Section Four HELPERS ON THE WAY REASON FOR FORMING THE ASHRAM There was no Ashram at first, only a few people came to live near Sri Aurobindo and practise Yoga. It was only some time after the Mother came from Japan that it took the form of the Ashram, more from the wish of the Sadhaks who desired to entrust their whole inner and outer life to the Mother than from any intention or plan of hers or of Sri Aurobindo. The facts are: In the meantime, the Mother, after a long stay in France and Japan, returned to Pondicherry on the 24th April, 1920. The number of disciples then showed a tendency to increase rather rapidly. When the Ashram began to develop, it

III. THE LEADER OF INDIAN NATIONALISM: 1906-1910 A GENERAL NOTE ON SRI AUROBINDO'S POLITICAL LIFE There were three sides to Sri Aurobindo's political ideas and activities. First, there was the action with which he started, a secret revolutionary propaganda and organisation of which the central object was the preparation of an armed insurrection. Secondly, there was a public propaganda intended to convert the whole nation to the ideal of independence which was regarded, when he entered into politics, by the vast majority of Indians as unpractical and impossible, an almost insane chimera. It was thought that the British Empire was too powerful and I

SOMAHUTI BHARGAVA SUKTA 4 Page – 90 I call to you the Fire with his strong delights and his splendours of light, Fire who strips all sin from us, the guest of the peoples. He becomes like a supporting friend, he becomes the God who knows all things born in the man with whom are the Gods.¹ The Bhrigus worshipping in the session of the Waters set him a twofold Light in the peoples of Man. May he master all planes prevailing vastly. Fire the traveller of the Gods with his rapid horses. As men who would settle in a home bring into it a beloved friend, the Gods have set the Fi

WORD-FORMATION from Material for a full Philological Reconstruction of the old Aryabhasha from which the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages are derived. Word Formation THE language of man is not framed on earth, but in heaven, as indeed are all things that the earth-soul uses in this mortal journey. By the threefold energy of eternal truth, manifesting force and sustaining delight everything is created as a type in the world of ideas, the mahat of the ancients, in the principle of self-manifest and perfectly arranged knowledge, it is diversely developed by the more discursive but less sure-footed agencies of intellectual mind. Imagination hunts

The master of many peoples who labour towards the godhead, we seek for you with words of perfect expression, Agni whom others also everywhere desire. Men hold Agni in them as the increaser of strength. With offerings we dispose the sacrifice for thee, do thou then become today to us perfect-minded and our keeper here in our havings, O thou who art of the truth of being. Thee we choose out for our messenger, the priest of offering who hast universal knowledge; when thou art greatened in thy being thy flames range wide, thy lustres touch the heavens. The gods eve

Foreword IN ANCIENT times the Veda was revered as a sacred book of wisdom, a great mass of inspired poetry, the work of Rishis, seers and sages, who received in their illumined minds rather than mentally constructed a great universal, eternal and impersonal Truth which they embodied in Mantras, revealed verses of power, not of an ordinary but of a divine inspiration and source. The name given to these sages was Kavi, which afterwards came to mean any poet, but at the time had the sense of a seer of truth, — the Veda itself describes them as kavayaḥ satyasrutah, “seers who are hearers of the Truthˮ and the Veda itself was called, sruti, a word which came to mean “revealed Scriptureˮ The

KETU AGNEYA sukta 156 1. May our thoughts speed the Fire on his way like a swift galloper in the battles, by him may we conquer every kind of wealth. 2. The army by which we may make ours the Ray-Cows under thy guard, that army send to us¹ for the getting of plenty. 3. Bring to us, O Fire, a stable wealth of the Ray-Cows and the ¹ Or, speed for us Page – 433 horses of power, reveal heaven, turn away from us the evil Trafficker. 4. O Fire, make to as

HARYATA PRAGATHA SUKTA 72 Page – 359 1. Do you make the offering, the Priest of the pilgrim-rite has come and he conquers again, for he knows the commandment of the Fire. 2. Let him sit within close to the keen burning ray the Priest of the call in thinking man accepting the comradeship of the Fire. 3. Within they wish him to be in a man the “terrible oneˮ, beyond the thinking mind; by his tongue they seize the peace. 4. High burnt the companion bow, a founder of the growth he climbed to woodland, he smote the rock with his tongue. 5.

KUTSA ANGIRASA SUKTA 94 This is the omniscient who knows the law of our being and is sufficient to his works; let us build the song of his truth by our thought and make it as if a chariot on which he shall mount. When he dwells with us, then a happy wisdom becomes ours. With him for friend we cannot come to harm. Whosoever makes him his priest of the sacrifice, reaches the perfection that is the fruit of his striving, a home on a height of being where there is no warring and no enemies; he confirms in himself an ample energy; he is safe in his strength, evil cannot lay its hand upon him.

SAMVANANA ANGIRASA sukta 191 O Fire, O strong one, as master thou unitest us with all things and art kindled high in the seat of revelation; do thou bring to us the Riches. Join together, speak one word, let your minds arrive at one knowledge even as the ancient gods arriving at one knowledge partake each of his own portion. Common Mantra have all these, a common gathering to union, one mind common to all, they are together in one Page – 435 knowledge; I pronounce for you a common