III CONSCIOUSNESS I spoke of consciousness and dimensions of consciousness. What then is consciousness itself? Well, we may begin by knowing what it is not, what is not consciousness. Not consciousness means the absence of consciousness, otherwise unconsciousness. You are conscious, conscious of things when you are aware, aware of their presence; when you are not aware, when you do not perceive, you are unconscious, you do not have consciousness. It is the difference between being asleep and being awake. When you are asleep things are lost, you become unconscious of them; when you are awake, things reappear and you are conscious of them. The difference is analogous t

Section Two VIII CONSCIOUSNESS AS FREEDOM Consciousness is liberty, unconsciousness is slavery. When you are unconscious you are a prey to all kinds of forces and beings outside yourself and over which you have no control. You are a plaything in the hands of any power or influence that seeks to possess you and when you are in such a state it is the undesirable powers that seek and secure hospitality in you. It is only when you become conscious that you begin to react to the outside forces that try to control you or utilise you. In the lower creation it is always a play of divergent forces and the individual being is only a field, a

THE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO PART TEN SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY First Edition: 1969 January 13, 1969 © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1969 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA 1969

Series Two I HOW TO READ SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER Why do we read the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother? And if we read them, how to read them? Do we read for the sake of study? to know things? to acquire knowledge? That is a secondary aspect, a profit gained by the way. The real purpose of coming in contact with the words of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is to become conscious, to acquire consciousness, to be more and more conscious, increase more and more the consciousness. To understand, that is to say, to seize by the mind, to grasp intellectually the writings of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is rather difficult. The easier, th

Section Three XI BEYOND LOVE AND HATE The Mother says Love and Hate are at bottom the same thing. At the centre there is the same substance in both, it is the obverse and reverse of the same stuff. It is a vibration, it is a unique vibration, a vibration of extreme intensity, of extreme intimacy. At the centre there is this one single movement although at the periphery it becomes different, even contradictory. As the movement starts from the centre, and proceeds outward it differentiates itself, becomes more and more different, contrary, even contradictory to what it was at its origin. Hatred with all its most ugly features appears in the pl

Section Five XIX PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS OF THE MOTHER (I) The 'Prayers and Meditations of the Mother'. It is Life Divine in song, it is Life Divine set to music—made sweet and lovely, near and dear to us—a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. To some the ideal has appeared aloof and afar, cold and forbidding. The ascent is difficult involving immense pains and tiresome efforts. It is meant for the high-souled ascetic, not for the weak earth-bound mortals. But here in the voice of the Mother we hear not the call for a hazardous climb to the bare cold wind-swept peak of the Himalayas but a warm invitation for

VII THE MYSTERY OF THE FIVE SENSES The senses are the doors opening out on the external world for the consciousness to act and range abroad. That is the usual outward movement which is generally so much condemned by spiritual seekers. The doors and windows of the senses, whatever they are, all openings should be closed, shut up, hermetically sealed. One should then return within away from them, if one is to come into contact with the true consciousness, the true reality. Even the Gita says, the conscious being is seated in tranquility within, closing all the nine gates of the city, himself doing nothing nor causing anything to be done. Well,

THE AUTHOR This Part of Nolini Kanta Gupta's The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo series consisting of his most recent (1968) talks given to the members of the Ashram, is specially brought out to commemorate his eightieth birthday, 13 January 1969. Dreamer and revolutionary, linguist, scholar, critic, poet, philosopher and man of deep spiritual realisation, Nolini Kanta Gupta stands foremost among the men of this century who are destined to leave their mark on generations to come. Born in 1889 of a cultured and well-to-do family in Bengal, he came early in his teens under the influence of Sri Aurobindo, the revolutionary par excellence, and 'a mighty prophet of Indian

XII THE DIVINE GRACE AND LOVE The Mother says that there can be Love without Grace as there can also be Grace without Love, although the two are essentially one and the same. Grace means gift, it is a gesture of the giving of boon from the Divine. The Divine gives out of His Plenitude what we want, what we need, what we should have, naturally as per His choice. The most obvious, the most external, superficial and concrete form of gift is what meets our physical material need. And protection is the most appreciated and the most readily available treasure. Protection in its larger sense, includes all kinds and modes of welfare from the most p

VII THE WORLD IS ONE The world is one, in fact and in potentia. There is already a realised unity; that unity runs as the fundamental chord in and through differing and discordant notes. These different and discordant and even denying notes have to be re-conditioned, blended, harmonised; that is the effective and patent unity that lies in potentia and has to be brought forth in front. The world is one at bottom; it is to be made one up to the brim. The material world is a factual unity. For it is one matter that exists everywhere; the same fundamental elements constitute, although in different degrees, the earth, the sun, the stars, the distan