world and again withdraws it. She spins it as the spider spins its web. She is the Mother of the universe, identical with the Brahman of Vedanta, and with the Atman of Yoga. As eternal Lawgiver, She makes and unmakes laws; it is by Her imperious will that karma yields its fruit. She ensnares men with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign eyes. She is the supreme Mistress of the cosmic play, and all objects, animate and inanimate, dance by Her will. Even those who realize the Absolute in nirvikalpa samadhi are under Her jurisdiction as long as they still live on the relative plane.
Thus, after nirvikalpa samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized maya in an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from before his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that maya operates in the relative world in two ways, and he termed these "avidyamaya" and "vidyamaya". Avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the round of man's birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidyamaya is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion. Vidyamaya elevates man to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya the devotee rids himself of avidyamaya; he then becomes mayatita, free of maya. The two aspects of maya are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and She stands beyond them both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining through and standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes, conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.
The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain, in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness, the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. He was to keep himself at the "sixth centre" of Tantra, from which he could see not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the Kundalini in the lower centres. He gently oscillated back and forth across the dividing line. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of Reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the world.
--- TOTAPURI'S LESSON
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"Sri Ramakrishna had not read books, yet he possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of religions and religious philosophies. This he acquired from his contacts with innumerable holy men and scholars. He had a unique power of assimilation; through meditation he made this knowledge a part of his being. Once, when he was asked by a disciple about the source of his seemingly inexhaustible knowledge, he replied; "I have not read; but I have heard the learned. I have made a garland of their knowledge, wearing it round my neck, and I have given it as an offering at the feet of the Mother."
Sri Ramakrishna used to say that when the flower blooms the bees come to it for honey of their own accord. Now many souls began to visit Dakshineswar to satisfy their spiritual hunger. He, the devotee and aspirant, became the Master. Gauri, the great scholar who had been one of the first to proclaim Sri Ramakrishna an Incarnation of God, paid the Master a visit in 1870 and with the Master's blessings renounced the world. Narayan Shastri, another great pundit, who had mastered the six systems of Hindu philosophy and had been offered a lucrative post by the Maharaja of Jaipur, met the Master and recognized in him one who had realized in life those ideals which he himself had encountered merely in books. Sri Ramakrishna initiated Narayan Shastri, at his earnest request, into the life of sannyas. Pundit Padmalochan, the court pundit of the Maharaja of Burdwan, well known for his scholarship in both the Vedanta and the Nyaya systems of philosophy, accepted the Master as an Incarnation of God. Krishnakishore, a Vedantist scholar, became devoted to the Master. And there arrived Viswanath Upadhyaya, who was to become a favourite devotee; Sri Ramakrishna always addressed him as "Captain". He was a high officer of the King of Nepal and had received the title of Colonel in recognition of his merit. A scholar of the Gita, the Bhagavata, and the Vedanta philosophy, he daily performed the worship of his Chosen Deity with great devotion. "I have read the Vedas and the other scriptures", he said. "I have also met a good many monks and devotees in different places. But it is in Sri Ramakrishna's presence that my spiritual yearnings have been fulfilled. To me he seems to be the embodiment of the truths of the scriptures."
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Eight years later, some time in November 1874, Sri Ramakrishna was seized with an irresistible desire to learn the truth of the Christian religion. He began to listen to readings from the Bible, by Sambhu Charan Mallick, a gentleman of Calcutta and a devotee of the Master. Sri Ramakrishna became fascinated by the life and teachings of Jesus. One day he was seated in the parlour of Jadu Mallick's garden house (This expression is used throughout to translate the Bengali word denoting a rich man's country house set in a garden.) at Dakshineswar, when his eyes became fixed on a painting of the Madonna and Child. Intently watching it, he became gradually overwhelmed with divine emotion. The figures in the picture took on life, and the rays of light emanating from them entered his soul. The effect of this experience was stronger than that of the vision of Mohammed. In dismay he cried out, "O Mother! What are You doing to me?" And, breaking through the barriers of creed and religion, he entered a new realm of ecstasy. Christ possessed his soul. For three days he did not set foot in the Kali temple. On the fourth day, in the afternoon, as he was walking in the Panchavati, he saw coming toward him a person with beautiful large eyes, serene countenance, and fair skin. As the two faced each other, a voice rang out in the depths of Sri Ramakrishna's soul: "Behold the Christ, who shed His heart's blood for the redemption of the world, who suffered a sea of anguish for love of men. It is He, the Master Yogi, who is in eternal union with God. It is Jesus, Love Incarnate." The Son of Man embraced the Son of the Divine Mother and merged in him. Sri Ramakrishna krishna realized his identity with Christ, as he had already realized his identity with Kali, Rama, Hanuman, Radha, Krishna, Brahman, and Mohammed. The Master went into samadhi and communed with the Brahman with attributes. Thus he experienced the truth that Christianity, too, was a path leading to God-Consciousness. Till the last moment of his life he believed that Christ was an Incarnation of God. But Christ, for him, was not the only Incarnation; there were others — Buddha, for instance, and Krishna.
--- ATTITUDE TOWARD DIFFERENT RELIGIONS
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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.
--- THE "EGO" OF THE MASTER
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Third, Sri Ramakrishna realized the wish of the Divine Mother that through him She should found a new Order, consisting of those who would uphold the universal doctrines illustrated in his life.
Fourth, his spiritual insight told him that those who were having their last birth on the mortal plane of existence and those who had sincerely called on the Lord even once in their lives must come to him.
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Keshab was the leader of the Brahmo Samaj, one of the two great movements that, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, played an important part in shaping the course of the renascence of India. The founder of the Brahmo movement had been the great Raja Rammohan Roy (1774-1833). Though born in an orthodox brahmin family, Rammohan Roy had shown great sympathy for Islam and Christianity. He had gone to Tibet in search of the Buddhist mysteries. He had extracted from Christianity its ethical system, but had rejected the divinity of Christ as he had denied the Hindu Incarnations. The religion of Islam influenced him, to a great extent, in the formulation of his monotheistic doctrines. But he always went back to the Vedas for his spiritual inspiration. The Brahmo Samaj, which he founded in 1828, was dedicated to the "worship and adoration of the Eternal, the Unsearchable, the Immutable Being, who is the Author and Preserver of the universe". The Samaj was open to all without distinction of colour, creed, caste, nation, or religion.
The real organizer of the Samaj was Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905), the father of the poet Rabindranath. His physical and spiritual beauty, aristocratic aloofness, penetrating intellect, and poetic sensibility made him the foremost leader of the educated Bengalis. These addressed him by the respectful epithet of Maharshi, the "Great Seer". The Maharshi was a Sanskrit scholar and, unlike Raja Rammohan Roy, drew his inspiration entirely from the Upanishads. He was an implacable enemy of image worship ship and also fought to stop the infiltration of Christian ideas into the Samaj. He gave the movement its faith and ritual. Under his influence the Brahmo Samaj professed One Self-existent Supreme Being who had created the universe out of nothing, the God of Truth, Infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power, the Eternal and Omnipotent, the One without a Second. Man should love Him and do His will, believe in Him and worship Him, and thus merit salvation in the world to come.
By far the ablest leader of the Brahmo movement was Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-1884). Unlike Raja Rammohan Roy and Devendranath Tagore, Keshab was born of a middle-class Bengali family and had been brought up in an English school. He did not know Sanskrit and very soon broke away from the popular Hindu religion. Even at an early age he came under the spell of Christ and professed to have experienced the special favour of John the Baptist, Christ, and St. Paul. When he strove to introduce Christ to the Brahmo Samaj, a rupture became inevitable with Devendranath. In 1868 Keshab broke with the older leader and founded the Brahmo Samaj of India, Devendra retaining leadership of the first Brahmo Samaj, now called the Adi Samaj.
Keshab possessed a complex nature. When passing through a great moral crisis, he spent much of his time in solitude and felt that he heard the voice of God, When a devotional form of worship was introduced into the Brahmo Samaj, he spent hours in singing kirtan with his followers. He visited England land in 1870 and impressed the English people with his musical voice, his simple English, and his spiritual fervour. He was entertained by Queen Victoria. Returning to India, he founded centres of the Brahmo Samaj in various parts of the country. Not unlike a professor of comparative religion in a European university, he began to discover, about the time of his first contact with Sri Ramakrishna, the harmony of religions. He became sympathetic toward the Hindu gods and goddesses, explaining them in a liberal fashion. Further, he believed that he was called by God to dictate to the world God's newly revealed law, the New Dispensation, the Navavidhan.
In 1878 a schism divided Keshab's Samaj. Some of his influential followers accused him of infringing the Brahmo principles by marrying his daughter to a wealthy man before she had attained the marriageable age approved by the Samaj. This group seceded and established the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Keshab remaining the leader of the Navavidhan. Keshab now began to be drawn more and more toward the Christ ideal, though under the influence of Sri Ramakrishna his devotion to the Divine Mother also deepened. His mental oscillation between Christ and the Divine Mother of Hinduism found no position of rest. In Bengal and some other parts of India the Brahmo movement took the form of unitarian Christianity, scoffed at Hindu rituals, and preached a crusade against image worship. Influenced by Western culture, it declared the supremacy of reason, advocated the ideals of the French Revolution, abolished the caste-system among its own members, stood for the emancipation of women, agitated for the abolition of early marriage, sanctioned the remarriage of widows, and encouraged various educational and social-reform movements. The immediate effect of the Brahmo movement in Bengal was the checking of the proselytizing activities of the Christian missionaries. It also raised Indian culture in the estimation of its English masters. But it was an intellectual and eclectic religious ferment born of the necessity of the time. Unlike Hinduism, it was not founded on the deep inner experiences of sages and prophets. Its influence was confined to a comparatively few educated men and women of the country, and the vast masses of the Hindus remained outside it. It sounded monotonously only one of the notes in the rich gamut of the Eternal Religion of the Hindus.
--- ARYA SAMAJ
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Sri Ramakrishna never taught his disciples to hate any woman, or womankind in general. This can be seen clearly by going through all his teachings under this head and judging them collectively. The Master looked on all women as so many images of the Divine Mother of the universe. He paid the highest homage to womankind by accepting a woman as his guide while practising the very profound spiritual disciplines of Tantra. His wife, known and revered as the Holy Mother, was his constant companion and first disciple. At the end of his spiritual practice he literally worshipped his wife as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Divine Mother. After his passing away the Holy Mother became the spiritual guide not only of a large number of householders, but also of many monastic members of the Ramakrishna Order.
--- THE MASTER'S YEARNING FOR HIS OWN DEVOTEES
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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
-melting love of the Purana. Twenty hours out of twenty-four he would speak without out rest or respite. He gave to all his sympathy and enlightenment, and he touched them with that strange power of the soul which could not but melt even the most hardened. And people understood him according to their powers of comprehension.
--
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
--
Even before Rakhal's coming to Dakshineswar, the Master had had visions of him as his spiritual son and as a playmate of Krishna at Vrindavan. Rakhal was born of wealthy parents. During his childhood he developed wonderful spiritual traits and used to play at worshipping gods and goddesses. In his teens he was married to a sister of Manomohan Mitra, from whom he first heard of the Master. His father objected to his association with Sri Ramakrishna but afterwards was reassured to find that many celebrated people were visitors at Dakshineswar. The relationship between the Master and this beloved disciple was that of mother and child. Sri Ramakrishna allowed Rakhal many liberties denied to others. But he would not hesitate to chastise the boy for improper actions. At one time Rakhal felt a childlike jealousy because he found that other boys were receiving the Master's affection. He soon got over it and realized his guru as the Guru of the whole universe. The Master was worried to hear of his marriage, but was relieved to find that his wife was a spiritual soul who would not be a hindrance to his progress.
--- THE ELDER GOPAL
--
As he read in college the rationalistic Western philosophers of the nineteenth century, his boyhood faith in God and religion was unsettled. He would not accept religion on mere faith; he wanted demonstration of God. But very soon his passionate nature discovered that mere universal Reason was cold and bloodless. His emotional nature, dissatisfied with a mere abstraction, required a concrete support to help him in the hours of temptation. He wanted an external power, a guru, who by embodying perfection in the flesh would still the commotion of his soul. Attracted by the magnetic personality of Keshab, he joined the Brahmo Samaj and became a singer in its choir. But in the Samaj he did not find the guru who could say that he had seen God.
In a state of mental conflict and torture of soul, Narendra came to Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar. He was then eighteen years of age and had been in college two years. He entered the Master's room accompanied by some light-hearted friends. At Sri Ramakrishna's request he sang a few songs, pouring his whole soul into them, and the Master went into samadhi. A few minutes later Sri Ramakrishna suddenly left his seat, took Narendra by the hand, and led him to the screened verandah north of his room. They were alone. Addressing Narendra most tenderly, as if he were a friend of long acquaintance, the Master said: "Ah! You have come very late. Why have you been so unkind as to make me wait all these days? My ears are tired of hearing the futile words of worldly men. Oh, how I have longed to pour my spirit into the heart of someone fitted to receive my message!" He talked thus, sobbing all the time. Then, standing before Narendra with folded hands, he addressed him as Narayana, born on earth to remove the misery of humanity. Grasping Narendra's hand, he asked him to come again, alone, and very soon. Narendra was startled. "What is this I have come to see?" he said to himself. "He must be stark mad. Why, I am the son of Viswanath Dutta. How dare he speak this way to me?"
--
During his second visit, about a month later, suddenly, at the touch of the Master, Narendra felt overwhelmed and saw the walls of the room and everything around him whirling and vanishing. "What are you doing to me?" he cried in terror. "I have my father and mother at home." He saw his own ego and the whole universe almost swallowed in a nameless void. With a laugh the Master easily restored him. Narendra thought he might have been hypnotized, but he could not understand how a monomaniac could cast a spell over the mind of a strong person like himself. He returned home more confused than ever, resolved to be henceforth on his guard before this strange man.
But during his third visit Narendra fared no better. This time, at the Master's touch, he lost consciousness entirely. While he was still in that state, Sri Ramakrishna questioned him concerning his spiritual antecedents and whereabouts, his mission in this world, and the duration of his mortal life. The answers confirmed what the Master himself had known and inferred. Among other things, he came to know that Narendra was a sage who had already attained perfection, and that the day he learnt his real nature he would give up his body in yoga, by an act of will.
--
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.
At the beginning of 1884 Narendra's father suddenly died of heart-failure, leaving the family in a state of utmost poverty. There were six or seven mouths to feed at home. Creditors were knocking at the door. Relatives who had accepted his father's unstinted kindness now became enemies, some even bringing suit to deprive Narendra of his ancestral home. Actually starving and barefoot, Narendra searched for a job, but without success. He began to doubt whether anywhere in the world there was such a thing as unselfish sympathy. Two rich women made evil proposals to him and promised to put an end to his distress; but he refused them with contempt.
--
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
--
She spent about two months in uninterrupted comm union with God, the Baby Gopala never leaving her for a moment. Then the intensity of her vision was lessened; had it not been, her body would have perished. The Master spoke highly of her exalted spiritual condition and said that such vision of God was a rare thing for ordinary mortals. The fun-loving Master one day confronted the critical Narendranath with this simple-minded woman. No two could have presented a more striking contrast. The Master knew of Narendra's lofty contempt for all visions, and he asked the old lady to narrate her experiences to Narendra. With great hesitation she told him her story. Now and then she interrupted her maternal chatter to ask Narendra: "My son, I am a poor ignorant woman. I don't understand anything. You are so learned. Now tell me if these visions of Gopala are true." As Narendra listened to the story he was profoundly moved. He said, "Yes, mother, they are quite true." Behind his cynicism Narendra, too, possessed a heart full of love and tenderness.
--- THE MARCH OF EVENTS
--
One day when Narendra was on the ground floor, meditating, the Master was lying awake in his bed upstairs. In the depths of his meditation Narendra felt as though a lamp were burning at the back of his head. Suddenly he lost consciousness. It was the yearned-for, all-effacing experience of nirvikalpa samadhi, when the embodied soul realizes its unity with the Absolute. After a very long time he regained partial consciousness but was unable to find his body. He could see only his head. "Where is my body?" he cried. The elder Gopal entered the room and said, "Why, it is here, Naren!" But Narendra could not find it. Gopal, frightened, ran upstairs to the Master. Sri Ramakrishna only said: "Let him stay that way for a time. He has worried me long enough."
After another long period Narendra regained full consciousness. Bathed in peace, he went to the Master, who said: "Now the Mother has shown you everything. But this revelation will remain under lock and key, and I shall keep the key. When you have accomplished the Mother's work you will find the treasure again."
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Not-Being, the three possible modes of conceiving the universe.
The statement, Nothing is Not , technically equivalent to
--
the universe itself not until Malkuth.
The chapter many therefore be considered as the most complete
--
duality to unity, and thence to negativity, and is thus
a hieroglyph of the Great Work.
--
the universe.
The identity of these two is then explained.
--
universe; Horus unites these.
Follows a version of the "Lord's Prayer", suitable
--
The Man delights in uniting with the Woman; the
Woman in parting from the Child.
--
plained, and the universe is exhibited as the interplay
between these two. This also explains the statement in
--
Fatherhood is unity disguised as duality.
Peace implies war.
--
Father and Son are not really two, but one; their unity
being the Holy Ghost, the semen; the human form is a
--
Kether to Chesed, and Chesed is united to the Supernal
Triad by virtue of its Phallic nature; for not only is
--
Logos transforming the unity into the many.
We then see what different classes of people do with
--
universe. This folly is due to the pride of reason.
The Adept concentrates the Microcosm in Tiphareth,
recognising an unity, even in the microcosm, but, qua
Adept, he can go no further.
--
rises to a glimmer of the universal consciousness, while,
in the orgasm, the mind is blotted out.
--
Its name is "Consciousness", and "The universe",
among men.
--
The universe is insane, the law of cause and effect
is an illusion, or so it appears in the Abyss, which is
--
but within this is a secret unity which rejoices; this
unit being far beyond any conception.
[31]
--
Cross, the rapture of union that destroys, that is
The Way. The Rosy Cross is the Ambassador of Pan.
--
The first part of the chapter describes the universe
in its highest sense, down to Tiphareth; it is the new
--
they are really one; the essential unity of the supernal
Triad is here insisted upon.
--
unity manifested as the many, for {Sigma} (1-13) gives the
whole course of numbers from the simple unity of 1
to the complex unity of 13, impregnated by the magical
11.
--
God of generation, and 13 is 1, the Phallic unity.
Daleth is the Yoni. And 91 is AMN (Amen), a form
--
The universe is the Practical Joke of the General
at the Expense of the Particular, quoth FRATER
--
universal Sorrow.
Those next to them laughed, seeing the universal
Joke.
--
advance towards a comprehension of the universe, one
changes radically one's point of view; nearly always it
--
tion of his perception of the universal Joke, also
described in Chapter 34. All individual existence is
--
lowest to the highest. The Rosy-Cross is the universal
Key. But, as one proceeds, the Cross becomes greater,
--
his horns. Horns are the universal hieroglyph of energy,
particularly of Phallic energy.
--
belief, and suppose that in death they are united to the
Deity which they have cultivated during life. This is "a
--
In all the universe this Swan alone is motionless; it
seems to move, as the Sun seems to move; such
--
In a boundless universe, one can always take any
one point, however mobile, and postulate it a a point
--
There is a certain universality and adaptability
among its secret power. The chapter is taken from
--
The universe is in equilibrium; therefore He that is
without it, though his force be but a feather, can
overturn the universe.
Be not caught within that web, O child of Freedom!
Be not entangled in the universal lie, O child of
Truth!
--
The 21st key of the Tarot is called "The universe",
and refers to the letter Tau, the Phallus in manifesta-
--
The universe is conceived as Buddhists, on the one
hand, and Rationalists, on the other, would have us do;
--
It is Pure Chance that rules the universe; therefore,
and only therefore, life is good.
--
universe is poised: but the carapace of the
Tortoise supports and covers all.
--
the square within the hexagram, the universe enclosed
in the law of Lingam-Yoni.
--
the universe by this law.
The figure 10, like the work IO, again suggest
--
The last paragraph curses the universe thus un-
redeemed.
--
Love destroyeth self, uniting self with that which is
not-self, so that Love breedeth All and None in
--
uniS DEUS ARARITA.
Let him go round to the South, make the Holy
--
the universe itself is Light.
[84]
--
number, which is that of Jechidah the highest unity of
the soul.
--
This desert is the Abyss wherein the universe.
The Stars are but thistles in that waste.
--
inhabitants, not of this desert; their abode is not this universe.
They come from the Great Sea, Binah, the City of the Pyramids.
--
Gimel is the path leading from Tiphareth to Kether, uniting
Microprosopus and Macroprosopus, i.e. performing the Great
--
the chapter is a resolution of the universe into
Tetragrammaton; God the macrocosm and the micro-
--
In paragraph 7 the place of life, the universe of animal
souls, is identified with the toad, which
--
in paragraph 2, not only is the Divine unity destroyed
but Daath, instead of being the Child of Chokmah and
--
This chapter is an apology for the universe.
Paragraphs 1-3 repeat the familiar arguments
--
rejoice in uniting. See Liber Legis I, 28-30, which is
paraphrased in the penultimate paragraph.
--
sophers, hinting that their view of the universe depends
on their own circumstances. The sufferer from toothache
--
The latter sentence of the paragraph unites the two meanings of giving up the
Lingam to the Yoni, and the Ego to the Absolute.
--
his eye the universe is destroyed-another synonym, therefore, for the accomplis
h-
--
himself the Mahalingam, which unites these symbolisms. The opening of the eye,
the ejaculation of the lingam, the destruction of the universe, the accomplishm
ent
--
either a credit or a debit, you are still in account with the universe.
(N.B. Frater P. wrote this chapter-61-while dining with friends, in about a
--
He standeth before the Altar of the universe at
Sunset, when Earth-life fades.
He summons the universe, and crowns it with
MAGICK Light to replace the sun of natura light.
--
unity for all?
I wrenched DOG backwards to find GOD; now GOD
--
I am the Master of the universe; then give me a
heap of straw in a hut, and LAYLAH naked!
--
opposite rules apply. His unity seeks the many, and
the many is again transmuted to the one. Solve et
--
one did I affirm th unity.
But "night" only means LAYLAH(34); and unity and
GOD are not worth even her blemishes.
--
for the play of the universe is the pleasure of
FRATER PERDURABO.
--
universe is a whim of the Creator.
[151]
--
The universe were swallowed up in flame
-Shemhamphorash!
--
universe is destroyed. This statement means the same
as that of the Hindus, that the effective utterance of
--
destroy the universe.
In Egyptian and Gnostic magick we meet with pylons
--
universe is identical with one of that." Vain word!
The logician and his logic are alike involved in the
universal ruin.
Lines 8-11 indicate that this fact is the essential one
--
universe is but the Coffin-Worm!
[156]
--
the third refer to the universe as it is; but the wheel of
the Tarot is not only this, but represents equally the
--
reminds the student that the universe is not to be
contemplated as a phenomenon in time.
--
but sorrow and evil in the universe.
The Buddhist analysis may be true, but not for
--
(39) ISVD, the foundation scil. of the universe = 80
= P, the letter of Mars.
--
Fierce are the Fires of the universe, and on their
daggers they hold aloft the bleeding heart of earth.
--
Nihil is taken to affirm that the universe is Nothing, and that is
now to be analysed. The order of the element is that of Jeheshua.
--
It is the unification of all symbols and all planes.
The End is expressible.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"M", as the author modestly styles himself, was peculiarly qualified for his task. To a reverent love for his master, to a deep and experiential knowledge of that master's teaching, he added a prodigious memory for the small happenings of each day and a happy gift for recording them in an interesting and realistic way. Making good use of his natural gifts and of the circumstances in which he found himself, "M" produced a book unique, so far as my knowledge goes, in the literature of hagiography. No other saint has had so able and indefatigable a Boswell. Never have the small events of a contemplative's daily life been described with such a wealth of intimate detail. Never have the casual and unstudied utterances of a great religious teacher been set down with so minute a fidelity. To Western readers, it is true, this fidelity and this wealth of detail are sometimes a trifle disconcerting; for the social, religious and intellectual frames of reference within which Sri Ramakrishna did his thinking and expressed his feelings were entirely Indian. But after the first few surprises and bewilderments, we begin to find something peculiarly stimulating and instructive about the very strangeness and, to our eyes, the eccentricity of the man revealed to us in "M's" narrative. What a scholastic philosopher would call the "accidents" of Ramakrishna's life were intensely Hindu and therefore, so far as we in the West are concerned, unfamiliar and hard to understand; its "essence", however, was intensely mystical and therefore universal. To read through these conversations in which mystical doctrine alternates with an unfamiliar kind of humour, and where discussions of the oddest aspects of Hindu mythology give place to the most profound and subtle utterances about the nature of Ultimate Reality, is in itself a liberal, education in humility, tolerance and suspense of judgment. We must be grateful to the translator for his excellent version of a book so curious and delightful as a biographical document, so precious, at the same time, for what it teaches us of the life of the spirit.
--------------------
--
The reader will find mentioned in this work many visions and experiences that fall outside the ken of physical science and even psychology. With the development of modern knowledge the border line between the natural and the supernatural is ever shifting its position. Genuine mystical experiences are not as suspect now as they were half a century ago. The words of Sri Ramakrishna have already exerted a tremendous influence in the land of his birth. Savants of Europe have found in his words the ring of universal truth.
But these words were not the product of intellectual cogitation; they were rooted in direct experience. Hence, to students of religion, psychology, and physical science, these experiences of the Master are of immense value for the understanding of religious phenomena in general. No doubt Sri Ramakrishna was a Hindu of the Hindus; yet his experiences transcended the limits of the dogmas and creeds of Hinduism. Mystics of religions other than Hinduism will find in Sri Ramakrishna's experiences a corroboration of the experiences of their own prophets and seers. And this is very important today for the resuscitation of religious values. The sceptical reader may pass by the supernatural experiences; he will yet find in the book enough material to provoke his serious thought and solve many of his spiritual problems.
--
May it enable seekers of Truth to grasp the subtle laws of the supersensuous realm, and unfold before man's restricted vision the spiritual foundation of the universe, the unity of existence, and the divinity of the soul!
- Sw mi Nikhilnanda
--
Though his children received proper attention from him, his real family, both during the Master's lifetime and after, consisted of saints, devotees, Sannysins and spiritual aspirants. His life exemplifies the Master's teaching that an ideal householder must be like a good maidservant of a family, loving and caring properly for the children of the house, but knowing always that her real home and children are elsewhere. During the Master's lifetime he spent all his Sundays and other holidays with him and his devotees, and besides listening to the holy talks and devotional music, practised meditation both on the Personal and the Impersonal aspects of God under the direct guidance of the Master. In the pages of the Gospel the reader gets a picture of M.'s spiritual relationship with the Master how from a hazy belief in the Impersonal God of the Brahmos, he was step by step brought to accept both Personality and Impersonality as the two aspects of the same Non-dual Being, how he was convinced of the manifestation of that Being as Gods, Goddesses and as Incarnations, and how he was established in a life that was both of a Jnni and of a Bhakta. This Jnni-Bhakta outlook and way of living became so dominant a feature of his life that Swami Raghavananda, who was very closely associated with him during his last six years, remarks: "Among those who lived with M. in latter days, some felt that he always lived in this constant and conscious union with God even with open eyes (i.e., even in waking consciousness)." (Swami Raghavananda's article on M. in Prabuddha Bharata vol. XXXVII. P. 442.)
Besides undergoing spiritual disciplines at the feet of the Master, M. used to go to holy places during the Master's lifetime itself and afterwards too as a part of his Sdhan.
--
After the Master's demise, M. went on pilgrimage several times. He visited Banras, Vrindvan, Ayodhy and other places. At Banras he visited the famous Trailinga Swmi and fed him with sweets, and he had long conversations with Swami Bhaskarananda, one of the noted saintly and scholarly Sannysins of the time. In 1912 he went with the Holy Mother to Banras, and spent about a year in the company of Sannysins at Banras, Vrindvan, Hardwar, Hrishikesh and Swargashram. But he returned to Calcutta, as that city offered him the unique opport unity of associating himself with the places hallowed by the Master in his lifetime. Afterwards he does not seem to have gone to any far-off place, but stayed on in his room in the Morton School carrying on his spiritual ministry, speaking on the Master and his teachings to the large number of people who flocked to him after having read his famous Kathmrita known to English readers as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.
This brings us to the circumstances that led to the writing and publication of this monumental work, which has made M. one of the immortals in hagiographic literature.
0.00 - The Wellspring of Reality, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
We are not seeking a license to ramble wordily. We are intent only upon being adequately concise. General systems science discloses the existence of minimum sets of variable factors that uniquely govern each and every system. Lack of knowledge concerning all the factors and the failure to include them in our integral imposes false conclusions. Let us not make the error of inadequacy in examining our most comprehensive inventory of experience and thoughts regarding the evoluting affairs of all humanity.
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.
--
Holding within their definition, we define universe as the aggregate of allhumanity's consciously apprehended and comm unicated, nonsimultaneous, and only partially overlapping experiences. An aggregate of finites is finite. universe is a finite but nonsimultaneously conceptual scenario.
The human brain is a physical mechanism for storing, retrieving, and re-storing again, each special-case experience. The experience is often a packaged concept.
Such packages consist of complexedly interrelated and not as-yet differentially analyzed phenomena which, as initially unit cognitions, are potentially re-experienceable. A rose, for instance, grows. has thorns, blossoms, and fragrance, but often is stored in the brain only under the single word-rose.
As Korzybski, the founder of general semantics, pointed out, the consequence of its single-tagging is that the rose becomes reflexively considered by man only as a red, white, or pink device for paying tribute to a beautiful girl, a thoughtful hostess, or last night's deceased acquaintance. The tagging of the complex biological process under the single title rose tends to detour human curiosity from further differentiation of its integral organic operations as well as from consideration of its interecological functionings aboard our planet. We don't know what a rose is, nor what may be its essential and unique cosmic function. Thus for long have we inadvertently deferred potential discovery of the essential roles in universe that are performed complementarily by many, if not most, of the phenomena we experience.
But, goaded by youth, we older ones are now taking second looks at almost everything. And that promises many ultimately favorable surprises. The oldsters do have vast experience banks not available to the youth. Their memory banks, integrated and reviewed, may readily disclose generalized principles of eminent importance.
--
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 t uning 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.
--
Anticipating, cooperating with, and employing the forces of nature can be accomplished only by the mind. The wisdom manifest in the omni-interorderliness of the family of generalized principles operative in universe can be employed only by the highest integrity of engagement of the mind's metaphysical intuiting and formulating capabilities.
We are able to assert that this rationally coordinating system bridge has been established between science and the humanities because we have made adequate experimental testing of it in a computerized world-resource-use-exploration system, which by virtue of the proper inclusion of all the parameters-as guaranteed by the synergetic start with universe and the progressive differentiation out of all the parts-has demonstrated a number of alternate ways in which it is eminently feasible not only to provide full life support for all humans but also to permit all humans' individual enjoyment of all the Earth without anyone profiting at the expense of another and without any individuals interfering with others.
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.
--
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 design controls of organic systems offers no more explanation of life than did the specifications of the designs of the telephone system's apparatus and operation explain the nature of the life that comm unicates 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.
--
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 designation 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.
Society depends upon its scientists for just such educational reform guidance.
--
Children freed of the ignorantly founded educational traditions and exposed only to their spontaneously summoned, computer-stored and -distributed outflow of reliable-opinion-purged, experimentally verified data, shall indeed lead society to its happy egress from all misinformedly conceived, fearfully and legally imposed, and physically enforced customs of yesterday. They can lead all humanity into omnisuccessful survival as well as entrance into an utterly new era of human experience in an as-yet and ever-will-be fundamentally mysterious universe.
And whence will come the wealth with which we may undertake to lead world man into his new and validly hopeful life? From the wealth of the minds of world man-whence comes all wealth. Only mind can discover how to do so much with so little as forever to be able to sustain and physically satisfy all humanity.
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
if not ultimately, at least essentially. Fuller being is closer union :
such is the kernel and conclusion of this book. But let us empha-
sise the point : union increases only through an increase in con-
sciousness, that is to say in vision. And that, doubtless, is why the
--
everything that makes up the universe, by reason of the mysterious
gift of existence. And this, in superior measure, is man's condition.
--
impose himself on our effort to sec, as the key to the universe.
3i
--
construction of the universe. And by expediency no less than by
necessity, all science must be referred back to him. If to see is
--
in the slightest change in the universe ;
A sense of proportion, realising as best we can the difference
--
upsetting the physical unity of the world ;
A sense of movement, capable of perceiving the irresistible
--
structural unity under the superficial juxtaposition of successions
and collectivities.
--
related to the universe.
Thence stems the basic plan of this work : Pre-Life : Life :
--
discovers that he is not an isolated unit lost in the cosmic solitudes,
and realises that a universal will to live converges and is hominised
in him.
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 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 Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in man above this lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine love. He comes as the divine personality which shall fill the consciousness of the human being and replace the limited egoistic personality, so that it shall be liberated out of ego into infinity and universality, out of birth into immortality."[7]
It is clear that Sri Aurobindo interpreted the traditional idea of the Vibhuti and the Avatar in terms of the evolutionary possibilities of man. But more directly he has worked out the idea of the 'gnostic individual' in his masterpiece The Life Divine. He says: "A supramental gnostic individual will be a spiritual Person, but not a personality in the sense of a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character; he cannot be that since he is a conscious expression of the universal and the transcendent." Describing the gnostic individual he says: "We feel ourselves in the presence of a light of consciousness, a potency, a sea of energy, can distinguish and describe its free waves of action and quality, but not fix itself; and yet there is an impression of personality, the presence of a powerful being, a strong, high or beautiful recognisable Someone, a Person, not a limited creature of Nature but a Self or Soul, a Purusha."[8]
One feels that he was describing the feeling of some of us, his disciples, with regard to him in his inimitable way.
0.01 - Life and Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HERE are two necessities of Nature's workings which seem always to intervene in the greater forms of human activity, whether these belong to our ordinary fields of movement or seek those exceptional spheres and fulfilments which appear to us high and divine. Every such form tends towards a harmonised complexity and totality which again breaks apart into various channels of special effort and tendency, only to unite once more in a larger and more puissant synthesis. Secondly, development into forms is an imperative rule of effective manifestation; yet all truth and practice too strictly formulated becomes old and loses much, if not all, of its virtue; it must be constantly renovated by fresh streams of the spirit revivifying the dead or dying vehicle and changing it, if it is to acquire a new life. To be perpetually reborn is the condition of a material immortality. We are in an age, full of the throes of travail, when all forms of thought and activity that have in themselves any strong power of utility or any secret virtue of persistence are being subjected to a supreme test and given their opport unity of rebirth. The world today presents the aspect of a huge cauldron of Medea in which all things are being cast, shredded into pieces, experimented on, combined and recombined either to perish and provide the scattered material of new forms or to emerge rejuvenated and changed for a fresh term of existence. Indian Yoga, in its essence a special action or formulation of certain great powers of Nature, itself specialised, divided and variously formulated, is potentially one of these dynamic elements of the future life of humanity. The child of immemorial ages, preserved by its vitality and truth into our modern times, it is now emerging from the secret schools and ascetic retreats in which it had taken refuge and is seeking its place in the future sum of living human powers and utilities. But it has first to rediscover itself, bring to the surface
The Conditions of the Synthesis
--
In the right view both of life and of Yoga all life is either consciously or subconsciously a Yoga. For we mean by this term a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the secret potentialities latent in the being and - highest condition of victory in that effort - a union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cosmos. But all life, when we look behind its appearances, is a vast Yoga of Nature who attempts in the conscious and the subconscious to realise her perfection in an ever-increasing expression of her yet unrealised potentialities and to unite herself with her own divine reality. In man, her thinker, she for the first time upon this Earth devises selfconscious means and willed arrangements of activity by which this great purpose may be more swiftly and puissantly attained.
Yoga, as Swami Vivekananda has said, may be regarded as a means of compressing one's evolution into a single life or a few years or even a few months of bodily existence. A given system of Yoga, then, can be no more than a selection or a compression, into narrower but more energetic forms of intensity, of the general methods which are already being used loosely, largely, in a leisurely movement, with a profuser apparent waste of material and energy but with a more complete combination by the great
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"To turn towards Thee, unite with Thee, live in Thee and
for Thee, is supreme happiness, unmixed joy, immutable
--
factors creep in which may seem unimportant, but which are
just sufficient to alter all the factors of the problem and to bring
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But in order that we may be wisely guided in our effort, we must know, first, the general principle and purpose underlying this separative impulse and, next, the particular utilities upon which the method of each school of Yoga is founded. For the general principle we must interrogate the universal workings of Nature herself, recognising in her no merely specious and illusive activity of a distorting Maya, but the cosmic energy and working of God Himself in His universal being formulating and inspired by a vast, an infinite and yet a minutely selective
Wisdom, prajna prasr.ta puran. of the Upanishad, Wisdom that went forth from the Eternal since the beginning. For the particular utilities we must cast a penetrative eye on the different methods of Yoga and distinguish among the mass of their details the governing idea which they serve and the radical force which gives birth and energy to their processes of effectuation.
Afterwards we may more easily find the one common principle and the one common power from which all derive their being and tendency, towards which all subconsciously move and in which, therefore, it is possible for all consciously to unite.
The progressive self-manifestation of Nature in man, termed in modern language his evolution, must necessarily depend upon three successive elements. There is that which is already evolved; there is that which, still imperfect, still partly fluid, is persistently in the stage of conscious evolution; and there is that which is to be evolved and may perhaps be already
--
If, then, this inferior equilibrium is the basis and first means of the higher movements which the universal Power contemplates and if it constitutes the vehicle in which the Divine here seeks to reveal Itself, if the Indian saying is true that the body is the instrument provided for the fulfilment of the right law of our nature, then any final recoil from the physical life must be a turning away from the completeness of the divine Wisdom and a renunciation of its aim in earthly manifestation. Such a refusal may be, owing to some secret law of their development, the right attitude for certain individuals, but never the aim intended for mankind. It can be, therefore, no integral Yoga which ignores the body or makes its annulment or its rejection indispensable to a perfect spirituality. Rather, the perfecting of the body also should be the last triumph of the Spirit and to make the bodily life also divine must be God's final seal upon His work in the universe. The obstacle which the physical presents to the spiritual is no argument for the rejection of the physical; for in the unseen providence of things our greatest difficulties are our best opport unities. A supreme difficulty is Nature's indication to us of a supreme conquest to be won and an ultimate problem to be solved; it is not a warning of an inextricable snare to be shunned or of an enemy too strong for us from whom we must flee.
Equally, the vital and nervous energies in us are there for a great utility; they too demand the divine realisation of their possibilities in our ultimate fulfilment. The great part assigned to this element in the universal scheme is powerfully emphasised by the catholic wisdom of the Upanishads. "As the spokes of a wheel in its nave, so in the Life-Energy is all established, the triple knowledge and the Sacrifice and the power of the strong and the purity of the wise. Under the control of the LifeEnergy is all this that is established in the triple heaven."2 It is therefore no integral Yoga that kills these vital energies, forces them into a nerveless quiescence or roots them out as the source
annakos.a and pran.akos.a.
--
Indeed, the increasing effort towards a more intense mental life seems to create, frequently, an increasing disequilibrium of the human elements, so that it is possible for eminent scientists to describe genius as a form of insanity, a result of degeneration, a pathological morbidity of Nature. The phenomena which are used to justify this exaggeration, when taken not separately, but in connection with all other relevant data, point to a different truth. Genius is one attempt of the universal Energy to so quicken and intensify our intellectual powers that they shall be prepared for those more puissant, direct and rapid faculties which constitute the play of the supra-intellectual or divine mind. It is not, then, a freak, an inexplicable phenomenon, but a perfectly natural next step in the right line of her evolution.
She has harmonised the bodily life with the material mind, she is harmonising it with the play of the intellectual mentality; for that, although it tends to a depression of the full animal and vital vigour, need not produce active disturbances. And she is shooting yet beyond in the attempt to reach a still higher level.
--
Moreover the whole trend of modern thought and modern endeavour reveals itself to the observant eye as a large conscious effort of Nature in man to effect a general level of intellectual equipment, capacity and farther possibility by universalising the opport unities which modern civilisation affords for the mental life. Even the preoccupation of the European intellect, the protagonist of this tendency, with material Nature and the externalities of existence is a necessary part of the effort. It seeks to prepare a sufficient basis in man's physical being and vital energies and in his material environment for his full mental possibilities. By the spread of education, by the advance of the backward races, by the elevation of depressed classes, by the multiplication of labour-saving appliances, by the movement
The Three Steps of Nature
--
Do such psychological conceptions correspond to anything real and possible? All Yoga asserts them as its ultimate experience and supreme aim. They form the governing principles of our highest possible state of consciousness, our widest possible range of existence. There is, we say, a harmony of supreme faculties, corresponding roughly to the psychological faculties of revelation, inspiration and intuition, yet acting not in the intuitive reason or the divine mind, but on a still higher plane, which see Truth directly face to face, or rather live in the truth of things both universal and transcendent and are its formulation and luminous activity. And these faculties are the light of a conscious existence superseding the egoistic and itself both cosmic and transcendent, the nature of which is Bliss. These are obviously divine and, as man is at present apparently constituted, superhuman states of consciousness and activity. A trinity of transcendent existence, self-awareness and self-delight7 is, indeed, the metaphysical description of the supreme Atman, the self-formulation, to our awakened knowledge, of the Unknowable whether conceived as a pure Impersonality or as a cosmic Personality manifesting the universe. But in Yoga they are regarded also in their psychological aspects as states of subjective existence to which our waking consciousness is now alien, but which dwell in us in a superconscious plane and to which, therefore, we may always ascend.
For, as is indicated by the name, causal body (karan.a), as opposed to the two others which are instruments (karan.a), this crowning manifestation is also the source and effective power of all that in the actual evolution has preceded it. Our mental activities are, indeed, a derivation, selection and, so long as they are divided from the truth that is secretly their source, a deformation of the divine knowledge. Our sensations and emotions have the same relation to the Bliss, our vital forces and actions to the aspect of Will or Force assumed by the divine consciousness, our physical being to the pure essence of that Bliss and
--
we are the terrestrial summit may be considered, in a sense, as an inverse manifestation, by which these supreme Powers in their unity and their diversity use, develop and perfect the imperfect substance and activities of Matter, of Life and of Mind so that they, the inferior modes, may express in mutable relativity an increasing harmony of the divine and eternal states from which they are born. If this be the truth of the universe, then the goal of evolution is also its cause, it is that which is immanent in its elements and out of them is liberated. But the liberation is surely imperfect if it is only an escape and there is no return upon the containing substance and activities to exalt and transform them.
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.
The ultimate knowledge is that which perceives and accepts God in the universe as well as beyond the universe; the integral Yoga is that which, having found the Transcendent, can return upon the universe and possess it, retaining the power freely to descend
The Three Steps of Nature
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, all that is only the manifestation of a universal harmony
which lies, as it were, at the very heart of creation. But the
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The characteristic energy of bodily Life is not so much in progress as in persistence, not so much in individual selfenlargement as in self-repetition. There is, indeed, in physical Nature a progression from type to type, from the vegetable to the animal, from the animal to man; for even in inanimate Matter Mind is at work. But once a type is marked off physically, the chief immediate preoccupation of the terrestrial Mother seems to be to keep it in being by a constant reproduction. For Life always seeks immortality; but since individual form is impermanent and only the idea of a form is permanent in the consciousness that creates the universe, - for there it does not perish, - such constant reproduction is the only possible material immortality.
Self-preservation, self-repetition, self-multiplication are necessarily, then, the predominant instincts of all material existence.
--
The characteristic law of Spirit is self-existent perfection and immutable infinity. It possesses always and in its own right the immortality which is the aim of Life and the perfection which is the goal of Mind. The attainment of the eternal and the realisation of that which is the same in all things and beyond all things, equally blissful in universe and outside it, untouched by the imperfections and limitations of the forms and activities in which it dwells, are the glory of the spiritual life.
In each of these forms Nature acts both individually and collectively; for the Eternal affirms Himself equally in the single form and in the group-existence, whether family, clan and nation or groupings dependent on less physical principles or the supreme group of all, our collective humanity. Man also may seek his own individual good from any or all of these spheres of activity, or identify himself in them with the collectivity and live for it, or, rising to a truer perception of this complex universe, harmonise the individual realisation with the collective aim. For as it is the right relation of the soul with the Supreme, while it is in the universe, neither to assert egoistically its separate being nor to blot itself out in the Indefinable, but to realise its unity with the Divine and the world and unite them in the individual, so the right relation of the individual with the collectivity is neither to pursue egoistically his own material or mental progress or spiritual salvation without regard to his fellows, nor for the sake of the comm unity to suppress or maim his proper development, but to sum up in himself all its best and completest possibilities and pour them out by thought, action and all other means on his surroundings so that the whole race may approach nearer to the attainment of its supreme personalities.
It follows that the object of the material life must be to fulfil, above all things, the vital aim of Nature. The whole aim of the material man is to live, to pass from birth to death with as much comfort or enjoyment as may be on the way, but anyhow to live.
--
But by that very utility such men and the life they lead are condemned to be limited, irrationally conservative and earthbound. The customary routine, the customary institutions, the inherited or habitual forms of thought, - these things are the life-breath of their nostrils. They admit and jealously defend the changes compelled by the progressive mind in the past, but combat with equal zeal the changes that are being made by it in the present. For to the material man the living progressive thinker is an ideologue, dreamer or madman. The old Semites who stoned the living prophets and adored their memories when dead, were the very incarnation of this instinctive and unintelligent principle in Nature. In the ancient Indian distinction between the once born and the twice born, it is to this material man that the former description can be applied. He does Nature's inferior works; he assures the basis for her higher activities; but not to him easily are opened the glories of her second birth.
Yet he admits so much of spirituality as has been enforced on his customary ideas by the great religious outbursts of the past and he makes in his scheme of society a place, venerable though not often effective, for the priest or the learned theologian who can be trusted to provide him with a safe and ordinary spiritual pabulum. But to the man who would assert for himself the liberty of spiritual experience and the spiritual life, he assigns, if he admits him at all, not the vestment of the priest but the robe of the Sannyasin. Outside society let him exercise his dangerous freedom. So he may even serve as a human lightning-rod receiving the electricity of the Spirit and turning it away from the social edifice.
--
2 The unified, in whom conscious thought is concentrated, who is all delight and enjoyer of delight, the Wise. . . . He is the Lord of all, the Omniscient, the inner Guide.
Mandukya Upanishad 5, 6.
--
We have to recognise once more that the individual exists not in himself alone but in the collectivity and that individual perfection and liberation are not the whole sense of God's intention in the world. The free use of our liberty includes also the liberation of others and of mankind; the perfect utility of our perfection is, having realised in ourselves the divine symbol, to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in others.
Therefore from a concrete view of human life in its threefold potentialities we come to the same conclusion that we had drawn from an observation of Nature in her general workings and the three steps of her evolution. And we begin to perceive a complete aim for our synthesis of Yoga.
Spirit is the crown of universal existence; Matter is its basis; Mind is the link between the two. Spirit is that which is eternal; Mind and Matter are its workings. Spirit is that which is concealed and has to be revealed; mind and body are the means by which it seeks to reveal itself. Spirit is the image of the Lord of the Yoga; mind and body are the means He has provided for reproducing that image in phenomenal existence. All Nature is an attempt at a progressive revelation of the concealed Truth, a more and more successful reproduction of the divine image.
But what Nature aims at for the mass in a slow evolution, Yoga effects for the individual by a rapid revolution. It works by a quickening of all her energies, a sublimation of all her faculties. While she develops the spiritual life with difficulty and has constantly to fall back from it for the sake of her lower realisations, the sublimated force, the concentrated method of Yoga can attain directly and carry with it the perfection of the mind and even, if she will, the perfection of the body. Nature seeks the Divine in her own symbols: Yoga goes beyond Nature to the Lord of Nature, beyond universe to the Transcendent and can return with the transcendent light and power, with the fiat of the Omnipotent.
But their aim is one in the end. The generalisation of Yoga in humanity must be the last victory of Nature over her own delays and concealments. Even as now by the progressive mind in Science she seeks to make all mankind fit for the full development of the mental life, so by Yoga must she inevitably seek to make all mankind fit for the higher evolution, the second birth, the spiritual existence. And as the mental life uses and perfects the material, so will the spiritual use and perfect the material and the mental existence as the instruments of a divine self-expression.
--
It is for man to know her meaning, no longer misunderstanding, vilifying or misusing the universal Mother and to aspire always by her mightiest means to her highest ideal.
3 Satya means Truth; Krita, effected or completed.
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Nature and climbs beyond her. For the aim of the universal
Mother is to embrace the Divine in her own play and creations and there to realise It. But in the highest flights of Yoga she reaches beyond herself and realises the Divine in Itself exceeding the universe and even standing apart from the cosmic play.
Therefore by some it is supposed that this is not only the highest but also the one true or exclusively preferable object of Yoga.
--
Ineffable and merges its separate existence in that transcendent unity. And always it is the individual, the Self conditioned in its experience by Nature and working through her formations, that attains to the Self unconditioned, free and transcendent.
In practice three conceptions are necessary before there can be any possibility of Yoga; there must be, as it were, three consenting parties to the effort, - God, Nature and the human soul or, in more abstract language, the Transcendental, the universal
32
--
Bhakta seeks and yearns after Bhagavan, Bhagavan also seeks and yearns after the Bhakta.1 There can be no Yoga of knowledge without a human seeker of the knowledge, the supreme subject of knowledge and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of knowledge; no Yoga of devotion without the human God-lover, the supreme object of love and delight and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of spiritual, emotional and aesthetic enjoyment; no Yoga of works without the human worker, the supreme Will, Master of all works and sacrifices, and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of power and action. However Monistic may be our intellectual conception of the highest truth of things, in practice we are compelled to accept this omnipresent Trinity.
For the contact of the human and individual consciousness with the divine is the very essence of Yoga. Yoga is the union of that which has become separated in the play of the universe with its own true self, origin and universality. The contact may take place at any point of the complex and intricately organised consciousness which we call our personality. It may be effected in the physical through the body; in the vital through the action of
Bhakta, the devotee or lover of God; Bhagavan, God, the Lord of Love and Delight.
--
those functionings which determine the state and the experiences of our nervous being; through the mentality, whether by means of the emotional heart, the active will or the understanding mind, or more largely by a general conversion of the mental consciousness in all its activities. It may equally be accomplished through a direct awakening to the universal or transcendent Truth and
Bliss by the conversion of the central ego in the mind. And according to the point of contact that we choose will be the type of the Yoga that we practise.
For if, leaving aside the complexities of their particular processes, we fix our regard on the central principle of the chief schools of Yoga still prevalent in India, we find that they arrange themselves in an ascending order which starts from the lowest rung of the ladder, the body, and ascends to the direct contact between the individual soul and the transcendent and universal
Self. Hathayoga selects the body and the vital functionings as its instruments of perfection and realisation; its concern is with the gross body. Rajayoga selects the mental being in its different parts as its lever-power; it concentrates on the subtle body. The triple Path of Works, of Love and of Knowledge uses some part of the mental being, will, heart or intellect as a starting-point and seeks by its conversion to arrive at the liberating Truth,
--
Nature the equilibrium is based upon the individualisation of a limited quantity and force of the Prana; more than that the individual is by personal and hereditary habit unable to bear, use or control. In Hathayoga, the equilibrium opens a door to the universalisation of the individual vitality by admitting into the body, containing, using and controlling a much less fixed and limited action of the universal energy.
The chief processes of Hathayoga are asana and pran.ayama.
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.
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The Path of Knowledge aims at the realisation of the unique and supreme Self. It proceeds by the method of intellectual reflection, vicara, to right discrimination, viveka. It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our apparent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term as constituents of Prakriti, of phenomenal Nature, creations of
Maya, the phenomenal consciousness. So it is able to arrive at its right identification with the pure and unique Self which is not mutable or perishable, not determinable by any phenomenon or combination of phenomena. From this point the path, as ordinarily followed, leads to the rejection of the phenomenal worlds from the consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the Supreme.
But this exclusive consummation is not the sole or inevitable result of the Path of Knowledge. For, followed more largely and with a less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no less than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realisation of the supreme Self not only in one's own being but in all beings and, finally, the realisation of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realisation a yet further enlargement is possible, the conversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilisable for the perception of the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. Such a method might well lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect
The Systems of Yoga
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Love and Bliss and utilises normally the conception of the supreme Lord in His personality as the divine Lover and enjoyer of the universe. The world is then realised as a play of the
Lord, with our human life as its final stage, pursued through the different phases of self-concealment and self-revelation. The principle of Bhakti Yoga is to utilise all the normal relations of human life into which emotion enters and apply them no longer to transient worldly relations, but to the joy of the All-Loving, the All-Beautiful and the All-Blissful. Worship and meditation are used only for the preparation and increase of intensity of the divine relationship. And this Yoga is catholic in its use of all emotional relations, so that even enmity and opposition to God, considered as an intense, impatient and perverse form of Love, is conceived as a possible means of realisation and salvation.
--
But, here too, the exclusive result is not inevitable. The Yoga itself provides a first corrective by not confining the play of divine love to the relation between the supreme Soul and the individual, but extending it to a common feeling and mutual worship between the devotees themselves united in the same realisation of the supreme Love and Bliss. It provides a yet more general corrective in the realisation of the divine object of Love in all beings not only human but animal, easily extended to all forms whatsoever. We can see how this larger application of the Yoga of
Devotion may be so used as to lead to the elevation of the whole range of human emotion, sensation and aesthetic perception to the divine level, its spiritualisation and the justification of the cosmic labour towards love and joy in our humanity.
--
purifies the mind and the will that we become easily conscious of the great universal Energy as the true doer of all our actions and the Lord of that Energy as their ruler and director with the individual as only a mask, an excuse, an instrument or, more positively, a conscious centre of action and phenomenal relation. The choice and direction of the act is more and more consciously left to this supreme Will and this universal Energy.
To That our works as well as the results of our works are finally abandoned. The object is the release of the soul from its bondage to appearances and to the reaction of phenomenal activities.
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Y THE very nature of the principal Yogic schools, each covering in its operations a part of the complex human integer and attempting to bring out its highest possibilities, it will appear that a synthesis of all of them largely conceived and applied might well result in an integral Yoga. But they are so disparate in their tendencies, so highly specialised and elaborated in their forms, so long confirmed in the mutual opposition of their ideas and methods that we do not easily find how we can arrive at their right union.
An undiscriminating combination in block would not be a synthesis, but a confusion. Nor would a successive practice of each of them in turn be easy in the short span of our human life and with our limited energies, to say nothing of the waste of labour implied in so cumbrous a process. Sometimes, indeed,
Hathayoga and Rajayoga are thus successively practised. And in a recent unique example, in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity first driving straight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were, the kingdom of heaven by violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after another and extracting the substance out of it with an incredible rapidity, always to return to the heart of the whole matter, the realisation and possession of God by the power of love, by the extension of inborn spirituality into various experience and by the spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge. Such an example cannot be generalised. Its object also was special and temporal, to exemplify in the great and decisive experience of a master-soul the truth, now most necessary to humanity, towards which a world long divided into jarring sects and schools is with difficulty labouring, that all sects are forms and fragments of a single integral truth and all disciplines labour in their different ways towards one supreme experience. To know, be and possess
42
--
Will-in-Power executive in the universe. It was by learning and applying the intimate secrets of this Will-in-Power, its method, its Tantra, that the Tantric Yogin pursued the aims of his discipline, - mastery, perfection, liberation, beatitude. Instead of drawing back from manifested Nature and its difficulties, he confronted them, seized and conquered. But in the end, as is the general tendency of Prakriti, Tantric Yoga largely lost its principle in its machinery and became a thing of formulae and occult mechanism still powerful when rightly used but fallen from the clarity of their original intention.
We have in this central Tantric conception one side of the truth, the worship of the Energy, the Shakti, as the sole effective force for all attainment. We get the other extreme in the Vedantic conception of the Shakti as a power of Illusion and in the search after the silent inactive Purusha as the means of liberation from the deceptions created by the active Energy. But in the integral conception the Conscious Soul is the Lord, the Nature-Soul is his executive Energy. Purusha is of the nature of Sat, the being of conscious self-existence pure and infinite; Shakti or Prakriti is of the nature of Chit, - it is power of the Purusha's self-conscious existence, pure and infinite. The relation of the two exists between the poles of rest and action. When the Energy is absorbed
--
Nature, that which we know and are and must remain so long as the faith in us is not changed, acts through limitation and division, is of the nature of Ignorance and culminates in the life of the ego; but the higher Nature, that to which we aspire, acts by unification and transcendence of limitation, is of the nature of Knowledge and culminates in the life divine. The passage from the lower to the higher is the aim of Yoga; and this passage
The Synthesis of the Systems
--
Yoga that we seek must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and a waste of time; for then our sole practical aim must be to find out one path out of the thousand that lead to God, one shortest possible of short cuts, and not to linger exploring different paths that end in the same goal. But if our aim be a transformation of our integral being into the terms of God-existence, it is then that a synthesis becomes necessary.
The method we have to pursue, then, is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform our entire being into His. Thus in a sense
--
Strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for our weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It "makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills." The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet, in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of
--
An integral method and an integral result. First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by
48
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the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the
Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact and identification of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sayujya-mukti, by which it can become free2 even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the salokya-mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of
Sachchidananda; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the Divine, sadharmya-mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the
Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
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functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ananda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ananda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Perfection includes perfection of mind and body, so that the highest results of Rajayoga and Hathayoga should be contained in the widest formula of the synthesis finally to be effected by mankind. At any rate a full development of the general mental and physical faculties and experiences attainable by humanity through Yoga must be included in the scope of the integral method. Nor would these have any raison d'etre unless employed for an integral mental and physical life. Such a mental and physical life would be in its nature a translation of the spiritual existence into its right mental and physical values. Thus we would arrive at a synthesis of the three degrees of Nature and of the three modes of human existence which she has evolved or is evolving. We would include in the scope of our liberated being and perfected modes of activity the material life, our base, and the mental life, our intermediate instrument.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
of union with God. And this latter night is a more obscure and dark and
terrible purgation, as we shall say afterwards.2
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grace, in order to prepare our senses and faculties for union with God through love.
He now proceeds to explain, with an arresting freshness, how these same senses
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Divine union of perfection of love, if God takes not its hand and purges it not in that
dark fire.'3
--
the state of the perfect, which is that of the Divine union of the soul with
God. 4
--
imperfections and the preparation of it for fruitive union. The Passive Night of
Sense, we are told, is 'common' and 'comes to many,' whereas that of Spirit 'is the
--
ascent of the Mount on whose summit the soul attains to transforming union.
Chapters xii and xiii detail with great exactness the benefits that the soul receives
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and prepared for the desired union with the Spouse, a union which is the subject
that the Saint proposed to treat in his commentary on the five remaining stanzas.
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Is there no means of uniting my will with Yours? Perhaps
You have no special will, for You want nothing.
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an aim as to be united with the Divine and to manifest Him, how
can he be affected by all the futilities and foolishnesses of life?
There are people who say one must unite closely with
the outer nature to be able to taste the joy which the
--
I don't think this is true; union with the outer nature brings more
certainly sorrow than joy!
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be a true one, that is, based on union in the divine consciousness.
Open your heart yet wider, yet better, and the distance will
--
There are two ways of uniting with the Divine. One is to concentrate in the heart and go deep enough to find there His Presence;
the other is to fling oneself in His arms, to nestle there as a child
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the reality of your being we are always united.
To think that if you leave your body you will come closer to
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means of attaining the union you desire.
My one hope is to progress as much as I can, so that my
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It is impossible to cease to be; nothing that belongs to the manifested universe can go out of it except through the door of
spiritual liberation, that is, transformation.
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Yes, there is the Truth of perfect union with the Divine in an
identity of consciousness and will.
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perfect union in an invariable joy and peace.
Series Six - To a Young Sadhak
--
that one can attain the true union.
It is in your soul that the calmness can be found and it is by contagion that it spreads through your being. It is not steady because
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I have had the experience myself that one can be fully concentrated and be in union with the Divine even while working
physically with one's hands; but naturally this asks for a little
0.07 - DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
Exposition of the stanzas describing the method followed by the soul in its journey upon the spiritual road to the attainment of the perfect union of love with God, to the extent that is possible in this life. Likewise are described the properties belonging to the soul that has attained to the said perfection, according as they are contained in the same stanzas.
PROLOGUE
IN this book are first set down all the stanzas which are to be expounded; afterwards, each of the stanzas is expounded separately, being set down before its exposition; and then each line is expounded separately and in turn, the line itself also being set down before the exposition. In the first two stanzas are expounded the effects of the two spiritual purgations: of the sensual part of man and of the spiritual part. In the other six are expounded various and wondrous effects of the spiritual illumination and union of love with God.
STANZAS OF THE SOUL
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Begins the exposition of the stanzas which treat of the way and manner which the soul follows upon the road of the union of love with God. Before we enter upon the exposition of these stanzas, it is well to understand here that the soul that utters them is now in the state of perfection, which is the union of love with God, having already passed through severe trials and straits, by means of spiritual exercise in the narrow way of eternal life whereof Our Saviour speaks in the Gospel, along which way the soul ordinarily passes in order to reach this high and happy union with God. Since this road (as the Lord Himself says likewise) is so strait, and since there are so few that enter by it,19 the soul considers it a great happiness and good chance to have passed along it to the said perfection of love, as it sings in this first stanza, calling this strait road with full propriety 'dark night,' as will be explained hereafter in the lines of the said stanza. The soul, then, rejoicing at having passed along this narrow road whence so many blessings have come to it, speaks after this manner.
BOOK THE FIRST
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
My dear child, here is the programme for this year: unify your
whole being around your highest consciousness and do not let
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Divine to the universal Divine and finally to the Transcendent.
The spiritual change puts you directly in contact with the
--
other forms of Energy, which is one and universal.
And it is through the various yogic exercises of breathing,
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soul is to unite with the Divine.
Thus it may be said that the role of the soul is to make a
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organising the evolution of the universe; and more specifically,
since the formation of the earth they have served as messengers
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Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow."
What Sri Aurobindo means is that only a few exceptional beings
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The yoga of devotion is the path that leads to union with
the Divine through perfect, total and eternal love.
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The New Man will be Master and not slave. He will be master, first, of himself and then of the world. Man as he actually is, is but a slave. He has no personal voice or choice; the determining soul, the Ishwara, in him is sleep-bound and hushed. He is a mere plaything in the hands of nature and circumstances. Therefore it is that Science has become his supreme Dharmashastra; for science seeks to teach us the moods of Nature and the methods of propitiating her. Our actual ideal of man is that of the cleverest slave. But the New Man will have found himself and by and according to his inner will, mould and create his world. He will not be in awe of Nature and in an attitude of perpetual apprehension and hesitation, but will ground himself on a secret harmony and union that will declare him as the lord. We will recognise the New Man by his very gait and manner, by a certain kingly ease and dominion in every shade of his expression.
Not that this sovereign power will have anything to do with aggression or over-bearingness. It will not be a power that feels itself only by creating an eternal opponentErbfeindby coming in constant clash with a rival that seeks to gain victory by subjugating. It will not be Nietzschean "will to power," which is, at best, a supreme Asuric power. It will rather be a Divine Power, for the strength it will exert and the victory it will achieve will not come from the egoit is the ego which requires an object outside and against to feel and affirm itself but it will come from a higher personal self which is one with the cosmic soul and therefore with other personal souls. The Asura, in spite of, or rather, because of his aggressive vehemence betrays a lack of the sovereign power that is calm and at ease and self-sufficient. The Devic power does not assert hut simply accomplishes; the forces of the world act not as its opponent but as its instrument. Thus the New Man shall affirm his individual sovereignty and do so to perfection by expressing through it his unity with the cosmic powers, with the infinite godhead. And by being Swarat, Self-Master, he will become Samrat, world-master.
This mastery will be effected not merely in will, but in mind and heart also. For the New Man will know not by the intellect which is egocentric and therefore limited, not by ratiocination which is an indirect and doubtful process, but by direct vision, an inner comm union, a soul revelation. The new knowledge will be vast and profound and creative, based as it will be upon the reality of things and not upon their shadows. Truth will shine through every experience and every utterance"a truth shall have its seat on our speech and mind and hearing", so have the Vedas said. The mind and intellect will not be active and constructive agents but the luminous channel of a self-luminous knowledge. And the heart too which is now the field of passion and egoism will be cleared of its noise and obscurity; a serener sky will shed its pure warmth and translucent glow. The knot will be rent asunderbhidyate hridaya granthih and the vast and mighty streams of another ocean will flow through. We will love not merely those to whom we are akin but God's creatures, one and all; we will love not with the yearning and hunger of a mortal but with the wide and intense Rasa that lies in the divine identity of souls.
01.01 - The One Thing Needful, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual Truth and the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable and all the resit is nothing without it. The Divine once found, to manifest Him, - that is, first of all to transform one's own limited consciousness into the Divine Consciousness, to live in the infinite Peace, Light, Love, Strength, Bliss, to become that in one's essential nature and, as a consequence, to be its vessel, channel, instrument in one's active nature. To bring into activity the principle of oneness on the material plane or to work for humanity is a mental mistranslation of the Truth - these things cannot be the first true object of spiritual seeking. We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or a means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. As we grow in inner consciousness, or as the spiritual Truth of the Divine grows in us, our life and action must indeed more and more flow from that, be one with that. But to decide beforeh and by our limited mental conceptions what they must be is to hamper the growth of the spiritual Truth within. As that grows we shall feel the Divine Light and Truth, the Divine Power and Force, the Divine Purity and Peace working within us, dealing with our actions as well as our consciousness, making use of them to reshape us into the Divine Image, removing the dross, substituting the pure Gold of the Spirit. Only when the Divine Presence is there in us always and the consciousness transformed, can we have the right to say that we are ready to manifest the Divine on the material plane. To hold up a mental ideal or principle and impose that on the inner working brings the danger of limiting ourselves to a mental realisation or of impeding or even falsifying by a halfway formation the truth growth into the full comm union and union with the Divine and the free and intimate outflowing of His will in our life. This is a mistake of orientation to which the mind of today is especially prone. It is far better to approach the Divine for the Peace or Light or Bliss that the realisation of Him gives than to bring in these minor things which can divert us from the one thing needful. The divinisation of the material life also as well as the inner life is part of what we see as the Divine Plan, but it can only be fulfilled by an ourflowing of the inner realisation, something that grows from within outwards, not by the working out of a mental principle.
The realisation of the Divine is the one thing needful and the rest is desirable only in so far as it helps or leads towards that or when it is realised, extends and manifests the realisation. Manifestation and organisation of the whole life for the divine work, - first, the sadhana personal and collective necessary for the realisation and a common life of God-realised men, secondly, for help to the world to move towards that, and to live in the Light - is the whole meaning and purpose of my Yoga. But the realisation is the first need and it is that round which all the rest moves, for apart from it all the rest would have no meaning.
01.01 - The Symbol Dawn, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The heedless Mother of the universe,
An infant longing clutched the sombre Vast.
--
Intervening in a mindless universe,
Its message crept through the reluctant hush
--
The universal Mother s love was hers.
2.25
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is in the direct line of Nature's own Yoga. Nature has a Yoga, which she follows unfailingly, and inevitably for it is her innermost law of being. Yoga means, in essence, a change or transformation of consciousness, a heightening and broadening of consciousness, which is effected by comm union or union or identification with a higher and vaster consciousness.
This process of a developing consciousness in Nature is precisely what is known as Evolution. It is the bringing out and fixing of a higher and higher principle of consciousness, hitherto involved and concealed behind the veil, in the earth consciousness as a dynamic factor in Nature's manifest working. Thus, the first stage of evolution is the status of inconscient Matter, of the lifeless physical elements; the second stage is that of the semi-conscious life in the plant, the third that of the conscious life in the animal, and finally the fourth stage, where we stand at present, is that of the embodied self-conscious life in man.
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The first contact that one has with this static supra-reality is through the higher ranges of the mind: a direct and closer comm union is established through a plane which is just above the mind the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it. The Overmind dissolves or transcends the ego-consciousness which limits the being to its individualised formation bounded by an outward and narrow frame or sheath of mind, life and body; it reveals the universal Self and Spirit, the cosmic godhead and its myriad forces throwing up myriad forms; the world-existence there appears as a play of ever-shifting veils upon the face of one ineffable reality, as a mysterious cycle of perpetual creation and destructionit is the overwhelming vision given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita. At the same time, the initial and most intense experience which this cosmic consciousness brings is the extreme relativity, contingency and transitoriness of the whole flux, and a necessity seems logically and psychologically imperative to escape into the abiding substratum, the ineffable Absoluteness.
This has been the highest consummation, the supreme goal which the purest spiritual experience and the deepest aspiration of the human consciousness generally sought to attain. But in this view, the world or creation or Nature came in the end to be looked upon as fundamentally a product of Ignorance: ignorance and suffering and incapacity and death were declared to be the very hallmark of things terrestrial. The Light that dwells above and beyond can be made to shed for a while some kind of lustre upon the mortal darkness but never altogether to remove or change itto live in the full light, to be in and of the Light means to pass beyond. Not that there have not been other strands and types of spiritual experiences and aspirations, but the one we are considering has always struck the major chord and dominated and drowned all the rest.
But the initial illusory consciousness of the Overmind need not at all lead to the static Brahmic consciousness or Sunyam alone. As a matter of fact, there is in this particular processes of consciousness a hiatus between the two, between Maya and Brahman, as though one has to leap from the one into the other somehow. This hiatus is filled up in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga by the principle of Supermind, not synthetic-analytic2 in knowledge like Overmind and the highest mental intelligence, but inescapably unitarian even in the utmost diversity. Supermind is the Truth-consciousness at once static and dynamic, self-existent and creative: in Supermind the Brahmic consciousness Sachchidanandais ever self-aware and ever manifested and embodied in fundamental truth-powers and truth-forms for the play of creation; it is the plane where the One breaks out into the Many and the Many still remain one, being and knowing themselves to be but various self-expressions of the One; it develops the spiritual archetypes, the divine names and forms of all individualisations of an evolving existence.
SRI AUROBINDO
--
In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its, spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually exclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot of separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres of the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and Overmind meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each distinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all together forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely composite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into Supermind one sees something moreOneness gathering into itself all diversity, not destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness that is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness, the initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in when the supramental light enters the penumbra of the mental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement of light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving, absolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness of Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential and unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression of each one assured truth entering into and upholding every other and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no trial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests on all others and on that which harmonises them all and does not act as a Power diverging from and even competing with other Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play of divergent possibilities the simple, direct, united and absolute certainties of the supramental consciousness retire, as it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out through the interaction first of separately individualised and then of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind there is a conscious underlying unity but yet each Power, Truth, Aspect of that unity is encouraged to work out its possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are used by it for its own enhancement until in the denser and darker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of blind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation or manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being into a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends' towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the Spirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakeningsMatter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit.
The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescienceof Involutionhas been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic Time-Space the splendours of the timeless Reality. The material body came into existence bringing with it inevitably, as it seemed, mortality; it appeared even to be fashioned out of mortality, in order that in this very frame and field of mortality, Immortality, the eternal Spirit Consciousness which is the secret truth and reality in Time itself as well as behind it, might be established and that the Divine might be possessed, or rather, possess itself not in one unvarying mode of the static consciousness, as it does even now behind the cosmic play, but in the play itself and in the multiple mode of the terrestrial existence.
--
The Supermind is not merely synthetic. The Supermind is synthetic only on the lowest spaces of itself, where it has to prepare the principles of Overmind,synthesis is necessary only where analysis has taken place, one has dissected everything, put in pieces (analysis), so one has to piece together. But Supermind is unitarian, has never divided up, so it does not need to add and piece together the parts and fragments. It has always held the conscious Many together in the conscious One.
***
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed it would be wrong to associate any cold ascetic nudity to the spiritual body of Sri Aurobindo. His poetry is philosophic, abstract, no doubt, but every philosophy has its practice, every abstract thing its concrete application,even as the soul has its body; and the fusion, not mere union, of the two is very characteristic in him. The deepest and unseizable flights of thought he knows how to clo the with a Kalidasian richness of imagery, or a Keatsean gusto of sensuousness:
. . . . .O flowers, O delight on the tree-tops burning!
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Let each take cognisance of the godhead that is within him for self is Godand in the strength of the soul-divinity create his universe. It does not matter what sort of universe he- creates, so long as he creates it. The world created by a Buddha is not the same as that created by a Napoleon, nor should they be the same. It does not prove anything that I cannot become a Kalidasa; for that matter Kalidasa cannot become what I am. If you have not the genius of a Shankara it does not mean that you have no genius at all. Be and become yourselfma gridhah kasyachit dhanam, says the Upanishad. The fountain-head of creative genius lies there, in the free choice and the particular delight the self-determination of the spirit within you and not in the desire for your neighbours riches. The world has become dull and uniform and mechanical, since everybody endeavours to become not himself, but always somebody else. Imitation is servitude and servitude brings in grief.
In one's own soul lies the very height and profundity of a god-head. Each soul by bringing out the note that is his, makes for the most wondrous symphony. Once a man knows what he is and holds fast to it, refusing to be drawn away by any necessity or temptation, he begins to uncover himself, to do what his inmost nature demands and takes joy in, that is to say, begins to create. Indeed there may be much difference in the forms that different souls take. But because each is itself, therefore each is grounded upon the fundamental equality of things. All our valuations are in reference to some standard or other set up with a particular end in view, but that is a question of the practical world which in no way takes away from the intrinsic value of the greatness of the soul. So long as the thing is there, the how of it does not matter. Infinite are the ways of manifestation and all of them the very highest and the most sublime, provided they are a manifestation of the soul itself, provided they rise and flow from the same level. Whether it is Agni or Indra, Varuna, Mitra or the Aswins, it is the same supreme and divine inflatus.
The cosmic soul is true. But that truth is borne out, effectuated only by the truth of the individual soul. When the individual soul becomes itself fully and integrally, by that very fact it becomes also the cosmic soul. The individuals are the channels through which flows the universal and the Infinite in its multiple emphasis. Each is a particular figure, aspectBhava, a particular angle of vision of All. The vision is entire and the figure perfect if it is not refracted by the lower and denser parts of our being. And for that the individual must first come to itself and shine in its opal clarity and translucency.
Not to do what others do, but what your soul impels you to do. Not to be others but your own self. Not to be anything but the very cosmic and infinite divinity of your soul. Therein lies your highest freedom and perfect delight. And there you are supremely creative. Each soul has a consortPrakriti, Naturewhich it creates out of its own rib. And in this field of infinite creativity the soul lives, moves and has its being.
01.02 - The Issue, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Against the universe weigh its single self.
3.13
--
And the deep need of universal pain
And hard sacrifice and tragic consequence.
--
With a background of the eternal and unique.
3.24
--
Love in her was wider than the universe,
The whole world could take refuge in her single heart.
--
She faced the engines of the universe;
A heart stood in the way of the driving wheels:
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
there is nothing in the matter or manner which can indicate, to the uninitiated, any reference to the Spirit or the Divine. Or this again,
I have gazed upon beauty from my very birth
--
This is what I was trying to make out as the distinguishing trait of the real spiritual consciousness that seems to be developing in the poetic creation of tomorrow, e.g., it has the same rationality, clarity, concreteness of perception as the scientific spirit has in its own domain and still it is rounded off with a halo of magic and miracle. That is the nature of the logic of the infinite proper to the spiritual consciousness. We can have a Science of the Spirit as well as a Science of Matter. This is the Thought element or what corresponds to it, of which I was speaking, the philosophical factor, that which gives form to the formless or definition to that which is vague, a nearness and familiarity to that which is far and alien. The fullness of the spiritual consciousness means such a thing, the presentation of a divine name and form. And this distinguishes it from the mystic consciousness which is not the supreme solar consciousness but the nearest approach to it. Or, perhaps, the mystic dwells in the domain of the Divine, he may even be suffused with a sense of unity but would not like to acquire the Divine's nature and function. Normally and generally he embodies all the aspiration and yearning moved by intimations and suggestions belonging to the human mentality, the divine urge retaining still the human flavour. We can say also, using a Vedantic terminology, that the mystic consciousness gives us the tatastha lakshana, the nearest approximative attribute of the attri buteless; or otherwise, it is the hiranyagarbha consciousness which englobes the multiple play, the coruscated possibilities of the Reality: while the spiritual proper may be considered as prajghana, the solid mass, the essential lineaments of revelatory knowledge, the typal "wave-particles" of the Reality. In the former there is a play of imagination, even of fancy, a decorative aesthesis, while in the latter it is vision pure and simple. If the spiritual poetry is solar in its nature, we can say, by extending the analogy, that mystic poetry is characteristically lunarMoon representing the delight and the magic that Mind and mental imagination, suffused, no doubt, with a light or a reflection of some light from beyond, is capable of (the Upanishad speaks of the Moon being born of the Mind).
To sum up and recapitulate. The evolution of the poetic expression in man has ever been an attempt at a return and a progressive approach to the spiritual source of poetic inspiration, which was also the original, though somewhat veiled, source from the very beginning. The movement has followed devious waysstrongly negative at timeseven like man's life and consciousness in general of which it is an organic member; but the ultimate end and drift seems to have been always that ideal and principle even when fallen on evil days and evil tongues. The poet's ideal in the dawn of the world was, as the Vedic Rishi sang, to raise things of beauty in heaven by his poetic power,kavi kavitv divi rpam sajat. Even a Satanic poet, the inaugurator, in a way, of modernism and modernistic consciousness, Charles Baudelaire, thus admonishes his spirit:
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It might be said, however, that the guarantee or sanction of Reason does not lie in the extent of its application, nor can its subjective nature (or ego-centric predication, as philosophers would term it) vitiate the validity of its conclusions. There is, in fact, an inherent unity and harmony between Reason and Reality. If we know a little of Reality, we know the whole; if we know the subjective, we know also the objective. As in the part, so in the whole; as it is within, so it is without. If you say that I will die, you need not wait for my actual death to have the proof of your statement. The generalising power inherent in Reason is the guarantee of the certitude to which it leads. Reason is valid, as it does not betray us. If it were such as anti-intellectuals make it out to be, we would be making nothing but false steps, would always remain entangled in contradictions. The very success of Reason is proof of its being a reliable and perfect instrument for the knowledge of Truth and Reality. It is beside the mark to prove otherwise, simply by analysing the nature of Reason and showing the fundamental deficiencies of that nature. It is rather to the credit of Reason that being as it is, it is none the less a successful and trustworthy agent.
Now the question is, does Reason never fail? Is it such a perfect instrument as intellectualists think it to be? There is ground for serious misgivings. Reason says, for example, that the earth revolves round the sun: and reason, it is argued, is right, for we see that all the facts are conformableto it, even facts that were hitherto unknown and are now coming into our ken. But the difficulty is that Reason did not say that always in the past and may not say that always in the future. The old astronomers could explain the universe by holding quite a contrary theory and could fit into it all their astronomical data. A future scientist may come and explain the matter in quite a different way from either. It is only a choice of workable theories that Reason seems to offer; we do not know the fact itself, apart perhaps from exactly the amount that immediate sense-perception gives to each of us. Or again, if we take an example of another category, we may ask, does God exist? A candid Rationalist would say that he does not know although he has his own opinion about the matter. Evidently, Reason cannot solve all the problems that it meets; it can judge only truths that are of a certain type.
It may be answered that Reason is a faculty which gives us progressive knowledge of the reality, but as a knowing instrument it is perfect, at least it is the only instrument at our disposal; even if it gives a false, incomplete or blurred image of the reality, it has the means and capacity of correcting and completing itself. It offers theories, no doubt; but what are theories? They are simply the gradually increasing adaptation of the knowing subject to the object to be known, the evolving revelation of reality to our perception of it. Reason is the power which carries on that process of adaptation and revelation; we can safely rely upon Reason and trust It to carry on its work with increasing success.
--
The fact is that Reason is a lower manifestation of knowledge, it is an attempt to express on the mental level a power that exceeds it. It is the section of a vast and unitarian Consciousness-Power; the section may be necessary under certain conditions and circumstances, but unless it is viewed in its relation to the ensemble, unless it gives up its exclusive absolutism, it will be perforce arbitrary and misleading. It would still remain helpful and useful, but its help and use would be always limited in scope and temporary in effectivity.
***
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A channel of universal harmony,
Hearing was a stream of magic audience,
--
And being's labour in Matter's universe,
Its search for the mystic meaning of its birth
--
There unity is too close for search and clasp
And love is a yearning of the One for the One,
--
There all the truths unite in a single Truth,
And all ideas rejoin Reality.
--
The war of thoughts that fathers the universe,
The clash of forces struggling to prevail
--
This huge material universe became
A small result of a stupendous force:
--
Till at last the frustrate universe sank undone.
Even his godlike strength to rise must fall:
--
A union of the Real with the unique,
A gaze of the Alone from every face,
--
A mind plucking at the unimaginable,
Overleaping with a sole and perilous bound
--
A chaos of signs into a universe.
Out of the rich wonders and the intricate whorls
--
The universe was not now this senseless whirl
Borne round inert on an immense machine;
--
He grew one with a covert universe.
His grasp surprised her mightiest energies' springs;
--
The universal strengths were linked with his;
Filling earth's smallness with their boundless breadths,
01.03 - Yoga and the Ordinary Life, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are many ways of opening to this Divine consciousness or entering into it. My way which I show to others is by a constant practice to go inward into oneself, to open by aspiration to the Divine and once one is conscious of it and its action to give oneself to It entirely. This self-giving means not to ask for anything but the constant contact or union with the Divine Consciousness, to aspire for its peace, power, light and felicity, but to ask nothing else and in life and action to be its instrument only for whatever work it gives one to do in the world. If one can once open and feel the Divine Force, the
Power of the Spirit working in the mind and heart and body, the rest is a matter of remaining faithful to It, calling for it always, allowing it to do its work when it comes and rejecting every other and inferior Force that belongs to the lower consciousness and the lower nature.
--
The religious life is a movement of the same ignorant human consciousness, turning or trying to turn away from the earth towards the Divine but as yet without knowledge and led by the dogmatic tenets and rules of some sect or creed which claims to have found the way out of the bonds of the earth-consciousness into some beatific Beyond. The religious life may be the first approach to the spiritual, but very often it is only a turning about in a round of rites, ceremonies and practices or set ideas and forms without any issue. The spiritual life, on the contrary, proceeds directly by a change of consciousness, a change from the ordinary consciousness, ignorant and separated from its true self and from God, to a greater consciousness in which one finds one's true being and comes first into direct and living contact and then into union with the Divine. For the spiritual seeker this change of consciousness is the one thing he seeks and nothing else matters.
Morality is a part of the ordinary life; it is an attempt to govern the outward conduct by certain mental rules or to form the character by these rules in the image of a certain mental ideal. The spiritual life goes beyond the mind; it enters into the deeper consciousness of the Spirit and acts out of the truth of the Spirit.
--
Morality is a question of man's mind and vital, it belongs to a lower plane of consciousness. A spiritual life therefore cannot be founded on a moral basis, it must be founded on a spiritual basis. This does not mean that the spiritual man must be immoral - as if there were no other law of conduct than the moral. The law of action of the spiritual consciousness is higher, not lower than the moral - it is founded on union with the Divine and living in the Divine Consciousness and its action is founded on obedience to the Divine Will.
01.04 - Motives for Seeking the Divine, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Let us first put aside the quite foreign consideration of what we would do if the union with the Divine brought eternal joylessness, Nirananda or torture. Such a thing does not exist and to drag it in only clouds the issue. The Divine is Anandamaya and one can seek him for the Ananda he gives; but he has also in him many other things and one may seek him for any of them, for peace, for liberation, for knowledge, for power, for anything else of which one may feel the pull or the impulse. It is quite possible for someone to say: "Let me have Power from the
Divine and do His work or His will and I am satisfied, even if the use of Power entails suffering also." It is possible to shun bliss as a thing too tremendous or ecstatic and ask only or rather for peace, for liberation, for Nirvana. You speak of self-fulfilment,
- one may regard the Supreme not as the Divine but as one's highest Self and seek fulfilment of one's being in that highest Self; but one need not envisage it as a self of bliss, ecstasy, Ananda - one may envisage it as a self of freedom, vastness, knowledge, tranquillity, strength, calm, perfection - perhaps too calm for a ripple of anything so disturbing as joy to enter. So even if it is for something to be gained that one approaches the Divine, it is not a fact that one can approach Him or seek union only for the sake of Ananda and nothing else.
That involves something which throws all your reasoning out of gear. For these are aspects of the Divine Nature, powers of it, states of his being, - but the Divine Himself is something absolute, someone self-existent, not limited by his aspects, - wonderful and ineffable, not existing by them, but they existing because of him. It follows that if he attracts by his aspects, all the more he can attract by his very absolute selfness which is sweeter, mightier, profounder than any aspect. His peace, rapture, light, freedom, beauty are marvellous and ineffable, because he is himself magically, mysteriously, transcendently marvellous and ineffable. He can then be sought after for his wonderful and ineffable self and not only for the sake of one aspect or another of him. The only thing needed for that is, first, to arrive at a point when the psychic being feels this pull of the Divine in himself and, secondly, to arrive at the point when the mind, vital and each thing else begins to feel too that that was what it was wanting and the surface hunt after Ananda or what else was only an excuse for drawing the nature towards that supreme magnet.
Your argument that because we know the union with the
Divine will bring Ananda, therefore it must be for the Ananda that we seek the union, is not true and has no force. One who loves a queen may know that if she returns his love it will bring him power, position, riches and yet it need not be for the power, position, riches that he seeks her love. He may love her for herself and could love her equally if she were not a queen; he might have no hope of any return whatever and yet love her, adore her, live for her, die for her simply because she is she. That has happened and men have loved women without any hope of enjoyment or result, loved steadily, passionately after age has come and beauty has gone. Patriots do not love their country only when she is rich, powerful, great and has much to give them; their love for country has been most ardent, passionate, absolute when the country was poor, degraded, miserable, having nothing to give but loss, wounds, torture, imprisonment, death as the wages of her service; yet even knowing that they would never see her free, men have lived, served and died for her - for her own sake, not for what she could give. Men have loved Truth for her own sake and for what they could seek or find of her, accepted poverty, persecution, death itself; they have been content even to seek for her always, not finding, and yet never given up the search.
That means what? That men, country, Truth and other things besides can be loved for their own sake and not for anything else, not for any circumstance or attendant quality or resulting enjoyment, but for something absolute that is either in them or behind their appearance and circumstance. The Divine is more than a man or woman, a stretch of land or a creed, opinion, discovery or principle. He is the Person beyond all persons, the
01.04 - Sri Aurobindos Gita, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This neo-spirituality which might claim its sanction and authority from the real old-world Indian disciplinesay, of Janaka and Yajnavalkyalabours, however, in reality, under the influence of European activism and ethicism. It was this which served as the immediate incentive to our spiritual revival and revaluation and its impress has not been thoroughly obliterated even in the best of our modern exponents. The bias of the vital urge and of the moral imperative is apparent enough in the modernist conception of a dynamic spirituality. Fundamentally the dynamism is made to reside in the lan of the ethical man,the spiritual element, as a consciousness of supreme unity in the Absolute (Brahman) or of love and delight in God, serving only as an atmosphere for the mortal activity.
Sri Aurobindo has raised action completely out of the mental and moral plane and has given it an absolute spiritual life. Action has been spiritualised by being carried back to its very source and origin, for it is the expression in life of God's own Consciousness-Energy (Chit-Shakti).
The Supreme Spirit, Purushottama, who holds in himself the dual reality of Brahman and the world, is the master of action who acts but in actionlessness, the Lord in whom and through whom the universes and their creatures live and move and have their being. Karmayoga is union in mind and soul and body with the Lord of action in the execution of his cosmic purpose. And this union is effected through a transformation of the human nature, through the revelation of the Divine Prakriti and its descent upon and possession of the inferior human vehicle.
Arrived so far, we now find, if we look back, a change in the whole perspective. Karma and even Karmayoga, which hitherto seemed to be the pivot of the Gita's teaching, retire somewhat into the background and present a diminished stature and value. The centre of gravity has shifted to the conception of the Divine Nature, to the Lord's own status, to the consciousness above the three Gunas, to absolute consecration of each limb of man's humanity to the Supreme Purusha for his descent and incarnation and play in and upon this human world.
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 comm unity 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 comm union 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
multiple without dimension, indivisible without uniformity,
the ship of Solomon (blessed be he) drove on.1
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This mass of unintelligible results,
Are the dumb graph of truths that work unseen:
--
As if an unintelligible phrase
Suggested a million renderings to the Mind,
--
Or a fragment of the universal word.
It leaves two giant letters void of sense
--
Carrying an enigmatic universe,
As if a present without future or past
--
Reconstitute the perfect word, unite
The Alpha and the Omega in one sound;
--
Alive in a dead rotating universe
We whirl not here upon a casual globe
--
And fill the abyss that is the universe.
Here meanwhile at the Spirit's opposite pole
--
The universe is an endless masquerade:
For nothing here is utterly what it seems;
--
He has made the universe his pastime's field,
A vast gymnasium of his works of might.
--
He chances on unimagined continents:
A seeker of the islands of the Blest,
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 no inventor or innovator when he posits Spirit as Beauty, the spiritual consciousness as the ardent rhythm of ecstasy. This experience is the very core of Vaishnavism and for which Tagore is sometimes called a Neo-Vaishnava. The Vaishnava sees the world pulsating in glamorous beauty as the Lila (Play) of the Lord, and the Lord, God himself, is nothing but Love and Beauty. Still Tagore is not all Vaishnava or merely a Vaishnava; he is in addition a modern (the carping voice will say, there comes the dilution and adulteration)in the sense that problems exist for himsocial, political, economic, national, humanitarianwhich have to be faced and solved: these are not merely mundane, but woven into the texture of the fundamental problem of human destiny, of Soul and Spirit and God. A Vaishnava was, in spite of his acceptance of the world, an introvert, to use a modern psychological phrase, not necessarily in the pejorative sense, but in the neutral scientific sense. He looks upon the universe' and human life as the play of the Lord, as an actuality and not mere illusion indeed; but he does not participate or even take interest in the dynamic working out of the world process, he does not care to know, has no need of knowing that there is a terrestrial purpose and a diviner fulfilment of the mortal life upon earth. The Vaishnava dwells more or less absorbed in the Vaikuntha of his inner consciousness; the outer world, although real, is only a symbolic shadowplay to which he can but be a witness-real, is only a nothing more.
A modern idealist of the type of a reformer would not be satisfied with that role. If he is merely a moralist reformer, he will revolt against the "witness business", calling it a laissez-faire mentality of bygone days. A spiritual reformer would ask for morea dynamic union with the Divine Will and Consciousness, not merely a passive enjoyment in the Bliss, so that he may be a luminous power or agent for the expression of divine values in things mundane.
Not the acceptance of the world as it is, not even a joyous acceptance, viewing it as an inexplicable and mysterious and magic play of, God, but the asp ration and endeavour to change it, mould it in the pattern of its inner divine realities for there are such realities which seek expression and embodiment in earthly life that is the great mission and labour of humanity and that is all the meaning of man's existence here below. And Tagore is one of the great prophets and labourers who had the vision of the shape of things to come and worked for it. Only it must be noted, as I have already said, that unlike mere moral reformists or scientific planners, Tagore grounded himself upon the eternal ancient truths that "age cannot wither nor custom stale"the divine truths of the Spirit.
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Interpreting the universe by soul signs
He read from within the text of the without:
--
Exiled in a fragmented universe
Amid half-semblances of diviner things.
--
Love's broken reflexes of unity
Swim, fragment-mirrorings of a floating sun.
--
A universal light was in his eyes,
A golden influx flowed through heart and brain;
--
Hurried into unimaginable depths,
Upborne into immeasurable heights,
--
On which the universal and Sole could write.
All that represses our fallen consciousness
--
Against the forces of the universe.
The soul and cosmos faced as equal powers.
--
And the universe the slave of mortal will.
A mediatrix with veiled and nameless gods
--
This overt universe whose figures hide
The secrets merged in superconscient light,
--
And showed to them their divine unity,
Saving from the error of divided self
--
Travelled through difference towards unity,
Mind's winding search lost every tinge of doubt
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Comm unism is the synthesis of collectivism and individualism. The past ages of society were characterised more or less by a severe collectivism. In ancient Greece, more so in Sparta and in Rome, the individual had, properly speaking, no separate existence of his own; he was merged in the State or Nation. The individual was considered only as a limb of the collective being, had to live and labour for the common weal. The value attached to each person was strictly in reference to the output that the group to which he belonged received from him. Apart from this service for the general unit the body politicany personal endeavour and achievement, if not absolutely discouraged and repressed, was given a very secondary place of merit. The summum bonum of the individual was to sacrifice at the altar of the res publica, the bonum publicum. In India, the position and function of the State or Nation was taken up by the society. Here too social institutions were so constituted and men were so bred and brought up that individuality had neither the occasion nor the incentive to express itself, it was a thing that remained, in the Kalidasian phrase, an object for the ear onlysrutau sthita. Those who sought at all an individual aim and purpose, as perhaps the Sannyasins, were put outside the gate of law and society. Within the society, in actual life and action, it was a sin and a crime or at least a gross imperfection to have any self-regarding motive or impulse; personal preference was the last thing to be considered, virtue consisted precisely in sacrificing one's own taste and inclination for the sake of that which the society exacts and sanctions.
Against this tyranny of the group, this absolute rule of the collective will, the human mind rose in revolt and the result was Individualism. For whatever may be the truth and necessity of the Collective, the Individual is no less true and necessary. The individual has his own law and urge of being and his own secret godhead. The collective godhead derides the individual godhead at its peril. The first movement of the reaction, however, was a run to the other extremity; a stern collectivism gave birth to an intransigent individualism. The individual is sacred and inviolable, cost what it may. It does not matter what sort of individuality one seeks, it is enough if the thing is there. So the doctrine of individualism has come to set a premium on egoism and on forces that are disruptive of all social bonds. Each and every individual has the inherent right, which is also a duty, to follow his own impetus and impulse. Society is nothing but the battle ground for competing individualities the strongest survive and the weakest go to the wall. Association and co-operation are instruments that the individual may use and utilise for his own growth and development but in the main they act as deterrents rather than as aids to the expression and expansion of his characteristic being. In reality, however, if we probe sufficiently deep into the matter we find that there is no such thing as corporate life and activity; what appears as such is only a camouflage for rigorous competition; at the best, there maybe only an offensive and defensive alliancehumanity fights against nature, and within humanity itself group fights against group and in the last analysis, within the group, the individual fights against the individual. This is the ultimate Law-the Dharma of creation.
Now, what such an uncompromising individualism fails to recognise is that individuality and ego are not the same thing, that the individual may have his individuality intact and entire and yet sacrifice his ego, that the soul of man is a much greater thing than his vital being. It is simply ignoring the fact and denying the truth to say that man is only a fighting animal and not a loving god, that the self within the individual realises itself only through competition and not co-operation. It is an error to conceive of society as a mere parallelogram of forces, to suppose that it has risen simply out of the struggle of individual interests and continues to remain by that struggle. Struggle is only one aspect of the thing, a particular form at a particular stage, a temporary manifestation due to a particular system and a particular habit and training. It would be nearer the truth to say that society came into being with the demand of the individual soul to unite with the individual soul, with the stress of an Over-soul to express itself in a multitude of forms, diverse yet linked together and organised in perfect harmony. Only, the stress for union manifested itself first on the material plane as struggle: but this is meant to be corrected and transcended and is being continually corrected and transcended by a secret harmony, a real commonality and brotherhood and unity. The individual is not so self-centred as the individualists make him to be, his individuality has a much vaster orbit and fulfils itself only by fulfilling others. The scientists have begun to discover other instincts in man than those of struggle and competition; they now place at the origin of social grouping an instinct which they name the herd-instinct: but this is only a formulation in lower terms, a translation on the vital plane of a higher truth and reality the fundamental oneness and accord of individuals and their spiritual impulsion to unite.
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.
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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
And the reason is his metaphysics. It is the Jansenist conception of God and human nature that inspired and coloured all his experience and consciousness. According to it, as according to the Calvinist conception, man is a corrupt being, corroded to the core, original sin has branded his very soul. Only Grace saves him and releases him. The order of sin and the order of Grace are distinct and disparate worlds and yet they complement each other and need each other. Greatness and misery are intertwined, united, unified with each other in him. Here is an echo of the Manichean position which also involves an abyss. But even then God's grace is not a free agent, as Jesuits declare; there is a predestination that guides and controls it. This was one of the main subjects he treated in his famous open letters (Les Provinciales) that brought him renown almost overnight. Eternal hell is a possible prospect that faces the Jansenist. That was why a Night always over-shadowed the Day in Pascal's soul.
Man then, according to Pascal, is by nature a sinful thing. He can lay no claim to noble virtue as his own: all in him is vile, he is a lump of dirt and filth. Even the greatest has his full share of this taint. The greatest, the saintliest, and the meanest, the most sinful, all meet, all are equal on this common platform; all have the same feet of clay. Man is as miserable a creature as a beast, as much a part and product of Nature as a plant. Only there is this difference that an animal or a tree is unconscious, while man knows that he is miserable. This knowledge or perception makes him more miserable, but that is his real and only greatness there is no other. His thought, his self-consciousness, and his sorrow and repentance and contrition for what he is that is the only good partMary's part that has been given to him. Here are Pascal's own words on the subject:
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"The heart has its reasons which Reason knows not... I say, the heart loves the universal being naturally, and itself also naturally, according to which so ever it gives itself. And it hardens itself against the one or the other according to its choice. You have rejected one and preserved the other. Is it by the reason that you love ?"10
"Know then, a you proud one, what a paradox you are to yourself. Humble yourself, impotent Reason. Learn, man surpasses man infinitely. Hear from your Master your true state which you do not know. Listen to God."11
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"Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connat point; ... Je dis que Ie coeur aime l'tre universel naturellement, et soi-mme naturellement, selon qu'il s'y donne; et il se durcit contre l'un ou l'autre, son choix. Vous avez rejet l'un et conserv l'autre. Est-ce par raison que vous aimez?"
"Connaissez done, superbe, quel paradoxe vous tes vous-mme. Humiliezvous, raison impuissante: apprenez que l'homme passe infiniment l'homme, et entendez de votre matre votre condition vritable que vous ignorez. coutez Dieu.'.
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thirdly, there is the line of Sublimationit is when the natural impulse is neither repressed nor diverted but lifted up into a higher modality. The thing is given a new sense and a new value which serve to remove the stigma usually attached to it and thus allow its free indulgence. Instances of carnal love sublimated into spiritual union, of passion transmuted into devotion (Bhakti) are common enough to illustrate the point.
The human mind naturally, without any effort on its part, takes to one or more of these devices to control and conceal the aboriginal impulses. But this spontaneous process can be organised and consciously regulated and made to serve better the purpose and urge of Nature. And this is the beginning of yoga the conscious fulfilment of Nature. The Psycho-analysts have given us the first and elementary stage of this process of yoga. It is, we may say, the fourth line of control. With this man enters a new level of being, develops a new mode of life. It is when the automatism of Nature is replaced by the power of Conscious Control. Man is not here, a blind instrument of forces, his activities (both indulging and controlling) are not guided according to an ignorant submission to the laws of almost subconscious impulsions. Conscious control means that the mind does not fight shy of or seek to elude the aboriginal insistences, but allows them to come up freely, meets them squarely, recognises them and establishes an easy mastery over them.
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Here is the Augustinian mantra taken as the motto of The Scale of Perfection: We ascend the ascending grades in our heart and we sing the song of ascension1. The journey's end is heavenly Jerusalem, the House of the Lord. The steps of this inner ascension are easily visible, not surely to the outer eye of the sense-burdened man, but to the "ghostly seeing" of the aspirant which is hazy in the beginning but slowly clears as he advances. The first step is the withdrawal from the outer senses and looking and seeing within. "Turn home again in thyself, and hold thee within and beg no more without." The immediate result is a darkness and a restless darknessit is a painful night. The outer objects of attraction and interest have been discarded, but the inner attachments and passions surge there still. If, however, one continues and persists, refuses to be drawn out, the turmoil settles down and the darkness begins to thin and wear away. One must not lose heart, one must have patience and perseverance. So when the outward world is no more-there and its call also no longer awakes any echo in us, then comes the stage of "restful darkness" or "light-some darkness". But it is still the dark Night of the soul. The outer light is gone and the inner light is not yet visible: the night, the desert, the great Nought, stretches between these two lights. But the true seeker goes through and comes out of the tunnel. And there is happiness at the end. "The seeking is travaillous, but the finding is blissful." When one steps out of the Night, enters into the deepest layer of the being, one stands face to face to one's soul, the very image of God, the perfect God-man, the Christ within. That is the third degree of our inner ascension, the entry into the deepest, purest and happiest statein which one becomes what he truly is; one finds the Christ there and dwells in love and union with him. But there is still a further step to take, and that is real ascension. For till now it has been a going within, from the outward to the inner and the inmost; now one has to go upward, transcend. Within the body, in life, however deep you may go, even if you find your soul and your union with Jesus whose tabernacle is your soul, still there is bound to remain a shadow of the sinful prison-house; the perfect bliss and purity without any earthly taint, the completeness and the crowning of the purgation and transfiguration can come only when you go beyond, leaving altogether the earthly form and worldly vesture and soar into Heaven itself and be in the company of the Trinity. "Into myself, and after... above myself by overpassing only into Him." At the same time it is pointed out, this mediaeval mystic has the common sense to see that the going in and going above of which one speaks must not be understood in a literal way, it is a figure of speech. The movement of the mystic is psychological"ghostly", it is saidnot physical or carnal.
This spiritual march or progress can also be described as a growing into the likeness of the Lord. His true self, his own image is implanted within us; he is there in the profoundest depth of our being as Jesus, our beloved and our soul rests in him in utmost bliss. We are aware neither of Jesus nor of his spouse, our soul, because of the obsession of the flesh, the turmoil raised by the senses, the blindness of pride and egoism. All that constitutes the first or old Adam, the image of Nought, the body of death which means at bottom the "false misruled love in to thyself." This self-love is the mother of sin, is sin itself. What it has to be replaced by is charity that is the true meaning of Christian charity, forgetfulness of self. "What is sin but a wanting and a forbearing of God." And the whole task, the discipline consists in "the shaping of Christ in you, the casting of sin through Christ." Who then is Christ, what is he? This knowledge you get as you advance from your sense-bound perception towards the inner and inmost seeing. As your outer nature gets purified, you approach gradually your soul, the scales fall off from your eyes too and you have the knowledge and "ghostly vision." Here too there are three degrees; first, you start with faith the senses can do nothing better than have faith; next, you rise to imagination which gives a sort of indirect touch or inkling of the truth; finally, you have the "understanding", the direct vision. "If he first trow it, he shall afterwards through grace feel it, and finally understand it."
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Indeed, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the Eastern and Western approach to Divine Love, the Christian and the Vaishnava, for example. Indian spirituality, whatever its outer form or credal formulation, has always a background of utter unity. This unity, again, is threefold or triune and is expressed in those great Upanishadic phrases,mahvkyas,(1) the transcendental unity: the One alone exists, there is nothing else than theOneekamevdvityam; (2) the cosmic unity: all existence is one, whatever exists is that One, thereare no separate existences:sarvam khalvidam brahma neha nnsti kincaa; (3) That One is I, you too are that One:so' ham, tattvamasi; this may be called the individual unity. As I have said, all spiritual experiences in India, of whatever school or line, take for granted or are fundamentally based upon this sense of absolute unity or identity. Schools of dualism or pluralism, who do not apparently admit in their tenets this extreme monism, are still permeated in many ways with that sense and in some form or other take cognizance of the truth of it. The Christian doctrine too says indeed, 'I and my Father in Heaven are one', but this is not identity, but union; besides, the human soul is not admitted into this identity, nor the world soul. The world, we have seen, according to the Christian discipline has to be altogether abandoned, negatived, as we go inward and upward towards our spiritual status reflecting the divine image in the divine company. It is a complete rejection, a cutting off and casting away of world and life. One extreme Vedantic path seems to follow a similar line, but there it is not really rejection, but a resolution, not the rejection of what is totally foreign and extraneous, but a resolution of the external into its inner and inmost substance, of the effect into its original cause. Brahman is in the world, Brahman is the world: the world has unrolled itself out of the Brahmansi, pravttiit has to be rolled back into its, cause and substance if it is to regain its pure nature (that is the process of nivitti). Likewise, the individual being in the world, "I", is the transcendent being itself and when it withdraws, it withdraws itself and the whole world with it and merges into the Absolute. Even the Maya of the Mayavadin, although it is viewed as something not inherent in Brahman but superimposed upon Brahman, still, has been accepted as a peculiar power of Brahman itself. The Christian doctrine keeps the individual being separate practically, as an associate or at the most as an image of God. The love for one's neighbour, charity, which the Christian discipline enjoins is one's love for one's kind, because of affinity of nature and quality: it does not dissolve the two into an integral unity and absolute identity, where we love because we are one, because we are the One. The highest culmination of love, the very basis of love, according to the Indian conception, is a transcendence of love, love trans-muted into Bliss. The Upanishad says, where one has become the utter unity, who loves whom? To explain further our point, we take two examples referred to in the book we are considering. The true Christian, it is said, loves the sinner too, he is permitted to dislike sin, for he has to reject it, but he must separate from sin the sinner and love him. Why? Because the sinner too can change and become his brother in spirit, one loves the sinner because there is the possibility of his changing and becoming a true Christian. It is why the orthodox Christian, even such an enlightened and holy person as this mediaeval Canon, considers the non-Christian, the non-baptised as impure and potentially and fundamentally sinners. That is also why the Church, the physical organisation, is worshipped as Christ's very body and outside the Church lies the pagan world which has neither religion nor true spirituality nor salvation. Of course, all this may be symbolic and it is symbolic in a sense. If Christianity is taken to mean true spirituality, and the Church is equated with the collective embodiment of that spirituality, all that is claimed on their behalf stands justified. But that is an ideal, a hypothetical standpoint and can hardly be borne out by facts. However, to come back to our subject, let us ow take the second example. Of Christ himself, it is said, he not only did not dislike or had any aversion for Judas, but that he positively loved the traitor with a true and sincere love. He knew that the man would betray him and even when he was betraying and had betrayed, the Son of Man continued to love him. It was no make-believe or sham or pretence. It was genuine, as genuine as anything can be. Now, why did he love his enemy? Because, it is said, the enemy is suffered by God to do the misdeed: he has been allowed to test the faith of the faithful, he too has his utility, he too is God's servant. And who knows even a Judas would not change in the end? Many who come to scoff do remain to pray. But it can be asked, 'Does God love Satan too in the same way?' The Indian conception which is basically Vedantic is different. There is only one reality, one truth which is viewed differently. Whether a thing is considered good or evil or neutral, essentially and truly, it is that One and nothing else. God's own self is everywhere and the sage makes no difference between the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant. It is his own self he finds in every person and every objectsarvabhtsthitam yo mm bhajati ekatvamsthitah"he has taken his stand upon oneness and loves Me in all beings."2
This will elucidate another point of difference between the Christian's and the Vaishnava's love of God, for both are characterised by an extreme intensity and sweetness and exquisiteness of that divine feeling. This Christian's, however, is the union of the soul in its absolute purity and simplicity and "privacy" with her lord and master; the soul is shred here of all earthly vesture and goes innocent and naked into the embrace of her Beloved. The Vaishnava feeling is richer and seems to possess more amplitude; it is more concrete and less ethereal. The Vaishnava in his passionate yearning seeks to carry as it were the whole world with him to his Lord: for he sees and feels Him not only in the inmost chamber of his soul, but meets Him also in and I through his senses and in and through the world and its objects around. In psychological terms one can say that the Christian realisation, at its very source, is that of the inmost soul, what we call the "psychic being" pure and simple, referred to in the book we are considering; as: "His sweet privy voice... stirreth thine heart full stilly." Whereas the Vaishnava reaches out to his Lord with his outer heart too aflame with passion; not only his inmost being but his vital being also seeks the Divine. This bears upon the occult story of man's spiritual evolution upon earth. The Divine Grace descends from the highest into the deepest and from the deepest to the outer ranges of human nature, so that the whole of it may be illumined and transformed and one day man can embody in his earthly life the integral manifestation of God, the perfect Epiphany. Each religion, each line of spiritual discipline takes up one limb of manone level or mode of his being and consciousness purifies it and suffuses it with the spiritual and divine consciousness, so that in the end the whole of man, in his integral living, is recast and remoulded: each discipline is in charge of one thread as it were, all together weave the warp and woof in the evolution of the perfect pattern of a spiritualised and divinised humanity.
The conception of original sin is a cardinal factor in Christian discipline. The conception, of sinfulness is the very motive-power that drives the aspirant. "Seek tensely," it is said, "sorrow and sigh deep, mourn still, and stoop low till thine eye water for anguish and for pain." Remorse and grief are necessary attendants; the way of the cross is naturally the calvary strewn with pain and sorrow. It is the very opposite of what is termed the "sunlit path" in spiritual ascension. Christian mystics have made a glorious spectacle of the process of "dying to the world." Evidently, all do not go the whole length. There are less 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."
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We say, then, that man is distinguished from the animal by his having consciousness as it has, but added to it the consciousness of self. Man acts and feels and knows as much as the animal does; but also he knows that he acts, he knows that he feels, he knows that he knowsand this is a thing the animal cannot do. It is the awakening of the sense of self in every mode of being that characterises man, and it is owing to this consciousness of an ego behind, of a permanent unit of reference, which has modified even the functions of knowing and feeling and acting, has refashioned them in a mould which is not quite that of the animal, in spite of a general similarity.
So the humanity of man consists in his consciousness of the self or ego. Is there no other higher mode of consciousness? Or is self-consciousness the acme, the utmost limit to which consciousness can raise itself? If it is so, then we are bound to conclude that humanity will remain eternally human in its fundamental nature; the only progress, if progress at all we choose to call it, will consist perhaps in accentuating this consciousness of the self and in expressing it through a greater variety of stresses, through a richer combination of its colour and light and shade and rhythm. But also, this may not be sothere may be the possibility of a further step, a transcending of the consciousness of the self. It seems unnatural and improbable that having risen from un-consciousness to self-consciousness through a series of continuous marches, Nature should suddenly stop and consider what she had achieved to be her final end. Has Nature become bankrupt of her creative genius, exhausted of her upward drive? Has she to remain content with only a clever manipulation, a mere shuffling and re-arranging of the materials already produced?
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So, in man also, especially of that order which forms the crown of humanityin poets and artists and seers and great men of actioncan be observed a certain characteristic form of consciousness, which is something other than, greater than the consciousness of the mere self. It is difficult as yet to characterise definitely what that thing is. It is the awakening of the self to something which is beyond itselfit is the cosmic self, the oversoul, the universal being; it is God, it is Turiya, it is sachchidanandain so many ways the thing has been sought to be envisaged and expressed. The consciousness of that level has also a great variety of names given to it Intuition, Revelation, cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness. It is to be noted here, however, that the thing we are referring to, is not the Absolute, the Infinite, the One without a second. It is not, that is to say, the supreme Reality the Brahmanin its static being, in its undivided and indivisible unity; it is the dynamic Brahman, that status of the supreme Reality where creation, the diversity of Becoming takes rise, it is the Truth-worldRitam the domain of typal realities. The distinction is necessary, as there does seem to be such a level of consciousness intermediary, again, between man and the Absolute, between self-consciousness and the supreme consciousness. The simplest thing would be to give that intermediate level of consciousness a negative namesince being as yet human we cannot foresee exactly its composition and function the super-consciousness.
The inflatus of something vast and transcendent, something which escapes all our familiar schemes of cognisance and yet is insistent with a translucent reality of its own, we do feel sometimes within us invading and enveloping our individuality, lifting up our sense of self and transmuting our personality into a reality which can hardly be called merely human. All this life of ego-bound rationality then melts away and opens out the passage for a life of vision and power. Thus it is the poet has felt when he says, "there is this incalculable element in human life influencing us from the mystery which envelops our being, and when reason is satisfied, there is something deeper than Reason which makes us still uncertain of truth. Above the human reason there is a transcendental sphere to which the spirit of men sometimes rises, and the will may be forged there at a lordly smithy and made the unbreakable pivot."(A.E.)
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The ideal was Blake's. It will not sound so revolting if we understand what the poet meant by Hell. Hell, he explains, is simply the body, the Energy of Lifehell, because body and life on earth were so considered by the orthodox Christianity. The Christian ideal demands an absolute denial and rejection of life. Fulfilment is elsewhere, in heaven alone. That is, as we know, the ideal of the ascetic. The life of the spirit (in heaven) is a thing away from and stands against the life of the flesh (on earth). In the face of this discipline, countering it, Blake posited a union, a marriage of the two, considered incompatibles and incommensurables. Enfant terrible that he was, he took an infinite delight in a spirit of contradiction and went on expatiating on the glory of the misalliance. He declared a new apocalypse and said that Lucifer, the one called Satan, was the real God, the so-called Messiah the fake one: the apparent Milton spoke in praise of God and in dispraise of Satan, but the real, the esoteric Milton glorified Satan, who is the true God and minimised or caricatured the counterfeit or shadow God. Here is Blakean Bible in a nutshell:
But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged.. . . If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
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But the process, Monsieur Thibon rightly asserts, must begin with the individual and within the individual. Man must "turn within, feel alive within himself", re-establish his living contact with God, the source and origin from which he has cut himself off. Man must learn to subordinate having to being. Each individual must be himself, a free and spontaneous expression. Upon such individual , upon individuals grouped naturally in smaller collectivities and not upon unformed or ill-formed wholesale masses can a perfect human society be raised and will be raised. Monsieur Thibon insistsand very rightlyupon the variety and diversity of individual and local growths in a unified humanity and not a dead uniformity of regimented oneness. He declares, as the reviewer of the London Times succinctly puts it: "Let us abolish our insensate worship of number. Let us repeal the law of majorities. Let us work for the unity that draws together instead of idolizing the multiplicity that disintegrates. Let us understand that it is not enough for each to have a place; what matters is that each should be in his right place. For the atomized society let us substitute an organic society, one in which every man will be free to do what he alone is qualified and able to do."
So far so good. For it is not far enough. The being or becoming that is demanded in fulfilment of the divine advent in humanity must go to the very roots of life and nature, must seize God in his highest and sovereign status. No prejudice of the past, no notion of our mental habits must seek to impose its law. Thus, for example, in the matter of redeeming the senses by the influx of the higher light, our author seems to consider that the senses will remain more or less as they are, only they will be controlled, guided, used by the higher light. And he seems to think that even the sex relation (even the institution of marriage) may continue to remain, but sublimated, submitted to the laws of the Higher Order. This, according to us, is a dangerous compromise and is simply the imposition of the lower law upon the higher. Our view of the total transformation and divinisation of the Lower is altogether different. The Highest must come down wholly and inhabit in the Lowest, the Lowest must give up altogether its own norms and lift itself into the substance and form too of the Highest.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
action at the centre of the universe so that it exists only in terms
of oneself - one is part of the universe. One can unite with it,
but the Supreme Lord alone is its centre because He surpasses
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deceptive appearance of a great play of universal forces which
one does not understand.
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have a uniform which they should wear when they are acting as
captains.
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one's soul and uniting with the Divine.
5 July 1963
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into the consciousness of unity, then one can understand.
18 August 1963
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only by discovering one's psychic being and uniting with it.
22 September 1963
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means of attaining liberation, that is to say, union with the Truth.
29 September 1963
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be to use your mutual attachment to unite your efforts in a
common and combined aspiration to attain the Divine, and in
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overcome desires, and aspire to find your psychic being and unite
with it. Physically, continue with what you are doing, develop
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One must live in the consciousness of the Divine unity to
see the Grace behind everything.
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By widening one's consciousness and making it universal.
There is another way, but it is still more difficult. It is by
realising the supreme unity.
14 October 1964
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Because of the rhythm of the universal forces, a person is supposed to have a special receptivity on his birthday each year.
He can therefore take advantage of this receptivity by making good resolutions and fresh progress on the path of his
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Who can understand Sri Aurobindo? He is as vast as the universe
and his teaching is limitless...
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another and are organised and unified in an integral synthesis.
Here is another quotation by Sri Aurobindo which will show
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oneself float on the waves of the universal force as a plank floats
on water, motionless but relaxed.
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the falsehood and all that favours union, harmony, order and
consciousness comes from the Truth.
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are surrender and union with the Divine and the transcendence
of ego. So long as that basis is not established, a sadhak is only
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What I call "being on the path" is being in a state of consciousness in which only union with the Divine has any value - this
union is the only thing worth living, the sole object of aspiration.
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As long as union with the Divine is not the thing for which
one lives, one is not yet on the path.
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where the three complement one another and unite.
9 February 1966
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Divine Grace, to misuse this unique privilege granted to
us here. But, Mother, why do we do this? For, each one
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World union, New Age Association, etc.? What is their
purpose?
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We are at an especially favourable moment in the universal
existence, a moment when, upon earth, everything is being prepared for a new creation, or rather, for a new manifestation in
01.10 - Principle and Personality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is asked of us why do we preach a man and not purely and solely a principle. Our ideal being avowedly the establishment and reign of a new principle of world-order and not gathering recruits for the camp of a sectarian teacher, it seems all the more inconsistent, if not thoroughly ruinous for our cause, that we should lay stress upon a particular individual and incur the danger of overshadowing the universal truths upon which we seek to build human society. Now, it is not that we are unconscious or oblivious of the many evils attendant upon the system of preaching a man the history of the rise and decay of many sects and societies is there to give us sufficient warning; and yet if we cannot entirely give the go-by to personalities and stick to mere and bare principles, it is because we have clear reasons for it, because we are not unconscious or oblivious either of the evils that beset the system of preaching the principle alone.
Religious bodies that are formed through the bhakti and puja for one man, social reconstructions forced by the will and power of a single individual, have already in the inception this grain of incapacity and disease and death that they are not an integrally self-conscious creation, they are not, as a whole, intelligent and wide awake and therefore constantly responsive to the truths and ideals and realities for which they exist, for which at least, their founder intended them to exist. The light at the apex is the only light and the entire structure is but the shadow of that light; the whole thing has the aspect of a dark mass galvanised into red-hot activity by the passing touch of a dynamo. Immediately however the solitary light fails and the dynamo stops, there is nothing but the original darkness and inertiatoma asit tamasa gudham agre.
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Love and admiration for a mahapurusha is not enough, even faith in his gospel is of little avail, nor can actual participation, consecrated work and labour in his cause save the situation; it is only when the principles, the bare realities for which the mahapurusha stands are in the open forum and men have the full and free opport unity of testing and assimilating them, it is only when individuals thus become living embodiments of those principles and realities that we do create a thing universal and permanent, as universal and permanent as earthly things may be. Principles only can embrace and unify the whole of humanity; a particular personality shall always create division and limitation. By placing the man in front, we erect a wall between the Principle and men at large. It is the principles, on the contrary, that should be given the place of honour: our attempt should be to keep back personalities and make as little use of them as possible. Let the principles work and create in their freedom and power, untrammelled by the limitations of any mere human vessel.
We are quite familiar with this cry so rampant in our democratic ageprinciples and no personalities! And although we admit the justice of it, yet we cannot ignore the trenchant one-sidedness which it involves. It is perhaps only a reaction, a swing to the opposite extreme of a mentality given too much to personalities, as the case generally has been in the past. It may be necessary, as a corrective, but it belongs only to a temporary stage. Since, however, we are after a universal ideal, we must also have an integral method. We shall have to curb many of our susceptibilities, diminish many of our apprehensions and soberly strike a balance between opposite extremes.
We do not speak like politicians or banias; but the very truth of the matter demands such a policy or line of action. It is very well to talk of principles and principles alone, but what are principles unless they take life and form in a particular individual? They are airy nothings, notions in the brain of logicians and metaphysicians, fit subjects for discussion in the academy, but they are devoid of that vital urge which makes them creative agencies. We have long lines of philosophers, especially European, who most scrupulously avoided all touch of personalities, whose utmost care was to keep principles pure and unsullied; and the upshot was that those principles remained principles only, barren and infructuous, some thing like, in the strong and puissant phrase of BaudelaireLa froide majest de la femme strile. And on the contrary, we have had other peoples, much addicted to personalitiesespecially in Asiawho did not care so much for abstract principles as for concrete embodiments; and what has been the result here? None can say that they did not produce anything or produced only still-born things. They produced living creaturesephemeral, some might say, but creatures that lived and moved and had their days.
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The Parting of the Way The Basis of unity
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A similar compilation was published in the Arya, called The Eternal Wisdom (Les Paroles ternelles, in French) a portion of which appeared later on in book-form: that was more elaborate, the contents were arranged in such a way that no comments were needed, they were self-explanatory, divided as they were in chapters and sections and subsections with proper headings, the whole thing put in a logical and organised sequence. Huxley's compilation begins under the title of the Upanishadic text "That art Thou" with this saying of Eckhart: "The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without". It will be interesting to note that the Arya compilation too starts with the same idea under the title "The God of All; the God who is in All", the first quotation being from Philolaus, "The universe is a unity".The Eternal Wisdom has an introduction called "The Song of Wisdom" which begins with this saying from the Book of Wisdom: "We fight to win sublime Wisdom; therefore men call us warriors".
Huxley gives only one quotation from Sri Aurobindo under the heading "God in the World". Here it is:
"The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullnessto its heights we can always reachwhen we keep our feet firmly on the physical. 'Earth is His footing' says the Upanishad, whenever it images the Self that manifests in the universe." Huxley's commentary is as follows:
"To its heights we can always come. For those of us who are still splashing about in the lower ooze, the phrase has a rather ironical ring. Nevertheless, in the light of even the most distant acquaintance with the heights and the fullness, it is possible to understand what its author means. To discover the Kingdom of God exclusively within oneself is easier than to discover it, not only there, but also in the outer worlds of minds and things and living creatures. It is easier because the heights within reveal themselves to those who are ready to exclude from their purview all that lies without. And though this exclusion may be a painful and mortificatory process, the fact remains that it is less arduous than the process of inclusion, by which we come to know the fullness as well as the heights of spiritual life. Where there is exclusive concentration on the heights within, temptations and distractions are avoided and there is a general denial and suppression. But when the hope is to know God inclusivelyto realise the divine Ground in the world as well as in the soul, temptations and distractions must not be avoided, but submitted to and used as opport unities for advance; there must be no suppression of outward-turning activities, but a transformation of them so that they become sacramental."
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We fear Mr. Huxley has completely missed the point of the cryptic sentence. He seems to take it as meaning that human kindness and morality are a means to the recovery of the Lost Way-although codes of ethics and deliberate choices are not sufficient in themselves, they are only a second best, yet they mark the rise of self-consciousness and have to be utilised to pass on into the unitive knowledge that is Tao. This explanation or amplification seems to us somewhat confused and irrelevant to the idea expressed in the apophthegm. What is stated here is much simpler and transparent. It is this that when the Divine is absent and the divine Knowledge, then comes in man with his human mental knowledge: it is man's humanity that clouds the Divine and to reach the' Divine one must reject the human values, all the moralities, sarva dharmn, seek only the Divine. The lesser way lies through the dualities, good and evil, the Great Way is beyond them and cannot be limited or measured by the relative standards. Especially in the modern age we see the decline and almost the disappearance of the Greater Light and instead a thousand smaller lights are lighted which vainly strive to dispel the gathering darkness. These do not help, they are false lights and men are apt to cling to them, shutting their eyes to the true one which is not that that one worships here and now, nedam yadidam upsate.
There is a beautiful quotation from the Chinese sage, Wu Ch'ng-n, regarding the doubtful utility of written Scriptures:
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:01.11 - The Basis of unity
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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The Basis of unity
I
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In Europe such a contingency did not arise, because the religious spirit, rampant in the days of Inquisitions and St. Bartholomews, died away: it died, and (or, because) it was replaced by a spirit that was felt as being equally, if not more, au thentic and, which for the moment, suffused the whole consciousness with a large and high afflatus, commensurate with the amplitude of man's aspiration. I refer, of course, to the spirit of the Renaissance. It was a spirit profane and secular, no doubt, but on that level it brought a catholicity of temper and a richness in varied interesta humanistic culture, as it is calledwhich constituted a living and unifying ideal for Europe. That spirit culminated in the great French Revolution which was the final coup de grace to all that still remained of mediaevalism, even in its outer structure, political and economical.
In India the spirit of renascence came very late, late almost by three centuries; and even then it could not flood the whole of the continent in all its nooks and corners, psychological and physical. There were any number of pockets (to use a current military phrase) left behind which guarded the spirit of the past and offered persistent and obdurate resistance. Perhaps, such a dispensation was needed in India and inevitable also; inevitable, because the religious spirit is closest to India's soul and is its most direct expression and cannot be uprooted so easily; needed, because India's and the world's future demands it and depends upon it.
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India's historical development is marked by a special characteristic which is at once the expression of her inmost nature and the setting of a problem which she has to solve for herself and for the whole human race. I have spoken of the diversity and divergence of affiliations in a modern social unit. But what distinguishes India from all other peoples is that the diversity and divergence have culminated here in contradictoriness and mutual exclusion.
The first extremes that met in India and fought and gradually coalesced to form a single cultural and social whole were, as is well known, the Aryan and the non-Aryan. Indeed, the geologists tell us, the land itself is divided into two parts structurally quite different and distinct, the Deccan plateau and the Himalayan ranges with the Indo-Gangetic plain: the former is formed out of the most ancient and stable and, on the whole, horizontally bedded rocks of the earth, while the latter is of comparatively recent origin, formed out of a more flexible and weaker belt (the Himalayan region consisting of a colossal flexing and crumpling of strata). The disparity is so much that a certain group of geologists hold that the Deccan plateau did not at all form part of the Asiatic continent, but had drifted and dashed into it:in fact the Himalayas are the result of this mighty impact. The usual division of an Aryan and a Dravidian race may be due to a memory of the clash of the two continents and their races.
However, coming to historical times, we see wave after wave of the most heterogeneous and disparate elementsSakas and Huns and Greeks, each bringing its quota of exotic materialenter into the oceanic Indian life and culture, lose their separate foreign identity and become part and parcel of the common whole. Even so,a single unitary body was formed out of such varied and shifting materialsnot in the political, but in a socio-religious sense. For a catholic religious spirit, not being solely doctrinal and personal, admitted and embraced in its supple and wide texture almost an infinite variety of approaches to the Divine, of forms and norms of apprehending the Beyond. It has been called Hinduism: it is a vast synthesis of multiple affiliations. It expresses the characteristic genius of India and hence Hinduism and Indianism came to be looked upon as synonymous terms. And the same could be defined also as Vedic religion and culture, for its invariable basis the bed-rock on which it stood firm and erectwas the Vedas, the Knowledge seen by the sages. But there had already risen a voice of dissidence and discord that of Buddha, not so much, perhaps, of Buddha as of Buddhism. The Buddhistic enlightenment and discipline did not admit the supreme authority of the Vedas; it sought other bases of truth and reality. It was a great denial; and it meant and worked for a vital schism. The denial of the Vedas by itself, perhaps, would not be serious, but it became so, as it was symptomatic of a deeper divergence. Denying the Vedas, the Buddhistic spirit denied life. It was quite a new thing in the Indian consciousness and spiritual discipline. And it left such a stamp there that even today it stands as the dominant character of the Indian outlook. However, India's synthetic genius rose to the occasion and knew how to bridge the chasm, close up the fissure, and present again a body whole and entire. Buddha became one of the Avataras: the discipline of Nirvana and Maya was reserved as the last duty to be performed at the end of life, as the culmination of a full-length span of action and achievement; the way to Moksha lay through Dharma and Artha and Kama, Sannyasa had to be built upon Brahmacharya and Garhasthya. The integral ideal was epitomized by Kalidasa in his famous lines about the character of the Raghus:
They devoted themselves to study in their boyhood, in youth they pursued the objects of life; when old they took to spiritual austerities, and in the end they died united with the higher consciousness.
Only this process of integration was not done in a day, it took some centuries and had to pass through some unpleasant intermediary stages.
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Nature, on the whole, has solved the problem of blood fusion and mental fusion of different peoples, although on a smaller scale. India today presents the problem on a larger scale and on a higher or deeper level. The demand is for a spiritual fusion and unity. Strange to say, although the Spirit is the true bed-rock of unitysince, at bottom, it means identityit is on this plane that mankind has not yet been able to really meet and coalesce. India's genius has been precisely working in the line of a perfect solution of this supreme problem.
Islam comes with a full-fledged spiritual soul and a mental and vital formation commensurable with that inner being and consciousness. It comes with a dynamic spirit, a warrior mood, that aims at conquering the physical world for the Lord, a temperament which Indian spirituality had not, or had lost long before, if she had anything of it. This was, perhaps, what Vivekananda meant when he spoke graphically of a Hindu soul with a Muslim body. The Islamic dispensation, however, brings with it not only something complementary, but also something contradictory, if not for anything else, at least for the strong individuality which does not easily yield to assimilation. Still, in spite of great odds, the process of assimilation was going on slowly and surely. But of late it appears to have come to a dead halt; difficulties have been presented which seem insuperable.
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The solution can come, first, by going to the true religion of the Spirit, by being truly spiritual and not merely religious, for, as we have said, real unity lies only in and through the Spirit, since Spirit is one and indivisible; secondly, by bringing down somethinga great part, indeed, if not the wholeof this puissant and marvellous Spirit into our life of emotions and sensations and activities.
If it is said that this is an ideal for the few only, not for the mass, our answer to that is the answer of the GitaYad yad acharati sreshthah. Let the few then practise and achieve the ideal: the mass will have to follow as far as it is possible and necessary. It is the very character of the evolutionary system of Nature, as expressed in the principle of symbiosis, that any considerable change in one place (in one species) is accompanied by a corresponding change in the same direction in other contiguous places (in other associated species) in order that the poise and balance of the system may be maintained.
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India did not and could not stop at mere cultural fusionwhich was a supreme gift of the Moguls. She did not and could not stop at another momentous cultural fusion brought about by the European impact. She aimed at something more. Nature demanded of her that she should discover a greater secret of human unity and through progressive experiments apply and establish it in fact. Christianity did not raise this problem of the greater synthesis, for the Christian peoples were more culture-minded than religious-minded. It was left for an Asiatic people to set the problem and for India to work out the solution.
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01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The total eradication of Evil from the world and human nature and the remoulding of a terrestrial life in the substance and pattern of the Highest Good that is beyond all dualities is a conception which it was not for Goe the to envisage. In the order of reality or existence, first there is the consciousness of division, of trenchant separation in which Good is equated with not-evil and evil with not-good. This is the outlook of individualised consciousness. Next, as the consciousness grows and envelops the whole existence, good and evil are both embraced and are found to form a secret and magic harmony. That is the universal or cosmic consciousness. And Goethe's genius seems to be an outflowering of something of this status of consciousness. But there is still a higher status, the status of transcendence in which evil is not simply embraced but dissolved and even transmuted into a supreme reality of which it is an aberration, a reflection or projection, a lower formulation. That is the mystery of a spiritual realisation to which Goe the aspired perhaps, but had not the necessary initiation to enter into.
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01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Declaration of Rights is a characteristic modern phenomenon. It is a message of liberty and freedom,no doubt of secular liberty and freedomthings not very common in the old world; and yet at the same time it is a clarion that calls for and prepares strife and battle. If the conception of Right has sanctified the individual or a unit collectivity, it has also pari passu developed a fissiparous tendency in human organisation. Society based on or living by the principle of Right becomes naturally and inevitably a competitive society. Where man is regarded as nothing moreand, of course, nothing lessthan a bundle of rights, human aggregation is bound to be an exact image of Darwinian Naturered in tooth and claw.
But Right is not the only term on which an ideal or even a decent society can be based. There is another term which can serve equally well, if not better. I am obviously referring to the conception of duty. I tis an old world conception; it isa conception particularly familiar to the East. The Indian term for Right is also the term for dutyadhikara means both. In Europe too, in more recent times, when after the frustration of the dream of a new world envisaged by the French Revolution, man was called upon again to rise and hope, it was Mazzini who brought forward the new or discarded principle as a mantra replacing the other more dangerous one. A hierarchy of duties was given by him as the pattern of a fulfilled ideal life. In India, in our days the distinction between the two attitudes was very strongly insisted upon by the great Vivekananda.
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What is required is not therefore an external delimitation of frontiers between unit and unit, but an inner outlook of nature and a poise of character. And this can be cultivated and brought into action by learning to live by the sense of duty. Even then, even the sense of duty, we have to admit, is not enough. For if it leads or is capable of leading into an aberration, we must have something else to check and control it, some other higher and more potent principle. Indeed, both the conceptions of Duty and Right belong to the domain of mental ideal, although one is usually more aggressive and militant (Rajasic) and the other tends to be more tolerant and considerate (sattwic): neither can give an absolute certainty of poise, a clear guarantee of perfect harmony.
Indian wisdom has found this other, a fairer terma tertium quid,the mystic factor, sought for by so many philosophers on so many counts. That is the very well- known, the very familiar termDharma. What is Dharma then? How does it accomplish the miracle which to others seems to have proved an impossibility? Dharma is self-law, that is to say, the law of the Self; it is the rhythm and movement of our inner or inmost being, the spontaneous working out of our truth-conscious nature.
We may perhaps view the three terms Right, Duty and Dharma as degrees of an ascending consciousness. Consciousness at Its origin and in its primitive formulation is dominated by the principle of inertia (tamas); in that state things have mostly an undifferentiated collective existence, they helplessly move about acted upon by forces outside them. A rise in growth and evolution brings about differentiation, specialisation, organisation. And this means consciousness of oneself of the distinct and separate existence of each and everyone, in other words, self-assertion, the claim, the right of each individual unit to be itself, to become itself first and foremost. It is a necessary development; for it signifies the growth of self consciousness in the units out of a mass unconsciousness or semi-consciousness. It is the expression of rajas, the mode of dynamism, of strife and struggle, it is the corrective of tamas.
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.
The conception of Right had to appear in order to bring out the principle of individuality, of personal freedom and fulfilment. For, a true healthy collectivity is the association and organisation of free and self-determinate units. The growth of independent individuality naturally means at first clash and rivalry, and a violently competitive society is the result. It is only at this stage that the conception of duty can fruitfully come in and develop in man and his society the mode of Sattwa, which is that of light and wisdom, of toleration and harmony. Then only a society is sought to be moulded on the principle of co-ordination and co-operation.
Still, the conception of duty cannot finally and definitively solve the problem. It cannot arrive at a perfect harmonisation of the conflicting claims of individual units; for, duty, as I have already said, is a child of mental idealism, and although the mind can exercise some kind of control over life-forces, it cannot altogether eliminate the seeds of conflict that lie imbedded in the very nature of life. It is for this reason that there is an element of constraint in duty; it is, as the poet says, the "stern daughter of the Voice of God". One has to compel oneself, one has to use force on oneself to carry out one's dutythere is a feeling somehow of its being a bitter pill. The cult of duty means rajas controlled and coerced by Sattwa, not the transcendence of rajas. This leads us to the high and supreme conception of Dharma, which is a transcendence of the gunas. Dharma is not an ideal, a standard or a rule that one has to obey: it is the law of self-nature that one inevitably follows, it is easy, spontaneous, delightful. The path of duty is heroic, the path of Dharma is of the gods, godly (cf. Virabhava and Divyabhava of the Tantras).
The principle of Dharma then inculcates that each individual must, in order to act, find out his truth of being, his true soul and inmost consciousness: one must entirely and integrally merge oneself into that, be identified with it in such a manner that all acts and feelings and thoughts, in fact all movements, inner and outerspontaneously and irrepressibly well out of that fount and origin. The individual souls, being made of one truth-nature in its multiple modalities, when they live, move and have their being in its essential law and dynamism, there cannot but be absolute harmony and perfect synthesis between all the units, even as the sun and moon and stars, as the Veda says, each following its specific orbit according to its specific nature, never collide or haltna me thate na tas thatuh but weave out a faultless pattern of symphony.
The future society of man is envisaged as something of like nature. When the mortal being will have found his immortal soul and divine self, then each one will be able to give full and free expression to his self-nature (swabhava); then indeed the utmost sweep of dynamism in each and all will not cause clash or conflict; on the contrary, each will increase the other and there will be a global increment and fulfilmentparasparam bhavayantah. The division and conflict, the stress and strain that belong to the very nature of the inferior level of being and consciousness will then have been transcended. It is only thus that a diviner humanity can be born and replace all the other moulds and types that can never lead to anything final and absolutely satisfactory.
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The Basis of unity The World War
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The modern temper is especially partial to harmony: it cannot assert and reject unilaterally and categorically, it wishes to go round an object and view all its sides; it asks for a synthesis and reconciliation of differences and contraries. Two major chords of life-experience that demand accord are Life and Death, Time and Eternity. Indeed, the problem of Time hangs heavy on the human consciousness. It has touched to the quick philosophers and sages in all ages and climes; it is the great question that confronts the spiritual seeker, the riddle that the Sphinx of life puts to the journeying soul for solution.
A modern Neo-Brahmin, Aldous Huxley, has given a solution of the problem in his now famous Shakespearean apothegm, "Time must have a stop". That is an old-world solution rediscovered by the modern mind in and through the ravages of Time's storm and stress. It means, salvation lies, after all, beyond the flow of Time, one must free oneself from the vicious and unending circle of mortal and mundane life. As the Rajayogi controls and holds his breath, stills all life-movement and realises a dead-stop of consciousness (Samadhi), even so one must control and stop all secular movements in oneself and attain a timeless stillness and vacancy in which alone the true spiritual light and life can descend and manifest. That is the age-long and ancient solution to which the Neo-Brahmin as well the Neo-Christian adheres.
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For a further union, a deeper comm union
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
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Our poet is too self-conscious, he himself feels that he has not the perfect voice. A Homer, even a Milton possesses a unity of tone and a wholeness of perception which are denied to the modern. To the modern, however, the old masters are not subtle enough, broad enough, psychological enough, let us say the word, spiritual enough. And yet the poetic inspiration, more than the religious urge, needs the injunction not to be busy with too many things, but to be centred upon the one thing needful, viz., to create poetically and not to discourse philosophically or preach prophetically. Not that it is impossible for the poet to swallow the philosopher and the prophet, metabolising them into the substance of his bone and marrow, of "the trilling wire in his blood", as Eliot graphically expresses. That perhaps is the consummation towards which poetry is tending. But at present, in Eliot, at least, the strands remain distinct, each with its own temper and rhythm, not fused and moulded into a single streamlined form of beauty. Our poet flies high, very high indeed at times, often or often he flies low, not disdaining the perilous limit of bathos. Perhaps it is all wilful, it is a mannerism which he cherishes. The mannerism may explain his psychology and enshrine his philosophy. But the poet, the magician is to be looked for elsewhere. In the present collection of poems it is the philosophical, exegetical, discursive Eliot who dominates: although the high lights of the subject-matter may be its justification. Still even if we have here doldrums like
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Roerich is one of the prophets and seers who have ever been acclaiming and preparing the Golden Age, the dream that humanity has been dreaming continuously since its very childhood, that is to say, when there will be peace and harmony on earth, when racial, cultural or ideological egoism will no longer divide man and mana thing that seems today a chimera and a hallucinationwhen there will be one culture, one civilisation, one spiritual life welding all humanity into a single unit of life luminous and beautiful. Roerich believes that such a consummation can arrive only or chiefly through the growth of the sense of beauty, of the aesthetic temperament, of creative labour leading to a wider and higher consciousness. Beauty, Harmony, Light, Knowledge, Culture, Love, Delight are cardinal terms in his vision of the deeper and higher life of the future.
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.
A Russian artist (Monsieur Benois) has stressed upon the primitivealmost aboriginalelement in Roerich and was not happy over it. Well, as has been pointed out by other prophets and thinkers, man today happens to be so sophisticated, artificial, material, cerebral that a [all-back seems to be necessary for him to take a new leap forward on to a higher ground. The pure aesthete is a closed system, with a consciousness immured in an ivory tower; but man is something more. A curious paradox. Man can reach the highest, realise the integral truth when he takes his leap, not from the relatively higher levels of his consciousness his intellectual and aesthetic and even moral status but when he can do so from his lower levels, when the physico-vital element in him serves as the springing-board. The decent and the beautiful the classic grace and aristocracyform one aspect of man, the aspect of "light"; but the aspect of energy and power lies precisely in him where the aboriginal and the barbarian find also a lodging. Man as a mental being is naturally sattwic, but prone to passivity and weakness; his physico-vital reactions, on the other hand, are obscure and crude, simple and vehement, but they have life and energy and creative power, they are there to be trained and transfigured, made effective instruments of a higher illumination.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Atman is the universal Purusha.
The Jivatman is the individual Purusha, and the
--
the same thing as uniting with the Divine?
To become aware of the consciousness of the soul is the surest
and easiest way of uniting with the Divine.
25 March 1967
--
This difficulty usually comes from a lack of unification of the
being. Certain parts are recalcitrant and refuse to receive. They
--
We are made up of many different parts which have to be unified
around the psychic being, if we are conscious of it or at least
around the central aspiration. If this unification is not done, we
carry this division within us.
--
once it is done, the unification is achieved and the path becomes
easy and swift.
--
Thee" comes first and if the being is unified and sincere, "to live
in Thee" soon follows.
--
refer to a universal family open to all differences and even all
divergences.
--
influence of the psychic. As soon as one is united with one's
psychic, all the conflicts due to clashing bad wills can no longer
--
one must already have found the Divine and united with Him -
then the consciousness descends through all the states of being
--
Because most people, when they hear the word " unity", understand uniformity and nothing can be further from the truth.
25 September 1967
--
world, show the way to union and harmony." - Message for the inauguration of All
India Radio, Pondicherry, 23 September 1967. Words of the Mother - I, CWM, Vol. 13,
--
A beginning of union comes even before constant remembrance.
When the remembrance is constant, one often feels a Presence
--
automatically do the work of unifying the being.
In this way, everything that has to be transformed will be
--
If the universe is one, shouldn't the liberation of one single person on earth have the power to liberate everyone?
Oneness means identity in origin; but in the manifestation each
--
with constant union with the Divine?
If we call "perfect receptivity" the receptivity that receives only
--
which is the purpose of the universal manifestation.
11 December 1968
--
But when one is united with the Supreme Consciousness and
when the body is undergoing transformation, the body keeps its
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This unification is indispensable if one wants to be the
master of one's being and of all its actions.
--
of the Divine and is united with Him, one learns to love with
the true love: the love that loves for the joy of loving and has no
--
world and the whole universe - to become conscious once more
of being Him.
0.13 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
longer has any other will than His, and finally to unite one's
consciousness with His. That is "to realise the Divine".
--
There is only one love, the Divine Love, eternal, universal, equal
for everyone and everything.
--
How can one unify one's being?
The first step is to find, deep within oneself, behind the desires
--
in their endeavour have found that when one is united with the
Divine, one's vision of things changes totally, and they have all
come to the same conclusion: unite with the Divine and you will
understand.
--
I would like to know the second step towards unifying one's being. You told me about the first step.
The work of unifying the being consists of:
(1) becoming aware of one's psychic being.
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The remedy lies in union with the divine forces that are at
work and a receptivity full of trust and peace which makes the
--
a unique and wonderful opport unity to open themselves to the
divine influence.
--
Divine and uniting with Him. When one has understood this,
then one is ready to gain the strength to surmount all difficulties.
--
Total union and the perfect manifestation of the Divine are the
sole means of putting an end to the suffering and misery of the
--
It is only in perfect union with the Divine that the consciousness
can emerge into the eternal delight. And this conscious union is
the true goal of earthly existence.
--
are united in a single active consciousness, the creation will have
attained its progressive perfection.
--
In principle, everything is possible by uniting consciously with
the Divine Force.
--
The psychic being knows this with certainty; so, by uniting
with one's psychic, one can know it. But the first condition is
--
us for union with the Divine - the very purpose of individual
existence.
--
When humanity was first created, the ego was the unifying
element. It was around the ego that the different states of being
--
So the important thing now is to find one's psychic, unite
with it and allow it to replace the ego, which will be compelled
--
will because its consciousness will be totally united with Yours.
23 February 1972
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(Mother reads to the disciples an excerpt from Sri Aurobindos THE MOTHER, in which he describes the different aspects of the Creative Powerwhat is India is called the Shakti, or the Motherwhich have presided over universal evolution.)
There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences indispensable for the supramental realization,most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda1 which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone can heal the gulf between the highest heights of the supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of Matter, the Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divines Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe.
Sri Aurobindo, The Mother
--
I dont know to whom I was mentioning this today (I think it was for a Birthday3 No, I dont know now. It was to someone who told me he was 18 years old. I said that between the ages of 18 and 20, I had attained a constant and conscious union with the Divine Presence and that I had done this ALL ALONE, without ANYONES help, not even books. When a little later I chanced upon Vivekanandas Raja Yoga, it really seemed so wonderful to me that someone could explain something to me! And it helped me realize in only a few months what would have otherwise taken years.
I met a man (I was perhaps 20 or 21 at the time), an Indian who had come to Europe and who told me of the Gita. There was a French translation of it (a rather poor one, I must say) which he advised me to read, and then he gave me the key (HIS key, it was his key). He said, Read the Gita (this translation of the Gita which really wasnt worth much but it was the only one available at the timein those days I wouldnt have understood anything in other languages; and besides, the English translations were just as bad and well, Sri Aurobindo hadnt done his yet!). He said, Read the Gita knowing that Krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within. That was all. Read it with THAT knowledgewith the knowledge that Krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you. Well, within a month, the whole thing was done!
0 1955-06-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Your case is not unique; there are others (and among the best and the most faithful) who are likewise a veritable battlefield for the forces opposing the advent of the truth. They feel powerless in this battle, sorrowful witnesses, victims without the strength to fight, for this is taking place in that part of the physical consciousness where the supramental forces are not yet fully active, although I am confident they soon will be. Meanwhile, the only remedy is to endure, to go through this suffering and to await patiently the hour of liberation.
While reading your prayer, I too prayed that it be heard.
0 1956-02-29 - First Supramental Manifestation - The Golden Hammer, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had a form of living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door which separated the world from the Divine.
As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single movement of consciousness, that THE TIME HAS COME, and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow, one single blow1 on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.
Then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.
Later added by Mother
0 1956-05-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Thats how the universal movement works (I read this to you a few days ago): through their inner effort and inner progress, certain individuals, who are the pioneers, the forerunners, enter into comm unication with the new Force which is to manifest, and they receive it in themselves. And because a number of calls like this surge forth, the thing becomes possible, and the era, the time, the moment for the manifestation comes. This is how it happened and the Manifestation took place.
But then, all those who were ready should have recognized it.
--
Mother, very recently a text has been circulating which says, What has just now happened, with this Victory, is not a descent but a manifestation. And it is no longer merely an individual event: the Supermind has sprung forth into the universal play.
Yes, yes, yes! I indeed said all that. I acknowledge it. And so?
0 1956-09-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I had had a somewhat similar experience at the time of the union of the supreme creative principle with the physical consciousness. But that was a subtle experience, while this was materialin the body.
I did not have the experience, I did not look at it: I WAS it.
0 1956-09-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But perhaps you have felt this way because you had left your work in the Ashram for an entirely personal, that is, necessarily egoistical reason, and egoism always isolates one from the great current of universal forces. That is why, too, you no longer clearly perceive my love and my help which nevertheless are always with you.
You asked me what I see and whether your difficulties will not reappear upon your return to the Ashram. It may well be. If you return as you still are at present, it may be that after a very short period it will all begin again. That is why I am going to propose something to you but to accept it you will have to be heroic and very determined in your consecration to my work.
0 1956-10-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And what is the Ashram? (I dont even mean in terms of the universeon Earth only.) A speck. And why should this speck receive exceptional treatment? Perhaps if people here had realized the supermind. But are they so exceptional as to expect exceptional treatment?
As Sri Aurobindo says, people see God as a magnified man: he is the Demiurge, Jehovahwhat I call the Lord of Falsehood.
0 1956-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
No, it is exactly the opposite of what you are saying. It is not that the Divine in his divinity is opposed to his own manifested selfHe is very far beyond, beyond the necessity for Grace; He perceives his unique and exclusive responsibility, and that it is He and He alone who must change in His Manifestation so that all may change.
***
0 1957-04-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
in the universe, there are notthere cannot betwo similar destinies.
each ones destiny is inevitably fulfilled, but the nearer one is to the Divine, the more does this destiny assume its divine qualities.
0 1957-07-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The symbolism is quite clear in that all the possibilities are there, all the activities are there, but in disorder and confusion. They are neither coordinated nor centralized nor unified around the central and unique truth and consciousness and will. So this brings us back precisely to this question of a collective yoga and of a collectivity capable of realizing it. What should this collectivity be?
It is certainly not an arbitrary construction of the type built by men, where everything is put pell-mell, without any order, without reality, and which is held together by only illusory ties. Here, these ties were symbolized by the hotels walls, while actually in ordinary human constructions (if we take a religious comm unity, for example), they are symbolized by the building of a monastery, an identity of clothing, an identity of activities, an identity even of movementor to put it more precisely: everyone wears the same uniform, everyone gets up at the same time, everyone eats the same thing, everyone says his prayers together, etc.; there is an overall identity. But naturally, on the inside there remains the chaos of many disparate consciousnesses, each one following its own mode, for this kind of group identification, which extends right up to an identity of beliefs and dogma, is absolutely illusory.
Yet it is one of the most common types of human collectivityto group together, band together, unite around a common ideal, a common action, a common realization but in an absolutely artificial way. In contrast to this, Sri Aurobindo tells us that a true comm unitywhat he terms a gnostic or supramental comm unitycan be based only upon the INNER REALIZATION of each one of its members, each realizing his real, concrete oneness and identity with all the other members of the comm unity; that is, each one should not feel himself a member connected to all the others in an arbitrary way, but that all are one within himself. For each one, the others should be as much himself as his own bodynot in a mental and artificial way, but through a fact of consciousness, by an inner realization.
(silence)
0 1957-10-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This unique method was to be the mantra, as Mother herself would discover.
***
0 1957-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The integral yoga is made up of an uninterrupted series of tests that you must pass through without any advance notice, thereby forcing you to be always vigilant and attentive.
Three groups of examiners conduct these tests. Apparently they have nothing in common and their methods are so different, at times even so seemingly contradictory, that they do not appear to work towards the same goal, and yet they complete one another, they work together for a common aim and each is indispensable for the integral result.
0 1957-11-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Widen yourself as far as the extreme bounds of the universe and beyond.
Take upon yourself always all the necessities of progress and dissolve them in the ecstasy of unity. Then you will be divine.
***
0 1958-02-03b - The Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I found myself upon an immense ship, which is the symbolic representation of the place where this work is being carried out. This ship, as big as a city, is thoroughly organized, and it had certainly already been functioning for quite some time, for its organization was fully developed. It is the place where people destined for the supramental life are being trained. These people (or at least a part of their being) had already undergone a supramental transformation because the ship itself and all that was aboard was neither material nor subtle-physical, neither vital nor mental: it was a supramental substance. This substance itself was of the most material supramental, the supramental substance nearest the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a blend of red and gold, forming a uniform substance of luminous orange. Everything was like that the light was like that, the people were like thateverything had this color, in varying shades, however, which enabled things to be distinguished from one another. The overall impression was of a shadowless world: there were shades, but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything worked smoothly and silently. At the same time, I could see all the details of the education, the training in all domains by which the people on board were being prepared.
This immense ship had just arrived at the shore of the supramental world, and a first batch of people destined to become the future inhabitants of the supramental world were about to disembark. Everything was arranged for this first landing. A certain number of very tall beings were posted on the wharf. They were not human beings and never before had they been men. Nor were they permanent inhabitants of the supramental world. They had been delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of all this since the beginning and throughout. I myself had prepared all the groups. I was standing on the bridge of the ship, calling the groups forward one by one and having them disembark on the shore. The tall beings posted there seemed to be reviewing those who were disembarking, allowing those who were ready to go ashore and sending back those who were not and who had to continue their training aboard the ship. While standing there watching everyone, that part of my consciousness coming from here became extremely interested: it wanted to see, to identify all the people, to see how they had changed and to find out who had been taken immediately as well as those who had to remain and continue their training. After awhile, as I was observing, I began to feel pulled backwards and that my body was being awakened by a consciousness or a person from here1and in my consciousness, I protested: No, no, not yet! Not yet! I want to see whos there! I was watching all this and noting it with intense interest It went on like that until, suddenly, the clock here began striking three, which violently jerked me back. There was the sensation of a sudden fall into my body. I came back with a shock, but since I had been called back very suddenly, all my memory was still intact. I remained quiet and still until I could bring back the whole experience and preserve it.
--
Those who were sent back for more training were not of a uniform color; their bodies seemed to have patches of a grayish opacity, a substance resembling the earth substance. They were dull, as though they had not been wholly permeated by the light or wholly transformed. They were not like this all over, but in places.
The tall beings on the shore were not of the same color, at least they did not have this orange tint; they were paler, more transparent. Except for a part of their bodies, only the outline of their forms could be seen. They were very tall, they did not seem to have a skeletal structure, and they could take on any form according to their needs. Only from their waists to their feet did they have a permanent density, which was not felt in the rest of their body. Their color was much more pallid and contained very little red, it verged rather on gold or even white. The parts of whitish light were translucid; they were not absolutely transparent, but less dense, more subtle than the orange substance.
--
When I came back, along with the memory of the experience, I knew that the supramental world was permanent, that my presence there is permanent, and that only a missing link is needed to allow the consciousness and the substance to connectand it is this link that is being built. At that time, my impression (an impression which remained rather long, almost the whole day) was of an extreme relativityno, not exactly that, but an impression that the relationship between this world and the other completely changes the criterion by which things are to be evaluated or judged. This criterion had nothing mental about it, and it gave the strange inner feeling that so many things we consider good or bad are not really so. It was very clear that everything depended upon the capacity of things and upon their ability to express the supramental world or be in relationship with it. It was so completely different, at times even so opposite to our ordinary way of looking at things! I recall one little thing that we usually consider bad actually how funny it was to see that it is something excellent! And other things that we consider important were really quite unimportant there! Whether it was like this or like that made no difference. What is very obvious is that our appreciation of what is divine or not divine is incorrect. I even laughed at certain things Our usual feeling about what is anti-divine seems artificial, based upon something untrue, unliving (besides, what we call life here appeared lifeless in comparison with that world); in any event, this feeling should be based upon our relationship between the two worlds and according to whether things make this relationship easier or more difficult. This would thus completely change our evaluation of what brings us nearer to the Divine or what takes us away from Him. With people, too, I saw that what helps them or prevents them from becoming supramental is very different from what our ordinary moral notions imagine. I felt just how ridiculous we are.
(Then Mother speaks to the children)
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was represented by a kind of image in which I was as vast as the universe, and each way of approaching the Divine was like a tiny image containing the characteristic form of this approach. And my impression was this: Why do people always limit, limit themselves? Narrow, narrow, narrow! They understand only when it is narrow.
Take all! Take all within you. And then you will begin to understandyou will begin.
--
Its action will be somewhat similar to what is described in the Last Judgment, which is an entirely symbolic expression of something that makes us discern between what belongs to the world of falsehood which is destined to disappear and what belongs to this same world of ignorance and inertia but is transformable. One will go to one side and the other to the other side. All that is transformable will be permeated more and more with this new substance and this new consciousness to such an extent that it will rise towards it and serve as a link between the two but all that belongs incorrigibly to falsehood and ignorance will disappear. This was also prophesied in the Gita: among what we call the hostile or anti-divine forces, those capable of being transformed will be uplifted and go off towards the new consciousness, whereas all that is irrevocably in darkness or belongs to an evil will shall be destroyed and vanish from the universe. And a whole part of humanity that has responded to these forces rather too zealously will certainly vanish with them. And this is what was expressed in this concept of the Last Judgment.
May 1, 1958.
0 1958-07-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When the Grace acts on the collectivity, each thing, each element, each principle, is put in its place as the result of a karmic logic in the universal movement. This is what gives us the impression of disorder and confusion as we see it.
When the Grace acts on the individual, it gives to each the maximum position according to what he is and what he has realized.
And then, there is a super-grace, as it were, which works in a few exceptional cases, which places you not according to what you are but according to what you are to become, which means that the universal cosmic position is ahead of the individuals progress.
And it is then that you should keep silent and fall on your knees.
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For the last, for money, he told me, I still dont know exactly what it depends on. Then one day I entered into trance with this idea in mind, and after a certain journey I came to a place like a subterranean grotto (which means that it is in the subconscient, or perhaps even in the inconscient) which was the source, the place and the power over money. I was about to enter into this grotto (a kind of inner cave) when I saw, coiled and upright, an immense serpent, like an all black python, formidable, as big as a seven-story house, who said, You cannot pass!Why not? Let me pass!Myself, I would let you pass, but if I did, they would immediately destroy me.Who, then, is this they?They are the asuric4 powers who rule over money. They have put me here to guard the entrance, precisely so that you may not enter.And what is it that would give one the power to enter? Then he told me something like this: I heard (that is, he himself had no special knowledge, but it was something he had heard from his masters, those who ruled over him), I heard that he who will have a total power over the human sexual impulses (not merely in himself, but a universal power that is, a power enabling him to control this everywhere, among all men) will have the right to enter. In other words, these forces would not be able to prevent him from entering.
A personal realization is very easy, it is nothing at all; a personal realization is one thing, but the power to control it among all men that is, to control or master such movements at will, everywhereis quite another. I dont believe that this condition has been fulfilled. If what the serpent said is true and if this is really what will vanquish these hostile forces that rule over money, well then, it has not been fulfilled.
It has been fulfilled to a certain extent but its negligible. It is conditional, limited: in one case, it works; in another, it doesnt. It is quite problematic. And naturally, where terrestrial things are involved (I dont say universal, but in any case terrestrial), when it is something involving the earth, it must be complete; there cannot be any approximations.
Therefore, its an affair between the asuras and the human species. To transform itself is the only solution left to the human speciesin other words, to tear from the asuric forces the power of ruling over the human species.
--
And then, it always ends in the same way, by a canticle to the action of the grace: O, Lord! You are truly marvelous! All the experiences I have needed to pass through You have given to me, all the things I needed to do to make this body ready You have made me do, and always with the feeling that it was You who was making me do itand with the universal disapproval of all the right-minded humanity!
About one million dollars.
0 1958-07-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But instead of using the energy in this way, they immediately throw it out. They start stirring about, reacting, working, speaking They feel full of energy and they throw it all out! They cant keep anything. So naturally, since the energy was not sent to be wasted like that but for an inner use, they feel absolutely flat, run down. And it is universal. They dont know, they do not know how to make this movementto turn within, to use the energy (not to keep it, it doesnt keep), to use it to repair the damage done to the body and to go deeply within to find the reason for this accident or illness, and there to change it by an aspiration, an inner transformation. Instead of that, right away they start speaking, stirring about, reacting, doing this or that!
In fact, the immense majority of human beings feel they are living only when they waste their energy. Otherwise, it does not seem to them to be life.
0 1958-07-23, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In the final analysis, seeing the world such as it is and seems meant to be irremediably, human intellect has decided that this universe must be an error of God and that the manifestation or creation is certainly the result of a desire, the desire to manifest, know oneself, enjoy oneself. So the only thing to do is to put an end to this error as soon as possible by refusing to cling to desire and its fatal consequences.
But the Supreme Lord answers that the comedy is not entirely played out, and He adds: Wait for the last act; undoubtedly you will change your mind.
0 1958-09-16 - OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I had a mantra in French before coming to Pondicherry. It was Dieu de bont et de misricorde [God of kindness and mercy], but what it means is usually not understoodit is an entire program, a universal program. I have been repeating this mantra since the beginning of the century; it was the mantra of ascension, of realization. At present, it no longer comes in the same way, it comes rather as a memory. But it was deliberate, you see; I always said Dieu de bont et de misricorde, because even then I understood that everything is the Divine and the Divine is in all things and that it is only we who make a distinction between what is or what is not the Divine.
My experience is that, individually, we are in relationship with that aspect of the Divine which is not necessarily the most in conformity with our natures, but which is the most essential for our development or the most necessary for our action. For me, it was always a question of action because, personally, individually, each aspiration for personal development had its own form, its own spontaneous expression, so I did not use any formula. But as soon as there was the least little difficulty in action, it sprang forth. Only long afterwards did I notice that it was formulated in a certain way I would utter it without even knowing what the words were. But it came like this: Dieu de bont et de misricorde. It was as if I wanted to eliminate from action all aspects that were not this one. And it lasted for I dont know, more than twenty or twenty-five years of my life. It came spontaneously.
--
The physical seems to be more open to something that is repetitious for example, the music we play on Sundays, which has three series of combined mantras. The first is that of Chandi, addressed to the universal Mother:
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu matrirupena sansthita
0 1958-10-01, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was so strong, so strong that it was really inexpressible. The negative experience of no longer being an individual, or in other words, the dissolution of the ego, took place a long time ago and still takes place quite often: the ego completely vanishes. But this was a positive experience of being not just the universe in its totality, but something elseineffable, yet concrete, absolutely concrete! Unutterable1and yet utterly concrete: the divine Person beyond the Impersonal.
The experience lasted for only a few minutes. And I knew, then, that all our words all our words are empty. But circumstances were such that I had to speak
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As soon as I am alone, I enter into a very deep concentration,a state of consciousness, a kind of universal activity. Is it deep? What is it? It is far beyond all the mental regions, far, far beyond, and it is constant. As soon as I am alone or resting somewhere, thats how it is.
The other day when I was in this state of concentration, I had the vision that I mentioned to you. I felt I was being pulled, that something was pulling me and trying to draw my attention. I felt it very strongly. So I opened my eyes, my mental eyes (the physical eyes may remain opened or closed, it makes no difference either way; when I am concentrated, things on the physical plane no longer exist), I deliberately opened the minds eyes, for that is where I felt myself being pulled, and then I had this vision I told you of. Someone was trying to draw my attention, to tell me something. It takes someone really quite powerful, with a very great power of concentration, to do thatthere are certainly a great many people here and elsewhere who try to do this, yet I dont feel a thing.3
--
In the universe there is an inexhaustible source of energy that asks only to be replenished; if you know how to go about it, it is replenished. Instead of draining life and the energies of our earth and making of it something parched and inert, we must know the practical exercise for replenishing the energy constantly. And these are not just words; I know how its to be done, and science is in the process of thoroughly finding outit has found out most admirably. But instead of using it to satisfy human passions, instead of using what science has found so that men may destroy each other more effectively than they are presently doing, it must be used to enrich the earth: to enrich the earth, to make the earth richer and richer, more active, generous, productive and to make all life grow towards its maximum efficiency. This is the true use of money. And if its not used like that, its a vicea short circuit and a vice.
But how many people know how to use it in this way? Very few, which is why they have to be taught. What I call teach is to show, to give the example. We want to be the example of true living in the world. Its a challenge I am placing before the whole financial world: I am telling them that they are in the process of withering and ruining the earth with their idiotic system; and with even less than they are now spending for useless thingsmerely for inflating something that has no inherent life, that should be only an instrument at the service of life, that has no reality in itself, that is only a means and not an end (they make an end of something that is only a means)well then, instead of making of it an end, they should make it the means. With what they have at their disposal they could oh, transform the earth so quickly! Transform it, put it into contact, truly into contact, with the supramental forces that would make life bountiful and, indeed, constantly renewedinstead of becoming withered, stagnant, shrivelled up: a future moon. A dead moon.
0 1958-10-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(The disciple asks to know what he must do and what his place is in the universal manifestation)
In all religious and especially occult initiations, the ritual of the different ceremonies is prescribed in every detail; all the words pronounced, all the gestures made have their importance, and the least infraction of the rule, the least fault committed can have fatal consequences. It is the same in material lifeif one had the initiation into the true way of living, one could transform physical existence.
--
The same can be said of physical culture and of all the sciences that are concerned with the body and its workings. If the material universe is considered as the outer sheath and the manifestation of the Supreme, then it can generally be said that all the physical sciences are the rituals of worship.
We always come back to the same thing: the absolute necessity for perfect sincerity, perfect honesty and a sense of the dignity of all we do so that we may do it as it should be done.
--
It is the Supreme Lord who has ineluctably decreed the place you occupy in the universal concert, but whatever be this place, you have equally the same right as all others to ascend the supreme summits right to the supramental realization.
There is ones position in the universal hierarchy, which is something ineluctableit is the eternal lawand there is the development in the manifestation, which is an education; it is progressive and done from within the being. What is remarkable is that to become a perfect being, this positionwhatever it is, decreed since all eternity, a part of the eternal Truthmust manifest with the greatest possible perfection as a result of evolutionary growth. It is the junction, the union of the two, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization, that will make the total and perfect being, and the manifestation as the Lord has willed it since the beginning of all eternity (which has no beginning at all! ).
And for the cycle to be complete, one cannot stop on the way at any plane, not even the highest spiritual plane nor the plane closest to matter (like the occult plane in the vital, for example). One must descend right into matter, and this perfection in manifestation must be a material perfection, or otherwise the cycle is not completewhich explains why those who want to flee in order to realize the divine Will are in error. What must be done is exactly the opposite! The two must be combined in a perfect way. This is why all the honest sciences, the sciences that are practiced sincerely, honestly, exclusively with a will to know, are difficult pathsyet such sure paths for the total realization.
--
On the one hand, there is what Sri Aurobindowho, as the Avatar, represented the supreme Consciousness and Will on earthdeclared me to be, that is, the supreme universal Mother; and on the other hand, there is what I am realizing in my body through the integral sadhana.2 I could be the supreme Mother and not do any sadhana, and as a matter of fact, as long as Sri Aurobindo was in his body, it was he who did the sadhana, and I received the effects. These effects were automatically established in the outer being, but he was the one doing it, not II was merely the bridge between his sadhana and the world. Only when he left his body was I forced to take up the sadhana myself; not only did I have to do what I was doing beforebeing a bridge between his sadhana and the world but I had to carry on the sadhana myself. When he left, he turned over to me the responsibility for what he himself had been doing in his body, and I had to do it. So there are both these things. Sometimes one predominates, sometimes the other (I dont mean successively in time, but it depends on the moment), and they are trying to combine in a total and perfect realization: the eternal, ineffable and immutable Consciousness of the Executrice of the Supreme, and the consciousness of the Sadhak of the integral Yoga who strives in an ascending effort towards an ever increasing progression.
To this has been added a growing initiation into the supramental realization which is (I understand it well now) the perfect union of what comes from above and what comes from below, or in other words, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization.
Then and this becomes rather amusing like lifes play Depending upon each ones nature and position and bias, and because human beings are very limited, very partial and incapable of a global vision, there are those who believe, who have faith, or to whom the eternal Mother is revealed through Grace, who have this kind of relationship with the eternal Mother and there are those who themselves are plunged in sadhana, who have the consciousness of a developed sadhak, and thereby have the same relationship with me as one has with what they generally call a realized soul. Such persons consider me the prototype of the Guru teaching a new way, but the others dont have this relationship of sadhak to Guru (I am taking the two extremes, but of course there are all the possibilities in between), they are only in contact with the eternal Mother and, in the simplicity of their hearts, they expect Her to do everything for them. If they were perfect in this attitude, the eternal Mother would do everything for themas a matter of fact, She does do everything, but as they arent perfect, they cannot receive it totally. But the two paths are very different, the two kinds of relationships are very different; and as we all live according to the law of external things, in a material body, there is a kind of annoyance, an almost irritated misunderstanding, between those who follow this path (not consciously and intentionally, but spontaneously), who have this relationship of the child to the Mother, and those who have this other relationship of the sadhak to the Guru. So it creates a whole play, with an infinite diversity of shades.
--
For example, this question of PowerTHE Powerover Matter. Those who perceive me as the eternal, universal Mother and Sri Aurobindo as the Avatar are surprised that our power is not absolute. They are surprised that we have not merely to say, Let it be thus for it to be thus. This is because, in the integral realization, the union of the two is essential: a union of the power that proceeds from the eternal position and the power that proceeds from the sadhana through evolutionary growth. Similarly, how is it that those who have reached even the summits of yogic knowledge (I was thinking of Swami) need to resort to beings like gods or demigods to be able to realize things?Because they have indeed united with certain higher forces and entities, but it was not decreed since the beginning of time that they were this particular being. They were not born as this or that, but through evolution they united with a latent possibility in themselves. Each one carries the Eternal within himself, but one can join Him only when one has realized the complete union of the latent Eternal with the eternal Eternal.
And this explains everything, absolutely everything: how it works, how it functions in the world.3 I was saying to myself, But I have no powers, I have no powers! Several days ago, I said, But after all, I KNOW WHO is there, I know, yet how is it that ? There, up to there (the level of the head), it is all-powerful, nothing can resist but here it is ineffective. So those who have faith, even an ignorant but real faith (it can be ignorant but nevertheless it is real), say, What! How can you have no powers? Because the sadhana is not yet over.
The Lord will possess his universe only when the universe will have consciously become the Lord.
See Agenda 1957, p. 119
0 1958-10-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
7) But even in the event you have not made the irrevocable decision at the outset, should you have the good fortune to live during one of these unimaginable hours of universal history when the Grace is present, embodied upon earth, It will offer you, at certain exceptional moments, the renewed possibility of making a final choice that will lead you straight to the goal.
That was the message of hope.
0 1958-10-25 - to go out of your body, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Each one is in touch with the universal expression of an aspect or a will or a mode of the Supreme, and if one aspires for this, it is this that comes, with an extraordinary plasticity. And when that happens, I even become the Witness (not the witness in the way of the Purusha1: a witness far more infinite and eternal than the Purusha). I see what responds, why it responds, how it responds. This is how I know what people want (not here below, nor even in their highest aspiration). I see it even when the people themselves are no longer consciousor rather, not yet conscious (for me, its no longer, but anyway ), when they are not yet conscious of this identification somewhere. Even then I see it.
Its interesting.
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
No, not uniquely. It could apply in many other eases. Even if the Christians dont understand, there are many others who will!
Those who have read a little and who know something other than their little rut will understand.
--
In Europe and in the modern Western world, it is thought that all these gods the Greek gods and the pagan gods, as they are calledare human fancies, that they are not real beings. To understand, one must know that they are real beings. That is the difference. For Westerners, they are only a figment of the human imagination and dont correspond to anything real in the universe. But that is a gross mistake.
To understand the workings of universal life, and even those of terrestrial life, one must know that in their own realms these are all living beings, each with his own independent reality. They would exist even if men did not exist! Most of these gods existed before man.
They are beings who belong to the progressive creation of the universe and who have themselves presided over its formation from the most etheric or subtle regions to the most material regions. They are a descent of the divine creative Spirit that came to repair the mischief in short, to repair what the Asuras had done. The first makers created disorder and darkness, an unconsciousness, and then it is said that there was a second lineage of makers to repair that evil, and the gods gradually descended through realities that were ever moreone cant say dense because it isnt really dense, nor can one even say material, since matter as we know it does not exist on these planesthrough more and more concrete substances.
All these zones, these planes of reality, received different names and were classified in different ways according to the occult schools, according to the different traditions, but there is an essential similarity, and if we go back far enough into the various traditions, hardly anything but words differ, depending upon the country and the language. The descriptions are quite similar. Moreover, those who climb back up the ladderor in other words, a human being who, through his occult knowledge, goes out of one of his bodies (they are called sheaths in English) and enters into a more subtle bodyin order to ACT in a more subtle body and so forth, twelve times (you make each body come out from a more material body, leaving the more material body in its corresponding zone, and then go off through successive exteriorizations), what they have seen, what they have discovered and seen through their ascensionwhe ther they are occultists from the Occident or occultists from the Orientis for the most part analogous in description. They have put different words on it, but the experience is very analogous.
--
But now, there is only a very small number of people in the West who know that it isnt merely subjective or imaginative (the result of a more or less unbridled imagination), and that it corresponds to a universal truth.
All these regions, all these realms are filled with beings who exist separately in their own realms, and if you are awake and conscious on a given plane for example, if while going out of a more material body you awaken on some higher planeyou can have the same relationship with the things and people of that plane as with the things and people of the material world. In other words, there exists an entirely objective relationship that has nothing to do with your own idea of things. Naturally, the resemblance becomes greater and greater as you draw nearer the physical world, the material world, and there is even a moment when one region can act directly upon the other. In any case, in what Sri Aurobindo calls the kingdoms of the overmind, you find a concrete reality entirely independent of your personal experience; whenever you come back to it, you again find the same things, with some differences that may have occurred DURING YOUR ABSENCE. And your relationships with the beings there are identical to those you have with physical beings, except that they are more flexible, more supple and more direct (for example, there is a capacity to change the outer form, the visible form, according to your inner state), but you can make an appointment with someone, come to the meeting and again find the same being, with only certain differences that may have occurred during your absence but it is absolutely concrete, with absolutely concrete results.
--
To give another comparison, it could be said that the physical body is at the centerit is the most material and the most condensed, as well as the smallestand the more subtle inner bodies increasingly overlap the limits of this central physical body; they pass through it and extend further and further out, like water evaporating from a porous vase which creates a kind of steam all around it. And the more subtle it is, the more its extension tends to fuse with that of the universe: you finally become universal. It is an entirely concrete process that makes the invisible worlds an objective experience and even allows you to act in those worlds.
In Sri Aurobindo's and Mother's terminology, 'psychic' or 'psychic being' means the soul or the portion of the Supreme in man which evolves from life to life until it becomes a fully self-conscious being. The soul is a special capacity or grace of human beings on earth.
0 1958-11-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Yes. Because at the very bottom of the Inconscient is the Supreme. It is the same idea as the highest height touching the deepest depth. The universe is like a circleit is represented by the serpent biting its tail, its head touching its tail. It means that the supreme height touches the most material matter, without any intermediary. I have already said this several times. But that was the experience. I didnt know what was happening. I expected nothing and it was stupendousin a single bound, I sprang up! If someone had had his eyes open, I assure you he would have had to laugh: I was bent over, like this, more and more, more and more, more and more, my head was just about to touch my knees when suddenlyvrrrm! Straight, straight up, my head upright in a single bound!
But as soon as you want to express it, it escapes like water running through your fingers; all the fluidity is lost, it evaporates. A rather vague, poetic or artistic expression is much truer, much nearer to the truth something hazy, nebulous, undefined. Something not concretized like a rigid mental expressionthis rigidity that the mind has introduced right down into the Inconscient.
0 1958-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The link between the two worlds has not yet been built, but it is in the process of being built; this was the meaning of the experience of February 3 1958, 1: to build a link between the two worlds. For both worlds are indeed therenot one above the other, but within each other, in two different dimensions. Only, there is no comm unication between them; they overlap, as it were, without being connected. In the experience of February 3, I saw certain people from here (and from elsewhere) who already belong to the supramental world in a part of their being, but there is no connection, no link. But now the hour has come in universal history for this link to be built.
What is the relationship between this experience of February 3 and that of November 7 (the almighty spring)? Is what you found in the depths of the Inconscient this same Supramental?
0 1958-11-27 - Intermediaries and Immediacy, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I am used to seeing the process or the working of things more from a spiritual point of view, something more universal, whereas this needs to be seen from a detailed, occult point of view.
For example, one thing had always appeared unimportant to me in actionintermediaries between the spiritualized individual being, the conscious soul, and the Supreme. According to my personal experience, it had always seemed to me that if one is exclusively turned towards the Supreme in all ones actions and expresses Him directly, whatever is to be done is done automatically. For example, if you are always open and if at each second you consciously want to express only what the Supreme Lord wants to be expressed, it is done automatically. But with all that I have learned about pujas, about certain scriptures and certain rituals as well, the necessity for a process has become very clear to me. Its the same as in physical life; in physical life, everything needs a process, as we know, and it is the knowledge of processes that constitutes physical science. Similarly, in a more occult working, the knowledge and especially the RESPECT for the process seem to be much more important than I had first thought.
And when I studied this, when I looked at this science of processes, of intermediaries, suddenly I clearly understood the working of karma, which I had not understood before. I had worked and intervened quite often to change someones karma, but sometimes I had to wait, without exactly knowing why the result was not immediate. I simply used to wait without worrying about the reasons for this slowness or delay. Thats how it was. And generally it ended, as I said, with the exact vision of the karmas source, its initial cause; and scarcely would I have this vision when the Power would come, and the thing would be dissolved. But I didnt bother about finding out why it was like that.
--
It is like the story X told me of his guru2 who could comm and the coming of Kali (something which seems quite natural to me when one is sufficiently developed); well, not only could he commend the coming of Kali, but Kali with I dont know how many crores of her warriors! For me, Kali was Kali, after all, and she did her work; but in the universal organization, her action, the innumerable multiplicity of her action, is expressed by an innumerable multitude of conscious entities at work. It is this individualization, as it were, that gives to these forces a consciousness and a certain play of freedom, and this is what makes all the difference in action. It is in this respect that the occult system is an absolutely indispensable complement to spiritual action.
The spiritual action is direct, but it may not be immediate (anyway, thats my experience). Sri Aurobindo said that with the supramental presence, it becomes immediate and I have experienced this. But this would then mean that the supramental Power automatically commands all these intermediaries, whereas if its not present, even the highest spiritual power would need a specialized knowledge to act in this realm, a knowledge equivalent to an occult or initiatory knowledge of all these realms. This is why I told X, Well, you taught me many things while you were here. There is always something to learn.
0 1959-01-27, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
By a special grace, X gave me both stages of the tantric initiation at the same time, although they are normally separated by several years; then if all goes well, he will give me the full initiation in 6 months. I have thus received a mantra, along with the power of realizing it. X told me that a realization should come at the beginning of the fifth month if I repeat the mantra strictly according to his instructions, but he again told me that the hostile forces would do all they could to prevent me from saying my mantra: mental suggestions and even illness. X has understood that I have work at the Ashram, and he has exempted me from the outer forms (pujas and other rituals), but nevertheless I must repeat my mantra very accurately every day (3,333 times, that is, a little more than 3 hours uninterrupted in the mornings, and more than 2 hours in the evening). I must therefore organize myself in such a way as to get up very early in the morning in Pondicherry, for in no case will your work suffer.
Apart from this, he has not yet entirely finished the work of purging that he has been doing on me for over a month, but I believe that everything will be completed in a short time from now.
0 1959-04-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Above, beginning with the center between the eyebrows, the work has been done for a long time. There it is blank. For ages upon ages upon ages, the union with the Supreme has been realized and is constant.
Below this center is the body. And this body has indeed the concrete sensation of the Divine in each of its cells; but it needs to become universalized. Thats the work to be done, center by center. I understand now what Sri Aurobindo meant when he repeatedly insisted, Widen yourself. All this must be universalized; it is the condition, the basis, for the Supramental to descend into the body.
According to the ancient traditions, this universalization of the physical body was considered the supreme realization, but it is only a foundation, the base upon which the Supramental can come down without breaking everything.
***
0 1959-06-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Before five months are over (in September, October or November), Pakistan will attack India with the help or the complicity or the military resources of the united States. And at about the same time, China will attack India because of the Dalai Lama, under the pretext that India is supporting the Dalai Lama and that thousands of Tibetan refugees are escaping into India to carry on anti-Chinese activities. Then America will offer its support to India against China and then, said X, We shall see what will be the political policy of the Congress Party, which pretends to be unaligned with any bloc. If India accepts American aid, there will be no more Pakistan but rather American troops to prevent conflicts between Muslims and Hindus, and a single government for both countries. I pointed out to X that this sounded very much like a world war
Then he made the following comparison: When you throw a pebble into a pond, there is just one center, one point where it falls, and everything radiates out from this center. There are two such centers in the world at present, two places where there are great vibrations: one is India and Pakistan, and that will radiate all over Asia. And the other is.
0 1959-10-06 - Sri Aurobindos abode, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Shortly before the 15th of August I had a unique experience that exemplifies all this.1 For the first time the supramental light entered directly into my body, without passing through the inner beings. It entered through the feet (a red and gold colormarvelous, warm, intense), and it climbed up and up. And as it climbed, the fever also climbed because the body was not accustomed to this intensity. As all this light neared the head, I thought I would burst and that the experience would have to be stopped. But then, I very clearly received the indication to make the Calm and Peace descend, to widen all this body-consciousness and all these cells, so that they could contain the supramental light. So I widened, and as the light was ascending, I brought down the vastness and an unshakable peace. And suddenly, there was a second of fainting.
I found myself in another world, but not far away (I was not in a total trance). This world was almost as substantial as the physical world. There were roomsSri Aurobindos room with the bed he rests on and he was living there, he was there all the time: it was his abode. Even my room was there, with a large mirror like the one I have here, combs, all kinds of things. And the substance of these objects was almost as dense as in the physical world, but they shone with their own light. It was not translucent, not transparent, not radiant, but self-luminous. The various objects and the material of the rooms did not have this same opacity as the physical objects here, they were not dry and hard as in the physical world we know.
0 1959-11-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The deathless state is what can be envisaged for the human physical body in the future: it is constant rebirth. Instead of again tumbling backwards and falling apart due to a lack of plasticity and an incapacity to adapt to the universal movement, the body is undone futurewards, as it were.
There is one element that remains fixed: for each type of atom, the inner organization of the elements is different, which is what creates the difference in their substance. So perhaps similarly, each individual has a different, particular way of organizing the cells of his body, and it is this particular way that persists through all the outer changes. All the rest is undone and redone, but undone in a forward thrust towards the new instead of collapsing backwards into death, and redone in a constant aspiration to follow the progressive movement of the divine Truth.
0 1960-01-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Actually, difficulties come from very small things; they may seem quite commonplace, totally uninteresting, but they block the way. They come for no earthly reasonsome detail, a word that comes rubbing against a sensitive spot, an illness in someone close to me, anything at all, and suddenly something in me contracts. Then all the work has to be started afresh as though nothing had been done.
Of all forms of ego, you might think that the physical ego is the most difficult to conquer (or rather, the body ego, because the work was already done long ago on the physical ego). It might be thought that the form of the body is a point of concentration, and that without this concentration or hardness, physical life would not be possible. But thats not true. The body is really a wonderful instrument; its capable of widening and of becoming vast in such a way that everything, everything the slightest gesture, the least little taskis done in a wonderful harmony and with a remarkable plasticity. Then all of a sudden, for something quite stupid, a draft, a mere nothing, it forgetsit shrinks back into itself, it gets afraid of disappearing, afraid of not being. And everything has to be started again from scratch. So in the yoga of matter you start realizing how much endurance is needed. I calculated it would take 200 years to say ten crore of my japa. Well, Im ready to struggle 200 years if necessary, but the work will be done.
0 1960-05-21 - true purity - you have to be the Divine to overcome hostile forces, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Well, I tried hard but I couldnt really find the way. At times, I almost seemed to have it, a mere nothing would have been enough; it was just a matter of getting the knack (and at heart, this is what Power is all aboutto get the knack, to suddenly seize upon the means, the right vibration, what in India is called siddhi). Well, after his departure, all of a sudden it came. It happened while I was doing my japa, while I was walking up and down my room As if I were holding all that in my armsit was so concrete and lifting it up towards the Light, along with this ascending OM, rising from the very depths, OM!and I was carrying all these people, and it was spreading forth, PHYSICALLY spreading, and I was carrying the earth, I was carrying the whole universe, but in such a tangible, concrete wayall towards the Supreme Lord.
And this was not the invisible power: it was concrete, it was tangible, it was MATERIAL.
0 1960-05-24 - supramental flood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Nothing remained but the Force, nothing remained but Sat-Chit-Ananda,1 and not only in the consciousness but in the physical sensation the divine Satchidananda spreading in a constant flood throughout the universe.
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.
--
It was as vast as the universe, a continuous movement the movement of manifestation of something which was EVERYTHING at once, a single whole. There was no division. And such a variety of colors, vibrations, powersextraordinary! It was one single thing, and everything was within it.
The three Supreme Principles were very clearly there: Existence, Consciousness (an active, realizing consciousness) and Ananda. A universal vastness that kept going on and on and on
It moves and it doesnt move. How can you explain that? It was in motion, a constant, unceasing motion, and yet there was no shifting of place. I had the perception, or rather there was the perception, of something which WAS forever, which never repeated itself, neither began nor ended, which didnt shift places yet was always in motion.
--
After all that, towards the end of the night, at two in the morning, only a kind of faint suggestion was left: How can this statewhich I knew in trance, in samadhi, and which necessitates lying downbecome constant in a physical body which moves about? There is something to discover there. And what form will it take? For in my consciousness, you see, it is constantly like that, this universal flood, but the problem is IN THE BODY: its the problem of the Force in its most material form.
And during the time my experience lasted, I had no feeling of anything exceptional, but rather simply the fact that after all its preparation, the body consciousness was ready for a total identification with Thatin my consciousness its always the same, a perpetual, constant and eternal state in that it never leaves me. Its like that, and it never varies. What diminishes the immensity of the Vibration are the limitations of the material consciousness which can color it and even sometimes change it by giving it a personal appearance. Thus, when I see someone and speak to him, for example, when my eyes concentrate on the person, I have almost the sensation of this flood flowing from me towards the person or of it passing through me to go onto the person. There is an awareness of the eyes, the body. And it is this which limits or even changes a little the immensity of the thing But already this feeling has almost disappeared; this immensity seems to be acting almost constantly. There are moments when I am less interiorized, when I am more on the surface, and it feels like its passing through a bodymoments when the body consciousness comes back a little. And this is what diminishes the thing.
This experience last night also enabled me to understand what X had felt during one of our meditations. He had explained his experience by way of saying that I was this mystic tree whose roots plunge into the Supreme and whose branches spread forth over the world,3 and he said that one of these branches had entered into himand it had been a unique experience. He had said, this is the Mother.
And now I understand that what he had seen and translated by this Vedic image was that kind of perpetual flood.
And you see, this experience he had, this contact between him and me, is just a point, a drop, its nothing; its merely something the consciousness puts into words, but the THING itself is universal. Last night it was universal; there was no room, no bed, no door and it was concrete, concrete, so concrete, with such a splendor! There was all the Joythis perpetual downpour in a limitless splendor.
I was reluctant to speak (because of this problem that remains hanging: to make it permanent, even in the active consciousness), and I said to myself that if I speak, it will create difficulties for me in finding the solution But its all right. I shall simply have to make a still greater effort, because something always evaporates when you speak.
0 1960-07-12 - Mothers Vision - the Voice, the ashram a tiny part of myself, the Mothers Force, sparkling white light compressed - enormous formation of negative vibrations - light in evil, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So in my vision, my body was as big as the universe, and that (the Ashram) was so tiny, so tiny.
***
0 1960-07-23 - The Flood and the race - turning back to guide and save amongst the torrents - sadhana vs tamas and destruction - power of giving and offering - Japa, 7 lakhs, 140000 per day, 1 crore takes 20 years, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
These were universal forces. I cant say it means war. Ive foreseen many warswidespread wars, local wars, so many warsand up to now they have never been presented to me in that form. Theyve always come as a fireflames, flames, the home burning. Not as an inundation.
A cataclysm?
--
Its more and more a universal yoga the whole earth and it is like that day and night, when I walk and when I speak and when I eat. Its constantly like that. As if the whole earth were its like kneading dough to make it rise.
But when I read his Yoga of Self-Perfection and see simply what we are phew! What yeast we would need to make all that rise!
0 1960-08-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
To this day I remember the experience. Truly, thats what I felt I did not intellectualize it. Exactly the impression of what Christ must have experienced when he felt the weight of the cross. It was the weight of a whole world of darkness, unconsciousness, universal bad will, total incomprehension, something And it really felt like that as if I were carrying a frightful weightwhich was frightful because of its darkness, not because of its weight. So I thought, Well, well. This must be how Christ felt when they laid the cross on him.
There are plenty of them! (Mother indicates a pile of various papers) In another pile there must be as many again! It is a mania for collecting papers.
--
But then Id rather not die if possible. And if I dont die, it will be perfectly useless, because that would then be the obvious proof of an uninterrupted ascent; consequently, what there will be at the very end will be much more interesting.
You alone have convinced me that the history of the way might be of some interest, so Im letting you do it Ive taken a very, very handsome file upstairs with all your notes in it.8 Its filling up; its going to be formidable! (Mother laughs) a frightful documentation.
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The idea is that the earth as a whole must be prepared in all its forms, including even those least ready for the transformation. There must be a symbolic representation of all the elements on earth upon which we can work to establish the link.1 The earth is a symbolic representation of the universe, and the group is a symbolic representation of the earth.
Sri Aurobindo and I had discussed the matter in 1914 (quite a long time ago), for we had seen two possibilities: what we are now doing, or to withdraw into solitude and isolation until we had not only attained the Supermind, but begun the material transformation as well. And Sri Aurobindo rightfully said that we could not isolate ourselves, for as you progress, you become more and more universalized, and consequently you take the burden upon yourself2 in any case.
And life itself has responded by bringing people forward to form a nucleus. Of course, we clearly saw that this would make the work a bit more complex and difficult (it gives me a heavy responsibility, an enormous material work), but from the overall point of view for the Workits indispensable and even inevitable. And in any case, as we were later able to verify, each one represents simultaneously a possibility and a special difficulty to resolve. I have even said, I believe, that each one here is an impossibility.3
--
Along the way, I once went down into this physical mind for awhile to try to set it right, to organize it a little (it was done rather quickly, I didnt stay there long). So when I went inside X, I saw It was rather curious, for its the opposite of the method we follow. In his material consciousness (physical and vital), he has trained himself to be impersonal, open, limitless, in comm unication with all the universal forces. In the physical mind, silence, immobility. But in the speculative mind, the one there at the very top of the head what an organization, phew! All the tradition in its most superb organization, but such a ri-gi-dity! And it had a pretty quality of light, a silver blueVERY pretty. Oh, it was very calm, wonderfully calm and quiet and still. But what a ceiling it had!the outer form resembled rigid cubes. Everything inside was beautiful, but that There was a very large cube right at the top, I recall, bordered by a purple line, which is a line of powerall this was quite luminous. It looked like a pyramid; the smaller cubes formed a kind of base, the lower part of which faded into something cloudy, and then this passed imperceptibly downwards to a more material realm, or in other words, the physical mind. The cube on top was the largest and most luminous, and the least yieldingeven inflexible, you could say. The others were somewhat less defined, and at the bottom it was very blurred. But up at the top!thats where I wanted to go, right to the top.
When I got there, I felt a moment of anguish; my feeling was that nothing could be done. Not for him in particular, but universally, for all those in his categoryit seemed hopeless.6 If that was perfection, then nothing more could be done. This lasted only a second, but it was painful. And then I tried that is, I wanted to bring my consciousness down into the highest cubethis eternal, universal and infinite consciousness which is the first and foremost expression of the manifestation but nothing doing. It was impossible. I tried for several minutes and saw that it was absolutely impossible. So I had to make a curious movement (I couldnt get through it, it was impassable), I had to come back down into the so-called lower consciousness (not lower, actuallyit was vast and impersonal), and from there I came out and regained my equilibrium. This is what gave me that splitting headache I told you about. I came out of there as if I were carrying the weight the weight of an irreducible absoluteit was dreadful. Unfortunately, I was unable to rest afterwards, and as people were waiting to see me, I had to talkwhich is very tiring for me. And this produced a bubbling in my head, like a this dark blue light of power in matter was there, shot through with streaks of white and gold, and all this was flashing back and forth in my head, this way and that way I thought I was going to have a stroke! (Mother laughs)
This lasted a good half hour before I could calm it down, make it quiet, quiet. And I saw that this came from the fact that he wanted to bring the Power down, to transmit the Power into the physical mind! But as soon as Im put in contact with the Power, you understand, it makes everything explode! (Mother laughs) It felt exactly like my head was going to explode!
--
But this experience with X was really interesting. I learned many things that day, many things If you concentrate long enough on any one point, you discover the Infinite (and in his own experience he found the infinite), what could be called your own Infinite. But this is not what WE want, not this; what we want is the direct and integral contact between the manifested universe and the Infinite out of which this universe has emerged. So then it is no longer an individual or personal contact with the Infinite, its a total contact. And Sri Aurobindo insists on this, he says that its absolutely impossible to have the transformation (not the contact, but the supramental transformation) without becoming universalized that is the first condition. You cannot become supramental before being universal. And to be universal means to accept everything, be everything, become everythingreally to accept everything. And as for all those who are shut up in a system, even if it belongs to the highest regions of thought, it is not THAT.
But to each his destiny, to each his work, to each his realization, and to want to change someones destiny or someones realization is very wrong. For it simply throws him off balance thats all it does.
0 1960-10-02a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Before going to bed, sometimes I say to myself, I will do what is necessary to spend my night in these great currents of force(because there is a way to do it). And then I think, Oh, what an egotist you are, my girl! So sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesntwhen theres something important to do, it doesnt happen. But all I have to do is concentrate in a certain way before going to sleep to spend my whole night in these very far from here, very far I cant say very far from the earth, for surely its in an intermediate zone between the forces from above and the earths atmosphere. Thats what it mainly is, in any case. Its a great universal current as well, but mainly its what descends and comes onto the earth, and it is permeating the earths atmosphere all the time, all the time, and it comes with this wide, overall visionit makes for wonderful nights I no longer bother about people at allat least not as such, but in a more impersonal way.
(silence)
--
This, too, Sri Aurobindo had explained to me. I used to tell him, Yes, you always speak of lifes delight, life for the sake of its delight. But as soon as I had the notion, as soon as I was put in the presence of the Supreme, it was: For Youexclusively what You want. You are the sole, the unique and exclusive reason for being. And that has remained, and this movement is so strong that even when you see, now I have ecstasy and ananda in abundanceeverything comes, everything. But even then, even when that is there, something in me always turns towards the Supreme and says, Does this TRULY serve You? Is it what You expect of me, what You want from me?
This has protected me from all seeking for pleasure in life. It was a wonderful protection, because pleasure always seemed so futile to meyes, futile; for the sake of your personal satisfaction. Later, I even understood how foolish it is, for you can never be satisfiedthough when youre small you dont yet know that. I never liked it: But is it really useful, does it serve some purpose? And I still have this attitude in regard to my nights. I have this widening of the consciousness, this impersonalization, this wonderful joy of being above all that. But at the same time I also have, Im here in this body, on earth, to do something I mustnt forget it. And this is what I have to do. But probably Im wrong!
0 1960-10-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So I understand more and more. Everythingthis whole organization, this whole aggregate, all these cells and nerves and sensorsare all meant uniquely for the work, they have no other purpose than the work; every foolish act that is done is for the work; every stupidity that is thought is for the work; you are made the way you are because only in that way can you do the work and its none of your business to seek to be somewhere else. Thats my conclusion. Very well, as You wish, may Your will be done!No, not be done; it IS done. As You wish, exactly as You wish!
And in the end, its quite fun.
--
Just as the shooting star flashed past, there sprang from my consciousness: To realize the divine union, for my body! And before twelve months were out, it was done.
I remember, it was at the door of our studio3 in Paris. I can still see it. Thats how I always remember the picture simply comes to me.
0 1960-10-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(The day before 'Kali Puja,' the ritual festival devoted each year in India to the goddess Kali, the warrior aspect of the universal Mother)
She has already been here for two days and Oh, yesterday especially, she was so in such a mood!like a warrior. I said to her, But why not change them through through an excess of love?
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There is a black cloud over the ashram. Its origin is rather unique and very interesting.
S has a nephew in Bombay, and one day towards the end of August or beginning September, he told me an extraordinary story about this nephew, who had disappeared (he showed me his photographhe looks rather like a medium). He returned home two days later, I believe. Hed been found in a train in a hypnotic state; fortunately someone shook him and he suddenly woke up: Why am I here? What am I doing here? (He had no intention of travelling, you see; he had simply left his house to visit a neighbor in Bombay.) So he returned home without knowing what had happened to him. And he was quite bizarre, really rather off.
--
Finally, they had him work as a waiter in a small caf in Ahmedabad, near the station. One day it even happened that his brother and his brothers friend stopped by (he vaguely recalls having seen them) but he was incapable of speaking to them or of getting them to recognize him. Another time, he tried to leave and headed towards the station, but after awhile he could no longer walk, he was suddenly stopped by something (he doesnt know what), and he had to go back. Thats how it wasquite a unique state. But one day, a friend of the brother stopped at this caf to drink something, and this same boy served him. He had changed a lot, but the other fellow recognized him all the same and asked, Whats your name? He saw that the boy seemed dazed and couldnt answer. So he didnt say anything but ran immediately to where the elder brother lived; they came back, took the boy into a corner and doused his face with seltzer water. It seems that then he started becoming more alive. Then they led him away and informed the police.
I dont have any more details yet
--
Only, there is all that comes from outside thats what is most dangerous. Constantly, constantlywhen you eat, you catch it oh, what a mass of vibrations! The vibrations of the thing you eat when it was living (they always remain), the vibrations of the person who cooked it, vibrations of All the time, all the time, they never stopyou breathe, they enter. Of course, when you start talking to someone or mixing with people, then you become a bit more conscious of what is coming, but even just sitting still, uninvolved with othersit comes! There is an almost total interdependenceisolation is an illusion. By reinforcing your own atmosphere (Mother gestures, as if building a wall around her), you can hold these things off TO A CERTAIN EXTENT, but simply this effort to keep them at a distance creates (Im thinking in English and speaking in French) disturbances.8 Anyway, now all this has been SEEN.
But I know in an absolute way that once this whole mass of the physical mind is mastered and the Brahmic consciousness is brought into it in a continuous way, you CAN you become the MASTER of your health.
--
The yearly ritual worship in honor of Durga, the universal Mother.
The rakshas are demons of the lower vital plane.
0 1960-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its an approach which is not at all mental nor intellectual nor (God knows!) moral in the leastno notion of Good or Evil nor any of those things, absolutely none of that. Theres a moment in life when you begin thinking a little and you see all this from an overall or universal point of view in which all moral notions completely disappearFOR ANOTHER REASON. This experience with Z reminded me of a certain way of approaching Beauty that enables you even to find it in what appears dirty and ugly to the common vision. It is She trying to express herself in this something which to the common vision is ugly, dirty, hypocritical. But of course, if you yourself have striven assiduously and have greatly held yourself in, then you look at it reprovingly.
From my earliest childhood, instinctively, I have never felt the slightest contempt or how should I say (well, well! I was thinking in English) shrinking or disapproval, severe criticism or disgust for the things people call vice.
0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But generally and this is something Theon had told me (Theon was very qualified on the subject of hostile forces and the workings of all that resists the divine influence, and he was a great fighteras you might imagine! He himself was an incarnation of an asura, so he knew how to tackle these things!); he was always saying, If you make a VERY SMALL concession or suffer a minor defeat, it gives you the right to a very great victory. Its a very good trick. And I have observed, in practice, that for all things, even for the very little things of everyday life, its trueif you yield on one point (if, even though you see what should be, you yield on a very secondary and unimportant point), it immediately gives you the power to impose your will for something much more important. I mentioned this to Sri Aurobindo and he said that it was true. It is true in the world as it is today, but its not what we want; we want it to change, really change.
He wrote this in a letter, I believe, and he spoke of this system of compensation for example, those who take an illness on themselves in order to have the power to cure; and then theres the symbolic story of Christ dying on the cross to set men free. And Sri Aurobindo said, Thats fine for a certain age, but we must now go beyond that. As he told me (its even one of the first things he told me), We are no longer at the time of Christ when, to be victorious, it was necessary to die.
0 1960-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And as I look now at the things of life, at people, at this totality, I see that its identically the same thing when seen from there, from that consciousness its so drab, dull, insipid, gray, uninteresting, lifeless Oh, all of life, WHATEVER IT IS, is like that when seen from that consciousness!
So I understood that this must correspond to a certain realm of experience; I understood all those who say, If it has to be like this, if it can never be otherwise, then (this opposition, this abyss between a TRUE life, a TRUE consciousness, a TRUE activity, something living, powerful, fulfilling and life as it now is), if there must always be this difference between the physical expression as it is or as it can be in the present circumstances, and the true life, then For if despite everythingdespite this tremendous distance Ive covered in my life (these memories go back more than sixty years) and all the evolutionary effort upwards I have made since that time IN MATTER (Im not speaking of leaving Matter behind, but IN MATTER, IN action)if that doesnt further reduce this gap between the true consciousness and the possible material realization, then I understand I understand why people say, Its hopeless. (Of course, this hopeless is meaningless to me.)
--
Formerly, that was my first stepa long time ago. Now its so very different I wonder how it was possible to have been so totally blind as to call that oneself at any moment in ones life! Its a collection of things. And what was the link by which that could be called oneself? Thats more difficult to find out. Only when you climb above do you come to realize that THAT is at work here, but it could work there as well, or as well here, or here, or here At times there is suddenly a drop of something (Oh, I saw that this morningit was like a drop, a little drop, but with SUCH an intense and perfect light ), and where THAT falls it makes its center and begins radiating out and acting. THAT is what can be called oneselfnothing else. And THAT precisely is what enabled me to live in such dreadfully uninteresting, such nonexistent circumstances. And at the moment when you ARE that, you see how that has lived and how that has used everything, not only in this body but in all bodies and through all time.
At the core, this is the experience; it is no longer knowledge. I now understand quite clearly the difference between the knowledge of the eternal soul, of life eternal through all its changes, and this CONCRETE experience of the thing.
0 1960-12-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
A sort of unification is taking place [in you], as if you had become a more uniform whole within-without. I dont know how to explain thisit feels more unified, more organized uniform. Not some parts more developed and others less so, some more luminous and others less so; its much more uniform, and uniform even in the vibration, a kind of really a uniformity in all its movements, responses, vibrations, light. And this kind of powdering of the new light which I see is much more widespread. Its as if everything, everything what is happening is really a work of unifyingstabilizing, unifying. And this powdering of golden light has completely enveloped you, with this same blue light in your japa, with different intensities of powerboth are there. Like a unifying of the consciousness, as if all the less receptive elements were starting to open, thereby creating a much more homogeneous whole. I dont know how your nights are, but
Not very conscious.
0 1960-12-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It goes back and forth between the two all the timea kind of curve like an electric arc between them; it goes up, it goes down, it falls and then climbs back up. In a flash comes the clear vision that the universal realization will be achieved along with the perfection of the material, TERRESTRIAL world. (I say terrestrial, for the earth is still something unique; the rest of the universe is differentso this blown up speck of dust becomes of capital importance!) Then, at another moment, eternity for which all the universes are simply the expression of a second, and in which all this is a sort ofnot even an interesting game, but rather a breathing in and out, in and out And at such a moment, all the importance we give to material things seems so fantastically idiotic! And it goes in and out In this state, everything is obvious and indisputable. And in the other state, everything is obvious and indisputable. But between the two there is EVERY combination and every possibility.
(silence)
0 1960-12-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Theres the religious attitude, and then theres ordinary life where people do thingsworking, living, eating, enjoying life; they regard these as the essentials, and as for the rest, well, when theres time they think about it. But what Sri Aurobindo brought down, precisely I remember at Tlemcen, Theon used to say that there was a whole world of things, such as eating, for example, or taking care of your body, that should be done automatically, without giving it any importanceits not the time to think of things divine.(!) Thats what he preached. So you have the religious attitude of all the religious types, and then ordinary life I found both of them equally unsatisfactory. Then I came here and told Sri Aurobindo my feeling; I said that if someone is truly in union with the Divine, it CANNOT change no matter what he does (the quality of what youre doing may change, but the union cant change no matter what youre doing). And when he said that this was the truth, I felt a relief. And that feeling has stayed with me all through my life.
And now, all these different attitudes which individuals, groups and categories of men hold are coming from every direction (while Im walking upstairs) to assert their own points of view as the true thing. And I see that for myself, Im being forced to deal with a whole mass of things, most of which are quite futile from an ordinary point of viewnot to mention the things of which these moral or religious types disapprove. Quite interestingly, all kinds of mental formations come like arrows while Im walking for my japa upstairs (Mother makes a gesture of little arrows in the air coming into her mental atmosphere from every direction); and yet, Im entirely in what I could call the joy and happiness of my japa, full of the energy of walking (the purpose of walking is to give a material energy to the experience, in all the bodys cells). Yet in spite of this, one thing after another comes, like this, like that (Mother draws little arrows in the air): what I must do, what I must answer to this person, what I must say to that one, what has to be done All kinds of things, most of which might be considered most futile! And I see that all this is SITUATED in a totality, and this totality I could say that its nothing but the body of the Divine. I FEEL it, actually, I feel it as if I were touching it everywhere (Mother touches her arms, her hands, her body). And all these things neither veil nor destroy nor divert this feeling of being entirely this a movement, an action in the body of the Divine. And its increasing from day to day, for it seems that He is plunging me more and more into entirely material things with the will that THERE TOO it must be done that all these things must be consciously full of Him; they are full of Him, in actual fact, but it must become conscious, with the perception that it is all the very substance of His being which is moving in everything
0 1960-12-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
X seemed happy about his visit this time. We had long meditations of half an hourhe never seemed to want to leave at all! There was above all a kind of extremely calm universalization. An absolute and universal calm in all the cells of the body. I dont know if it was only me, but it seemed he was in the same stateunable to move, quite content, smiling. Once I heard the clock chime, and as I thought it was time and that perhaps he was ready to leave, I looked; he had removed the mala3 that he wears around his neck and I found him doing japa. As soon as he saw me looking, he quickly put it back on!
But whats most surprising is that with me, not a word, nothing, neither he nor I. And it seems to be just as comfortable for him as it is for me!
0 1961-01-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its easy to understand how someone who has this experience can spread it and act upon others, since to have it you must touch the unique, supreme Essence of the whole manifestation the Origin and the Essence, the Source and the Reality of all that is; then you immediately enter the realm of unity where there is no more separation among individuals: its a single vibration that can repeat itself endlessly in outer forms.2
If you go high enough, you come to the Heart of everything. Whatever manifests in this Heart can manifest in all things. This is the great secret, the secret of divine incarnation in an individual form. For in the normal course of things, what manifests at the center is only realized in the outer form with the awakening and RESPONSE Of the will within the individual form. But if the central Will is constantly, permanently represented in one individual, he can then serve as an intermediary between that Will and all beings, and will FOR THEM. Whatever this being perceives and consciously offers to the supreme Will is replied to as if it came from each individual being. And if individuals happen to be in a more or less conscious and voluntary relationship with this representative being, their relationship increases his efficacy and the supreme Action can work in Matter in a much more concrete and permanent way. This is the reason for these descents of what could be called polarized consciousnesses that always come to earth for a particular realization, with a definite purpose and missiona mission decided upon before the actual embodiment. These mark the great stages of the supreme incarnations upon earth.
--
I have replied endlessly, I have given all sorts of explanations about the organization of the School, about World union,4 about the true way to organize industry (its true functioning)so many things! If all that were compiled we could publish brochures! Sometimes Ive spoken three-quarters of an hour non-stop to people who listened with delight and were receptive but quite incapable of making a written report of it. At times like that we could have used one of your machines! But when things are organized in advance, it may well be that nothing comes out at allmentalizing stops the flow. If I is in front of me, I cant say anything to her because she doesnt understand. I already have trouble writing to herwhat I have to say is always brought down a bit; but if she were here in the room and I had to speak to her, nothing at all would come out!
No, when we feel like it and when she doesnt raise any question about an aphorismat least not an impossible questionwell do this: I will speak here, its much easier for me. This way things come that I havent seen before; while when I write like that, they are usually things Ive seen on other occasions (not that I try to recall them, they are there and simply come back). But when theres a new contact, something new always comes.
--
World uniona 'movement' launched through the personal initiative of a disciple.
***
0 1961-01-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You have this experience when for some reason or other, depending on the case, you come into contact with the universal consciousness not in its limitless essence but on any level of Matter. There is an atomic consciousness, a purely material consciousness and an even more generally prevailing psychological consciousness. When, through interiorization or a sort of withdrawal from the ego you enter into contact with that zone of consciousness we can call psychological terrestrial or human collective (there is a difference: human collective is restricted, while terrestrial includes many animal and even plant vibrations; but in the present case, since the moral notion of guilt, sin and evil belongs exclusively to human consciousness, let us simply say human collective psychological consciousness); when you contact that through identification, you naturally feel or see or know yourself capable of any human movement whatsoever. To some extent, this constitutes a Truth-Consciousness, or at such times the egoistical sense of what does or doesnt belong to you, of what you can or cannot do, disappears; you realize that the fundamental construction of human consciousness makes any human being capable of doing anything. And since you are in a truth-consciousness, you are aware at the same time that to feel judgmental or disgusted or revolted would be an absurdity, for EVERYTHING is potentially there inside you. And should you happen to be penetrated by certain currents of force (which we usually cant follow: we see them come and go but we are generally unaware of their origin and direction), if any one of these currents penetrates you, it can make you do anything.
If one always remained in this state of consciousness, keeping alive the flame of Agni, the flame of purification and progress, then after some time, not only could one prevent these movements from taking an active form in oneself and becoming expressed physically, but one could act upon the very nature of the movement and transform it. Needless to say, however, that unless one has attained a very high degree of realization it is virtually impossible to keep this state of consciousness for long. Almost immediately one falls back into the egoistic consciousness of the separate self, and all the difficulties return: disgust, the revolt against certain things and the horror they create in us, and so on.
--
Consequently, there is only one solution: by aspiration, concentration, interiorization and identification, to unite with the supreme Will. And that is both omnipotence and perfect freedom. Its the only omnipotence, the only freedomall the rest are approximations. You may be en route, but its not That, not the total thing.
If you make the experiment, you will come to see that this supreme freedom and this supreme power are accompanied by a total peace and an unfaltering serenity; if you notice any contradictionrevolt, disgust or something inadmissiblethis indicates that some part in You is not touched by the transformation, is still en route: something still holding on to the old consciousness, thats all.
--
When asked later about the meaning of this somewhat elliptical statement, Mother said: 'There are two stages. The first involves a mental (and possibly intuitive) vision of what will be (perhaps in an immediate future), and this is what we call seeing things "as they should be." The other is an identification with the supreme Will and the perception that at each second everything is exactly as the Supreme wants it to be, that it is the precise expression of the Supreme. The first is a vision of what is coming and says, "That's how things should be." But we overlook the distance between what presently exists and what is coming. While if we go high above and become one with the Consciousness of the supreme Will, we see that at every instant, at every moment in the universe, all is exactly as it should beexactly as the Supreme wants it to be. That is Omnipotence.'
Saraswati represents the universal Mother's aspect of Knowledge and artistic creativity. On this occasion, Mother would go down to the Meditation Hall and the disciples would silently pass in front of her to receive a message. This year they would receive a folder containing five photographs of Mother.
Savitri, Vol. 29, XI.I.702.
0 1961-01-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Evidently all the vital forces who have taken the habit of ruling the earth (last night it had the proportions of the earth, it wasnt universal) are the very ones who refuse to listen; they dont at all like what I am doing.
You see, personal surrender and devotion is an excellent solution for the individual, but it doesnt work for the collectivity. For example, as soon as I am alone and lying on my bedpeace! (Ah, I forgot! They had invented yet another thing: making my heartbeats irregular. Every three or four beats it would stop; then it would start up again, pounding as if I had been struck. Three, four beats, a faint little beat, then stop then, bang! Blow after blow. One more of their extraordinary inventions!) But, as soon as I stretch out and make a total surrender of all the cellsno more activity, nothingeverything goes well. But I am well aware that this surrender has an effect on the action only to the extent that the Supreme Lord has decided upon the action, and those movements stretch over long periods of time5: all sorts of things may happen before the final Victory is won. Because, for us, the scale is very small; even if it were of terrestrial proportions, it would be a very small scale; but on a universal scale. These forces have their place and their action, their universe, and as long as their place and their action are maintained, they will be here. So before their action can be exhausted or become useless, many things can happen.
Individually, however, there is almost instantaneous bliss. But this is not a true solution its a solution in the long run, by repercussion. To have true comm and here in this world, all of that must be mastered.
--
Savitri is really a condensation, a concentration of the universal Mother the eternal universal Mother, Mother of all universes from all eternityin an earthly personality for the Earths salvation. And Satyavan is the soul of the Earth, the Earths jiva. So when the Lord says, he whom you love and whom you have chosen, it means the earth. All the details are there! When she comes back down, when Death has yielded at last, when all has been settled and the Supreme tells her, Go, go with him, the one you have chosen, how does Sri Aurobindo describe it? He says that she very carefully takes the SOUL of Satyavan into her arms, like a little child, to pass through all the realms and come back down to earth. Everything is there! He hasnt forgotten a single detail to make it easy to understand for someone who knows how to understand. And it is when Savitri reaches the earth that Satyavan regains his full human stature.
These seem to be the forces ruling the subconscious mechanisms or reactions of the body: all the automatism produced by evolution and atavismwhat might be termed evolutionary habits. This is the 'descending path,' which started forty years earlier, as Mother said (or the 'physical plunge' referred to by Sri Aurobindo), leading to the pure cellular consciousness.
--
Later, on the 27th, Mother remarked: 'I was reading about this very thing yesterday in The Secret of the Veda, in the first hymn translated by Sri Aurobindo (the reference is to the colloquy between Indra and Agastya, Rig Veda I.170cf. The Secret of the Veda, Cent. Ed., X.241 ff.), and it helped me put my finger on the problem. In this hymn there is a dispute between Indra and the Rishi because the Rishi wants to progress too quickly without first passing through Indra [the god of the Mind], and Indra stops him; finally they reach an agreement. Sri Aurobindo's commentary is quite interesting: when one has the INDIVIDUAL power to go directly, but neglects the steps which are still necessary for the whole, for the universal movement, then one is stopped short. That is absolutely my experience.'
***
0 1961-01-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We think these people are the way they are because the environment is bad, the education is poor, the conditions are difficultits not true! In the universal economy of things they REPRESENT something, a certain type of force and vibration. It will have to be either dissolved or transformed. Transformed? But perhaps that is. It may disappear along with the hostile forces. Perhaps once everything has been transformed it will disappear I dont know when.
In any case, I really tried my best, with all the power I had, all the knowledge I had, because I liked this girl a lot, it wasnt at all a question of charity, I found her very interesting. But I watchedwith a kind of horror, reallyas this past repossessed her more and more, more and more each day, until we were finally obliged to dismiss her, to tell her, Go. Yes, I understand, she replied, I cant stay here.
--
Later, Mother added: 'All the experiences took place one after the other, but the new experience did not cancel the preceding one. The Consciousness this supreme unity that I hadremained all the time, to the very end, even while the other centers were awakening. And each center that awakened was a kind of addition, taking away nothing from what had come before. So at the end it was all simultaneous: a kind of global consciousness total and simultaneousof everything.... You see, while rising up (one is obliged to say "rising" and "descending" for otherwise one would never be understood), while "rising up" to reach this supreme Consciousness, all the rest was annulled, there was only That. When the supreme Consciousness was realized, it remained ALL the time, continuously, to the very end, it did not move; but meanwhile, the other centers began to awaken one after another. And each awakening center assumed its place but canceled nothing either of what had come before or of what was about to come, so that when I reached the end, all of it together was a simultaneous whole the Supreme Consciousness.' When Satprem asked if this Supreme Consciousness was the 'New Consciousness,' Mother replied, 'Not "new!" One can't say "new"Supreme Consciousness.'
This entire experience and Mother's insistence that it all happened 'without moving,' unlike the experience of the ascent of the Kundalini, suggests that it is the supramental consciousness concealed in the depths of the cells, that somehow emerges and traverses all the layers until the junction is made with the most material body-consciousness.
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.
Then what is disturbed if not the body?
--
That = the perception of the almost total unimportance of the external, material expression of the body's condition.
The Vedic hymns translated by Sri Aurobindo
0 1961-02-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So it would seem that if one wants to use his individuality, his body, to transform the whole that is, if one wants to use his bodily presence to act upon the universal corporeal substance theres no end to it. No end to the difficulties, no end to the battle BATTLE!
(silence)
0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All the rest is unimportant.
Basically, if we were capable of. When I am up in my room, its very easy, very easy: it comes and what is a little more difficult is getting out of that state. There I am, like this (gesture of blissful abandonment), and when I feel its time to go downstairs or I have something to do or someone is coming with lunch or whatever, then its a little difficult; otherwise, I am like that (same gesture). Whats difficult is my contact with the Ashram people. As soon as I go down and simply that, having to fidget on my feet, giving people flowers. And they are so unconsciously egotistical! If I dont go through the usual concentration on each one of them, they wonder, What is it? Whats wrong? Have I done something? And and it turns into a big drama.
--
Kali symbolizes the destroying or warrior-like aspect of the universal Mother: it is she who severs all bonds ... out of love.
The 'pipe' is obviously symbolic.
--
Since 'Bohr's atom' at the beginning of the century, which with its electrons orbiting around a central nucleus like planets around a sun was to have been the mathematical model representing the ultimate constituent of matter, nuclear physicists have discovered many new elementary particles in the universe: from leptons to baryons, with neutrinos, pions, kaons, psi and khi particles in between!
A recentand unifying (!)theory postulated by the American Nobel Laureate, Murray Gell-Mann, would reduce this somewhat startling enumeration to more reasonable proportions through the introduction of a unique sub-particle constituting all matter: the quark. Nevertheless, there would still exist several kinds of quarks (e.g., 'strange,' 'charmed,' 'colored' in red, yellow and blue) for accommodating the various qualities of matter. A proton, for example, would consist of three quarks: red, yellow and blue. However, it should be noted that quarks are basically mathematical intermediaries to facilitate the comprehension or interpretation of certain experiments thus far unexplained. Moreover, the simple question still remains, even if they do exist materially: 'What are quarks made of?'
Nevertheless, a mathematical model resulting from a recent theory that attempts to represent our material universe strangely resembles Mother's perception, for it postulates a milieu consisting entirely of electromagnetic waves of very high frequency. According to this theory, Matter itself is the 'coagulation' of these waves at the moment they exceed a certain frequency threshold; our perception of emptiness, of fullness, of the hard or the transparent, being finally due only to the differences in vibratory frequencies'vibratory modes within the same thing.'
But what is this 'same thing'?
0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You might as well say, Why are you in a hurry? Wait for Nature to do it. But Nature would take a few million years and in the process squander away a host of people and things. A few million years are unimportant to hera passing breeze.
(silence)
0 1961-02-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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
0 1961-03-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It isnt a personal question, but something that has been troubling me a little. Its about World union5
Oh, World union! What troubles you?
Listen, mon petit, you dont need to ask, I will tell you right away. Sri Aurobindo has written somewhere that the movement of world transformation is double: first, the individual who does sadhana6 and establishes contact with higher things; but at the same time, the world is a base and it must rise up a little and prepare itself for the realization to be achieved (this is putting it simply). Some people live merely on the surface they come alive only when they stir about restlessly. Whatever happens inside them (if anything does!) is immediately thrown out into movement. Such people always need an outer activity; take J. for example: he fastened onto Sri Aurobindos phrase, World union, and came to tell me he wanted.
He has been like that since the beginning (gesture expressing agitation), and he had a go at a considerable number of things but none ever succeeded! He has no method, no sense of order and he doesnt know how to organize work. So World union is simply to let him have his way, like letting a horse gallop.
I used to send him around to the various centers (because he had to do something!), and he would visit, speak to people I dont know about what. And during one of his trips to Delhi he happened to meet Z, who had been sent by the government of India to the Soviet union, where it seems he delivered an extraordinary speech (it must have been extraordinary, because I have been receiving letters from everywhere, including America, asking for the text of this sensational speech in which he apparently spoke of human unity). So Z returned with the idea of forming a World union, and J. and Z met. Furthermore, they were encouraged by S.M.7 and even by the Prime Minister,8 who probably had a special liking for Z and had given him a lot of encouragement. Thats how things began.
I treated it as something altogether secondary and unimportantwhen people need to gallop, I let them gallop (but I hadnt met Z). Then J. and Z left together on a speaking-tour of Africa and there things began to go sour, because Z was working in one way and J. in another. Finally, they were at odds and came back here to tell me, World union is off to a good startwith a quarrel! (Mother laughs) Z was saying, Nothing can be done unless we base ourselves EXCLUSIVELY on the teaching of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and they are behind us giving support. And J. said, No, no! We are not sectarian! We accept all ideas, all theories, etc. I replied, and as it happens, I said that Z was right, though with one corrective: he had been saying that people had to recognize us as their guru. No, I said, its absolutely uselessnot only useless, I refuse. I dont want to be anybodys guru. People should simply be told that things are to be done on the basis of Sri Aurobindos thought.9
So they kept pulling in opposing directions. Eventually they tried to set something up (which still didnt hold together), and finally they wrote me a little more clearly. (There is one very nice man involved, Y. He isnt particularly intellectual but has a lot of common sense and a very faithful hearta very good man.) Y asked me some direct questions, without beating around the bush, and I replied directly: World union is an entirely superficial thing, without any depth, based on the fact that Sri Aurobindo said the masses must be helped to follow the progress of the elitewell, let them go ahead! If they enjoy it, let them go right ahead! I didnt say it exactly like that (I was a bit more polite!), but that was the gist of it.
Now it has all fallen flat. They are carrying on with their little activities, but its absolutely unimportant. They publish a small journal, and V, who writes for them, is far from stupid. She is rather intelligent and I have some control over her, so I will try to stop her from writing nonsense.
They also had a sudden brainstorm to affiliate with the Sri Aurobindo Society. But the Sri Aurobindo Society has absolutely nothing to do with their project: its a strictly external thing, organized by businessmen to bring in moneyEXCLUSIVELY. That is, they want to put people in a position where they feel obliged to give (so far they have succeeded and I believe they will succeed). But this has nothing to do with working for an ideal, it is COMPLETELY practical.10 And of course, World union has nothing to offer the Sri Aurobindo Society: they would simply siphon off funds. So I told them, Nothing doingits out of the question!
But your name is there as President of the Sri Aurobindo Society, they said. My name is there to give an entirely material guarantee that the money donated will really and truly be used for the Work to be done and for nothing else; its only a moral and purely practical guarantee. These people arent even asked to understand what Sri Aurobindo has said but simply to participate. Its a different matter for those in World union, who are working for an ideal: they want to prepare the world to receive (laughing) the Supermind! Let them prepare it! It doesnt matter, they will achieve nothing at all, or very little. Its unimportant. Thats my point of view and I have told them so.
In addition, I told them it was preferable not to hold any functions herethey can be held at Tapogiri in the Himalayas, or elsewhere and this is understood. They did hold a seminar here (a perfect fiasco, besides), but it had been arranged a long time ago. They invited people who promised to come (I think very few showed up in the end), and it was of very secondary importance. Nevertheless, I told them, This is the last time; dont do it here any more. At Tapogiri, as often as you like: its a beautiful spot in the mountains, a health resort, people go there in the summer for the fresh air and to sit around and chat!
What shocked me was. You know I rarely leave my house, but each time I would come to the Ashram for darshan or to see you, always, as if by chance, I would find J. off in a corner with some European visitor. The repetition of this coincidence made me wonder, Whats he doing so systematically with ALL the European visitors?! And it shocked me to imagine myself in their place: just suppose, I said to myself, you are coming to the Ashram for the first time, very open, in search of a great truth, and you stumble upon this man who tells you: Sri Aurobindo = World union. Well, my first reaction would be, Im leaving, Im not interested!
It serves as a test, my child, a very good test! There are many things like that.
--
Then it proves they have never read anything by Sri Aurobindo. Its unimportant. No, its even better than unimportant: its a test. This place is full of tests, full, full, full! People dont realize. One can see it happening, as though it were done on purpose just to trip people up (not really on purpose, but thats how it acts). It protects me from hordes of good-for-nothings! I am not eager to have a lot of people here.
Another thing that shocked me was in their journal.
--
Listen to this appeal: If the opport unity offered by this movement appeals to you, if you have the feeling that you are one of those who have been prepared to collaborate in the spiritual adventure, we invite you to write to us, enrolling yourself as a member of World union.
Im going to send this to V, asking her innocently, Has this appeared in your journal? Because it would be better if it didnt: we dont make propaganda. Oh, I am hard on them, you know!
--
I told them. Because at World union they asked me what their mistake had been (they didnt state it so candidly, but in a roundabout way), and I replied (not so candidly, eithernot exactly in a roundabout way, but in general terms). I told them their mistake was being unfaithful and I explained that to be unfaithful means to put everything on the same level (thats when I sent them those lines12). I told them, Your error was in saying: One teaching among many teachingsso let us be broad-minded and accept all teachings. So along with all the teachings, you accept every stupidity possible.
But if someone is taken in, it proves hes at an elementary stage and unready.
--
A movement launched by some disciples for 'the unification of the world.'
Sadhana: spiritual quest and discipline.
--
This is the text of Mother's reply to J.: 'I have read Z's account and your own letter on this subject. in the faith of his devotion, he must have been quite offended. The truth in what he says is that any idea, WHATEVER its degree of truth, is ineffective if it does not also carry the power acquired through realization, by a real change of consciousness. And if the proponent of this idea does not himself have the realization, he must seek the backing of those who have the power. On the other hand, what you say is true: an idea ought to be accepted on the basis of its inherent truth and not because of the personality expounding it, however great this personality may be. These two truths or aspects of the question are equally true but also equally incomplete: they are not the whole truth. Both of them must be accepted and combined with many other aspects of the question if you want to even begin to approach the dynamic power of the realization. Don't you see how ridiculous this situation is? Three people of goodwill meet in the hope of teaching men the necessity for a "World union" and they are not even able to keep a tolerant or tolerable union among themselves, because each sees a different angle of the procedure to be followed for implementing their plan.'
Although it began as a fund-raising organization for the needs of the Ashram and Auroville, this 'strictly external thing,' which had 'nothing to do with working for an ideal,' would, after Mother's departure, coolly declare itself the 'owner' and guide of Auroville.
0 1961-03-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mon petit, I dont claim to be totally universal, but in any case I am open enough to receive. You see, given the quantity of material I have taken into my consciousness, its quite natural that the body bears the consequences. There is nothing, not one wrong movement, that my body doesnt feel5; generally, though, things are automatically set in order (gesture indicating that Mother automatically purifies and masters the vibrations coming to her). But there are timesespecially when it coincides with a revolt of adverse forces who dont want to give up their domain and enter into battle with all their mightwhen I must admit its hard. If I had some hours of solitude it would be easier. But particularly during the period of my Playground activities, I was badgered, harassed; I would rush from one thing to the next, one thing to the next, I had no nights to speak ofnights of two and a half or three hours rest, which isnt enough, theres no time to put things in order.
Under those conditions I could only hold the thing like this (same gesture of muzzling the illness or holding it in abeyance).
0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It doesnt matter. Fundamentally, it doesnt matter. Yesterday, while I was walking I was walking in a kind of universe that was EXCLUSIVELY the Divineit could be touched, felt: it was within, without, everywhere. For three-quarters of an hour, NOTHING but that, everywhere. Well, I can assure you, at that moment there were certainly no more problems! And what simplicitynothing to think about, nothing to want, nothing to decide: to BE, be, be! (Mother seems to dance) To be in the infinite complexity of a perfect unity: all was there but nothing was separate; all was in movement yet nothing changed place. Truly an experience.
When we become like that, it will be very easy.
0 1961-03-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Satprem later asked if this 'on earth' wasn't superfluous and Mother replied: 'This precision is not superfluous; I said "on earth" meaning that man does not belong only to the earth: in his essence, man is a universal being, but he has a special manifestation on earth.'
Here, Mother had a passage deleted.
0 1961-03-21, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The moment I saw this person I knew he was only an instrument, but a well-paid instrumentsomeone paid a great deal to have him do that! I would recognize him again among hundreds I can still see him I see him more clearly than with physical eyes. He is an unintelligent man with no personal animosity, merely a very well-paid instrumentsomeone is hiding behind him, using him as a screen.
Before that experience, as part of the attack, I also got a sore throat. I didnt believe it would manifest, but around 9:30 this morning when I came downstairs for meditation with X,2 it did. Its nothing at all, though. The whole time I was with X (and even before, when I was waiting for him), it was halted completelyeverything in that room came to a halt. It started up again only after he left and I came here. But its nothing.
0 1961-03-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Several times in my life I have met with the particular phenomenon of having an absolutely exceptional and unique experience and at the same time feeling that a part of my being was unaware of it! I would tell myself, if I hadnt been both here and there at the same moment (Mother indicates two different levels in her consciousness), I might have had all these experiences and never known it! And this happened not just once but many times. Some were utterly unique, like certain ancient Vedic experiencesutterly unique. When I recounted them to Sri Aurobindo, he told me, Oh, its extremely rare! Some people try all their lives to attain that. And it happened to me not just once but often: the experience took place there (gesture above) and something up there knew, and yet there was something down here that would never have known if the other hadnt (same gesture). Nevertheless the total experience was there.
Its very difficult to explain, its extremely subtle.
0 1961-03-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It gave me the impression you get in outer life: all the pieces more or less dovetail but with no inner unitytheres not ONE thing, not one, that is true, essentially and always true. We know it is like that outwardly, of course; but I have always felt that with people who have an inner life, one could attain a kind of identity of vibration and knowledge but no!
Very well, I said, if thats how it is..
--
What ruffles me is that someone like X, who has worked on himself, ought to have felt it. Why do I feel it? Because since I have been doing all this work on my body, it senses things and it is never mistaken. I have had repeated proof that it is never mistaken. When a higher vibration comes, it feels it right away! But I must say that this has only been the case since the body became very universalized. However, I was under the impression that X must have been somewhat universalized to have the powers he has, but now I dont know.
Its not that I was disappointed by his way of being, certainly not; but it has suddenly confronted me with a terrible problem: Is it impossible to live a truth in material consciousness? Is it really impossible? An absolute, I mean an absolute truthnot something entirely subjective and relative, each one living his own truth in his own manner. Will one person always be like this and the other like that and the third like something else? So that only by putting all the pieces together do we actually amount to anything and yet to what?! Is it completely impossible for absolute truth to manifest in the present state of Matter? This is the problem that has seized me.
0 1961-04-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The universe would be like that, if it had not been for the deviation of the adverse forces I see it very clearly. The perversion, the cold-blooded and cruel perversion of sheer malevolent will keeps it from being like that. Thats what intervenes. They all call it an accident, but a lot of good that does us! The fact is there.
The adverse force is what keeps the Divine from blossoming miraculously whenever He appears. Because I know that wherever Matter is not under the influence of this adverse will to any degree, it blossoms immediately. And everything in the human heart, in human consciousness, in human thought, all that is slightly sheltered from this adverse influencesheltered by the psychic, the divine Presenceblossoms, becomes immediately becomes marvelous, without any obstacleall the obstacles come from that source. So its all very well to call it an accident, but.
--
There have been moments, you know, in supreme experiences of perfect union in a wondrous Love, when I have turned towards the worldsimply turned the consciousness for a second towards the world as it is (with the aspiration, I remember, for EVERYTHING to participate) and in that state of ecstasy, really, there were tears of burning sorrow. It happened just like that.
Theoretically, it shouldnt be that way, but in fact it is. Something will never be perfect until this accident has been abolished.
0 1961-04-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a universal unfolding, the true unfolding, that of the Supreme Lord who watches (this is the best way to put it) his own unfoldment. But for some reason or other, there has been a deformation of consciousness which makes us see this unfolding as something separate, a more or less adequate expression of the Divine Will. But it isnt so! It is the very unfolding of the Divine within Himselfwithin Himself, from Himself, for Himself. And its simply our falsehood that makes a separate thing of it The very fact of objectifying (what WE call objectification) is already a falsehood.5
I have had this particular consciousness in flashes. The difficulty is that in expressing it, we use all our mental faculties, and they themselves are falseso we are cornered. Because when you follow through. Whatever you say,If this, if that, if the otheris all part of our general stupidity. Going right to the end of it, you are suddenly like this: Ah! (Mother remains suspended midway in her sentence) There is nothing more to do, not a move to make.
--
And its The Supremes Will FOR THE EARTHwhich is quite a special thing. I am in a universal consciousness at the moment and the earth seems to me to be a very tiny thing, like this (Mother sketches a tiny ball in the air) in the process of being transformed. But this is from the standpoint of the Work, its another matter.
But for those who are here, we can say, It is what the Supreme Lord is preparing for the earth. He sent Sri Aurobindo to prepare it; Sri Aurobindo called it the supramental realization, and to facilitate comm unication we can use the same words. Well, this movement (gesture of a rising flame) towards That must be constantconstant, total. All the rest is none of our business, and the less we meddle with it mentally, the better. But THAT, that Flame, is indispensable. And when it goes out, light it again; when it falters, rekindle itall the time, all the time, ALL THE TIMEwhen sleeping, walking, reading, moving around, speaking all the time.
--
Once again, Mother's experience coincides with modern science, which is beginning to discover that time and space are not fixed and INDEPENDENT quantitiesas, from the Greeks right up to Newton, we had been accustomed to believe but a four-dimensional system, with three coordinates of space and one of time, DEPENDENT UPON THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA DEVELOPING THEREIN. Such is 'Riemann's Space,' used by Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity. Thus, a trajectoryi.e., in principle, a fixed distance, a quantity of space to be traversed-is a function of the time taken to traverse it: there is no straight line between two points, or rather the I straight' line is a function of the rate of speed. There is no 'fixed' quantity of space, but rather rates of speed which determine their own space (or their own measure of space). Space-time is thus no longer a fixed quantity, but, according to science, the PRODUCT ... of what? Of a certain rate of unfolding? But what is unfolding? A rocket, a train, muscles?... Or a certain brain which has generated increasingly perfected instruments adapted to its own mode of being, like a flying fish flying farther and farther (and faster and faster) but finally failing back into its own oceanic fishbowl. Yet what would this space-time be for another kind of fishbowl, another kind of consciousness: a supramental consciousness, for example, which can be instantaneously at any point in 'space'there is no more space! And no more time. There is no more 'trajectory': the trajectory is within itself. The fishbowl is shattered, and the whole evolutionary succession of little fishbowls as well. Thus, as Mother tells it, space and time are a 'PRODUCT Of the movement of consciousness.' A variable space-time, which not only changes according to our mechanical equipment, but according to the consciousness utilizing the equipment, and which ultimately utilizes only itself; consciousness, at the end of the evolutionary curve, has become its own equipment and the sole mechanism of the universe.
***
0 1961-04-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother comes in with a book by Alice Bailey, 'Discipleship in the New Age,' which had recently been sent to her. Pavitra is present and shows Mother a brochure he has received, 'World Goodwill Bulletin,' and protests against this proliferation of movements all claiming to work towards 'world union,' and proselytes making so-called 'spiritual' propaganda without having found, within and by themselves, the true spiritual foundation. Mother goes on.)
But these people just cant get out of their education! Here is a lady [A. Bailey], quite renowned, it seems (shes dead now), who became the disciple of a Tibetan lama and she still speaks of Christ as the sole Avatar! She just cant get out of it!
--
It began with this famous World union1 and now the Sri Aurobindo Society2 is meddling in it! They have put together a brochure saying, We will facilitate your relations with the Mother!! Luckily, the draft was sent to me. I said, I do not accept this responsibility. I agreed to be President because money is involved and I wanted to be a guarantee that all these people who make propaganda dont put the money into their own pockets for their personal use; so I agreed to be Presidentto guarantee that the money would really go to work for Sri Aurobindo, thats all. But no spiritual responsibility; I have nothing to teach to anyone, thank God!
(Pavitra.) But Mother, A. has also been bitten by the propaganda bug; in the by-laws he sent, he put: The goal of the Centre dEtudes de Sri Aurobindo [Sri Aurobindo Study Center, in Paris] is to steer people towards Pondicherry and the Mother.
--
(Satprem.) Theres this passage on propaganda by Sri Aurobindo I sent to the World union people. It should really be published everywhere. Do you remember it? I dont believe in propaganda.3
Look here, theres a muddle in all this. The Sri Aurobindo Society people had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the spiritual life when they began; they didnt at all present themselves as a spiritual groupnothing of the kind; they were people of good will who volunteered to collect money to help the Ashram. So I said, Very well, excellent and as long as its like that, Im behind it. Leaflets can be handed outwhatever people like; its enough if their interest is aroused, if they know there is an Ashram and that it needs some help to go on. But thats all. It has nothing to do with yoga or spiritual progress or anything of the kindit was a strictly practical organization. It was not the same thing as World union. World union wanted to do a spiritual work on earth and to create human unity. I told them, You are taking something of an inward nature and you want to externalize it, so naturally it immediately goes rotten.(But its almost over now, Ive pulled the rug out from under them.)
Anyway.
--
Ah, no! Thats not the same thing at all, They have nothing to do with each other. Nothing. They wanted to merge: I refused. I told them, You have nothing to do with each other. You, World union, are idealists (!) wanting to realize your ideal externally (without any foundation), while they are businessmen, practical people, wanting to bring money to the Ashram, and I fully agree with that, because I need it.
Its another thing entirely.
--
For mental narrowness, we know the meansone has only to go beyond itwe know the means. But this (Mother touches her body), however much one keeps bringing in, bringing in, bringing in the Light and the Force. Yes, for a few moments one can live a universal life, even in the sensations but in the body.
(silence)
--
But what can be translated is this kind of sensation that the sequence of cause and effect, of purpose, of goal, all seems to be very far below, very, very DISTANT, very humanperhaps divine, too (from the viewpoint of the gods it may be like this also, I dont know), because in the consciousness of the universal Mother it is still there, there is still this ardent love to serve: To do Your Will. That is still there, so its there with the gods also.
(silence)
0 1961-05-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its uninteresting.
(silence)
0 1961-06-06, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But wasnt it universal waveswasnt this malaise something cosmic rather than personal?
Yes, of course! Its the universal Problem. That is my sole concern.
Something that veils?
0 1961-06-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I only knew about this vision later, but on my side, when he left, I saw his whole being gathered together, well united, thoroughly homogenous, in a great aspiration, and rising, rising without dispersing, without deviating, straight up to the frontier of what Sri Aurobindo has called the higher hemisphere, there where Sri Aurobindo in his supramental action presides over earth. And he melted into that light.
Some time before his heart attack he said to his children: the gown is old, it must be thrown away.
--
But its simply thatyou take a step, and you enter another room. And when you live in your soul there is a continuity, because the soul remembers, it keeps the whole memory; it remembers all occurrences, even outer occurrences, all the outer movements it has been associated with. So its a continuous, uninterrupted movement, here and there, from one room to another, from one house to another, from one life to another.
People are so ignorant! Thats what irritates those who have passed to the other sidepeople dont understand, they shoo them away: What does he want? Why does he bother me? Hes DEAD!
0 1961-06-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its like asking if certain elements will disappear from the universe. What can it mean, the destruction of a universe? Once we are out of our stupidity, what can we call destruction? Only the form is destroyed, the appearance (that, yesall appearances are destroyed, one after the other). It is also said (its written everywhere) that the adverse forces will either be converted that is, become aware of their own divinity and become divineor be destroyed. But what does destroyed mean? Their form? Their form of consciousness can be dissolved, but what about the something which brings itand everything elseinto existence? How can that something be destroyed? This, mon petit, is difficult to comprehend. The universe is a conscious objectification of That which exists from all eternity. Well, how can the All cease to be? The infinite and eternal All, without limits of any kindhow can anything be thrown out of it? There is nowhere to go! (You can rack your brains over it, you know!) Go where? There is only THAT.
And even when we say there is only that we are situating it somewherewhich is perfectly idiotic. It is everywhereso how can anything be thrown out of it?
Of course, one can conceive of a universe being thrown out of the present manifestation that, yes; one can conceive of successive universes, with what was in the first universes no longer being in the othersits even obvious. One can imagine how a whole sum of falsity and untruth (what for us, NOW, is falsity and untruth) may come to no longer belong to the world in its future unfolding; one can comprehend all that. But destroy? Where can it go to be destroyed? When we say something is destroyed, its only a form which is destroyed (it may be a form of consciousness, it may not be a material form, but its always a form). But how can the formless be destroyed?
Therefore, to speak of an absolute falsehood disappearing would simply mean that a whole set of things will live eternally in the past but not belong to the coming manifestations, thats all.
--
Does the past? We know it remains present somewhere. Does this fact enable the past to participate in the progressive movement (progressive for us) of universal change within the manifestation? There is no reason why not.
But it remains present through its consequences.
0 1961-07-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am putting this purposely into rather childish terms so that it will be clearly understood. But this is the way it is. I am sure of it because I have observed it in myself for a VERY long time, and I had to. Due to the whole subconscious formation of childhoodenvironment, education, and so forthwe have to DRUM into this (Mother touches her body) the consciousness of unity : the absolute, EXCLUSIVE unity of the Divineexclusive in the sense that nothing exists apart from this unity, even the things which seem most repulsive.
Sri Aurobindo also had to struggle against this because he too received a Christian education. And these Aphorisms are the result the floweringof the necessity to struggle against the subconscious formation which has produced such questions (Mother takes on a scandalized tone): How can God be weak? How can God be foolish? How. But there is nothing but God! He alone exists, there is nothing outside of Him. And whatever seems repugnant to us is something He no longer wishes to existHe is preparing the world so that this no longer manifests, so that the manifestation can pass beyond this state to something else. So of course we violently reject everything in us that is destined to leave the active manifestation. There is a movement of rejection.
--
Perfection is one way to approach the Divine; unity is another. But Perfection is a global approach: all is there and all is as it should be that is to say, the perfect expression of the Divine (you cant even say of His Will, because that still implies something apart, something emanating from Him!).
It could be put like this (but it brings it down considerably): He is what He is and exactly as He wants to be. The exactly as He wants to be takes us down quite a few steps, but it still gives an idea of what I mean by perfection!
--
Mother later clarified this point: 'It is impossible for anything to be missing because it is impossible for anything not to be part of the whole. Nothing can exist apart from the whole. But I am taking this now to its extreme limit of meaningnot down-to-earth, but to the heights, to the extreme limits of meaning. I will explain: everything is not necessarily contained within a given universe, because one universe is only one mode of manifestation but all possible universes exist. And so I always come back to the same thing: nothing can exist apart from the whole. If we give the whole the name of "God," for example, then we say that nothing can exist apart from Him. But words are so earthbound, aren't they?' (Mother makes a down-to-earth gesture.)
See 'Prayers of the Consciousness of the Cells,' Agenda I, pp. 337-350.
0 1961-07-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But Perfection is only one side, one special way of approaching the Divine. There are innumerable sides, angles, aspectsinnumerable ways to approach the Divine. When I am walking, for example, doing japa, I have the sense of unity (I have spoken to you of all the things I mention when I am upstairs walking: will, truth, purity, perfection, unity, immortality, eternity, infinity, silence, peace, existence, consciousness the list goes on). And when one follows a particular tack and does succeed in reaching or approaching or contacting the Divine, one realizes through experience that these many approaches differ only in their most external forms the contact itself is identical. Its like looking through a kaleidoscopeyou revolve around a center, a globe, and see it under various aspects; but as soon as the contact is established, its identical.
The number of approaches is practically infinite. Each one senses the path which accords with his temperament.
0 1961-07-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In his cosmogony, Theon accounted for the successive pralayas2 of the different universes by saying that each universe was an aspect of the Supreme manifesting itself: each universe was built upon one aspect of the Supreme, and all, one after the other, were withdrawn into the Supreme. He enumerated all the successively manifested aspects, and what an extraordinarily logical sequence it was! I have kept it some place, but I no longer know where. Nor do I remember exactly what number this universe has in the sequence, but this time it was supposed to be the universe which would not be withdrawn, which would, so to speak, follow an indefinite progression of Becoming. And this universe is to manifest Equilibrium, not a static but a progressive equilibrium.3 Equilibrium, as he explains it, is each thing exactly in its place: each vibration, each movement, each and so on down the lineeach form, each activity, each element exactly in its place in relation to the whole.
This is quite interesting to me because Sri Aurobindo says the same thing: that nothing is bad, simply things are not in their placetheir place not only in space but in time, their place in the universe, beginning with the planets and stars, each thing exactly in its place. Then when each thing, from the most colossal to the most microscopic, is exactly in place, the whole Will PROGRESSIVELY express the Supreme, without having to be withdrawn and emanated anew. On this also, Sri Aurobindo based the fact that this present creation, this present universe, will be able to manifest the perfection of a divine worldwhat Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind.
Equilibrium is the essential law of this creationit is what permits perfection to be realized in the manifestation.
--
No, the only solution is occult power. But that. Before anything at all can be done, it already demands a certain number of individuals who have reached a great perfection of realization. Granting this, a place is conceivable (set apart from the outside worldno actual contacts) where each thing is exactly in its place, setting an example. Each thing exactly in its place, each person exactly in his place, each movement in its place, and all in its place in an ascending, progressive movement without relapse (that is, the very opposite of what goes on in ordinary life). Naturally, this also means a sort of perfection, it means a sort of unity; it means that the different aspects of the Supreme can be manifested; and, necessarily, an exceptional beauty, a total harmony; and a power sufficient to keep the forces of Nature obedient: even if this place were encircled by destructive forces, for example, these forces would be powerless to act the protection would be sufficient.
It would all require the utmost perfection in the individuals organizing such a thing.
--
But I dont see how all this work could be done in the solitude of the Himalayas or the forest. Theres a great risk of entering into that very impersonal, universal consciousness where things are relatively easy the material consequences are so far below that it doesnt much matter! One can act directly only in the MIDST of things.
Anyway, at the moment I have no choice and I am not looking for any. Things are what they are and as they are; and taking them as they are, the work has to be done. The manner of working depends on the way things are.
But its so lovely when this Harmony comes. You know, puttering about, arranging papers, setting a drawer in order. It all sings, its lovely, so joyous and luminous so delightful! And all, all, all. All material things, all activities, eating, dressing, everything becomes delightful when this harmony is there, delightful. Everything works out smoothly, its so harmonious, theres no friction. You see you see a joyous, luminous Grace manifesting in all things, ALL things, even those we normally regard as utterly unimportant. But then, if this Harmony withdraws, everythingexactly the SAME conditions, the SAME things, the SAME circumstancesbecomes painful, tiresome, drawn out, difficult, laborious, oh! Its like this, and like that (Mother tilts her hand from side to side as on a narrow frontier) like this, like that.
It makes you sense so clearly that things in themselves dont count. What we call things in themselves are of no true importance! What really counts is the relationship of consciousness to these things. And theres a formidable power in this, since in one instance you touch something and drop or mishandle it, while in the other its so lovely, it works so smoothly. Even the most difficult movements are made without difficulty. Its an unheard-of power! We dont give it importance because it has no grandiose effects, its not spectacular. Yes, there are indeed states of grace when one is in the presence of a great difficulty and suddenly has all the power needed to face ityes, but thats something else. I am speaking of a power active in ordinary life.
--
Pralaya: The destruction of a universe at the end of a cycle. According to Hindu cosmology, the formation of each universe begins with an 'age of truth' (satya-yuga) which slowly degenerates, like the stars, till there is no truth left at all; it becomes a 'dark age'(kali-yuga) like ours, and ends with a cataclysm. Then a new universe is reborn out of this cataclysm and the cycle begins again. There is a correspondence here with a modern cosmological theory according to which a phase of contraction, of galaxies collapsing upon themselves, follows a phase of expansion and precedes a new explosion ('Big Bang') of the 'primal egg'and so on, in a recurring and apparently endless and aimless series of cosmic births which, like our own human births, develop, attain some sort of 'summit,' then collapse, always to begin again. According to Theon, our present universe is the seventh but where is the 'beginning'?
Note that modern astronomy is divided between the theory of endless phases of contraction-explosion-expansion, and the theory of a universe in infinite expansion starting with a 'Big Bang,' which seems quite as catastrophic, since the universe is then plunging at vertiginous speed into an increasingly cold, empty, and fatal infinity, like a bullet released from all restraints of gravity, until... until what? According to astronomers, an exact measurement of the quantity of matter in a cubic meter of the present universe (one atom for every 400 liters of space) should enable us to decide between these two theories and learn which way it will be best for us to die. If there is more than one atom per 400 liters of space, this quantity of matter will create sufficient gravitation to halt the present expansion of galaxies and induce a contraction, ending with an explosion within an infinitesimal space. If there is less than one atom per 400 liters of space, the quantity of matter and thus the gravitational effect will be insufficient to retain the galaxies within their invisible net, and everything will spin off endlesslyunless we discover, with Mother, a third position, that of a 'progressive equilibrium,' in which the quantity of matter in the universe proves in fact to be a quantity of consciousness, whose contraction or expansion will be regulated by the laws of consciousness.
When the veil of falsehood has gone: the supramental consciousness.
0 1961-07-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are two lines in the ancient traditions, two ways of explaining this. One says it is by the descent of what already exists in all its perfection that what is involved can be awakened to consciousness and evolution. Its like the old story: when what Sri Aurobindo calls the universal Mother or the Shakti (or Sachchidananda1) realized what had happened in Matter (that is, in what had created Matter) and that this involution had led to a state of Inconscience, total unconsciousness, the ancient lore says that at once the divine Love descended straight from the Lord into Matter and began to awaken what was involved there.
Other traditions speak of the Consciousness, the divine Consciousness, instead of Love. One even finds accounts full of imagery depicting a Being of prismatic light lying in deep sleep in the cave of the Inconscient; and this Descent awakens him to an activity which is still (how to put it?) inner, an immobile activity, an activity by radiation. Countless rays issue from his body and spread throughout the Inconscient, and little by little they awaken in each thing, in each atom, as it were, the aspiration to Consciousness and the beginning of evolution.
--
There is always what could almost be called a popular way of presenting things. Take the whole Story of the Creation, of how things have come about: it can be told as an unfolding story (this is what Theon did in a book he called The Traditionhe told the whole story in the Biblical manner, with psychological knowledge hidden in symbols and forms). There is a psychological manner of telling things and a metaphysical manner. The metaphysical, for me, is almost incomprehensible; its uninteresting (or interesting only to minds that are made that way). An almost childish, illustrative way of telling things seems more evocative to me than any metaphysical theory (but this is a personal opinion and of no great moment!). The psychological approach is more dynamic for transformation, and Sri Aurobindo usually adopted it. He doesnt tell us stories (I was the one who told him stories! Images are very evocative for me). But if one combines the two approaches. Actually, to be philosophical, one would have to combine the three. But I have always found the metaphysical approach ineffective; it doesnt lead to realization but only gives people the IDEA that they know, when they really know nothing at all. From the standpoint of push, of a dynamic urge towards transformation, the psychological approach is obviously the most powerful. But the other [the symbolic approach] is lovelier!
In The Hour of God, theres a whole diagram of the Manifestation made by Sri Aurobindo3: first comes this, then comes that, then comes the other, and so fortha whole sequence. They published this in the book in all seriousness, but I must say that Sri Aurobindo did it for fun (I saw him do it). Someone had spoken to him about different religions, different philosophical methods Theosophy, Madame Blavatski, all those people (there was Theon, too). Well, each one had made his diagram. So Sri Aurobindo said, I can make a diagram, too, and mine will be much more complete! When he finished it, he laughed and said, But its only a diagram, its just for fun. They published it very solemnly, as if he had made a very serious proclamation. Oh, its a very complicated diagram!
--
The way Theon told it, there was first the universal Mother (he didnt call her the universal Mother, but Sri Aurobindo used that name), the universal Mother in charge of creation. For creating she made four emanations: Consciousness or Light; Life; Love or Beatitude and (Mother tries in vain to remember the fourth) I must have cerebral anemia today! In India they speak only of three: Sat-Chit-Ananda (Sat is Existence, expressed by Life; Chit is Consciousness, expressed by Power; Ananda is Bliss, synonymous with Love). But according to Theon, there were four (I knew them by heart). Well, these emanations (Theon narrated it in such a way that someone not a philosopher, someone with a childlike mind, could understand), these emanations, conscious of their own power, separated themselves from their Origin; that is, instead of being entirely surrendered to the supreme Will and expressing only. Ah, the fourth emanation is Truth! Instead of carrying out only the supreme Will, they seem to have acquired a sense of personal power. (They were personalities of sorts, universal personalities, each representing a mode of being.) Instead of remaining connected, they cut the linkeach acted on his own, to put it simply. Then, naturally, Light became darkness, Life became death, Bliss became suffering and Truth became falsehood. And these are the four great Asuras: the Asura of Inconscience, the Asura of Falsehood, the Asura of Suffering and the Asura of Death.
Once this had occurred, the divine Consciousness turned towards the Supreme and said (Mother laughs): Well, heres what has happened. Whats to be done? Then from the Divine came an emanation of Love (in the first emanation it wasnt Love, it was Ananda, Bliss, the Delight of being which became Suffering), and from the Supreme came Love; and Love descended into this domain of Inconscience, the result of the creation of the first emanation, Consciousness Consciousness and Light had become Inconscience and Darkness. Love descended straight from the Supreme into this Inconscience; the Supreme, that is, created a new emanation, which didnt pass through the intermediate worlds (because, according to the story, the universal Mother first created all the gods who, when they descended, remained in contact with the Supreme and created all the intermediate worlds to counterbalance this fallits the old story of the Fall, this fall into the Inconscient. But that wasnt enough). Simultaneously with the creation of the gods, then, came this direct Descent of Love into Matter, without passing through all the intermediate worlds. Thats the story of the first Descent. But youre speaking of the descent heralded by Sri Aurobindo, the Supramental Descent, arent you?
Not only that. For example, Sri Aurobindo says that when Life appeared there was a pressure from below, from evolution, to make Life emerge from Matter, and simultaneously a descent of Life from its own plane. Then, when Mind emerged out of Life, the same thing from above happened again. Why this intervention from above each time? Why dont things emerge normally, one after another, without needing a descent?
--
Take the experience of Mind, for example: Mind, in the evolution of Nature, gradually emerging from its involution; well and this is a very concrete experience these initial mentalized forms, if we can call them that, were necessarily incomplete and imperfect, because Natures evolution is slow and hesitant and complicated. Thus these forms inevitably had an aspiration towards a sort of perfection and a truly perfect mental state, and this aspiration brought the descent of already fully conscious beings from the mental world who united with terrestrial formsthis is a very, very concrete experience. What emerges from the Inconscient in this way is an almost impersonal possibility (yes, an impersonal possibility, and perhaps not altogether universal, since its connected with the history of the earth); but anyway its a general possibility, not personal. And the Response from above is what makes it concrete, so to speak, bringing in a sort of perfection of the state and an individual mastery of the new creation. These beings in corresponding worlds (like the gods of the overmind,4 or the beings of higher regions) came upon earth as soon as the corresponding element began to evolve out of its involution. This accelerates the action, first of all, but also makes it more perfectmore perfect, more powerful, more conscious. It gives a sort of sanction to the realization. Sri Aurobindo writes of this in SavitriSavitri lives always on earth, with the soul of the earth, to make the whole earth progress as quickly as possible. Well, when the time comes and things on earth are ready, then the divine Mother incarnates with her full powerwhen things are ready. Then will come the perfection of the realization. A splendor of creation exceeding all logic! It brings in a fullness and a power completely beyond the petty shallow logic of human mentality.
People cant understand! To put oneself at the level of the general public may be all very well5 (personally I have never found it so, although its probably inevitable), but to hope that they will ever understand the splendor of the Thing. They have to live it first!
--
Yes. The earth is a representative and symbolic world, a kind of crystallization and concentration of the evolutionary labor giving it a more concrete reality. It has to be taken like this: the history of the earth is a symbolic history. And it is on earth that this Descent takes place (its not the history of the universal but of the terrestrial creation); the Descent occurs in the individual TERRESTRIAL being, in the individual terrestrial atmosphere.
Lets take Savitri, which is very explicit on this: the universal Mother is universally present and at work in the universe, but the earth is where concrete form is given to all the work to be done to bring evolution to its perfection, its goal. Well, at first theres a sort of emanation representative of the universal Mother, which is always on earth to help it prepare itself; then, when the preparation is complete, the universal Mother herself will descend upon earth to finish her work. And this She does with SatyavanSatyavan is the soul of the earth. She lives in close union with the soul of the earth and together they do the work; She has chosen the soul of the earth for her work, saying, HERE is where I will do my work. Elsewhere (Mother indicates regions of higher Consciousness), its enough just to BE and things Simply ARE. Here on earth you have to work.
There are clearly universal repercussions and effects, of course, but the thing is WORKED OUT here, the place of work is HERE. So instead of living beatifically in Her universal state and beyond, in the extra- universal eternity outside of time, She says, No, I am going to do my work HERE, I choose to work HERE. The Supreme then tells her, What you have expressed is My Will.. I want to work HERE, and when all is ready, when the earth is ready, when humanity is ready (even if no one is aware of it), when the Great Moment comes, well I will descend to finish my work.
Thats the story.
0 1961-08-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Evolution begins with the Inconscient, complete Inconscience; and from this Inconscient a Subconscient gradually emerges that is, a half or quarter-consciousness. There are two different things here. Consider life on earth (because the process is slightly different in the universe); earth-life begins with total Inconscience and little by little what was involved within it works out and changes this Inconscience into semi-consciousness or subconsciousness. At the same time, there is an individual working that awakens the INDIVIDUAL inconscient to an individual semiconsciousness, and here, of course, the individual has controlalthough its not actually individualized because individualization begins with consciousness. The subconscient of plants or animals, for example, isnt individualized; what we call an animals behavior doesnt arise from individualization but from the genius of the species. Consequently, the individual subconscient is something already evolved out of the general Subconscient. But when one descends to accomplish a work of transformationto bring Light into the different layers of life, for instanceone descends into a cosmic, terrestrial Subconscient, not an individual Subconscient. And the work of transformation is done within the wholenot through individualization, but through the opposite movement, through a sort of universalization.
No, what I mean is that as we progress, we automatically become universalized.
Yes, necessarily.
And we are told that we have to change the Subconscient, to bring Light into it; but being universal it has no end! New vibrations keep coming in at every instant
No!
--
It isnt difficult the minute you become universalized you act upon the whole.
Even Buddha said that if you have a vibration of desire, this vibration goes all around the terrestrial atmosphere. The opposite is whats impossible! Its impossible to separate yourself. You can have the idea of being separate, but you cant be separate in reality. In fact, if you are trying to eliminate the Subconscient in yourself your movement must necessarily be general; it cant be personal, you would never get anywhere.
--
So it all keeps circling round and round in the earths atmosphere. But compared to the universe, the earths atmosphere is a very tiny thing. Well, all this keeps circling around within it. And in fact, because of the movement of evolution, there is a progress. The present Inconscient is not as unconscious as the initial Inconscient, and the present Subconscient is not as subconscious nor as generalized as it was at the beginning. This is the meaning of terrestrial evolution.
But if, as you say, it keeps circling around in the earths atmosphere, doesnt this mean that vibrations are ceaselessly re-created?
--
Otherwise there could be no permanent material life for this [individuality] is the very nature of materialization. Were it destined to disappear, then the phenomenon of physical dissolution would become permanent, and there would never be physical immortality; because, after exhausting a certain basically, a certain number of illusions or disorders or falsehoods, one would return to the Truth. But according to Sri Aurobindo, it isnt like that: this individualization, this individual personalization is the Truth, a real, au thentic divine phenomenon the only falsehood is the deformation of consciousness. Well, when we rediscover the true consciousness of unity that unity which is both in and above the manifest and the non-manifest (above in that it contains both the manifest and non-manifest equally), well, this Truth includes material personalization, otherwise that2 could not exist.
But each individual has a different personality.
--
But Theon had no idea of the path of bhakti,5 none whatsoever. The idea of surrender to the Divine was absolutely alien to him. Yet he did have the idea of the Divine Presence here (Mother indicates the heart center), of the immanent Divine and of union with That. And he said that by uniting with That and letting That transform the being one could arrive at the divine creation and the transformation of the earth.
Theon was the first one to give me the idea that the earth is symbolic, representativesymbolic of concentrated universal action allowing divine forces to incarnate and work concretely. I learned all this from him.
In this respect, you say somewhere that the gods too must incarnate to become fully conscious.
--
This formidable Power, you seea universal Power, an eternal and formidable Powerwell, she had never had such an experience before, she had only experienced her OWN power. She was used to receiving and obeying Commands, but in an automatic way. Then all at once, she felt the ECSTASY of being a conscious instrument.
Truly it was truly beautiful.
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 comm unity, 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
--
See Thoughts and Glimpses: 'What then was the commencement of the whole matter? Existence that multiplied itself for sheer delight of being and plunged into numberless trillions of forms so that it might find itself innumerably.... And what is the end of the whole matter? As if honey could taste itself and all its drops together and all its drops could taste each other and each the whole honeycomb as itself, so should the end be with God and the soul of man and the universe.'
Cent. Ed. Vol. XVI, p. 384
0 1961-08-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the result of this discovery. In fact, its the result of union with the psychic being.
Another detail. In several places, Sri Aurobindo speaks of the circumconscient or environmental consciousness through which we enter into contact with the external world. Is this the same as the subtle physical, the subtle envelope? What is this circumconscient?
--
Then comes what Theon called the nervous sub-level, which lies between this subtle physical and the vital. And it acts as a protection: if it is stable, harmonious and strong, it protects youit protects you even physicallyfrom contagious diseases, for instance, and even from accidents. I experienced it when I was living at Val-de-Grce. It was the year I resolved to attain union with the psychic being and I was concentrated on this from morning to night and night to morning. Every day I spent some time in the Luxembourg Gardens. They were right near the house, but to get there I had to go all the way down Rue du Val-de-Grce and cross Boulevard Saint Michel, where there were streetcars, automobiles, buses the whole circus. I would remain in my concentration the whole time, and once, while crossing the boulevard, I felt a shock about this far from my body [slightly more than arms length], so spontaneously I jumped backjust enough for the streetcar to pass by. I hadnt heard anything; I was totally absorbed, and without that warning I would surely have been run over; instead, I jumped back just in time, and the streetcar sped by. I understood then that this nervous sheath was something entirely concrete, because what I had felt was not an idea of danger but a shocka material SHOCK.
So its true that as long as this envelope is strong and undamaged, you are protected. But for instance, if you are over-tired or worried or flusteredanything that brings disorder into the atmosphere seems to make holes in this envelope, and all kinds of things can enter.
0 1961-08-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And it is strangely indifferent to any scale of values or circumstances. Sometimes when I am meeting and speaking with someone, when I am seeing someone, this great universal Light of a perfect whiteness comes streaming in. Well, I must admit, this also occurs for the merest trifles, when Im tasting some cheese somebody has sent me, for example, or arranging objects in a cupboard, or deciding what things Im going to use or have to organize. It doesnt come in the same massive way as when it comes directly. When it comes directly its a mass, passing through and going out like that (Mother shows the Light descending directly from above like a mass and passing through her head in order to spread out everywhere). In these small things its pulverized, as though it came through an atomizer, but its that same sparkling white light, utterly white. Then, whatever Im doing, theres a sensation in the body thats like lying on a sea of something very soft, very intimate, very deep and eternal, immutable: the Lord. And all the bodys cells are joyously saying, You, You, You, You.
Thats my present condition.
The moments of forgetting are briefplunk! A knock from someone or something the shock of the ordinary vibration. Its unimportant, you turn your head and push it away. But I dont want that either, it [the movement of rejection] must go away entirely.
From a practical, concrete, effective standpoint, there are some results. Even when they dont write, people are beginning to receive my response very clearly, very precisely. People I dont know at all have written, and they receive my reply even before I write back (they tell this to intermediaries). I had another example only today. Its having results.
0 1961-08-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday I had an experience. It didnt last long, no more than an hour or an hour and a half, but it was interesting. Experiences always take place here for me now, on the completely material plane. Well, in action, in relation to the world and things (it was quite a general feeling, in any case terrestrialnot universal, terrestrial), there was no more center. From the standpoint of sensations and reactions, exchangesno more center. Everything was dispersed like that, everywhere. There was only ONE center, the highest Center (highest or deepest)the sole Center. All sensations, all contacts, all exchangeseverything was like that.
It was rather interesting in that I wasnt expecting it; it came suddenly when I was walking in my room in the evening the feeling not positively that the body no longer existed, since it kept walking, but that there was no more center. I cant put it any other waythere was no more center. There was only one Center. It was all, all the same thing, and from the absolutely material standpoint, the standpoint of sensationsmaterial sensations, exchanges, vibrationseverything. At one point it even became so strong that something laughed and said, Ah! So thats how to no longer exist!
0 1961-08-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And there are people with no countryhe takes me to a place where the people have no country, no race, no special costume they seem very universal. And they move around harmoniously, silently, as though they were gliding and with precision, everything is extremely precise. Some of them have even shown me things: there were some lovely colored papers! But these colors are unearthly, somehow transparent. They were arranging it all, demonstrating and explaining to me how it has to be arranged to give the maximum effect.
I have seen you there several times. You were wearing something similar to what you are wearing now [dhoti]: not European they wear the costume of no particular country. Its usually white, but not made of cloth. Its all on a VERY luminous, very orderly, very clear mental plane-no objects lying around, only things like sheets of paper, which seem to be ideas or compositions of ideas, but no clutter. Its vast, vast, so vast you can see no end to it! And up above its wide open, and a light is constantly descending. What you walk on is a little more solid, but not much more. Its an interesting place.
0 1961-09-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I had a clear vision of the two kinds of opposites in nature (not only in nature but in life) which almost everyone carries within himself: one is the possibility of realization, the other is the path chosen to attain it. There is always (its probably inevitable) the stormy path of struggle, and then there is the sunlit path. After much study and observation, I have had a sort of spiritual ambition (if it can be called that) to bring to the world a sunlit path, to eliminate the necessity for struggle and suffering: something that aspires to replace this present phase of universal evolution with a less painful phase.
It greatly interested me when I read your letter. I was looking at why you have so many difficulties; twice in your note you wrote that it [writing] is a suffering. You have very often written this word, very often spoken it, and it seems dominant in one aspect of your beingwhile in the other is the glory of a supreme joy, the very stuff of the future realization.
0 1961-10-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I was giving him the example of BEING the thing you manipulate and sosince you ARE the thinghaving not only the joy of perfect knowledge of manipulation, but the joy of collaboration as well (not collaboration: rather a participation from the thing being utilized). And this from the smallest thing (objects you put in order, for example) right up to the universal transformation that comes with the new Creation and its all the same movement of abolishing limits, the movement of expansion, of a generosity that abolishes limits. It begins with self-giving, it ends in identification.
(silence)
--
And that very day, I had this experience with the possessed personit all came together. And then afterwards, a sort of mastery over the problem and the impression of a breakthroughan opening up of the WAY to change, which is this enlargement. First, the movement of generosity (not that shriveling movement, but its exact opposite the movement of expansion), and from there you go on to universality, and from universality to Totality.
It makes a whole set of interesting experiences.
0 1961-10-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
All is reconciled. The Rishi is the son of two mothers: son of Aditi, the luminous cow, Mother of infinite Light, creatrix of the worlds; and son as well of Diti, the black cow, Mother of the tenebrous infinite and divided existence for when Diti at last reaches the end of her apparent Night, she gives us divine birth and the milk of heaven. All is fulfilled, The Rishi sets flowing in one movement human strengths and things divine (IX.70.3), he has realized the universal in the individual, become the Infinite in the finite: Then shall thy humanity become as if the workings of these gods; it is as if the visible heaven of light were founded in thee (V.66.2). Far from spurning the earth, he prays: O Godhead, guard for us the Infinite and lavish the finite(IV.2.11).
The voyage draws to its close. Agni has recovered its solar totality, its two concealed extremities. The inviolable work is fulfilled. For Agni is the place where high meets lowand in truth, there is no longer high nor low, but a single Sun everywhere: O Flame, thou goest to the ocean of Heaven, towards the gods; thou makest to meet together the godheads of the planes, the waters that are in the realm of light above the sun and the waters that abide below (III.22.3). O Fire O universal Godhead, thou art the navel-knot of the earths and their inhabitants; all men born thou controllest and supportest like a pillar (I.59.1). O Flame, thou foundest the mortal in a supreme immortality thou createst divine bliss and human joy (I.31.7). For the worlds heart is Joy, Joy dwells in the depths of all things, the well of honey covered by the rock (II.24.4).
The day before, Mother had listened to the passage of the manuscript concerning 'The Secret of the Veda.' Several extracts from it are included in the Addendum to this conversation.
--- Grep of noun uni
nguni
uniat
uniat church
uniate
uniate christian
uniate church
unicameral script
unicef
unicorn
unicorn root
unicycle
unicyclist
unidentified flying object
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unio
uniocular dichromat
union
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united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland
united methodist church
united mexican states
united mine workers
united mine workers of america
united nations
united nations agency
united nations children's fund
united nations crime prevention and criminal justice
united nations day
united nations educational scientific and cultural organization
united nations international children's emergency fund
united nations office for drug control and crime prevention
united nations secretariat
united republic of tanzania
united self-defense force of colombia
united self-defense group of colombia
united society of believers in christ's second appearing
united states
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united states army criminal investigation laboratory
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unix
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zuni