Maximes     Devenir conscient, c'est devenir Toi-même: Car la conscience, c'est la lumière qui est Ta Presence.   Devenir Toi-même, c'est I'unique joie: Car Tu es la Joie même.   "Elle est à moi" – voilà Ie moyen Ie plus sûr             de la perdre; "Je suis à Elle" – c'est Ie seul secret             de La posséder.                         O Faible, ne cherche pas devenir fort – Aime – I' Amour seul te sauvera: La force n'enfante pas l'amour, mais I'amour est toujours la force.   Si la foi qui transporte les montagnes te manque, ô mon âme, ancre-toi à l' Amour – même à lamour profane. . . . L'amour

ACT II: THE PLAY ON EARTH     SCENE I: THE MOTHER AND THE CHILD    THE MOTHER            You touch now the dome of your parents. You have reached your peak. Your tender body, my child, fills up the triumphal arc of its destiny. I must once again cut the cord that bound you to me. You are free.   THE CHILD                Mother, you wound me. To be your child, is it not for ever?   THE MOTHER            I am with you through eternity. But in another way. It is in you and everywhere that I must be. It is time to go where you must.   THE CHILD                A strong and gentle win

THE WISE   [1] If you meet someone who shows you a thing to be cast out, even like one who tells you of a secret treasure, seek such a   ¹ Kusa grass has in India a sacred character. To eat food with the tip of Kusa blade is taken symbolically here as an act of asceticism.  Page – 208 wise sage though he censures you. In such a seeking only good will come to you and not evil.   [2]   He will rebuke, he will command, he will prevent wrong doing. Such a person is loved by the good, he is disliked by the wicked.   [3]   Seek not a friend who is full of evil, seek not a friend who is among the vilest of men, seek your friend who is to

The Human Divine   THE PASSING OF SATYAVAN   This was the day when Satyavan must die.   THE day is come, the fateful day, the last day of the twelve happy months that they have passed together. She knew it, it was foretold, it was foreseen. And she was preparing herself for it all the while, harbouring a pain deep-seated within the heart, revealed to none, not even to her mother, not even to Satyavan. Satyavan was innocent like a child, oblivious of the fate that was coming upon him. The two went out of the hermitage into the forest; for she wished to move about in the company of Satyavan in the midst of the happy greeneries where Satyavan had passed his boyhood, hi

THOUSANDS   [1]   Better than a thousand phrases built with meaningless words is one single meaningful word which brings tranquillity to the hearer.   [2]   Better than a thousand verses built with meaningless words is one single verse that brings tranquillity to the hearer.   [3]   Better than a hundred verses built with meaningless words on the lips is one single word of the Law that tranquilises you when you hear it.   [4]   One may conquer thousands and thousands of men in a battle, but he is the best among conquerors who has conquered himself.   [5 & 6]   Better to have conquered one's own self than to have conqu

Bengali  Padavali     (1)   Even like a drop of water into burning sands.        Am I in the midst of sons and friends and women. I have turned my mind from you and bestowed it upon them.        Of what earthly use shall I be now?   Oh Lord of Love, hopelessness is my doom! But you are the Saviour of the worlds­ – ever kind to the destitute. Now my whole trust lies in you alone.   Half of my life I spent in sleep, The rest in infancy and old age And with women in pleasure-groves; I had no time to give to you.   Countless are the Gods who die and pass! But you have no beginning, nor end: All are b

MISCELLANY   [1]   If to give up a small pleasure is to find a vast pleasure, then it is wiser to give up the small in view of the vast.   [2]   If one seeks one's pleasure by inflicting pain upon others, then one is entangled in the meshes of enmity and is not freed from it.   [3]   To reject what should be done, to do what should not be done is just how the depraved and the deluded increase their sins.   [4]   They who keep a perfect vigilance over their body, who do not indulge a thing that should not be done, ever doing faithfully what should be done, they are the good souls who have knowledge; sins disappear from them.  

Mater Gloriosa   I   J'adore la femme. . . . C'était ma faiblesse, c'est mon salut. Dans mon ignorance, lorsque je n'étais qu'un adolescent – en  âme et en esprit – je suivais la forme humaine du féminin et je désirais les délices terrestres qu'elle verse. C'est l'Eternel Féminin qui m'avait tenté, qui m'avait capturé. L'Eternel Féminin, c'est la Nescience, Ie bras sinistre du Divin. Maintenant que je suis devenu homme, et que mon âme et mon espirit ont atteint l'âge mur, c'est encore la femme qui me tente irrésistiblement,­– mais c'est la femme dans sa vérité plenière, dans sa réalité souveraine, et je la poursuis d'une ardeur plus vive encore qu'

FRENCH    AVE MATER   Amor  mi mosse che mi fa parlare . . .                                      -Dante   Et je devins poète en étant amoureux . . .                                                -Corneille   Page – 114 Mater Dolorosa   I Je songe aux belles nuits, aux rêves diaphanes Où j'ai vécu jadis; je vois encore leg traits Fugitifs d'un pays aux horizon discrets, Les regrets d'une gloire ultime qui se fane!   Loin des noirs tourbillons de ce monde profane, Mon âme reposait aux calmes diaprés Des azurs infinis, et tranquille, s'ouvrait Aux baisers innocents qu'en d'autres cieu

OF THE JUST   [1]   One who comes hastily to a judgement, cannot be just. He indeed is wise who can distinguish between the just and the unjust.   [2]   Who judges others in full knowledge, according to law and equity; the wise one who guards the Law is indeed called "the just".   [3]   One does not become wise by talking much; one is called wise if one is forbearing, without fear or foe.   [4]   It is not that the more you talk the more you become the upholder of the Law. Even if you hear a little of the Law, but observe it by your body, if you do not deviate from the Law, then you become the upholder of the Law.   [5]