Love and Love THE Mother says: there is only one Love, there are not two. And it is Divine Love. The difference arises only in its expression, in its application. In its essential quality and substance it is always the same. Take for example human love; stripped of the mere human element, love remains the same original thing. Because the old ascetic orders of spiritual discipline, in the main, considered love essentially and wholly earthy and human; they rejected this limb altogether, cut it out as undivine. But that is an error. We do not regard love, even human love, as an error but a power, a force and energy. Love, even human love, is not to be amputated or rooted out b

Divine Living WE always give the name "Divine" to all that we are not and want to become, all that seems infinitely higher than not only everything we have done but everything we can possibly do, all that is beyond our present capacity and conception. I am perfectly sure that if we went back into the past a few thousands of years, we would find that when one spoke of the Divine it was of a being somewhat like one of the "overmental" gods. But now, the way of living proper to these overmental divinities who governed the earth and created many things upon earth for a very long time, seems to us very inferior to what we conceive as the Supramental. This Supramental again

Education is Organisation EDUCATION is organisation. Mind's education means organisation of mental faculties. Organisation naturally involves development. The faculties in the normal and natural state are an undeveloped disorganised lot, a confused mass, – unformed, ill-formed ideas, notions, thoughts, form a jumble. They have no purpose, no direction, no common impulse or end, each runs in its own way. The mind's faculties such for example as attention, memory, discrimination, reasoning, cogent thinking have to be clear and efficient and learn how to work harmoniously for a common objective. In the process and for that purpose they have to be developed, that is to

The Evolution of Language HUMAN language was born out of the necessity of inter-communication among human beings living together. The necessity naturally related to the physical life and its demands and requirements. Man being a mental being sought intercommunication through his mind. So mind yoked to the physical demands gave the first form and pattern to human speech. Language in the beginning must have been an echo or a graphic expression of man's sense-bound mind. But as the mind developed, became more and more rational and intellectual, language also tended to become more and more abstract and. intellectualised. Even so at its best, language could be the veh

The Value of Money THE more money one has, the more one falls into a calamity. It is indeed a calamity, my children. It is a catastrophe to have money. It makes you stupid, it makes you avaricious, it makes you wicked. It is one of the biggest calamities in the world. Money is a thing which one should not possess unless and until he is without desire, without attachment. When one has a consciousness as wide as the earth, then only one can have all the money there is upon earth and that would be good for everybody. But until then as much money as you have, so much the curse there is upon you. I will tell this to the face of everybody, even to the face of the man wh

The Mounting Fire THE seat of human consciousness, in fact of all consciousness, is the brain – the grey substance filling up the cranium. The brain constitutes man in his essential and characteristic substance and functioning. I am speaking specially of the physical and material basis of mind and consciousness, for unless this basis is changed there can be no change in the structure of the being, and in the movement of outward life; even the consciousness would not change radically or permanently: a stable transformation can come only when the material stuff has undergone a reversal. The human brain consists, as physiologists tell us, of three parts: (1) the fr

India, the World and the Ashram India has become the symbol representing all the difficulties of modern humanity. India will become the land of the world's resurrection – the resurrection of a higher and truer life. 1.2.1968THE MOTHER A great revelation of a great truth that concerns the whole world. We know also that the earth is the symbol of the cosmic evolution. What creation means has been epitomised in earth's history: the earth has been chosen as the field and means of working out a cosmic plan. As the earth is the representative of the world, so India is the representative of the earth. For the evolution of the earth, India h

Effort and Grace THERE are, we know, as Sri Aurobindo says, two powers which in their conjunction bring about the great consummation we aim at. It is personal effort from below and Divine Grace from above. The one prepares the field, the other fructifies and fulfils. It has, however, always been declared that personal effort is not absolute in its effectivity, it is limited, relative and conditional: it does not by itself lead you to the final and supreme realisation; it takes you at the most to the threshold of Grace which follows up the work and brings it to its goal. Indeed it has also been said that personal effort itself is operative when inspired and impelled by the

The Modern Taste FROM the standpoint of artistic and literary taste and culture, the present world is a thing of extremes. On one side, it is trying hard to discover something very noble, and on the other, it is sinking into a vulgarity which is infinitely greater than the vulgarity, say, of two or three centuries ago. In those times people who were not cultured were crude, but their crudeness resembled the crudeness of animals and had not much perversion in it-there was something certainly, for as soon as the mind appears, perversion also comes in. But in our days, what does not rise to the peak, remains on level earth, is a crudeness of the most perverted kind; that is to

The Relative Best WHATEVER happens is for the best – under the circumstances, it must be added, for the best is the resultant of many forces pulling in all directions for and against and sideways. The best means whatever leads to the goal, to the ultimate good, the final reality, the Supreme, the Divine. The universe is so arranged, the divine dispensation acts in such a way that every event, every circumstance, whatever its appearance, always leads to the Supreme Goal. So it is said the way, whatever it is, straight or crooked, always guides you to your final realisation. Only, in the progressive march, the best can always be bettered and must be bettered. In the earlie