Different Methods of Writing   What is the origin of the different methods of writing, —from right to left, from left to right or, like the Chinese, vertically?   The question is one of great interest but impossible to solve definitely for lack of substantial data All one can do is to speculate on the most probable and satisfying explanation. In the first place, it is evident that these differences are no mere accident nor the result of some trivial and local cause; for they coincide with great cultural divisions of humanity belonging to prehistoric times It is the races called Aryan from their comm

Fate and Free-Will   A QUESTION which has hitherto divided human thought and received no final solution, is the freedom of the human being in his relation to the Power intelligent or unintelligent that rules the world We strive for freedom in our human relations, to freedom we move as our goal, and every fresh step in our human progress is a further approximation to our ideal But are we free in ourselves? We seem to be free, to do that which we choose and not that which is chosen for us; but it is possible that the freedom may be illusory and our apparent freedom may be a real and iron bondage We may be bound by predestination, the will of a Supr

Other Writings from the Arya     The Question of the Month     The Needed Synthesis   What is the Synthesis needed at the present time?   Undoubtedly, that of man himself The harmony of his faculties is the condition of his peace, their mutual understanding and helpfulness the means of his perfection At war, they distract the kingdom of his being; the victory of one at the expense of another maims his self-fulfilment. The peculiar character of our age is the divorce that has been pronounced between reason and faith, the logical mind and the intuitive heart At first, the declaration of

Conservation and Progress   MANKIND thinks naturally in extremes or else reconciles by a patchwork and compromise Whether he makes a fetish of moderation or surrenders himself to the enthusiasm of the single idea, the human being misses always truth of vision and the right pitch of action because instead of seeing, feeling and becoming in obedience to his nature like other animate existences he tries always to measure things by a standard he has set up in his intelligence But it is the character of his intelligence that it finds it an easy task to distinguish and separate but is clumsy in combining When it combines, it tends to artificialise an

On Ideals and Progress     On Ideals   IDEALS are truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a higher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation To the pragmatical intellect which takes its stand upon the ever-changing present, ideals are not truths, not realities, they are at most potentialities of future truth and only become real when they are visible in the external fact as work of force accomplished But to the mind which is able to draw back from the flux of force in the material universe, to the consciousness which is not impr

' ' by Sri Aurobindo - Page1 of 50 APPENDIX II   A Clarification   In 1935, Sri Aurobindo was asked: "In `Rebirth and Karma', second chapter,1 I find that it is the `mental being' which is put forth from life to life —that it is the reincarnating soul But would not the mental being be a part of the personality —the mental, nervous and physical composite —which in the popular conception is the thing that is carried over or which takes a new body in the next life? And the `Self' here is quite different from the `mental being'    Is the `mental being' then the same thing as the `psychic being' which is carried over to the next

The Terrestrial Law   A CONSIDERATION of the lines of Karma ought certainly to begin with a study of the action of the world as it is, as a whole, however contrary it may be to the rule or to the desire of our moral or our intellectual reason, and to see if we cannot find in its own facts its own explanation If the actual truth of the world breaks out from the too rigid cadres our moral sense or our intelligence would like to see imposed on the freely or the inevitably self-determining movement of the Infinite, on the immeasurable largeness of his being or the mighty complexities of his will, it is very likely that that is because our moral sen

Thoughts and Glimpses     Aphorisms   THE GOAL   When we have passed beyond knowings, then we shall have Knowledge Reason was the helper; Reason is the bar   When we have passed beyond willings, then we shall have Power Effort was the helper; Effort is the bar   When we have passed beyond enjoyings, then we shall have Bliss Desire was the helper; Desire is the bar   When we have passed beyond individualising, then we shall be real Persons Ego was the helper; Ego is the bar   When we have passed beyond humanity, then we shall be the

Our Ideal   WE BELIEVE in the constant progression of humanity and we hold that that progression is the working out of a Thought in Life which sometimes manifests itself on the surface and sometimes sinks below and works behind the mask of external forces and interests When there is this lapse below the surface, humanity has its periods of apparent retrogression or tardy evolution, its long hours of darkness or twilight during which the secret Thought behind works out one of its phases by the pressure mainly of economic, political and personal interests ignorant of any deeper aim within When the Thought returns to the surface, humanity has its periods of

'Essays in Philosophy and Yoga' by Sri Aurobindo - Page1 of 50 Materialism   MANY hard things have been said about materialism by those who have preferred to look at life from above rather than below or who claim to live in the more luminous atmosphere of the idealistic mind or ether of the spiritual existence Materialism has been credited with the creation of great evils, viewed even as the arch-image of a detestable transformation or the misleader guiding mankind to an appalling catastrophe Those whose temperament and imagination dally lovingly with an idealised past, accuse it for the cultural, social, political changes which they abhor, regarding them as a disturbanc