GOAL AND AIM     The aim of the Yoga is to open the consciousness to the Divine and to live in the inner consciousness more and more while acting from it on the external life, to bring the inmost psychic into the front and by the power of the psychic to purify and change the being so that it may become ready for transformation and in union with the Divine Knowledge, Will and Love, Secondly, to develop the Yogic consciousness, i.e., to universalise the being in all the planes, become aware of the cosmic being and cosmic forces and be in union with the Divine on all the planes up to the Overmind. Thirdly, to come into contact with the transcendent Divine beyond the Ove

   BASES OF SADHANA       It is because your consciousness in the course of the sadhana has come into contact with the lower physical nature and sees it as it is in itself when it is not kept down or controlled either by the mind, the psychic or the spiritual force. This nature is in itself full of low and obscure desires, it is the most animal part of the human being. One has to come into contact with it so as to know what is there and transform it. Most sadhaks of the old type are satisfied with rising into the spiritual or psychic realms and leave this part to itself—but by that it remains unchanged, even if mostly quiescent, and no complete transformation is possible. You have onl

V    Physical Consciousness—Subconscient—  Sleep and Dream—Illness         Our object is the supramental realisation and we have to do whatever is necessary for that or towards that under the conditions of each stage. At present the necessity is to prepare the physical consciousness; for that a complete equality and peace and a complete dedication free from personal demand or desire in the physical and the lower vital parts are the things to be established. Other things can come in their proper time. What is needed now is the psychic opening in the physical consciousness and the constant presence and guidance there.   ⁂         What you describe is the materia

      Sri Aurobindo     Bases of Yoga                   SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY 1955   First Edition ... 1936     Second Edition ... 1941 Third Edition ... 1944    Fourth Edition ... 1947 Fifth Edition ... 1949  Sixth Edition ... 1952      Seventh Edition ... 1955             All Rights Reserved            SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PRESS PONDICHERRY   PRINTED IN INDIA        PUBLISHERS' NOTE   These are extracts from letters written by Sri Aurobindo to his disciples in answer to their queries. They have been put toget

    III         In Difficulty         There are always difficulties and a hampered progress in the early stages and a delay in the opening of the inner doors until the being is ready. If you feel whenever you meditate the quiescence and the flashes of the inner Light and if the inward urge is growing so strong that the external hold is decreasing and the vital disturbances are losing their force, that is already a great progress. The road of Yoga is long, every inch of ground has to be won against much resistance and no quality is more needed by the sadhak than patience and single-minded perseverance with a faith that remains firm through ail difficulties, delays and apparent failures.

  I         Calm—Peace—Equality         It is not possible to make a foundation in Yoga if the mind is restless. The first thing needed is quiet in the mind. Also to merge the personal consciousness is not the first aim of the Yoga: the first aim is to open it to a higher spiritual consciousness and for this also a quiet mind is the first need.                   ⁂           The first thing to do in the sadhana is to get a settled peace and silence in the mind. Otherwise you may have experiences, but nothing will be permanent. It is in the silent mind that the true consciousness can be built.         A quiet mind does not mean that there will be no though

II         Faith—Aspiration—Surrender         This Yoga demands a total dedication of the life to the aspiration for the discovery and embodiment of the Divine Truth and to nothing else whatever. To divide your life between the Divine and some outward aim and activity that has nothing to do with the search for the Truth is inadmissible. The least thing of that kind would make success in the Yoga impossible.         You must go inside yourself and enter into a complete dedication to the spiritual life. All clinging to mental preferences must fall away from you, all insistence on vital aims and interests and attachments must be put away, all egoistic clinging to family, friends, cou

 IV         Desire—Food—Sex         All the ordinary vital movements are foreign to the true being and come from outside; they do not belong to the soul nor do they originate in it but are waves from the general Nature, Prakriti.         The desires come from outside, enter the subconscious vital and rise to the surface. It is only when they rise to the surface and the mind becomes aware of them, that we become conscious of the desire. It seems to us to be our own because we feel it thus rising from the vital into the mind and do not know that it came from outside. What belongs to the vital, to the being, what makes it responsible is not the desire itself, but the habit of respon

  INTRODUCTION   The December-1994 issue of the journal "Sri Aurobindo: Archives & Research" was the last to come out for the present. The Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo's Works, published in 1989, covers issues of the journal up to the year 1987. Relevant information occurring in the issues of 1988 to 1994 is given in this Supplement to the Glossary and Index. In addition, the Supplement corrects errors, supplies omissions, and provides improved versions of some of the glossary articles.     The name-entries are in alphabetical order, followed by the page numbers of the book in square brackets. Most of these entries are already list

CHAPTER VIII CIVILISATION AND BARBARISM   ONCE we have determined that this rule of perfect individuality and perfect reciprocity is the ideal law for the individual, the community and the race and that a perfect union and even oneness in a free diversity is its goal, we have to try to see more clearly what we mean when we say that self-realisation is the sense, secret or overt, of individual and of social development. As yet we have not to deal with the race, with mankind as a unity; the nation is still our largest compact and living unit. And it is best to begin with the individual, both because of his nature we have a completer and nearer knowledge and experience th