Translations  I  Ma soeur, qui donc a prononcé Ie Nom fatal? Ce Nom, dès que je l'ai entendu, a pénétré jusqu'au fond de mon coeur; II a remué mes entrailles dans des joies turbulentes. Que de délices sont enclosés dans ce Nom! Mes lèvres                         ne parviennent pas à l'abandonner. Je Ie répète comme une prière; je Ie répète jusqu'à ce que, là, je tombe de fatigue. Dites-moi, soeurette, comment pourrai-je Ie trouver? . . . Ah, si son nom seul a tant de puissance, que ne ferrait alors Ie toucher de son corps? Et comment donc gardent-elles leur virginité, les jeunes filles                         du pays qu'il habite,

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 also many other travelle

EIGHT TALKS   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 un

ON EVIL   [1]   Hasten towards the Good, turn the mind away from evil; if you do good in sloth, the mind will indulge in evil.   [2]   If a man does an evil thing, he must not repeat it, he must not indulge it. Painful is the accumulation of evil.   [3]   If a man does a good thing, let him repeat it, let him indulge it. Happiness comes of the accumulation of the good.   [4]   The evil-doer finds it all good, so long as the evil does not ripen. As soon as evil ripens than the evil-doer finds it all evil.   [5]   The goodly man finds it all evil, so long as the good does not ripen. When the good ripens then the goodly ma

A Review of Our Ashram Life     IN its early days, quite at the beginning, we may now say, long long ago, for it is now almost half a century ago, the Ashram from its very start and quite spontaneously and inevitably grew into a community life. That is to say, the individuals ceased to have any personal possessions. Whatever they had belonged not to themselves but to the group, rather to the Master of the group, the Guru, to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Whatever they had, they considered as having received from the Mother for use only. They are not proprietors or possessors of anything: whatever they needed or they thought they needed, they had to ask for it a

Tagore   VIGIL   In the boundless heavens the Great Ascetic,      Vast Time keeps vigil.   He keeps vigil For a manifestation till now unconceived, unimagined, That none has yet known, That has revealed itself nowhere.   In the air, in the sky the new music That rose never and nowhere in the world, Prepares itself in a mystery sphere Through songs ringing out the secret heart's silent voices. The dams round the celestial city shall crumble, The flood of the New Harmony shall rush forth And the ancient walls of a deaf age Shall be swept away.   One who is remembered no more, One whose name none has ever h

One Day More   IN her “Prayers and Meditations” (Prières et Méditations) Mother wrote under the date 25 September 1914:   A new light will break upon the earth, A new world will be born, And the things promised will be fulfilled.¹   Subesquently, that is to say, after a lapse of more than forty years, under the date 29 February – 29 March 1956, she intro­duced a change in the statement, in respect of the tense used. She re-wrote it in this' form:   A new light breaks upon the earth, A new world is be born, The things that were promised are fulfilled.²   The change was needed because of the change in the situa­tion. There has been a

ON IMPURITY   [1]   You are now like a yellow leaf. Death's emissaries are around you, you are about to make the exit. And you have no pro­visions for the way.   [2]   So make an island of yourself, hasten and work hard and gain wisdom. When you have wiped off the blemishes, when you are free of taint, then will you reach the domain of Noble Ones.  Page – 228 [3]   Now you have arrived at your term. You are in the presence of Death. You have no shelter on the way nor have you pro­visions.   [4]   So do you make of yourself an island, hasten, work hard and gain wisdom. When you have wiped off the blemishes, when you are fre

OF THE ELEPHANT   [1]   An elephant in battle endures arrows shot from a bow. Even so, shall it endure censures, for men in the mass are, by nature, prone to evil.    [2]   An elephant, when controlled, can be led to battle; him the king can ride. And among men the best is he who is controlled and endures censures.   [3]   Mules, when controlled, are excellent, so also are the pure bred horses of Sindh, so indeed are the mighty tuskers. But best of all is the man who has controlled himself.   [4]   With such conveyances you cannot go where none has gone. He who has controlled himself goes out as a controlled person on a control

Distiques     "Accours, ma mie, accours! que chez nous t'emmène!" C'est Ie Seigneur qui prie une frêle âme humaine.   J'ai soif d'or et d'azur, de tout ce qui s'irise La terre est un trou nair, Ie corps une hantise.   La chair trahit et l'âme en pleure. . . . mais ces pleurs Pénètrent dans la chair qui mue en feux et fleurs!   Fuyez ces bards où tout blesse et rien ne console, Où l'on honit son âme et brise son idole!   "Où vas-tu, voyageur?" – "Mais par où tu me mènes, O Flamme mirifique, Asile des phalènes!"   Ce qui se donne à Dieu demeure et se restaure, Toute autre chose passe et fuit et s'évapore!   Vivre