III JANAKA AND YAJNAVALKYA King Janaka was a great king and a great sage. He wielded an empire without and equally an empire within: he had realised the Truth, known Brahman. He was svarat and samrāt. A friend and intimate of his was Rishi Yajnavalkya, who also was a sage — in fact, considered to be the greatest sage of the time, a supreme knower of Brahman. Once upon a time King Janaka invited sages from everywhere, whoever wanted to come to the assembly. The king from time to time used to call such assemblies for spiritual discussion and interchange of experiences. This time he summoned the assembly for a special reason. He had collected a herd of one tho

V THE GOLDEN RULE Today I shall speak to you of the golden rule. When we were children we were taught, specially at school, at home too, certain golden rules. If you observe these rules you become good, good boys and good girls, you are loved and appreciated by all. These rules are simple and very common-place, you know them all and must have tried them. For example such things as "speak the truth, do not tell a lie, obey your parents, respect your teachers, do not hurt anybody" etc. etc. That was the basis on which one was to build one's character, mould one's nature, prepare for a pure stainless noble life. They are good, these rules, so far as they go: but to s

VI LIBERTY AND SELF-CONTROL We are a larger assembly here today — we have increased in number.... Now, we all want to be good boys and good girls, is it not? Nobody wants to be a bad boy or a bad girl; but the problem is how to be a good boy or girl and how not to be a bad boy or girl. In what does goodness consist? You all know the fine gesture that Mother taught us once. Gesture means a physical movement — here a physical movement to control yourself; control, self-control is a very important, a very necessary item of our life. So the Mother once said: supposing you are very angry and you are inclined to give a blow to your comrade, then, the Mother's advi

IV MORE OF YAJNAVALKYA Last time I told you the story of the great Rishi Yajnavalkya. But that was about the later Yajnavalkya when he had become a full-fledged rishi, a guru with an Ashram and disciples. Today I will tell you something of the earlier Yajnavalkya, the beginning of his rishihood, the start of his spiritual life. You know the structure of the old Indian society, it consisted of four castes, varnas, and four stages, asramas. I shall speak of the asramas now. Each individual person had to follow a definite course of life through developing stages. First of all, naturally, when you are a baby, in your early childhood, you belong to the family and re

II OCCULT EXPERIENCES It seems my predecessors were telling you stories— stories of their own lives, their experiences, so I thought I should follow in their footsteps. But I am not going to tell you about my own experiences, I am going to tell a story, rather a history, that happened in the life of another person. It will be interesting and also instructive. So I will begin the story, I am the narrator: I was a traveller, going about from place to place, seeing all things of interest — especially those of pilgrimage — and I happened to be in Madras. I was waiting there to take a bus to the railway-station which was a few miles off. I saw that there were als

I TO READ SRI AUROBINDO I learned that you want to know something about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from me. But then there are three lines of approach: you may want to know about them, know of them or know them. Of course the last is the best. Indeed if you want to know truly something you have to become it. Becoming gives the real knowledge. But becoming Sri Aurobindo and the Mother means what? Becoming a portion of them, a part and parcel of their consciousness — that is what we are here for. And if you can do that, you know enough.... Once I told you, I think, how to study or approach Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in order to read them or unde