Section II: On Yoga The Old Yoga and the New Goal (An excerpt from a personal letter of Sri Aurobindo to his brother, Barin. Original in Bengali, written around 1920.) What I started with, what Lele gave me, what I did in jail — all that was a searching for the path, a circling around looking here and there, touching, taking up, handling, testing this and that of all the old partial yogas, getting a more or less complete experience of one and then going off in pursuit of another. Afterwards, when I came to Pondicherry, this unsteady condition ceased. The indwelling Guru of the world indicated my path to me completely, its full theory...

The Miracle of Birth I saw my soul a traveller through Time; From life to life the cosmic ways it trod, Obscure in the depths and on the heights sublime, Evolving from the worm into the god. A spark of the eternal Fire, it came To build a house in Matter for the Unborn. The inconscient sunless Night received the flame, In the brute seed of things dumb and forlorn Life stirred and Thought outlined a gleaming shape Till on the stark inanimate earth could move, Born to somnambulist Nature in her sleep, A thinking creature who can hope and love. Still by slow steps the miracle goes on, The Immortal's gra

Arise, Transcend thyself, Become Thyself This is thy work and the aim of thy being and that for which thou art here, to become the divine superman and a perfect vessel of the Godhead. All else that thou hast to do, is only a making thyself ready or a joy by the way or a fall from thy purpose. But the goal is this and the purpose is this and not in power of the way and the joy by the way but in the joy of the goal is the greatness and the delight of thy being. The joy of the way is because that which is drawing thee is also with thee on thy path and the power to climb was given thee that thou mightest mount to thy own summits. If thou h

-04_Key-word of the Earth^s Riddle.htm Key-word of the Earth's Riddle The involution of a superconscient Spirit in inconscient Matter is the secret cause of this visible and apparent world. The key-word of the earth's riddle is the gradual evolution of a hidden illimitable consciousness and power out of the seemingly inert yet furiously driven force of insensible Nature. Earth-life is one self-chosen habitation of a great Divinity and his aeonic will is to change it from a blind prison into his splendid mansion and high heaven-reaching temple. * Evolution is nothing but the progressive unfolding of Spirit out of the density of material consciousness and the gradual self-revelation

Section III: (On Sociology) Sri Aurobindo on Religion The spiritual life (adhyātma-jīvana), the religious life {dharma-jīvana) and the ordinary human life of which morality is a part are three quite different things and one must know which one desires and not confuse the three together. The ordinary life is that of the average human consciousness separated from its own true self and from the Divine and led by the common habits of the mind, life and body which are the laws of the Ignorance. The religious life is a movement of the same ignorant human consciousness, turning or trying to turn away from the earth towards the Divine, but as yet without knowle

The Integral Yoga What is the integral Yoga? It is the way of a complete God-realisation, a complete Self-realisation, a complete fulfilment of our being and consciousness, a complete transformation of our nature — and this implies a complete perfection of life here and not only a return to an eternal perfection elsewhere. This is the object, but in the method also there is the same integrality, for the entirety of the object cannot be accomplished without an entirety in the method, a complete turning, opening, self-giving of our being and nature in all its parts, ways, movements to that which we realise. Our mind, will, heart, life, body, our

Pre-Content Words of the Mother: There is an ascending evolution in nature which goes from the stone to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from the animal to man. Because man is, for the moment, the last rung at the summit of the ascending evolution, he considers himself as the final stage in this ascension and believes there can be nothing on earth superior to him. In that he is mistaken. In his physical nature he is yet almost wholly an animal, a thinking and speaking animal, but still an animal in his material habits and instincts. Undoubtedly, nature cannot be satisfied with such an imperfect result; she endeavours to bring out

  Sri Aurobindo's Message Matter shall reveal the Spirit's face. — Sri Aurobindo   CONTENTS Words of Sri Aurobindo   Section I (On Creation)   Pre-Content Existence is not an illusion The Miracle of Birth Key-word of the Earth's Riddle  Next Approaching Step of the Earth's Evolution Destiny of Our Troubled Human Existence  Arise, Transcend thyself, Become Thyself    Section II (On Yoga) The Old Yoga and the New Goal  The I

How Society Should Regard the Individual The true and full spiritual aim in society will regard man not as a mind, a life and a body, but as a soul incarnated for a divine fulfilment upon earth, not only in heavens beyond, which after all it need not have left if it had no divine business here in the world of physical, vital and mental nature. It will therefore regard the life, mind and body neither as ends in themselves, sufficient for their own satisfaction, nor as mortal members full of disease which have only to be dropped off for the rescued spirit to flee away into its own pure regions, but as first instruments of the soul, the yet im