A Very Tiny Serpent (30-11-11) Immortality is not the survival of the mental personality after death, though that also is true, but the waking possession of the unborn and deathless Self of which body is only an instrument and a shadow. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 12)   A Very Tiny Serpent There is a great difference between pushing back a thing simply because one doesn’t want it and changing the state of one’s consciousness which makes the thing totally foreign to one’s nature. Usually, when one has a movement one doesn’t want, one drives it away or pushes it back, but one doesn’t take the precaution of finding within oneself what has served and still serves as a support

The Training of the Senses (17-04-11) The Training of the Senses THERE are six senses which minister to knowledge, sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste, mind, and all of these except the last look outward and gather the material of thought from outside through the physical nerves and their end- organs, eye, ear, nose, skin, palate. The perfection of the senses as ministers to thought must be one of the first cares of the teacher. The two things that are needed of the senses are accuracy and sensitiveness. We must first understand what are the obstacles to the accuracy and sensitiveness of the senses, in order that we may take the best steps to remove them. The cause of imperfection

Nirvana and Works in the World (05-01-11) I did not know for some time whether I loved Krishna best or Kali; when I loved Kali, it was loving myself, but when I loved Krishna, I loved another, and still it was my Self with whom I was in love. Therefore I came to love Krishna better even than Kali. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 427) Nirvana and Works in the World THE union of the soul with the Purushottama by a Yoga of the whole being is the complete teaching of the Gita and not only the union with the immutable Self as in the narrower doctrine which follows the exclusive way of knowledge. That is why the Gita subsequently, after it has effected the reconciliation of knowledge and

OPENING AND SURRENDER TO THE MOTHER (24-08-11) There is no disturbance in the depths of the Ocean, but above there is the joyous thunder of its shouting and its racing shoreward; so is it with the liberated soul in the midst of violent action. The soul does not act; it only breathes out from itself overwhelming action. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-277) OPENING AND SURRENDER TO THE MOTHER   THE CENTRAL SECRET OF SADHANA You have only to aspire, to keep yourself open to the Mother, to reject all that is contrary to her will and to let her work in you ― doing also all your work for her and in the faith that it through her force that you can do it. If you remain open in this

Insincerity and Unhappiness (21-12-11) Help the poor while the poor are with thee; but study also & strive that there may be no poor for thy assistance. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-291) Insincerity and Unhappiness “Things are not beautiful, the world is nasty, people are not pleasant.” It goes sometimes to this length: “The food is not good, yesterday it was excellent.” It is the same but today it is not good! This is the barometer! You may immediately tell yourself that an insincerity has crept in somewhere. It is very easy to know, you don’t need to be very learned, for, as Sri Aurobindo has said in Elements of Yoga: One knows whether one is happy or unhappy, one knows whether

Reality Omnipresent (06-07-11) Experience in thy soul the truth of the Scripture; afterwards, if thou wilt, reason & state thy experience intellectually & even then distrust thy statement; but distrust never thy experience. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-96) Reality Omnipresent …… Man, too, becomes perfect only when he has found within himself that absolute calm and passivity of the Brahman and supports by it with the same divine tolerance and the same divine bliss a free and inexhaustible activity. Those who have thus possessed the Calm within can perceive always welling out from its silence the perennial supply of the energies that work in the universe. It is not, therefore, t

Indulgence in vice (23-02-11) Chance is not in this universe; the idea of illusion is itself an illusion. There was never illusion yet in the human mind that was not the concealing and disfigurement of a truth. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 19) Indulgence in vice There are human beings also who indulge in vice — one vice or another, like drinking or drug-injections — and who know very well that this is leading them to destruction and death. But they choose to do it, knowingly. They have no control over themselves. There is always a moment when everyone has self-control. And if one had not said “Yes” once, if one had not taken the decision, one would not have done it. There

The Message of the Gita (19-01-11) Reaction perfects & hastens progress by increasing & purifying the force within it. This is what the multitude of the weak cannot see who despair of their port when the ship is fleeing helplessly before the storm wind, but it flees, hidden by the rain & the Ocean furrow, towards God's intended haven. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-339) The Message of the Gita “THE secret of action,” so we might summarise the message of the Gita, the word of its divine Teacher, “is one with the secret of all life and existence. Existence is not merely a machinery of Nature, a wheel of law in which the soul is entangled for a moment or for ages; it is a constant

Surrender and Yoga (10-08-11)  By which standard shall I walk, the word that God speaks to me, saying "This is My will, O my servant," or the rules that men who are dead, have written? Nay, if I have to fear & obey any, I will fear & obey God rather & not the pages of a book or the frown of a Pandit. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-364)   Surrender and Yoga -Surrender is the decision taken to hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine. Without this decision nothing is at all possible; if you do not surrender, the Yoga is entirely out of the question. Everything else comes naturally after it, for the whole process starts with surrender. You can surrender either throu

Sincerity (12-10-11) God is a great & cruel Torturer because He loves. You do not understand this, because you have not seen & played with Krishna. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Ahorisms 28) Sincerity “What is the fundamental virtue to be cultivated in order to prepare for the spiritual life?” I have said this many times, but this is an opportunity to repeat it: it is sincerity. A sincerity which must become total and absolute, for sincerity alone is your protection on the spiritual path. If you are not sincere, at the very next step you are sure to fall and break your head. All kinds of forces, wills, influences, entities are there, on the look-out for the least little rift in this