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Preface "Know thyself". This has been one of the great messages of the East and the West since ancient times, and yet it has not been sufficiently pursued and applied. But it appears that the crisis through which humanity is passing today can be resolved if, as a first and essential step, this message is understood in greater fullness than ever before. For it is becoming increasingly clearer that without a radical change in human consciousness, we shall not be able to take the right road that needs to be taken. We need, therefore, to understand human consciousness in its full complexity and its multiple dimensions with a central focus on self-knowledge. Fortunately, we find in the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother an incomparable treasure of a systematic body of experiences, realisations and verifiable knowledge which can readily come to our aid. We have, therefore, thought of bringing out a series of extracts from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother that would stimulate seekers to read in depth what they have brought to us on this important subject. We are beginning with the extracts from Sri Aurobindo's "The Life Divine" that pertain to the subject of materialism, since the appeal of materialism has still a great influence which has the potency to keep the doors of the deeper aspects of self-knowledge closed or sealed. While the truths underlying materialism have to be admitted and while we have to understand the real service that materialism has rendered to the cause of the advancement of knowledge, we need to realise that materialism is logically untenable and that advancing researches in the psychological operations of the mind and the supermind show clearly the insufficiency of the materialistic formula. Once this is accomplished, it will be easier to enter into the profundities of self-knowledge. In the course of the series that we are planning, we propose to include Sri Aurobindo's and Mother's analysis of human psychology and to underline the new knowledge that they have placed before us in regard to the Supermind and how self-knowledge can extend its known boundaries to embrace the supramental faculties and how their operations can turn the course of human history at the present critical juncture. We need to build a new world, and it is hoped that the extracts that we wish to cover in the present series will help the readers to explore the possibilities of building the new world on the basis of certain basic and secure foundations of knowledge and experience. As indicated above, this series will be only introductory Page-8 in character, and a detailed knowledge can be obtained only by an in-depth study of the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. This series may therefore be regarded only as an invitation to the readers to enter into the portals of the vast body of writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Kireet Joshi
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