SECTION SIXTEEN   ASTROLOGY AND PROPHECY, SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY, ACTION OF SUBTLE FORCES, VIOLENCE & NON - VIOLENCE, ETC. Observations on Cheiro's Predictions— Astrology and Prophecy ; Fate and Free-Will (1)   YOUR extracts taken by themselves are very — impressive, but when one reads the book, the impression made diminishes and fades away. You have quoted Cheiro's successes, but what about his failures? I have looked at the book and was rather staggered by the number of prophecies that have failed to come off. You can't deduce from a small number, of predictions, however accurate, that all is predestined down

SECTION FIVE  THE CENTRAL PROCESS AND FUNDAMENTAL REALISATIONS FOR INTEGRAL YOGA I. PSYCHIC CONVERSION The Path   YOU know the three things on which the realisation has to be based: (1) on a rising to a station above the mind and on the opening out of the cosmic consciousness; (2) on the psychic opening; and (3) on the descent of the higher consciousness with its peace, light, force, knowledge, Ananda etc. into all the planes of the being down to the most physical. All this has to be done by the working of the Mother's force aided by your aspiration, devo

SECTION FOUR   OBJECTS OF SRI AUROBINDO'S  SADHANA Opening the Way   MY sadhana is not a freak or a monstrosity or a miracle done outside the laws of Nature and the conditions of life and consciousness on earth. If I could do these things or if they could happen in my Yoga, it means that they can be done and that therefore these developments and transformations are possible in the terrestrial consciousness....   Sadhana for the Earth-Consciousness   MY point about my sadhana was that my sadhana was not done for myself but for the earth-consciousness

SECTION SEVEN POWERS AND PERSONALITIES- DIVINE AND HOSTILE Falsehood and Ignorance—Powers and Personalities—Emanations and Presence*   1. Falsehood and Ignorance   IGNORANCE means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth,— truth of being, truth of divine consciousness

SECTION SIX   SILENCING THE MIND; VISIONS AND EXPERIENCES   I. SILENCING THE MIND II. SYMBOLS, VISIONS AND EXPERIENCES I. SILENCING THE MIND   The Silent Mind   THE silent mind is a result of Yoga; the ordinary — mind is never silent.... The thinkers and philosophers do not have the silent mind. It is the active mind they have; only, of course, they concentrate, so the common incoherent mentalising stops and the thoughts that rise or enter and shape themselves are coherently restricted to the subject or activity in hand. But

SECTION TWELVE SADHANA IN THE ASHRAM AND OUTSIDE Object of Creating the Ashram   THIS Ashram has been created with another object than that ordinarily common to such institutions, not for the renunciation of the world but as a centre and a field of practice for the evolution of another kind and form of life which would in the final end be moved by a higher spiritual consciousness and embody a greater life of the spirit. There is no general rule as to the stage at which one may leave the ordinary life and enter here; in each case it depends on the personal need and impulsion

SECTION TEN MENTAL DOUBTS AND SPIRITUAL FAITH   Mental Doubts and Spiritual Experience   I HAVE started writing about doubt, but even in — doing so I am afflicted by the 'doubt' whether any amount of writing or of anything else can ever persuade the eternal doubt in man which is the penalty of his native ignorance. In the first place, to write adequately would mean anything from 60 to 600 pages, but not even 6000 convincing pages would convince doubt. For doubt exists for its own sake; its very function is to doubt always and, even when convinced, to go on doubting still; it is only to persuade its entertainer to give it board and lodging that it pretends to be an h