Learnings from the Divine Mother and Sri Aurobindo
All Nature dumbly calls to her alone
To heal with her feet the aching throb of life
And break the seals on the dim soul of man
And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things.
- Sri Aurobindo (in Savitri)
I live completely outside time. A sort of non-existent existence.
I think a few minutes have elapsed while it’s been a very long time.
I am in a hurry. I need all those who love me to understand me.
Courage their armour, faith their sword, they must walk…
Heroes and soldiers of the Army of Light.
Without the Divine, we are limited, incompetent and helpless beings; with the Divine, if we give ourselves entirely to Him, all is possible and our progress is limitless. A special help has come onto the earth for Sri Aurobindo’s centenary year; let us take advantage of it to overcome the ego and emerge into the light.
Happy New Year. — The Mother
O India, land of light and spiritual knowledge! Wake up to your true mission to the world, show the way to union and harmony.
Learnings from the Divine Mother and Sri Aurobindo
Words of Integral Yoga from The Mother and Sri Aurobindo
Action: If thy aim be great and thy means small, still act, for by action alone these can increase to thee.
Power of Action: the power which results from a true surrender to the Divine. Our acts interpret an omniscient Force. Nothing we think or do is void or vain. Each is an energy loosed and holds its course.
My Lord, here is Thy advice to all, for this year: “Never boast about anything, let your acts speak for you.”
Accidents: Time’s accidents are steps in its vast scheme.
The world is not an unhappy accident, it is a marvel moving towards its expression.
Aim: The aim of human life is to discover the Divine and to manifest it. Naturally, this discovery leads to happiness, but this happiness is a consequence, not an aim in itself. And it is this mistake of taking a mere consequence for the aim of life that has been the cause of most of the miseries afflicting humanity. Let our aim be victory in the battle, not the escape from all conflict.
The object of Life is growth of the soul, not outward success of the hour or even of the near future. No victory can be won without a fixed fidelity to the aim and a long effort. There is no other way than to persevere.
All:
ü All is but Himself objectifying Himself.
ü All here is a mystery of contraries.
ü All contraries are aspects of God’s face.
ü All can be done if the God-touch is there.
ü All here must learn to obey a higher law.
ü All is too little that the world can give.
ü All life is fixed in an ascending scale.
ü All is the commerce of a secret Power.
ü All is a single plan.
ü All that denies must be torn out and slain.
ü All things shall manifest the covert God.
ü All things hang here between God’s yes and no.
ü All things shall change in God’s transfiguring hour.
ü All we have done is ever still to do.
ü All life, all works are a transaction between the soul and Nature.
Alone: Never forget that you are alone. The Divine is with you helping and guiding you. He is the companion who never fails, the friend whose love comforts and strengthens. Have faith and He will do everything for you.
Ananda: A spiritual Ananda can flow into the body and inundate cell and tissue.
Ananda is the secret delight from which all things are born, by which all is sustained in existence and to which all can rise in the spiritual culmination.
Aspiration: Let your highest aspiration organise your life. All souls who aspire are under my direct care. — The Mother.
Aspire intensely but without impatience. Keep burning the flame of your aspiration and all will be all right. The highest aspirations of man are nothing but the expression of the Divine Will or Spirit in Nature through human consciousness.
No sincere aspiration to the Divine can fail in the end. Sincere aspiration is an aspiration that is not mixed with any egoistic or self-interested calculation.
Ascend: Ascend thy high self, create and endure. Ascend from nature to Divine’s heights.
Ashram Life: The Ashram symbolises all the difficulties to be resolved.
People are here to change their consciousness. Unless they become, all of them, true to their aim, nothing true can be done.
We are all born for the highest Ideal: therefore, whenever in our Ashram some petty request for more comfort and material happiness is refused, it is for your own good and to make you fulfil what you are here for. The refusal is actually a favour inasmuch as you are thereby considered worthy to stand before the highest Ideal and be shaped according to it.
The moment one enters the life of the Ashram and takes up the yoga, he ceases to belong to any creed or caste or race; he is one of Sri Aurobindo’s disciples and nothing else. — The Mother.
We are not here to begin once more, continue, perpetuate what is done elsewhere. What we are attempting here is to prove to the world, through a concrete example, that by some inner psychological realisation and some outer organisation a world can be created where most of the causes of human misery will cease to exist.
People who feel miserable here and find that they have not the comfort they require ought not to stay. We are not in a position to do more than we do, and, after all, our aim is not to give to people a comfortable life but to prepare them for a Divine Life which is quite a different affair.
Attachment: All that is based on human relationship is unstable and transient,
mixed and unsatisfactory; it is only what is established in the Divine and through the Divine that can last and give satisfaction.
Keep yourself free from all human attachment and you will be happy. Remembrance is a dangerous ally of attachment.
Attempt: An attempt is a small thing, but it can be a promise for the future.
Attentive: Nothing is impossible for one who is attentive.
Atheism: Atheism is a necessary protest against the wickedness of the Churches and the narrowness of creeds. God used it as a stone to smash these soiled cardhouses. As long as there are religions, atheism will be necessary to counterbalance them. Both must disappear to give way to a sincere and disinterested search for Truth and a total consecration to the object of this search.
Attractions: This is indeed one of the three forces –power, wealth, sex — that have the strongest attraction for the human ego and the Asura and are most generally misused by those who retain them…
Authority: I clearly see, the body clearly realizes that it’s only its own resistance — its resistance to the Truth — that makes it possible for it to suffer. Wherever there is complete adherence, suffering disappears instantly.
But it’s the same thing for countries and nations: it’s the same change of authority. Instead of personal authorities, there will be a divine authority, and the same change of authority causes the unspeakable chaos we live in — because of the resistance.
Auroville: Auroville is intended to hasten the advent of the supramental reality upon earth. The help of all those who find that the world is not what it ought to be is welcome. Each one must know if he wants to associate himself with an old world on the verge of death, or to work for a new and better world ready to be born.
Balance: Perfect Balance: One of the Most important conditions of a growing peace.
Battle: Each step forward is a battle.
Beauty: Beauty, you are my way to the Divine. Let Beauty be your constant ideal. Beauty of the soul. Beauty of feelings. Beauty of thoughts. Beauty of action. Beauty in work.
Becoming: All creation or becoming is nothing but this Self-manifestation.
Behaviour: The behaviour of others towards you will be correct in so far as your behaviour towards them is correct.
Belief: “Belief shall be not till the work is done.”
Bitter: When we get bitter we lose our Divine contact and become very “bitterly” human…
Blessings:
My love and blessings are with you. Understand that blessings are for the best spiritual result, not necessarily according to human wishes.
Sometimes not to give blessings is a greater Grace than to give.
People ask my blessings for so many things — for business, for work, for going on journeys, for the help of the family, for their own help, and I give them. I don’t tell them, but from my side I give blessings for only one thing: the growth of the soul. All the other things that people ask don’t concern me.”
Blossoming: Life must blossom like a flower offering itself to the Divine.
Body: Our body is a mystery shop. Our body’s cells must hold the Immortal’s flame. The Divine is present in the very atoms of our body.
The aim of physical education here is not to produce champions or winning athletes, but to train the body and perfect it to become an instrument capable of manifesting on the physical plane a higher consciousness and force.
Our Body is the occult agent of the Earth and the Earth of the Universal. Our body is an integral creation; a fractal of the Whole. “Separateness” of our body is a partial appearance, even false.
Ah! I noticed that the cells, everywhere, you know, completely, all the time, were repeating OM NAMA BHAGAVATE, OM NAMO BHAGAVATE … constantly, all the time.
Books: …there are the very few who want to understand life, its purpose and its goal. For them, Sri Aurobindo’s books are the best reading of all.
It is no use reading books of guidance if one is not determined to live what they teach.
Brahman: The Brahman indeed is both for the Upanishads and the Gita all that is and lives and moves… It is not solely an impersonal Infinite or an unthinkable and incommunicable Absolute. One Brahman, one reality in Self and Nature is the object of all knowledge.
Business: The age of Capitalism and business is drawing to a close. All is too little that the world can give.
Call: All Nature dumbly calls to her alone.
Heaven’s call is rare, rarer the heart that heeds.
I am always aware of your call and always send an answer.
In the quietness of the mind you will receive it.
Calm: Calm is self’s victory overcoming fate.
Care: Nothing is too small to be neglected, the same care meets all circumstances.
Certitude: The certitude of the Victory gives an infinite patience with the maximum of energy. We must march on with a quiet certitude that what has to be done will be done. It is not a hope but a certitude that the complete transformation of the nature will take place.
Chance: There is a meaning in each play of Chance.
Forfeiting the spirit’s lonely chance in Time
And no news of him reach the waiting gods,
Marked “missing” in the register of souls,
His name the index of a failing hope,
The position of a dead remembered star.
Change: Change yourself and the circumstances will change.
When you are truly changed, everything around you will also be changed.
All things shall change in God’s transfiguring hour.
Chastity: Chastity is freedom from the physical and vital obsession, a natural and spontaneous self-control, in a pure ingathered steadiness.
Cheerfulness: Cheerfulness is the salt of the sadhana. It is a thousand times better than gloominess.
Circumstances: All the circumstances of life are arranged to teach us that, beyond mind, faith in the Divine Grace gives us the strength to go through all trials, to overcome all weaknesses, and find the contact with the Divine Consciousness which gives us not only peace and joy but also physical balance and good health. There is a meaning in each curve and line.
He who lives to serve the truth is not affected by outward circumstances.
Always circumstances come to reveal the hidden weaknesses that have to be overcome. In spite of what the ignorant men believe, it is the inner vibrations that are responsible for the exterior events. Let all circumstances, all happenings in life be occasions, constantly renewed, for learning more and ever more.
Clarity: Clear mind: the first step on the road to conversion.
Cooking: The idea that women should cook for males is against my principles. Are they slaves?
Collaboration: Collaboration and reciprocal goodwill are indispensable for good work. It is when things are going wrong that it is the best opportunity to show one’s goodwill and spirit of true collaboration.
Collectivity: Each of us is always a collectivity but we aren’t aware of it, and if anything were taken away, it would unbalance the whole.
Companion: Never forget that you are not alone. The Divine is with you helping and guiding you. He is the companion who never fails, the friend whose love comforts and strengthens. Have faith and He will do everything for you.
Compassion: The compassion seeks to relieve the suffering of all, whether they deserve it or not. It is a pity full of strength and kindness, a pity that pardons and makes amends, forgets all offences and wants always what is best for everyone.
Human pity is born of ignorance and weakness; it is the slave of emotional
impressions. Divine compassion understands, discerns and saves.
Concentration: The faculty of concentrated attention is at the source of all successful activity.
Consent: All would change if man could once consent to be spiritualised; but his nature, menial and vital and physical, is rebellious to the higher law. He loves his imperfection.
Contact with the Divine: What should we do to remain always in contact with
the Divine, so that no person or event can draw us away from this contact?
Mother: Aspiration. Sincerity.
Consciousness: Consciousness is the breath that gives life to all. A change in human consciousness will make possible the manifestation upon earth of a higher Force, a purer Light, a more total Truth.
Just fall asleep in this Consciousness — just call it, call it… it’s very comfortable, oh!… It’s a kind of golden softness — very comfortable — and the body feels it very clearly.
Courage: COURAGE is the total absence of fear in all its forms. There is no greater courage than to be always truthful. Courage is a sign of soul’s nobility. But courage must be calm and master of itself, generous and benevolent.
Cosmos: The cosmos is no accident in time.
Creation: Progress is the sign of the Divine influence in creation. The whole creation speaks of the Divine to him who knows how to hear within his heart.
A Seer, a strong Creator, is within.
Criticise: Do not criticise, unless you know how to remedy the error you criticise. Whenever there is an impulse in you to speak of the dark side of a thing, halt then and there, hold back and try to find the bright side, the complementary aspect as there is always a golden line edging the darkest cloud.
Darkness: Out of the darkness we still grow to light.
Daily Life: Make daily way a pilgrimage, for through small joys and griefs thou move’st towards God.
Death: Death is not nothingness, death is only a transition between two earthly lives upon earth, and the nature of transition depends upon the quality of the previous life. To die does not solve the problem or overcome the difficulty. Death is a passage between two worlds.
When you fear death it has already defeated you. Some day surely the world too shall be saved from death by Love.
Death is the result of a distortion of consciousness. Some of the living are already half-dead. Many of the dead are very much alive.
…there is really no such thing as death. There is only an appearance, and an appearance based on a limited outlook.
Death is the decentralization of the consciousness contained in the body’s cells. Death is but changing of our robes to wait
In wedding garments at the Eternal’s gate.
To feed death with her works is here life’s doo. Thou must die to thyself to reach God’s height. Our dead selves come to slay our living soul.
Death is spirit’s opportunity. Death is a passage, not the goal of our walk. Death is our road to immortality. Death helps us not, vain is the hope to cease. Death’s grip can break our bodies, but not our souls. Death stays the journeying discoverer, Life. A deathbound littleness is not all we are.
And [Death] left crumbling the shape that he had worn,
Abandoning hope to make man’s soul his prey
And force to be mortal the immortal spirit.
It is clearly a new way of dying that must be possible — no longer death as we regard it.
Defects: I am not looking at defects but at possibilities.
Delight: God created the world for the delight of the creation, or rather “He brought forth the world for himself for the Delight of living an objective life.
Depression: It is the ego that gets depressed.
All bitterness in life always comes from the ego refusing to abdicate.
Shake it off, as you shake off the dust from your feet.
Desire: Each and every one, when he turns to the Divine, demands that He should do for him exactly what he asks. Whereas the Divine does for each one what is best for him from all points of view. But man, in his ignorance and blindness, revolts against the Divine when his desire is not satisfied, and says to Him, “You do not love me.”
To free the self is but one radiant pace;
Here to fulfil himself was God’s desire
He tore desire up from its bleeding roots and offered to the Gods the vacant place.
Destiny: Have faith in your destiny and your road will be lit. The destiny of man is governed and worked out by a Power beyond human calculation.
And you, mon petit, it’s your destiny. It is your destiny: to become conscious and manifest the Divine — it is your destiny. You must…. Me, I am in a hurry because I see circumstances becoming more and more… acute — dangerous. Only a miracle can save us — that is to say, what we consider a miracle: an intervention… an intervention of the Divine Will in its purity, undistorted, uncontroverted, unobstructed– just That.
We have to be at our highest — and it is still far from being what it should be.
Let us never forget that the supreme Lord is behind everything and that it is He who is the master of our destinies.
Detachment: Detachment is the salt of Sadhana.
Devotion: Modest and fragrant, it gives itself without seeking for anything in return. A devotion that keeps concentrated and silent in the depths of the heart but manifests in acts of service and obedience, is more powerful, more true, more divine, than any shouting and weeping devotion.
Difficulties: Difficulties are always blessings if we know how to face them.
The real difficulty is always in ourselves, not in surroundings. We must know how to depend for everything and in everything on the Divine. He alone can surmount all difficulties.
We are well on the way and when you will be out of the struggle, you will know that it was worth having passed through it — the greater the difficulty, the greater the Victory. LOVE is the Victor over all difficulties.
All difficulties are solved by taking rest in the Divine’s arms, for these arms are always opened with love to shelter us. To run away from difficulties in order to conquer them is not a solution.
Discipline: No life can be successful without self-discipline. To discipline oneself is to hasten the arrival of this new life and the contact with supramental reality.
Without discipline no proper work is possible. Without discipline no proper life is possible. And above all, without discipline no Sadhana is possible.
Distrust: Distrust the man who has never failed and suffered; follow not his fortunes, fight not under his banner.
Divine: The Divine alone is:
➢ True — all the rest is falsehood
➢ Real — all the rest is illusion.
➢ Love — all the rest is selfish sentimentality
➢ Life — all the rest belongs to the kingdom of death
➢ Light — all the rest is semi-obscurity
➢ Support — that never fails.
➢ Light and Vastness, Truth and Compassion.
➢ Unmixed and never fails.
➢ Our object.
Our research will not be a search effected by mystic means. It is in life that we wish to find the divine.
A single occupation,
A single aim,
A single joy — The Divine.
Even in rags I am a God; fallen I am divine; High I triumph when downtrod,
Long I live when slain.
Divine Force:
A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell
And take the charge of breath and speech and act
And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns
And every feeling a celestial thrill. — Savitri
Divine Help: The Divine help is much vaster than what any human being is able to receive. My help is there for all those who need it — — It’s the ego that prevents people from receiving it.
Divine’s Knowledge: Every obstacle must disappear, in every part of the being, the darkness of the ignorance must be replaced by the Divine’s knowledge.
..How shall the end be vain when God is guide?
Divine Laughter: This Sun — This Sun of divine laughter — is at the core of everything. It is the truth of everything. What we need is to learn to see it, feel it, live it. And for that, let us flee from those who take life seriously, they are the most boring people on earth!
Divine Living: To become complete in being, in consciousness of being, in force of being, in delight of being and to live in this integrated completeness is the Divine living.
Turn all things to honey; this is the law of Divine living.
Divine Love: Self-love is the great obstacle. Divine Love is the great remedy.
The best way to prepare oneself to receive Divine Love is to adhere integrally to the Truth.
Divine Power: Divine power alone can help India. If you can build faith and cohesion in the country, it is much more powerful than man made power.
Divine Presence:
Its absence left the greatest actions dull,
Its presence made the smallest seem divine.
Divine Teaching:
It is good read a Divine Teaching. It is better to learn it. The best is to live it.
Duty: Duty towards the Divine is far more sacred than any social or family duty; it is all the more sacred because within the human collectivity it is almost wholly ignored or misunderstood. Vital relations are always dangerous. A complete, absolute consecration of the vital to the Divine is the only solution.
Happiness is not the aim of life. The aim of ordinary life is to carry out one’s duty, the aim of spiritual life is to realise the Divine.
Divine Touch: A touch can alter the fixed front of Fate.
Dynamism: Get out of your mind to have the true intelligence.
Get out of your sensations to have the true feelings.
Get out of your sensitiveness to have the true dynamism.
Earth: Earth nature stood reborn, comrade of heaven.
Earth is the heroic spirit’s battlefield. I shall save earth, if earth consents to be saved. when the earth no longer needs to die in order to progress, there will be no more death. When the earth no longer needs to suffer in order to progress, there will be no more suffering. And when the earth no longer needs to hate in order to love, there will be no more hatred.
Effort: No effort is lost. There is always an answer, even if it is not perceived. Effort well-directed breaks down all obstacles. Be steady in your aspiration and it is sure to be granted.
Ego: What we call ourselves is only the ego — our true self is the Divine.
Ego is the obstruction. Ego was necessary to shape humanity, but we are now preparing the way for a superhumanity, a suprahumanity. The job of the ego is over — it did its job well, now it must disappear. And it is the psychic being, the Divine’s representative in man, that will stay on and pass into the next species. So we must learn to gather all our being around the psychic. Those who wish to pass to the supra-humanity must get rid of the ego and concentrate themselves around the psychic being.
· Love lacks ego. Ego lacks love.
· Ego’s factories and marts
· Surround the beautiful temple of the soul
The ego was a means — a means for many centuries — now it is worth nothing, its time has passed. Now…, consciousness, it is the Divine; power, it is the Divine; action, it is the Divine; individuality, it is the Divine.
Ego is the most formidable of the knots which keep us tied to the ignorance.
Equality: Equality is to remain unmoved within all circumstances. We might say that Equality is the very sign of liberation. Equality is not mental quiet, aloofness, indifference, vital quiescence, nor physical passivity. Equality is the foundation of perfection. A fundamental Equality is essential to any conceivable perfectibility of the human race.
Supermind can express itself through a terrestrial consciousness only when there is a constant state of perfect equality — equality arising out of spiritual identification with the Supreme: all becomes the Supreme in perfect equality. And it must be automatic, not an equality obtained through conscious will or intellectual effort or an understanding preceding the state itself — none of that. It has to be spontaneous and automatic; one must no longer react to what comes from outside as though it were coming from outside.
Equality in the Cells: An equality in the cells! It has come into the body. There is no longer that clash of joy and pain — always and for everything, every minute, every reaction, “You, Lord, to You, Lord.” As though the cells were chanting, “To You Lord, to You Lord, to You Lord….” And… well, that’s how it is.
Equanimity: Immutable peace and calm. Equanimity can be achieved in many ways. It may be the result of being beaten into shape by the hard knocks of life. It may arise from philosophical indifference to joy and sorrow. It may be stoic equanimity which considers endurance to be a sign of good character
Enemy: My rival’s downfall is my own disgrace. I look on my enemy and see Krishna’s face.
Men talk of enemies, but where are they? I only see wrestlers of one party or the other in the great arena of the universe.
We make of our own enemies our guests.
Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism.
Errors: Errors, falsehoods, stumblings!” they cry. How bright and beautiful are Thy errors, O Lord! Thy falsehoods save Truth alive; by Thy stumblings the world is perfected. Error is the comrade of our mortal thought.
Eternal: The Eternal suffers in a human form. The Eternal’s quiet holds the cosmic act. The Eternal’s wonders join the dance of Time. The Eternal entity prepares within. Hidden in the mortal’s heart the Eternal lives.
Eternity: Eternity speaks, none understands its word.
Evolution: Humanity is not the last rung of terrestrial creation. Evolution continues and man will be surpassed. It is for each one to know whether he wants to participate in the advent of the new species. For those who are satisfied with the world as it is, Auroville obviously has no raison d’être.
The world’s outer evolution is moving ahead so rapidly — in terms of scientific developments — that this change CANNOT be put off for millions of years. Man’s inner development needs to catch up with all that, doesn’t it?
Experience: They proved to me by convincing reasons that God does not exist and I believed them. Afterwards I saw God for he came and embraced me. And now which am I to believe, the reasoning of others or my own experience?
Failures: … It is by great and noble failures that humanity advances.
There is a purpose in each stumble and fall. His failure is not failure whom God leads. He makes our fall a means for greater rise. His small successes are failures of the soul, His little pleasures punctuate frequent griefs:
The spirit rises mightier by defeat;
Its godlike wings grow wider with each fall.
Its splendid failures sum to victory.
Faith: Faith is the surest guide in the darkest days.
It is when all appears to be lost that all can be saved.
When one has lost trust in one’s personal power, one must have faith in the Divine Grace.
It’s because for everyone, what happens is the BEST thing to lead his individuality towards the goal — the goal of consciousness — and if he has faith, the action takes place in an even more precise way, and, we might say, even more rapidly. So in this case, it would mean that his paralysis helps him go faster towards his goal.
Faith first, knowledge afterwards.
False: One thing you must know and never forget: in the work of transformation all that is true and sincere will always be kept; only what is false and insincere will disappear.
Falsehood: Falsehood is not the negation of Truth: it is the imitation of Truth, aping the Truth: it is the caricature of Truth. The World is false not because it is non-existent, but because it exists in a wrong form. It is Maya, where the rope is taken for a snake.
Falsehood is Truth distorted (Vrjinam) as it is Truth but the life taken out of it, it is dead Truth and a wrong life put into it, it becomes Evil Truth.
This world of misery and confusion is a world of falsehood. Only a change of consciousness and the conquest over falsehood can change the conditions of this world.
All the rest is falsehood — falsehood, falsehood, and falsehood that must disappear. There is only one reality, there is only one life, there is only one consciousness: the Divine.
Fame: Replace the eagerness for fame by the aspiration for perfection.
Fate: My fate is what my spirit’s strength can make.
My fate is what my spirit’s strength can bear.
Man can accept his fate, he can refuse. A touch can alter the fixed front of Fate. The soul in man is greater than his fate: Above the wash and surge of Time and Space,
Even through the tangled anarchy called Fate
An outstretched Hand is felt upon our lives.
A godhead greater by a human fate.
Favours: Those who approach me with the intention of obtaining favours will be disappointed, because I have no powers at my disposal.
Fear: Why should one fear death? The soul is immortal and passes from one life and body to another. Besides, fear has no place in Yoga.
Fear is a degradation of human consciousness. Fear is a bad advisor.
Feet: The feet must be sure of their ground before the head can hope to kiss the skies.
Few: We have to be the few who are conscious.
Force: There is a Force here in the atmosphere which will give itself to anyone open to it. The fact that you don’t feel a force does not prove that it is not there. A golden Force that feels terribly heavy and presses down on Matter. A Force that is pressing down to produce the result by any means whatsoever.
All the time, in the smallest detail as well as on the whole, the Force is pressing on Matter for the transformation. The New Consciousness becomes clearer and clearer. Almost as if a new Mind were being formed.
Free: One can be free only by soaring to the heights, high above human passions.
Freedom: Freedom does not come from outer circumstances but from inner liberation. Find your soul, unite with it, let it govern your life and you will be free. There is a freedom in each face of Fate.
Friend: The Divine is the sure friend who never fails, the Power, the Support, the Guide. The Divine is the Light which scatters darkness, the conqueror who assures the victory. Our best friend is he who loved us in the best of ourselves and yet does not ask us to be other than we are.
Friendship is a very good thing and has its place in Divine Life. It is only desire and sexuality that lower the atmosphere and make it vulgar.
Generosity: Generosity is to find one’s own satisfaction in the satisfaction of others.
Give: Even the greatest things of your life, you have to give up.
Give yourself without calculating and without expecting anything in return, and then you will become capable of receiving.
Give all you have, this is the beginning.
Give all you do, this is the way.
Give all you are, this is the fulfilment.
Give yourself up — it is the best way of finding yourself.
Goal: The goal of the creation is that the creature must become conscious like the Creator. The goal of this creation is this Consciousness of the Infinite, the Eternal who is Omnipotent — Infinite, Eternal, Omnipotent (called God by our religions: for us, in relation to life, it is the Divine) — Infinite and Eternal, Omnipotent… beyond time; each individual particle possessing this Consciousness, each individual particle containing this same Consciousness.
Thy goal, the road thy choosest are thy fate.
God: God shall grow up when the wise men talk and sleep.
All can be done if God-touch is there.
God guides best when He tempts worst, loves entirely when He punishes cruelly, helps perfectly when violently He opposes.
The Absolute, the Spirit, the Self spaceless and timeless, the Self manifest in the Cosmos and Lord of Nature, — all this is what we mean by God.
My God is all and sweetly suffers all. A blind God is not destiny’s architect.
Golden Chain: “Whoever gets my touch, whoever has a second of true aspiration, true love for me, he is finished for life, for all lives — he is bound to me. I have put a golden chain round his neck, his heart is bound eternally to me.”
Good: Why was not man created good from the beginning?
The Mother: It is not God who made man wicked. It is man who makes himself wicked by separating himself from God.
Goodwill: Goodwill for all and goodwill from all is the basis of peace an harmony.
It is much easier to counter the bad will of the enemy than to butt the goodwill of the friends. But the Divine knows how to circumvent all and turn everything to His own use in whatever guise it may appear.
Generosity: Generosity gives and gives itself without bargaining. Nobleness and generosity are soul’s ethereal firmaments, without them, one looks at an insect in a dungeon.
GENEROSITY is to find one’s own satisfaction in the satisfaction of others.
Grace: The Grace will never fail us — such is the faith we must keep constantly in our heart. Grace is something spontaneous which wells out from the Divine Consciousness as a free flow of its being. It is in proportion to our trust in the Divine that the Divine Grace can act for us and help.
And remember, the Grace of the Divine is generally proportioned to your difficulties.
Gratitude: The ego thinks of what it wants and has not. This is its constant preoccupation. The soul is aware of what it is given and lives in endless gratitude.
Great: The great are the strongest when they stand alone.
Greed: Do not look with greedy eyes upon what others possess, if you do not want to lose even that which you possess.
Grieve: To grieve is an insult to Sri Aurobindo who is here with us, conscious and alive.
Growth: Hail the new light. That it may grow in all hearts.
Guru: The Guru is the Guide in the Yoga.
Happy: Do not live to be happy, live to serve the Divine and the joy that you will experience will be beyond all expectations.
When one’s attention is always turned towards oneself, one is never happy. It is through work and self-mastery that one can find happiness and peace. Happiest who stand on faith as on rock.
It is not money that makes a man happy, but rather an inner balance of energy, good health and good feelings.
Happiness: Always remember that on the happiness you will give depend the happiness you get.
Life on earth is essentially a field for progress; how short life is for all the progress we have to make! To waste time seeking the gratification of one’s petty desires is sheer folly. True happiness can be attained only by finding the Divine.
Harm: The harm you have caused willfully always comes back to you in one form or another.
Harmony: Harmony at any cost. The Mother
A generous heart always forgets the past offences and is ready to reestablish harmony. Look for the inner causes of disharmony much more than the outer ones. It is the inside which governs the outside.
Harmony: Let us strive that the day may come when this will be the means and the end. When all is in agreement with the one Truth or an expression of it, that is harmony.
For all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.
Hate: But the hate of hell and human spite Are my meed since the world began. — From God’s Labour
Healing: Spiritual power of healing: opening and receptivity to the Divine influence. Healing comes not from the head but from the heart.
Heaven: The streams of heaven shall murmur in her laugh.
None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell.
Heart: My heart is wiser than reason’s thoughts.
In every heart is hidden the myriad One. Our heart’s delight we have exchanged for grief. Our heart’s sight is too blind and passionate.
Help: All help is given to you always, but you must learn to receive it in the silence of your heart and not through external means. With the Divine’s help nothing is impossible. The help is always there. It is you who must keep your receptivity living.
The idea of helping others is a subtle form of the ego. It is only the Divine Force that can help. One can be its … egoless instrument. — Sri Aurobindo
Hero: The future is for those who have the soul of a hero. A hero fears nothing, complains of nothing and never gives way.
Honesty: Be sincere and honest and your mind will be at rest.
Hope: The hopes of today are the realisations of tomorrow.
O Lord, Thou are my refuge and my blessing, my strength, my health, my hope, and my courage. Because Thou art in him man hopes and dares; Because Thou art, men’s souls can climb the heavens.
Home: All here shall be oneday Her sweetness’ home. All earth shall be the Spirit’s manifest home.
Hostile Forces: The hostile forcesm are those which try to pervert everything and are in revolt against the Divine and opposed to the Yoga.
It is true, however, that they exist because you gave them reason to exist. So long as there is something in you which answers to them, their intervention is perfectly legitimate. If nothing in you responded, if they had no hold upon any part of your nature, they would retire and leave you.
Hour of God: This human hour, this earthly hour is the most beautiful of all the hours.
Humanity: This humanity is moving towards a future reality not yet expressed in its outer form. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice always, but for the sake of God and humanity, not for the sake of sacrifice.
Humility: A true and sincere humility is our safeguard — it is the surest way to the indispensable dissolution of the ego. True humility consists in knowing that the Supreme Consciousness, the Supreme Will alone exists and that the I is not
I: O Lord, grant that Thy sovereign Power may manifest; grant that Thy work may be done and Thy servitor solely consecrated to Thy service.
May the “I” disappear for ever, and the instrument alone live!
The Lord knows you, your heart, your soul, and the difficulties. He is with you on the side of your soul, so the victory is certain, you can be quite sure of it. Always with you in love and peace.
I am you: I am always with you. I shall never fail you in prosperity or in adversity, even when you sink I am with you. I sink with you. I do not stand on the shore and merely look at you from a distance. I sink with you, I am in you — for I am you.
I am in a hurry: I am in a hurry. I need all those who love me to understand me
- It’s only by clinging desperately to the Divine — but to the purest and most powerful Divine-that we can avoid a general conflagration. Not a single minute should be lost. ..
- I need, I need all those who love me to understand me.
- And so there is such an urgency … it’s frightening.
- Nothing is left, nothing, nothing, only, only a will- a will, an aspiration, a compelling need: oh ! the reign of the Divine must come.
- I am in a hurry.
Ignorance: Human mind clings to its ignorance. In ignorance and nescience are our roots. Where Ignorance is, there suffering too must come.
Illness: All illnesses are attacks from adverse forces (that is what I call mischief) to test our endurance and try to break down our faith. We must answer to them by more endurance and more faith — thus they go away badly defeated and it makes a Victory for the Truth.
A conflict in the nature encouraged by the doctors and habits
Inspiration: The guidance is in your heart. Go ahead according to your inspiration.
Immortality: Immortality is a life without beginning or end, without birth and death, which is altogether independent of the body. It is the life of the Self, the essential being of each individual, and it is not separate from the Universal Self. This essential being has a sense of oneness with the Universal Self.
Immortality is not the indefinite survival of the body.
The zero covers an immortal face. Death transformed becomes Life that is Immortality; Cruelty transfigured becomes Love that is intolerable ecstasy; Ignorance transmuted becomes Light that leaps beyond wisdom and knowledge.
Immortality, unity and freedom are in ourselves and await there our discovery; but for the joy of love God in us will still remain the Many.
To live in the Divine and have the Divine Consciousness . Freedom, love and spiritual knowledge raise us from mortal nature to immortal being.
The closer one gets to the cell itself, the more the cell says,
“Why, I am immortal!”
Important: The only thing that is important is your seeking and realising the Divine — is zero.
There is nothing important than the transformation. There is no interest more worthwhile.
Inconscient: The Inconscient is the Superconscient’s sleep. …the inconscient too is infinite. The inconscient world is spirit’s self-made room.
Inconscience: Not to take care of material things which one uses is a sign of inconscience and ignorance…. You must take care of it, not because you are attached t» it, but because it manifests something of the Divine Consciousness.
India: The future of India is luminous in spite of its present gloom. The world waits for the rising of India to receive the Divine flood in its fullness. No other nation, no other religion, no other philosophy can vanquish India. India is the living soul. India is incarnating the spiritual knowledge of the world. India has become the symbolic representation of all the difficulties of modern mankind. India will be the land of the resurrection — resurrection of higher and truer life.
India’s Independence: (in December 1918)
Sri Aurobindo: Suppose an assurance is given to you that India will be free?
AB Purani: Who can give such an assurance?
Sri Aurobindo: Suppose I give you the assurance?
If you give the assurance, I can accept it.
Sri Aurobindo: “Then, I give you the assurance that India will be free”, You can take it from me, it is as certain as the rising of the sun tomorrow. The decree has already gone forth, it may not be long in coming.”
India shall take her true place in the world only when she will become integrally the messenger of the Divine Life.
India of Sri Aurobindo’s Dream.
· You have said in one of Your messages: “The number one problem for India is to find back and manifest her soul. ”How to find back India’s soul?
· Become conscious of your psychic being. Let your psychic being become intensely interested in India’s Soul and aspire towards it, with an attitude of service; and if you are sincere you will succeed.
Infinite: 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.
To live and to love are signs of infinite things. Our life’s repose is in the Infinite. He who chooses the Infinite has been chosen by the Infinite.
Intellect: It is no longer the Age of Reason. That age has passed: it is dead and gone. One should be ashamed now of professing scepticism, agnosticism as the hallmark of culture and enlightenment or the aristocracy of the intellect. This is the age of the luminous faith and vision as the age of the Third Eye.
Intellectual: It is perhaps more difficult for intellectuals to have faith than for those who are simple, sincere, who are straightforward, without intellectual complications. But I think that if an intellectual person has faith, then that becomes very powerful, a very powerful thing which can truly work miracles.
Integral Education: India has or rather had the knowledge of the Spirit, but she neglected matter and suffered for it. The West has the knowledge of matter but rejected the Spirit and suffers badly for it. An integral education which could, with some variations, be adapted to all the nations of the world, must bring back the legitimate authority of the Spirit over a matter fully developed and utilised.
The aim of education is not to prepare the individual student to succeed in life and society, but to increase his perfectibility to the utmost. The new aim is to help the child to develop his intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, moral, spiritual being and his communal life and impulses out of his own temperament and being.
Intimacy: Intimacy with the Divine: complete surrender to the Divine and
total receptivity to His influence, without any conditions to this intimacy.
…so long as there are desires, no true intimacy can be established.
The intimacy of God was everywhere,
No veil was felt, no brute barrier inert,
Distance could not divide, Time could not change.
A fire of passion burned in spirit-depths,
A constant touch of sweetness linked all hearts,
The throb of one adoration’s single bliss
In a rapt ether of undying love.
Instruments: I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God. Everything and anything can be an instrument for the Supreme Wisdom to prepare the earth in view of the new creation!…
Intuition: To live in the wideness of the Intuition is not possible with the limitation of the ego.
Japa: …that is the Japa I do now — I do it all the time, while sleeping, while
walking, while eating, while working, all the time.
The continuous repetition of a mantra. Mother’s mantra is a song of the cells, the sole material or physical process used by her for awakening the cells and stabilizing the Supramental Force in her body.
Joy: There is no greater joy than to serve the Divine. A great joy is always deep in our heart, and always we can find it there.
Joy: The joy of being with the Divine, conscious of the Divine, surpasses everything” — it surpasses the creation, surpasses life, surpasses happiness and success, it surpasses everything.
Imperfect is the joy not shared by all.
Only one boon, to greaten thy spirit, demand;
Only one joy, to raise thy kind, desire.
Judge: The disciples judge the form by the Master.
Outsider judge the Master by the forms.
You have no right to judge a man unless you are capable of doing what he does better than himself.
Karma: The special Grace of the Divine is for the Seekers of the Divine — for the others it is a Cosmic Will acting through the Karma.
Knowledge:
ü Everything must be transformed by the knowledge of the Truth. As knowledge grows Light flames up from within. Knowledge is trapped in the boundaries of mind.
ü All that one has learned externally must be only a foothold enabling one to rise towards higher knowledge. If the Knowledge is not supported by the Will, the Knowledge also gets veiled gradually.
ü A silent mind is the first step towards true knowledge and the experience of the Divine. As knowledge grows Light flames up within. Become and live the knowledge thou hast; then is thy knowledge the living God within thee.
Liberation: The disappearance of the Ego.
Life: Life is the dynamic expression of Consciousness-Force. Life is not only a play of forces or mental experience, but a field for the evolution of the concealed spirit.
Life as manifested in man has a constant aspiration — -an aspiration for perfection, for “God, Light, Freedom, Immortality.”
All life is only a lavish and manifold opportunity given us to discover, realise, express the Divine. Life, Life, Life, I hear the passion’s cry. God, God, God; is the soul’s answer.
The life that wins its aim asks greater aims. The life you lead conceals the light you are. The life that fails and dies must live again. An outstretched Hand is felt upon our lives.
Expect nothing from death. Life is your only salvation.
It is in life that you must transform yourself. It is upon earth that you progress and it is upon earth that you realise. It is in the body that you win the Victory.
Man’s life “is an episode in a meaningless tale”.
From birth to death, life is a dangerous thing. The brave pass through it without care for the risks. The prudent take precautions. The cowardly are afraid of everything. But ultimately, what happens to each one is only what the Supreme Will has decided.
ü The life of a man is unfulfilled unless he has found the Divine.
ü Our life was born in pain and with a cry.
ü Our life a holocaust of the Supreme.
ü Our life is a march to a victory never won.
ü Our life is a paradox with God for key.
ü Our life is a spur in a sublime soul-range.
ü Our lives are inlets of an ocean’s force.
ü A casual passing phrase can change our life.
ü A conscious power has drawn the plan of life.
ü Escape, however high, redeems not life.
Light: Light, endless light! Darkness has room no more.
Open your heart and the Light will enter and dwell within it.
By Light we live and to the Light we go.
… eternal Light is in the heart of every being.
Living Within: Live within; be not shaken by outward happenings.
The father we go inward, the more we seize on greater and fuller realities.
Turning inward alone delivers from ignorance.
All ocean lived within a wandering drop,
A time-made body housed the Illimitable,
To live this Mystery out our souls came here
Live within, do not be upset by outer circumstances. Yes, that is the motto: live within.
Live within, in the depth of your heart, and nobody or nothing will have the power to disturb you.
Looking Within:
Then from the secret heights a wave swept down,
A brilliant chaos of rebel light arose;
It looked above and saw the dazzling peaks,
It looked within and woke the sleeping god.
Love: LOVE is self-giving without asking for anything in exchange.
Love is a yearning of the One for the One.
Love is the bright link twixt earth and heaven.
Love is an intense self-expression of the soul of Ananda.
Love is in its nature the desire to give oneself to others and to receive others in exchange; it is a commerce between being and being.
My love is not a hunger of the heart,
My love is not a craving of the flesh;
It came to me from God, to God returns.
Even in all that life and man have marred,
A whisper of divinity still is heard,
A breath is felt from the eternal spheres.
TRUTH and LOVE are sure to conquer!
LOVE is the one emotion in us which can be entirely motiveless and self-existent; love need have no other motive than LOVE.
Love in her was wider than the universe,
The whole world could take refuge in her single heart.
Love lacks ego. Ego lacks love.
This is a miracle that men can love God, yet fail to Jove humanity.
With whom are they in love then?
The Rungs of Love: At first one loves only when one is loved.
Next, one loves spontaneously but one wants to be loved in return.
Further on, one loves even if one is not loved but one still wants one’s love to be accepted.
And finally one loves purely and simply without any other need or joy than that of loving.
Man: Man is the creation of yesterday. Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being.
Men die that man may live and God be born.
A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme.
“How shall the mortal reach that too high path?
If one of theirs they see scale heaven’s peaks,
Men then can hope to learn that titan climb.
God must be born on earth and be as man
That man being human may grow even as God.”
Manifestation: We must aspire with all our being for the manifestation to come soon and complete. It is division that has created the world and it is in division that the Eternal manifests itself.
Mantra: When I am very quiet, I hear a sort of great chant, almost a collective chant of OM Namo Bhagavateh, as if rising from all of Nature. Then everything is fine.
O Ma Mira Sharanam Mama
Om = The Absolute
Ma = The Crearrix
Mira = The Manifestation of Both
The formless Spirit drew in Thee its shape;
In Thee are the nameless and the secret Name.
My one resource is to say the Mantra: OM Namo Bhagavate… An active peace, contagious
Marriage: But you know that I never advise anyone to marry; it is a terrible bondage. — The Mother.
Master: Until one is the master of life and death, one knows nothing!”
The master of existence lurks in us.
Mastery: Self-mastery is the greatest conquest, it is the basis of all enduring happiness. Man aims at knowledge and mastery of own being & environment first by ego, then by ‘secret oneness’.
Matter: In Matter shall be lit the spirit’s glow. In Matter’s body find thy heaven-born soul. The Spirit shall look out through Matter’s gaze
And Matter shall reveal the Spirit’s face.
Maya: Certainly, when the Supramental does touch earth with a sufficient force to dig itself in into the earth consciousness, there will be no more chance of any success or survival for the Asuric Maya
Meanness: MEANNESS is a weakness that calculates and demands from others the virtues one does not have.
Meditation: We sat together in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the company of our soul, and we witnessed the gates of Eternity opening wide before us.
Meditation
To keep constantly a concentrated and in-gathered attitude is more important than having fixed hours of meditation.
In moments when the inner lamps are lit
And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,
Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.
Mind: Mind: its true worth depends on its surrender to the Divine.
So long as the mind governs life with the presumptuous certitude that it knows, how can the reign of the Divine be established?
Mind can never see the soul of God. Mind can never touch the body of Truth. Mind keeps the soul prisoner, we are slaves to our acts.
In the mind’s silence the Transcendent acts.
If Mind is all, renounce the hope of bliss.
If Mind is all, renounce the hope of Truth.
The mind of mortal man is led by words.
Misery: Misery shall pass abolished from the earth.
Mistake: To be conscious of one’s own mistakes is the surest way to come out of a difficulty.
Misfortune: When I pine at misfortune and call it evil, or am jealous and disappointed, then I know that there is awake in me again the eternal fool.
- Sri Aurobindo
Modesty: To leap into the new consciousness, the first condition is a mental modesty sufficient to be convinced that all one thinks one knows is nothing
in comparison with what remains to be learned.
Moment: A moment sees, the ages toil to express.
The evolution from man to divine man is an even more momentous event than the evolution from animal to thinking animal. And the moment is NOW.
Every moment and every movement of our being is to be resolved into a continuous and a devoted self-giving to the eternal.
Money: Give your money to the Divine work and you will be richer than you would be by keeping it.
If you give the money to the Mother, that can’t be commercial; commerce implies personal profit, and here your profit is only spiritual.
Money is meant to increase the wealth. the prosperity and the productiveness
of a group, a country or, better of the whole earth. Money is a means, a force, a power, and not an end in itself. And like all forces and all powers, it is by movement and circulation that it grows and increases its power, not by accumulation and stagnation.
Money is not meant to make money, money is meant to prepare the earth for the new creation.
I want three kinds of people, those who can work, those who do sadhana, those who have money. At least one of these things must be there in each. When I say sadhana, it is not a nominal sadhana, but the true sadhana. — The Mother
Money Power: The men of finance and the businessmen have been offered the possibility to collaborate with the future, but most of them refuse, convinced that money is stronger than the future. Thus, the future will crush them with its irresistible power.
Mother’s Victory: The Mother’s victory is essentially a victory of each sadhak over himself. It can only be then that any external form of work can come to a harmonious perfection.
Nama Japa: To take the name of the Mother, to remember her within, to pray to her, all this may be described as calling the Mother. — Sri Aurobindo
Nature: In nature’s endless lines is lost the God. In Nature’s instrument loiters secret God. Through Nature’s contraries we draw near God.
O Nature, Material Mother, thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate, and there can be no limit to the splendour of this collaboration.
Newspapers: If you want to know what is really happening in the world, you should not read newspapers of any sort, for they are full of lies. To read a newspaper is to take part in the greatest collective falsehoods.
It is difficult to read newspapers without having the consciousness descend to a very ordinary level. Only when the consciousness is firmly established in union with the Divine is it possible to read newspapers without any risk of falling into a lower consciousness.
Nobleness: NOBLENESS is to refuse to make any personal calculation.
Nobility: The nobility of a being is measured by its capacity of gratitude.
Occupation: Lord, we are upon earth to accomplish Thy work of transformation. It is our sole will, our sole preoccupation. Grant that it may be also our sole occupation and that all our actions may help us towards this single goal.
OM: The sole timeless Word
That carries eternity in its lonely sound.
OM is the totality of the sounds of the creation perceived by the Supreme; He hears OM as a call to Him — as an idea, it’s magnificent! As a symbol And as a power! Not only as a symbol, but as a power.
Me, I knew absolutely nothing of India at the time, and when he uttered the word OM…, it came: a Force like this, my whole, entire body, everything vibrated in an extraordinary way! It was like a revelation — everything, but everything started vibrating. Then I said, “At last, here’s the true sound!”
One: The One lives forever.
ü The One by whom all live, who lives by none.
ü The One carries the multitude in his breast.
ü The Many are the innumerable One.
ü One man’s perfection still can save the world.
ü One among many thousands never touched,
ü Engrossed in the external world’s design,
ü Is chosen by a secret witness Eye
ü And driven by a pointing hand of Light.
ü All that denies must be torn out and slain
ü And crushed the many longings for whose sake
ü We lose the One for whom our lives were made.
Oneness: To feel love and oneness is to live.
In that small flaming chariot Shiva rides.
The One devised innumerably to be;
His oneness in invisible forms he hides,
Time’s tiny temples to eternity.
Opening: The help is constant in all the domains. It is for us to know how to benefit from it.
Openness is the will to receive and to utilise for progress the force and influence; the constant aspiration to remain in touch with the Consciousness; the faith that the force and consciousness are always with you, around you, inside you and that you have only to let nothing stand in the way of your receiving them.
Opinion: If thou wouldst not be the fool of opinion, first see where in the thought is true, then study where in its opposite and contradiction is true. Last discover the cause of these difference and the key of God’s harmony.
Order: Even within the confusion, there is the seed of the Divine order.
Through this apparent chaos a new and better order is being formed. But to see it one must have faith in the Divine Grace.
Pain: Pain is the signature of the Ignorance. Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men to greatness. Pain grew a trembling undertone of bliss.
Pain is the hammer of the gods to break
A dead resistance in the mortal’s heart,
His slow inertia as of living stone.
Our ordeal is the hidden spirit’s choice.
Attacks from adverse forces are inevitable: you have to take them as tests on your way and go courageously through the ordeal. The struggle may be hard, but when you come out of it, you have gained something, you have advanced a step. There is even a necessity for the existence of the hostile forces. They make your determination stronger, your aspiration clearer.
Pain is the touch of our Mother teaching us to bear and grow in rapture. She has three stages of her schooling, endurance first, next equality of soul, last ecstasy. Pain is the hand of Nature sculpturing men to greatness.
O mortal who complainst of death and fate,
Accuse none of the harms thyself hast called;
This troubled world thou hast chosen for thy home,
Thou art thyself the author of thy pain.
Past: Break the moulds of the past, but keep safe its gains and its spirit, or else thou hast no future. Let us all forget all that is dark and ugly in the past, in order to make us ready to receive the luminous future.
The past must be a spring-board towards the future, not a chain preventing us from advancing. As I said — all depends on the attitude towards the past.
Patience: To know how to wait is to put Time on your side.
The Lord loves you and you are sure to reach your goal. But you must be PATIENT. Indeed, True love is always patient. It is only desire that is impatient.
Path: But few are they who tread the sunlit path.
The mountain path leads always in two directions, upward and downward — all depends on what we put behind us.
Life is a perpetual choice between truth and falsehood, light and darkness, progress and regression, the ascent towards the heights or a fall into the abyss. It is for each one to choose freely.
The road to the Divine: always long, often dry in appearance, but always abundant in its results. On the spiritual path each step forward is a conquest and the result of a fight.
Peace: It is in an unshakable peace that can be found the true power. It is by a quiet, strong and persistent peace that the true victories can be won. Peace is the very basis of all the siddhi in the Yoga.
Peace: Shanti; Calm: Sthirata; Quiet: Achanchalata; Silence: Nischala Nirabata;
Quiet: A Condition in which there is no restlessness or disturbance.
Calm: A still unmoved condition which no disturbance can affect. Less negative condition.
Peace: It carries with it a sense of settled and harmonious rest and deliverance. A deep quietude where no disturbance can come. More Positive condition. Nowhere will you be able to find peace unless you have peace in your heart.
Silence: A state in which either there is no movement of the mind or vital or else a great stillness which no surface movement can pierce or alert.
Peaceful: When one allows oneself to be ruled by every passing impulse, one is never peaceful. It is through work and self-mastery that one can find happiness and peace.
Perfection: In each heart, the Divine’s Presence is the promise of future and possible perfections. One man’s perfection still can save the world.
Our aim is not success, but perfection.
To know is good, to live is better, to be, that is perfect.
Perfection is not a summit, it is not an extreme. There is no extreme: whatsoever you do, there is always the possibility of something better and exactly this possibility of something better is the very meaning of progress.
Never forget that here it is for the perfection of the work that we are striving, not for the satisfaction of the ego. Let ours be the path of perfection, but not of abandonment. With our own perfection grows in us a generous understanding of others.
Permanent: Nothing is permanent in the terrestrial being except the Psychic.
Philosophers: Nothing tires me more than the philosophers.
Photographs: ….in every picture, photograph, there is an accumulation, a small accumulation representative of the force of the person whose picture it is, of his nature and, if he has powers, of his powers.
Positions: I do not give positions to the sadhaks — I give them work; and to all I give an equal opportunity. It is those who prove to be most capable and most sincere, honest and faithful that have the biggest amount of work and the greatest responsibility.
Possibilities: All the world’s possibilities in man are waiting as the tree waits in its seed.
Power: True power is always quiet. Restlessness, agitation, impatience are the sure signs of weakness and imperfection.
Practice: A drop of practice is better than an ocean of theories, advises, and good resolutions. A little sincere and regular practice is worth more than a lot of short-lived resolutions. It is not enough to know, you must practise. It is not enough to pretend, you must be.
Praise: Let not thy virtues be such as men praise or reward, but such as make for thy perfection and God in thy nature demands of thee.
Prayer: All sincere prayers are granted, every call is answered.
We pray that the Divine should teach us ever more, enlighten us more and more, dispel our ignorance, illumine our minds.
However, there is one thing I must let you know; it is by a constant repetition that a prayer or a mantra acquires its power of realisation, it is by the vibration of the right sound that the power becomes effective. Of course, if the right feeling is there also, the effectivity still increases.
Presence: An unseen Presence moulds the oblivious clay.
Concentrate more constantly on the Divine Presence and the protection will be more spontaneous.
Problems: Do not worry. Do not be concerned about your own self, your progress and realisation, nor about others. I am here, look at me, gaze into me, enter into me wholly, merge into my being, lose yourself into my love, with your love. You will see all problems solved, everything done. Forget everything, forget the world. Remember me alone, be one with me, with my love.
Hand over your problems to the Divine and he will pull you out of all difficulties.
Profit: If you give the money to the Mother, that can’t be commercial; commerce implies personal profit, and here your profit is only spiritual.
Progress: This is why we are on earth. Progress is youth; at a hundred years of age one can be young.
Let us keep flaming in our heart the fire of progress. One has always something to learn and a progress to make, and in each circumstance we can find the occasion of learning the lesson and making the progress.
It is not the number of years you have lived that makes you old. You become old when you stop progressing.
Sincerity, humility, perseverance and an insatiable thirst for progress are essential for a happy and fruitful life, and above all, to be convinced that the possibility of progress is limitless. Progress is youth; one can be young at a hundred years.
Property: No more personal property.
What could be called the “reign of money” is drawing to a close. But the transition period between the arrangement there has been in the world until now and the one there is going to be (in a few hundred years, say), that period is going to be very difficult.
Protection: The best protection is an unshakable faith in the Divine Grace.
Let us give ourselves entirely and sincerely to the Divine and we shall enjoy His protection. When you think of the Lord’s Peace it acts as a call, and the more you think of it the “more you surround yourself with it, which is the most powerful protection.
Concentrate more constantly on the Divine Presence and the protection will be more spontaneous. Love and blessings.
Psychic Being: The psychic is what may be called “the Divine within the reach of man”.
It 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.
There is only one solution, to find your psychic being and once it is found, to cling to it desperately, to let it guide you step by step whatever be the obstacles. That is the only solution. A psychic fire within must be lit, into which all is thrown with Divine name upon it.
Psychic Work: Psychic work: a work governed by harmony.
Purity: It is to accept no other influence but only the influence of the Divine.
It means freedom from soil and mixture. Thinking too much about one’s impurities does not help. It is better to keep the thought fixed on the purity, light and peace that one wants to acquire.
Purification: The aspiration must be for entire purification, especially
(1) purification from sex, so that no sex imaginations may enter and the sex impulse may cease,
(2) purification from desires and demands,
(3) purification from depression which is the result of disappointed desires.
No protection, no Grace can save those who refuse the indispensable
purification.
Purpose: There is a purpose in each stumble and fall.
Reactions: All human reactions, even the highest, the purest, the noblest, it all seemed so childish!…that all our emotions, our reactions, all that absolutely looks like childishness. But the body understands very well (since this Consciousness came it has begun to understand lots of things), it understands that all that [emotions, reactions] was a necessary path to prepare receptive instruments.
Reading: It is preferable to read regularly, a little every day, and at a fixed hour if possible; this facilitates the brain-receptivity. Read a little at a time, read again and again until you have understood.
Reason: Not by reason was creation made, and not by reason can truth be seen.
Refinement: Gradually grossness is eliminated from the being.
Realisation: That is what we aspire for and for which we shall strive unceasingly however long it may take.
Receptivity: Receptivity is the capacity of admitting and retaining the Divine Workings. To be receptive is to feel the urge to give and the joy of giving to the Divine’s Work all one has, all one is, all one does. Lack of receptivity drives us away from the Divine.
Relation with the Divine: To give oneself to the Divine, to receive and be the Divine, to transmit and spread forth the Divine: these are the three simultaneous movements which constitute our total relation with the Divine.
Relationship: Human relationships are obviously very unstable. Only relationships with the Divine can be permanent.
Relative: All is relative except the Supreme. The Supreme alone is absolute;
but as the Supreme is at the centre of each being, each being carries in himself his absolute.
Religions: How much hatred and stupidity men succeed in packing up decorously and labelling ‘Religion’!
Religions are based on creeds which are spiritual experiences brought down to a level where they become more easy to grasp, but at the cost of their integral purity and truth. We have entered the age of universal spirituality, of spiritual experience in its initial purity. The time of religions is over.
All religions have saved a number of souls, but none yet has been able to spiritualise mankind.
You must not confuse a religious teaching with a spiritual one. Religious teaching belongs to the past and halts progress. Spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future. It illumines the consciousness and prepares it for the furure realisation. Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives towards a globalTruth. It teaches us to enter into direct relations with the Divine.
Remembrance: The constant remembrance of the Divine is indispensable for transformation.
Resolution: We must gather ourselves in a calm resolution and an unshakable certitude. Let your resolution be integral and constant and little by little your future will be revealed to you.
Rest: The true repose is that of a perfect surrender to the Divine.
The minute one stops going forward, one falls back. The moment one is
satisfied and no longer aspires, one begins to die. Life is movement, it is
effort, it is a march forward, the scaling of a mountain, the climb towards
new revelations, towards future realisations. Nothing is more dangerous than
wanting to rest. It is in action, in effort, in the march forward that repose
must be found, the true repose of complete trust in the divine Grace, of the
absence of desires, of victory over egoism.
There is no rest for the embodied soul.
All difficulties are solved by taking rest in the Divine’s arms, for these arms are always opened with love to shelter us. Stride swiftly, for the goal is far, rest not unduly, for thy master is awaiting for thee at the end of the journey.
Rich: You become truly rich when you dispose of your wea lth in the best possible way. The true fortune is to spend in the right way.
Right Attitude: Simple and open, it is without complications. There is a moment when the right attitude comes spontaneously and without effort.
All depends on the intensity of faith and the firmness of the right attitude.
Rise: If you fall to any depth, you can rise to the same height.
God has fallen from the Supreme Consciousness down into the abyss of inconscience: he is rising to the same peak with a new victory.
Rules: I make a habit of doing everything against the rules, otherwise there
would be no point in my being here; the rules could just go on and on!
The rules are very few so that each one can enjoy the freedom needed for his development; but a few things are strictly forbidden; they are (1) politics, (2) smoking, (3) alcoholic drink and (4) sex enjoyment.
Here you must do only what can be done publicly because nothing can remain
hidden.
Sadhana: All service done sincerely to the Divine is sadhana. To become aware of one’s deficiencies is a sign of great progress and the door open on the road to success in sadhana. So rejoice and keep confident- all is well.
Safety: There is only one safety: to cling to the Divine.
In our Love for Him is our safety. Only were safe who kept God in their hearts.
Safeguards: Humility and Sincerity are the best safeguards. Without them each step is a danger; with them the victory is certain.
Salvation: We seek not our personal salvation but the absolute surrender
of our being to the Divine.
Save: He who would save the race must share its pain: He who would save the world must be one with the world.
Secret: All disease is a means towards some new joy of health, all evil and pain a tuning of Nature for some more intense bliss and 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.
Satchitananda: The Supreme is Pure Being, Absolute Existence, sat…
The Supreme is Pure Awareness, Absolute Consciousness, cit…
The Supreme is, finally, Pure Ecstasy, Absolute Bliss, ananda
Savitri: Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, of the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide towards Immortality.
Self: He who has met the Self, renounces self.
The Self is our self-existent being. The Self is being, not a being. By Self is meant the conscious existence, one in all.
Selfishness: SELFISHNESS is to put oneself at the center of the universe and to want everything to exist for one’s own satisfaction.
Selflessness: The first thing one learns on the way is that giving brings much greater joy than taking. Then, gradually, one learns that selflessness is the source of an immutable peace. Later, in this selflessness one finds the Divine, and that is the source of an unending bliss….One day Sri Aurobindo told me that if people knew that and were convinced of it they would all want to do yoga.
Senses: The senses there were outlets of the soul.
Sex: Turn your consciousness to the Supramental Light, and let the supra- mental influence permeate through a pure mind, your sex centre. Then you will obtain mastery over the sex centre.
But no error can be more perilous than to accept the immixture of the sexual desire and some kind of subtle satisfaction of it and look on this as a part of the sadhana. It would be the most effective way to head straight towards spiritual downfall and throw into the atmosphere forces that would block the supramental descent, bringing instead the descent of adverse vital powers to disseminate disturbance and disaster. This deviation must be absolutely thrown away, should it try to occur and expunged from the consciousness, if the Truth is to be brought down and the work is to be done. The pleasure attached to it is
a degradation and not a true form of the divine Ananda.
Shame: People still need death, drama, illness — it’s a shame.
Silence: In absolute silence sleeps an absolute Power. Silence means freedom from thoughts and vital movements — when the whole consciousness is quite still. Silence is akin to what is meant by stillness. It is out of this Silence that the Word which creates the worlds for ever proceeds; for the Word expresses that which is self-hidden in Silence. With words one can at times understand, but only in silence one knows.
ü It is in the silence of your heart that the Divine will speak to you and will guide you and will lead you to your goal. But for that you must have full faith in the Divine Grace and Love.
ü Silence, the birthplace of the Soul. A power of silence in the depths of God.
ü All rose from the silence, all goes back to its hush.
ü Do not take my silence for lack of interest or of love. It is in silence that my action is most powerful. A silence that worships.
ü A deep spiritual calm no touch can sway
ü Upholds the mystery of this Passion-play…
ü In the mind’s silence the Transcendent acts
ü And the hushed heart hears the unuttered Word.
I dwell in the spirit’s calm nothing can move.
Simple: After all, it is very simple, we have only to become what we are in the depths of our being.
Simplicity: There is a great beauty in simplicity. To express Harmony, of all things Simplicity is the best.
Sin: There is no other sin, no other vice than to be far from Thee.
Sin poisons with its vivid flowers of joy
Or leaves a real scar burnt across the soul.
Meanness and selfishness are the only sins that I find it difficult to pardon; yet they alone are almost universal. Therefore these also must not be hated in others, but in ourselves annihilated.
Sincerity: Sincerity is to allow no part of the being to contradict the highest aspiration towards the Divine. Be perfectly sincere and no victory will be denied to you. Sincerity means to accept the Divine influence only and not that of lower forces. Even an atom of sincerity suffices. The power of the realisation is unbearable for those who are insincere. Sincerity is the safeguard, the protection, it is the guide and finally the transforming power.
An uncompromising sincerity is the surest way to spiritual achievement.
Do not pretend — be.
Do not promise — act.
Do not dream — realise.
The complete unification of the whole being around the psychic center is the essential condition to realize a perfect sincerity.
Slavery: No law can liberate women unless they liberate themselves.
What makes them slaves is:
1. Attraction towards the male and his strength,
2. Desire for home life and its security,
3. Attachment to motherhood.
If they get free from these three slaveries, they will truly be the equal of men.
Men also have three slaveries:
(1) Spirit of possession, attachment to power and domination,
(2) Desire for sexual relation with women,
(3) Attachment to the small comforts of married life.
If they get rid of these three slaveries, they can truly become the equal of women.
Sleep: More than a third of our existence is passed in sleep. It is often said that in sleep men’s true nature is revealed.
Smile: Thy smile within my heart makes all my strength.
If you can always smile at life, life also will always smile at you.
Learn to smile always and in all circumstances; to smile at your sorrows as well as your joys, your sufferings as well as your hopes, for in a smile there is a sovereign power of self-mastery.
A God who cannot smile could not have created this humorous universe.
The Mother: What’s divine psychological perfection?
A smile in any circumstance…
Learn to encircle your pain with the golden ring of a smile.
Socialism: Socialism like all political parties belongs to the past and must be surpassed if we want to serve the Truth.
Soul: The soul is immortal and passes from one life and body to another. Soul is timeless. It is beyond Time and Space. A soul that is a spark of God survives.
I contain the whole world in my soul’s embrace. Sri Aurobindo
More and more souls shall enter into light. A soul that is a spark of God survives. Courage and love are the only indispensable virtues; even if all the others are eclipsed or fall asleep, these two will save the soul alive.
ü To house the God’s joy in self our souls were born.
ü To live this mystery our souls came here. I’m the mystery beyond reach of Time.
ü Thy soul has strength and needs no other guide.
ü Our souls are deputed selves of the Supreme.
ü Our spirit tires of being’s surfaces.
ü Remember why thou cam’st:
ü Find out thy soul, recover thy hid self,
ü In silence seek God’s meaning in thy depths.
My soul is in prayer and bows down in love before what it can understand and know of Thee. … the soul is seated within and impervious to the shocks of external events.
The soul wears no disguise, it shows itself as it is and cares nothing for people’s
judgement, because it is the faithful servant of the Divine whose home it is.
Nobleness and generosity are the soul’s ethereal firmament; without them, one looks at an insect in a dungeon.
What the soul sees and has experienced, that it knows; the rest is appearance, prejudice and opinion. The soul — a spark of the Divine, to grow in flame towards the Divine is its true life and its very reason of existence.
Space: Space is himself and Time is only he.
Speak: No one ought to speak of the Divine unless he has had experience of the Divine. Get experience of the Divine, then alone will you have the
right to speak of it.
Speech: The best is to learn to say what is useful in the most exact and true way possible. All my speech is now a tune divine. — Sri Aurobindo (in Savitri)
All sounds, all voices have become Thy voice: Music and thunder and the cry of birds,
Spirit: The Spirit shall look out through Matter’s gaze. The Spirit’s greatness is our timeless source.
Spiritual Suffering: Of all beings man is the most suffering. Animal’s is the physical suffering alone while man has a threefold suffering: (I) physical (adhibhautika), (2) psychological (adhidaivika), (3) spiritual (aidhyatmika) the spiritual suffering is the most painful.
Spirituality: If in man the seed of aspiration is watered with the true spirituality then he will grow into Divinity.
Those who try to lead a spiritual life have always been compared to warriors (there are classic writings on this subject), and one must truly be a fighter — ‘fighter’ is more exact than ‘warrior’ because you wage war against no one: everything wages war against you! Everything… (Mother makes a gesture like an avalanche falling upon her) and with such savage opposition!…
Spiritual Rebirth: For spiritual rebirth means the constant throwing away of our previous associations and circumstances and proceeding to live as if at each virgin moment we were starting life anew… To give you an idea of the final height of spiritual rebirth, I may say that there can be a constant experience of the whole universe actually disappearing at every instant and being at every instant newly created.
Sri Aurobindo & The Mother
‘Mother and I are one but in two bodies. The Mother and myself stand for the same Power in two forms.
There is one force only, the Mother’s force — or, if you like to put it like that, the Mother is Sri Aurobindo’s Force.
Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world: the Supramental. Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness.
Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to the history. Sri Aurobindo is the Future advancing towards its realization.
Since the beginning of earth history, Sri Aurobindo has always presided over the great earthly transformations, under one form or another, one name or another.
Sri Aurobindo does not belong to any one country but to the entire earth. His teaching leads us towards a better future. “I see that you have persisted in giving a biography — is it really necessary or useful? The attempt is bound to be a failure, because neither you nor anyone else knows anything at all of my life; it has not been on the surface for men to see.” — Sri Aurobindo
The Mother’s consciousness and mine are the same, the one Divine Consciousness in two, because that is necessary for the play. Nothing can be done without her knowledge and force, without her consciousness — if anybody really feels her consciousness, he should know that I am there
behind it and if he feels me it is the same with hers.
There is no difference between the Mother’s path and mine; we have and have always had the same path, the path that leads to the supramental change and the divine realisation; not only at the end, but from the beginning they have been the same.
Whatever one gets from the Mother, comes from myself also — there is no difference. So, too, if I give anything, it is by the Mother’s Force that it goes to the sadhak.
Know that the Mother’s light and force are the light and force of the Truth; remain always in contact with the Mother’s light and force, then only can you grow into the divine Truth.
All that he (Sri Aurobindo) has said is perfectly true and remain so. Time and the course of events will prove abundantly. — The Mother
The Mother
She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.
The luminous heart of the Unknown is she,
A power of silence in the depths of God;
She is the Force, the inevitable Word,
The magnet of our difficult ascent,
The Sun from which we kindle all our suns,
The Light that leans from the unrealised Vasts,
The joy that beckons from the impossible,
The Might of all that never yet came down.
I am the Shakti of Sri Aurobindo alone, and the Mother of all my children.
My children are all equally part of my consciousness and of my being. When transformed and realised, all will have an equal right to manifest each one an aspect of myself and Sri Aurobindo.
“Where She presses Her feet, course miraculous streams of an entrancing Ananda!”
The anniversary of my return to Pondicherry, which was the tangible sing of the sure Victory over the adverse forces.
The Mother: It is not as a Guru that I love and bless, it is as the Mother who asks
nothing in return for what she gives.
“I am charged by God to do his mighty work,
Uncaring I serve his will who sent me forth,
Reckless of peril and earthly consequence.
Strength: The true strength is always peaceful. Look life in the face from the soul’s inner strength and become master of circumstances. Concentrate on your work — it is that that gives you strength. Blessings.
Stillness: His spirit’s stillness helped the toiling world.
Suffering: Suffering was lost in her immortal smile.
When Ignorance is, there suffering too must come. All disorder, all suffering is a falsehood. This world of misery and confusion is a world of Falsehood.
Only a change of consciousness and the conquest over falsehood can change the conditions of this world.
Suffering is the ransom paid by the Spirit for Nature’s Ignorance.
Superman: …the time has come when some beings among the élite of humanity, who fulfill the conditions necessary for spiritualisation, will be able to transform their bodies with the help of the supramental Force, Consciousness and Light, so as no longer to be animal-men but become supermen.
Supermind: Two irrefutable signs prove that one is in relation with the Supermind:
1. A perfect and constant equality.
2. An absolute certainty in knowledge.
To be perfect, the equality must be invariable and spontaneous, effortless, towards all circumstances, all happenings, all contacts, material or psychological, irrespective of their character and impact.
The absolute and indisputable certainty of an infallible knowledge through identity.
Supramental: Supramental Power also protects the new race of the Earth from other earthly elements. It is not an artificial power, external and false, but the true strength, the triumphant Will.
It is only when the Supramental manifests in the body-mind that its presence can be permanent.
In these new worlds projected he became
A portion of the universal gaze,
A station of the all-inhabiting light,
A ripple on a single sea of peace.
The supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. We will explore.
Supramental eye: The supramental eye can see a hundred meeting and diverging motions in one glance and envelop in the largeness of its harmonious vision of Truth all that to our minds is clash and opposition and collision and interlocked strife of numberless contending truths and powers. Truth to the supramental sight is at once single and infinite and the complexities of its play serve to bring out with an abundant ease the rich significance of the Eternal’s many-sided oneness.
Supramental Time: Wherein past, present and future coexist in a global consciousness.
Supreme: All those imperative “needs” I called the seeds of evolution are the levers or springboards to make man realize that the ONE AND ONLY, the one and only absolute is the Supreme; the one and only permanence is the Supreme; the one and only security is the Supreme; the one and only immortality is the Supreme. That the only purpose of manifestation is to lead YOU THERE.
This transfiguration is earth’s due to heaven: A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme: His nature we must put on as he put ours;
ONE THING sure and unfailing: the Supreme; all the rest comes and goes, it stays, then disappears. Supreme: A Truth supreme has forced the world to be.
Surrender: Surrender is giving oneself to the Divine — to give everything one is or has to the Divine and regard nothing as one’s own, to obey only the Divine Will and no other, to live for the Divine and not for the ego. Our surrender must be to the Divine Being through the Divine Mother.
The path is long, but self-surrender makes it short; the way is difficult, but perfect trust makes it easy.
A vast surrender was his only strength.
She surrendered to the service of the soul. Surrendered into the great World-Mother’s hands. A surrender of all the parts and all the movements without insistence or claim or desire or demand of any kind.
The Lord is not an all-powerful automaton that the human beings can move by
the push-button of their will — and yet most of those who surrender to God expect that from Him.
True surrender is profoundly happy and joyful because with it comes the sense of the infinite and of the luminous and eternal peace.
Success: A quiet endurance is the sure way to success.
Never forget the goal. Never stop aspiring. Never halt in your progress, and you are sure to succeed.
Sweetness: Sweetness itself becomes powerful when at the service of the Divine.
Tasks: Our tasks are given, we are but instruments. Nothing is all our own that we create.
Teacher: One must have lived what one wants to teach. To speak of the new consciousness, let it penetrate you and reveal its secrets to you. For only then
will you be able to speak of it with competence.
- The teacher must not be a machine for reciting lessons, he must be a psychologist and an observer.
- The attitude of the teacher must be one of a constant will to progress, not only in order to know always better what he wants to teach the students, but above all in order to be a living example to show them what they can become.
- The teacher should be the living example of what he asks the students to become.
- The teacher must be even more hard-working than the student in order to learn how to discern and make the best possible use of different characters.
- The teacher must have higher and higher capacities: discipline, self-control, consecration, psychological understanding, infectious enthusiasm, to awaken in the student the part which is asleep the will to know, the need for progress, self-control, etc.
- The children must be educated in an atmosphere of love and gentleness. No violence, never. No scolding, never.
Thoughts: Banish all thoughts from thee and be God’s void. We are greater than our thoughts.
Thy Torches: Remove from us all egoism, root out all petty vanity, greed and obscurity. May we be all ablaze with Thy Divine Love; make us thy torches in the world.
Time: An awful Silence watches tragic Time. An idiot hour destroys what centuries made, An eternal instant is the cause of years.
A date is fixed in the calendar of the Unknown, He makes the hours pivot around her will. Trivial amusements stimulate and waste. The energy given to him to grow and be. His little hour is spent in little things. I live completely outside time. A sort of non-existent existence. I think a few minutes have elapsed while it’s been a very long time. I am in a hurry. I need all those who love me to understand me.
When one lives in contact with the universal harmony, time passes without leaving any trace.
ü A union of the Real with the unique,
ü A gaze of the Alone from every face,
ü The presence of the Eternal in the hours.
- The time has come for the rule of falsehood to end. In the Truth alone is salvation.
- … now the time of Falsehood is over, this is the Reign of the Supreme.
- The time of religions is over. We have entered the age of universal spirituality, of spiritual experience in its initial purity.
- Now the time has come to make the home itself the abode of God. Not to run about in search of God leaving the home to its fate.
- The age of Capitalism and business is drawing to a close.
- The time has come to rely only on the Divine Will and to let it work FREELY through you.
- Yes, the time of proclamations and revelations has past; now is the time of action.
- I repeat — the time has come at last, not to rely any more on one’s own petty will, to hand over the whole affair to the Divine’s Will and to let It do Its work through you, not only through your mind and feelings, but mainly through the body — and if you do it sincerely, all this body nonsense will disappear and you will be strong and fit for your work.
Time has come: For centuries and centuries humanity has waited for this time. The time has come. We want a race without ego.
Tranquility: It is only in tranquility and peace that one can know what is the best thing to do. The wise are tranquil.
Transcendent: The calm Transcendent bears the world.
Transitory Things: Three transitory things currently caught hold of the humanity: This Consciousness has a faraway indifference for these three “awesome” things in human life: death, food and money. To it, the three are passing inventions which derive from a wholly transitory state that doesn’t correspond to anything very deep.
Transformation: Transformation means that the higher consciousness or nature is brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower. …a change of consciousness radical and complete and of a certain specific kind…to bring about a strong and assured step forward in the spiritual evolution of the being of a greater and higher kind and of a larger sweep and completeness.
Let each suffering pave the way to transformation.
The transformation demands a total and integral consecration. ‘Total’ means VERTICALLY in all the states of being from the most material to the most subtle. ‘Integral’ means HORIZONTALLY in all the various and often contradictory parts that make up the outer being (physical, vital and mental).”
The silent message of transformation till now undeciphered by the mind but imbibed by the Psychic.
Trust: The Grace is infinite for him who sincerely trusts the Grace. Who trusts the Divine never leaves the Loving arms of the Divine — wherever his body may be.
Trustee: All wealth belongs to the Divine and those who hold it are trustees, not possessors. It is with them today, tomorrow it may be elsewhere. All depends on the way they discharge their trust while it is with them, in what spirit, with what consciousness in their use of it, to what purpose.
Troubles: The world will trouble you so long as any part of you belongs to the world. It is only if you belong entirely to the Divine that you can become free.
Truth: Let the Truth be your master and your guide. It is better to state a Truth than to disregard it; but it is much better still to live in than to state it.
Truth does not depend on any external form and shall manifest in spite of all bad will or opposition. The Truth is known only when all is seen.
Supreme Lord, Eternal Truth Let us obey Thee alone and live according to Truth.
There is no need to define truth; if one is sincere, one knows what truth is. He is the eternal Truth that we look in ourselves to discover.
When Mind is still, then Truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence. The Truth shall be the leader of their lives,…the truth is the foundation of real spirituality and courage its soul.
Truth made the world, not a blind Nature-Force. Truth shall be the guide of Nature’s steps. The best way is to find the truth in ourselves — then we shall be able to see the Truth wherever it is.
Understand the Divine: To understand the Divine we must have no more preferences. To understand the Divine one must become the Divine.
Union: Since long it was the habit to govern through division and opposition.
“The time has come to govern through union, mutual understanding and collaboration.” Let nothing of myself left behind in our union mystic and unutterable.
India will be reunited. I see it clearly. — Sri Aurobindo
Unity: Heart feels for heart,
Limb cries for answering limb;
All strives to enforce the unity all is.
Of course, as soon as you go high enough, there’s a unity, a whole, which is so beautiful and without divisions — “Why do men fight?”
Stop thinking that you are of the West and others of the East. All human beings are of the same divine origin and meant to manifest upon earth the unity of this origin.
Victory: The victory is to the most enduring.
Endure and you will triumph. Victory goes to the most enduring. And with the Grace and Divine Love nothing is impossible. My force and love are with you. At the end of the struggle there is a Victory.
The Divine does not want a partial and passing victory. His Victory must be total and everlasting, that is why we have to endure; and wait for the proper time to come. However, with faith and confidence, even the endurance becomes easy.
Each Victory we win over the obscure physical Nature is the promise of a greater one to come. Each victory gained over oneself means new strength to give more victories.
Vital: There are three things in the vital nature which are very great obstacle in the Yoga — there are many others besides but there are of minor importance.
1. Lust.
2. Pride and Vanity — that “I am great sadhak” etc.
3. Ambition for success or greed for money.
Warrior: Make of us the hero warriors we aspire to become. May we fight successfully the great battle of the future that is to be born, against the past that seeks to endure; so that the new things may manifest and we may be ready to receive them.
To follow Sri Aurobindo in the great adventure of his integral Yoga, one needed always to be a warrior; now that he has left us physically, one needs to be a hero.
We: We who are the vessels of a deathless Force.
We are sons of God and must be even as he. We live self-exiled from our heavenlier home. We are chased by a self we cannot now recall. We are greater than our thoughts. We reap the fruit of our forgotten deeds. We seem to live in a fiction of our thoughts. We only see a tripping game of Chance.
We must renew the secret bond in things.
We must search our nature with spiritual fire.
Wealth
I am the God of Wealth, the Strong and Splendid, I am the Master of the thousands and the Regent of the millions, I am the puissant Creator, the full-handed gatherer, the opulent disposer of treasures. All the riches of every kind that are in the earth and on the earth and below it and all the riches that are in the waters are mine by right; I have power over all their plenitudes.
My power is for the Mother; I call all these riches for her, that I may dedicate them to her, that I may lay them at the feet of the Mother of Radiances.
It is to the Divine that all riches belong. It is the Divine who lends them to living beings, and it is to Him that they must naturally return.
Weak: Only the weak are agitated.
Weakness: Sadhak: Remove all weakness from me.
The Mother: Be very sincere and straightforward, tolerate nothing in yourself that you could not show me without fear, and do nothing that you would feel ashamed of doing before me.
Wideness: Be wider than widest horizons, Be loftier than highest Kanchanjunga, Profounder than deepest oceans.
Will: The energy which dictates the action or prevents a wrong action. The will is a part of the consciousness and ought to be in human beings the chief agent in controlling the activities of the nature.
No human will can finally prevail against the Divine’s Will. Let us put ourselves deliberately and exclusively on the side of the Divine, and the Victory is ultimately certain.
To understand is good, but to will is better. A persevering Will surmounts all obstacles. The consciousness’ own attitude is to be constantly nestled in the Divine, even immersed in the Divine: “What You will, what You will, what You will, what You will.” Although God made the world for his delight, An ignorant Power took charge and seemed his Will. And Death’s deep falsity has mastered Life. All grew a play of Chance simulating Fate.
I have never known any will of mine for any major event in the conduct of the world affairs to fail in the end, although it may take a long time for the world-forces to fulfil it.
There is no one for whom it is impossible to realise the Divine. Only, for some it will take many, many lives, whereas there are others who will do it in this very lifetime. It is a question of will. It is for you to choose. But I must say that at the present moment conditions are particularly favourable.
Wise: Mother, how can one become wise? Mother: Read Sri Aurobindo.
Worry: Never worry, do with sincerity all you do and leave the results to the Divine’s care.
Words: More and more, the sense of the uselessness of all one says, especially that. All words are an approximation — an approximation.
The letter kills, the spirit saves.” Without the spirit, the word is only a dead shell; even a mantra is a dead thing, a mere jumble of sounds if it is not enkindled, enlivened with the spirit. The Word that ushers divine experience.
A word, a moment’s act can slay the god.
Once my heart chose and chooses not again.
The word I have spoken can never be erased,
It is written in the record book of God.
Work: I make no difference between work and yoga. Work itself is yoga if it is done in a spirit of dedication and surrender.
I am above the necessity of works, for I have nothing to gain by them; I am the Divine who possess all things and all beings in the world and I am myself beyond the world as well as in it and I do not depend upon anything or anyone in all the three worlds for any object; yet I act.
For the sake of sadhana and for the sake of work, it is always better to work silently. When there is some work to do, the less one speaks of it the better it is. Talk as little as possible. Work as much as you can.
If people could stop speaking of the work as their work, it would put an end to a lot of trouble.
To listen is good but not sufficient, You must understand.
To understand is good but not yet sufficient, You must act!
All Works are Equal in the Eyes of the Spirit.
World: All the world is a movement of the Spirit in itself and mutable and transient in all its formations and appearances.
This world shall be God’s visible garden-house. This world is God fulfilled in outwardness. This world was not built with random bricks of chance. The world is not cut off from Truth and God. The world is other than we now think and see. The world is real but ourselves too small. The world is a spiritual paradox.
The world quivers with a God-light at its core. The world’s senseless beauty mirrors God’s delight.
All the countries live in falsehood. If only one country stood courageously
for truth, the world might be saved.
A world organization is needed. And through whom? It would take at least people with a world consciousness!
The world progresses so rapidly that we must be ready at any moment to overpass what we know in order to know better.
Wrong: Mankind has used powerful weapons to destroy its own powers and enjoyment, wrong indulgence and wrong abstinence. When things go wrong around you, look always within yourself.
Year:
Only those years that are passed uselessly make you grow old. A year spent uselessly is a year during which no progress has been accomplished, no growth in consciousness has been achieved, no further step has been taken towards perfection. Consecrate your life to the realisation of something higher and broader than yourself and you will never feel the weight of the passing years.
Yoga: Yoga is with union. Yoga is nothing but practical psychology.
From the standpoint of Yoga it is not so much what you do but how you do it that matters most.
Yoga of Self Perfection: Four things are needed for Yoga of Self Perfection:
1. Equality
2. Peace
3. A spiritual ease in all circumstances
4. The joy and laughter of the soul
You: The Divine never withdraws from you; it is you who move away from the Divine and imagine the contrary, as the earth might think it is the sun that is moving and not its own self.
Wherever you see hope, faith, courage, trust and tranquillity, there you will see Me.
Young: Remain young. Never stop striving towards perfection.
As soon as you feel you have done what you had to do, as soon as
you think you know what you ought to know, as soon as you want to sit and enjoy the results of your effort, with the feeling you have worked enough in life, then at once you become old and begin to decline. When, on the contrary, you are convinced that what you know is nothing compared to all that remains to be known, when you feel that what you have done is just the starting point of what remains to be done, when you see the future like an attractive sun shining with innumerable possibilities yet to be achieved, then you are young, howsoever many are the years you have passed upon earth, young and rich with all the realisations of tomorrow. And if you do not want your body to fail you, avoid wasting your energies in useless agitation. Whatever you do, do it in a quiet and composed poise. In peace and silence is the greatest strength.
12 Attributes:
1) Sincerity, 2) Humility, 3) Gratitude, 4) Perseverance, 5) Aspiration, 6) Receptivity, 7) Progress, 8) Courage
9) Goodness, 10) Generosity, 11) Equanimity, 12) Peace
Note: The first eight concern the attitude towards the Divine, and the last four towards humanity.
12 Qualities of The Mother
1. Sincerity
To be sincere is to be pure. As Sri Aurobindo tells us, ‘Desire nothing but the purity, force, light, wideness, calm, Ananda of the Divine Consciousness, and its insistence to transform and perfect your mind, life and body.’
Mother, you have written : “Sincerity is the key to the divine gates.” What does that mean? It is a literary image, my child, it is an imaged, figurative, literary way of expressing the fact that with sincerity one can attain everything, even the Divine. If one wants to open a door, a key is necessary, isn’t it? Well, for the door separating you from the Divine, sincerity works as a key and opens the door and shows you in, that’s all.
2. Humility
True humility is humility before the Divine. It is a precise, exact, living sense that one is nothing, one can do nothing, understand nothing without the Divine…Even if one is exceptionally intelligent and capable, this is nothing in comparison with the Divine Consciousness.
3. Gratitude:
Gratitude: It is you who open all the closed doors and allow the saving Grace to enter. There is nothing which gives you a joy equal to that of gratitude. One hears a bird sing, sees a lovely flower, looks at a little child, observes an act of generosity, reads a beautiful sentence, looks at a setting sun — no matter what — suddenly, this kind of emotion comes upon you so deep, so intense, that the world manifests the Divine, that there is something behind the world which is the Divine.
4. Perseverance: The decision to go to the very end.
The road of yoga is long. Whatever method is used, persistence and perseverance are essential. A yoga like this needs patience, because it means a change, both of the radical means and of each part and detail of our nature.
5. Aspiration
Aspiration is almost always an expression of the psychic being — the
part of us that’s organized around the divine center, the small divine flame deep within human beings. One must have a fixed and unfailing aspiration, vigilant and constant — an aspiration of the entire being — an aspiration that takes hold of you completely, an aspiration to unite with the Divine… to give oneself totally to the Divine, not to live outside the Divine Consciousness, so that the Divine may be all in all.
6. Receptivity
This means…to receive the Divine Force…and allow it to work, guiding one’s sight, will and action. There must be a complete and never-failing assent, a willingness to let the Divine Power do with us whatever is needed for the work that has to be done.
7. Progress: This is why we are on earth.
The very first condition of inner progress is to recognise whatever is or has been a wrong movement in any part of our nature — wrong idea, wrong feeling, wrong speech, wrong action — and by wrong is meant what departs from the truth, from the higher Consciousness and the higher Self, from the way of the Divine. Once recognised, it is offered to the Divine for the Light and Grace to descend and substitute for it the right movement of the true Consciousness.
8. Courage:
As Sri Aurobindo says: ‘The forces that stand in the way of the sadhana — the spiritual discipline — are the forces of the lower mental, vital and physical nature. Behind them are the adverse powers of the mental, vital and physical worlds…. All I say is, keep the mantra of success, the determination of victory, the fixed resolve… and go bravely on with your yoga…. The inner doors will open.’
9. Goodness
One should not be good with an interested motive…. One should not be good so that others may be good to you. It is always the same lesson: One must do as well as one can, the best one can, but without expecting a result. One must be good for the love of goodness.
10.Generosity
It is to give unstintingly, selflessly, without bargaining or any expectation. It is to give for the joy of giving. It is an opportunity that the Divine gives us for the liberation of the ego and the servitude to self-indulgence, replacing it by the joy of participation in the divine work upon earth, for a true and beautiful and harmonious equipment and ordering of a new, divinised mental, vital and physical existence in whatever way the Divine Mother herself decides in her creative vision.
11.Equality
Oh, let Light be poured on all earth and Peace inhabit every heart.
The very first necessity for spiritual perfection is a perfect equality…. The perfect equality of our Spirit and nature is a means by which we can move back from the troubled and ignorant outer consciousness into the inner kingdom of heaven and possess the Spirit’s eternal kingdoms of greatness, joy and peace….
12.Peace
In the liberation of the soul from the Ignorance, the very first foundation is peace, calm, the silence and quietude of the Eternal and Infinite. A consummate power and greater formation of the spiritual ascension takes up this peace of liberation into the bliss of a perfect experience and realisation of the eternal beatitude, the bliss of the Eternal and the Infinite.
Peace: To want what You want always and in every circumstance is the only way to enjoy an unshakable peace.
