Towards the Immortal Body To be immortal one must live in that which is immortal. One may be immortal outside and beyond the world and one may be immortal in the world upon the earth. The first is the immortality of Transcendence, of the Self, of Sachchidananda. The other is that of Immanence, of the Soul, the delegated Emanation in Matter upon earth. To be immortal here upon earth one must find that which is immortal here below. To be immortal in the body one must find that which is immortal in the body, and the body must become it integrally and absolutely. It is the soul that is immortal upon earth and in the mortal being. For the life to be immortal here

Doing for Her Sake WHATEVER you do – study or sports – you must, think of the Divine in doing it. It is not a very difficult thing after all. At first you may do it as a kind of preparation to make yourself capable of receiving the divine force, and then as service to help in the collective work. You can do it not for personal gain but in order to be ready for the Divine Work. This seems to me indispensable. If you keep the ordinary point of view, you will always find yourself in conditions that are not wholly satisfactory and incapable of receiving all the forces that you can receive. If you are doing long jump, for example, it should not be merely for the ple

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 passive field for the play of cosmic or collec

Beyond Vedanta THE first step in the spiritual life is the Vedantic experience that the world is an illusion, an absolute illusion. Rather it is the Buddhist experience of nihil, nothingness, extinction that is the first step, the very basic realisation of all spiritual life. It is not the summit – the nee plus ultra, beyond which there is nothing – but it is the very foundation, the absolute minimum of spirituality – sine qua non, without which it is not. The one experience with which you start your spiritual journey is the total negation of whatever exists, reducing existence to zero: world-existence being equated with Ignorance. Life is a false­hood, one has to reject it o

The Divine Grace (1) WHEN you are in a certain set of circumstances and when certain things happen, these things often go against your desire or against what appears to you best. And you regret and say: "Oh! How much better it would have been had it been otherwise!" It does not matter whether the thing concerned is small or big. The years pass, events roll on. You progress, become more conscious, understand better. And when you look back, you discover, at first with surprise, later on with a smile, that the special circumstances which once appeared to you disastrous or unfavourable were just the very best thing that could have happened for your needed progress. And

A Sign and A Symbol It is said that if you see a shooting star and make a vow at that time, the vow is sure to be fulfilled. Is it true? IT means that you must be able to formulate your aspiration during the time the star is visible, that is to say, a very short time. Now, if an aspiration can be formed and formulated in such a short time, it shows that the aspiration is there all the while quite at the front of your consciousness. Of course, the thing is true of the spiritual aspiration only: it is not applicable to matters of ordinary life. So I say that if you are capable of articulating your aspiration in a split second, it means that the object of your aspiration

Life in and Through Death THE soul carries the body even like a corpse, says a scripture. It is a dead inert mass of inconscience weighing upon the conscious being that is behind. Such is the burden of life that the soul bears through its earthly existence. The image is beautifully delineated in the Indian legend of Shiva and Sati. Sati is dead, the bereaved Shiva goes about in anguish with the dead body of Sati flung upon his shoulder. Shiva is to be relieved of this burden, otherwise the creation will go to rack and ruin. The prayer went to Vishnu and Vishnu hurled his discus that cut to pieces the corpse of Sati-the pieces were fifty-two in number and each spot

On Discipline THE MOTHER says: "No big creation is possible without discipline". The true and original meaning of discipline is to be a disciple. And a disciple is one who learns, is ready to learn from a master. So the first requisite for a disciple or a learner is to obey. Obedience then is the beginning and the very basis of discipline. We know from ancient stories and legends how this discipline of obedience was exacted from a disciple or learner. For knowledge or learning was not considered at that time as a bundle of information to be acquired or collected by the pupil. It is not a mass of dead materials that is laid before the learner to possess and store; it is somethin

The Test of Truth THE test of Truth is its impossibility. I believe because it is impossible; Credo quia impossibile. That is Saint Augustine. There is a grain, why a grain, quite a lump of truth in this well-known saying of a great seeker of Truth. "Truth shall prevail? Is this true? Can it be true? It is impossible." There­fore it must be true. "God exists: is it an impossibility?" Therefore God does exist. "Shall we ever come out of the present darkness? Impossible!" We shall, therefore, come out, surely. The possible, to our senses, is what is happening, now: the present fact is the truth and what is in absolute agreement with the present is the possible

Goal of Evolution You say it is obvious that evolution has a goal and that it cannot stop here or now. It seems to you obvious because you have read Sri Aurobindo's books. But if you take anybody you meet in the street and ask him what is the purpose of the universe or of the evolution, you will see that he will answer by saying that he knows nothing about it. Even here there are many, perhaps hundreds, if you ask them individually not to repeat what they have read but to say what they feel and think by themselves about the question, what is the intention behind the universal evolution or whether there is any intention at all, they will not be able to give a better ans