THE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO   PART ELEVEN     THE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO   PART ELEVEN                 SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM  PONDICHERRY   First Edition : 1971     January 13, 1971       © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1971 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry Printed in India

SRI AUROBINDO   II         "The poet of patriotism, the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity" he was, in the famous words of his advocate and friend and follower who stood for him before the bar of History for his cause, and not merely before a British Court of Justice. Indeed he was all that, but today we have to add another epithet and complete the description. For he is now the builder of the Life Divine. This was indeed the secret Truth that worked in him from behind and gave to these earlier preoccupations the reality and the beauty they attained and the fullness of their significance. He worked for human evolution, that was his life mission. He thus formulate

OUR FINEST HOUR         This is an age of deluge and devastation and decomposition. Is this also the Doomsday?         Nature herself has started the process and man has lent his hand to hasten it. Or did man start it and Nature is hastening the work? Perhaps it is a vicious circle, but the outcome is the same.         Anyhow the question now is whether there is a remedy. How can Nature be made steady arid how can man come out of the muddle?         For man the root-cause is that he is being imprisoned more and more, and circumstances of his life are such that he is losing all free movements and is being hemmed in on all sides. The walls are, as it were, pressin

COSMONAUTICS   (I)         Modern science, modern applied science, has brought about and is bringing about more and more a big change in the earth atmosphere. It is not merely the dust and smoke, gases and fumes thrown out by the modern machineries from the earth into the sky that have been increasing ominously in volume, but the less patent vibrations that have been released by advanced scientific projects and experiments and that have been encircling the earth more and more in a tight embrace. A quiet and clean air was such a treasure for human beings; men have always longed for it as a necessity and also as a diversion, and it was so readily available. The saints and sages we

THE GOLDEN LIFE-LINE   As slow our ship her foaming track Against the wind was cleaving, Her trembling pennant still looked back To that dear isle't was leaving. So loth we part from all we love, From all the links that bind us, So turn our hearts as on we rove, To those we've left behind us.         This is not merely children's homesickness; it is a fundamental note of the human nature as it is at present constituted. We always look backward, we always are tied to our roots and it is with great difficulty and much effort that we advance and go forward or upward away from our origins. In a nobler language this is called tradition. Ofte

THE LABOURS OF THE GODS (THE FIVE PURIFICATIONS)         Nowadays we hear much of brain wash. The other day, instead of brain-washing, I spoke of brain-ignition. That is to say, for a total reconstitution of the brain, for a new building of the physique of the new man, one has to transform the cells of grey matter into particles of fire, packets of burning energy. I said, the cranium being the control-room of physical existence and the brain being the controlling agent — the brain extending its range down the spinal column to its end at the last vertebra — this is the element that has to be treated and reorganised first and foremost if a physical reorganisation of human natu

APPENDIX   SRI AUROBINDO   I         From a certain standpoint Sri Aurobindo's message is very simple, almost self-evident. The sum and substance of all he says is that man is growing and has to grow in consciousness till he reaches the complete and perfect consciousness, not only in his individual but in his collective, that is to say, social life. In fact, the growth of consciousness is the supreme secret of life, the master key to earthly evolution.         Sri Aurobindo believes in evolution. Creation, according to him, has a purpose and man moves to a goal. That is nothing else than the unfolding of consciousness. Originally all was Matter, only dead Matt

THE OPENING SCENE OF "SAVITRI"         "It was the hour before the Gods awake". Only when the Gods awake, does the light begin to appear on earth. Otherwise it is all night here, black, impenetrable and unfathomable. Indeed the very creation begins with the awakening of the Gods. When the Gods are asleep, it is the non-existence—tama āsīt tamasā gūḍhamagre—'in the beginning darkness was engulfed in darkness'. This is the asat, non-being, this is the acit, the inconscience, this is the blackest night. The Bible also speaks of a similar darkness—Job's terrible vision: "A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order and where the light is as

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 immor

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