Transformation of the Mind (19.01.2014) Transformation of the Mind   Its [the intellect's] function is to reason from the perceptions of the mind and senses, to form conclusions and to put things in logical relation with each other. A well-trained intellect is a good preparation of the mind for greater knowledge, but it cannot itself give the yogic knowledge or know the Divine – it can only have ideas about the Divine, but having ideas is not knowledge. In the course of the sadhana intellect

Birth into the Spirit (08.01.2014) Evolution is not finished; reason is not the last word nor the reasoning animal the supreme figure of Nature. As man emerged out of the animal, so out of man the superman emerges.   Sri Aurobindo   (Thoughts and Aphorisms – 162)   Birth into the Spirit   In the individual existence, that [the spirit] is what makes all the difference; so long as one just speaks of the spirit and it is something one has read about, whose existence one

The Ordinary Life and the True Soul (05.01.2014) The Ordinary Life and the True Soul   5th January 2014        The ordinary life is a round of various desires and greeds. As long as one is preoccupied with them, there can be no lasting progress. Away out of the round must be discovered. Take, as an instance, that commonest preoccupation of ordinary life—the constant thinking by people of what they will eat and when they will eat and whether they are eating enough. To conquer the greed for food an equanimity in the being must be developed such that you are perfectly indifferent towards food. If food is given you, you eat it; if not,

The Planes or Worlds of Consciousness (02-06-13) The Planes or Worlds of Consciousness The System of Planes or Worlds What we speak of are planes of consciousness—the physical is the lowest, above it the ordinary vital, above it the emotional (heart), above it the mental, above the mental are other planes. There is a psychic plane behind the emotional which influences all the others. * The physical is not the only world; there are others that we become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through influences and contacts, through imagination, intuition and vision. There are worlds of a larger subtler life than ours, vital worlds; worlds in which Mind builds its

Psychic Education and Spiritual Education (01-09-13) Psychic Education and Spiritual Education The starting-point is to seek in yourself that which is independent of the body and the circumstances of life, which is not born of the mental formation that you have been given, the language you speak, the habits and customs of the environment in which you live, the country where you are born or the age to which you belong. You must find, in the depths of your being, that which carries in it a sense of universality, limitless expansion, unbroken continuity. Then you decentralise, extend and widen yourself; you begin to live in all things and in all beings; the barriers separating individuals fro

Insults: Remain Immobile (10.07.13) It is well not to be too loosely playful in one’s games or too grimly serious in one’s life and works. We seek in both a playful freedom and a serious order. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms - 380) Insults: Remain Immobile Suppose someone insults you; if in the face of these insults, you can remain immobile (not only outwardly, I mean integrally), without being shaken or touched in any way: you are there like a force against which one can do nothing and you do not reply, you do not make a gesture, you do not say a word, all the insults thrown at you leave you absolutely untouched, within and without; you can keep your heart-beats absolutely quiet,

Make Your Consciousness Vast – I (30-10-13) The path of works is in a way the most difficult side of God's triune causeway; yet is it not also, in this material world at least, the easiest, widest and most delightful? For at every moment we clash against God the worker and grow into His being by a thousand divine touches. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms – 372) Make Your Consciousness Vast – I     Q: Sweet Mother, how can we make our consciousness vast? A: Vast? Ah, there are many ways of doing this. The easiest way is to identify yourself with something vast. For instance, when you feel that you are shut up in a completely narrow and limited thought, will, conscious

True Surrender Enlarges You- (9thJanuary 2013) Knowledge is a child with its achievements; for when it has found out something, it runs about the streets whooping and shouting; Wisdom conceals hers for a long time in a thoughtful and mighty silence. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-111) True Surrender Enlarges You By surrender we mean…… a spontaneous self- giving, a giving of all your self to the Divine, to a greater Consciousness of which you are a part. Surrender will not diminish, but increase; it will not lessen or weaken or destroy your personality, it will fortify and aggrandise it. Surrender means a free total giving with all the delight of the giving; there is no sense of s

Works and Sacrifice (04.08.13) Works and Sacrifice THE YOGA of the intelligent will and its culmination in the Brahmic status, which occupies all the close of the second chapter, contains the seed of much of the teaching of the Gita, — its doctrine of desireless works, of equality, of the rejection of outward renunciation, of devotion to the Divine; but as yet all this is slight and obscure. What is most strongly emphasised as yet is the withdrawal of the will from the ordinary motive of human activities, desire, from man’s normal temperament of the sense-seeking thought and will with its passions and ignorance, and from its customary habit of troubled many branching ideas and wishes to the

The Illusion of Action (05-06-13) If you only imitate visible Nature, you will perpetrate either a corpse, a dead sketch or a monstrosity; Truth lives in that which goes behind & beyond the visible & sensible. (Thoughts and Aphorisms - 144)   The Illusion of Action Agitation, haste, restlessness lead nowhere. It is foam on the sea; it is a great fuss that stops with itself. Men have a feeling that if they are not all the time running about and bursting into fits of feverish activity, they are doing nothing. It is an illusion to think that all these so-called movements change things. It is merely taking a cup and beating the water in it; the water is moved about, but it is not changed