THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD I The world is the infinite self-formation of a Spiritual Reality on different levels of itself, covering over covering and sheath within sheath, within and within, over and over. It is not a static formation; it is an infinitely flowing movement all through, from within outward and from without inward. The originating Reality resides within the ultimate ether in the inmost centre of its self-formations, as in a cave of secrecy. Knowing it, we attain to the Highest. Knowing it, we know all there is to know. Knowing it, we reach the fulfilment of all desires "along wit

THE SANKHYA SYSTEM THE SANKHYA SYSTEM 'Darsanas'1 is the name by which systems of philosophy were known in ancient India; 'Mata', 'Tantra', 'Siddhanta', etc, come later. The name is significant. It implied that what was central to these systems was based upon vision, a direct perception of the truths of existence caught in the depths of our being. There was abstract reasoning and theoretical speculation also, but these helped to grow a body to the soul which was the inner seeing. But we must note the distinguishing character of the Indian attitude to the mode of apprehending truth. It is not confined, as in certain revealed religions, to a particular oc

SRI AUROBINDO SRI AUROBINDO We hail Sri Aurobindo as the Recoverer and Vivifier of the submerged Soul of India. For, for nearly a thousand years, it has been just stirring, with occasional spurts towards recovery, in a state of death-in-life. The gods, according to a Vedic myth, seek out Agni who had gone into hiding, fleeing in fear from the toil of the invocation and the eternal tramping between gods and men; and they tell him, so goes the story, "Come forth out of the darkness! Man, desirous of the gods, hankers after worship and sacrifice and is waiting all ready. We shall make your life youthful and unaging, so that when yoked to the work of the sacrifi

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE VEDA SRI AUROBINDO AND THE VEDA It was casually that Sri Aurobindo looked into the Veda to see what warrant there was for certain present-day ethnical theories as regards the Aryan-Dravidian classification of races; of real warrant there was none to be found; but he discovered a world of the highest spiritual splendour, perhaps only once equalled, and then focused into a more perfect luminosity, in the long millenniums of man's history. It is a world unique in its spiritual effort and achievement; unique in the external forms it gave to its aspiration and adoration; unique too, and almost alien to us, i

SRI AUROBINDO'S "THE LIFE DIVINE" A BRIEF STUDY AND OTHER ESSAYS SRI AUROBINDO'S THE LIFE DIVINE A BRIEF STUDY AND OTHER ESSAYS VELLURY CHANDRASEKHARAM © Velury Chandrasekharam 1964 Printed and published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry, India January 1973 SRI AUROBINDO Blessed indeed am I having seen the fathomless ocean, Blessed having beheld the infinite sky, Wonderfully blessed to have sat At the lotuses of Your feet, O Aurobindo! A marvellous guest are You descended on our clay, Leaving behind some radiant orb

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE SYMBOL OF INDIA SRI AUROBINDO AND THE SYMBOL OF INDIA Among flowers, which flower would you choose as the symbol of our country? Think a little and say. The symbol of a country is the symbol of its nature and individual characteristics. A country is not the land, nor its people either. A country is an idea. It is the embodiment of an idea. We do not know when was born the idea which is the inmost soul of our country. It was only after the birth of the idea that the self-knowledge of the country was born. Growth and decay, changes and revolutions may occur in the body of a country, in the

SRI AUROBINDO'S "THE LIFE DIVINE" A BRIEF STUDY Section One* "World-existence is the ecstatic dance of Shiva which multiplies the body of the God numberlessly to the view: it eaves that white existence precisely where and what it was, ever is and ever will be; its sole absolute object is the joy of the dancing." This is the gist of the knowledge enshrined in this great work. But this, it may be objected, is mystic rapture or high poetic conception, not safe philosophy; for we now seem to be taking our idea of philosophy from what it has been in modern times in the West.